by Unknown
Then, suddenly, on the Thursday morning, the police got a lead.
Someone had spotted a blue Vauxhall near the southern tip of Loch Awe. Within an hour someone else called in a report: Dove wandering near a stone bothy tucked up in a crevice of the nearby hills in Inverliever Forest. The police brought out the Royal Logistics Corps – used to clearing military land and unexploded Second World War ordnance. They stuck a specialized probe into the bothy window and siphoned off air into absorbent cartridges. When the explosives test came out negative the support unit got sent in to batter down the door. There was no one inside.
'Empty,' said Danso, that evening at the rape suite. 'But the thing is, it's only a mile from a chalet owned by one of the ex-members of the PHM. And she was on our TI list.'
'TI?'
'Trace and Interview. We'd cleared her on Tuesday, but then this came up and started sounding klaxons.'
I pulled on my coat.
'What are you doing?'
'I want to see it.'
'There's nothing to see. He's not there. It's just a wee bothy with a load of crap in it.'
'There is something to see.' I pulled my car keys out of my pocket. 'You're just not looking at it right.'
Danso sighed. He massaged his forehead, like I was making him tired. 'We're not looking at it through his eyes?'
'That's right.'
'And you're going to explain to the missus why I'm late home again?'
'You don't have to take me. Tell me where it is. I don't need you to hold my hand.'
'Yes, you do,' he said, all weary. 'Yes, you do.'
"We drove in convoy: me clinging to the tail-lights of his black Bimmer. We headed north along the B840 and at eight o'clock we hit the edge of Inverliever Forest – those fuck-off, dark-as-hell mountains that swept out of the night skies and disappeared vertically below the still, dark waters of Loch Avich. We were a long way north. I wondered what it meant that Dove had changed direction. He'd gone north and not south towards London. When we stopped, in a small lane that wound up along the edge of a burn into the cleft between two mountains, it was like we'd gone into another universe.
'See the chalet?'
We'd walked half-way up the path when Danso stopped and turned to look down to the road and the loch. He pointed at a small shingle-roofed house on the shore, outlined in silver by the water behind it. It was planted with a border of leylandii and as I looked a security light came on briefly – a cat or a hedgehog maybe, lighting the trees from inside.
'The family's gone now, off to their home in London. Left us with a key, but we've checked. It's clean.' He turned to the west, pointing a long finger, pale in the half-light. I looked across the sky to where the stars and a few clouds were reflected in the loch. 'The Vauxhall was over there, at the far end, just parked in a layby at teatime on Weunesday. You can't see the layby from here. Then we've got a taxi-driver says he stopped for a whizz down here, at the bottom of this path where we've just left the cars, and he looks up and sees Malachi Dove standing in the door of the bothy, staring down at him. Said it was like being watched by an eagle.' Danso turned and began to walk up the path. 'That's when the night shift DS gets on the phone and gets me out of the first decent sleep I've had in a week.'
I followed him, keeping my eyes on his good shoes that his missus must've picked for a quiet day in the office but which kept slithering on the hummocky grass. Sheep lumbered away from us in the darkness, heavy, cloudy shadows, hoofing into the higher slopes. The wind scattered leaves and parted the grass like hair, but under my coat I was sweating. I tried feeling inside myself, trying to put a finger on my fear, but I couldn't. Dove wasn't here. He wasn't here. In front of me Danso walked with his shoulders wide, back stiffened, his face and chest open. He was scared too, I saw. But he wasn't going to tell me that.
We crossed a cattle grid and there was the bothy, tucked between two sheer rock faces. Ten feet away we paused and looked at it in silence. The roof was moss-covered, the window-frames rotted away into two dull sockets. A thin line of police tape flapped in the wind.
'It was locked when we got here,' Danso said. The wind took his voice and blew it into the empty building, battering it against the cold walls. 'The SG sergeant kicked the door down like it was a matchstick. Here.' He handed me a torch. 'Have a look.'
