by Mo Hayder
Another hundred yards on and he found himself at the edge of a clearing shielded from the rest of Norfolk by a ring of towering sycamores. Nothing moved. On his right stood a corrugated iron hangar, the words “Sports Cars” in chipped paint on the lintel, the doors open to reveal the decomposing remains of a business of sorts—a crumbling engine hoist, rusting Elf oil cans and a pile of Land Rover roofs. Beyond the hangar, across weed-blistered tarmac, he could see the pebble-dashed walls of a house, square like a nuclear bunker, nettles growing up to the windows. And now that he listened he realized that somewhere a TV was playing. He took a few steps forward and saw, parked against the house—Jesus fucking Christ—the Fiat from the video. A sheet of chicken wire lay up against it, it was covered in nettles, the springs in the seat lolled out like spent jack-in-the-boxes, but it was so ridiculously exactly the same car it almost made him feel he was walking into a setup. The video, then, would have been shot from inside that window. He inched a little closer.
The curtains were drawn and he had to get very close to see through the crack. The light from the TV flickered on the walls. It was gloomy inside but he knew instantly that he was looking at the room from the video: full of furniture, the walls decorated with cheaply framed oils, a giltcovered starburst clock, four 200 packs of imported Rothman's on the bookshelf. This is it—this is it. And then he saw her.
She was huge, sitting on the sofa in the shaded room, blue light playing across her face. She wore pale nylon knickers and an aging bra. Her legs were too enormous to close—the whorled fat on the insides of her thighs forced them out in a stubby, foreshortened V. Her blond hair, worn with a fringe, was pulled severely back on top of her head and secured there with a black band, revealing small gold earrings. Next to her sat a mug, an ashtray and Silk Cuts. Is that her? The hair's different. The woman in the video had been a brunette. A wig, then—in the video she must have worn a wig. At that moment she put down her cigarette in the ashtray, lifted a small polystyrene cup to her mouth, spat a glob of brown sputum into it, wiped her mouth, rested the cup on her belly, picked up her cigarette and went back to the TV. As she settled back he saw a tattoo on her arm and a little bolt of hope went through him. He was meant to be here.
The back door was locked, so he went round to the front. The paint was peeling and there was a disposable barbecue on the porch, full of rainwater and flies. He looked through the window and could see the blonde through the door at the end of the corridor, her legs bathed in blue TV light. He knocked on the window. Her legs jerked as if she'd been shot. She bolted upright, things falling onto the floor, and her big, blank face turned wildly to the door. He took a step back, took off his sunglasses and waited. Soon he could hear her breathing on the other side of the door.
“Who the fuck's that?”
“Tracey?”
“I said who the fuck is it?”
“Jack Caffery.”
“Who?”
“Jack Caffery.”
“Never heard of you.” The chain was drawn across and the latch was unhooked and now the door opened a crack and her big face appeared in the gap in the door, pale eyes blinking in the sun. “Who the fuck are you, then?” She had pulled on a flimsy pink gown. In spite of the nicotine-stained blond hair this was definitely the woman from the video. She had the teeth of an old rabbit. “What d'you want, then? I'm not buying nothing.”
“Are you on your own? Is there anyone else here?”
“What the fuck's that to you?”
“Caffery,” he said. “Jack Caffery.”
“Am I supposed to know what the fuck you're talking about?”
“Ivan Penderecki sent me.”
Her face changed. “Eh?”
“Ivan Penderecki. You know who I mean. A friend of your brother's.”
At that she took keys from a hook, took the chain off the door and stepped outside, closing the door behind her and tying the gown closer. “Don't give me all that. He never did send you.”
“No, you're right. He never did because he's dead. I found out about your brother from the videos Penderecki was keeping for you.”
Tracey Lamb's mouth opened a little. She stood with her feet apart, her big ham arms crossed under her breasts, her mouth slack and nasty. “Who are you?”
“Detective Inspector Jack Caffery. Metropolitan Police.”
He knew she'd bolt when he said it and he was ready. He stepped straight forward and put his hands on either side of her as she scrabbled to get the keys in the front door.
