Resolutions by Jane A. Adams Read Free Book Online Page B

visit. ‘Banality,’ he said, and Mac got the distinct impression that in Alec’s eyes that made it worse.
    It was another fifteen minutes before they’d dealt with the formalities and Rains was brought out to them. They had been put in the visitors’ room, a space occupied by a dozen small, melamine-topped tables surrounded by blue plastic chairs and with a coffee machine wedged into a corner close beside the door. Off this main area was a viewing room, glass-panelled and equipped with telephones, alarms and a large wooden table stacked with paperwork and currently occupied by two prison officers who seemed to be trying to work out some kind of shift rota. They had glanced up as Alec and Mac passed by the open door, assured them that Rains would be no trouble and gone back to their work.
    Rains was brought in through another door at the far end of the visiting area. Dressed in blue jeans and a white T-shirt, Rains approached them cautiously, pulling out a chair and settling himself uneasily at their table. He was a tall man, matching Mac for height but not quite reaching Alec’s. Pale, with tired eyes and hands that shook slightly as he accepted the coffee they had bought for him from the machine. He’d once been a powerful, well-built individual, Mac guessed; there was a squareness to the shoulders and a tightness to the shirt sleeves that spoke of someone who once played around with weights, though now a layer of flab covered once-flat abs and his face sagged at jawline and chin.
    â€˜Thomas Peel,’ Alec said.
    â€˜What about him?’
    â€˜Been in touch, has he?’
    Rains sighed. ‘And why should he have been? We’ve got nothing to say to one another. Not now.’
    â€˜But at one time? No, don’t bother answering that: we know you had a lot to say to one another. Regular correspondents, weren’t you? Email and little postcards and the telephone conversations. Oh, and the blackmail, of course.’
    Rains looked away. ‘I told you: that was then. He’s the reason I’m here, nothing more to say.’
    â€˜Oh,’ Alec said. ‘Peel is the reason you’re here, is he? I thought it was the children you abused, the ones you photographed.’
    Rains’s attention snapped back in Alec’s direction. ‘Photographed, yes. I never touched them though.’
    â€˜But you watched while others did more.’ It was the first time Mac had spoken, and Rains turned his head slowly to regard him with a surprisingly steady gaze.
    â€˜I know about you,’ Rains said. ‘You were the cop that got that girl killed. Peel told me so. He said he’d never have cut her throat if you hadn’t been there. He said your face was an absolute picture.’
    Mac drew a deep breath and then held it, releasing it slowly before he spoke. He was relieved beyond measure that his voice was almost steady. ‘I don’t doubt it was,’ he said. ‘I would count myself a much lesser man if I hadn’t reacted to the death of a child. Would you have taken a picture of that too, Mr Rains?’
    Rains took a swallow of his coffee but did not speak.
    Mac was aware of Alec’s anxious glance, knew he had to maintain his control. Test number one had been accepting the offer of return to the case; here was test number two. ‘So,’ Mac asked, ‘has your erstwhile colleague been back in touch?’
    â€˜Erstwhile,’ Rains savoured the word. ‘Use big words like that in here and you’d get a shiv in your back just for being a ponce. No, my erstwhile friend has not been in touch. Not since he came to watch me being sentenced.’
    Alec and Mac exchanged a glance, and Mac saw Rains smile. He knew the man felt he had scored a point. Rains had been sentenced months after Cara Evans had been killed, and the hunt for Peel had still been intense.
    â€˜Came to gloat, did he?’ Alec asked innocently, and Mac was