She considered choosing the most likely suspect among the girls and having an age progression done upon her. But she hardly had the time and she certainly didn’t have the authority. So she went back to the Santiago trail because if he had nothing more to offer her, there was nothing else to do other than to move on to Diego.
She found an older picture of Santiago playing Othello sans black pancake in the eponymous play as an adolescent. There was a final picture of him with the school football team and an enormous trophy, but then there was nothing. Just like Angel of the car crash, he fell off the radar. It was as if once the boys reached mid-adolescence, if they hadn’t accomplished something important— preparing for the priesthood or for dentistry being cases in point— then the local news media lost interest in them. Either that or they became useless to their father politically. Because, after all, he was a politician, with a politician’s bent for trotting out his family in election years to demonstrate their essential wholesomeness for the voters.
Barbara thought about this: family, politics, the voting public. She thought about Angel. She thought about Santiago. She stared at every photo she’d come up with and she ended with the children in the park at their first communion. Finally, she picked up the photograph of Alatea Fairclough again.
“What is it?” she whispered. “Tell me your secrets, luv.”
But there was nothing. A string of noughts stretched out to infinity.
She muttered a curse and reached for the mouse to log off the Internet and get back to Diego— the final brother— later. But then she looked a last time at the football photo, then at Othello. From them she went to Alatea Fairclough. Then Alatea on Montenegro’s arm. Then she went back to the first communion. Then she riffled through the photos of Alatea Fairclough’s modelling years. She went back and back and back through those photos, back through time, back to the first one she could find. She studied it. She finally saw.
Eyes on the terminal’s screen, she reached for her mobile. She punched in Lynley’s number.
BRYANBARROW
CUMBRIA
“Can she be forced?” Manette asked Freddie. They were coursing through the Lyth Valley at a good speed, with Freddie behind the wheel. They’d just made the turn into the southwest end of it, where the emerald fields spread out behind crusty drystone walls on either side of the road and the fells rose above them with peaks that wore the grey shawls of cloud on their shoulders. It would be misty up there, and soon it would be misty on the valley floor as well. A good fog was probably going to develop as the day wore on.
Manette had been consumed by their conversation with Niamh Cresswell. How, she wondered, could she have known Niamh for so many years without really knowing her at all?
Freddie, it seemed, had been thinking thoughts unrelated to Niamh and their call upon her because he glanced Manette’s way and said, “Who?”
“Niamh, Freddie. Who else? Can she be forced to take the children back?”
Freddie looked doubtful. “I don’t know the law when it comes to parents and children. But, really, old girl, what sort of plan would that be, to get the law involved?”
“Oh Lord, I don’t know. But we should at least find out what the options are. Because the very idea that she’d just leave Tim and Gracie to their fate… especially little Gracie… Good God, Freddie, does she expect them to go into care? Can she give them into care, for that matter? Can’t someone force her…?”
“Solicitors, judges, and social services?” Freddie asked. “How d’you see that sort of thing affecting the children? Tim’s in a bad enough way already, what with Margaret Fox School and all that. I daresay knowing his mum has been forced by a court to take him back would send the poor lad right over the edge.”
“Perhaps my mum and dad, then…?” Manette suggested. “With that enormous play area she’s building…? Mum and Dad could take them. They’ve got the space, and the kids would love to be near the lake and to use the play area, certainly.”
Freddie slowed the car. Up ahead, a flock of sheep were being moved from one paddock into another in a manner typical to Cumbria: They were in the middle of the road with a border collie directing them and the farmer strolling along behind. The pace was, as always, glacial.
Freddie changed gears and said to Manette, “Tim’s a bit old for play areas, wouldn’t you say, Manette? And anyway, what with this business with Vivienne Tully just coming to light, having the kids move into Ireleth Hall might be even worse for them than… well, than whatever other arrangement can be made.”
“Of course, you’re right.” Manette sighed. She thought about everything she’d learned in the last twenty-four hours about her parents, but especially about her father. She said, “What d’you think she’s going to do?”
“Your mother?” He shook his head. “No idea.”
“I’ve never understood what attracted her to Dad in the first place,” Manette said. “And believe me, I haven’t a clue what Vivienne saw in him. Or continues to see in him, because it’s looking like she’s been seeing him for years. Why on earth would she ever have found Dad attractive? It can’t be money. The money’s mother’s, not his, so if they’d divorced he’d do fine but he wouldn’t have been exactly rolling in the dosh. I mean, of course he’s always had access to it and perhaps Vivienne never knew it wasn’t actually his…?”
“It’s unlikely that she even thought of money when it came to your dad,” Freddie replied. “I expect it was his self-assurance. Women like that in a man, and your father’s always had self-assurance in spades. I wager it’s what attracted your mother to him.”
Manette glanced his way. He was still watching the sheep on the road, but the tips of his ears were giving him away. There was more here than met the eye, so she said, “And…?”
“Hmm?”
“The self-assurance bit.”
“Right. Well. I’ve always admired that about your father. Honestly? Wished I had just a bit of what he’s got.” The ears got redder.
“You? Not self-assured? How can you say that? And look at all the women who’ve been crawling on their knees across broken glass to get at you lately.”
“That sort of thing is easy, Manette. It’s the biological imperative. Women want a man without knowing why they want him. All he has to do is perform. And if a man can’t perform when a woman’s pulling his trousers down to have a ride on the pogo stick— ”
“Freddie McGhie!” Manette laughed, in spite of herself.
“It’s true, old girl. The whole species dies out if the bloke can’t do it when a woman’s getting him ready for it, so that’s all it is. Biology. The performance is rote. Technique isn’t, of course, but any bloke can learn a decent technique.” The sheep ahead of them reached the next field, where the gate stood open between the drystone walls. The border collie expertly got them through, and Freddie put the car back into gear. He said, “So we can say your dad developed a good technique, but he had to have something to attract women in the first place, and that’s his confidence. He has the sort of confidence that makes a man believe he can do anything. And not only does he believe he can do anything, but he proves it to people.”
Manette could see how this was the case, certainly when it came to her parents’ relationship. Their initial meeting was part of family lore, that fifteen-year-old boy strutting up to eighteen-year-old Valerie Fairclough and announcing his intentions towards her. She’d been intrigued by his cockiness in a world where his kind generally knew where to find their forelocks. That feeling of intrigue was all Bernie Dexter had required. The rest was history.