Longstone by LJ Ross

Author:LJ Ross [Ross, LJ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2018-12-10T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

As Phillips prepared to face another ordeal on the high seas, MacKenzie banged on the door to The Cockle Inn and peered through the window alongside.

“Nobody home?” Yates said.

“The light’s still on,” MacKenzie replied, and knocked on the door one last time, to be sure. “And it’s only two-thirty.”

Thirty seconds or so passed, then they heard the rattle of the heavy door being unlocked and it swung open to reveal Hutch standing in the doorway, looking a bit dishevelled.

“Sorry, we’re closed,” he told them, politely enough.

“Mr Hutchinson? We’re from Northumbria CID. I’m Detective Inspector Denise MacKenzie and this is my colleague, Trainee Detective Constable Melanie Yates. We’re sorry to disturb you, but we wondered if we could ask you some questions?”

“No—you’re not disturbing me, not at all. We were just—ah—just having some quiet time, after the news this morning,” he said, and showed them both inside.

Once inside, he fell back into the role of the accommodating host.

“Can I offer you a soft drink or something warmer?”

“That’s very kind of you, but no, we’re fine,” MacKenzie said, taking in their surroundings. The inn was upmarket, she thought, with good quality furnishings and not a bar fly in sight. “We were hoping to be able to speak to Gemma Dawson?”

“Gemma already gave a statement this morning,” he said.

Both women gave him bland, meaningless smiles. Cop smiles, he thought.

“I can go and get her,” he amended, with a slight edge to his voice.

“That would be so kind, thank you,” MacKenzie said, and watched him hurry upstairs to find his co-manager.

“I seem to recognise that guy,” she said, after a moment. “I wish I could remember where I’ve seen him before.”

“I ran background checks on all the residents here,” Yates told her. “Ryan requested it, yesterday. Paul Hutchinson’s got no previous; none of them have, apart from Gemma’s son, Josh, who accepted a caution when he was eighteen for possession of marijuana.”

“Hardly a capital offence,” MacKenzie was bound to say. “Fairly standard eighteen-year-old behaviour, not that I’d know much about it.”

Before she could take measures to prevent it, she found herself imagining what it might be like to parent a teenager, one who got himself into scrapes with the law. She wondered what it might feel like to carry a baby in her womb, or to worry about their first day at school. She’d seen approximations on television, in films, in the books she’d read and from the friends she’d spoken to, over the years. But she’d never known motherhood, with its highs and lows, its simplicity and complexity.

It did no good to dwell on things she couldn’t change, MacKenzie told herself. She was too old to be thinking of children; much too old.

When Yates spoke again, she was glad of the distraction.

“I wonder why Josh didn’t take his father’s name?”

MacKenzie dragged her eyes away from a large wooden sign above the bar which read, ‘NO RIFF RAFF’ in fancy painted gold letters, and faced the younger woman.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, why doesn’t he go by ‘Josh Hutchinson’?” she said, keeping her voice low.

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