by Mo Hayder
‘Change what?’ Emily blinked at her. ‘Change what, Mummy?’
‘Mummy’s going to take some nice things for Daddy. Just to show she cares.’
The lights changed and Janice shot the Audi forward. The streets were wet and treacherous. She had to brake suddenly for a gang of children who trailed over a zebra crossing without looking left or right. As she came to a halt the bag on the seat flew off and landed on the floor.
‘Shit.’
‘That’s rude, Mummy.’
‘I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry.’ She groped on the floor, trying to grab the bag before the children crossed and the driver behind her leaned on the horn. Cory had chosen ‘champagne’ for the interior even though it was her car and she’d bought it with money she’d saved. Somehow he’d managed to have the last word on most things about it. She’d fancied a VW camper now she was working from home, but Cory said it was a shabby thing to have sitting on the driveway, so she gave in and got the Audi. And he was a killer when it came to keeping it clean. If Emily so much as crawled across the back seat in her school shoes he’d launch into a tirade about how the family had no respect for anything, and how Emily would grow up not understanding the value of money and become a leech on society. As Janice hooked up the bag and put it on the front seat a trickle of coffee dripped out of the bottom and made a long brown trail over the pale cream upholstery.
‘Shit shit shit.’
‘Mummy! I’ve told you. Don’t say that.’
‘I’ve got bloody coffee everywhere.’
‘Don’t swear.’
‘Daddy’ll be furious.’
‘No!’ Emily squealed. ‘Don’t tell him. I don’t want Daddy to get cross.’
Janice yanked the bag off the seat and put it the first place she could think of. Her lap. Hot coffee oozed out all over her white sweater and beige jeans. ‘Jesus.’ She tugged at her scalding trousers, trying to unstick them from her legs. The car behind sounded its horn as she’d known it would. Someone was yelling.
‘Shit, shit.’
‘You’re not supposed to say that word, Mummy!’
There was half a parking space at the end of a bay just past the crossing. She let the car go forward, pulled into the space and opened the window, hung the bag outside and let the coffee drain away. It was a big flask and it seemed to take for ever to drain. It was as if someone had turned on a tap. Another horn sounded. This time it was the car in the parking space ahead. It had its reversing lights on and apparently couldn’t go back far enough to pull out, although there was at least a metre behind it.
‘I don’t like that noise, Mummy.’ Emily put her hands on her ears. ‘I don’t like it.’
‘It’s all right, baby. Sssh.’
Janice slammed the Audi into reverse, and eased back a fraction to let the car in front come out. As she did someone banged hard on the back window, making her jump. Rap rap rap. Rap rap rap.
‘Mummy!’
‘Hey!’ a voice said. ‘You’re on the zebra crossing. There are kids out here.’
The car in front pulled into the traffic and Janice drove into the space. She cut the engine and dropped her head on to the steering-wheel. The woman who’d shouted at her was at the passenger window now, rapping hard on the glass. It was one of the mothers from school. She was furious. ‘Hey. You’ve got a big car so you’ve got the right to park it on a zebra crossing, have you?’
Janice’s hands were shaking. This was bloody awful. It was eight minutes to four, when Cory would either leave to meet Clare or she’d arrive to meet him. Janice couldn’t appear at the office covered with coffee – and how would she justify turning up without it? And Emily – poor little Emily – was crying her eyes out and not understanding any of this.
‘Look at me, you bitch. You can’t get away from this.’
Janice raised her face. The woman was very big and red-faced. She was bundled in a huge tweed coat and wore one of the Nepalese knitted hats that they sold in every street market, these days. She was surrounded by children in similar hats. ‘Bitch.’ She slammed the flat of her hand on the window. ‘Petrol-guzzling bitch.’
Janice took a few deep breaths and got out of the car. ‘I’m sorry.’ She came round to the side of the road. She set the dripping bag down on the pavement and stood in front of the woman. ‘I didn’t mean to go on the zebra crossing.’
