by John Harvey
Far Cry
John Harvey
* * *
An Otto Penzler Book
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT
BOSTON NEW YORK
2010
* * *
Copyright © 2009 by John Harvey
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,
write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company,
215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.
www.hmhbooks.com
First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Random House
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Harvey, John, date.
Far cry / John Harvey.
p. cm.
Originally published: London : William Heinemann, 2009.
"An Otto Penzler book."
ISBN 978-0-547-31594-2
1. Police—Great Britain—Fiction. 2. Missing children
—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6058.A6989F37 2010
823'.914—dc22 2009029048
Printed in the United States of America
DOC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
* * *
All my pretty ones?
Did you say all?—O hell-kite!—All?
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Macbeth
* * *
FOR
PETER COLES
a small thank you
for many years of
unstinting help and advice
I
1
Ruth sets down her cup, crosses the room and opens the drawer. The kitchen floor strikes cold, even through her slippered feet. February. At seven this morning, when she first stepped outside, it had still been dark.
The envelope is where she left it, buried beneath receipts for old electricity bills, scribbled notes from the woman who comesTuesdays and Thursdays to clean and which she has never yet discarded, recipes torn from this or that magazine: an off-white envelope, self-sealing, buckling a little at the corners. Inside is an ordinary postcard showing a map of south-west Cornwall coloured largely green; on the reverse side her name, hers and her ex-husband's, Simon's, are written above the address in a careful, painstaking hand. Mr and Mrs Pierce. The old address in London, NW5. The message alongside slanting slightly, left to right.
Dear Mum & Dad,
Went to the beach again today. Big waves!
Kelly and I are going to surf school tomorrow.
Hope you're both okay. See you soon.
Lots of Love, Heather
XXXXXXXXX
Even though she knows it by heart, Ruth reads every word slowly, carefully, taking her time.See you soon.For a moment she closes her eyes. Here and there the map is decorated with illustrations: Truro cathedral, a cow standing over a pail of milk destined to be Cornish cream, St Michael's Mount, the rocks at Land's End.
Midway between Cape Cornwall and Sennen Cove, close to a zigzag of coast, a small dot has been made with a ballpoint pen, and when Ruth holds it up, as she does now, towards the kitchen window, the afternoon already beginning to fade, she can see a faint pinprick of light through the hole the pen has deliberately made. This is where I am, written in small letters that curve out across the ocean. This is where I am: an arrow pointing to the spot.
It's not certain how long she stands there, staring out, staring down, the card in her hand. Then, with a small catch of her breath, she slips the card back into the envelope, the envelope back into the drawer, and, glancing at the clock, turns quickly away. Time to change into her shoes, pull on her coat, collect her daughter from school; her other daughter, Beatrice, the one who is still alive.
2
Will Grayson hated mornings like this: this time of the year. Not so dark that when the alarm went he could guiltlessly ignore its call and steal, as long as the kids remained asleep next door, ten, fifteen minutes more, but just light enough, the sky beginning to break at the far horizon, to prise him from his bed.
Alongside him, Lorraine stirred and for a moment he turned back towards her warmth, her hand reaching sleepily for his as he kissed the smooth skin of her shoulder then rolled away.
Downstairs, he pulled on his running gear and laced up his shoes, Susie's first cry reaching him as he slipped the bolt on the door and stepped outside. A few stretching exercises and he set off along the narrow road towards the end of the village, the path that would take him between the fields towards the fen.
Though there were times when he would deny it, disclaim responsibility, it was Will whose decision had finally brought them here, this small, strung-out village in the sparsely populated north of the county, where everything beneath the widening sky seemed to be water, sometimes even the land.
Lorraine, it was true, had been prodding them, even before Jake, their first child, had been born: wanting them to move out of the city, away from the small terraced house with its pinch-sized garden and damp walls. Somewhere in the country where they could find more space and room, fresh air, somewhere healthy for the kids—she had always talked of two, at least—to grow. And Will had half-agreed but had hung back, uncertain, valuing the push and flurry of Cambridge proper, the proximity of friends, and dreading the long commute into work, the backed-up lines of barely moving traffic. Maybe they should stick fast, stay where they were, extend upwards if she liked, a loft conversion, plenty enough of those. But then, driving east from Ely, having looked at something in the town—no bigger than where they already were and close to twice the price—they had been attracted by a For Sale sign pointing away from the main road, not an estate agent's board, but one the owner had put up himself; a builder with an eye for design who had bought the land two years before and built this place—simple, clean lines, pale wood and glass—as a dream house for his wife. His dream, as it had turned out, not hers.
Will liked the wooden porch that ran the length of the building at the rear, the comfortable feel of the rooms, the high, broad windows with views out towards Ely cathedral and the slow-setting sun.
'So what do you think?' he'd asked Lorraine, and read the answer happily in her eyes.
