|
It was a busy night for the ambulance crew. Again they
were diverted from taking their charges to hospital and instead administered
first aid to Kerry Macklin. She was badly bruised where Catchpole had hit her
in the chest and face, but otherwise unhurt. It was not necessary for her to be
taken to hospital, and Thompson agreed to see her safely home. Neither would he
allow Catchpole to be taken to hospital. He was handcuffed and taken to the
police patrol car where he was whisked off to the police station. The police
doctor could look at him there. The broken arm could be set later.
Let the man suffer for a while.
Keene was in no mood
to argue with Thompson. For some reason Keene respected his judgement and there
could be no sympathy for Catchpole, suffering as he was. He had brought it on
himself.
Thompson’s car was fetched to the farmhouse. It had
started all right this time. They drove silently and sombrely to the Robertson
house. Danny Robertson sat in the
living room waiting for his father to arrive.
'What about Joanna
Robertson?' Keene asked Thompson.
'She's long gone.
Danny, do you know where your mother went?'
Danny Robertson shook his head.
They waited a further
five minutes, until John Robertson arrived. Thompson informed him of everything
that had happened, and that a full-scale search was under way for his wife.
Then they took Kerry Macklin home to her anxious parents, promising a full
explanation in the morning, and finally back to the police station, where they
brought Hargreaves up to date with the evening's developments.
'I've sent a WPC out
to sit with Sheila Catchpole for a while, Thompson,' Hargreaves said. 'She's in
a bad way.'
'She probably deserves
to be, Ken. She must have known what he was up to all this time.'
'Maybe. Wilson wants a
full report from you both in the morning. He was coming over tonight but I
persuaded him not to. Oh, and your wife rang. 'Where the hell is he?' she
said.'
Thompson smiled. He
was a good hour late for dinner. He opened the door.
'Ken?'
'Mike?'
'I’ve remembered.'
'Remembered?'
'About Sharringford.
About Joanna Robertson. And the rest.' Hargreaves’ jaw dropped.
‘You have some
explaining to do.'
The following morning at nine thirty Wilson caught up
with Thompson in the cafe on the front at Sheringham.
'I expected to find
you at the station, Mike.'
'No, you didn't
really.'
Wilson sighed.
'Are you going to put
me out of my misery, then?'
'You want to know all
the loose ends? The bits Gerry Keene can't fill in for you?'
'That's about it.'
'All right. Joanna
Robertson had two brothers and a sister. The older brother, Donald Clitheroe,
murdered the baby brother when he was just nine months old. The sister is the
mother of Clitheroe's first victim, Polly. Joanna and Clitheroe were very
close, and I mean very close. There is something inherently evil about the pair
of them. She's a devil-worshipper and he's a psychopath. A pretty nice pair,
I'd say. She roped in Mark Hegan to help get Clitheroe out of jail. She told
Catchpole that Kim was Clitheroe's daughter. They were going to smuggle
Clitheroe out of the country. I don't know where. That bit went wrong. Bellamy
followed him by mistake and killed and mutilated him, mistaking him for Kerry
Macklin's father, whom he thought had thrown him out and was committing incest
with Kerry. It wasn't Kieron Macklin, but Charles Catchpole, as we now know.
Catchpole stormed back from London, locked up Kim while he decided what to do
with her. And while he was back he decided to visit Kerry, with whom he had
been having an affair for a few months. He thought that she might tell Kim that
her old man was having sex with her. He threw Bellamy out of the house, put the
frighteners on Kerry, then made his mind up to murder Clitheroe and Kim, using
knowledge of Clitheroe's murder of Polly Bartram thirteen years earlier. His
motive was simply rage, unreasoning fury that another man was Kim's father. He
followed Bellamy to Quarles and together they got rid of Clitheroe in the tomb.
Bellamy could never have done it by himself, and did not know that Catchpole
was the one who had found him in bed with Kerry. You have to remember that
Bellamy was high on booze and drugs at the time. When Kerry went to the
Catchpole house last night, she wasn't going to say how sorry she was that Kim
was dead, she was going to tell Sheila Catchpole about her husband having sex
with her. Unfortunately for her, Sheila already knew, had known right from the
start that Charles was something of a pervert. She was shit-scared of Catchpole
herself. It took ages to get her to tell me where he had taken Kerry. I don't
know if he thought he could murder Kerry and then disappear somewhere....I
guess he wasn't thinking rationally, psychos don't, do they, at times of
crisis. The rest you know.'
'There is the small
matter of....travelling to London, interviewing people.....taking the law into
your own hands.....'
Thompson ignored him.
'Did you find Karen's
things at the Catchpole house?'
'Yes. In the garage.
And we found Clitheroe's things at the timber yard where Bellamy works.'
'Have they found
Joanna Robertson yet?'
