Wolf

by Mo Hayder

  Silence. The faint clicking vacuum of anticipation – as if the house is holding its breath, only the tiniest crack and creak of the muscles between its ribs giving the game away. She strains her ears, willing out a string of concentration that winds through the crack under the door and slides down the stairs into the hall.

  For a long time nothing. Then the tiniest tap of a footfall on the front doorstep. A long pause. And then, quietly, distinctly, comes the crunch of gravel and the sound of a car door opening.

  Matilda lets her breath out. She gets on to her knees.

  Something is happening. It’s all beginning to happen.

  Bug Screens

  HONIG IS NEITHER valiant, nor brave. He is self-serving and, like most people, he will usually take the easy route out of any situation. He has never been more aware of that than he is now, standing next to the opened driver’s door of the Chrysler. Silently he reaches across the seat and releases the handbrake. He turns the key, but doesn’t engage the engine. Hands on the steering wheel, he braces his shoulder against the front door rim and puts his weight against it.

  There’s a long moment where the car doesn’t move, but at last, slowly, slowly it begins to inch forward. His eyes dart between the car and the curtained windows of the kitchen where Ian the Geek sleeps. The sound on the gravel is minimal – a faint popping noise – getting more frequent as the car builds up speed.

  When the Chrysler has enough momentum he leaps into the driver’s seat. The steering and the brakes are heavy without the engine, but he wrestles the car along the drive, hauling it round one hairpin bend, then another, until he is hidden from the house. He lets the car trundle into the space next to the Anchor-Ferrers’ Land Rover – a small bay off the driveway surrounded by bushes. He brakes hard. Drags on the handbrake.

  He gets out of the car and stands in his socks looking back at the house. None of the windows on the bottom two floors is visible from this hiding place. All he can see are the windows in the turrets. The sky in the east is getting paler. Dawn is on its way already. A sudden picture comes to him of his own modest house in Silver Spring. Weatherboarding and bug screens on the windows – a fading and peeling swing set on the coarse front grass where the wild onions come up each spring. It’s a relic of a forgotten ex-tenant, but Honig’s wife insists on keeping it. Just because, she says sweetly, just because one day … maybe if we’re lucky …

  Sometimes in the spring evenings if he is at home they sit on the swings and drink Sol beers with wedges of lime pressed inside the mouth of the bottle.

  Honig is no hero, but he knows this much. Even if Havilland lets him off the hook, he will not be able to go home and look his wife in the eye if he hasn’t at least tried to do something good and valiant in his life. He can’t leave the Anchor-Ferrers family alone with Ian the Geek.

  His hand closes around Bubblegum Mania in his pocket. He looks up at the windows. There’s a key in his pocket too. One which will unlock handcuffs. Mrs Anchor-Ferrers and Lucia can walk on their own. They can run. Oliver Anchor-Ferrers? Well, if he has to, Honig will carry the old guy out of the house on his back.

  Sunrise

  DURING THE DAY the Walking Man is invisible – he is the same colour as the land, going, head lowered, in a straight line across the grey unploughed field. At sunrise and sunset, like the prey of a crepuscular predator, he is easier to find.

  Caffery is a natural-born hunter. Relentless.

  He drives for two hours – and it’s not far from dawn when he finds him. He is on the gravelly perimeter of a kale field, next to the hedge, cooking breakfast over his campfire. Caffery pulls the car up to the farm gate and gets out.

  The Walking Man is prepared for Jack’s visit. It’s not for him to hide, or behave in a cowardly fashion. He will face Caffery the way he faced him in the dream, no hint of panic or defensiveness. Just a slight smile on his face.

  As is always the case, he doesn’t acknowledge Caffery’s arrival, just continues pottering, using a stick broken from the hedgerow to lift the sausages and check they’re cooking.

  Bear is uneasy. She knows something is going to happen. When Caffery clambers over the stile into the field she doesn’t follow but stays on the other side, hesitant. He glances back – sees her, notes her behaviour, and ignores it. He’s not going to be turned back now. Leaving her there, he heads straight across the field, not sticking to the footpath but mowing a trampled line across the crop in the shortest possible route.

