The Treatment

by Mo Hayder

  The center of Bury St. Edmunds seemed to be full of flowers: impatiens and forget-me-nots tumbled out of window boxes; roses, peonies, columbine crammed against low garden walls. When they arrived they could hear bells striking in the abbey's Norman tower. They parked next to the court, got coffee in Styrofoam cups and stood outside in the sun, waiting for Lamb's case to start.

  “It's going to be fine,” Rebecca said. They'd chosen to stand slightly behind the white Securicor van parked in front. Caffery didn't want to be seen by the young barristers from the crown court who crunched around in the gravel talking on their phones and practicing golf swings. He might know one of them. “I promise you, Jack, it's going to work. No one will know you—they'll have got the tapes, and everything will work—she won't get bailed.”

  “I don't know.” Either the caffeine had kicked in, or he was more nervous than he realized. His hands were shaking. “I don't know.”

  “Well, I do, and I'm telling you. It's going to be fine.”

  When Lamb's case came up they put out their cigarettes in the bottom of their coffee cups, went inside and climbed the narrow staircase to the public gallery. The sun streamed down from the huge white atrium—there was nowhere to hide from the light and the court was suffocatingly hot and hushed, the clerks and probation officers' faces shiny above their collars. The public gallery was a hard little bench up behind the dock, separated from the court only by glass. Caffery and Rebecca slid into their seats, Caffery unbuttoning his cuffs, rolling up his sleeves, Rebecca tugging at the neck of her dress to let air in.

  “Number 111 on your list. Tracey Lamb, Alvarez representing.”

  Alvarez, Caffery guessed instantly, was the pepper-pot woman sitting on the right of the table—short, squat, dressed in a grubby sky-blue suit like a down-at-heel air hostess. But the CPS solicitor? He scanned the faces—he had no idea what the prosecution solicitor looked like. It took him a moment to realize it was the gray man facing Alvarez with the froggy neck, dressed as if he'd wanted to match Alvarez, in a sky-blue shirt and a yellow tie. Caffery sat back a little so that his face was hidden by the railing. He didn't want to make himself too visible to the CPS. Nervous, Jack? Slightly nervous?

  Lamb was brought into the court and climbed the two steps into the dock. Even through the thick glass Caffery cold hear her emphysematous breathing. “Is that her?” Rebecca hissed, inching forward, trying to see her face. She wore a Nike zip top over a tight white T-shirt and had her back to them, looking straight out at the court. Someone coughed.

  “This is a charge relating to a video that came into the police's possession several years ago.” The CPS lawyer was on his feet, beginning his outline. “The woman in the video was subsequently identified by the investigating officer as the defendant.”

  Caffery shifted and Rebecca rested a cool hand over his. He couldn't relax. Tracey Lamb's back was less than two feet away from him. She put her little polystyrene sputum cup down on the ledge in front of her and took off her jacket—the T-shirt was pulled drum-tight across swells of adipose. Even now, if he closed his eyes and conjured the oiled click of a tool in his palm, he could imagine the rest. He could imagine sliding it into that back—he knew what it would look like: he'd seen enough bloodied fat sloughed away on the autopsy block. He imagined her enlarged ele-phant's heart squeezing the blood out through the ribs.

  At that moment, as if his thoughts had reached through the air, Lamb pretended to cough. She covered her mouth and dipped her face slightly to the side, turning sufficiently to see behind her into the public gallery. At first she seemed surprised to see him. She let her eyes wander over Rebecca and then back to Caffery. They stared at each other for a long time. Then Tracey Lamb dropped her hand from her mouth. Her long rabbit's teeth pressed into her bottom lip. She smiled.

  “Miss Lamb, if you could look at me, please.” Bethuen, the district judge, a long woman with a regal neck, seemed to be the only person in the place not sweating. On her red leather chair, under the coat-of-arms, she sat rigid and calm in her checked Jaeger jacket, looking down over her spectacles at Lamb. “This is a very serious offense—you know that, don't you?”

