Owning Jacob - SA (37 page)

I'm Detective Inspector Norris. How can I help you, Mr Murray?' He had a flat Midlands accent.

'Have you found Kale?'

'We're looking for Mr Kale to help us with our enquiries,' Norris said, non-committal y. 'The constable said you had some information relating to Mrs Kale's murder?' Ben ignored this.

'He's going to go after his son.' He knew it beyond any possibility of doubt. The certainty had hit him like a physical blow in the car. He broke into a sweat again now with the need to convince the policeman.

'The social services put his son in care last week-'

"Yes, we know.'

}ŒŒ Ben faltered. 'His wife gave evidence against him. He found out and … and that's why he did this. He's going to try to get his son.'

'Has Mr Kale been in contact with you?'

'No, but-'

"Perhaps you could tel me exactly what your involvement is, then, sir?' I'm the boy's stepfather.'

The policeman took a moment to consider this. 'I see.'

'Look, I know Kale, I know what he's like. He isn't going to let anything come between him and his son.'

'I appreciate your concern, Mr Murray, but if the boy's in care Mr Kale isn't going to know where he is.'

'They're sending him to the same school. He's autistic, there aren't many special-needs schools about. Kale's going to go there-'

'Just a second.' Norris went over to a man in plaindothes.

He spoke, too low for Ben to overhear. The other man nodded and picked up a telephone. The inspector came back. 'I've arranged for a car to be sent. We'l have someone outside al day.' Ben felt relieved, but not entirely reassured. 'You know he's an ex-soldier?'

"We're aware of his background. Is there anything else you can think of that might help us?' It was phrased as a dismissal. Ben couldn't drink of anything. He looked out of die smal window set in the side of die trailer. The Kales' house was visible through it.

'What happened?'

'I'm sorry, sir, we're not an information service. We're in die middle of a murder investigation, so-'

'For Christ's sake, it was me who got her to testify against him.1' He hadn't meant to shout. There was a silence in the trailer. Norris regarded him, then sat down. The background noise started up again. 'Kale was released on bail yesterday afternoon. We know from neighbours that he arrived here about five. There were sounds of an altercation - nothing new, apparently - then Kale was seen to leave and drive away at about five diirty. A man was walking a dog along a path at die back of the house at about eleven o'clock last night. He noticed the Kales' kitchen door was open. By die light from it he saw somediing lying in die garden. He thought it was a body, but it was difficult to see.' He shrugged. 'There's a lot of scrap metal back there.'

'I know/ Ben said.

Norris glanced at him but didn't comment. 'He cal ed the local police station. They sent someone to investigate and found Sandra Kale. At least, they guessed it was her.

Someone had dropped part of a car engine on her head. Are you al right, sir?' Ben gave a nod. The news of what Kale had used to kil his wife had made the room seem to tilt. He didn't doubt what it was. He'd seen him lift it over Jacob on two occasions.

He flinched at a vision of the heavy cylinder thudding into the ground.

'We're stil waiting for the pathologist's report on whether she was already dead when her head was crushed,' the inspector continued. 'She'd been badly beaten as wel . It's possible some of the injuries were post-mortem, but they probably came first.

Either way, the time of death fits when Kale was here.'

'Didn't anybody warn her that Kale had been released?' Norris seemed to hesitate fractional y. 'At the moment I can't answer that.'

'They didn't, did they? Nobody told her.'

'As I said, I don't have al the information yet.' Whatever criticism Ben might have made caught in his throat when he remembered his own role in events. If not for me she'd stil be alive. His anger col apsed, taking its energy with it. Wil you let me know if anything happens?' He fished in his wal et for a card. 'You can get me any time on the mobile number.' The inspector took the card but didn't say if he would get in touch or not. 'Thank you for your help, Mr Murray.' Ben didn't take the hint "You wil watch for him at the school, won't you?'

'It's taken care of.' Norris signal ed to the policewoman Ben had spoken to earlier. 'Wil you show Mr Murray out, please?'

