'I really need your help, Mr Brodie.'

No,Jackson thought, don't ask for my help. People who asked for his help always led him down paths he didn't want to tread. Paths that led to the town called Trouble. 'And so does Dr Hunter,' she went on relentlessly. 'And so does her baby.'

'You're changing the rules as you go along,' Jackson said. 'First it was "you save me, I save you". Now I have to save complete strangers?'

'They're not strangers to me. I think they've been kidnapped.'

'Kidnapped?' Now she was getting really extreme.

He knew what she was going to say. Don't say it. Don't say the magic words. 'They need your help.' 'No. Absolutely not.'

'We should start with the aunt.' 'What aunt?'

Chapter V

And Tomorrow.

The Prodigal Wife.

ACCORDING TO HER SAT NAV IT WAS A HUNDRED AND SIXTY-ONE miles to Hawes and should take them three hours and twenty-three minutes, 'So let's see,' Louise said combatively as she started up the engine. Marcus, riding shotgun, gave her a salute and said, 'Chocks away.' An innocent. He was handsome, polished and new, like something just out of a chrysalis. Archie would never look like that at Marcus's age. Technically, she was old enough to be Marcus's mother. If she'd been a careless schoolgirl.

She hadn't been careless, she was on the Pill by the age of fourteen. Throughout her teens she had sex with older men, she hadn't realized at the time how pervy they must have been. Then, she was flattered by their attentions, now she'd have them all arrested.

With Patrick, in their courting period, when they were exchanging all those little intimacies ofa life -favourite films and books, pets you'd had ('Paddy' and 'Bridie', needless to say, had been the keepers of a childhood menagerie of hamsters, guinea pigs, dogs, cats, tortoises and rabbits), where you'd been on holiday (pretty much nowhere in Louise's case), how you lost your virginity and who with -he told her that he met Samantha during Freshers' week at Trinity College, 'And that was it.' 'But before that?' she said and he shrugged and said, Just a couple oflocal girls at home. Nice girls.' Three. Three sexual partners until he was widowed (all nice). There'd been girlfriends after Samantha but nothing serious, nothing indecorous. 'And you?' he asked. He had no idea how sexually incontinent Louise had been in her life and she wasn't about to enlighten him. 'Oh,' she said, blowing air out of her mouth. 'A handful of guys -if that -pretty long-term relationships really. Lost my virginity at eighteen to a boy I'd been going out with for a couple ofyears.' Liar, liar, pants on fire. Louise was ever a good deceiver, she often thought that in another life she would have made an excellent conwoman. Who knows, maybe even in this life, it wasn't over yet, after all.

She should have told the truth. She should have told the truth about everything. She should have said, 'I have no idea how to love another human being unless it's by tearing them to pieces and eating them.'

'A bit of fresh country air to blow away the cobwebs,' she said to Marcus. 'Just what the doctor ordered.'

Or, on the other hand, not. 'Late again?' Patrick said when she phoned to tell him about their 'wee jaunt' (as Marcus insisted on calling it). 'Couldn't you get the local police to pay this aunt a visit?' he said. 'It seems a long way to go just to check this thing out. It's not as if it's a case, it's not official, is it? Nothing's happened.'

'I don't tell you how to do surgery, Patrick,' she snapped, 'so I would really appreciate it if you didn't instruct me in police procedure. OK?' He had taken her on thinking she would improve, get better under his patient care, must be disappointed in her by now. The rose with the worm, the bowl with the crack. Nothing the doctor can do here.

'You're pissed offwith me,' she continued, 'because I got drunk on my own last night instead ofcoming to the "theatre", aren't you?' She put a camp emphasis on 'theatre' as if it was something boring and middle-class, as if she was Archie at his adolescent worst.

'I'm not accusing you of being drunk,' Patrick said placidly, not rising to the argument. 'You're doing that yourself.' Louise wondered about killing him. Simpler than divorce and it would give her a whole new set of problems to be challenged with instead of the tediously familiar old ones. She wondered if there was a part of Howard Mason that had been relieved when his family was conveniently erased. Just Joanna left, a permanent marker. Much better for him if she'd been wiped out as well.

'Don't get so het up,' Patrick said. 'That Scottish chip on your shoulder is getting in the way.'

'In the way of what?'

'Your better self. You're your own worst enemy, you know.'

She bit down on the snarl that was her instinctive response and muttered, 'Yeah, well, I've got a lot on my mind. Sorry,' she added.

'Sorry.'

'Me, too,' Patrick said and Louise wondered if she should read more into that statement.

They had crossed the border. Over the Tweed and under the wire. Frontier country.

'English rules apply now,' she said to Marcus.

'Wild aunt chase,' he said happily. 'Shall we have some music on, boss?' He inspected the Maria Callas compilation in the CD player and said doubtfully, 'Jings and help me Bob, boss. Not really road trip music, is it? I've got a couple of discs with me.' He raked around in the rucksack he always had with him and retrieved a CD carrying case and unzipped it. 'Be prepared,' he said. Yes, of course, he would have been a Boy Scout. The sort of boy who relished being able to tie knots and light a fire with a couple of sticks. The kind ofboy any mother would like to have. And she would bet her bottom dollar that he had joined the police because he wanted to help, to 'make a difference' .

'Why did you join the police, Marcus?'

'Oh, you know, usual reasons. Wanted to try and make a difference I suppose, help people. What about you, boss?'

'So I could hit people with a big stick.'

He laughed, an uncomplicated sound that wasn't freighted with years of cynicism. Louise tried to guess what kind of music he thought suitable for a 'road trip'. He was too young for Springsteen, too old for the Tweenies, the baby's preferred drive-time soundtrack. (Funny how she too now automatically thought ofJoanna Hunter's baby as simply 'the baby'.) Marcus was twenty-six so he still probably liked the same stuff as Archie -Snow Patrol, Kaiser Chiefs, Arctic Monkeys -but no, the BMW's music system was being polluted by James Blunt, prince of easy listening. She leaned over and with one hand grabbed the CD case and emptied it on to Marcus's lap, disgorging Corinne Bailey Rae, Norah Jones, Jack Johnson, Katie Melua. 'Jesus, Marcus,' she said. 'You're too young to die yet.'

'Boss?'

She swapped places with him at Washington services. In the shop two red-tops carried the story about Decker being missing. 'Freed Killer Flees'. Assonance and alliteration, you had to hand it to these guys.

'You kind of have to feel sorry for the guy,' Marcus said. 'After all, he's paid his dues etcetera, but he's still being punished.'

'What are you, Mother Teresa?'

'No, but he was brought to justice, he paid, should he pay for ever?'

'Yes. For ever,' Louise said. 'And then some. Don't worry,' she added, 'when you're my age you'll be hard and unfeeling too.'

'Expect I will, boss.'

'Never driven a Beamer before,' he said, getting into the driving seat and adjusting it. 'Cool. Why aren't we taking a police car?'

'Because we're not on police business. Not strictly speaking. It's your day off, it's my day off. We're going for a drive.'

'Quite a long one.'

'Just be careful with the car, Scout.'

'Yes, boss. Off we go. To infinity and beyond!'