  “Yeah.” Lamb turned back to face the court, a smile twitching on her mouth. “Yeah—I know that.”

  “Good. Then let's see if we can pay attention.” Bethuen had found the notes of the Narey hearing and was holding the register open at that page. “I see a certain Mr. Cook refused bail.” She took off her spectacles and looked up. “In spite of the fact that prosecution weren't going to argue.” She allowed herself a small raised eyebrow. “Nice to know that the spirit of Draco is still alive and well in the twentyfirst century, isn't it? Now,” she looked down at the CPS solicitor, “this is basically a new bail application. Am I right?”

  “That's right.”

  Alvarez, who was at the solicitors' bench drawing a Biro around the metal spirals of her notepad, back and forward, back and forward, nodded to herself and gave a small, confident smile. “Bethuen makes out she's a real ogre,” she'd told Tracey just before the hearing. She'd pulled back the cell wicket and thrust one of her yellowtoothed smiles into the space. “Good morning, Tracey.” She had the enthusiasm of a morning DJ and she trilled a little on the r in Tracey. “Bethuen makes out she's an ogre but there's a secret liberal heart beating under all that houndstooth. You'll be out of here in an hour.”

  And Jack Caffery was directly behind her in the public gallery, dressed casually in a pale blue shirt. He'd got the answerphone message. He was early, it was going to take some boxing and coxing to hold him off until she could sort things out at the trailer, but the important thing was that he was here. If he had the money with him they could shake hands on it today.

  “The—uh—prosecution …” The little prosecution lawyer stood. He laid his right hand across the absurd yellow tie, as if he were swearing an oath, and half bowed to the judge. “The prosecution is in possession of …” He looked down and turned over a paper. “That is to say some new evidence has come to light.” In the public gallery Caffery squeezed Rebecca's hand. “And the Crown has no choice but to object to bail on the grounds that this new evidence strongly suggests that Miss Lamb is likely to commit further offenses.”

  Alvarez jumped to her feet. “Madam.”

  “Yes?”

  “I would have thought that if Prosecution had this information he would have had the courtesy to tell me.”

  “Shall we hear what the new evidence is?” Bethuen pushed her glasses up her nose and turned with a cool smile to the prosecution. “Something which strongly suggests she might reoffend? I'd very much like to hear that.”

  Alvarez subsided in the bench.

  The CPS solicitor cleared his throat. “The investigating officer has viewed four videos, similar videos to the one brought originally, but more recent.”

  Lamb jiggled her shoulders nervously, looking from Alvarez to the prosecution and back again. A few feet behind her, Caffery dug his nails into his palm, making white half-moons in the skin. He didn't like Bethuen's voice—she didn't sound as if she was going to give the CPS the time of day. But it has to work. He let out his breath and looked up through the atrium at the blue sky, his teeth metallic in his head, hoping, hoping, praying it would work.

  As Bethuen listened to the prosecution outlining the content of the videos, Lamb's hunched shoulders seemed to solidify and grow. She was as still as an iceberg, staring straight ahead into the court, gripping the edge of the dock, her hands white and quivering. Bethuen made a note in the court register, put the pen down and looked up: “Now, the court case has already been set for the thirtieth of September. I trust that still suits everyone.” She took her glasses off, leaned forward on her elbows. “And that leaves only the bail to consider.”

  Rebecca reached over and rubbed Caffery's arm reassuringly. He didn't look at her. Make it work, make it work—

  The odd, cawing sounds from the trailer echoed around the quarry, through the forest and
out into the open fields. Five cows grazing nearby stopped chewing for a moment and looked up. It was a scream that could have been made by a bird or an animal. A little brindled dog, which often crossed this field, stopped in its tracks and looked toward the quarry, its ears quivering and pricked.

  Ewan Caffery didn't know how long he had been tied here—didn't know it was seven days since Tracey had left. He didn't know it was three days since he'd finished the water from the bottle under the sink. Now he stopped screaming, too exhausted to continue, and dropped sideways on the bunk—as far as the bindings would allow. He gave the ropes a few more jerks but he was too weak now to break them, so he lay patiently, on his side, his eyes rolled upward to Britney Spears, who smiled down at him from her pickup truck in a Midwestern cornfield. In the meadow the cows went back to their grass, ears twitching lazily at insects, and the dog lost interest, sitting on its haunches to scratch under its chin.

