The Depths of Solitude (16 page)
Deacon nodded, numbly. He still couldn’t believe what had happened. Not that Voss had got a thumping: that
had happened before, would happen again, it was an occupational hazard. What left him gobsmacked was how and why it happened. It wasn’t a fight, it wasn’t even an ambush. He’d stood still and taken it, and he’d done it for Deacon. Jack Deacon had had no idea he inspired that kind of loyalty.
had happened before, would happen again, it was an occupational hazard. What left him gobsmacked was how and why it happened. It wasn’t a fight, it wasn’t even an ambush. He’d stood still and taken it, and he’d done it for Deacon. Jack Deacon had had no idea he inspired that kind of loyalty.
He got halfway to the door, then turned back. Propped on the sofa, his ginger hair lank with sweat, a woman who loved and was furious with him swabbing his bloody face with a wet cloth, Charlie Voss had already let his eyes slide shut. The bruises were a splash of shocking colour against the pallor of his skin. Deacon felt something like a hand gripping the base of his throat. “I shan’t forget this, you know.”
“Good,” mumbled Voss.
“How many were there?”
“There were four, Mr Deacon,” said Helen Choi with the quiet fury of someone who knows there is a time for vengeance, and it’s after the injured have been attended to. “Four. And there wasn’t a mark on any of them.”
French. The name meant something to him. But it wasn’t in the One-day-I’ll-be-free-and-
then
-we’ll-see-Mr-Deacon file. It was … it was …
then
-we’ll-see-Mr-Deacon file. It was … it was …
Charlie Voss had stood and taken a thumping from four men, and when he couldn’t stand any more he’d let them pick him up and thump him some more. And he’d done it not for the job, and not because he had no choice, but for Deacon. He didn’t understand. It wasn’t that he was ungrateful, just that he was more angry. So angry he could barely think straight. So angry that if anyone looked at him the wrong way in the next few minutes he could blow the career Voss had protected at such cost by flooring them. And the thing that confused him as much as anything else was that it wasn’t Joe Loomis he was angry with – it was Charlie Voss.
OK, French. Not a collar he’d felt. And – actually not a man. Millie French was the complainant – years ago: what, four, five years ago? She claimed she’d been raped, the man said she consented. No evidence either way and it never went to court. No, he was on the wrong tracks – it wasn’t Millie French asking about Brodie in the Shalimar Club. Some other French, some other time.
With all the damage to his face – and these were professionals, they weren’t concentrating on his face, mostly they were powering blows in under his ribs, into his belly and onto his kidneys – Voss’s knuckles were unbloodied. Deacon had looked. He hadn’t attempted to defend himself. A deal was struck and he kept his side of it. So did Loomis. Which left Deacon … out of the loop. Side-lined. He wasn’t used to being on the periphery of events and he
didn’t like it. He’d got what he needed and it hadn’t cost him a penny, but the humiliation was like ashes in his throat.
didn’t like it. He’d got what he needed and it hadn’t cost him a penny, but the humiliation was like ashes in his throat.
Millie French wasn’t doing this. For one thing, she was dead. Months after the episode she walked into the sea. Which was sad but rather confirmed what Deacon suspected: that the girl was neurotic and her version of what happened couldn’t be relied on. No one behaved well that night but Deacon thought she’d probably got herself into a situation she lacked the know-how to get out of. The man said he believed she was available. It might have been true; in any event he’d have said it with conviction and the jury would have believed him. Millie would have mumbled, played with her hankie, forgotten what she said in her statement, made mistakes that would sound like lies, and generally come across as a bubblehead who couldn’t be trusted. Not when she said “Take me” and not when she screamed “Rape!”
Deacon was in his car now and driving — not very well, he gathered from the fisted horns and startled faces that way-marked his passing. Damn them. If anyone wanted to make an issue of it they could follow him to the police station.
Think as he might, he could recall no more Frenches. Just Millie. And her husband, of course. The more Deacon dug, the more details surfaced and the slower he drove. Now people were hooting because he was holding them up. Their concerns did not trouble him; in fact he did not notice them.
The husband. Michael? He and the other man were doing some business together. They were all going out for a meal, only something stopped French going. Millie came home distressed, and when French found out why he called the police.