‘You get a car like that I don’t suppose you can afford lessons to learn to drive it too.’
‘I said I’m sorry.’
‘It’s amazing. Whatever effort the school puts into getting us to walk home you just can’t legislate for the selfish pigs of the world.’
‘Look – I’ve said I’m sorry. What more do you want? Blood?’
‘It will be blood. It will be my kids’ blood with people like you around. If you don’t run them over in your Chelsea tractors you’ll suffocate them or drown them with all the shit you’re pumping into the atmosphere.’
Janice sighed. ‘Right. I give up. What do you want? A fist fight?’
The woman gave an incredulous smile. ‘Oh, that just about sums up your type. You’d do that in front of kids, wouldn’t you?’
‘Actually . . . yes, I would.’ She wrenched her jacket off, slammed it down on the Audi’s boot and headed for the pavement. The children scattered, banging into each other, half giggling, half panicking.
The woman backed into the doorway of the nearest shop. ‘Are you crazy?’
‘Yes. I’m crazy. I am crazy enough to kill you.’
‘I’ll call the police.’ She held her hands in front of her face and cowered in the doorway. ‘I will – I’ll call the police.’
Janice grabbed her by the coat lapel and put her face close to the woman’s. ‘Now, listen.’ Janice gave her a shake. ‘I know what it looks like. I know what you think I am, but I’m not. I didn’t choose that car. It was my fucking husband who chose it—’
‘Don’t swear in front of my—’
‘It was my fucking husband who wanted a fucking status symbol, even though I was stupid enough to pay for the damned thing. And for your information I walk my daughter to and from school every single day. I walk her home and that stupid beast of a car has got only two thousand miles on the sodding clock after a year and for your information I am having a very, very bad day. Now.’ She pushed the woman back against the wall. ‘I’ve apologized to you. Are you going to apologize to me?’
The woman stared at her.
‘Well?’
She glanced from left to right to see if her children were near enough to overhear. Her whole face was covered with tiny broken blood vessels as if she’d spent a lifetime in the chilly weather. Probably no central heating in her house. ‘For God’s sake,’ she muttered. ‘If it’s that important to you, I apologize. But you’ve got to let go of me now and let me get my children home.’
Janice held her eyes for a moment more. Then, with a dismissive shake of her head, she let her go. As she turned away, wiping her hands on her sweater, she glanced across the street. A man wearing, incongruously, a full-face Santa Claus mask and a zipped-up ski jacket was running across the road towards her. That’s early for Christmas, she had time to think, before the man leaped into the Audi, slammed the door and pulled away on to the open street.
26
Janice Costello was probably the same age as her husband – little pinched lines around her mouth and eyes gave it away – but when she opened the door into her elegant tiled hallway she appeared much younger. With her pale skin and jet-black hair knotted at the back of her head, the jeans and casual blue shirt worn a little too big, she was like a child next to her foppish husband. Even the blotchiness of her eyes and nose from crying didn’t detract from her youthfulness. Her husband tried to put an arm under her elbow to help her as they went down the hall into the huge kitchen-diner, but, Caffery noticed, she snatched it away and continued on her own, her head held high. Her awkward, dignified gait suggested someone in physical pain.
‘I’m sure you’ve done your best to catch him.’ Janice spoke stiffly. It must be the only way she could contain it all. ‘I don’t blame you.’
‘A lot of people would have. Thank you for that.’
She gave a bleak smile. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘I need to go through the whole thing again. You told the emergency-call handler—’
‘And the police in Wincanton.’
‘Yes. And they’ve given me the basics, but I just want to get it clear in my head because my unit’s going to be taking the case from here. I’m sorry to put you through it again.’
‘It’s OK. It’s important.’
He took out his MP3 recorder and set it on the table between them. He was calmer now. Before the call about Emily’s kidnap had come in he’d realized how overwrought he was getting. After the canal he’d taken time to have lunch and force himself to do something outside the case – even found himself walking around a branch of Holland and Barrett hunting down glucosamine for Myrtle. Eventually his fury with Prody and Flea had loosened up a little. ‘So, it happened at around four?’ He checked his watch. ‘An hour and a half ago?’
