The Comeback of the King Read online

  By now Ted was completely dry-eyed again. He didn’t have the slightest regret about refusing to be handed over to the King.

  “But I know I hadn’t exactly covered myself with glory either. Fresh start, Ted, please? Say what you like about me, you know I have never lied to you and you know I’ve never broken a promise. I’m going to let everything that’s happened be water under the bridge and I will never lay hands on you again. Please, come home and let’s work on this together, eh?”

  A final, long pause.

  “Give me a call, Ted. Please.”

  Ted stared at the wall. Barry probably genuinely meant it. That seemed to be the thing about the King. He could make what he wanted seem to fit in so perfectly with everyone else’s normal life. Barry really meant: ‘come home, we can talk this over, but you have to see the King first,’ and he wouldn’t see the slightest problem with that.

  In his reverie the voicemail had gone on to the second message. The voice was cheerful, bubbly and female. Zoe.

  “Hi, kiddo. You want to talk? Sounded important! I’ll keep my phone on all evening. Bye-ee.”

  And suddenly the world seemed much rosier.

  *

  Amanda looked at the text and the Hunter spirit burned within her. It was the spoor of her prey.

  Staying with a friend. Talk to you soon.

  “But he didn’t say which friend?” she asked, as if this were a perfectly normal, routine enquiry.

  Ted Gorse’s stepfather, Barry Worth, shook his head. “Afraid not.”

  She studied him in half a second, so quickly he wouldn’t have noticed even if he was paying attention. The Hunter took in the dilation of his eyes, the speed of his breathing, and growled with silent frustration. No, he wasn’t hiding anything from her. He really didn’t know where the boy was.

  Amanda made a mental note that it would be extremely useful to have the Hunter with her the next time she was interviewing a suspect at the nick. He picked up things that would have passed her by completely. Ever since the King had joined them together, she had felt a new layer laid down on top of her senses, straining the input stream for details she would never have caught on her own.

  But she didn’t need the Hunter to process her assessment of Ted’s nearest and dearest. Mr Worth was bulky and muscular – Amanda wouldn’t have been surprised if he was a rugby player – and he stuck out like a lump of coal in the snow in this slim, lightly built family. Ted’s mother was where the kids all got their strawberry blond hair from, and Amanda could see the look of her son in her oval face as well. Ted’s wiry body must have been handed down by his father to his male children: there was an almost identical boy, a couple of years younger than Ted, lurking in the living room door. An even younger girl leaned over the landing banisters, balancing on her waist. Both the kids were watching her with large, round eyes.

  Young, unformed, not for the hunt. It was the kind of helpful hint the Hunter liked to drop into her chain of thoughts. She presumed that when he had last been around, that kind of thing needed saying.

  Got it, thanks …

  Mrs Worth’s eyes were red and puffy as though she had done a lot of crying recently, and her whole demeanour was sad and subdued. A pall of depression hung over the entire household. Amanda didn’t need any special senses to pick that up.

  “Any other family nearby?”

  “His aunt and uncle live in Blandford, but they’d have told us if he was there.”

  “Does Ted have many friends?” Amanda asked. Mr Worth shrugged.

  “Not many that we know about. Probably more that we don’t. He doesn’t go out very much, except to work.”

  “His best friend was killed last summer,” a voice from above said darkly. The three adults all glanced up at the young girl.

  “That’s true, sweetheart, but it’s not really relevant,” Mr Worth admonished.

  “Any girlfriend?” Amanda asked.