After the warmth of the trailer it seemed colder than ever outside. He went back to his car, ignoring the curious stares of the neighbours. He told himself that the police knew what they were doing, that Jacob would be safe. There was nothing else he could do.

It never occurred to him to ask if the shotgun was stil in the shed.

He drove along his old route to the hil overlooking the town. He parked in the same spot and climbed over the wal . The woods seemed dead beyond any hope of resurrection. He slipped and fel on the slick ground and rotting leaves as he made his way down through them. Mud smeared his coat and clogged the gash in his hand made by a broken root. He wadded a tissue against it.

The huddle of oak trees seemed smal er than he'd remembered, more barren and exposed. He found a Snickers wrapper twined in the brittle remains of the grass in the entrance to his den. There was no other evidence that he had ever been there. He picked it up and put it in his pocket.

The hil side running down to the houses looked as though it had been scoured with acid. A pale polythene canopy had bloomed in the Kales' back garden, screening the area inside the dark ring of scrap metal. Children were gathered around the fence at the bottom, trying to see in.

A branch snapped behind him. Kale, he thought, and spun round to see a policeman in a reflective yel ow jacket tramping down the slope towards him. The policeman stopped a yard or two away.

'Having a good look, are we?' Ben's heart was stil thumping. 'Not real y.' The policeman's eyes were unfriendly. 'Mind tel ing me what you're doing?'

It must be something in the air up here, Ben thought. Or perhaps it's just me. 'Just walking.'

'That your car parked on the road up there?'

'If you're talking about a red Golf it is.'

'What's the registration?'

'I haven't a due.'

'What's your name?' Ben told him. The policeman spoke into his radio, stil watching him. He seemed disappointed by the response from it.

'Al right, go on.' He motioned with his thumb towards the road.

Bloody-mindedness made Ben say, 'You sure you don't want to arrest me?' The policeman gave him a psychopath's stare. I'm not going to tel you again.' Ben took a last look down the hil , then trudged back to his car.

He went back to the studio, even though the shoot had been cancel ed. He'd unlocked and gone in before it occurred to him that perhaps he should be more careful.

Kale had already kil ed his own wife, and Ben had no il usions about what would happen if he encountered him again. But he couldn't take the threat to himself seriously.

He didn't doubt that Kale would kil him, given the chance, but he also knew what the man's first priority was.

Jacob.

He tried to reassure himself that there was nothing to worry about. Kale was only one man, and, with his limp, neither an inconspicuous nor a very mobile one. Ex-soldier or not, it was only a matter of time before he was caught.

And then the entire question of who would have Jacob would be raised again, because no one could doubt now that Kale had forfeited the right to his son.

Except Ben couldn't quite make himself believe it would be so simple.

He busied himself with make-work jobs; checking his darkroom stocks, minor repairs; anything to keep himself occupied. He'd almost resorted to cleaning the studio when he remembered the film he'd shot at the cemetery.

He wasn't expecting anything from it but developing it gave him something to do. The first prints were enough to show that the film had been faulty. It happened occasional y.

The exposure was out, the colours so smudged and without resolution that the flowers were completely unrecognisable.

The wire mesh of the bin had become a blurred geometric pattern over abstract slashes of spectrum. He tossed them down in disgust. Then he looked at them again. He picked them up, turning them this way and that.

Actual y, he thought, it was quite an interesting effect.

He printed the rest It was the ambiguity that appealed to him. It changed mundane objects into something at once less concrete yet more substantial. What should have been representational now only hinted at its nature, provoking a vague sense of familiarity that defied recognition. He was considering how to reproduce the effect intentional y when the phone rang.

He snatched it up on the second ring.

'Hel o?' he said, breathless.

Is that Mr Murray?' He recognised the police inspector's voice. Oh, God, phase.

Please have caught him. Yes.' The potential for good news remained for an instant longer, then it was shattered. I'm sorry,' the inspector began, and suddenly Ben didn't want to hear the rest.

'Kale forced his way into the school this afternoon,' the policeman's heavy voice continued, delivering al of it. 'He's got his son.'