  He gets closer and closer. The crop crunches under his feet as he nears, the sweat gathers around his neck. The Walking Man, sensing trouble, puts the pan down and slowly straightens. But he doesn’t turn to look at Caffery.

  Caffery isn’t a gym freak, he drinks and he’s an ex-smoker, but he knows his body, he’s muscular and he trusts his strength in most situations. He’s an instinctive fighter – tooth and nail. He springs at the Walking Man, launching his whole weight on to his shoulders, one arm in a stranglehold around his neck, his knees coming up to get a purchase around his back.

  He expects the Walking Man to go down like a tree, but he doesn’t. He resists, his wiry frame shaking with the effort. A small grunting noise comes from his throat as he takes one or two compensatory steps to keep his balance, but he refuses to go down. There’s a long silent struggle. Two men who look like one. A freakish, writhing beast silhouetted against the sky.

  Caffery tears at the man’s hair, rains punches on the side of his head and neck. ‘You’ve made me,’ he hisses into his ear. ‘You’ve made me do this.’

  Eventually, without warning, the Walking Man sits. He simply folds his legs in half and goes down where he stands. Caffery is unprepared and is jolted into a half somersault, coming to land a metre away on his back.

  He doesn’t bother to get up. He drops his hands over his eyes and lies there on the ground, breathing hard. He knows the truth: he knows that the only person who’s lost anything is him – Caffery. He’s lost his temper and his dignity. The Walking Man meanwhile has kept complete control of the situation.

  Eventually Caffery takes his hands from his eyes. He rolls his head sideways to look at the Walking Man. He too is lying on his back, his hands at his sides. He hasn’t moved or spoken. Caffery props himself up on an elbow, wondering if he hasn’t actually killed the bastard.

  But the Walking Man’s not dead, he’s alive – very much alive. His eyes are open, watching the clouds cross the sky. He is smiling serenely.

  ‘You know what, Jack?’ He drops his head to the side to look at him. ‘A great man once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting the results to be different.’

  ‘You fucker,’ Caffery hisses. ‘You old fucker.’

  The Cob

  OLIVER IS DRIFTING, dreaming that he’s with Matilda.

  They are standing on the Cob at Lyme Regis and it’s the day he asks her to marry him. It’s the most romantic place he can think of – this is just before the French Lieutenant is an international sensation and it’s not crowded with tourists. It’s a place he loves to walk in the winter, the wind streaming around his face, the light so pellucid he has to squint.

  It is his birthday, the thirteenth of December. A wind is whipping the waves into a milky froth and when he pushes the ring on her finger her skin is wet with brine and the ring slides on smoothly – it doesn’t crinkle or buckle. Afterwards they go to a pub and sit in front of the fire. Matilda turns her hand over and over to look at the sparkle of the ring. The sea water on her face and hair dries slowly into a fine white frosting.

  That white comes back to him in the dream. Except now it’s scales, not a frost. Matilda smiles. The smile cracks some of the scales off. They fall with the noise of glass. Under them the skin is red and raw.

  ‘You have met Molina before,’ she says slowly. ‘But not at Gauntlet. You met him once before. Many many years ago. You didn’t like him then.’ She touches Oliver’s face with a hand that’s like gossamer. �
�Deep inside I think you’ve always known the truth.’

  He wakes, his heart thumping. The room is silent, the beginnings of a pink dawn coming through the window. Matilda’s face slips away like shattered light. He lies still, suddenly shocked as if one of the cold Lyme Regis waves has crashed over him. What Matilda has told him in the dream has peeled back something in his memory. Under it is a truth, nastier than any truth he’s ever guessed at before. So horrible that at first he refuses to even consider it.

  Eventually, with an effort, he pulls himself to a sitting position and, blinking, fumbles the pen out from under the skirting board. He begins to write.

  Something I have until now only suspected in some shuttered corner of my mind … something which is impossible for any man to face head on. I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to admit it, because I must have always harboured this suspicion on some deep, deep level.

  Kable, wherever he is, is an innocent man.

