by Mo Hayder
“Don't tell me.”
“I just want to—”
“I don't want your understanding.”
Shit. Caffery jumped to his feet, furious, pacing around the bed, opening his hands to appeal to Souness. “I'm only trying to help,” he mouthed at her.
She turned her face away from Peach and reached over to touch Caffery on the wrist: “Let me deal with this, OK?”
“Go on, then.” He dropped into a chair in the corner. He'd given up with Alek Peach. He sat, his legs pushed out in front of him, his head dropped on one hand, and watched.
“Right …” Souness rubbed her forehead, trying to think how to put it. “Alek, we think the intruder made ye do something to Rory….” She paused. Peach was breathing hard, staring angrily at his hands. “Now, we've never come up against something like this, so we need you to work with us, and what I think we need to start with is an allegation.”
Silence. Caffery watched sullenly from the edge of the room. She won't get through to him—he's a dickhead.
“We're sorry, young man.” She put her hand on his and squeezed it. “But we need to hear it in your own words.”
Peach suddenly put his head back and tears lit up in the corners of his eyes, running down his face. He heaved in a breath. “It doesn't matter anyway. I've died now,” he muttered. “I've died now, so it doesn't matter what I tell you. I'm dead. I know you can see me.” He lifted one bruised hand and touched the fingertips to his chest. “You can see me, sitting here, inside my skin, but really I'm not here, see? I'm not really here.” He used the heel of his hand to press the tears back into his eyes. “Oh, God, oh, God—”
When it was over Caffery and Souness paused outside the ward to check their watches. They were both pale. When Peach had finally begun to talk he had given them the whole ugly thing at once: dragged it out by its tail and slapped it down in front of them, teeth, blood and claws. He'd admitted it all—admitted that somewhere there were photographs of what had happened, that he'd lied about not hearing or seeing Rory, said that he hadn't been dehydrated because he and Rory had both been given a little water in those three days, because the intruder had a reason to keep them strong. And finally, his head drooping, tears falling onto his pajamas, like a child, he admitted he'd been forced to do the worst, the most unspeakable thing. The troll had told Alek he'd throw Rory out of a first-floor window onto the concrete patio if he didn't.
By the time the interview was over all three of them were shaking. Caffery realized now how little he'd thought through what it had been like in number thirty. To hear it come out of Peach's mouth awed and silenced him. Maybe that was why Peach had given him the bullshit about his eyes—maybe he'd been afraid that Caffery would look right into him and see all the lies he'd had to tell about Rory.
They walked down the stairs in silence. Souness bought them both coffee from a vending machine and they went out into the shocking sunshine. The car was too hot to drive, so they opened the doors and sat on the seats with their feet on the tarmac, sipping their drinks.
“So,” Souness said after a while, pulling the rearview over to check her face, removing a little fleck of dirt from the corner of her eye, “where does that put us now?”
Caffery was silent. He sat with his feet apart, elbows resting on his knees, staring into the coffee. Peach had told them how panicky the troll had got when the doorbell rang, how he'd whimpered and barged around the kitchen trying to get out. But Peach had still been blindfolded and was unable to give them a better description of him. But one thing he had said was jammed in Caffery's head.
“Jack? I asked you a question.”
“Yeah—sorry.” He drank his coffee down and crumpled the plastic cup. “How are we doing for tick-tocks?” He checked his watch. “Right, my lad's'll be back from door-to-door by now—you feel like going through their statements for me?”
“And where are ye going to be?”
“I'm going home.”
“Ye're just going tae dump me here—in the middle of shagging Camberwell?”
“No. I'll drive you back first.” He took the keys out of the door and put them in the ignition. “You deserve a lift after what you just did.”
Souness, who was holding her collar out and blowing air down it to try to cool down, stopped when she heard that. She turned to him, a suspicious look in her eyes. “Jack? That wasn't a wee compliment slipped through there, was it now?”
