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  ‘You think Saunders did this?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  They both knew Saunders’ chances of remaining at large would increase being alone. Saunders wouldn’t have any hesitation in dispatching Prine if it benefited him, and Sarah imagined loyalty was not something he worried about. ‘We can presume it benefited Saunders this way. However, take a look at his right leg.’

  Partridge smiled but didn’t look. ‘I noticed the discolouration,’ he said. ‘Prine injured his leg and was put down like a lame horse.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘OK, good. We’ll change our search parameters. I have a team on the way. We’ll scour the woodland for Mr Saunders with the hope he hasn’t absconded beyond its scope.’

  ‘And the body?’ asked Sarah.

  Partridge smiled once more, the humour not reaching his eyes. ‘You leave that to us.’

  Within the hour, the area was overrun with MI5 agents. Two helicopters scoured the sky, as a specialist team examined then removed the body of John Prine.

  Sarah folded her arms, watching events unfold. She was largely ignored by Partridge and his team despite having found the body. She consulted a map of the local area, searching for potential escape routes.

  If Saunders ran to the farmhouse due to its familiarity, where would he go next? She moved her finger along the map until she hit water. Had Saunders hid in the woodland until he had time to reach the sea? The coastguard had been put on high alert the day Saunders went missing, but resources were not unlimited and not every stretch of water could be monitored. Sarah imagined Saunders scrambling through the woods after killing Prine to a rendezvous point, escaping across the Channel to the European mainland. Interpol had been alerted, but Saunders could be thousands of miles away by now.

  The clouds opened and hailstones fell from the sky like bullets. The agents took shelter, some in the building of the farmhouse, others beneath the trees. Sarah took the opportunity to retreat to her car. Once the engine was warmed up, she switched on the heating and her body began to thaw. She glanced idly at her phone, searching for a message from Michael despite knowing he wouldn’t, and shouldn’t, contact her.

  Her time and ability was being wasted. Partridge had already arranged for Anna Saunders to be interrogated again so she couldn’t even explore that avenue of investigation. She checked the map again on her phone, and searched for the closest stretch of shoreline where Saunders could conceivably reach. Then, with nothing else to do, she released the handbrake and set off.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lambert considered the various connections before summoning Matilda.

  ‘Sir?’ Matilda appeared harried, the scar tissue on her face darker than usual.

  ‘Alistair Beckinsale. His parents are alive?’

  ‘Yes, I spoke to them myself. Elderly couple, but still have their wits about them. Beckinsale’s wife is still in contact with them. Naturally, they were devastated. He was one of six children. Third to pass away.’

  ‘The other two?’ said Lambert, alert to possibility.

  ‘A younger sister died from cancer aged thirty-two. Elder brother, took his own life aged twenty-eight.’

  ‘Brother’s name?’

  ‘Richard.’

  ‘How much older than Alistair was he?’

  ‘Sixteen months, I think. I’ll confirm.’

  Matilda stood by the door and waited for him to respond. ‘You visited the Beckinsales?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Matilda, suspicious. ‘You’d slipped out for the afternoon as I recall,’ she added, recalling the day Lambert visited the escape site on Holloway Road.

  ‘Fairleigh?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘The area seem familiar to you?’

  Matilda was momentarily confused. ‘You mean Waverley Manor?’ she asked, lowering her tone.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s about fifteen miles away. What are you thinking, sir?’

  Lambert was unable to answer the question. ‘Let’s pay Mr and Mrs Beckinsale another visit. You show me the way.’

  * * *

  It was the last Friday before Christmas, not the best day to be travelling anywhere.

  ‘Could be a white Christmas,’ said Matilda, weaving a slow route through the city traffic.

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ said Lambert, his words laced with sarcasm. He hadn’t thought about Christmas in the last few days. He’d yet to buy anything for Sophie and Jane, and was thankful his department had a Secret Santa, meaning he would only need to contribute one present purchased from the local off-licence like the majority of his colleagues.

  ‘Not in the seasonal cheer yet?’ said Matilda.