I approached the building and slowly opened the door, nothing more than five planks nailed together and hung from rusty hinges. It was dark and there was a smell that sent an uncomfortable prickle along my hairline. For a moment I thought I could hear breathing, something reedy and thin bouncing off the walls. I clicked off the torch and waited, my heart thudding. Then the wind changed direction and popped my ears, and I decided I'd imagined it. I shone the torch into the darkness. I saw flashes of a bare earth floor, plants growing on the inside walls, a stack of White Lightning cider bottles in the corner.
'What're they?'
There was a pile of towels bunched in the corner.
'We think he was injured. There was blood on some of them. The science boys have got them over in the labs now, trying to make a match.'
I stepped away from the bothy. I went up a small path to where the land rose so I could survey the area. I clicked the torch on and off, a nervous tic. 'What's out here?' I murmured, looking at the faint greyish line of the path winding back down to the road, the glimmer of the loch beyond. 'What's here?'
'The chalet?' Danso came and stood beside me. 'It's only over there.'
'No. The chalet is how he knows this place ... but it's not why he came here. He came for something else.'
I switched off the torch and we stood in the darkness, our ears reaching out across the mountains and the forests, pinging our thoughts like sonar against the glassy surface of the loch. I turned to Danso. He was staring at the sky, a gnawed-at, hungry look to him – the way people get when they're close to the end of their energy.
'He scares you,' I murmured, 'doesn't he?'
There was a moment's silence. Then he said, 'I've never worked a mass death before. Missed Dunblane, Ibrox, Mull, Lockerbie. Missed them all. I've never seen more than three dead bodies in the same place at the same time and that was an RTA.'
'I don't mean that. I mean him. He scares you.'
He hesitated, shuffled his feet. 'I'd like to know how he knew we were coming.' He glanced over his shoulder at the bothy. 'No one saw him leave. When the SG kicked the door in they thought he was in there. You'd think he had a tunnel or something, the way he got out so quick.'
'That's what I mean. He scares you.'
Danso met my eyes. He held them seriously for a long time. Then he clicked on his torch and shone it down on my shoes. They were covered with black slime. 'Sheep shit,' he said. 'Sorry. I forgot to tell you to put boots on. There're sheep all over the place here.'
Lexie
1
Dear Mr Taranici,
Please believe me when I say things have gone very wrong. Very wrong indeed. I've done so many things in the last hour, said things that I can never, ever take back. Really I think I might be going mad because the world is upside-down. The worst thing is, I don't know who to believe any more. I've discovered I'm being systematically lied to. And no, before you even think it, I am not being paranoid. I know it for a fact.
I was on the sofa this morning watching the news – more about the hunt for Malachi – and Oakesy was up in his room, working. It was another awful day, with rain lashing the house, and I was vaguely aware of someone upstairs moving around, but I wasn't really paying attention. It was only when I heard a door slam that I muted the TV and looked up at the ceiling: someone was walking around on the landing. Another door opened and closed. The floorboards were creaking in the bathroom, a bath was running. At first it was just that and the rain pelting down outside. Then from the landing I heard Oakesy say, very sadly, as if he was about to cry, 'I love my wife.'
I stared at the stairs, my mouth open. I love my wife? A toxic little bubble of suspic
ion detached itself from the bottom of my stomach and floated upwards. He must be talking to Angeline. But why was he talking about me? I leaned over and switched off the TV, feeling suddenly very cold. A whole stack of images shuttled down behind my eyes, unbelievable, ridiculous things, things that had been staring me in the face when I thought about it: Oakesy standing in front of the sink, kicking the cupboard; Oakesy stricken and sick-looking in the car on the way back from the hospital, echoing my words, Disgusted? Disgusted. And Angeline beginning to look after herself since the visit to the hospital, even washing and putting on makeup, combing her hair so it covers the bald patches, somehow getting her skin cleared up, all in all looking quite wholesome. I looked at the cupboard. It couldn't be. Couldn't possibly be ...
And then he appeared, coming heavily down the stairs. I went to the foot of the stairs and when he saw me he stopped. He shook his head silently, as if he didn't trust himself to speak, as if what he had to say was just too awful.
