AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Part Five
63
Samuel
The screen goes blank, taking Henry Lamb with it. I run my hands down my face.
Donal glances at me.
‘Pub?’
My head says, No, go home, Samuel, sleep. But my heart makes my mouth say, ‘Yes. Pub.’
The pub is busy, the pavement teems with Friday-night drinkers, the night is warm and still almost light. Donal braves the queue at the bar, and I sit on a stool at a tall table that has just been vacated. I try to let the day’s stress pass through me in a Zen-like fashion, from my core, via my breath. But it has been such a long day. I have driven to Wales and back, even before conducting three back-to-back interviews. My body holds on to its stressesstubbornly and I know that only alcohol will help me to release them. While I wait for Donal, I switch on my phone. There is a message from Cath Manwaring. She wants to know how I got on with Justin earlier. I assume that she is being nosey, wanting to get full value from her Good Samaritan phone call of earlier today. But then she says that she is worried about him. That he normally comes to the pub on a Friday night but that this evening he’s not there and does Samuel know anything about his whereabouts.
Have you arrested him?she asks.
I reply quickly:No. He was not arrested. I left him in his van, at around 2pm.
Did he seem upset?
No. He seemed OK.
I think I’ll send my husband up there. I’m worried. I feel guilty.
Please, Mrs Manwaring, don’t feel guilty. You did the right thing. Justin’s recollections were very, very helpful.
I hope you’re right, Detective, I really do.
Donal appears with my pint. It looks miraculous as he sets it down on the tabletop, a golden, beautiful thing that I could not have dreamed of at any point during this day that has felt endless and resulted in nothing. Henry Lamb has shown me how impossible this case is. We cannot prove anything. It is all anecdotal. The case is thick with dust and I cannot cut through it and now, as I take my first large sip of the ice-cold beer that I deserve so much, I feel my grip, my resolve start to weaken. How much more of the taxpayers’ money can I throw at this thing? An evil woman. A woman loved by nobody, missed by nobody, a woman with shards of ice in her heart. A case of child abuse where no evidence remains, where numerous people were in the house, where norecords of any description exist for an entire six-year period of time, where a family of itinerants moved in and took over without anyone ever knowing. It’s impossible. It’s terrible. It’s going to kill me if I keep fussing at it. I think maybe I must let it go. Maybe. But first I will finish this beer and talk nonsense with Donal and then I will go to bed and tomorrow I will decide if there is anything more to be done here.
Because there is something still niggling and nagging at me and that thing is Henry Lamb. He is more than just a damaged child. There is something else about him, something twisted. Something wrong. I have not drawn the US authorities’ attention to the fact that both Henry and Lucy entered the country on fake passports. I need them both to return. I need them here, in London, close at hand, because there’s more to this story, I know there is.
I am halfway through a second pint of lager when my phone buzzes. It’s another message from Cath Manwaring. I read it and my heart stops beating.
Please. Call me. It’s about Justin. Something terrible has happened.
