Cold Light

Nineteen

Robin Hidden’s car was parked close against the side wall, steeply angled across from the green metal post which had the security camera bolted near the top. He had bought it nine months before, the deposit borrowed from his parents when his father’s redundancy money had finally come through. The remainder he was paying off over three years at a reasonable interest.

“A bit on the large size, isn’t it, son,” his dad had asked, “should have thought one of them compact jobs, two doors, Fiesta or a Nova, more the kind of thing for you. More economical, too.”

But Robin had fancied something comfortable for cruising along the motorway, weekends; throw your walking gear in the back and you were away. Friday nights, once the traffic had fallen off, setting out for Brecon Beacons, Dartmoor, Striding Edge. Travel back on Sunday with a minimum of stress. If a friend or two from the office fancied coming along, which occasionally they did, no problem, plenty of room.

After a little shopping around, he’d tracked this one down to a garage on Mapperley Top, one owner only, sales rep it was true, but one advantage of all that high mileage was it kept the price down within reason. “No,” he had told his father, just this past couple of days, “good investment, that. No doubt about it.”

Resnick and Millington saw it first on the monitor, black and white, picture vibrating a touch as the camera shivered in the wind. From just outside the rear door of the station, the vantage point of the top step, they could see the way the dirt of its recent journey had risen in waves above the car’s wheels, had been smeared by inefficient wipers across the windscreen in faint curves. The aerial, partly withdrawn, was bent over near the tip. A good car, though. Reliable. Robin Hidden’s Vauxhall Cavalier, J registration, midnight blue.

They had left him alone in the interview room, door wide open. Just a few minutes, sir, if you wouldn’t mind hanging on. The tea was strong and this time there were biscuits, digestives, and a chipped lemon cream. He could walk out and down the stairs and be in the street in moments. There was nothing they could do to stop him. Surely. Here of his own volition. Anyone with information …

Footsteps approached along the corridor and, automatically, he sat straighter in his chair, brushed biscuit crumbs from his thighs. The steps carried on past.

“It’s over then, is it?” his friend Mark had asked. “You and Nancy?”

Oh, yes. It was over.

“So what are you telling me, Charlie? You’ve got a suspect or not?”

“Early days, sir.”

Skelton frowned. “Try telling that to the girl’s father.”

“Better than giving him false hope.”

Skelton sighed, turned towards the window, checked his watch. The car that was to drive him to the Central Station and the afternoon press conference would appear at any minute, up the hill from the city.

“You’re saying about the Cavalier …?”

“It could be the one.”

“Could?”

“No way I can be sure. But the shape, the color …”

“The registration?”

Resnick shook his head.

“Jesus, Charlie!” The superintendent moved round from behind his desk, shook a clean handkerchief from his pocket, cleared his nose, glanced quickly at the contents of the handkerchief before slipping it back.

“How about-a friend of the missing woman, providing useful background information?”

“Say that and it’s like breathing murder suspect down the back of their necks. They’ll have his picture on the front pages by tomorrow’s first editions.”

Skelton sighed again. “You’re right. Better to say nothing. Let them think we’re bumbling around, slow and steady, chasing our tails. Till we’ve got something more.”

Resnick nodded, headed for the door.

“Gut feeling, Charlie?”

“Ditching him the way she did, she hurt him more than he’s letting show.”

“Enough to want to cause her harm?”

“Sometimes,” Resnick said, “it’s the only way people think they’ve got of making the pain stop.”

“I don’t want to say it,” Mark had said. They were out on a ledge overhanging a valley swathed in mist. Mars bars and a thermos of coffee laced with scotch. Careful not to stop for too long and let the muscles seize up.

“Then don’t,” Robin had said.

“You should never have got mixed up with her in the first place.”

“Mark, come on …”

“Well, she wasn’t exactly your type.”

“Exactly.”

“Exactly what?”

“That was why, wasn’t it. Because she wasn’t some Ramblers Association groupie who couldn’t see beyond the next youth hostelling weekend in the Wrekin, She wasn’t like anyone I’d ever been with before and I’m not likely to find someone like that again.”

Mark tipped the flask high over the cup, shaking out every last drop. “Girls like her, two a penny.”

The way Robin had looked at him then, rearing up, for all the world as if he might have thrust out an arm, sent his friend hurtling from the ledge.

“Hey!” Mark had shouted, swinging back, alarmed. “Don’t take it out on me. I’m not the one led you on and then said, thanks very much, goodbye. That was her. Remember? If you want to take out your anger on someone, take it out on her.”

And Robin had stood close to the edge, very close, staring down. “I’m not angry with Nancy. What right have I got to be angry with her?”

“Mr. Hidden?” Millington said. “Robin?” He’d been so bound up in what he was thinking, remembering, he hadn’t noticed the sergeant coming back into the room. “There are just a few points we’d like to clarify,” Millington said. “If you can spare us the time.”

