Thirty-Five
Danny had risen early and come downstairs looking for something to eat. No bread, no cereal, no milk to speak of and his father was still absent.
He missed his mother.
He didn’t regret hanging up on her the night before. She deserved his punishment, Danny felt, but at the same time he would have welcomed a call from her now, if only so he could hang up again.
He wanted her home, or wanted them both to be somewhere else or … something. Danny really wasn’t sure.
He made some tea, taking the last of the milk and ate dry cereal, wondered if there was any money in the house. If so, he could at least get some shopping done. His dad didn’t seem to have thought about that in a while and had been impatient when Danny pointed it out to him.
He found a five-pound note and some pound coins in the biscuit jar, a place his mother regularly kept a spare bit of cash for emergencies, and another ten in his dad’s best jacket. Danny felt no qualms going through his parents’ things like this. He felt they’d both let him down so far and now it was up to him to manage any way he could.
He didn’t want to stay here any more.
Danny went back into the kitchen and stared hard at the phone, willing it to ring. It was only just after eight and he’d already been up since six. He wasn’t sure what time they’d all wake up at Fallowfields. He thought about calling his aunt. She had invited him to stay when his mum had left. He liked his auntie Paula but wasn’t sure if he could face the questions and the pity and the sharing a room with his cousin.
He wanted his dad to come back or his mum to call.
‘Fat chance,’ he muttered and turned his back on the offending telephone.
His mobile did ring though a few moments later. He grabbed it, read the name on the display. Patrick.
‘Yeah?’ He sounded too eager, Danny thought. He tried to modify his tone. ‘I mean, hi.’
Fine had called, Patrick told him. He’d asked if Danny’s mum could come over to Fallowfields so they could meet on neutral ground. She’d be there about noon but if Danny wanted to come for breakfast to come now, Harry was cooking.
‘I’ll be there,’ Danny told him. He wasn’t sure about the meeting with his mother but breakfast sounded good.
He pulled on his shoes and slammed the farmhouse door, only wondering later, as he set off across the field at a steady run, if his father had his keys.
Kinnear heard the door slam and looked down. He saw Danny crossing the yard. Earlier, the boy had gone out to check the feed bins for the cattle. The father had still not returned.
Kinnear had been thinking hard about what his next move might be. He needed to scout the police presence at Fallowfields. They’d be out looking for him, of that he was certain. He wondered what had happened to Derek Reid, not because he felt concern, but because whatever Reid had told the police might direct their next moves and so affect Kinnear’s. Puzzled, he saw the boy was heading across the field, not towards the road. He fished in his pack for the binoculars he’d brought with him. Trained them on the running figure of Danny Fielding.
Danny was running towards a gap in the hedge. Looking closer, he glimpsed a second figure waiting by the bit of a fence that blocked the way.
There was only one place the second figure could have come from, wasn’t there? It all clicked into place. Danny was headed for Fallowfields, coming in by a back way.
Kinnear restrained his urge to chase after the boy right then and there. No, give them time to get inside. He didn’t know if he could be seen from the house should he choose to follow. Take it slow, take it steady.
He packed his belongings back into his pack, undecided if to take it or to leave it in the barn. In the end he hoisted it on to his shoulder and started down the ladder back into the body of the barn. His gun felt heavy in the pocket of his coat and he felt hot, the day already warm, but it was a reassuring weight and the easiest way to carry it. Kinnear was not one to risk shoving a loaded gun into the waistband of his trousers.
Checking for signs that the father might have returned, but finding none, Kinnear strode straight across the yard and behind the house. Once in the field he breathed a little easier. He took his time, following the perimeter of the field, doing his best to ignore the bullocks and avoid their dung. The fence was an easy climb and the overgrown meadow no real obstacle. But then there was the wall.
Kinnear swore. Seven feet tall, he estimated, little in the way of handholds, still less places for his booted feet. The gate when he tried it, was locked. He could kick it down but that would be noisy and he had no way of knowing how far he was from the house. A fair way back, he guessed, seeing as how he had to stand well back, close beside the fence, even to glimpse the roof … If he could do it without noise then he better had.
Kinnear followed the wall right round, found a possible place to climb where the field curved and a tree branched further into the grassy area in which he stood. He dropped his pack and climbed the tree, edging along the branch. He could now just see over, well enough to get his bearings as regards the garden beyond and the house beyond that.
He sensed movement in what looked like the kitchen and an open door. Kinnear grimaced. He could see, but still needed to get over the wall. He was a heavy man and not the most agile; the branch he sat astride was some five feet off the ground, but it was a lone limb, reaching out with nothing above to grip. Vainly, Kinnear tried to get to his feet, balance on a moving branch that shook beneath his efforts to balance.
Kinnear fell, heavily. He lay, winded, sure he must have been heard.
In the kitchen at Fallowfields, Danny wolfed down his breakfast. Bacon, eggs, sausage. Toast to follow. He hadn’t eaten this well in ages. Lunch with Patrick and Harry a couple of days before being the last decent thing he’d had.
‘You’re leaving then?’ he asked. Suitcases stood in the hall and Naomi had excused herself to finish off her packing. Napoleon had followed, disliking the upset of people moving around him with big bags. He liked a settled life. She had asked Patrick and Danny to come up when they were done, help her down with her things.
Patrick nodded. ‘Sergeant Fine can’t promise police cover, Alec’s handed over all the evidence we’ve got on Kinnear and Rupert, but until things are sorted he doesn’t feel he can have anything much to do with Fallowfields. So, we’re off home.’
‘If your mother agrees, you could come and stay for a while,’ Harry offered. ‘It is the holidays after all. No school to worry about.’
Danny looked eagerly at Harry, wondering if he meant it.
‘I could use the company,’ Patrick said. ‘If your mum and dad say its OK.’
Danny didn’t think they’d have any right to object, not really. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’d like that.’
He finished off his tea and stood up. ‘Better go and help Naomi,’ he said. ‘Thanks a lot for breakfast and, you know, everything else.’
Harry nodded. ‘You’re welcome,’ he said.
‘I like this place,’ Danny said as he and Patrick wandered into the hall.
‘Yeah. I could live here, I think.’
‘It’s a bit out of the way for a townee.’
‘I’m not much of a townee,’ Patrick said. ‘We’re right on the edge of town anyway. Where I live you can get down on to the canal and walk right out into the country and the sea’s only five minutes the other way. That’s the only thing living here. I’d miss the sea. My mum lives near the sea too. In Florida. When I visit my room looks right out on to the ocean.’
‘You get on OK with your mum?’
Patrick nodded. ‘When mum and dad got divorced I went to live with her. She met my stepdad when she was out there on business. He’s OK, got two sons of his own, but I didn’t fit in there and I missed my dad and, I don’t know, I came home for a trial, just to see how it worked out and I decided to stay. Florida’s nice and my mum’s family are nice, but it never felt like home.’