“Don't let it go to your head. Now, come on, shut the door.”
It was the first time Caffery had been home this early for a long time. The sunlight illuminated unused dusty corners of the house, and the windows needed cleaning. The answerphone was blinking—he put his briefcase on the sofa, opened the French windows and listened to the message while he sat at the top of the garden steps pulling off his shoes and socks.
“It's me, Tracey. I got remanded.”
“I'm not interested, Tracey.” He padded into the kitchen. “You're a fucking liar and I've stopped playing.”
“They never give me bail and I got custody instead and I'm in Holloway, if you want to see me.” She hesitated as if she was about to say something and Caffery, in the kitchen, reaching into the back of the fridge to retrieve a solitary old can of Heineken, paused and looked round into the hall. “And, anyway, that's where I am. You could bring me some fags,” she added pathetically, “if you wanted. And a phone card.”
Yes, you slag. He slammed the fridge. Yes, you're still a wind-up merchant. He padded into the hallway to wipe the message and found Rebecca waiting for him on the stairs.
“Who's Tracey?”
He stood, surprised and open-mouthed, guilty to be standing here in his own hallway. “I didn't see your car.”
“I had to park round the corner. It's jammed outside.” She came down two steps so she was eye to eye with him. “Who's Tracey?”
He sighed, avoiding her eyes.
“Well?”
“It doesn't matter.” He turned away, starting toward the kitchen. He knew that if he told her it would start an argument—what Rebecca wanted to hear was that he was doing something in return for her gesture, that he was giving up Ewan. She certainly didn't want to know the sort of bait he was still taking. “She's no one.”
“Jack, tell me.” She came down two more steps. “Jack—”
“No—you don't want to hear.”
“Please.”
“What?” He turned back to face her. “I've just said you don't want to know, so leave it at that.”
She didn't flinch. “Just tell me who she is.”
“Someone who's got me here.” He grabbed his balls. “If you really want to know, she's someone who's got me here and is enjoying jerking me around.”
“Why?”
He took a breath to reply but changed his mind. “No, leave it—it's all about Ewan.”
“Oh.” She was silent. She tucked her bottom lip under her teeth and dug a little hole in the wooden banister with her thumbnail. He turned to go but she stopped him. “Jack.”
“What?”
“It's OK, you know.”
“What?”
“About Ewan—it's OK. You can't change your life just because your dumb, neurotic girlfriend wants you to.”
He was humbled. They sat at the kitchen table and talked and he was honest with her: he told her about finding the videos—“They've been in the hall cupboard all along”— about going to see Tracey, about the arrest, about the way he'd gone to the Soho bank with the cash, paid it in and promised himself to forget it all. She sat opposite him, smoking thoughtfully, occasionally stopping him to ask a question. From time to time he had to remind himself that this was really happening, that they were sitting talking about it, and Rebecca wasn't just dismissing it, or sliding in a cutting comment here and there.
“Jack,” she said, looking at the tip of her cigarillo, “you know, it's true, it all really winds me up.” She wiped her face and pressed the bridge of her nose between thumb and
forefinger. “But,” she dropped her hand and looked up, “it's only because I get scared. Only because I get scared of how tense you get. I get scared you'll hurt some-one—or yourself.”
“Me too.” He sighed, shaking his head. “I get scared too.” He covered her hand with his. “Look …”
“What?”
“We'll have to talk about it later.”
She held up her hands. “That's OK—that's fine, really.”
“I've got to get on—”
“Yes.” She put out the cigarillo and started to get up. “Don't let me stop you.”
“I think you should go out.”
“Why?”
“Trust me—I think you should go out.”
Roland Klare took the camera from the tin, bundled everything into a bag and left the flat, fumbling with his keys and nearly dropping them. He was anxious, he was sweating, but he had made up his mind. It was time.