‘Yes. I’d just picked Emily up from school.’
‘And you told the call handler the man was wearing a Santa mask.’
‘It was all so quick – but, yes, a rubber one. Not one of the hard plastic sort, but softer. It had the hair and beard and everything.’
‘You didn’t see his eyes?’
‘No.’
‘And he was wearing a hoodie?’
‘The hood wasn’t up, but it was a hoodie. Red. Zip-up. And I think jeans. I’m not sure about that, but I do know he was wearing latex gloves. The sort doctors wear.’
Caffery pulled out a map and spread it on the table. ‘Can you show me the direction he came from?’
Janice leaned over and peered at the map. She put a finger on a small side road. ‘This one. It leads down to the green – the common where they sometimes have the fireworks.’
‘Is it on a slope? I’m not very good with contour lines.’
‘It is.’ Cory swept his hand across the map. ‘A steep slope all the way from here to here. It doesn’t end until here, almost all the way out of town.’
‘So he ran up the hill?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Janice.
‘Was he out of breath?’
‘Well, no. At least, I don’t think so. I didn’t really see much of him – it was over so quickly. But he wasn’t straining.’
‘So you didn’t get the feeling he’d run all the way up the hill.’
‘Probably not, thinking about it.’
Caffery already had a team out combing the surrounding roads for a dark-blue Vauxhall. If the jacker had been out of breath he might have parked at the bottom of the hill. If not, they could keep the search for the car on the level streets near the abduction site. He thought of the black pins in the map in his office. ‘There’s no station in Mere, is there?’
‘No,’ Cory said. ‘If we want the train we have to drive to Gillingham. It’s only a few miles.’
Caffery was silent for a while. Did that blow his theory that the jacker was using the railway network to recover his car? Maybe he was using another vehicle. Or a cab. ‘This road where it happened.’ He ran a finger along it. ‘I drove along it on the way here. It’s got a lot of shops.’
‘It’s quiet in the day. But if you go there in the morning on the school run—’
‘Yes,’ Janice said. ‘Or on the way home from school. Well, it’s the place most people stop if they’ve got to pick up some last-minute groceries for supper, or in the morning if they’ve forgotten a drink for their kid’s lunch box, say.’
‘What had you stopped for?’
She pressed her lips together and moved them in and out between her teeth before she spoke. ‘I had – uh – coffee all over me. I had a flask that was leaking. I stopped to get rid of it.’
Cory shot her a glance. ‘You don’t drink coffee.’
‘But Mum does.’ She gave Caffery a tight smile. ‘I was going to my mother’s after I’d dropped Emily with friends. That was my plan.’
‘You were taking her some coffee?’ Cory said. ‘Can’t she make it at home?’
‘Does it really matter, Cory?’ She kept the stiff smile on her face, and her eyes on Caffery. ‘Under the fucking circumstances, does it really matter? If I’d made the coffee for Osama bin Laden would it really be relevant—’
‘I wanted to ask,’ Caffery said, ‘about the witnesses. There were quite a few, weren’t there? They’re all down at the station now.’
Janice dropped her eyes, embarrassed. She pressed her fingertips to her forehead. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘There were a lot of people. Actually . . .’ She looked at Nick, who was pouring hot water into four mugs. ‘Nick? I don’t think I’ll have tea, thank you. I’d like a drink. Do you mind? There’s some vodka in the freezer. Glasses up there.’
‘I’ll do it.’ Cory went to the cupboard and pulled out a glass. He filled it with vodka from a bottle with a Russian label and set it in front of his wife. Caffery looked at the glass. The vodka smelt to him like the calm end to a day. ‘Janice,’ he said, ‘you were having an argument with one of the women. That’s what I’ve been told.’
She took a sip. Set the glass down. ‘That’s quite right.’
‘What was the argument about?’
