This time he acted out the whole crime in time to the CCTV pictures, in a clumsy facsimile of the intruder they were almost one hundred per cent sure was Goldilocks.
‘Down the stairs, no problem,’ he went on, walking on the spot, ‘and through to the back door’ – he unlocked the door in the air – ‘and then back in here, and pulls the curtains and turns on the light …’
In time to the lithe, hooded figure on the TV, Marvel clumped heavily to the curtains and pretended to pull them. ‘I knew these things were a mistake the minute I saw them,’ he fumed. ‘They gave the cocky little sonofabitch privacy. Made it easy for him to search the place without arousing suspicion.’
Reynolds’ neck burned. Half embarrassment and half anger. He could see which way this was going. Right before his eyes, Marvel was building a case. Not against Goldilocks, but against him.
‘So he puts on the light,’ Marvel said from the switch by the door, ‘and then picks up the camera and puts it in his bag and all’s going great guns, and then he finds the watch and shakes it …’
He shook his fist at his ear, standing beside the shelf, his eyes darting about to see what the burglar might have seen or heard from that very spot. And he moved towards the door.
‘And this is where he stops.’
Reynolds’ fists tightened by his side. He knew what was wrong. He knew what Goldilocks had seen – had known it the very first time they’d watched the footage.
Now all he could do was sit there and wait for Marvel to see it too.
The DCI turned where Goldilocks had turned, and faced the mantel square on. ‘Something here …’ he said. ‘Look – see him looking …’
Reynolds gritted his teeth so hard that they creaked. The photo. The photo! The bloody bloody photo!
The Brylcreem was nonsense. The curtains were an excuse. But the photograph was his fault, and his alone. He had bought the frame in HomeFayre and made a mental note to replace the stock photo. It wasn’t a big thing. It was a small thing. But Reynolds prided himself on getting the details right, and so he’d planned to change it. For that one of him and Rice together, perhaps.
Whatever it was, he was going to replace it.
But he’d had so much to do! He’d done the whole bloody house on his own! Every bit of decorating and arranging and set-design he’d done alone while Rice had sat on her arse and done nothing, and still he would have remembered except that the curtains had taken so long to hang because of the weight of the fabric and the wobbly stool and because he hadn’t eaten anything since lunch, and Rice had bought nothing for supper but bloody Frosties!
Reynolds felt like crying. He really did. It wasn’t fair! It just wasn’t! Any second now Marvel would see the stock picture in the frame and put two and two together and then go ballistic and shit on him from a dizzy height …
There was a silence of such length and weight that it was all Reynolds could do not to leap up, dash the frame into the hearth and then commit hara-kiri with the shards, he felt so tense and hard-done-by.
They all flinched as Marvel slapped the mantel with such force that the guilty photo frame toppled on to its face. He righted it and said, ‘What the fuck did he see?’
‘I have no idea, sir,’ said Rice.
‘Neither do I, sir,’ said Reynolds.
‘Beats me,’ said Parrott.
Marvel sighed and looked around the room one last time, with the air of a man standing in the splinters of his home after a twister. He seemed utterly at a loss, and completely defeated.
Finally he pinched his hairy nose and said, ‘Back to the bloody drawing board then.’
And that was it.
Reynolds couldn’t believe his luck.
He saw Marvel to the door. Watched him back angrily out of the drive and squeal out of the cul-de-sac like Starsky and/or Hutch. Then he closed the door and sagged against it.
Marvel really didn’t know! He didn’t know that the photo frame was the missing link in the chain of disaster. Didn’t know that Reynolds had screwed up the whole operation, cost the force several thousand pounds, and was the cause of their continuing failure to catch one skinny little thief who was now making two police forces look like fools.
Reynolds decided not to tell him.
He went back into the front room to find Elizabeth Rice holding the HomeFayre photo frame in one hand and the beach ball picture in the other.
‘I never liked this picture,’ she said and, right in front of him, she crumpled it up and threw it in the hearth.
Parrott frowned at her in confusion.
