‘I know,’ the doctor said. ‘I know, okay?’ Then he turned to his dad. ‘I don’t understand! Why confess? They would have all paid for what they did, dad! All of them! For what they did to Sally! To all of us! To mum! It’s what you wanted, isn’t it? It’s what they deserved! And how did you know it was me? How?’
Harry watched as the old man reached up to hold the face of his son in his hands.
‘How could it be anyone else?’ Mr Rawson said.
‘But you thought I was dead,’ the doctor said.
‘We all died, that day,’ the old man replied. ‘When Sally was found. Each of us, in our own way. But I don’t understand; why didn’t you tell me, that it was you?’
‘You didn’t recognise me,’ the doctor said. ‘You came into my surgery, into my room, and you just saw the doctor I had become, not the son that I had been.’
Harry saw tears start to slip down the old man’s cheeks.
‘Why didn’t you say?’ Mr Rawson asked. ‘Why didn’t you just come home?’
The doctor lifted himself up then, stepping away from his father. ‘I wanted to,’ he said. ‘But what happened, to Sally, it just got in the way. You didn’t know me.’
‘If only you had told me!’ Mr Rawson said, desperation in cracking his voice. ‘We could have worked it out! Together!’
Harry heard anger and hurt in the old man’s words.
‘I couldn’t, Dad! I just couldn’t!’ The doctor’s voice was a wet rasp now, years of pain flowing out. ‘Not until . . . for Sally! They had to pay! I owed it to her! To you! It had to be done! And . . . I couldn’t come home, until I’d finally done it. It just, well it just took so long.’
‘So why now, James?’ Harry asked. ‘After all that time? Why?
James seemed to shrink a little at his question, Harry thought, as though the weight not just of what he’d done, but the years now gone, were pressing down on him.
‘The cancer, dad,’ the doctor said, answering Harry’s question, but his eyes on his father. ‘I knew I had to do it, do something, do anything. For you. Before it was too late. I couldn’t let you die as well without them paying for what they did. I couldn’t!’ Then he whispered, ‘I’m sorry,’ and looked over at Harry and said, ‘Can we go now? Please?’
Harry gave a nod and led the doctor to the police car, but Mr Rawson reached out and held onto his son’s arm. Then he leaned in and kissed him gently on the cheek.
As Harry eased the doctor into the back seat of Jenny’s car, closing the door gently once he was sat down and strapped in, Mr Rawson came and stood beside him.
‘I would’ve gone to prison for him, you know,’ he said. ‘I’m old, I’m dying, he’s still got years.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ Harry replied. ‘But what you were saying, it just wasn’t hanging together. It couldn’t, not with the evidence.’
Mr Rawson let out a long, slow breath. ‘How did you know?’
‘Know what?’
‘That it was the doctor, that it was James?’
‘A few things,’ Harry said. ‘Not much though. We got lucky, but that’s often the way. And you said about his wrist,’ Harry explained. ‘When I first met him, I remembered that I went to shake hands, but he reached out with his left, instead of his right. Said he had an old injury.’
‘And that’s it? Nothing else?’
‘It was enough to have me suspicious,’ Harry said. ‘Then when I questioned you about what happened to Jack Iveson, and I said that you’d hit the doctor with a rolling pin, you just agreed.’
‘Caught me out, then?’
Harry shrugged. ‘I did. It was a log, except that it wasn’t. I think your son just nicked his forehead with a scalpel. Plenty of blood, you see. Nice and dramatic. Nearly worked, too. And he would have had me as the alibi. Clever. I doubt it was planned that way. He was probably going to off old Jack Iveson like the others, leave no evidence. But he changed his plans. Never a good idea.’
‘He was a good doctor, though.’
Harry said nothing, keeping his own thoughts on the matter to himself. Then, as Jenny made to head off to Harrogate, he raised a hand to stop her.
‘What?’ she asked, lowering her window.
Harry called Liz over. ‘I want you to go with Jenny,’ he said.
‘Me?’ Liz asked. ‘Why?’
‘You’re the arresting officer,’ Harry explained. ‘You caught him. You cuffed him. You get to take him in.’
Liz, Harry could see from her expression, was a little taken aback.
‘But, I mean, I’m a PCSO and, well . . .’
‘And well nothing,’ Harry said. ‘Now get your arse into Jenny’s car and I’ll be along in a while. And well done, PCSO Coates. Bloody well done indeed.’
Harry stepped back as Liz jumped in beside Jenny and then they were on their way.
Mr Rawson turned then to face Harry and despite the man’s age, Harry felt himself shrink just a little under the man’s piercing gaze.
‘Remember the cancer?’
Harry nodded. ‘Yes. I’m sorry about that. Awful, I’m sure. And with all this, too.’
‘Who do you think it was gave me the news?’ Mr Rawson asked. ‘Who do you think looked me in the eye and told me I had months left to live?’
Harry knew. And he didn’t need to say, so he kept quiet.
‘Imagine that,’ Mr Rawson said. ‘Imagine having to tell your own father that he was going to die and yet not being able to tell him that you’re his son.’
‘Revenge does funny things to people,’ Harry said. ‘It eats them up inside. Trust me, I know.’
‘Yes, that’s true,’ Mr Rawson said. ‘But it wasn’t revenge that made him do it. Surely you can