'Joe,' I said faintly. 'Joe, why did you just tell Angeline you love me?'
Well, he could have answered any way he wanted and I'd have probably listened. He could have denied it, or laughed, or been affronted. But he did none of those things. He did something worse. Much worse. He said nothing. He just stood there, staring at me.
'It seems such a funny thing to say,' I said wood-enly, feeling as if someone had put their hand inside my ribcage and was squeezing my heart. My skin went hot and cold, then hot again. 'Joe? Please, Joe, please. Tell me you're joking. Come on. This is a joke.'
'I'm sorry.' He pulled his jacket from the banisters and threw it on, pulling his keys out of his pocket. 'Lex, you won't believe me, but I'm sorry.'
He pushed past me and headed for the door.
'Joe?' I stared at him, disbelief washing up and over me. 'Joe? Wait. Wait—' He pulled the front door open. A gust of wind and rain came into the hallway, nearly taking me off my feet, but he leaned forward into it and went out, into the streaming day, his jacket whipping and slapping around him like a parachute, leaving me in the doorway. I stood there for a few seconds, thinking stupidly that my shoes were lying on the floor in the kitchen and I couldn't go out without them. Then I saw him hold the key up and heard the beep as the car doors unlocked and I knew then it was real and he was going. I ran out barefoot into the rain, the wind driving water into my eyes. 'Wait, Joe. Wait!' He was already swinging into the car. He slammed the door, and as I got to the kerb I heard the central-locking system clunk closed and that made me panic. I scrabbled at the handle, the wind driving me flat against the car. 'Open the door!' I hammered at it with my bare hands. I could see the side of his face through the greasy, rain-drenched window. He looked grey, cold. He wouldn't look at me as he reached down and turned the key.
'For God's sake, Joe. Talk to me!'
The headlights went on. The engine came to life. He took the handbrake off, twisted the steering-wheel and pulled away. The tyres sent up a massive whoosh of water from the gutters, soaking my trousers, making me take a shocked step backwards. He got to the top of the street and the brake-lights came on, turning all the raindrops around them to rubies, then he was gone – swallowed into the dark storm, leaving me standing barefoot in the pouring rain with the wretched shopping trolley moving up and down the pavement opposite, thinking, What? What just happened? What just happened?
2
For those first few minutes after he'd gone I really didn't know what to do. It was like I was in a dream. I stood there soaking, thinking he was going to come back and say, 'Ha ha – got you.' When he didn't I limped back into the house, streaming with water. I stood at the foot of the stairs and stared up at Angeline's door, thinking, No, no. This isn't happening. She's deformed. She's ugly. So ugly.
I got my phone out and dialled Oakesy's mobile, my fingers numb. It was impossible to believe. Oakesy and Angeline ... And it was me who'd had the idea of her staying with us in the first place. 'Answer it. Come on. Answer it.'
But the phone rang and rang. My head thumped as if it was going to split right open. The call went to answerphone.
'No! You bastard. NO!'
I called again and this time it clicked straight through to his messages. He'd switched it off. Didn't want to speak to me. I called him again – and when it went on to answerphone I immediately hung up and called again, jabbing my thumb furiously at the phone, three, four times, crying now, and when I still couldn't get through I went into the kitchen, shakily got his bottle of Jack Daniel's out of the cupboard, poured two inches into a cloudy glass, then filled it up with some flat cola from an opened can in the fridge. I drank it down straight, shaking like a leaf, dripping water everywhere, tears running down my face. Then I poured another and sat at the table, the phone held at arm's length, jabbing his number in over and over again. When I'd dialled twenty times and his phone was still switched off I hurled my phone into the wastepaper bin and went to the window. I stood there for a long time, holding my face, my nails digging into the skin. That's when I remembered something you said to me once.
You're an achiever, Alex.
Do you remember those words?
You are clever, Alex, whatever you think, and you've got the ability to achieve whatever you set out to do.