  ‘Yet?’

  In many ways he was more comfortable in the car with Matilda than he was with Sarah. The tension was absent, and although he would never assuage the guilt he felt for the horrific injuries the woman suffered under his command he was at total ease in her company. She was one of a very small number of people he trusted implicitly.

  They’d called ahead but were an hour late by the time they reached the picturesque village. The drove along Fairleigh’s one main street past a church, two pubs and a newsagent’s. Judging by the car parks, the pubs were enjoying a fine seasonal trade. Matilda continued driving until the street was out of sight, the single lane reminiscent of Lambert’s visit the night before to Norfolk.

  Preparing himself for a similar isolated house, he was surprised when Matilda turned into another road with a cluster of houses scattered over a half-mile area in a random order. The houses competed with one another for the most outlandish Christmas decorations. Sparkling lights covered every inch of the brick buildings, some with illuminated statues on their front lawns. Father Christmases, snowmen, one house even had a sleigh and full complement of miniature reindeers.

  Matilda pulled up outside the only undecorated house. ‘Not the best Christmas present,’ said Lambert, looking at the Beckinsale residence, drab in comparison to its sparkling neighbours.

  Simon Beckinsale greeted them at the front door. In his seventies, the man towered over Lambert, a shock of silver hair on his head. ‘I saw you pull in,’ he said, surprising Lambert with the strength of his handshake. ‘Please come in.’

  Geraldine Beckinsale was waiting for them inside. She sat next to a small wood fire and looked up at them as they entered the room but didn’t move.

  ‘Please, take a seat, you’ve had a long journey. May I get you something to drink?’ said Mr Beckinsale.

  ‘We’re fine,’ said Matilda. ‘How are you, Mrs Beckinsale?’

  ‘I’m OK,’ said Mrs Beckinsale, an empty glass by her side.

  ‘Please, take a seat,’ said Mr Beckinsale.

  The grief covered the room like a shroud. Geraldine Beckinsale was trying to drink the pain away, Simon Beckinsale doing his best to deny it had ever happened. Lambert had sat in such rooms on too many occasions. It was a travesty for your children to die before you, whatever your age.

  ‘We’re very sorry to come here again,’ said Matilda. ‘I can only imagine how difficult it is for you. We need to ask you some more questions, then I promise we will leave you to your grieving.’

  Mrs Beckinsale stared at the fire as if she could see something within the dancing flames. Her husband’s forehead furrowed as he glanced at his wife.

  Matilda glanced at Lambert who nodded back at her. The questions would not be easy to ask or answer. ‘I realize this is the last thing you’d wish to answer at the moment, but we’d like to talk about your other son, Richard.’

  Lambert noticed Mr Beckinsale’s neck tensing as Matilda mentioned his other son’s name.

  ‘Why would you need to know about him? He passed away years ago,’ said Mr Beckinsale, his gaze flitting from Matilda to his wife and back again.

  ‘The coroner’s report was suicide,’ said Matilda. Her words were soft, kind, but the comment angered the husband.

 
‘What’s your point?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t mean to upset you, Mr Beckinsale. Richard was only a year or so older than Alistair, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Eighteen months,’ said Mrs Beckinsale, not taking her eyes from the fire.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Beckinsale, eighteen months. Richard left no note, did he? Did you notice a change of behaviour at the time? Did he mention any concerns to you?’

  ‘You told us Alistair’s death was suspicious, that it wasn’t suicide.’

  ‘No, we don’t think it was suicide,’ said Lambert.

  ‘Then why are you asking about Richard?’

  Lambert hated putting them through the ordeal, especially for what was little more than a hunch, but he needed to get to the truth. ‘Did something happen to Richard? Maybe something in his childhood?’

  The whole of Geraldine Beckinsale’s body tensed as if she was momentarily paralysed. Mr Beckinsale turned away and silence descended over the small room, broken by the crackling of burning wood. Matilda appealed to Lambert but he shook his head, waiting for a revelation from the parents. It was Geraldine Beckinsale who finally broke the silence.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Simon, tell them,’ she said.

