Кара Хантер - No Way Out

`'Gain! 'Gain!' shouts Zachary, banging his hands on Philip's head. `Want it 'gain!'

Philip swings him down on to the table and grins at Michael. `Sorry `“ did we disturb you? Just got rather into the nautical spirit, if you see what I mean.'

Sam looks up from the sink and smiles. `It was fabulous `“ I can't think why we don't do it more often. It's only ten minutes' walk.'

Michael eyes his brother. His T-shirt is dripping wet.

`Did you fall in?'

Philip makes a rueful face. `Well, you know what they say `“ you're not doing punting right unless you get soaked.'

`Uncle Philip was really good,' says Matty. `We went faster than anyone. And there was a big fat man who fell in and made the most huge splash, and someone else got his pole stuck in the water.'

Michael nods. `Sounds like you all `“'

But Matty hasn't finished. `And then there was the fox . That was awesome. '

Michael frowns. `There must be a better word than that, Matty.'

`Actually,' says Philip, `it was pretty awesome. In the literal sense, I mean. We'd just turned round up past the Vicky Arms and were on the way back and suddenly there was this drowned fox in the water. It must have literally run into the river only a minute or two before.'

`It was wicked ,' breathes Matty, his eyes wide and round. `It was like a wizard had turned it into stone.'

Sam turns, wiping her hands on a tea towel. `I've never seen anything like it. It was actually quite spooky, the way it was hanging there. Like the river had turned to ice.'

Michael frowns. `As far as I was aware, foxes can swim.'

Philip shrugs, then swings the squealing Zachary back on to his shoulders. `Well, all I know,' he says, `is that this one definitely couldn't.'

In the weeks that follow, Michael thinks a lot about that fox. Did it really just plunge straight into the water? Was it running after something or away from something? He even dreams about it once. He was in the punt with Philip; it was cold, the trees hanging close, and wisps of mist coming off the water. Everything wishy-washy in black and grey. Except the fox. That was burning with colour. And so close to the boat he could reach out and touch it. He could see the whiskers, the coarseness of the fur, the air bubbles caught about its mouth, and the eyes. Wide open and staring into death.

There are four people in the reception area and Somer doesn't need telling which one is Philip Esmond. An old man with a greyhound, a young black guy in a hoodie playing a game on his phone, his leg jiggling up and down, a female journalist she recognizes from the Oxford Mail , and a man in his forties, pacing. At a distance, the resemblance to Giles Saumarez is striking. The same stature, the same tan, the same physical confidence. But Philip Esmond's face is lined with anxiety. When he turns and sees her, he comes forward at once.

`DC Somer? I'm Philip Esmond. I came straight here.'

Somer glances around. `Look, shall we go for a coffee or something? It might be easier.'

`What about Michael? Have you found him?'

She shakes her head. `No. I'm afraid we haven't.' She can see the journalist eyeing them with interest, and she drops her voice. `Seriously, I think it would be better to talk about this somewhere else.'

He stares at her a moment, nonplussed, then, `Sure. OK. If you think that's best.'

The cafe is only a few yards away up towards Carfax and it's all but empty. They're on the point of closing. Somer buys the coffees, waving away Esmond's offer to pay, and they take a table in the window, looking up towards Christ Church cathedral, floodlit against the sallow grey sky. There's rain in the air.

`So,' says Esmond, sitting forward in his chair, his face anxious. `What can you tell me?'

She sighs. `Very little, I'm afraid. We've made every possible effort to find your brother but we're getting absolutely nowhere. Is there anything you can think of `“ anything that's occurred to you since we last spoke `“ anything at all that could help us?'

He shakes his head. `I've been racking my brains, but really, there's nothing. We weren't exactly close `“ I mean, I loved him `“ he was my kid brother `“ but there's been a lot of water under the bridge one way or another.'

The cafe door opens and a mother struggles in with a baby in a pushchair and a little boy holding tight to her coat, one finger in his mouth. The children are younger than Michael Esmond's, but not by much. Philip shuts his eyes briefly then turns back to face Somer.

`What can I do? I must be able to do something .'

`Perhaps you could talk to your mother? We've tried but I'm sure it would be better coming from someone she knows.'

Philip nods. `Yes. I'm sure you're right. First thing tomorrow, I'll go down there.' He picks up his spoon and starts fiddling with it. `I need to go anyway. Not just to see her. I have to talk to her about the funerals. Though I doubt she'll be in any state to come.'

Somer nods. That's pretty much what Ev said.

`I suppose I'll have to see the Giffords as well.'

`You don't get on?'

He lets the spoon fall with a clatter. `Oh, that's not really it. I hardly know them, to be honest. But Mike always found them a bit overbearing. Well, him , anyway. I think he got on OK with Laura.' He glances up and sees her face. `Don't worry. I'm not about to make things any worse than they already are. For them or for me.'

When I get home, the house seems doubly empty. It shouldn't make a difference, but it does: knowing Alex has been here so recently, but isn't here now. I can even smell her perfume. Or perhaps that's just my mind playing tricks on me. Wishful thinking.

There's half a pizza in the freezer and half a bottle of red in the fridge, so that's my evening taken care of. I stick the pizza in the microwave and go round closing the curtains. I'm uncomfortably aware that I'm turning into my own father. He drove us mad in the winter `“ every morning, like clockwork, going from room to room with a cloth, wiping the windows for condensation. Though I tell myself I'm not quite that programmed. Not yet.

In the sitting room, I stop for a moment, aware that something's out of place. I haven't been in this room for a few days `“ not since Somer was here. And that must be what it is. When she was clearing up she must have moved things about. Not much, but enough for me to notice. And now it's obvious: the photographs on the mantelpiece are in a different order. I have a sudden mental image of her standing where I am now, looking at the pictures, seeing the private part of my life for the first time. Our wedding: Alex in a long tight-fitting ivory satin gown that literally took my breath away when I turned to see her at the end of the aisle. Our honeymoon in Sicily: tanned, happy, sharing a bottle of champagne against the sunset at Agrigento. And Jake. Of course, Jake. As a baby; on his first day at school; on the beach, with a sandcastle it took him all day to build. He'd be twelve now. At senior school. He wouldn't be building sandcastles any more. He'd be starting to fret about girls.

We have one of those software programs at CID `“ the ones they use to age photos of missing children. Alex asked me, once, to put a picture of Jake through it, but I said I couldn't `“ that they log each use and in any case it wouldn't be ethical. What I didn't tell her was that I'd already done it. One night, after everyone else had gone home. It was the picture I took two weeks before he died. So close up you can see the fine down on his upper lip. A moment before he'd been frowning and the camera has captured the ghost of it: the shadow of a furrow between his brows, his dark eyes still thoughtful. I've wondered, since, if he was already planning it `“ if he knew by then what he was going to do. The doctors told us it was unlikely `“ that children who take their own lives so young, rarely think about it so far in advance. Even so, the picture still gives me pain. Perhaps that's why I chose that one to put through the software. And it was eerie, sitting there, in the darkened empty room, watching that precious face lengthening, the soft contours hardening. I saw him at fifteen, twenty, thirty-five. I saw how he would have looked when he became a man, when he made me a grandfather. I saw him at the age I am now. The real boy may be frozen in time, but in my mind he and I are growing old together, hand in hand.