I thought if I flagged an issue, at least the police would get an educational psychologist to take a look at Meadowbank and assess whether it really was the right place for Danny.”
“But they didn’t.”
He shakes his head. “The report still hadn’t been acted on by the time she disappeared.”
“So what happened?”
He spreads his hands. “I’m as much in the dark as anyone. Maybe her plans changed. They were pretty vague, after all.”
You wonder if that’s true. The website had walked her through how to set up a new identity, how to live off-grid—
Tell no one what you plan to do, it had instructed. Not even those you trust the most.
“I think she knew exactly where she was going to take Danny,” you say slowly. “She just didn’t want to tell you. It was safer that way.”
Piers Boyd looks hurt, then nods as he sees the sense in what you’re saying. “But if that’s the case, why is Danny still at Meadowbank? And where’s Abbie? What went wrong?”
You shake your head. “That’s what I still don’t understand. But I intend to find out.”
62
Charles Carter comes to his door wearing an old gray cardigan. You weren’t surprised to find him home: He’d said he worked from there. Mergers and acquisitions, mostly.
“Come on in,” he says. He seems genuinely pleased to see you.
You follow him through the house to an office overlooking the beach. There are three computer screens on his desk, arranged like mirrors on a dressing table. One displays a stock-trading screen. A second is for Skype. The largest, the one in the middle, displays what looks like a contract he’s drafting. But it’s the picture on the wall behind the screens your eye is drawn to. It shows the view of the ocean from the boardwalk below, painted in a vibrant, almost street-art style, the waves reduced to abstract, clashing triangles of energy. In one corner you can just make out his boat, the Maggie.
Like the mural in Tim’s office, you think. You go over and look for the looping, flamboyant signature. Abbie Cullen-Scott.
“It’s good to see you again,” Charles Carter says. “There aren’t many people around at this time of year. I won’t deny it does get somewhat lonely out here.”
You indicate the painting. “Was that how she paid you?”
“Abbie?” He looks amused. “Why would she need to pay me?”
“For setting up a corporation.”
Carter takes off his reading glasses and twirls them in his hand, looking at you thoughtfully.
“That was the part she’d have needed help with,” you add. “Most of the instructions she was trying to follow were straightforward—leave your phone on a bus, stop using credit cards, that kind of stuff. The tricky bit was setting up a legal entity that could rent a house and sign up for utilities and so on, without her name being attached to it. I’m guessing she came to you for that.”
Charles Carter raises his eyebrows. You outwait him.
“That’s conjecture,” he says at last.
“I’m extremely good at conjecture. Intuitive thinking is what I was built for.”
“It’s always good to have a purpose,” he murmurs. “And indeed, to know what that purpose is.”
“For a while back there, I thought you might have been sleeping with her,” you add. “But now I think I was falling into the trap of looking at everything the way Tim does. I’m guessing you simply liked each other. Two lonely people who, in their different ways, had each lost the person they loved most in this world…And as you said yourself, you owed her a favor, for sorting out the leases here with Tim.”
“If I owed Abbie a favor, there’d have been no need to pay me with a painting, would there?” he points out.
“But she gave you one anyway.” You think for a moment. “Not as payment, then. As something to remember her by.”
His eyes travel to the painting. “Abbie Cullen was one of the kindest, sweetest people I ever met,” he says quietly. “Sure—she struggled when Danny regressed like that. But more to the point, she had to decide where her loyalties lay. She’d been able to live with her husband when he was the only demanding man in her life. When there were two demanding men…”
You see the way his expression softens as his eyes drop to the signature, and you’re sure now you have it right.
“If I did have any professional dealings with Abbie, they’d be privileged,” he adds. “But I will say this. I think she made the