  “Now then.” Bethuen lowered her glasses and looked kindly at Tracey. “Now, Miss Lamb, what to do with you?” She folded her hands and smiled. “It's complex, isn't it? But I don't have to scurry off and consult authorities to know what they'd tell me. They would tell me to take this new evidence very seriously indeed.” She paused. “And so I'm sorry, but under paragraphs A and B of the Bail Act you will remain in custody until we see you in court again.”

  “No!” Lamb shot forward.

  Yes. Caffery dug his fingernails into Rebecca's hand.

  “That'll be all.” Bethuen nodded at the security guards, put on her glasses and began to scribble in the register. Lamb whipped round and glared at Caffery. He met her eyes coolly and she hurled herself at the glass, her hands hammering into it. “You fucking pig!” she bawled, pounding her fists on the glass. “You cheap cunt. You cheap cunt!”

  “Miss Lamb!” Bethuen got to her feet, and the Securicor guards leaped forward.

  “Please. Miss Lamb—”

  “I'll fucking have yer—”

  “Tracey!” Alvarez dodged between benches to get to the dock. “Calm down.”

  “No!” A guard maneuvered one hand behind her back but Lamb was still jumping—still thumping at the glass with the other hand. “I'll fucking have yer for it.” She whipped round and caught up her Styrofoam cup, flinging it at Caffery. “You fucking wanker. You piece of shit.” The cup hit the glass and the contents slid slowly down the glass. Caffery got to his feet, took Rebecca's hand, and led her quietly to the steps, his face turned slightly so that Lamb couldn't see the victory in it.

  “Now you're never going to know,” she yelled behind them. “You'll never fucking know!”

  Jack and Rebecca reached the bottom of the stairs, closed the door, hurried down the entrance hall, and they were out in the sun with the barristers' golf swings, the beech tree alley, the Securicor van and all the flowers and graves of Bury St. Edmunds.

  35

  CAFFERY AND REBECCA STAYED ON in Norfolk, on the borders north of Bury St. Edmunds, not far from Lamb's garage. They found a B&B with a thatched roof and two sleek red setters playing in the garden. There was honeysuckle outside the window, roses on the bed linen and, arranged on a tray, a kettle, sachets of Nescafe and custard creams in cellophane. Rebecca made them coffee in the mornings and got back under the sheets with him, pressing her morning skin against him and nuzzling her new pixie hair on his chest and stomach.

  Sometimes he could see their future quite clearly. Sometimes it looked like a long, open road. But other times, in Rebecca's sudden silences, in her bursts of laughter, her flashes of false bravery, he knew it wasn't going to be easy. He knew they couldn't reinvent their story overnight. Still, he smiled at her and loved her and held her hand when she was asleep at night and in the mornings sat on the bath edge talking to her as she bathed, watching her lather shampoo into her hair and massage her scalp with her strong fingers.

  She bought a ridiculous man's Panama hat from an Oxfam shop, rolled up joints and stuck them in the hatband, interspersed with cow parsley. She looked bonkers, he told her. “Like an eccentric ivory dealer, or something.” In Kings Lynn she bought strange lilies and white poppies and took them back to the B&B, put them in a jam jar and made a big painting of them out on the lawn as the sun went down. On the second day they walked for miles, through the ancient land where once sand blows could cover whole villages, through the old, abandoned rabbit farms, past mysterious, ever-moving sinkholes. They talked about the dreams they could buy if he sold the house: “Now that you've really moved on, Jack”—the blue futures they could sign up for with her money and his freedom. He could buy a flat in Thornton Heath without a mortgage, she could buy a cottage in the country somewhere, in Surrey, maybe, or something bigger out here in Norfolk. They could have a holiday—“Somewhere like South America,” she said. “Or Mexico, I could get really precious about the muralists.” On and on they went. Rebecca in her crazy hat and Caffery quiet at her side, thinking, I can't, Rebecca, I can't.

