Echo

'Wicked,' said the boy admiringly.

'And if you'll pardon the liberty, Mike, I used your telephone to call my mother. It occurred to me she might be worried about what had happened to me.'

'And was she?'

Barry's pleasure was unmistakable. 'Yes,' he said. 'She's been worried out of her mind. It surprised me a little. She never shows any concern when I stay late at the office.'

Deacon wanted to warn him-be objective ... mother love is jealous ... as loneliness becomes a memory for you, it becomes a reality for her ... she's using you-but he suspected that much of Barry's renewed confidence stemmed from his conversation with his mother, and he held his tongue.

Terry, untrameled by tact or sensitivity, jumped in with both feet. 'Jesus, she's a two-faced bitch, isn't she? Doesn't lift a finger for you when you're in bother and then goes lovey-dovey on you when your mates help you out. I bet she's hopping mad Mike's offered you a bed. I hope you told her to bog off,' he finished severely.

'She's not that bad,' murmured Barry loyally.

'I don't suppose mine is, either,' said Terry, 'but you wouldn't know it from the way she's treated me. I like Mike's mum the best. She's a bit of an old dragon but at least she's straight.' He took himself off to the bathroom.

Deacon watched the little man toy unhappily with the laid cutlery on the table. 'Everything's black and white with him,' he said. 'He takes people at face value and assumes that what he sees is what he gets.'

And all too often it worked, he thought. Terry's conversation with his mother on the telephone had been a revelation. ('Hi, Mrs. D, Happy Christmas. Guess what? I'm going to stay with Mike for a while. I knew you'd be pleased. Yeah, of course we'II come and see you. How about next weekend? Sure thing. We'll have a New Year's Eve party.' And his mother to him afterwards: 'For once in your life, Michael, you've made a decision I agree with, but I shall be very angry if you're making promises that you can't keep. That child deserves better than to be tossed aside when something more attractive comes along.')

'Do you think he's right about my mother?' asked Barry. It was years since she had spoken to him with such warmth, and he longed for Deacon to hand him a straw of comfort.

But Deacon could only think of the little man's ambivalence in the police station when he had expressed fear and hatred of the woman in one breath, then wept for her in the next. Indeed, Harrison had been so concerned by Barry's peculiarity on the subject that he had sent a patrol car to check that Mrs. Grover was still alive.

'I don't know,' he said honestly, clapping a friendly hand on Barry's shoulder, 'but natural law determines that offspring must make their own way in life, so I'd keep your mother dangling if I were you. Apart from anything else, if she's this keen to see you after one night away she'll be eating out of your hand if you make her wait a week.'

'I've nowhere else to go.'

'You can stay here till we sort something out.'

Barry turned away towards the oven, releasing himself from Deacon's comforting hold. 'You make it sound so simple,' he said rather wretchedly, opening the door and peering at the turkey.

'It is,' said Deacon cheerfully. 'Goddammit, if I can put up with Terry, I'm sure I can put up with you.'

But Barry didn't want to be 'put up with,' he wanted to be loved.

'Frankly, we thought it more likely we were dealing with a kidnap,' said Superintendent Fortune. 'Neither de Vriess's wife nor his business colleagues report money problems, there's no history of depression, and while he has a fairly murky reputation with the ladies, the general view is that he hasn't strayed since his ex-wife returned to him in May. You can't put much reliance on her word, of course-her husband was hardly likely to keep her up-to-date with his affairs-but she's adamant that he's had no contact with Amanda Powell in the last seven months.'

'Until Saturday,' said Harrison. 'Mind you, his wife's probably right about the seven-month abstinence. It's not that long if he was trying to make a go of it with his wife.'

'So why break out on Saturday?'

Harrison shook his head. 'I don't know, unless Michael Deacon triggered some kind of panic when he pushed his way in there on Thursday night.'

'It's the time frame that worries me,' said Harrison's DCI. 'According to Kent, the Rolls-Royce was first spotted in the field at lunchtime yesterday but the farmer did nothing about it because he thought it was a courting couple. He only reported it after he saw it still there as it was getting dark and checked to find the doors unlocked and the car empty. But Mrs. Powell wasn't informed of the full extent of Barry Graver's Peeping Tom act until approximately five o'clock, therefore the two incidents can't be connected. Put simply, Nigel vanished from his car several hours before there was any evidence that he needed to.'

'Assuming the two of them conspired to murder her husband in nineteen ninety?'

'Precisely. And there's no evidence that they did.'

Fortune pondered for a moment. 'To be honest, gentlemen, I'm not sure where we go from here. Before DS Harrison's phone call I had a man who'd been missing for two days and an abandoned Rolls-Royce in a Kent field. Now, I have him in the company of a former mistress thirty-six hours ago and the only motive for him to do a bunk or for her to get rid of him-which is always a possibility, I suppose-is ruled out because the car was abandoned too soon. I can't possibly justify using precious resources on a wild-goose chase. On the pooled evidence, we can't even point to a crime having been committed.'

'There's still Michael Deacon,' said Harrison.

'Yes,' said his DCI. 'There's also Amanda Powell's house. I think our resources will stretch to lawful entry in order to lay official concerns to rest vis-a-vis Mr. de Vriess's welfare, bearing in mind that was the last place he was seen alive.'

Lawrence arrived with presents and had to be carried up three flights of stairs when he collapsed in breathless heaps on the doorstep. 'Dear, dear, dear,' he said, gripping Deacon's hand tightly as he lowered himself onto the sofa, 'I'm not the man I used to be. I couldn't have managed on my own.'

'That's what I told Mike,' said Terry, omitting his own refusal to be the supporting arm, 'in case the old poofter tries a grope on the way up. Can we open these now?' he demanded eagerly, tapping the presents. 'We ain't got