  “There’s Zoe.” Mrs Worth was quiet and subdued, speaking with great care as though the slightest jolt could set the tears off again. Amanda poised her pen over her notebook. A trail, leading to the prey? “Nice girl, older than him, so probably not … He works with her – well, used to, she’s off travelling now, been away from Salisbury for a couple of months now–”

  Amanda took the pen away again. Dead end. Still, it was worth remembering – Ted might well get in touch with this Zoe. Tom Blake had said there was a slightly older woman at the hospice, the night of the fire – hint of child snatching but he’s still legal … Was that her? The Hunter was positive it was, and Amanda concurred. As Tom had delicately put it, Ted and the not-girlfriend had been too busy ‘making whoopee’ to notice the fire break out. Amanda knew from personal experience that Ted had yet to make whoopee with anyone, so Tom wasn’t right about everything. But there was definitely some kind of relationship there.

  Mr Worth straightened a little, sucked in his belly, cleared his throat: a man still determined to be head of the family despite everything.

  “What’s this about, Inspector? I mean, we had a big falling out this evening but it’s nothing that concerns the police.”

  “He’s not in trouble again?” his wife whispered. “Is he? Not … not stealing–”

  Amanda had drawn a breath to give the answer that they would all understand: “The King wants him.” But it suddenly struck her – a very simple thing, so obvious now she was looking for it: Barry Worth was not one of the King’s royal subjects. The Hunter hissed his disapproval – at Barry, at her, at himself. They had both assumed: the rest of the family so obviously were royal subjects, so … Never assume! as her instructor had drilled into her so often.

  And so she must tread carefully. She was acting with the full authority and confidence of the King, but until the King fully took control of his kingdom again, there could be obstacles. It would only take one complaint from a member of the public to hinder her going about the King’s business.

  So, she allowed herself a small lie.

  “I just want a few words with him, Mrs Worth,” Amanda assured the mother. “Could I possibly see his room?”

  It was a standard question and they were willing to show her, but there was nothing up there to give her any clues. A large poster emblazoned with the biohazard symbol on the door. An unmade bed with a duvet kicked into a pile at one end. A guitar gathering dust in one corner. The Hunter seethed with frustration. At first glance there seemed to be spoor leading off in every direction, until you looked more closely. Everything was a dead end. How could this age be so sterile? Put him in the undergrowth, show him the trails of ten different animals – tiny impressions on the ground, minutely bent twigs – and he could identify the marks of the prey he sought. But this? What trails did anyone leave in this new world?

  They do leave trails, she told the Hunter firmly. Trails in the mind. Different skill set.

  The Hunter subsided, grumbling, and they went back downstairs.

  “Does he have a computer?”

  “Laptop, in his bag.”

  Any contacts Ted had made on social media could be useful – but for her to take it in, the laptop would have to be treated as evidence, meaning that she would need a warrant. She waited to see if Mr Worth was going to offer it to her. He didn’t.

  “Could you give me his number, and also the names and addresses of his friends that you do know about?”

  “Well, yes, hold on–”

  Mrs Worth turned away to look for a pen and paper.

  “Can I go in your police car?” asked the boy lurking in the background. Amanda looked down at him with a deliberate twinkle in the eye.

  “Only if I arrest you.”

  “Not funny in this household, officer,” Mr Worth murmured. But after a moment the boy grinned shyly back at her, like a much smaller child. This would be the special needs brother, of course.

  Something butted against her legs. A tabby cat was twining its way around her shins. It glanced up at her and met her gaze with
yellow, slitted eyes.

  “Mr Furry really likes you,” the boy commented.

  Of course he does. The two kindred spirits recognised each other, hunter to hunter. But cats were their own masters – this one shared an ethos with the Hunter but was no disciple. Still, she fancied she picked up the feline equivalent of ‘good luck’ in its loud purr, and she nodded her appreciation.

  It didn’t take long for Ted’s mother to write down a handful of names.

  “I haven’t seen most of these since his birthday party in May …”

  Some had information added that was almost useful, like ‘knows him from Sunday School’ or ‘lives in Milford Hill’. Others didn’t even have that. But, they were all trails. The skill lay in finding the important ones.

