LITMIR.BIZ

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desk and the walls were lined with cabinets, some with drawers open on crammed-in files. Dirty coffee cups and full ashtrays littered a small table and the air was stale. Tollis threw open a window and a freezing draught sent papers fluttering to the floor.

      ‘Well?’ Tollis snapped as he scooped the papers up and slammed them on the desk.

      Rees was pale and his eyes seemed to have sunk into shadowy sockets but he still protested that Toby couldn’t have come to any harm at Albert Gumley’s home. ‘He was just to watch and report back,’ he said.

      Tollis couldn’t keep still. He paced as Rees spoke and then turned on his partner. ‘Report what, for God’s sake? Are we still in the service, Rees, still playing little secret games?’

      Rees hesitated. ‘I know we agreed not to do any more jobs for Special Branch but this seemed like a couple-of-days affair—there was a rumour that Gumley was back in action and there’s been a flood of heroin in circulation.’ He seemed to lose confidence in what he was saying as he went along, as if Tollis’s anger had shocked him.

      Tollis stooped and leaned on his desk, taking all his weight on his spread hands. ‘Tell me again what Special Branch wanted, Rees,’ he said coldly.

      Rees lowered himself into a soft leather chair and he seemed to shrink at the same time. His shoulders became rounded and his hands shook slightly. Tollis had never seen Rees like this before and that made him all the more concerned.

      ‘It was all very vague,’ he said.

      Tollis snorted. ‘Gumley was never involved in drugs and he’s been confined to that house of his for years. John told me that he was slowly dying—why the hell would that man suddenly risk everything he’s stacked away?’

      Rees’s head came up at the mention of John’s name and a gleam of hope crept into his eyes. ‘John could go to Gumley and find out about Toby,’ he said, but Tollis dismissed the suggestion with a wave of his hand.

      ‘And what would he say—“please could you tell Rees what has happened to the man he sent to spy on you”? Besides, Gumley may be John’s father-in-law but John can’t stand the man. We all know that he never goes near him willingly, except to comply with that custody agreement he made regarding young David. Gumley would smell a rat and right now I don’t want him knowing that Toby works for me.’ Tollis emphasized every word with a stabbing finger.

      ‘He’ll be all right. He’s young and inexperienced,’ Rees said. ‘He was desperately keen to work here like his father … maybe Toby doesn’t realize how important it is to keep to schedules. He could have a girl, could have gone off somewhere …’ But Rees knew he was clutching at any hope and Tollis didn’t even answer.

      Tollis suddenly leaned forward and stared directly at Rees. ‘Something stinks. I have a gut feeling about this … that young Toby is in trouble. It was drummed into him how important it was to phone in if he couldn’t get to work and last night he called his father and said he was on his way home. Mike says he sounded agitated but he didn’t think anything of it until he failed to turn up.’ Tollis suddenly thumped his desk with his fist and more papers spilled on to the floor but he ignored them and turned his back on Rees.

      ‘He’s only twenty-two,’ he said softly. ‘And my guts tell me he’s in real trouble. Your fault. He should never have been sent there and if anything’s happened to that young man I hope you live with it for the rest of your life.’

CHAPTER 3

      For John, who knew nothing of the drama at Sentinel, the weekend passed quickly, but apart from the underlying uneasiness about the incident in his office, he now had a new problem to face and he needed space to think. So on that Monday morning he slipped out early while it was still dark, dressed in an old jogging suit that he kept at Gwen’s. He had long ago discovered that once his feet found a rhythm he could shut everything out except the thing he wanted to concentrate on.

      It was too dark to take to the open country so he ran in the streets, on pavements that were gritted against the ice and at first he found it hard going. He was out of condition and the cold air nipped at his face and ears but as his body warmed, the stiffness eased and he began to relish the sheer exhilaration of running again.

      He let the rhythm take over and turned his thoughts to the conversation he’d had the previous evening with his sister.

      After David was in bed, Gwen had dropped her bombshell.

      ‘We need to talk,’ she said. And John thought that she was going to raise the old theme of ‘after seven years, wasn’t it time he thought of re-marrying?’

      She was seventeen when their parents disappeared on a sailing holiday, seven years older than he was, and she’d assumed the rôle of mother figure. John suspected that she resented Rees taking that authority away from her at the time but there was nothing she could have done about it. So now at thirty-nine, she still sometimes tried to set his life to rights. They’d been over the question of marriage several times although she’d never gone as far as asking if he was celibate. Maybe that was on the agenda this time? But he was wrong.

      ‘It’s about David,’ she said, and immediately John felt a familiar twinge of guilt. Gwen had taken David into her home when he was a baby of four weeks old and at that time John had felt nothing more than relief. For the first years he’d been content to be a visiting father, but gradually guilt had replaced the relief and as if she could read his thoughts, Gwen spoke gently.

      ‘My own three are settled in boarding-school and Greg wants me to sell up here and join him in Aberdeen. He’s tired of us being separated for weeks on end and the move wouldn’t make any difference to our boys. They’d come to us in the holidays as usual, but David’s a different matter. We feel …’ she hesitated. ‘Greg says I should ask you if you want to make a home for David.’

      ‘Mm.’ John let his breath out in a long sigh and Gwen quickly went on.

      ‘He could always board like my three, or be a day boy. There’s no rush to decide,’ she said anxiously. ‘And to be honest I’ll weep buckets because he’s like my own son. Greg is right, though—it has to be your decision.’

      He hadn’t expected this. Somehow the future had stretched ahead much the same as it was now, with David growing up happily with Gwen.

      ‘I don’t know anything about being a father,’ he said, which was very true. ‘And David is always so polite that I feel more like his uncle—you must have noticed how he is with me. Wouldn’t it turn his life upside down to move him now?’

      ‘The only alternative is to take him to Aberdeen,’ she reminded him, and John knew he didn’t want that. It wasn’t fair on Gwen for a start, but he realized that he didn’t like the idea of not seeing his son regularly either.

      ‘Maybe you should ask him,’ Gwen said. ‘I know he’s only seven but he may know exactly what he wants.’

      John had looked around the comfortable room which was almost shabby in its comfort. Gwen had never been interested in smart décor and the furniture showed the knocks of rough handling by four growing boys. The bungalow had an acre of garden that was trampled by football and rugby, and Gwen herself had the comfortable roundness that came from a contented life, while he had a small flat and no idea of how to be a father to a seven-year-old boy.

      ‘Just think about it,’ his sister urged. She didn’t nag, although in the past she had made it plain that she despaired of the way he’d lost all impetus in life after his wife was killed. It had been very easy for him to take each day as it came, letting others make the decisions.

      Lights were coming on in the houses of the little market town. A milk-float hummed by and some early commuters quietly left their homes, closing doors on families still asleep. The world was waking up as he headed back to breakfast, his breath streaming out in a condensed cloud while sweat trickled down inside his tracksuit.

      He

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