The lift took him all the way to the ground floor without stopping once. He walked calmly out of Arkaig Tower, pausing in the street, his mouth moving, uncertain which was the best way. One or two passersby looked at him suspiciously, but he was used to these odd stares and he just flapped his tongue out at them—Leave me alone. I am doing the right thing, doing what ought to be done—and turned right, away from them, clasping the bundle to his chest, heading off down Dulwich Road.
The passersby paused to look at the eccentric figure in ill-fitting, dirty clothes, hurrying in the direction of central Brixton. But they soon continued on their way and didn't think much more about it. That was the thing about Brix-ton—always expect the unexpected.
It was 5 P.M. when he found it. As soon as Rebecca had gone to the bottom of the garden, with a cup of tea, a magazine and a promise to knock on the French windows if she wanted to come in, he got the videotapes from the cupboard and found the notes he'd made. Somewhere in his tearful, dreadful rambling Peach had said something that had stuck and wouldn't go away. “He kept saying that everything smelled of milk. He went around sniffing everything and complaining about it. Everything smelled of milk.” Caffery knew it had been among the tapes somewhere, but he couldn't automatically link that snatched piece of vocabulary to a specific scene. He consulted the notes he'd scribbled in the incident room and eliminated most of the tapes—several had no soundtrack, or only a solitary, directorial voice whispering instructions to a small child blinking at the camera—that's really beautiful, that is … But three of the videos had muffled conversations off camera, and these were the ones that Caffery sat and watched. It was a snippet, a tiny, inconsequential sliver of conversation he was looking for, and when he found it his heart sank.
It would be in this one.
He disliked this video in particular because the child in question—a boy—was so patently trying to be brave, so patently trying to please the camera and, worst of all, was so clearly ashamed of his body. He was overweight for his age and it wasn't the abuse he seemed most unhappy about: he seemed more afraid that he wouldn't be good enough, that he might be too fat to please.
The video was set in a bathroom—it was a surprisingly clean room. In fact, it was a typical suburban bathroom from some time in the eighties. The walls were a pale, ragwashed pink, and there was a pink and gray floral border around the door, fluffy pink and white towels on the rail. The sink was in the shape of a shell, and the taps were gold-colored. It might have been shot in winter because at times the child appeared to be shivering with cold. The other people in the video, two adult men, wore rubber masks.
“What an oinker,” someone whispered off screen. Then something Caffery couldn't understand, which ended clearly with the word “flabby.”
“Squeal like a pig,” someone else giggled. “Ah sayed squayeel lahk ah payig.”
“What do you think, Rollo?” Another male voice.
Caffery inched forward a little on the sofa.
“He smells.” It was a dull and uninterested voice. “He smells like milk.” A shuffling sound and something off screen fell over. The tape was paused, and when the picture came back the bath was full and the boy was lying on his back in the water.
“OK, that looks good—”
Caffery stopped the tape and rewound a few frames, started the tape again.
“What an oinker … flabby.”
“Squeal like a pig. Ah sayed squayeel lahk ah payig.”
“What do you think, Rollo.”
“He smells. He smells like milk.”
“OK, that looks good—”
He rewound again.
“… pig.”
“What do you think, Rollo?”
“He smells. He smells like milk.”
“OK, that—”
Rewind. Play.
“He smells. He smells like milk.”
“OK—”
Rewind. Play.
He smells, he smells like … smells like milk … smells, smells like milk, smells … Rollo? He smells. He smells like milk. OK, that looks good … What do you think, Rollo? He smells, smells like milk, what do you think, Rollo, Rollo Rollo.
Caffery groped in his jacket pocket for his mobile. He just had time to register his visit and drive through the traffic to North London before Holloway visiting hours started.
He registered under Essex's name, Mr. Paul Essex, and used Essex's driving license as ID. He didn't want anyone seeing the name Jack Caffery on the roster of visitors, and he didn't want anyone knowing he was job. He switched off his mobile and put it with his other belongings in the glass-fronted locker in the visitors' center and let the officer stamp him—an invisible visitor's pass tattooed on the back of his hand—like a teenager going to a nightclub.
