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.“Quite so, Mr de Vries, which brings me back to the point I was trying to make much earlier in our conversation.I take it that you were unaware of her plan to return, and her reasons for not telling you are certainly not my affair.However, your son’s welfare is very much my business.A little more communication between yourself and your wife would help Archie a great deal.Certainty is what the boy needs, or as much certainty as we can supply.A complicated and confusing succession of strange adult stratagems and being told half-truths can only lead him into despair.I hope that you will forgive me for being so blunt?”“Eh? Oh, yes, of course.You’re only doing your job,” I say, with as much irony as I can muster.“Goodbye, Mr Maitland, and thank you for spelling out the situation so clearly.I’ll find out exactly what my wife’s plans are before I contact you again.”I put down the phone and lay my head on the desk, willing the tears not to come.Who is now leading whom into despair? It seems to me that it is not just Archie who is staring into the abyss, but the whole of our crazy ‘privileged’ family.Twenty-ThreeTim had booked an appointment with his boss and was now standing a short way down the corridor from Superintendent Thornton’s office, rehearsing what he was going to say.As far as he knew, Thornton had not yet been informed of either the age or the racial origin of the skeletons that had been found in the de Vries cellar, which at least gave Tim a bit of a head start.But unless the Superintendent were to be spooked by the race issue – which Tim realised would only happen if he were himself to talk it up – he was nevertheless convinced that he’d be told to drop the case.That Norfolk police had asked Thornton to make some of Tim’s and Ricky MacFadyen’s time available to help with the Sandringham murder investigation was bound to set alarm bells ringing in Thornton’s head, even though he had smiled sweetly at this suggestion and agreed to it with no outward reluctance.South Lincs CID was undermanned at the best of times; with Juliet out of the picture for the time being and Tim and Ricky now operational on their own territory on only a part-time basis, Thornton would be left with little more than a skeleton staff (Tim smiled grimly at this unintentional pun).One solution to the dilemma would be for the Superintendent himself to second a couple of detectives from another force: from Peterborough, say, or from North Lincs.But any practical measures of this kind were likely to be eclipsed in Thornton’s head by rapid calculations made on the cash register that always resided there.As the Superintendent was well aware, if he could charge out some of his own officers’ time without replacing it, he would be quids in.PCs Gary Cooper and Giash Chakrabati passed by on their way to the canteen, staring a little at Tim as they did so.He raised a hand in greeting and smiled in a way that he hoped was normal for him.Nevertheless, he realised that if even these two uniformed officers, who had on many occasions proved themselves staunch allies, were thinking that his behaviour was strange, it was high time that he stopped lurking in the corridor.He marched up to Thornton’s door and tapped firmly on it.“Come in!” said Thornton in the imperious, schoolmasterly manner that always set Tim’s teeth on edge.Today, though, he would refuse to be rattled.As soon as he entered the room, he realised that the Superintendent was in the throes of a very animated telephone conversation.“I’m sorry, I’ll wait outside.” he began.“No need, Yates, I asked you in and quite frankly I have no more time to spend on this than I have done already,” his boss barked, directing his comments at the handset that he was holding rather than at Tim himself.“So we’ll hear no more about it, shall we? The idea is quite outrageous!” He slammed the phone down and sat glaring at Tim, his eyes black and unblinking.Not a good start, thought Tim.Should I humour him or pretend that nothing’s happened?Superintendent Thornton spoke first, removing from Tim the need to choose a course of action.“How long have you been married, Yates?” he demanded crossly.“About three years, sir,” said Tim.It suddenly dawned on him that he’d walked in on what Ricky called a ‘domestic’ between the Superintendent and his wife.He had to concentrate very hard on composing his facial muscles to prevent himself from grinning.Mrs Thornton was a mysterious woman, seldom seen at police functions or even out shopping in Spalding itself.On the rare occasions when she was mentioned, Thornton always made it clear that she was too much of a lady to get involved in any of the social activities in which he himself deigned from time to time to participate with his colleagues, and that he wholeheartedly approved of her decision not to follow a career of her own.“Wife in the home,” he would say smugly, “that’s the best situation.Never mind if she’s bored: she’ll come to appreciate it eventually.” Coming as he did from a family whose women had worked from time immemorial and married now to a wife who took her own career very seriously, Tim had never been able to think of a polite reply to such comments.It amused him that the impeccable Mrs Thornton appeared at present to be crossing her all-powerful, breadwinning husband.“Three years!” muttered the Superintendent.“Just wait until it’s thirty-three, and see how you like it.”“Nothing wrong, sir, I hope?” said Tim blandly.Superintendent Thornton cast a single penetrating look in Tim’s direction and shut down his expression as quickly and completely as if he had donned a mask.Tim hoped that the glee he’d felt about Thornton’s ruffled nerves had not been too obvious.“Nothing that I can’t handle,” he said huffily.“Let’s get to the point of the matter in hand, shall we? I doubt if you can afford to waste the day on irrelevant pleasantries and I’m quite sure I can’t.What do you have to tell me about the Sutterton case? I’m assuming you’ve made some progress; otherwise you wouldn’t be here.I shall tell you now that, although I’ve accepted the request from Norfolk for your partial secondment to help them with the death of that young girl at Sandringham, it’s up to you to fit in both cases as best you can.Norfolk, of course, is convinced that the two are linked in some way, but I see no reason to agree with them.Unless, of course, you intend to supply evidence that Kevan de Vries is a serial killer.Is that what you think, Yates? Eh? Because I can assure you that if you jump to unfounded conclusions about him and he decides to press charges, you’ll be entirely on your own!”He shot Tim one of his sparring partner looks.Trust my luck, Tim thought, cursing inwardly.I want him to do me the favour of pursuing an ancient case and he’s in just about the worst mood I’ve ever seen him in.“No, sir,” he said deferentially.“In fact, rather the opposite.I’m about to receive a report from Ms Gardner that will indicate that Mr de Vries could not have killed the three women whose skeletons were found in his cellar.”“Oh?” said the Superintendent, immediately contrary, “and what makes you – or Ms Gardner – quite so certain of that?”“The bones are at least a hundred years old, sir.Whether or not they’ve been in Mr de Vries’ cellar for all of that time is impossible to say [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]