  Water pooled in Mr Beckinsale’s eyes and he placed his head in his hands. ‘I don’t know what to tell you,’ he said, after sitting that way for two minutes.

  ‘Just tell us what you know,’ said Matilda.

  ‘That’s the thing. We don’t really know. Those boys were as thick as thieves. From the day Alistair was born, Richard doted on him, and as they grew older they couldn’t be separated.’ Mr Beckinsale’s smile at the reminiscence disappeared a second later, as if the memory had kept them alive for that brief period of time. ‘And the secrets. They loved their secrets, didn’t they, Geraldine?’

  Mrs Beckinsale ignored her husband. She reached for her empty glass and continued to stare at the fire.

  ‘Yes. Anyway. The secrets. Thick as thieves, I tell you. They would disappear for hours on end, in the hills. Go for their little adventures. They formed some kind of club like that book, Swallows and Amazons. No river, of course, but that didn’t stop the adventuring.’

  Mrs Beckinsale began crying and her husband was on the verge of tears. ‘Anyway, that stopped.’

  ‘What stopped?’ said Lambert.

  ‘The adventuring.’ Beckinsale took in a deep breath and held it. Lambert was about to ask if he was OK when he realized it was a large sob. ‘It was different times,’ he said, unsure. ‘We shouldn’t have let them play on their own, really, but they were boys, and they wanted to go out on their own, and they had each other…’ His words faded as Mrs Beckinsale began crying harder.

  ‘What happened, Simon?’ said Matilda.

  ‘We don’t know, but one night they never came back.’

  ‘They disappeared?’

  Mr Beckinsale bit his lip. ‘For the night. They’d left the previous morning. They took small rucksacks with provisions and promised to return late afternoon. I’m afraid we didn’t start taking notice until it got dark.’

  Lambert hadn’t read about such an incident on the System but that wasn’t surprising given how long ago it had occurred. ‘Did you tell the police?’

  ‘We did. We searched the hills as best as we could with torches and were about to start again in the morning when they turned up.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Richard had injured his leg. He was hobbling quite badly, being carried by Alistair. The boys apologized, they’d gone further than anticipated and decided to shelter for the night when it got too dark. We were just delighted to have them home. The police accepted their version of events and we got on with our lives.

  ‘At first we thought their reluctance to go out was a response to the incident but then their behaviour changed. Richard’s especially. He became withdrawn. His leg was fine by this point but he never left the house except for school and he stuck to Alistair like glue.

  ‘We should have done more but we were at a loss. We asked them what was wrong, spoke to them both on an individual basis but they would clam up.’ Mr Beckinsale stood and moved to his wife. He tried to touch her but she shrugged his hand away.

  ‘Did you ever find out what happened?’

  Mr Beckinsale closed his eyes. He appeared shorter than before, his body hunched as if old age had chosen that moment to attack him. ‘Richard never got over it, you see. As they became older, they grew apart. They were close but not as close as before. Alistair started going out. He played football, had girlfriends. Richard stayed at home, only leaving the house for school. He refused our help and we didn’t know any better. As an adult he was hospitalized for clinical depression. He never told me what happened but he said there had been some men.’

  Geraldine Beckinsale whimpered at the last statement. She left her seat and retreated to the kitchen where she filled her glass with brandy, hitting back the shot in one go.

  ‘He was having counselling and we hoped he was getting better. He appeared more responsive when we saw him, and then…’

  ‘Did you ever speak to Alistair about this?’

  ‘He refused to talk about it. I tried to speak to him on numerous occasions, especially when Richard was hospitalized. It was as if he’d completely blanked it out. He didn’t live with it any longer, and we weren’t about to make him relive it.’

  ‘You never went to the police?’ said Lambert.

  ‘I’m ashamed we did not, Detective Lambert. I wouldn’t have known what to tell them. I just know that whatever happened to the boys that day led to my little boy killing himself.’

