‘Um, I think Patrick might be able to help there,’ Harry said.

‘Oh? How’s that?’

‘Patrick found out why he buried the journals,’ Harry said.

An hour spent examining the letters and numbers Patrick had written down convinced Alec that they were on the right lines, but he also had no idea exactly what they might mean. He had a feeling that Harry might be right and the numbers may refer to offshore accounts. He agreed they needed an expert to look at this and wondered if one could be suggested by DS Fine.

‘Alec, if Rupert was clever enough to set this up, to cover his tracks so far, why didn’t he gradually filter this money back into his legitimate business?’ Harry asked. ‘I mean, the antiques business would lend itself to laundering, I would have thought. There are a lot of overseas sales and a number of transactions in cash. Both ways.’

‘And how accurately did he keep his books where they were concerned?’ Alec questioned.

‘Ah, well now, that’s a question,’ Harry replied. He paused, mind working. ‘You know,’ he continued, ‘I wonder if what I just suggested is precisely what Rupert was trying to do. You know the ledger we found buried with the other things? Well, it’s recent, only been kept over the past six months or so. From what I’ve seen so far it’s possible that at long last Rupert decided to bring that money in line, so to speak.’

‘Why now? He didn’t need it. His bank accounts were more than healthy.’

‘Because Kinnear came back on the scene,’ Harry said. ‘He was trying to pay him off.’

‘Obviously not fast enough for Sam Kinnear,’ Alec observed.

Alec had gone to bed, exhaustion winning out over his desire to carry on puzzling this out. Naomi joined him and Harry went back to his examination of the ledger.

Patrick took the laptop into the dining room and set himself up at the table opposite his father. The French doors were open and the sun streaming in. It was hard to equate the peace of the summer afternoon with the violence of men like Kinnear, though Patrick only had to look at the reinforcement and new locks on the doors to be reminded.

‘Dad, why do you think he hasn’t tried again?’ Patrick asked looking at the door. Kinnear seemed to have gone to ground since his attack on Alec. The routine phone call from Fine that afternoon had once again reported no further sightings. Fine wanted to talk to Alec about getting the media involved; so far his encounter with Kinnear had made it into the local paper only as an attempted mugging. It had made two paragraphs on an inside page, having been deliberately played down at Alec’s request.

Fine had gone along with him, preferring to wait until they had more details to go on, but the hunt for Kinnear seemed to have stumbled to a halt.

‘I don’t know,’ Harry replied. ‘I can’t help but wonder if Kinnear deliberately exposed himself that day. If he made certain that Naomi heard him.’

Patrick nodded. ‘The kid from the farm. He texted me last night.’

Harry looked at his son. ‘What did he say?’

‘He wanted to meet.’

‘And?’

Patrick shrugged. ‘We met,’ he said. ‘In the meadow last night.’

Harry took a deep breath and Patrick could see he was biting back words. He could guess what they were. Something along the lines of: Don’t you realize how dangerous/stupid/irresponsible that was. And just when were you going to tell me about it?

‘I’m telling you now,’ Patrick defended himself against his father’s unspoken question. ‘First chance I’ve had really,’ he added as reasonably as he dared. He waited, wondering which way, as regards response, his father would decide to go.

Harry closed his eyes, then opened them again. He’d decided, Patrick realized, to come down on the side of what’s done is done. ‘Not sensible, Patrick. I’m sure you know that.’

Patrick shrugged, not quite able to concede the point. ‘He was upset,’ he said, ‘but he’s definitely the kid Marcus saw at the shop. He said he went to tell Rupert not to go to the farm again. His parents had been rowing about it.’

‘His parents? Why?’

Patrick shrugged. Truth to tell he wasn’t sure. ‘He said his dad thought it was a big waste of time and got all resentful of how much attention his mam was giving it.’

‘You think he was lying?’

Patrick shook his head. ‘I think that’s what he thought his dad thought. I think it was just one more thing and if it hadn’t been Rupert that made her leave then something else would. I mean, who’d want to live with a man like him?’

‘Rupert made her leave? I don’t understand.’

‘No. Not made her. Not like forced. Made her realize she wanted to leave, I suppose. But Danny – that’s the boy – he’s really cut up about it. She’s gone and not been in touch since and he’s convinced himself she’s dead.’

‘Dead? Does he have any reason for thinking that?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Patrick said. ‘Just that she didn’t say goodbye and she’s not been in touch.’

‘That’s sad,’ Harry said. ‘Sad and cruel, in my view, but it may be she thought a clean break would …’

He paused, met his son’s gaze.

‘No, I don’t think she was right either, Patrick. But there’s one thing I don’t understand. Was he worried about coming to talk to Rupert at Fallowfields?’

‘No. I asked him that too. He says he came but that Rupert wasn’t here and the car was gone too.’

Harry frowned. ‘And this was just a couple of weeks before he died, wasn’t it? The time Marcus identified when Rupert was behaving oddly, not going into work, that sort of thing.’

‘Marcus didn’t think he’d even wanted to leave the house,’ Patrick agreed.

‘But, obviously, on that occasion he did. Maybe his reluctance to go into work was not so much because he was afraid as because he was elsewhere.’

Patrick shrugged. ‘Might have been coincidence,’ he said. ‘But, Dad, would you want to be on your own here knowing someone like Kinnear knew where you lived?’

‘No, but then I wouldn’t go and see him on my own either and it looks as though Rupert did just that the day he died.’

‘Do you think Kinnear killed him in a way that the post mortem didn’t pick up?’

‘I think Kinnear was responsible,’ Harry said slowly. ‘But as to what he did to cause Rupert to have the heart attack … It could be that, unless Kinnear tells us we will never know.’

Twenty-Five

Alec listened to Patrick’s account of his meeting with Danny Fielding.

‘Do you know the mother’s name?’

‘Sharon Fielding,’ Patrick told him. ‘I said I’d ask you what he could do.’

‘Well, technically, the police officer he spoke to was right. She hasn’t actually gone missing. She’s an adult and her husband hasn’t reported her absence.’

‘But …’

‘But I can have a word with Reg Fine. See if there’s any circumstances Danny didn’t know about. Did he say that she knew Rupert well?’

Patrick thought about it. ‘They were working on some stories she told him but I don’t think she knew him before or anything.’

‘Right.’ Alec was thoughtful. ‘Patrick, I think we should assume then that this is a separate issue. I hope her disappearance has nothing to do with Kinnear.’

He felt more alert now, rested after his sleep and his mind was working again.

‘What do we have, then? We have a set of dubious accounts. Some kind of code concealed in his journals. Money from two robberies that Kinnear wants back and evidence that Rupert was trying to settle with him. I’m forced to the conclusion that Kinnear didn’t want Rupert dead, at least not until he had his money, and it looks as though he may have been willing to give Rupert time to get what he thought he was owed. To legitimize it in some way. The thing in Kinnear’s favour is the number of years that have passed since the robberies. Handled carefully, Kinnear may well get away with the money, free and clear, if just a little late.’