  “Are any of these closer than any others, do you know? Is there anyone he’s maybe working on a project with, or gets advice from, or …?” She let herself trail off in the face of the blank looks she was getting from both of them. But then Mr Worth opened his mouth to speak, and there was a sudden catch, the minutest pause before he spoke. The Hunter leapt with glee.

  You’ve thought of someone, haven’t you?

  But all he said was: “I don’t think anyone on that list matches that description, Inspector.”

  But you’ve thought of someone. We were talking about friends. College friends. Is college the link?

  “How about adults?” she asked. “Any teachers, lecturers, tutors, maybe?”

  Even Mrs Worth smiled at that one. Dead end, then.

  “He’s so rude about his teachers, says he knows more than any of them …”

  “Says he does …” her husband agreed, with a sceptical roll of the eyes.

  “I don’t think he’d go to any of them if he was in trouble.”

  Mr Worth shook his head to back up his wife’s statement, and he returned Amanda’s gaze with the impassive, don’t give-anything-away look that she knew from a hundred interview rooms. She was certain he knew, or had guessed, something.

  If he was a royal subject, she would just order him in the King’s name. But he wasn’t. Okay, mate, play it that way. You guessed it based on something you were just saying. That means I have the information too, if I can only work it out.

  “Well, thank you very much, both of you.” Amanda handed over her card. “If you do hear from him, here’s my number … But probably best not to mention this to him.”

  Ted’s mother leaned into her husband’s shoulder with her eyes screwed tight shut as she began to sob. He put gently his arms around her.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said dryly.

  Amanda touched her hat and went out into the sounds and scents of the night, just like she had gone out into the night when the King commissioned her.

  *

  She drove around the corner, then pulled over and reached for the radio. The first call was to pass on Ted’s number, see if there was a trace on it. That was a long shot: a magistrate would be needed, and she didn’t yet know if any of them were royal subjects; they would have to get in touch with the phone company – but she could put the feelers out. Then:

  “Whiskey Hotel, report by numbers.”

  Whiskey Hotel would have meant nothing to any other cop listening in. It was the sign of the group she had set up. W.H. – Wild Hunt.

  The King had given her authority to recruit any royal subjects she wanted. For the Hunt, that could only mean other coppers. Some were on duty at the station and she had quietly diverted them into other duties. Others were off-duty, like she had been, and she had called them back in. Circulating a picture and description of Ted had been easy – Tom had given her the photo. Resources were still more limited than she would have liked for a full-fledged manhunt but it was better than working on her own.

  “Whiskey Hotel One, nothing to report, over.”

  W.H. One was patrolling the railway station, looking out for the quarry.

  “Whiskey Hotel Two, nothing here, ma’am, over.”

  That was the bus station ruled out.

  “Whiskey Hotel Three, no sighting as yet.”

  Three was back at the nick, going through the CCTV provided by One and Two.

  “Whiskey Hotel Four, nothing–”

  “Whiskey Hotel Five, nothing–”

  The last two were patrolling the roads out of the city, with an eye out for hitchhikers. That was the weakest point in the Hunt. If Ted had simply got a lift, straight after leaving home, he could be miles from Salisbury by now and they would be very lucky to catch him. But Amanda doubted that he had. That would require determination and purpose. From all accounts, Ted had fled in panic and panicking people did not think straight. No, she would bet her pension that the boy was still in Salisbury, somewhere.

  She switched on the car light and studied her notes. The Hunter gave a silent roar of frustration. He wasn’t used to this newfangled method of gathering clues and studying evidence. He wanted to chase.

  Oh, shut up and give me a hand …

  There was, frankly, not a lot to go on. A handful of might-bes; the probably-not-a-girlfriend, Zoe, who wasn’t even in Salisbury …

  She would so like to bring Tom in on this, but she couldn’t. But surely, in the treasure trove of information that he had shared with her about the boy, there must be something. What else did she know, what else …

  There was something buzzing about at the back of her mind and she couldn’t quite place it. Zoe. The shop where they both worked.

