The Sleeping and the Dead

Stout was too tired to argue. ‘Just let me in. It’ll not take long.’ He pushed past her, not roughly, hardly touching her, but usually he would have been polite, and he was surprised at the change in himself. He walked straight into the living-room. Chris Johnson was watching television. In the corner was a flat-pack cot, still in its box, and a white fur rabbit. Eddie picked up the remote from the floor and zapped off the television. The woman followed him in and levered herself carefully into an armchair. There was nowhere else to sit so he leaned against the door.

‘I want to know where you were one evening last week.’ He gave the date Melanie had been taken, but all the time his thoughts were racing about Alec Reeves. His hands were shaking at the thought of how close he had come to wrecking the whole investigation, and then he imagined Reeves driving down the track to the road by the reservoir before he’d had a chance to have it watched. He should have sorted out surveillance before coming here. He was losing it. ‘Now!’ he snapped. ‘I’ve not got time to mess about.’

‘I was working.’

‘Where?’

‘An eighteenth birthday party. Some village hall out in the sticks. Why?’

‘Can you prove it?’

‘You can check. Some of the kids got a bit wild. The police were called. It was that sort of place. No fun after nine thirty or the neighbours have a seizure. The cops came in and told me to turn down the sound.’

‘What time did you get home?’

‘About midnight.’

‘Can you confirm that?’ To the woman. Going through the motions. Though no way would Johnson have been able to pick up Melanie from the Rainbow’s End and be back here at midnight.

‘Of course.’ There was a mischievous look in her eye which said – But how can you trust me? I would say that, wouldn’t I? Eddie ignored it. Duty done.

‘Does the name Alec Reeves mean anything to you?’ The question was directed at Johnson. The woman wouldn’t have been born when Alec was running the hardware shop in the high street.

Johnson shook his head. Stout got out the photographs. Reeves as he’d been at the performance of Macbeth. Reeves more recently handing out Duke of Edinburgh award certificates. ‘You don’t recognize him?’

Johnson stood up quickly. ‘I’ve told you no. I’ve got to get to work.’ He pulled a leather jacket from the back of his chair, felt in the pocket for car keys.

Running away, Stout thought. What scared him?

‘You weren’t one of Alec’s little boys were you, Chris?’

‘Jesus, are you crazy?’

The blasphemy hit Stout, as it always did, like a slap.

‘Nothing to be ashamed of if you were. Not your fault.’

‘I told you. I didn’t know the man.’

Chris went up to the woman, bent to kiss her on the forehead, stroked her belly, then he stood in front of Stout, challenging him not to let him out. Eddie opened the door for him. He watched for a moment as Johnson slid open the door of the transit, climbed in and drove off. The woman didn’t move or speak. She looked at him from her chair, waiting for him to go.

Chapter Thirty-Two

They decided to go into Balk Farm early the next morning. Not mob handed. Porteous and Stout would knock on the door, very polite, very civilized. There’d be a car at the end of the track and someone on the hill behind the house with binoculars in case Alec tried to get out on foot. Because, as Eddie said, Reeves knew every inch of that hill.

The team had all crowded into Porteous’s office to make the final arrangements, and Eddie stayed, even after the rest of them went. So wired up that Porteous knew he wouldn’t sleep. Porteous wanted to get home and felt the nerviness was contagious. He tried to wind up the discussion.

‘Then a team to search the house,’ he said. ‘Like we decided. Good people. Tidy and careful. It’s all sorted, Eddie. Nothing left to do.’ Still Stout didn’t take the hint, so he added, ‘Let’s go home. We’ll have an early start.’

But Stout wouldn’t move until he’d gone through it all again.

Peter woke before the alarm went off. It was just light, a grey mist in the valley, the first blackbird screaming. No walk to work today. A break from routine. He’d arranged to pick up Eddie from home and knew he’d be awake too, probably already dressed, pacing the floor. Porteous understood his sergeant. He’d been there. Like a reformed smoker he wanted to preach. He wanted to yell: It does you no good. All that stress and adrenalin. It’ll make you crack up. Except it probably wouldn’t make Eddie Stout crack up. He was tough, with a wife who was there when he came in at night, to help him relax and to stroke away the tension.

Peter showered, made tea, toasted a piece of wholemeal bread, forced himself to eat it. He was scared. Not of Alec Reeves, who was probably pathetic, not half the monster Eddie had described. But of cocking this up. If he made a mess of it he didn’t think he’d be able to work with Eddie Stout again.