police intelligence and surveillance crew. They’ll arrive in plain clothes, and monitor and trace all calls to the station. (They’ll also be surveilling the surrounding area, in case Pete Black shows up in person. But Luther doesn’t feel the need to share this detail.)
The meeting is concluded cordially enough. Luther and Howie button their coats. Then Luther pauses in the doorway. ‘One more thing,’ he says.
‘Ask away,’ says Hillman.
But Luther is speaking to Maggie. ‘There’s a lot of journalists in the world,’ he says. ‘Why did he come to you?’
‘None taken,’ she says. ‘Obviously, he listens to the show. When you’re in the public eye, people imagine they’ve got a relationship with you. So, yeah. He trusts me.’
‘But he was pretty specific.’ Luther checks his notes and recites: ‘That thing you did. Adrian York.’
‘Ah,’ she grins. ‘1995. My annus mirabilis. My one and only ever report for Newsnight. Passion piece. Got nommed.’
‘Nommed?’
‘Nominated. The Margaret Wakely Award for Contribution to Awareness of Women’s Issues in Television Journalism.’
‘You win?’
The grin widens. ‘Always the bridesmaid.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Luther says. ‘I don’t mean to be rude. But the name — Adrian York. It doesn’t ring a bell.’
‘That was kind of the point,’ she says. ‘It was an outrageous case, really. Still makes me angry to think about it.’
Luther and Howie take their seats and let Maggie tell it the way she wants to.
‘Basically,’ she says, ‘decent working-class woman makes a bad marriage. Chrissie York. She’s got one child, Adrian. The marriage breaks down. The husband’s got an Australian passport. Chrissie begins to worry he plans to kidnap the child, take him back to the old country.’
‘It happens,’ Luther says.
‘Too right it happens. Meanwhile, the son makes certain allegations about his father. Drug use, prostitutes and so on. The mother reports the allegations. Some court-appointed psychologist decides she’s coached Adrian to lie in order to discredit the father. She’s therefore causing him what they call “emotional harm”, which is a meaningless catch-all phrase if ever you heard one. And when Adrian actually does go missing, police are slow to respond because they assume the mother’s loony tunes and the father’s done it for the kid’s own good. So the father’s their prime and only suspect, if suspect’s the right word.
‘Eventually, and this is like eighteen months later, they track the father down to some shithole in Sydney. He denies all knowledge of snatching his son, wants nothing to do with him. Denies the kid is even his. But by then the case is cold and the story’s old. Never found any traction with the media. Or the police. No offence.’
‘None taken. Do we know where the father is now?’
‘No idea.’
‘But he definitely wasn’t Pete Black?’
‘He was Aussie. Pete Black sounds pure London to me.’
‘Me too. What happened to the mother?’
‘Last I heard, she was in hospital. Overdose. But that’s a long time ago.’
Luther shakes his head.
Howie mouths the word: Blimey.
‘Chrissie York never saw her son again,’ says Maggie Reilly, with more than a hint of the old anger; the feral ghost of the news journalist she used to be, wishes she still was. ‘She never had any idea what happened to him. Well, she had lots of ideas, obviously. But no proof. And nobody seemed to care. It was an ugly little story. All there was to show was this woman who’d tried her best, who’d been let down by everyone — because she married badly, because she was working class, because she sounded like a hysterical woman. And because there were sexier stories around. Easier stories.’
‘And this is what your piece was about? The piece Pete Black mentioned?’
‘Yeah. It was the best piece I ever did.’
‘Can I see it?’
She gives him a brittle grin. ‘It’s on my website. Click on Archive.’
He nods that he will. Then he says, ‘Anyone ever call you about it? Show undue interest? Write letters? Whatever?’
‘Never. Remember, you’re talking about a long-ago abduction that nobody remembers.’
‘Except Pete Black from Woking.’
‘Apparently.’
‘And he’s never been in contact before?’
Maggie gets her fair share of funny phone calls. Do a quick google and there she is: her dimpled, smiling face photoshopped onto some younger, bustier and definitely more naked woman’s body.
‘I’ve had my issues,’ she says. ‘Restraining orders and all the rest of it. It comes with the territory.’
‘Do you have a list of names?’
‘No, but my agent does.’
‘And they’ll be happy to pass it on?’
‘More than.’
She gives her agent’s details. Howie writes them down.
Then Maggie says, ‘Actually, there was one person who kept showing an interest.’
‘Who?’
‘Police officer in Bristol. Pat Maxwell. A few months before Adrian York, there’d been an attempted abduction. Just a few miles away. A little boy called Thomas Kintry.’
‘She thought they were linked?’
‘She seemed pretty positive. Apparently no one else did.’
‘When’s the last time you spoke to Pat Maxwell?’
‘Gosh, this is years back. She’d be retired now, I expect. Assuming she’s even still around.’
Luther and Howie walk silently through the office, back to the lift. The doors open. They step inside.
Howie presses the button for ground.
The doors close.
She says, ‘So what do you think?’
‘About what?’
‘Pete Black?’
‘Either he’s a stalker,’ Luther says, ‘some freak who’s genuinely been a fan of this woman for fifteen-odd years. In which case, you’d expect some kind of prior communication.’
‘Or?’
‘Or he’s the man who kidnapped and killed Adrian York. And maybe tried to abduct that other little boy.’
‘Kintry. So why does he make this call?’
‘Maybe because Maggie was the only one who ever paid attention to what he’d done. But I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right. Does it feel right to you?’
‘No.’
‘Good. Because it’s not right, is it? It’s not right.’
‘You think he’s serious about giving back the baby?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t get him. I can’t see him.’
The doors open.
They step out of the elevator, pass across the bright lobby, shove through the news crews and pass on, into the rainy night.
Then Luther stops.
Commuters, shoppers and tourists flow round him like water surging round a boulder.
‘Adrian York,’ he says. ‘That’s an abduction that nobody even knew was an abduction. Right?’
Howie nods, knowing not to interrupt.