‘I’d stopped in the wrong place. I’d stopped too near the zebra crossing. She yelled at me. And she was right to yell at me. But I didn’t take it very well. I was soaked in hot coffee and I was . . . upset.’
‘So you didn’t know her?’
‘Only by sight.’
‘Does she know you? Does she know your name?’
‘I very much doubt it. Why?’
‘How about the other witnesses? Was there anyone you knew by name?’
‘We haven’t been here long, only a year, but it’s a small town so you get to know faces. Not names.’
‘And you don’t think they know your name?’
‘I don’t think so. Why?’
‘Have you spoken to any friends about this?’
‘Only my mum and my sister. Is it a secret?’
‘Where are they? Your mum and sister?’
‘In Wiltshire and Keynsham.’
‘I’d like you to keep it that way. I’d like you not to speak about this to anyone.’
‘If you explain why.’
‘The last thing we want is the media making a circus out of Emily.’
A door at the end of the kitchen opened and the woman from the Child Abuse Protection and Investigation Team came in. She was wearing soft-soled shoes and made no noise as she crossed the room and put a stapled set of notes on the table in front of Caffery. ‘I don’t think she should be interviewed again,’ she said. She looked older than he remembered. ‘I think we should leave her for the time being. There’s no point in exhausting her.’
Janice scraped her chair back. ‘Is she all right?’
‘She’s fine.’
‘Can I go now? I’d like to spend some time with her. If that’s OK?’
Caffery nodded. He watched her leave the room. After a moment or two Cory stood up. He finished Janice’s vodka in one gulp, put the glass on the table and followed her. The CAPIT woman sat opposite Caffery and looked at him intently.
‘I did exactly as you
asked.’ She nodded to the questions she’d asked Emily. ‘It’s difficult at this age to separate fact from fiction – she’s in Reception but she’s young even for that. They don’t talk in a linear way – not the way you or I would talk. But . . .’
‘But?’
She shook her head. ‘I think what she told her mother is pretty much the long and the short of it. What her mother told the local cop shop, what you’ve got in your notes – you know, the jacker didn’t talk much, he was wearing gloves, he didn’t touch himself. I’m sure she’s telling the truth on that one. He said he was going to hurt her toy rabbit – Jasper. That’s the biggest problem for her at the moment.’
‘He didn’t offer her a pancake?’
‘I don’t think there was time for that. It was over very quickly. He said a “bad word” when he lost control of the car. And as soon as they crashed he jumped out and was gone.’
‘I nearly skidded coming over here.’ Nick was at the sink, studiously using a spoon to squeeze a tea bag against the side of a cup. ‘It’s lethal out there.’
‘Not for Emily,’ said Caffery. ‘For Emily it may have saved her life.’
‘That means you think Martha’s dead,’ Nick replied matter-offactly.
‘Nick, you know what I really think? I really think nothing. Not at this point.’
He unfolded the other side of the map. He used his finger to follow the route to the exact point where the jacker had lost control of the Audi and left it banked up on the side of the road. He hadn’t attempted to remove Emily from it – he’d simply run away across the fields. There hadn’t been any witnesses so it had been a long time before anyone else had come along and found the little girl sobbing her heart out in the back seat, clutching her school bag as if she’d been thinking of using it to defend herself. What was strange was that the road he’d chosen was a real highway to nowhere.
‘It’s a loop,’ he said thoughtfully, to no one in particular. ‘Look at that – it doesn’t go anywhere.’ He traced it along its length and saw that from where Emily had been taken the jacker must have driven her along the A303 and the A350, joining the A36 outside Frome – the very place where the ANPR cameras had been set up to catch the Bradleys’ Yaris or the Vauxhall. Except, as luck would have it, the jacker had pulled off the A36 just before the cameras. He’d taken a detour along the tiny B road that did nothing except meander a couple of miles before it rejoined the main road. He’d crashed before the intersection that would have put him back on the A36, but even if he hadn’t, he would have missed all the cameras because he’d taken the detour. Almost as if he knew they were there.