Хилари Боннер - A Deep Deceit

‘So, these letters and the rest of it, do you know who was responsible?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, who was it?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I replied and in a way it didn’t. Carl was not responsible, which was all that mattered.

‘Whoever did so has almost certainly committed an offence and could be prosecuted for harassment,’ continued DC Carter in a flat monotone.

I knew that and I didn’t want it to happen. There would be another trial. I would have to give evidence. I was afraid of Will, after all that he had said and done, but I told myself that he was no longer a threat and that reporting him to the police could make him more of a danger rather than less.

‘More importantly, maybe Carl will go after him,’ DS Carter went on.

It seemed extraordinary to hear Carl described in these terms. In spite of everything it just wasn’t the way I saw him. ‘Carl doesn’t even know who did it.’

‘Indeed, and it must be driving him mad not knowing, mustn’t it. Not knowing who destroyed his life. Perhaps he is trying to find out right now and what will he do when he does, I wonder?’ Carter’s words were ominous.

I was startled. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The man you call your husband is a kidnapper, wanted in America on a manslaughter charge, Mrs Peters. What the hell do you think I mean?’

I just stared at him. I knew all of that was true, but I still just could not relate any of it to the gentle man I had shared my life with, the man who had rescued me from another kind of hell. I had lived with violence. I knew it inside out. Carl didn’t fit the bill and yet his record did. I gave in to the pressure. ‘Will Jones,’ I said. ‘He runs the Logan Gallery in St Ives.’

Carter then questioned me for a few minutes about why Will had made the threats, what they had said, what they meant and how many there had been. Some of it was old ground, some of it wasn’t. I told him everything I could.

Eventually the detective constable nodded in a vaguely approving way. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere at last. I’ll send a team round straight away, as much for the sad bastard’s own safety as anything else.’

Again the chilling inference.

‘Right, now what to do about you,’ said Carter, thumping the table. ‘It’s back to St Ives, I reckon.’

I nodded. ‘Yes, I’ll go home, I’ll get the train...’

Maybe Carl would try to contact me. After what Carter had said I didn’t know whether I hoped he would or not. My emotions were so mixed now.

‘You’re joking,’ said Carter. ‘He could be waiting for you. I’ll drive you over. He’s not there yet, we know that much. Uniform are already watching the place. Just give me one moment.’

He left me alone in his office for no more than a couple of minutes before returning with a uniformed woman constable whom he introduced as WPC Carol Braintree. ‘She’s coming with us,’ he said. By the book, I assumed. I felt as if I was getting to know DC Carter,

As he led the way through the station towards the front reception I became very aware that all around was the bustle of a major manhunt. The terrible reality of it was only just beginning to hit me. Carter briefly opened a door of a room where a number of police officers were manning phones, studying wall charts and checking information on computers.

‘Taking Mrs Peters back, boss,’ he shouted to an officer wearing a uniform that even to my inexperienced eye indicated a very senior rank.

There was a brief exchange concerning whether or not Rose Cottage had yet been searched.

‘He can’t be there, boss, but we’ll check the place out now just to make sure,’ said Carter.

I heard mention of roadblocks and railway checks. I tried to focus on the wall chart at the far end of the room. I wasn’t given long enough.

‘Right, c’mon then,’ said Carter, propelling me along. WPC Braintree kept very close to me as if she suspected that at any moment I might try to join Carl on the run. I looked back over my shoulder at the bustling room. It seemed extraordinary that Carl was the cause of all that activity.

Carter smiled grimly. ‘We’re closing off Cornwall,’ he said. ‘He won’t get far, your Carl. It’s one of the advantages of being stuck on the end of England. One road and one railway line, and that’s about your lot. We can shut the county down just like that...’ He snapped his fingers. I couldn’t believe any of it was happening.

In the car – Carter’s own private vehicle, I thought – the radio came on as he switched on the ignition. Within minutes there was a news bulletin. ‘A man has escaped from police custody in Penzance’ I heard. There followed a brief description of Carl and what he had been charged with, and then the words which perhaps hit me harder than anything at all. ‘Police advise that this man is dangerous and on no account should be approached. If you see anyone answering to his description contact any police station...’

Rob Partridge, in jeans and sweater, was leaning against the wall at the end of Rose Lane trying desperately to look inconspicuous. Difficult when you have bright-orange hair. And not only did the hair not help, but he was so well known in St Ives that half the town would have recognised him at once, with or without his uniform, and assumed from his behaviour that he was on some kind of watching brief. Including Carl, I reflected wryly.

We had to drive past at first because Carter could not find a parking space. Rob waved in a resigned sort of way. Eventually the detective managed to park, several hundred yards up the hill. He and WPC Braintree walked on either side of me as we made our way back down to the alleyway.

‘No sign of him, then?’ remarked Carter, rather unnecessarily, I thought.

Surely not even Rob Partridge would have remained standing around like a spare one if he had spotted the man who appeared suddenly to have become the most wanted criminal in England – well, the west of England, anyway.

Rob shook his head.

‘Right,’ said Carter. ‘Time to search the place.’

Rob spread his hands in front of him. ‘He’s not in there, Ray. There’s only one way in, and I’ve been here ever since I got the alert. He couldn’t have arrived before me...’

I knew, of course, that you could get in over Mrs Jenkins’s wall at the back, but I couldn’t be bothered to mention it. In any case, Carl would still have had to go through Mrs Jenkins’s front gate and make his way along the path between the two houses to get into her back garden, which was, apart from the climbable wall into our place, completely surrounded by other tall buildings.

Carter grunted. ‘I’m doing this one by the book, Rob,’ he said. ‘Six months I’ve got to go. Six flaming months. If anything goes wrong with this can of worms I’m not going to be carrying it.’

I thought I knew what he meant. Rob grinned amiably. WPC Braintree remained silent. She didn’t say a lot. For a fleeting moment I thought I half caught her rolling her eyes to heaven. If she had done so neither Carter nor Partridge spotted it.

‘Stay watching, Rob,’ said Carter. The orange-haired policeman shrugged indifferently. He had always seemed like the kind of man who would prefer to be told what to do rather than have to make decisions.

I used my key to unlock the front door and led the way inside the cottage. If I had any doubts at all that Carl might have sneaked his way past the police guard outside – however dubious it might be – I knew straight away that it hadn’t happened. He wasn’t there. He hadn’t been there. Difficult to explain how I was so sure, but this was my house and he was my man. I knew.

Carter didn’t think Carl was there either, I suspected, but he went through the motions. By the book, like he said.