Robin Hidden barely nodded, blinked, and turned his chair back in towards the table. Millington closed the door and waited for Resnick to sit down before crossing to the tape machine.

“I thought this was the same as before? Just a few things, you said.”

“So it is,” Resnick said.

Millington took hold of the tab between forefinger and thumb and pulled, freeing the tape from its wrapping, did the same with a second, slotted them both into place. Twin decks.

“For your protection,” Resnick said. “An accurate record of what you’ve said.”

“Is that what I need?” Robin asked. “Protection?”

“This interview,” Millington began, sitting down, “is being recorded on the twenty-seventh of December at …” Checking his watch, “… eleven minutes past two. Present are Robin Hidden, Detective Inspector Resnick, and Detective Sergeant Millington.”

“What we’re interested in, Robin,” Resnick said, “is where you were, late on Christmas Eve.”

It was a slow day in Fleet Street. No coded messages from the IRA to Samaritans’ offices, giving details of bombs left outside army barracks or in shopping centers; no cabinet ministers with their fingers caught in the Treasury till or the knickers of women other than their wives; no photographs of starving children newsworthy enough after the Christmas overkill; no gays to bash, no foreigners to trash, no sex, no drugs, no rock ‘n’ roll.

So it wasn’t only the local Midlands press who were there at the news conference, nor had the Nationals sent their stringers merely; these were the big boys, men and women with serious expense accounts and bylines, the real McCoy. Both Central TV and the BBC had their cameras loaded and ready, each had earmarked Skelton for separate interviews later, one on one. A researcher from Crimewatch was there with rubber-covered notebook and mobile phone.

Four papers, two dailies and two Sundays, were primed to speak with the Phelans afterwards, sound them out about an exclusive contract-“Our Daughter Nancy”-in the tragic eventuality that when she was found she was dead.

– “So are you saying, Superintendent, that after all of this activity, the police have no leads at all? Either as to the whereabouts of the girl or the possible identity of her abductor?”

– “Would you tell us, Mrs. Phelan, just what you’re feeling about your daughter’s disappearance?”

– “Mr. Phelan, would you care to comment on the way in which the police investigation has been conducted so far?”

“So you went back out at around ten then, Robin?”

“Yes.”

“Nothing special in mind?”

“No.”

“No plan, no destination?”

“No.”

“And you were in the car?”

“Yes.”

“The Cavalier?”

“Yes.”

“And you just drove?”

“Yes.”

“Around the city?”

“Yes.”

“Round and round?”

“Y-yes.”

“You never stopped once?”

Robin Hidden nodded his head.

“Does that indicate yes or no?” Millington asked.

“Y-yes.”

“You stopped the car?” Resnick said.

“Once or tw-twice, yes.”

“Where was this?”

“I d-don’t remember.”

“Try.”

The whirr of the tape machine faint in the background.

“Once by the square.”

“Which side of the square?”

“Outside Halfords.”

“Where else?”

“King Street.”

“What for?”

“S-sorry?”

“Why did you stop on King Street?”

“I was hungry. I wanted something to eat. A burger, cheeseburger. Chips, you know, fries.”

“Where from?”

“Burger King.”

“And you parked on King Street?”

“It was the nearest I could get.”

“Nancy,” Resnick said, “you knew where she was spending Christmas Eve?”

“With Dana, yes. At this stupid dance.”

“But you knew where?”

“Where what?”

“Where it was being held,” Resnick said.

“This stupid dance,” Millington smiled.

“Robin, you knew where it was, the dinner-dance? Dana’s firm’s function, you knew where …?”

“Yes, of course …”

“Where Nancy was?”

“Yes.”

“And you drove round all that time-what? — two hours, give or take. Round and around the center and you never went, never once went near where you knew she would be?”

Robin Hidden’s body had half-turned in his chair and he was staring at the floor; it looked as far off, as hazy and unclear as a valley viewed from some high place. “If you want to take out your anger on someone,” Mark had said, “take it out on her.”

“Not on the off-chance,” Millington said, leaning in a little closer, “that you might bump into her?”

“Catch a glimpse?” Resnick said.

“All r-r-right, so what if I did? So what if I went by there, by the stupid bloody hotel, all those idiots dressed up like clowns, prancing about and flashing off their money, so what if I did?”

“You did go to the hotel then, Robin? That night?”

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

“Did you drive past outside or did you turn into the courtyard, by the main doors?”

“The courtyard.”

“I’m sorry, could you say that more clearly.”

“The courtyard. I d-drove into the courtyard.”

“And parked?”

“Yes.”

“What time was this?”

“About … about … it must’ve been j-just before twelve.”

“And that was when you saw Nancy? When you were parked in the hotel courtyard a little before midnight on Christmas Eve?”

“Yes,” Robin said. “That’s right.” His voice seemed to come from a long way off.