He'd been here dozens of times before, but something odd happened on this visit. He realized it as he walked along the line of tape that led visitors through the system, passing them under the cold, programmed attention of the screws, past the drugs amnesty boxes, past the mouth search—“Lift your tongue, please, sir, and now just turn your head, this way, good, and now this way.” He realized that this afternoon he was seeing it with new eyes—be-cause you're on the other side now; like it or not you are on the other side. This was what it was like to be on the outside, to see clearly the towering, bureaucratic engine, to feel its threat. The female officer didn't meet his eye as she ran her hand around the waistband and shook the front of his trousers. “Thank you, sir.” She held out a hand to show him the way through.
Waiting outside the visitors' room an officer walked a passive drugs dog down the queue—the animal must have smelled Caffery's discomfort because it paused next to him, turned its head slightly, eyeing him coldly—just as if it knows which side you're really on. He loosened his collar and turned away his eyes, conscious of the officer's attention on the side of his face. For God's sake, move on, move on … Eventually the dog did turn away. It continued down the line, finally coming to sit at the end of the queue, next to a woman with a baby in a car seat. “Madam.” The baby might have been what had made the dog stop. Sometimes drugs came in in babies' nappies. “If you'd like to come with me.”
“Mr.—uh—Essex.” The officer at the door ticked off the bogus name on the clipboard and unlocked the door, nodding toward the nearest table. “You're on reception one.”
The first “reception” desk, on the row reserved for new inmates still in “reception” week, was the closest to the senior officer. Caffery sat on the red plastic visitor's chair, his back to the officer, and looked around the room. Polystyrene tiles hung from the ceiling, the carpet was shiny with tea stains—in an emotional encounter the first thing to go on the floor was the tea; he'd seen it happen time and time again. The officer unlocked the holding cell and the quiet, bass murmur of conversation crescendoed as the inmates came out, a cloud of trapped cigarette smoke coming with them. Caffery rested his hands on the little wooden table and didn't look up. He sat and stared at his hands and waited, and soon here she came, out from the back of the group, in a pale blue T
-shirt, her jogging trousers rolled up to midcalf, revealing bare ankles, trainers and an ankle chain. Her hair was held back severely from her face; her earrings were in place. She took a polystyrene cup from the tea bar and dropped into the blue in-mate's chair opposite him, her glittering little eyes taking in his clothes, his face, his eyes.
“You come in under a different name,” she said. “I asked the screws who it was, they said Essex.”
“An old friend of mine.” He felt in his pocket for change. “What do you want, Tracey? Tea? Coffee?”
“Nah—did you bring my fags?”
“You know I can't bring them in here—you know that.”
“OK,” she said lightly. Caffery could tell she was glinting with satisfaction at getting him here with just one phone call. But she wasn't going to be the first to show her hand. “What're you here for, then?”
He leaned forward, his hands clasped on the little child's table between them.
“Who's Rollo?”
“Eh?”
“Rollo. From Carl's videos.”
She sighed. “Not him again. You don't want to get anywhere near him—he blades your sort.”
“He lives by the park in Brixton, doesn't he?”
“So?” She frowned, scratching nervously at the inside of her arm. “So what?”
“What's his real name?”
“What am I? A cunt? I'm not telling you anything.”
“You'll tell me, Tracey—or that trouble we talked about is going to come back to haunt you.”
She stared furiously across at him. “Nah …” she said.
“Nah—you're more scared of the dirty squad than I am. You're not going to let them have the rest of those vids because you don't have them anymore—you've traded them already.” She spat into her polystyrene cup, wiped her mouth and looked up. “I know your game. I know your connections.”
He didn't speak. He pressed both hands palms down on the table. Behind her, in the crèche, children screamed and ran in circles. A baby lay on its back, kicking its legs and arms, having its nappy changed. Lamb might think she had him straddled, but she'd already given him more than she knew.