“What?” she screamed, frustrated. “Get off of me!”
“Stand still. I want to talk to you.”
“I'm not talking to the fucking filth.”
“Stand still, Tracey!” She abandoned the attempt to get into the house and instead launched sideways, breaking past his arms and charging along the side of the house. But he mirrored her, his hands out, herding her back toward the wall. “I mean it, Tracey. Keep still.”
“Fuck off. Keep a-fucking-way from me.” She put her head down. He saw she was preparing to aim a knee at his groin and he stepped sideways, quick as a torero, getting her right hand behind her back.
“No no no. Never kick a man in the balls.”
“Oww!” Tracey Lamb had been arrested before and was “hold-wise.” She tried to lock her arm at the elbow but Caffery caught her by the hair, repositioned his feet and grabbed her arm, twisting it behind her back before she could lock it. “Owww!”
“Yes—OK, OK. Try not to struggle, Tracey. It just makes you look even more suss.”
“Get your fucking hands off me.” She struggled and kicked and twisted, and clamped her hand over his, trying to loosen his grip. “You touched my tits,” she screamed. There was no one to hear her, but this was knee-jerk con behavior. Even during the arrest they began plotting for the lawsuit they'd serve on the Met. “Touched my fucking tits—”
“Yeah, c'mon, c'mon.” He hesitated a moment, looking around at the clearing. Where now? Where shall I take her? The car. “Come on.” He dragged her back down the little drive, his hand bleeding where she clawed at it. A crow or a rook screamed above them and took flight from one of the huge rustling trees. At the car he pushed her roughly into the passenger seat and locked the door. She scrambled to the driver's side, but he was there already, opening the door and getting in, pushing her into the seat. “Back—back. Or do you want cuffing?”
“You bastard.”
“I mean it, I'll cuff you.”
“You fucker.” She puffed her breath out in a sigh and fell back in the seat.
“Good. Now …” He started the engine and turned the air on full. He hadn't broken a sweat but Lamb was redfaced and puffing. “Don't try to get out. Just behave yourself.”
“Don't talk to me like that.” She sat forward in the seat shaking a bitten, nicotine-stained finger at him. “I don't care who you are, don't talk to me like that. Filth!” She sat back in the seat, breathing hard. “Should've fucking known to look at you, you were filth. Evil fucking eyes. Typical filth to go round hitting women, that's real filth behavior.”
“Just calm down, OK?” He reached across her and she flinched. “Relax.” He unhooked the seat belt. “I'm not going to touch you.”
As he pulled the seat belt across her huge body Lamb dropped her chin and sank teeth into his arm.
“Fuck. Jesus.” She had him in a vise grip. He grabbed her by the hair and jerked her head back, shaking her like a dog. “Let go. Come on, let fucking go, you shit house.” She gave a little gasp and released her grip and he pulled his hand away, examining the gray mark, pinpoints of blood under the skin. “You spiteful little slag.”
He drove her to a layby on the A134, opposite a graffitied power substation in the center of an overgrown field. He parked the Jag so the passenger door was hard up against a hedgerow, switched off the engine and turned to her.
“Look, first let me give you a little straightener, OK?” He got tobacco from the glove compartment and began to
roll a cigarette. “I don't know why TO9 haven't got a file on you, but I can promise you that when they do they'll find you so tasty they'll crow it from the rooftops. You'd be looking at, what? Something between seven and ten? But for now they don't know—and guess who can keep it that way?”
“I'm not a snout if that's what you're getting at.” The gold earrings clung precariously to the bottom of a long slash in her earlobes, stretched by years of heavy jewelry. He was sure he could see a tiny flash of sky and trees through them every time she moved her head. “If that's what you've come here for. Not a fucking snout.”
“I'd like you to tell me if any of your brother's fucked-up and twisted pals had a habit of biting. Hmm? Someone in Brixton who likes leaving their sick marks on little boys?” He sealed the Rizla and lit the cigarette, pointing it at Tracey. “It's got serious now, Tracey, really serious. I want some names—I want to know all the names of Carl's friends.”