But Reynolds looked her straight in the eyes and said, ‘Neither did I.’
Later that night, as he watched Middlesex surrender to Yorkshire in a disgraceful display of so-called cricket, Marvel took stock.
The capture house had failed.
He didn’t know why it had failed, but he felt sure that it must be something that Team Goldilocks had done wrong.
Not him, though. He’d done everything right. No, somebody else had screwed up, and when he found out who, and how, he’d have their guts for garters.
His money was on Reynolds. After all, he’d chosen everything for the house and dressed it all alone. Marvel knew that because Reynolds had made a huge song and dance about it – even taken him aside and told him that Rice had been a lazy cow.
Not that he’d used those words.
Not made a meaningful contribution to the operation, was how he’d put it.
The bloody smarty-pants.
Well, thought Marvel, Reynolds was hoist with his own whatchamacallit – because if all Rice had contributed was a PlayStation, a bottle opener and a photo of herself in a bikini, then he could find no fault with her.
The Middlesex batsman knocked off his own bales with a rash sweep that was more Babe Ruth than W. G. Grace and Marvel groaned. He switched off the TV and poured himself another angry whiskey.
Regardless of who was at fault, the capture house had failed. Which meant he had failed. And the worst thing about it was he had failed just when he needed to make a stunningly good first impression.
Marvel knew only too well that one lousy case – one dumb move – could make a cop a laughing stock, and put the kibosh on any hopes he’d had of promotion.
As he stared moodily into his Jameson’s, Marvel felt his back against the wall, only weeks since his back had been against another wall, on another force.
Then he downed his drink and thought, Fuck it.
Back-to-the-wall, seat-of-his-pants, skin-of-his-teeth – that was how he had always worked best. In the Met, he’d had a solve-rate that rivalled the best in the force. The best in any metropolitan force. And that was for murder – not this B&E bullshit! He wasn’t about to admit defeat to a perp called Goldilocks. And he certainly wasn’t about to admit defeat three weeks into his tenure in Taunton. Or Tiverton. Or whatever the hell hick place he was in. With all the sheep and the sky, he found it hard to keep track.
Six weeks, he thought. If the capture house was to fail, six weeks was at least a reasonable length of time. A face-saving length of time. After six weeks, he would feel OK about telling Detective Superintendent Cullymore that they’d given it a fair crack, but that to go on might be an expensive experiment in diminishing returns.
Marvel totted up the broad figures in his head. The capture house had been operational for three weeks and was costing the Avon and Somerset force about four thousand pounds a week in running costs, what with rent, bills and overtime. Six weeks instead of three would mean spending twenty-four thousand pounds instead of twelve.
What the hell, thought Marvel. That’s what taxpayers are for.
So he told Reynolds and Rice to give it another week or so to see if they could lure Goldilocks back to the capture house.
And when he next reported to Superintendent Cullymore, he told him everything was going just fine.
CATHERINE WHILE WAS shopping and thinking about sex.
Not in a dirty way. I
n a scientific way.
She had come to the conclusion that pregnancy freed one from the shackles of sexuality in all social situations.
Catherine knew she was young and reasonably pretty, and yet men no longer seemed to find her attractive. They had stopped flirting with her and started being helpful instead. At first she had missed the occasional frisson of an innocent flirtation, but she’d quickly embraced the altruism of the opened door, and the surrendered seat in the doctor’s waiting room.
Women, too, were sweeter. Quicker to smile, and more considerate of her back, her feet, her bladder. As if her distended tummy were a tethered blimp, advertising the fact that she had had all of the sex she was going to need for a good while yet and so was a sister to be protected, rather than the Competition.
Sex had evaporated and Catherine enjoyed the kinder world that was its residue.
She picked up a wheel of Stilton and wondered idly whether her thought was new, or only new to her.
Either way, it made her feel better about everything. It helped her to let go of the fright and the fear. To remember that most people were kind, most places were safe – and most lies remained forever undiscovered …
Catherine put the Stilton back and scolded the baby: ‘You can’t have blue cheese, silly!’