  Lambert stood and thanked Mr Beckinsale for his time, all the time wondering if the events of that day had also led to the murder of the man’s other son.

  Chapter Twenty

  Lambert grabbed some sleep as Matilda drove back to London. Having not slept for over twenty-four hours he decided it would be prudent if she took the wheel. His eyes snapped open eighty minutes later as they reached headquarters.

  Matilda appeared to have spent the time formulating questions. ‘Are you going to let me know what you’re thinking, sir?’ she asked, as he righted himself into position.

  ‘You’ll have to tell me if I’m being obsessive.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Lambert paused, formulating the words in his mind. ‘What if Lance Jenkins and Alistair Beckinsale are both former victims of the Manor? We now know something happened to Beckinsale in those woods and we have a tentative link with Jenkins’ old teacher, George Forrest.’

  ‘Tentative is putting it mildly, sir.’

  ‘Maybe, but you can see what I’m getting at. It wouldn’t even be a consideration if Saunders hadn’t escaped but with that, and the Beckinsales’ proximity to Waverley Manor, it’s something I don’t think we can rule out. First thing tomorrow, we speak to Forrest.’

  Matilda dropped him back at the car park so he could collect his car. He kept his window partly down as he drove home so the cold air could keep him awake. As he entered the roundabout leading to Croydon Road, he thought he glimpsed a familiar car, an Audi estate heading up the high street. His eyes moved towards the number plate but he didn’t have time to focus as the car disappeared around the corner. The car was the same colour and make as that driven by AC-10’s Inspector Duggan. Was he under surveillance? At that moment, he didn’t have the energy to worry. He drove the short distance to his house, cursing that all the parking spaces were taken. He parked on an adjacent road, his legs heavy as he trudged through the iced pavements towards his house.

  ‘I remember you. Michael Lambert, isn’t it?’ said Sophie, repeating a familiar tease as he entered the living room.

  ‘The one and only. What’s for dinner?’ he said, pushing his luck.

  ‘Whatever you can find to make,’ said Sophie, returning to the novel she was reading.

  Lacking the energy to cook, he made a sandwich and returned to the living room. ‘What you reading?’
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  Sophie frowned. ‘You left last night and haven’t been back since.’

  ‘I’m sorry, it’s one of those cases. Too many directions. I’m trying to rein it in, get some control, but I can’t at the moment.’

  ‘I’ve read the paper, Michael.’

  With everything else that had occurred since last night, he’d given little thought to Mia Helmer. ‘I didn’t know you read that rag.’

  ‘It’s not a joke, Michael. Two murder victims, and your name at the scene. Is someone trying to set you up?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Lambert, trying to keep the conversation light.

  ‘How the hell are they letting you investigate this? Surely you should be kept away, if you’re implicated?’

  Lambert finished his sandwich. His throat was dry, the sandwich devoid of flavour. ‘I’m not implicated, Soph. My name was written on a card found at the scenes. Someone wants me involved and I’m the best person to find out who is responsible.’

  Sophie’s eyes widened. ‘You always think you’re the best person for the job.’

  It was a recurring argument. Once he was involved in a case he would never let it go. It became obsessional and he ended up absorbing all the pressure and responsibility that went with it. ‘I’m going up to the office,’ he said, lacking the energy to argue further.

  ‘Remember my mother is coming tomorrow for Christmas,’ shouted Sophie, as he made his way upstairs.

  His first action was to check the System. He was desperate to find out how Sarah May was faring in Norfolk but as expected there was no report. Next he began searching for mentions of Alistair and Richard Beckinsale during the period where they’d gone missing as children. He cross-checked that with other disappearances in the local area during the period but found nothing significant.

  They already had an address for George Forrest, and Lambert spent the next few minutes checking the man’s details on the System. He’d left Lance Jenkins’ school eight years ago. The governing board had received a number of complaints about his conduct but hadn’t dismissed him. It appeared some form of agreement had been made as Forrest continued working as a supply teacher for three years before changing careers and retraining as an IT consultant.