“You're fucking joking, aren't you? I'm not rolling over—go fuck yourself.”
“You specialize in juves, don't you? You and Carl were part of a pedo ring. I've seen the videos.”
“They were faked, ya stupid cunt. Faked.”
“Yes, well, first off, you're lying. But let's just say for the sake of argument that this is your excuse, then welcome, Tracey, to the land of the pseudo photo—the Home Office is one step ahead of you and we can do you for pseudo photos too, although I've never heard anyone, even those with twice your nous, try to use that as an excuse for a video, so ten out of ten for originality.”
“I haven't done nothing.”
“You're a liar.”
“I'm not! It was me brother's thing. All them vids were his—I never even knew—”
“Even so, you are a fucking liar—I recognize you.” Caffery put his cigarette in the ashtray and inspected the mark on his arm, squeezing it, seeing if it would bleed. “You had a wig on, but you made a boy who looked, to my untutored eye, about thirteen …” He paused and looked up from his arm. “Actually, you know, I could be wrong, maybe he was even younger—just goes to show I can't tell kids' ages very well. Anyway, you made him have sex with you, didn't you?” He dropped his arm and looked her square in the eye. “You know, the video with you on the sofa. A boy of about thirteen having his cock sucked. And there were three others.”
“Don't you start trying to grief me now.” She rubbed her chest. “I've got a bad chest. Doctor says stress could be dangerous.”
“Don't threaten me. You're not Cynthia Jarrett. No-body's going to give a flying fuck if you keel over, except for a couple of sad old nonces.”
“There wasn't no harm in what I did.” Her face was growing redder. “He wanted it, that lad. He wanted it. Couldn't you tell? You don't get a fucking lob-on if yer don't wannit.”
“Tracey, he was only a kid. Legally he can't make a decision at that age—and you shouldn't have put him in a position where he had to—”
“You're stressing me.” The phlegm was rattling in her throat. “You're really stressing me.” She moved her tongue around and began to lean over between her knees.
“Don't you dare spit in my fucking car!”
“I'll suffocate if I can't.”
“Oh, for Christ's sake.”
He leaned over, undid the passenger window and pushed her head out. She hawked phlegm into the hedgerow and it landed on an opened cow-parsley umbrella at shoulder height. “Charming.” He pulled her back into the car and pushed her against the seat. She sat back, blinking, and suddenly dropped her face into her hands and began to sob self-pityingly.
“Oh, Jesus.” He sighed.
“What are you going to do to me?” Her nose began to run. “What're you going to do?”
Caffery stared out the window at the cars going by on the A134. Tracey Lamb was depressing him.
“Don't shop me—please don't. I don't want to go away again.”
“You won't if you help me.”
“But I don't know any of them who was biters—I don't!”
“Not good enough. Not fucking good enough.”
“It's true.” Tracey started crying even louder.
“Oh, for Christ's sake.” He rolled his eyes skyward. “Here—have a fag, for fuck's sake.”
She wiped her nose and watched him roll a cigarette. She took it, let him light it and smoked for a few minutes until she was in control again. He watched her carefully, realizing as he did that all he'd said so far was subterfuge, that he should cut to the chase. He rested his elbow on the steering wheel and turned full on to her.
“Look,” he said, “be straight with me—don't you recognize my name?”
“What name?”
“Caffery.”
She shook her head. Her nose was still running.
“But you've heard of the boy across the railway tracks?” That got her attention.
She opened her mouth a little and looked at him. “You know about the boy across the railway tracks, don't you? Penderecki told you, didn't he?”
“Uh—”
“What happened, Tracey? Eh? What happened?”
“I—uh—” Her eyes had changed. They flickered uncertainly and he knew he was getting somewhere.
“Come on—where did Penderecki put him?”
“Why d'you want to know?”
“Doesn't matter why.” Caffery put his index fingers on his temples as if she tired him immensely. “What matters is what happens to you if you don't tell me.”
