‘Oh, sorry. Hang on.’ He let Alec in.
‘You can come out now, he’s gone.’
‘He knew it was Rupert’s computer.’
‘Yes, I guess he did. He mentioned it several times. We stuck to our story.’ He came round the desk to look at what Patrick had been doing. ‘Find anything?’
Patrick shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘It was Marcus that put me on to it actually.’
‘Oh?’
‘He mentioned Rupert’s new book on the Fen Tigers and how some of the families were still living round here. He said the Fieldings were one of them and I thought I remembered seeing something. So I looked and I found this. It’s a list of all the people he interviewed for that book. There’s like a little file on each of them and this one is on the Fieldings of White Farm.’
He turned the screen so Alec could read it properly.
‘It’s a rough family tree,’ Alec said. ‘And some comments on the family. “Husband is a boorish oaf”,’ Alec read. ‘That’s a very Rupert turn of phrase. “Wife is a shrew. I pity the boy”. Well, that’s a little damning, wouldn’t you say?’
Patrick shrugged. ‘There’s more,’ he said. ‘About the family history and the stories he planned to use.’ He sighed and leaned back in Rupert’s captain chair. ‘I’ve been looking for financial stuff and there’s a couple of files Dad hasn’t seen yet. They were nested inside folders he kept his writing in.’
‘Hidden?’
Patrick shrugged. ‘Burying it in the garden was better,’ he said. ‘Easy enough to find if you look deeper than the title and no one has so far, which is why we missed it.’ He pushed up from his seat. ‘You and Naomi get anywhere?’
‘Well, we’ve arranged for Kinnear’s picture to get into the papers, but Fine can’t do a lot more for us. Harry tells me Danny Fielding came over.’
Patrick nodded. ‘We didn’t find out anything.’
‘Apart from Ellen March,’
‘Ellen March? Oh, angry woman.’
‘That would be the one. From what she said to Harry it’s likely she and Danny’s father were having an affair.’
Marcus was unhappy. Unhappy and now very much afraid. He had been counting on Naomi and the others playing straight with him. Had convinced himself that they would even though reason told him they had no cause to tell him anything.
The laptop belonged to Rupert, Marcus was sure of it and Patrick and Harry had both lied. That meant they didn’t trust him. Marcus thought about it as he drove home and was bitterly angry and despairing by turns. Angry because if it hadn’t been for his insistence they look into Rupert’s death, no one would have suspected anything or found anything. No one would have looked further than a heart attack. Alec would have probably sold up and that would have been that. Despairing because he knew Samuel Kinnear would not be understanding of his troubles. Sam Kinnear just wanted results.
He was unsurprised when the phone rang just after he got back to his flat above the shop. Kinnear was watching him, Marcus was sure of that. Kinnear or the quiet one he’d seen once or twice in his company.
‘Well?’ Sam Kinnear demanded.
‘I don’t have much to tell. They’ve found the laptop, that’s all I know.’
‘And you’ve got it.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘No, I haven’t got it.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m supposed to just ask and they hand it over, is that what you think?’
‘Works for me.’
‘Maybe I don’t have, shall we say, your powers of persuasion.’
‘I’ve been telling you that from the start. You reckoned you could get the stuff quietly, no fuss. Seems you can’t.’
Marcus sighed. ‘Let me have another try,’ he said. ‘The computer isn’t any good to you without the books, or so you said. I don’t know yet if they’ve found the books.’
Kinnear was silent. ‘One more day,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you another twenty-four. Get the laptop and find out about the books. You don’t, I will. You get the books and you work out what that bastard Rupert was doing with my money, where he hid it and how he planned on getting it back.’
‘Rupe had already transferred more than you deserved,’ Marcus was suddenly angry.
‘I want it with interest,’ said Sam Kinnear. ‘Way I figure it, he owed me capital and with thirty-year interest on top. Rupert had only just whetted my appetite.’
Back at Fallowfields Alec was on the phone to ex-DI Billy Pierce. He had the approximate address of Rupert’s flat from his parents. They had been uncertain of the number and Alec wasn’t even convinced it was relevant.
‘It’s a bit of a wild goose chase,’ he told Billy Pierce. ‘My dad is certain he didn’t sell the flat, but their contact with Rupert was sketchy at best for the past twenty or so years.’
‘Oh, it’ll give me something to do,’ Pierce told him. ‘Keep my hand in. Anything else happening your end?’
Alec told him what had been going on. ‘So, it’s now wait and see time,’ he finished. ‘Something tells me we won’t be waiting long.’
Twenty-Eight
‘We’ve got trouble,’
Kinnear looked up from the television. He liked to watch the morning news on the BBC. It was very informative, he thought.
‘We’ve always got trouble.’
Reid dropped the first edition of the paper in his lap. It was folded so that Sam Kinnear’s picture stared out on the front page. Kinnear picked it up and studied it as though it was unfamiliar. He read the brief paragraphs beneath and then tossed the paper aside.
‘And?’
‘And they put you on the front page. Every man and his dog is going to be looking for you. Sam, we’ve got enough, let’s get out of here now.’
Kinnear studied him with much the same expression as he’d studied the picture in the paper. Reid swallowed nervously and took an involuntary step back.
‘This changes nothing,’ Kinnear said. ‘Just speeds things up.’
‘We’ve got enough, Sam,’ Reid said again. ‘Enough to make a start somewhere else. Sam, I want my share. I want out. Now.’
Kinnear got up from his chair and crossed the room in two strides. He grabbed Reid by the shirt front and hoisted him clear of the ground. ‘Since when did I give you permission to want anything,’ he said, his voice no more than a soft, threatening growl. ‘I want the rest of my money. My money. You’re along for the ride, don’t forget that.’
‘You need me,’ Reid squeaked. ‘Need me to do the business. You don’t know how …’
‘But like as not Marcus does. Don’t forget that. Like as not that bloody accountant they’ve got out at Fallowfields knows. You are not my only option. Don’t forget that.’
He dropped Reid letting him fall to the floor. Reid lay there, curled into a ball like a dog expecting a final kick. Risking a look, he saw Kinnear had picked up the phone. He’s calling Marcus, Reid guessed. The threat Kinnear had just made gripped his belly, cramped it tight so that Reid thought he might be sick. He’d got himself into this even though he knew what Kinnear was. He’d shared a six by ten space with the man for three straight months. Reid tried to remember just when and how he’d agreed to do this, agreed to help Kinnear, and found he could no longer remember. He recalled getting out of jail, then a few weeks after, remembered the familiar hand heavy on his shoulder and the voice in his ear, ‘I’ve got a job for you, Jimmy boy.’
He couldn’t recall ever having agreed. Men like Sam Kinnear didn’t ask, they just assumed you’d go along with what they had in mind.
Across the room Kinnear slammed the phone down. ‘Bastard’s not answering his phone,’ he said. ‘Get over there and tell him I want to see him. Now.’
‘Bring him here?’ Reid was anxious. With Marcus, Kinnear would not need him. He’d made that plain.