  Oliver pauses. He puts back his head and tries to picture John Bancroft in the room. He sees him standing in the middle of the rug, just in front of the mirror. He sees him looking all around, taking in the scene. ‘Look at me,’ Oliver whispers. ‘Look. Please look. Please look at what I am writing.’

  Slowly John Bancroft turns. He comes and crouches next to Oliver. The old man’s hands are shaking as he shows him the rug. ‘Read it, please, read it.’

  Bancroft reads. And when he has finished Oliver writes more.

  Incredible, yet possible, even in this day and age. I believe he was wrongly convicted. He didn’t protest his innocence at the trial, perhaps that is why he was convicted so easily. Without his confession there wasn’t much evidence – hardly any DNA at the scene to connect him to the killings. I may be wrong in my suspicions, but you – whoever you are (John?) – I think you will read this and use it as a piece in the puzzle. I cannot believe what I am going to write next. And yet it is what I believe to be the truth.

  The Peppermint Room

  MATILDA SITS UPRIGHT against the radiator. Her hair is wild, her eyes wide. Her ankle is torn and bleeding from the scissors, but her frantic attempts to remove the cuff have come to nothing.

  There’s a creak in the hallway. Someone is out there. It’s one of the men coming up the stairs. He’s trying to do it silently.

  She quickly assesses the distance from the door to where she lies. Then, trying to make as little noise as possible, she rearranges herself, shuffling her bottom across the floor and twisting so her manacled foot is pointing towards the door and her torso is nearer the fireplace. She lifts her right knee and tucks her foot behind her left leg, which remains out straight, locked to the radiator. Then she rolls her upper body to the right, into the wall. The scissors are open, the blades ready, concealed under her body.

  Another creak on the stairs. Nervous sweat runs down Matilda’s sleeves and soaks her blouse. She hopes it’s Molina, the smaller one, and not big, tall, balding Honey. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to fight Honey – there’s too much of him. The door opens. Her heart is like an animal scrambling to escape. She breathes through the fear, low and deep.

  The light comes on. She wills her eyelids not to flutter and give her away. Then a footstep next to the bed, soft, as if he’s tiptoeing. She keeps her ribs rising and falling steadily, imitating sleep. It’s Honey, she’s sure of it. He’s the only one nasty enough to creep up on her. He is behind her, one foot up and to the left of her face. She dares to open one eye and through the curtain of hair sees a shoe, and recognizes it.

  Good shoes. Yes, it’s Honey.

  ‘Mrs Anchor-Ferrers,’ he whispers. ‘Keep still, don’t say anything.’

  She feels his hand on her shoulder, tugging to turn her to face him. She tenses. There is a beat, a moment where it could all change – then it’s over. She unrolls, uses the momentum to bring the scissors down. She has time to register the look of surprise on his face, his finger up to his mouth as if to say Shhhhhhhhh, before the thin pointed tip of scissor blade lands in the side of his foot, just above the top of his smart shoes. It goes in. She feels and hears the small pop of his skin under his sock.

  He crumples in surprise, dropping to his knees in pain. She pulls out the scissors and stabs again. This time she gets the blade into his neck, just next to his collar.

  ‘What …?’ he stammers. ‘Wha—?’

  Blood wells up from under the scissor blade. It races along her fingers, makes a silky crimson glove round her hand. She pulls the scissors out. Something clatters on the ground and Honey gropes shakily at her, trying to stop her. She scrambles her leg around clumsily so she is kneeling in front of him. He makes no attempt to move away from her, but sways slightly on his knees like a tree in the wind, his hand clasped over his neck. Blood is pulsing through his fingers – bright, almost fluorescent red like spilled ink from a child’s fountain pen, soaking into his collar.

  ‘Whu … Whu …?’

  He screws up his face, as if a terrible noise has started in his ears, then crumples forward, his face hitting the radiator with a loud clang. She swings the scissors again – woodenly, her joints stiff and shocked, her vision blurred by tears. She doesn’t know why, but she thinks the back of the head is the place to aim for. The point of the scissors goes into the tender V at the top of his neck. He lurches forward but it’s the force of her blow and not his own movement. A spurt of yellowish vomit comes out of his mouth and his hand moves numbly around in the air, as if trying to bat a cobweb away from his face.