  As the sun began to set they stopped for a moment, on the slope above a shallow valley. The oblique, orange rays found a reflective surface in the trees on the other side of the valley, something artificial, a piece of glass, or a window maybe, and suddenly, as if a spotlight had swung round, a reflected image of the sun shot across the land toward Caffery and Rebecca, dipping their faces in gold. A trailer, he saw now, it was a trailer reflecting the light, and with a numb jolt he realized it was standing above the quarry near Lamb's garage. He hadn't realized how close they'd been all day. It made him want to take Rebecca straight back to the B&B, away from here.

  “You're wavering,” Rebecca said suddenly. “You're not going to sell the house—I can tell.” She didn't look at him as she spoke. She stood at his shoulder staring at the sunset. “You've changed your mind about Ewan.”

  “No, I haven't.” He reached for her hand. It was time to go. “I haven't changed my mind.”

  “You have. You want to go and see Tracey in Holloway again.”

  “I don't. Really, I don't.”

  But he was lying. Of course he was lying. He couldn't explain it to her. He couldn't explain that everything he saw on the flinty, sandy heathland where they walked, everything he saw and everything he did, still made him think about Ewan. If anything it was worse out here, all this way from London. They drove back to the B&B in silence and Rebecca didn't mention it again all week.

  Then suddenly, for no apparent reason, one morning he woke up with the impression that Ewan had walked into the room.

  He sat up. The clock said six-twenty, the sun was outlining the flowers on the curtains, and next to him Rebecca was asleep. He looked around the little B&B room, confused, his heart thumping, fully expecting to see Ewan sitting in the window seat, dressed in his mustard T-shirt, shorts and Clarks sandals, swinging his legs. “Ewan?” Everything seemed different. Everything in the room seemed to have a weightlessness, everything seemed to have become detached from its meaning. His limbs were light, as if he had been carrying a heavy object and had just released it. He felt as if he might float up toward the ceiling.

  “Ewan?”

  “Jack? What is it?” Rebecca, half asleep, dropped her hand on his back and idly scratched his shoulder blades. “What's up?”

  “Nothing.” He dropped his head back on the pillow and put his hand over his chest, over his thumping heart. “I had a dream, I think. That's all.”

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to the following who made time in their lives to help me: AMIT, Beckenham: DCI Duncan Wilson and DC Daisy Glenister (also André Baker and John Good at OCU Eltham). The Air Support Unit, Lippits Hill: Inspector Philip Whitelaw, PC Terry White, Paul Watts, PC Howard Taylor and Richard Spinks. The Metropolitan Police Pedophile Unit: DCI Bob McLachlan and Marion James. HMP Holloway: David Lancaster (Governor) and Senior Officer Peter Collett. South London Scientific Support Command Unit: Dave Tadd. Also: D Supt Steve Gwilliam, Adrian Millsom, Neil Sturtivant, Ashley Smith;

  D. Heywood of the Neurolo
gy Department, Yeovil District Hospital; everyone at the Intensive Care Unit, King's Hospital, London (especially Maura Falvey); the West Somerset Coroner's Office and all the staff and students at Bath Spa University, Faculty of Humanities. A special thank-you to DI Cliff Davies at the OCG, who gave of his time with faultless generosity.

  Thank you also to Jane Gregory and Lisanne Radice, Deborah Cowell, Steve Rubin, all at Transworld, Rilke D., Norman D. and the wise women: Margaret Murphy, Caroline Shanks, Linda and Laura Downing.

  Most of all, a big heartfelt thank-you to the ones who keep me sane: Mairi Hitomi, my wonderful family and Keith Quinn.

  Mo Hayder is the author of the critically acclaimed Birdman. She lives in London, England.

  Published by

  Dell Publishing

  a division of

  Random House, Inc.

  New York, New York

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses,

  organizations, places, events, and incidents either are

  products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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