It was on the TV. There were the school gates, the school itself a squat brick building behind them. There were crying children being led away by adults. There were eye-witness accounts, a police car with its rear end crumpled. There was a corroded bumper lying dented in the kerb, crystal ine scatterings of glass.

The inspector had been apologetic. He'd had two officers stationed in a car right outside the main gates. They'd been warned how dangerous Kale was, told not to take any chances, to radio for assistance at the first sight of him.

But that hadn't been until the rust-coloured Escort flung itself around the corner in a squeal of tyres and rammed into their car. Before it had stopped rocking Kale had materialised with a shotgun and blasted the radio and dashboard into fragments. He'd smashed the gun butt into the nearest policeman's face, ordered the second one out and clubbed him unconscious as wel .

Then he'd gone into the school, taken Jacob and driven away.Œ;

We didn't know he was armed,' Norris said. 'If we had …' If you had, it wouldn't have made any difference. Somehow Kale would stil have taken Jacob. Even as he added the forgotten shotgun to the list of blame he had to carry, Ben felt the inevitability of it, as though this was the way it had to be, that events were drawing together towards an unavoidable resolution whose shape he could almost make out, but was frightened to see. He'd barely heard the policeman's assurances that Kale would be caught, that the car had been damaged, that a crippled man and an autistic boy couldn't get far on foot. He was remembering how Kale had shot the bul terrier rather than let anyone else take it. It's my dog.

He's my boy.

He didn't think he'd ever felt so scared.

The phone rang constantly at first. It wore him down, the hope and fear that each ring provoked. But it was only people wanting to offer their support, asking if there was any news. He told everyone the same thing. Thank you, no there wasn't, he'd let them know. He asked them al not to phone again, explained he wanted to keep the line clear. Eventual y the cal s dwindled and stopped, leaving him alone.

That was just as bad.

It was impossible to sit stil . He moved from room to room in the house, just to keep moving, to evade the panic that threatened to overtake him. He poured himself a drink, but left it after the first mouthful. It would only have been an artificial relief and he didn't want to feel dul ed. The sandwich he made went uneaten.

It was a completely different feeling to when Sarah had died. Then it had been disbelief and numbness. Even when she was dying, as bad as that had been, he had known what was happening, had been there with her. Now he didn't know anything, not even if Jacob was alive or dead, his brains blown out like Kale's dog.

The only thing he was certain of was that Kale wouldn't give up his son again.

Colin cal ed around later that evening. "You haven't heard anything?' he asked as Ben let him in, but it wasn't real y a question. They sat in the kitchen, drinking coffee, not real y talking. 'Maggie sends her love,' Colin said at one point.

Ben nodded, not caring. A distant thought surfaced. 'Aren't you supposed to be going on holiday?'

"Not til tomorrow morning.'

'Have you packed?' The inanity of it made them both smile. The moment quickly passed. 'Maggie'l do it.' Colin hesitated. 'Anyway, I've told her I might not be going.'

'Why not?'

'Come on, Ben.'

'There's no point missing your holiday/

'I can manage without Donald Duck for a few more days.'

'I know, but-'

'Ben,' Colin said, quietly but firmly, 'I'm not going to go, okay? It's my decision. I've told Maggie I'l fly out to them as soon as al this is sorted. So long as the boys can go on the rides they won't even notice I'm not there. I'l make it up to them later, and Maggie … Wel , Maggie'l have to make do with my Gold Card.' Ben looked at him, surprised even through the haze of anxiety. Colin shrugged. 'Something like this puts things in perspective.' He didn't say any more, but the look on his face was more like the old, pre-suicide Colin. He stayed til quite late, until final y Ben told him to go home. After he'd gone Ben went into the lounge. He turned on the TV and sat down in front of it. He didn't realise he was tired, would have said he could never sleep, but at some point he slipped into a doze. He jerked awake on the settee, heart racing. The TV was showing a snow-fil ed screen. A soft hiss of static fil ed the room.

The house was silent. He saw that it was after two o'clock. He went to the phone and lifted the receiver to make sure it was stil working. While it was in his hand he considered cal ing Norris. But the inspector had promised to let him know if anything happened. He put down the receiver without dial ing.