  Then, quite suddenly, he’s still.

  She sits back on her heels, breathing hard. Along the line of opened scalp she can see the bloodied insides of his skull. So quick. So quick and so easy.

  The scissors fall from her hand and she begins to shake. How has it come to this? How has this happened?

  Back to the Start

  ANGER CAN CLEAR a person’s thoughts like a blast of air. Caffery is winded and the clumsy somersault he executed over the Walking Man has left his back sore from where he landed on a stone, but he’s not drunk any more. He’s coming into a hyper-alert phase and a renewed determination has opened up in his head.

  He stands next to the car, his hand in the small of his back where it aches from the fight. He stares up over the hills that surround this place, at the new sun making pink patchworks of the clouds. Something familiar happens – excitement is in his veins. He’s thought for a long time he’d lost that capability. But no, it’s back. Ferocious. He is going to make this work. He is not going to be beaten. It just needs one last push.

  Bear is waiting for him at the car, her tail wagging cautiously, as if waiting to see his mood now he’s returned. Caffery eyes her, thinking back from the beginning, putting everything he knows into order. A little dog injured and unclaimed. Found only a mile away from the place Hugo Frink and Sophie Hurst-Lloyd were murdered. A woman from the same area missing.

  A triangle appears in his head. At one apex is Bear – abandoned with a cryptic note on her. At the second is Ginny. Missing. There’s a third point that connects these two – it’s something connected with Minnet Kable and the way Hugo and Sophie died, but Caffery can’t quite make that apex swim out of the murk into clarity.

  Kable knew the Donkey Pitch – he’d been seen there in the past – but the only example of his DNA at the scene was found fifty yards away, while there was none found on the victims. It’s the third point on Caffery’s triangle, but it’s fuzzy and vague. Something’s not right about it.

  Bear begins to bark excitedly. Caffery shakes his head, amazed at her insight. If it didn’t sound completely crazy he’d say she knows what he’s thinking. She knows they aren’t giving up yet.

  A Man of Principle

  FIFTEEN FEET BENEATH Kiran’s bedroom, on his camp bed Ian opens one eye and smiles at the ceiling. He’s been listening to Honig creeping around the house – moving the car away, going up the stairs. Bless Honig – for he is a man of principle. And if Ian’s ears don’t d
eceive him Honig has gone the way of many men of principle. He has tried to save the family and now he is dead. For his ideals. What a waste.

  Of course he was always going to die one way or another. Maybe not quite this way – but Ian can work with the circumstances of his dead body in the room overhead. He is going to frame Honig for the terrible fate that will visit Oliver Anchor-Ferrers before morning. When Pietr Havilland hears Ian’s version of events in the house he’ll be so shocked, so infuriated about what Ian and the family suffered at Honig’s hands, that he’ll overlook the fact that the one caveat of the job – Gauntlet’s identity being protected – has been breached.

  Ian yawns and gets up. He reaches under the dining chair and slowly pulls out Honig’s sweatshirt from where he dropped it. It has traces of Ginny Van Der Bolt’s DNA all over it. Ever since they arrived here Ian has been weaving an intricate fabric of veiled hints at Honig’s untrustworthiness. Three days ago he warned Pietr Havilland that Honig’s behaviour was ‘erratic’. While Ian was disposing of the insides of Ms Ginny Van Der Bolt, the one who played Kiss FM too loudly, he took the opportunity to email Havilland the video of Honig in the kitchen, holding his fist up to the camera – baring his teeth.

  Vive le sadisme.

  Ian attached the message: Sir – I am uncomfortable in this man’s company. I feel his connection with this family may be deeper than he has revealed. More to follow …

  Now he puts the sweatshirt in a holdall and adds the wet wipe and the video saved on a memory stick. Things are stacking up nicely. When this is all over Honig will be revealed as the person who really killed Sophie and Hugo all those years ago. That he has returned to continue his spree, choosing the family as his next victims. When his corpse is examined they will find traces of Ginny Van Der Bolt on his trousers and under his nails. In his pocket will be Sophie’s engagement ring. Missing since 1999.