The constable picked up a phone and punched in three numbers. He said to whoever answered, “Connie, you’re going to want to look at a laptop I’ve got my paws on… Will do.” He rang off and said to Freddie and Manette, “Five minutes.”
“Who’s Connie?” Manette asked.
“Superintendent Connie Calva,” he said. “Head of Vice. Have anything else?”
Manette remembered the map. She fished it out of her bag and handed it over. She said, “Tim had this amongst the things on his desk. Freddie thought it best to bring it. I don’t know how useful… I mean, we don’t know the streets involved. They could be anywhere.”
Freddie said, “I reckoned you’d have someone who could go back and find the map Tim began with. This is an enlargement he printed. The full map should be easy enough to find for someone better versed than I am in Internet maps.”
The constable took it from Freddie, reaching into his desk simultaneously and bringing out a magnifying glass. It was the oddest thing for him to have, Manette thought, harking back to Sherlock Holmes. But he made a reasonable use of it, applying it to the map in order to read the names of the streets more clearly. He was saying as he did all this, “This sort of thing’s usually done in Barrow, at the constabulary. We’ve a forensic computer specialist there and… Ah. Hang on. This is easy enough.”
He looked up at them as a woman in jeans, knee-high leather boots, and a tartan plaid waistcoat stepped into the room, presumably Superintendent Calva. She said, “What’ve we got, Ewan?” and nodded to Manette and Freddie.
Ewan handed over the laptop and waved the map at her as well. “Enough of the bad nasty on that to make you fear lightning strikes from God,” he said in reference to the computer. “And this is a printout map of the area round the business centre.”
“You know where these streets are?” Manette asked. It seemed too much to hope for.
“Oh, aye,” Ewan said. “They’re right here in town. Not ten minutes away.”
Manette grabbed Freddie’s arm but spoke to the constable. “We must go there at once. They intend to film him. They’ll be doing it there. We must stop them.”
The constable held up his hand. “Bit of trouble with that route,” he said.
Connie Calva had gone to a desk nearby and had begun to study the laptop as she removed a piece of gum from its silver wrapper and folded it into her mouth. She wore the weary expression of a woman who’d already seen it all, but that expression altered as she moved from image to image. Manette could tell when she’d reached the videos. She stopped chewing. Her face altered to a careful blank.
“What sort of trouble?” Freddie was asking in the meantime.
“These streets are lined with private homes and B & B’s. There’s a fire station there and, like I said, a business centre as well. We can’t go barging in left and right without something to go on. The laptop’s filled with it, aye, but how d’you make the connection between the laptop and this map aside from the user having found the map online? D’you see what I mean? Now you’ve brought us some excellent information, and Superintendent Calva will get onto it directly. And when we know more— ”
“But the boy is missing,” Manette cried. “He’s been gone for over twenty-four hours. And with this on his computer and a blatant invitation to be part of a film in which God only knows what is about to happen… He’s fourteen years old.”
The constable said, “Got that. But we’ve the rule of law— ”
“Bugger the law!” Manette cried. “Do something.”
She felt Freddie, then. His arm went round her waist. “Ah yes,” he said. “We see.”
She cried, “Are you mad?”
“They’ve got to follow their procedure.”
“But, Freddie— ”
“Manette…” His gaze shifted to the door, and his eyebrows rose. “Let’s let them get on with it, eh?”
She knew that he was asking for her trust, but in that moment she trusted no one. Still, she couldn’t take her eyes off Freddie, who was on her side in all things. She haltingly said, “Yes, yes, all right,” and once they’d given every possible piece of information they could to the constable and to Superintendent Calva, they went out to the street.
“What?” Manette said to Freddie in anguish. “What?”
“We need a map of the town,” Freddie told her, “which we should be able to find in a bookshop easily enough.”
“And then?” she asked him.
“Then we need a plan,” he said. “Either that or one monumental, excellent piece of luck.”
WINDERMERE
CUMBRIA
They had the latter. The police station was on the outskirts of town, straddling Bowness-on-Windermere and Windermere itself. When they left the station, Freddie drove further into Windermere, and they were traveling up Lake Road just coming upon New Road when Manette spotted Tim. He was leaving a small grocery, a striped blue and white plastic bag in his hands. He was inspecting its contents, and he fished inside to bring out a bag of crisps, which he proceeded to tear open with his teeth.
Manette cried, “There he is! Pull over, Freddie.”
“Hang on, old girl.” Freddie drove on.
She cried, “But what are you— ” and she squirmed in her seat. “We’ll lose him!”
A short distance along, Freddie pulled to the kerb, once Tim was safely behind them and walking in the opposite direction. He said to Manette, “You’ve got your mobile?”
“Of course. But, Freddie— ”
“Listen, darling. There’s more involved here than just scooping up Tim.”
“But he’s in danger.”
“As are a lot of other children. You have your mobile. Set it to vibrate and follow him. I’ll park and ring you. All right? He should lead us to wherever they’re going to film, if that’s what he’s here for.”
She saw logic in this, cool and clear-headed Freddie logic. She said, “Yes, yes, of course. You’re right,” and grabbed her bag and made certain of her mobile. She started to get out of the car but then she stopped and turned to him.
“What?” he said.
“You’re the most wonderful man, Freddie McGhie,” she told him. “Nothing that’s happened before this moment matters as much.”
“As much as what?”
“As my loving you.” She shut the car door smartly before he replied.
ARNSIDE
CUMBRIA
Nicholas Fairclough made very short order of letting Deborah feel his wrath. He jerked his car to a halt in the driveway and leapt out onto the gravel. He strode towards her saying, “Who the hell are you, then? What are you doing here?” For a man whose previous meetings with her had been conducted in such a mild-mannered fashion, Fairclough was completely transformed. If eyes could be said to blaze, his were doing just that. “Where is he? How much time do we have?”
Deborah felt pinned by the ferocity of the questions and only able to express herself inarticulately. She stammered, “I don’t know… How long do these things take? I’m not sure. Mr. Fairclough, I tried… You see, I did tell him there was no story to be had because that’s the truth of the matter. There is no story.”
Fairclough drew himself up at that, as if Deborah had placed her hand on his chest to stop him. He said, “Story? What? Who the hell are you? Christ, d’you work for The Source as well? Montenegro didn’t send you?”