The last time Deacon saw French he was identifying his wife’s body in the morgue at Dimmock General. Deacon struggled to remember him. He was a few years older than Millie and solidly built. Whey-faced, tears streaming down his cheeks, unable to string three words together, confirming the identification with a spastic nod. Michael French. Whatever happened to him?
Deacon parked in the yard behind the police station and hurried up the steps, shouting as he went. He wanted the file on the French case. He couldn’t remember the name of the accused.
As he surged up the stairs to his office, messages followed him. Someone had been phoning for him. Someone else was waiting for him downstairs.
Deacon thought quickly. It wouldn’t be Brodie downstairs - she believed waiting-rooms were for other people - but it might have been her on the phone. Usually, though, she’d call his mobile. He asked the switchboard, “Who was calling me?” “Daniel Hood.”
Not until Julia Farrell phoned had Daniel made the transition from mild unease to real anxiety.
She was a polite woman and it was a polite call but clearly she was annoyed. She asked for Brodie: when Daniel said he was expecting her back Julia asked him to convey a message.
“I know things are difficult at the moment and she’s having to prioritise, but some things you have to take care of regardless. It’s not as if I’ve nothing else to do. I have my husband in bed with concussion thanks to –” An eminently reasonable woman, she fielded the thought in midair. “No, that’s not fair: what happened to John isn’t Brodie’s fault. But saying she’d collect Paddy and then not
doing is. Suppose I hadn’t been here when the school called? Who’d have collected her then?”
doing is. Suppose I hadn’t been here when the school called? Who’d have collected her then?”
Chills were racing up Daniel’s body from below his ribs to the base of his throat. “Is Paddy with you now?”
“Yes, she is. But –”
“Can you keep her?”
“Yes. But Daniel, that isn’t …” Her voice petered out mid-plaint. She whispered, “Oh Daniel – you don’t think something’s happened to her?”
“To leave Paddy alone in the playground long enough for the school to try to contact her, fail, and then phone you? Yes, I think it may have done.”
He knew the seriousness of the situation, really didn’t need Deacon shouting at him to underline it.
“You said you’d stay with her! You said she’d be safe with you!”
“I thought she
was
safe. I left her at my house, there was no reason for anyone to look for her there. I was only gone forty minutes. But she went out.”
was
safe. I left her at my house, there was no reason for anyone to look for her there. I was only gone forty minutes. But she went out.”
“Went? Or was taken?”
“Went, I think. The note she left seemed normal enough. I was expecting her back about twenty-past two. At half-past Julia called.”
“Try your phone,” said Deacon, “see if anyone called while you were out. Call me right back.”
Daniel did as he was told. “No one.”
“All right.” He held the phone away from his ear for a moment, shouted for Voss, remembered, shouted for Winston, told him what to do. He told Daniel, “We’ll get onto the phone company, access her mobile records. If someone’s got at her, that’s probably how – phoned her and lured her out.”
“If – ?” His voice was faint.
“Just being tactful, Daniel,” growled Deacon. “Of course someone’s got at her.”
He got the information he needed but it wasn’t much help. Brodie’s mobile was last called from a public phone on Dimmock railway station at 1.02 pm. The call lasted a minute and a half. She must have left the netting shed just minutes before Daniel got back. That was an hour and a half ago.
DC Winston had found the file. The accused man was called Saville. Deacon took it without a word of thanks, hunting for the Frenches’ address. River Drive – no. 22. Perhaps French was still there, perhaps he wasn’t. Deacon could make enquiries or he could go round there and pound on the door.
Jack Deacon always took the pounding option.
The house in River Drive was empty. It looked to have been empty for some time, for the lawn was overgrown and the furniture gone. But there was no For Sale sign.
Deacon found a neighbour. “Yes,” said Mrs Haynes, “poor Mr French moved out a couple of months ago.”
“Poor Mr French?”
“He was never the same after his wife died,” she confided.
“Where did he go? Did he leave a forwarding address?”
Mrs Haynes shook her blue rinse regretfully.
“Did you see the removal van? Was it a local firm?”
She brightened. “Yes. What are they called – Watkins? Watsons? Navy blue van with white letters.”
“Warwicks,” said Deacon, and Mrs Haynes beamed agreement.
But the trail ended at Edward Warwick & Sons’ depot in the small industrial estate on the eastern fringe of Dimmock. They had no new address for Mr French either.
