The Kill Call

Fry.
    ‘Well, that’s true, at least. They were almost inseparable, even though Dad was a few years younger. He told me that’s how they were right back to when they were boys here in Derbyshire. I think that’s probably quite unusual for brothers, isn’t it? Normally they tend to fight a lot – well, I know my two do. But when Uncle Stuart died of pancreatic cancer last year, it broke Dad up. You could see then how close they were. It took Dad ages to get round to sorting out Uncle Stuart’s things, because he just couldn’t face the memories. He found that job very difficult, stayed shut away with his brother’s papers for hours. And this thing with the illegitimate daughter – well, I think this is Dad’s way of trying to express his feelings towards his brother. He can be so naïve about people sometimes. So easily taken in.’
    ‘You think Pauline Outram has conned him in some way? Do you think she’s not really who she says she is?’
    ‘No. I know Dad did a few checks on her.’
    ‘Not so naïve, then?’
    ‘I made him do it.’
    ‘Which means Pauline Outram is your cousin,’ said Fry.
    ‘I suppose so. But you don’t have to be tied to your cousins, do you?’
    Fry sat back, feeling suddenly tired. Erin Lacey’s version of events fit quite closely with the story told by Pauline Outram earlier, though with a different spin, of course. Strange that the two women should feel so diametrically opposed to each other when their fathers had been so close. But then, perhaps that closeness was the sole reason they hated each other.
    ‘Before I forget, I brought these photos that you asked for, of my Dad,’ said Erin Lacey. ‘I think there’s one here of him and Uncle Stuart together. They’re so alike, Uncle Stuart was like an older version of Dad.’
    ‘Thank you.’
    Fry looked at the photos, remembering the man she’d met earlier in the week, with the strange grey eyes and the wide jaw line. And here were the two brothers, at a much younger age. Michael had probably been in his late teens, Stuart mid-twenties. And Michael Clay did indeed look like a junior version of his brother. But there was a certain amount of contrivance about the similarity. The younger brother had tried to tease his hair into the same style, had adopted the same casual, slouching pose, hands thrust into his pockets. A hero-worshipping younger brother, if ever she saw one.
    ‘You know, it’s one of Deborah Rawson’s problems, too,’ said Erin.
    ‘What is?’
    ‘The fact that Dad has been sensible with his money. She and Patrick have a huge mortgage on that place out at Mere Green. It was rather out of their range when they bought it, if you ask me. They’re desperate to keep up, both of them.’
    ‘To keep up with the Clays?’
    ‘Well, they’re not really the same class. Patrick is basically a horse dealer from a family of Irish tinkers in County Offaly. Deborah is the daughter of a garage owner in Handsworth.’
    ‘You know a lot about them.’
    ‘They’ve always been keen to socialize with us.’
    ‘So you had to check them out, too?’
    Erin didn’t answer. But Fry was getting signals from Hitchens, and she didn’t press any further. She’d heard enough to form a picture, anyway. It seemed it wasn’t just a question of golf-club syndrome. Deborah Rawson was just as enthusiastic a social climber as her husband, if Erin Lacey was to be believed. And that, as far as Fry was concerned, was quite a big ‘if’.
    ‘Mrs Lacey,’ said Hitchens, ‘can you give us any other information that might help us to find your father? No matter how insignificant a detail, it could prove useful.’
    Lacey shook her head. ‘I don’t think there’s anything I haven’t told you.’
    Fry felt her eyebrows rise at that. She didn’t believe it for a moment.
    ‘If you could try to think back to when you last spoke to him,’ she said. ‘Didn’t he say anything about where he was going, what he was planning to do?’
    ‘No. Well, I knew that he was coming up to Derbyshire, so he would have been visiting that woman. That’s why he didn’t mention it.’
    ‘Because he knew you would have disapproved?’
    ‘I think I have the right to.’
    Hitchens leaned across his desk. ‘Mrs Lacey, we have to ask you these questions. Was your father his normal self? Or did he appear depressed, or worried about anything?’
    ‘Not when he left home, no,’ said Lacey. ‘When I spoke to him on the phone on Wednesday, he was