Resolutions Read Online Free PDF Page B

while.’
    â€˜And she’s come back.’ It occurred to George that this was no coincidence. Though with the next thought he wondered how Karen could possibly have known. He hadn’t been told that Mac was going away. But, then, that was what Karen did. What she had always done: known things. Known things and then done something about them, and Mac, George suspected, comprehended exactly what she’d done the last time she’d been in Frantham and that someone was dead as a result of that.
    â€˜What does she want, Rina? Is she coming here?’
    â€˜She wants to see you, George. She wants you to go away with her.’
    â€˜Away with her? No, I don’t want to, Rina. I want to stay here. Is she coming here?’
    â€˜I didn’t tell her where you were, love, but I don’t think it’ll take her long to find out. George, don’t you worry: you aren’t going to go anywhere, but I didn’t want her suddenly appearing on the doorstep and you being taken by surprise.’
    â€˜No, no, thanks.’ George chewed his lower lip, a habit he’d been trying hard to break. Just turned fourteen, he’d started to think of himself as one step from an adult; now, suddenly, he seemed to have been plunged back into the uncertainties and insecurities of childhood. It wasn’t that he was scared of his sister. Not really. The two of them had been so close before their mum had died . . . ‘I’ll have to see her,’ he said. ‘Talk to her and tell her I want to stay here. She’ll be OK with that, I know she will.’
    He could hear the doubt in Rina’s voice as she replied. ‘If that’s what you want to do, George, then how about you meet her here?’
    George breathed a sigh of relief. He did want to see Karen, really he did. He loved his sister, but . . . ‘Thanks, Rina,’ he said. ‘Thanks for that.’
    â€˜No problem,’ Rina told him, though it sounded like a lie. ‘I’ve got her number and I’ll give her a call, then phone you back.’
    George lowered the receiver as carefully as if it might explode.
    Mac followed Alec through to the briefing room, struck by the familiarity of it. That same slightly dusty smell, overlaid with a faint scent of lavender polish and pine disinfectant. He could recall the time when the briefing room would have been thick and acrid with the smoke from a dozen cigarettes, but that era was long gone.
    The furnishing was basic here. Long tables stacked with paperwork and computer equipment, set against the wall so that the rats’ nest of cables from all the electronic equipment could be tucked away enough to satisfy health and safety – provided they didn’t look too closely and see the doubled-up plugs in inadequate sockets. Plastic chairs on tubular frames, the red seats old enough to be faded to a dull orange and stained by years of handling, were tucked under desks and occupied the central space. Incongruously, in the corner set aside for mugs and kettle, an old, faux-leather fireside chair half-blocked the door to a tall cupboard. The chair had just appeared one day and had stayed ever since. Ten years or so, to Mac’s knowledge. It had become convention that anyone sitting there should be left well alone, their residence there an indication that the day had been a bad one.
    Against the long wall, facing the main door, a trestle had been set up and was now bowed beneath the weight of storage boxes. Mac recognized the Cara Evans case files. Above that, on hessian pinboards, a uniformed officer was adding to the current images, reports and contact details. A picture of Cara Evans, taken a few weeks before she had died, smiled across at him.
    Mac caught his breath. He remembered the picture painfully well: it was the one Cara’s mother had given to the police on the day her daughter had first been reported missing.
    â€˜Find her for me. Please find her for