Once the novelty had worn off they were certain they had made a mistake. The drive to the police station where Will was based, close to Cambridge city centre on Parkside, took even longer some days—most days—than he had reckoned and in the long hours that he was away, Lorraine, marooned with only a barely crawling child for company, felt as if she were going slowly out of her mind. Sometimes not so slowly at all.
'Okay,' Will said. 'Sell up. Cut our losses. Find somewhere else.'
They stayed. Gradually, almost grudgingly, Lorraine found other women in the village, other mothers, with whom she had common cause; Will's move, as detective inspector, into the Major Investigation Team was confirmed, taking DS Helen Walker with him as his number two, a working relationship that had sparked and flourished now for close on five years. How much longer Will could hang on to her before she was heading a squad of her own, he wasn't sure.
Something had been itching at Helen lately, he'd noticed, making both tongue and temper sharper than ever, and maybe that's what it was. A lack of recognition: too long spent trailing in his wake.
Forty minutes after setting out on his run, Will was back at the house, muscles aching, head clear, vest sweated to his skin; a quick shower and a brisk towelling and then into the kitchen for breakfast, Jake spooning Rice Krispies into his mouth as if there were no tomorrow, Susie managing to get more of the glop from her bowl into her hair than anywhere else.
Will poured himself a second cup of coffee and spread marmalade on his last piece of toast; Lorraine was upstairs putting the finishing touches to her face. Three days a week she worked in the admissions office at Kin
g's College and on those days she dropped Susie off with the registered childminder, before taking Jake to the local primary from where the minder would collect him at the end of the day.
Will swallowed down the remainder of his coffee, rinsed the mug at the sink, then stooped to give Jake a quick hug and kissed the top of his head. 'Have a good day at school, okay? Work hard.'
'Okay.'
Susie put her arms out towards him and he managed to kiss her cheek without getting cereal from her sticky fingers all over his shirt.
'Dad?' Jake's voice stopped Will at the door. 'This evening, when you get home, can we play football?'
'Sure.'
Leaving the kitchen and living room curtains open would give them all the floodlighting they would need. Jake would be Manchester United, varying between Rooney and Ronaldo, while Will was doomed to be Cambridge United. A lopsided contest at best.
When Will stepped out into the lobby, Lorraine was almost at the bottom of the stairs.
'You off?' she said.
'Better be.'
'Home late?'
'No more than usual.'
She slid inside his arms and when he bent his head towards her she kissed him lightly on the lips and stepped away. 'Later, okay?'
Will laughed. 'On a promise then, am I?'
'You wish!'
Still laughing, he pulled his topcoat from the rack and headed out the door.
As often, Helen was there before him, leaning against the roof of her blue VW in the police station car park, enjoying her last cigarette before entering the building.
In the past few years she had tried patches, hypnosis, Nicorettes, even acupuncture, but the longest she had been able to abstain had been three months: one more particularly grisly case, one more set of early mornings and late, late nights and she had tumbled off the wagon and back on the nicotine.
She straightened as Will approached, squinting slightly against the light, surprisingly bright for so early in the day, so early in the year—Helen, wearing black trousers over red ankle boots, a grey sweater under a blue wool coat, her newly lightened hair pulled back—and Will thought, not for the first time, what a good-looking woman she was and wondered why men—if that was her preference, which it seemed to be—were not forever beating a path to her door.
Perhaps they were.
One sour and oddly possessive relationship aside, she had rarely, if ever, confided in Will about the vicissitudes of her private life—and only then because she had been hospitalised and feeling especially low.
'Hi,' Helen said cheerily now.
'Hi yourself.'
'Kids okay?'
'Fine.'
'Lorraine?'
'Likewise.'
Helen grinned. 'Got it made, haven't you?'
'Have I?'
'Beautiful wife, lovely kids, clear-up rate second to none.'
Will frowned. 'Is there a point to this? Or is it just your normal common-or-garden goading for a Monday morning?'
Helen tilted her head sideways. 'There's a point.'
'Because if it's about your promotion, I've told you I'll support—'
'It's not my promotion, long overdue as that might be.'
'Then what?'
'Mitchell Roberts.'
'What about him?'
'He's being released.'
'When?'
'End of the week.'
'Jesus!'
'Supervision order, but ...' Helen shrugged.
'Jesus!' Will said again. 'Jesus fuck!'
Helen ground her cigarette butt beneath her heel and followed him between the cars towards the entrance to the building.
3
It had been the height of summer, three years and some months before. A Norwegian lorry driver, ferrying a load of wood chips south along a flat stretch of the A10, had pulled out to avoid a small figure stumbling haphazardly along the side of the road. The driver had slowed to a standstill and waited, uncertain, watching in his mirror—a stranger in a foreign country, delayed already on his journey from the port at Immingham and not wanting to get involved.
As he hesitated, the figure—a girl, he was almost certain—pitched sideways towards the verge and was still. He swore to himself softly, shut off the engine and climbed down from the cab.
