The Hunting Ground by Will Shindler

Author:Will Shindler [Shindler, Will]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
Published: 2022-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

Finn drove out of Winchester thinking through the various questions the conversation with Tolson had thrown up. He stopped on the way back at a motorway service station near Basingstoke simply to give his head a break. Sitting in the corner of a deserted cafe, he tried putting himself into the other man’s shoes. Looking at the evidence and the way the investigation had unfolded, he decided he probably would have come to much the same conclusion about Dean Rawton. But he’d heard enough – seen enough in Tolson’s reactions – to know something wasn’t quite right. He was also acutely aware Rawton had served a near thirty-year term for the offences. If Tolson had got it wrong, the price would be high.

Sipping at an overpriced can of Coke, he casually watched a young woman walk past his table hand in hand with a little girl, no more than around four years of age. The child nagged at her mother and the woman stopped wearily, took off the backpack she was carrying and produced a tissue from one of its pouches. She held it out for her daughter to blow her nose into, checked she was okay and smiled reassuringly at her. Reaching into the bag again, she pulled out a tangerine, which produced a broad beam of pleasure from the little girl.

Finn watched the whole process, entranced. It was a world he didn’t know; one he probably wouldn’t ever know now. Karin had pleaded with him before her death to find someone to have children with after she was gone. She’d thought it would be good for him. On reflection, he now understood why – she must have believed a new relationship, a family, would give him a fresh point of focus, something to move him past her. She’d foreseen all of this – the mess he now found himself in – and had tried her best to prevent it. He realised with a jolt of surprise that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d thought about having children. Somewhere along the line, it had ceased to be important to him and he hadn’t even noticed. He wondered if that was why the fate of Sadie and Liam Nicholls had so got under his skin, what demons beneath the surface they’d stirred.

He looked around the empty cafe, aware he was dallying when he should be hurrying, his heart dragging when it ought to be pumping with urgency. None of his emotional reactions to anything were quite what they should be, and he knew it. Finn picked up his phone, thought about what he was going to do and on an impulse speed-dialled Murray. The signal was poor and there was a silence as the device tried to connect. He looked down at the display as it offered its usual split-second choice: abort the call now and its recipient would never know it had ever been made. Instinctively his finger jabbed out and he killed it before it could connect.

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