'Not when I left the
station. Do you think they will?'
'I don't know. It was
a pretty stupid thing to do, leaving Hegan in charge of her. But I had no
choice. I had to get to the Catchpoles' house.'
'She said she was
leaving? We found suitcases, passports, that sort of thing.....'
'Yes, she was hoping
to keep me talking for a while until she and Hegan could make good their
escape. They didn't know that Kerry had gone to see Catchpole, and that it was
she I was going after, not them. It might have worked.'
'Well, there's no sign
of her so far.'
'You could get some
men to drag the stream beyond the lane.'
'Was she injured?'
Thompson shook his head.
'No. Just a feeling I
have. A gut feeling.'
Wilson took a telephone from his inside pocket and
quickly gave orders for the stream behind the Robertson house to be searched.
'Well, I hope this
business means you've forgotten all this nonsense about leaving the force,
Thompson.....'
'No, I haven't. I
meant it, and you know very well that I meant it.'
'What will you
do? What will you live on?'
The pain that had been troubling Thompson on and off for
the last few days twisted momentarily inside his gut again. He knew what it
was, and so did Doctor Parkinson.
'That won't be a
problem.'
'You can't sit around
doing nothing, Thompson.....'
'I might start
writing. I might write a book about the Sharringford incident. Scared the
living daylights out of me.....I wonder what that phrase means? What are the
living daylights? That might make a decent title, I
suppose.....'Daylights'.....'
Wilson shook his head.
He would never get to the bottom of this man, he thought.
'You did a good job on
the Kim Catchpole murder.'
'Just routine
enquiries and a bit of leg work. And the fact that two people saw who they
thought was Kieron Macklin come home when he was supposed to be in London. If
it wasn't him, and I was certain it wasn't, it had to be Catchpole. They're all
distantly related, you know. I've drawn you a family tree. It might help when
you prepare the case for the prosecution. Would you like some more coffee?'
He took a piece of
paper from his inside pocket and passed it to Wilson, who studied it briefly.
There was plenty of time for an in-depth analysis later.
'Yes, I wouldn't mind,
it's not half decent.'
Thompson went to the counter. A minute later he was back
with two cups of coffee and two jam doughnuts.
'I shouldn't.....'
Wilson said, but he was interrupted by his 'phone.
'Wilson,' he barked.
'Yes? That quick? All right. Get Gerry Keene out to take a look. Yes, keep me
informed.'
He put the 'phone away
and turned to Thompson.
'You were right. She
was face down in the stream, a hundred yards from the back of the house.'
'That's one less to
worry about, then,' Thompson said, lifting the coffee to his lips.
'Are you going to tell
me about Sharringford?'
'Give me a couple of
days. I’ve remembered most of it. Richard Farmer was investigating the people
who were trapped in the village. He was bumped off. His wife thought she'd
taken care of everybody, but somehow Joanna Robertson got overlooked. Alison
Farmer died in the fire. Joanna Robertson thought that Vanessa Lake had
something on her and got Hegan to look for it.
That's about it, really.'
'There are an awful
lot of questions left unanswered, Thompson.'
'Wait for the book to
come out,' Thompson said with a smile. He drained his cup and walked to the
door.
'I have to go. Shirley
and the kids are walking round the market. I have to meet them.'
'You knew I'd come
looking for you.'
'Of course. I owed you
some explanations.'
'And you won't change
your mind?'
'No, I won't.'
'In that case, I'll
see if I can persuade Gerry Keene to transfer up from the Met. He's a good
copper.'
'That's probably a
good idea.'
'Look after yourself.'
'Don't worry about me.
I'll be around if you need me.'
Wilson nodded. Thompson shut the door behind him and
walked slowly along the promenade. The pain in his gut was knifing him again.
It was just something else that had to be faced, a cancer in the gut. Parkinson
had already told him that it had probably gone too far for treatment, but in
the same consultation had said that something had to be done about it.
What that something
was, Thompson had no idea.
So far, he had concealed
it from Shirley and the children.
With time on his
hands, that was going to be rather difficult.
It would not do to be
too idle.
But he was not going
back into the police force.
The wind was getting up. He could see Shirley and the
children walking towards him down the promenade. There were hardly any other
people about. The town was busy, as always, but the promenade......only mad
dogs and policemen and their families went there in the winter.
'All sorted?' Shirley
asked, slipping her hand into his.
'All sorted.'
'Where to now, then?'
'I suppose we should
think Mark’s birthday present,' he said.
'Let's surprise him!'
And what was his surprise to them all going to be, he
wondered? Wilson emerged from the cafe, doing up the buttons on his sheepskin
overcoat. He peered through his glasses, recognising them, and smiled, waved,
then walked up the long slope past the Victorian toilets with the stained glass
windows, to his car.
| 