I paused, standing there at the window, looking at the shopping trolley, and at that very moment something inside me went cold and hard. I actually felt it freeze into place, solid, just like that. I stopped crying. I wiped my eyes. I was very calm. And angry. Very angry. I turned away from the window and looked up at the door at the top of the stairs. Then I limped over to the bin and hooked out the phone. I dialled Guy Picot's number. I'm an achiever. I am not weak. I do what I set out to do.
3
Guy Picot pretended he didn't recognize my voice. When I explained who I was he was a little cool. To put it mildly. 'Yes, Alex. I was going to give you a call today – to let Angeline know I've sent her a referral letter.'
'And you're sending one to Christophe?' I kept my sentences short because I was shaking and I didn't want him to know I'd been crying. 'He'll contact me directly. We're very old friends and colleagues.'
'It's more orthodox for the doctor to liaise directly with the patient. Angeline didn't say she wanted an intermediary.'
'Look, really, this is the smoothest way. Mr Radnor knows I've been involved in this from the start. He'll deal with Angeline through me from now on.'
There was a moment's hesitation, then he said, 'The referral letter doesn't have Mr Radnor's name on it.'
I opened my mouth to say something, then closed it. I went to the bottom of the stairs and looked up to make sure her door was closed, then I went and stood at the window. Outside the rain tipped down on the dead playing-fields, streamed down the sides of the Ballantine's factory. 'I beg your pardon,' I said, in a much quieter voice. 'If you're not referring her to Christophe, then where are you referring her? You're meant to refer her to Christophe.'
'It was a very difficult decision. I had to decide between referring her to an oncologist or a paediatric surgeon. I still may be proved wrong, but I've decided on the latter. I'm passing her on to Great Ormond Street.'
'Great Ormond Street? This isn't something for a paediatrician.'
'Angeline's condition is not in Mr Radnor's field.'
'Of course it is.'
'No. Really it isn't.'
'Why ever not?'
He sighed. 'When we were talking in my office your husband mentioned something that stuck with me.'
'My husband's got nothing to do with this.'
'Angeline's mother lived near a chemical dump, that's what he said. Herbicides. Dioxins. Richard Spitz's team will explain it to you,' he said. 'They've seen the MRI scans, and they're showing great interest. They really want to—'
'Richard Spitz?' I stopped him. 'Did you say Richard Spitz? The Richard Spitz?'
'Yes. The Richard Spitz.'
'My God,' I said distantly, staring out at the trees bent almost
double in the wind. Everything was becoming clear. I had a friend who'd once worked for Richard Spitz and I knew exactly what Guy was saying. 'My God. Now I get it.'
'Now you get what?'
'That's why there's bone. That's why she's still alive. That's why.'
Guy Picot was right: Christophe has no background in what's wrong with Angeline. Her 'tail' wasn't a tumour at all. And nothing to do with spina bifida either. Which means everything I've done for her has been a complete waste of my time. Absolutely everything.
Oakesy
1
The landing was dark when I came out of the third bedroom – no electric lights. There was a little weak daylight coming from the bathroom where the door stood open and the sound of a bath running. I knew who was in there. I wasn't stupid. I knew who was running the bath. So why didn't I just go back to my work? Oh, no. That would be too easy for Joe Oakes.
I took a silent step forward and stopped in the doorway. She was in there, hazy in the steam, a towel wrapped round her, bending over the bath to swirl the water. It took her a moment or two to sense me standing at the door, and when she did she stiffened. She didn't look up. She went very still, her hands motionless in the water. A slow, hot colour crept across her bare shoulders, up the back of her long neck into her cropped hair. It seemed like for ever before she straightened, her back very stiff and strong, and turned to me.
We stood for a long time totally silent, neither of us knowing what to say. I could see in her eyes how totally full of questions she was. Her triangular little chin was down almost on to her collarbone and she was shaking violently. But she didn't take her eyes off me. She took a deep breath and put her shoulders back. It was like she was pulling all her courage up inside her, into a tight rod. She turned slightly, not breaking eye-contact, dropped her hand and in one movement lifted the towel up high – as high as her waist so I could see everything: her naked legs, the naked place the growth jutted out from at the bottom of her spine.