She lay with one leg stretched towards the road surface, the other buckled beneath her; the soles of her feet were bloodied and torn, cuts encrusted with gravel and gobbets of earth. She was wearing an oversized waxed jacket, unfastened, dark green and stained with oil, and nothing else. Her hips, barely pubescent, angled sharply against the thinness of her skin, and a few wisps of hair lay dark between her legs. Her breasts, little more than a boy's, lightly rose and fell above the contour of her ribs. Her eyes were closed.
Without moving her, the driver covered her body as best as he could, then hurried back to the lorry and his mobile phone.
The first police car, north from Ely, was there in seven minutes, the ambulance in ten; Will, who had been attending a meeting at the Constabulary Headquarters in Huntingdon, arrived as the paramedics were lifting the girl on to a stretcher. She was too terrified to speak to anyone, even to say her own name. When Will leaned cautiously towards her, smiling encouragingly, she flinched.
It was several hours before they discovered her full name: Martina Ellis Jones. She lived with her mother and three siblings on an unofficial travellers' site a mile or so from Littleport, a patch of unpromising land between the Old Croft River and Mow Fen.
When Will drove up the narrow road, little more than a lane, later that day, the sun sagged low in the sky, a deepening red splintered sharply with cloud.
Four caravans had been arranged in a rough circle, as if to keep out hostile elements and a searching wind. A bonfire, all but extinguished, smouldered on a patch of ground near the centre, an assortment of bicycles and children's toys nearby. There were two cars just outside the circle; a third car, propped up on bricks and lacking its wheels, was further back down the lane.
When Will knocked on the door of the first caravan, a dog growled low in its throat and then, when he knocked again, began to bark; a voice from within shouted at it to stop, quickly followed by the sound of something being thrown and then a yelp before the silence resumed. Nobody came to the door.
Hostile elements—Will realised that was him.
By the time he'd reached the third caravan, his impatience was beginning to show: kicking low against the door, he called a warning about impeding the police in their inquiries. That and the girl's name. Another dog started barking, different from the first; a different voice ordered it to be quiet, threatening the Lord knows what punishment, and it did.
Slowly, the door swung open.
The man standing there, his height causing him to crouch a little inside the frame, had a mane of silver-grey hair that spread across his shoulders and a nose that had been broken not once but several times. He was wearing a ragged pullover over a collarless shirt and black trousers with a piece of fraying rope for a belt; there was a polished walking stick in his right hand and he leaned his weight against it as he stood. For a moment, Will saw the dog between his legs, then it was gone.
'Martina Jones,' Will said.
'What about her?' The voice was cracked and harsh. Will would have put him at sixty or more if it hadn't been for the brightness of his eyes.
'She lives here?'
'What's it to you?'
'Does she live here?'
'Aye,' the man said, 'when she's a mind.'
'Maybe I could come inside?' Will said.
The man didn't move.
There were signs of life stirring around them, adult voices and children's too; people beginning to show themselves, show an interest in what was going on.
'Martina,' the man said. 'What's she done now?'
'Now?'
The man looked back at him, no flicker in those eyes.
'What did you mean, now?' Will asked.
'It's no matter
.'
'You suggested ...'
'I know what I suggested.' He tapped his stick against the floor. 'The girl, where is she?'
'In the hospital. Huntingdon.'
'Serious then?'
'Serious enough.'
The man cursed and smacked the stick hard against the caravan side, setting off a young child crying inside. 'What happened?' he asked.
'She was found walking along the main road, the A10.'
'In Christ's name,' the man said, slamming his stick against the caravan again, 'haven't I warned her enough?'
'Warned?'
'Against wandering off.'
'Martina's mother,' Will said, 'is she here?'
'Never mind her.'
'If she's here ...'
'You're talking to me, that's good enough.'
'You're Martina's father?'
He laughed. 'Do I look like her father?'
Will raised both shoulders in a shrug. 'Is he here then? The father?'
'If he were, I'd take his head off with this stick and feed it to the blasted crows.'
A youngish woman appeared behind him in the doorway, a baby, sticky-mouthed, at her open breast.
'What is it?' she said. 'Is it Martina? Did he say Martina?'
'Get back inside, woman, and for God's sake cover yourself up.'
'Someone should come to the hospital,' Will said. 'You and Martina's mother. There'll be questions to answer. How she came to be where she was. A few other things.'
He said nothing about what had appeared to be bite marks on the tops of the girl's shoulders, the weal across her buttocks, the thin line of drying blood down the inside of her thigh. That would wait for later.
***
The silver-haired man's name was Samuel Llewelyn Mason Jones, Martina's grandfather and the patriarch of a loose conglomeration of sisters, brothers, cousins and common-law spouses that moved up and down the eastern side of the country more or less at will. Cleethorpes, Hunstanton, Wisbech, Market Rasen; Lowestoft, Colchester; all the way down to Canvey Island.