Seven Days(76)

That was the crux of it all. James had to want to stop. He had to see the drugs as a problem and not a solution and then they could start to get rid of them.

But he was a long way from that. Martin had seen the hunger flash across his eyes when he suggested that James come with him. He had seen that – for now – his son’s first love was the high he needed, and his recovery would have to wait.

If it came. That was the worst of it. The uncertainty. The not knowing whether his son would survive. Whether his son wanted to survive.

And he could not go through it again. He could not lose a second child. When Maggie had gone it was as though his world had ended. He had carefully pieced together a life: a career, a wife, a house, his kids, and then it had been taken from him. He had seen how flimsy it all was. And, slowly, he had put it back together again.

It had been all he could manage to avoid doing what James was doing now. He had flirted with it; he had sat in the darkness alone with a bottle in his hand and stared into the abyss, but for whatever reason – and he took no credit, it was no more than dumb luck – he had pulled back from it. Maybe it was James: maybe he knew his son needed him. Whatever it was he had escaped it.

Now James would have to do the same.

And, if it came to it, Martin would make him. He knew that by meeting his son and giving him money he was simply enabling his addiction, but that was fine by him. The alternative was to refuse and leave him penniless. James would then have a choice – give up, or fund his habit by other means. Means that would get him in more trouble, in an even deeper hole. No – it was better, far better, to see him every week or two, make sure he did not need to steal, try to get him to eat something, check he was still functioning.

But the time was coming when Martin would have to find a way to get him out of his squalid flat and into a rehab facility. He wanted that to come from James. He wanted his son to be cured, whole again. He didn’t want him forced into sobriety and fighting it every day of his life.

But it might come to that. And soon. James had looked worse than he had ever seen him. He put his key in the ignition and started the car. He pulled out of the parking space. James’s smell lingered on his clothes.

He shook his head and picked up his phone. He searched for the number of the electric company.

He’d call them and pay the bill. He knew James wouldn’t use the money for that, and he wanted his son to have hot water.





DI Wynne


The letter was on her desk when she arrived. She knew what it was immediately. Plain A4 envelope, printed address, her name on top.

DETECTIVE INSPECTOR WYNNE

She left it there while she went to get some gloves and an evidence bag. She doubted there was any forensic evidence to be had, but it paid to take care. There’d be some DNA on the envelope belonging to whoever had picked it up and posted it, but that was no use. It was possible they would get a match – two years previously they had matched the DNA to a woman who had been convicted of killing a swan in Lincoln – but all that told them was who had put the letter into the postal system, not who had written it.

For a moment she considered throwing it away. It was the last thing she needed; three days earlier a local magistrate had come across the body of a woman in her late twenties who had been burned to death and then left in a field.

It was the second such murder and it seemed there might be some ritualistic element. The press were all over it; there was near hysteria in the town. She did not need any distractions.

But she had no choice. She snapped on the gloves and picked it up. She slit the top and pulled out the letter.

DEAR DETECTIVE INSPECTOR WYNNE:

SO, IT’S BEEN TWELVE YEARS. YOU MUST BE GETTING USED TO YOUR FAILURE BY NOW? I NOTICE YOU HAVE ANOTHER FAILURE ON YOUR HANDS. SOMEONE BURNING YOUNG WOMEN? IT’S AWFUL. GOOD LUCK CATCHING THEM. I SUSPECT YOU’LL NEED IT, IF YOUR PERFORMANCE IN FINDING MAGGIE COOPER IS ANYTHING TO GO BY, BUT I WISH YOU WELL ALL THE SAME. YOU MIGHT FIND IT HARD TO BELIEVE, BUT I THINK IT’S APPALLING THAT SOMEONE IS KILLING THESE POOR GIRLS. IT’S WANTON DESTRUCTION OF BEAUTY OF A TYPE I ABHOR.

I ALSO – IN A STRANGE WAY – WANT YOU TO HAVE SOME SUCCESS. I’VE GROWN QUITE FOND OF YOU OVER THE YEARS AND I CAN SEE THAT IT MUST BE HARD TO HAVE TO LIVE WITH A CASE LIKE MAGGIE HANGING OVER YOU. I SUPPOSE IT’S STILL OPEN, WHICH PROBABLY MAKES IT EVEN WORSE. YOU POLICE LIKE CERTAINTY. YOU LIKE TO STAMP ‘CASE CLOSED’ ON YOUR FILES. WELL, YOU CAN DO THAT ON THIS ONE. YOU MIGHT AS WELL. YOU’LL NEVER FIND HER. I’VE THOUGHT THROUGH ALL THE WAYS YOU COULD, AND THEY’RE ALL IMPOSSIBLE.

SO, GOOD LUCK, DETECTIVE INSPECTOR. AS USUAL, I’LL BE RAISING A GLASS TONIGHT!

YOURS SINCERELY,

???

It was different in tone to the previous years. Chatty, friendly almost. Was that because it had been more than a decade? Or was he simply getting complacent, and, as a result, careless? And that Maggie – it was so familiar, like he knew her. Like she was there, still alive.

Wynne read it again, slowly.

One sentence stood out.

IT’S WANTON DESTRUCTION OF BEAUTY OF A TYPE I ABHOR.

Which suggested that whoever it was had not killed Maggie. That would be wanton destruction of beauty.

And if he abhorred its wanton destruction, might he not want to preserve it? Keep it safe?

Which meant Maggie was alive, and in captivity somewhere. That had always been a possibility, but so too had murder. They had nothing to point them in either direction.