Her eyes traveled back and forward across his face as if she was working something around in her head, and slowly her expression changed. “Here,” she said eventually, a suspicious little glint in her eyes. “I thought you was asking about a biter. That's what you said—someone who bites little boys.”
“Well, now I'm not. Now I'm asking about the boy on the railway tracks.”
“How comes you're here on yer own?”
“I'm the only one who knows.”
“Are you arresting me?”
“I will if you want.”
“No, you won't.” Her eyes glittered like fake gems. She'd sussed him. “This ain't official, is it?” She smiled, her lips pulled back from the yellow rabbit's teeth.
“You're working for someone. There's some gelt in it. You're in with someone.”
“Just give me the truth.”
“The truth? The real truth?”
“Yes.”
She didn't answer. They stared at each other for a long time. Then Tracey raised her eyebrows and grinned.
“What?”
“I don't know. I don't know what happened to him.”
“Oh, Jesus.” He shook his head and dropped his face into his hands. “Stop dicking with me,” he said wearily. “I mean it, Tracey, no more bullshit. I want to know where they put him.”
“I don't know—seriously, I don't. All I know is that Ivan wouldn't tell me brother and that's all. I swear I don't know.”
20
CAFFERY SAT BACK, exhausted. He lit another cigarette and smoked it without speaking. Fuck this. He believed she didn't know anything about Rory's killer—but she knew more than she was letting on about Ewan. Was he going to let himself be suckered in again, sniff along blindly like a desperate, hungry dog? I think you will. He imagined Rebecca smiling in amusement, smoking a cigarillo and coolly assessing his behavior. Pen-derecki's gone but you still like being jerked around when it comes to Ewan.
No, he thought, fuck it, no. He chucked the cigarette out the window, started the car and nosed it forward a few feet. “I'll come back.” He reached across Tracey and opened the door. “When you've had time to think about it.”
She looked dubiously down at the stinging nettles pushing through the cracks in the hot tarmac. “I'm not getting out here in me drawers. Can't you drive me back to the house?”
“No.” He unsnapped her seat belt and shoved her. “Go on—get out.”
She jerked forward. “Oi, ya cunt. What d'you think you're—”
; “Go on. Fuck off.”
“You cunt!” Tracey Lamb got out of the car, squealing, “You cunt!”
“Yeah.” He closed the door. “Okay, see you later.” She was in her underwear and a see-through wrap, barefoot in a layby two miles from her house, but he didn't care. Fuck her. He accelerated away, his hands shaking on the steering wheel. He followed the A12 into London and straight into the city, where he turned south, setting the car for Shrivemoor. He was going to go straight back and tell Souness about Penderecki's cache and then he was going to go home and sleep. Sleep—it sounded like a long drink from a cold well.
The Jaguar was almost empty so he pulled into the petrol station opposite Shrivemoor to fill up. It was hot: overhead the sun was steady at the midday position, shrinking the grass in the front gardens, making the drains sweat. He stared out absently at the street as the car filled, conscious of the way he'd just lived out Rebecca's diagnosis of him—all through the time in the car with Tracey Lamb he'd wanted to push those rabbit's teeth down her throat. He sighed and replaced the nozzle, locking the petrol cap. He was tired of it all. He was tired of knocking himself out for a kid he didn't know—and suddenly he didn't care if they caught Rory Peach's killer, he didn't even care if there was another family, tied up somewhere, their own child naked and terrified.
He went into the kiosk to pay, bought a truffle ice cream for Kryotos and was crossing the forecourt, the tarmac hot underfoot, when someone came trotting over from the direction of Shrivemoor. “Mr. Caffery.”
Instinctively he left his hand where it was, on his breast pocket, closed over his wallet. A very tall man—with pale, almost alabaster skin and fine blond hair in a neat baby curl—stopped a few feet away on the edge of the forecourt. He was dressed in a pop-button cord shirt and matching fawn cords and was holding an old Argos carrier bag containing a few belongings. “You are DI Caffery.” He put his hand up to shield his eyes. “I saw you in Brixton.”