boy you knew as Simon Quinn.’
Page seemed to go away from the phone for a moment, or to put his hand over the mouthpiece. But it could just have been a fade in the signal on Cooper’s mobile.
‘Simon?’ Page said when he came back on the line. ‘You want to know about Simon? Well, what can 1 tell you? We hung around together a bit as teenagers.’
‘He seems rather quiet and intense. And secretive.’
‘Secretive?’
‘He’s been trying to keep quiet about the fact that Mansell Quinn is his father/ said Cooper.
‘I think we’d all do that, in the circumstances. It’s not something I’d want everyone to know about - that my father was a murderer.’
‘It would give you a lot of street cred in some circles, Alistair. If you lived on the Devonshire Estate in Edendale, it would get you elected king.’
‘Not Simon. That’s not the sort of street cred he’d be interested in,’ said Page. ‘Actually, as a teenager he was unpredictable, and he had a bit of a temper. You could never be sure what he would do if you aggravated him. I suppose he got that from his father.’
‘Possibly.’
‘Alcohol was a problem for him too, I remember. A few drinks, and he could flare up in a moment. And we drank quite a bit as teenagers. We had no problem getting booze when we were fifteen or sixteen.’
‘Bunking off school at lunchtime?’
‘Yes, now and then.’
Cooper tried to picture Alistair Page in his little cottage. He didn’t know whether Page was in a relationship, or even if he had children somewhere. He’d never mentioned anything about himself, except that he’d lived near the Quinns when he was a youngster.
417
I
‘Have you seen much of Simon recently, Alistair?’
‘No. I didn’t keep in touch with him very much after we left school, because I never really felt comfortable in his company. To be honest, I started to find him a bit scary.’
‘Why?’
Page was silent for a moment. Cooper could hear music playing in the background. It was a CD from Alistair’s collec j|
tion: ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’. Very appropriate.
‘Ben,’ said Page, ‘if you want to know more about Simon Quinn, I think you’d better come to the house. Can you make it tonight?’
‘Yes, I think so. But not too early.’
‘That’s OK. At the moment, I’m doing a final security check at the cavern about nine o’clock each night, just before it goes dark. Come to my house after that.’
Dawn Cottrill hovered over Simon and Andrea Lowe like a mother. She had them both sitting alongside each other on the sofa in her lounge, looking out of a big picture window into the conservatory. Diane Fry and Gavin Murfin were ushered into armchairs opposite them, conscious of the light behind them and the sun on their backs of their necks.
Fry was struck again by the similarity between the brother and sister. They were both dark-haired, as Rebecca had been, though Simon was slightly lighter in colouring and a few inches taller. He hardly looked the dangerous type. Yet even before Fry spoke to him, she could see him undergoing those ominous dark flushes, as if waves of anger were surging through his veins.
‘How are you feeling now, sir?’ she said.
‘I’m fine. I had a headache for a couple of days, a few bruises, that’s all.’
Andrea patted his arm gently. ‘I don’t suppose you’re any nearer catching him?’ she said to Fry.
418
‘The person who attacked your brother? No. We think he used an edging stone from one of the graves in the churchyard, but we have no other leads, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh well, you’ll just have to write it off as an attempted mugging, I suppose,’ said Simon, flushing a deep red. ‘Some character spotted me in the pub and thought I looked worth robbing. It’s the obvious conclusion for our wonderful police force.’
‘Simon, don’t get stressed,’ said Andrea. ‘It won’t do any good.’
Fry waited calmly, observing how Simon reacted to his sister. Andrea was obviously the person he listened to. The closeness between them was palpable.
T’ve been talking to your grandmother, Mrs Quinn,’ said Fry, now addressing Simon without a pretence of including Andrea.
Neither of them reacted, but Dawn fussed along the back of the sofa behind them, then stopped and stared at Fry, as if she had just noticed something wrong with her.
The gather your father became concerned about whether you were his real son.’
‘Sorry?’ said Simon.
‘He seems to have had doubts about whether you were his son. Genetically speaking.’
‘Never mind “genetically speaking” - I know what you mean,’ said Simon, his face darkening again.
‘And do you have any idea why your father should have had doubts about your paternity?’
