Alec thanked him and went back to fill the others in about what he had said.

‘So, we still don’t know exactly how Kinnear found Rupert,’ Naomi said thoughtfully.

‘But once Elaine’s daughter had told him north and antiques he was halfway there. Not knowing Rupert’s real name must have been the biggest difficulty. Once he had that, he just had to look up north for an antiques dealer called Friedman. It’s not a common name and not a particularly common occupation.’

Alec nodded. Harry was right about that. Whatever else Kinnear was, he was persistent and determined and that made Alec feel that Pierce was right.

‘He hasn’t gone far,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I’ll bet on it. He’ll either dispose of his phone or leave it switched off so he can’t be traced, but he won’t have gone away.’

Marcus shifted restlessly in his seat. It had been decided that he should stay the night. He felt safer in company than he did about going back to the shop. ‘I hope you’re wrong, Alec. I truly do. I know it sounds cowardly, but I just want him gone.’

Alec was right when he said Kinnear would not have gone far. He was in fact much closer than they realized.

He had driven his car to within a mile of White Farm, parked in a small copse of trees he had used before when he had gone to the farm, and walked the rest of the way, cutting across the fields on the opposite side of the road to the direction taken by Derek Reid when he had abandoned his crashed car.

Once behind the farm he had watched and waited. He’d seen the boy come round the back of the house and go in through the front door, heard him calling out to his father and get no response.

Satisfied that only Danny was there, Kinnear pushed through the low hedge behind the barn. It was dusk by the time he cracked open the small door set into the larger wooden ones and entered the dark and musty space beyond. He stood for a while, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dimness, the only light fighting its way in through filthy windows set high up on the wall. He had a small torch on his key ring and he risked flashing it once just to get his bearings, decided he’d be best up on the platform he spied that formed a sort of mezzanine floor.

A ladder led him up on to the platform once intended for the storage of hay but now empty but for the junk they had no use for but could not bear to throw away. Empty feed sacks, rope and twine and boxes filled with general household junk. Bags whose logos declared they were destined for charity but which had gone uncollected or undelivered. A cardboard box filled with empty jars and, when he risked a second brief flash of his tiny light, topped with an abandoned recipe for damson jam.

Kinnear snorted. He couldn’t see Sharon Fielding making any sort of jam. She wasn’t the homemade jam type. She was the ‘grab it while it’s offered and the more the better’ type and no doubt Derek would find that out for himself now he’d lost the chance of his share of the cash.

Not that Kinnear had ever had the intention of sharing anything. It was his money. No one else was getting a look in. Agreed, Derek had been useful doing the research that had led him to Friedman’s real name. Derek’s search through the news reports had turned up a picture of a so-called witness, and guess who it had been? Kinnear had to admit that brain occasionally had its uses over brawn.

A small window at the end of the gable gave him a view on to a section of the yard and out on to the field beyond. Not quite what he wanted but a quick flash of the torch reinforced his guess that this was the best he could do.

Kinnear dumped his pack and his water. The gun weighed down his pocket and the spare clip offered some kind of balance on the other. He took out the clothing and bits of bedding packed up for the charities that never got them and he made himself a rough bed beneath the window, then settled down, knowing that no more could be achieved that night. The police would be all over Fallowfields. Kinnear was good at playing the waiting game. He was aware he had a reputation for impatience, for having a short fuse, but he could think of no one else he knew who would have kept it up as long as he had, this search for the bastard who’d done him out of his money and worse, who’d tried to make a fool out of him.

He had waited this long. He could afford to wait another day.

Thirty-Three

Kinnear’s phone was off and likely to remain so but DS Fine had been working his way through the list of numbers in Reid’s mobile. By rights he should have got on to this a while ago, he thought, but it had gone off to be printed and the SIM card backed up – a precaution against ham-fisted DSs like himself accidentally deleting the very information he needed to recover.

Now he had it back, and the prints had confirmed the identity of the owner as one Derek Reid, Fine was happy to be getting on with the task in hand, particularly as he had now been told that Mr Reid had just been picked up and taken into hospital, apparently in a pretty bad way. Fine wasn’t going to be able to talk to him until the medics said so and from the sound of things that wasn’t going to be soon. Fine was preparing for a very late night.

In fact Derek Reid’s phone was a little disappointing. Either Reid had very few friends or he had bought the mobile recently. I mean, Fine thought, who has the local takeaway on speed dial.

Wan’s Kitchen was one of only five entries. Kinnear of course, someone called Bee who was unavailable, a taxi company and Sharon.

That one caused Fine to pause. Danny had said Reid and Kinnear had been to the farm. It was too much to be a coincidence.

Fine pressed the button and called. Sharon Fielding picked up on the second ring. ‘Derek? Where the hell have you been. I’ve been waiting to hear from you since last night.’

‘Mrs Fielding. No, please don’t hang up, this is DS Fine. Derek’s been hurt.’

‘Hurt? Oh my God, what did that effing animal do to him?’

He guessed she must mean Kinnear. No one, Fine reflected, had much of an opinion of Sam Kinnear.

‘He was involved in a car accident, Mrs Fielding.’

‘A car accident?’

‘Yes. Now, Mrs Fielding, I’d like you to tell me where you are.’

‘Why?’

‘Two reasons. One, I’d like to take you to see Mr Reid. The other is that there’s reason to believe Sam Kinnear is on the move. He thinks Derek’s let him down. I suspect he may think you had something to do with it.’

Well, he reflected, what was a white lie between friends. It was the kind of lie that might reveal how much she knew about Kinnear, if nothing else.

It appeared she might know quite a lot because he had the address of the hotel within the next breath. That and an appeal for someone to come and get her. Now.

Fine told her he was on his way. At least, he thought, he’d be able to tell Danny that his mother wasn’t dead. Not totally dead, he amended, just dead from the neck up.

Sharon Fielding was in the lobby with her bag on the floor at her feet when he arrived. She looked scared, Fine thought. Scared and tired as though she’d not been sleeping. He found himself hoping this was the case. She had cost her young son too many sleepless nights and in Fine’s book that was stepping way beyond the line.

A female officer was waiting for them in the car. Fine asked her to drive and then seated Sharon in the back.

‘You’ve got your mobile on you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then phone Danny. Do it now. Do you have any idea what you’ve put that boy through?’

‘Danny?’ she sounded puzzled.

‘Danny. Your son.’

‘I know who he is.’

‘Really? He’s not so sure.’

‘I left him a letter. I left it on the kitchen table, a letter explaining where I’d gone and why. It’s Danny hasn’t tried to contact me.’

‘I don’t think he got your letter,’ Fine told her.