He asked them to clear the house and store his furniture and paid for three months’ storage in advance. There was still a month to run.
He asked them to clear the house and store his furniture and paid for three months’ storage in advance. There was still a month to run.
Moments like this Deacon missed Voss. There’s a lot of thinking involved in being a detective, and recently he’d noticed that he did his best thinking aloud. Unless a man wanted to be considered for early retirement this involved having someone to think aloud to, and for some reason Voss seemed good at it. (Any year now Deacon would make the leap of intuition and recognise that this was because Voss didn’t just listen, he contributed – quite substantially, just subtly enough that Deacon hadn’t noticed.) Mulling things over in the privacy of his own head didn’t work as well. But lacking an alternative, he gave it a try.
Two months ago Michael French put his furniture into storage and left his house. He told no one where he was going, but he thought three months would be enough for what he had in mind. He didn’t put the house on the market because he didn’t want estate agents bothering him, but he didn’t expect to return there or he’d have left his furniture where it was. A nice house at the better end of Dimmock, it could be worth half a million pounds. And he’d turned the key and walked away, and put the furniture into storage to save someone else the trouble. A neat man who tied up loose ends, who didn’t leave others to pack up his life after he’d finished with it.
A man bent on suicide? Or one with no hope of being able to return home after he’d done what he’d spent the last five years planning?
Deacon hurried back to Battle Alley. Daniel was waiting. “Any news?”
“I know who’s behind this.” He summarised what he’d learnt in a few sentences.
“Michael French has Brodie?”
“I’m pretty sure.”
“Why?”
Deacon looked at the younger man. Then he looked away. “I can’t imagine.”
Daniel’s light brows gathered behind the thick glasses. “There must be a reason. He’s gone to a lot of trouble. He had a photograph of her but he didn’t know who she was, so he went round asking in bars until someone recognised her. Why would he want to hurt a woman he didn’t know?”
Having Daniel on your case was like being tracked by a spaniel: he never looked like he was going to bite but he never gave up. Deacon knew he might as well come clean. “To get at me,” he gritted.
Daniel blinked. “All right. Then why does he want to hurt you?”
“He blames me for what happened to his wife. It wasn’t my fault, but maybe he thinks it was.”
“What happened to his wife?”
He drew a long breath. “She killed herself.”
Daniel’s eyes saucered. “Because of you?”
Deacon’s lip curled at him. “Of course not. But French may think it was because of decisions I made.”
“What decision?”
“Not to take her case to court. She claimed she was raped, I didn’t think there was enough evidence. If Michael French is doing this, that’s why.”
There was a long pause. Then Daniel said, “Was it a good decision?”
Deacon looked surprised. “Actually, yes. There was no chance of a conviction. The defending counsel would have torn her to shreds and the jury would have thrown the case out. I don’t know for sure what happened. I do know we couldn’t prove it was rape.”
Daniel believed him. “So what can I do?”
“Nothing,” said Deacon. “Really – there’s nothing you can do. Go home. I’ll call you when there’s some news.”
“How are you going to find her? How are you going to find French?”
“We’ll find them.” Deacon had no idea how he got that note of confidence into his voice. “I’ll look at his furniture for starters, see what that tells me. If he has another property somewhere, we may find a reference to it.”
“Another property?” Then Daniel understood. “Somewhere he could be keeping her.”
“A lock-up, a house, a warehouse. He owned a factory once – I’ll establish whether it’s still in business and where the premises are.”
“He’ll hardly have taken her back to his office!”
Deacon scowled at him. “In fact, stranger things have happened. But what’s more likely is that there are outbuildings somewhere that he has access to. If I can find his books there may be an entry for rental or something.”
“That could take hours!”
Deacon forbore to tell him it would certainly take days, maybe many of them. “It’ll take what it takes. Daniel, you’re not the only one who wants to see Brodie safe. I’m not going to be cooling my heels. I’m not going to be taking tea-breaks. Now do what I say and go home. If I’m talking to you I’m not looking for her.”
When Daniel had gone Deacon put his head through Superintendent Fuller’s door to bring him up to date. He said he would need a warrant to examine French’s furniture. He told him DS Voss had fallen off a motorcycle and asked for some help.
“A motorcycle,” echoed Fuller.
Deacon couldn’t tell if the man knew he was being lied to. “So I understand.”
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