  “His employer at the shop is a retired barrister, very high powered in his day–”

  Soon after Ted had fled home, a man claiming to represent him had been talking to the King.

  And what does a barrister do? He represents …

  Amanda cursed. She was losing the small fraction of brains she had been born with! She flinched at a heavy rebuke from the Hunter.

  Oh, like you know what a barrister is!

  But even while she swore at herself, clearly and fluently, she was pressing buttons on her phone.

  “Gotcha, Mr Worth, you think you’re so smart … Yes, it’s Inspector Stewart. I need a name and home address–”

  Chapter 10

  Malcolm barged into the frilly bedroom without warning just as Ted angrily jabbed the phone to hang up. Ted still hadn’t got changed for bed.

  “Who were you talking to?” Malcolm demanded. Ted recoiled – a natural reaction to Malcolm’s tone, and to the sight of him in pyjamas and dressing gown, and scowling.

  “Uh, Zoe?”

  “It sounded like an argument.”

  Ted grimaced. He had so been looking forward to that call, convinced that Zoe was the one who could help, but when it came to what he wanted …

  “I may have raised my voice,” he admitted.

  Malcolm dismissed the matter with a gesture.

  “Your stepfather just called. A woman police inspector’s just been round to your house looking for you.”

  “My step–” Ted looked quickly around, as if Barry might suddenly appear at the first floor window. “How does he know I’m here?”

  “He guessed, and he’s pretty certain that if he could guess it, so will she. It sounds like your acquaintance from this morning. I’m sorry, Ted, we have to leave.”

  “But–” It was still too much to take in. “Hang on. Suddenly Barry’s on my side?” Another realisation sank in. “And – we?”

  “Well, I’m not throwing you out on your tod.” Malcolm smiled grimly. “And as for Barry – I don’t know. I don’t get it either. The one thing I do know is that at the moment there is no police lady outside hammering on the door. That could change in the next few minutes. A police car with blues and twos could probably get from your place to ours in under ten minutes. So, are you coming?”

  Ted took a last, despairing look around the frilly bedroom. So much for sanctuary.

  “Where to?” he asked in a small voice.

  *

  Beneath the streetlamps the Jaguar was covered
in a shimmering field of water drops. The rain had slowed down and Malcolm only needed to put the wipers on intermittent as they drove off into the dark.

  “You’ve turned your phone off?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So what did Zoe have to say?” Malcolm asked as they turned onto the main road. Ted peered out at their fellow traffic. Most of it was just outlines behind the headlights. He couldn’t see anything blue and flashing yet. Maybe Inspector Stewart would turn the lights off so she could creep up on the house unawares.

  “She’s going to come as soon as she can.”

  He pulled up his hood and slumped down a little in his seat. It was the best a front seat passenger could do to hide.

  Malcolm glanced sideways at him.

  “And that was the argument?”

  “No,” Ted said shortly. He pulled a face. “I thought of how we could maybe deal with the King. I–”

  “Don’t!” Malcolm held a commanding hand up. “Don’t tell me anything. Don’t give me clues or hints. I don’t want to have to lie to a police officer. I don’t even want to have to give a no comment. And with this particular police officer, I don’t even know if I could. If you’ve thought up a plan – wonderful! But don’t tell me about it, at least, not unless and until you have something for me to do.”

  The car surged briefly along the road until it was forced to stop at the red lights.

  “So, are you allowed to tell me where we’re going?”

  “First stop, bank, get as much cash as I can. Second stop, fill up with petrol. Third, my brother in Trowbridge gets an unexpected visit. And then we consolidate and see if your plan will work.”

  Of course my plan will work, Ted thought irritably, same way TEDLISH would work if you’d only trust my judgement … He felt immediately ashamed of the irritation. No one was forcing Malcolm to do this.

  “Trowbridge is the wrong way,” he pointed out.

  “It’s out of Salisbury.”

  “But we need to be in Salisbury–”