She put a piece of good, firm Cheddar in her trolley instead and rolled around to the meat aisle, where a tall man in a thick burgundy jumper was sniffing the bacon, so she veered away and into the bakery aisle, which was a minefield of jam and icing.
‘What do you fancy?’ she said.
The middle-aged woman next to her said, ‘Excuse me?’
Catherine blushed. ‘Sorry, I was talking to the baby.’
The woman looked down at Catherine’s tummy and laughed. Then she bent over and addressed Catherine’s navel directly. ‘I bet you fancy a nice bit of coal, don’t you? Mine were all devils for coal. My mouth was black as the ace of spades!’
Catherine cocked a thumb at her belly. ‘This one ordered cold butter beans for a week, breakfast, lunch and dinner!’
‘Mad, innit?’
‘Mad,’ agreed Catherine cheerfully, and rolled on towards the Mr Kiplings. Baby wanted Bakewell tarts.
‘Baby’s not getting Bakewell tarts,’ she told it sternly. ‘You can have a nice apple when you get home. Yum!’
Then she shed her smile and sighed. Who was she kidding? Shopping was no fun since it had become an obstacle course of denial. Her trolley contained so much foliage that it was like pushing a mini-greenhouse around the supermarket.
Maybe she would go to the café and treat herself to tea and cake. If it was carrot cake, it would be almost like having one of her five-a-day, wouldn’t it?
Maybe she should get a fish pie.
Enough!
Catherine felt suddenly as hungry as hell and a little tearful. She steered rapidly to the tills and paid for half a load of shopping she didn’t want. She’d come back another time for the rest, when she had more willpower.
It had rained briefly, but the sun was out again with a vengeance, and the tarmac was already starting to steam around the glittering cars.
Catherine opened the back of the pea-green Volvo and lifted the first bag from the trolley. It split, and all her shopping went rolling about the car park. Peppers and onions and cabbages and leeks.
She almost cried.
Oh stuff it, she thought, I’m just backing over that healthy shit and going home for a nap.
But a boy appeared from nowhere, nimbly dodging about, stretching under cars, picking everything up and handing it all back to her, filling her arms with groceries.
‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
He nodded and – without offering or being asked – quickly transferred the rest of her shopping from the trolley into the car.
Catherine started to feel better as she watched pregnancy-related altruism in action.
‘That’s so kind of you,’ she said when he’d finished. ‘Do you work here?’
‘No,’ he shrugged, ‘just passing.’
‘Lucky for me,’ she said, and wondered if she should tip him. Her grandmother would have tipped him. Made him stand there for an age while she rummaged in her purse for an inadequate coin.
‘My grandmother would tip you,’ she smiled.
‘I don’t want a tip,’ he said, and she thought he would leave, but he didn’t leave. He just stood there, pale and skinny, in scruffy jeans, Adidas trainers and a blue hoodie. She had thought he was about twelve, but now she realized he must be older, because he had the start of mild fuzz on his chin and cheeks. He had narrow, pale grey eyes and looked hungry.
‘Can I buy you a piece of cake?’ she said suddenly. ‘I was just going to treat myself.’
She was going to treat herself. Why the hell not? And why not treat him too? Repay his small kindness with one of her own. Make a human connection.
Her huge belly made it OK to offer.
But she was still surprised when he said yes.
By the time they had stood in the queue with a tray for five minutes, Catherine was regretting her invitation.
The boy was not chatty. Barely made eye contact. They shuffled to the till in silence, sat down in silence.
How were they going to eat cake together?
‘Counts as one of your five-a-day,’ Catherine joked as she cut the nose off her slice of carrot cake.
The boy didn’t laugh. ‘I eat five a day,’ he said. ‘I try to stay healthy.’
He didn’t look healthy. He was so thin that it verged on undernourished. But he wasn’t eating his cake.
Probably on drugs, Catherine thought, and immediately chided herself for having an uncharitable thought about someone who’d done her a favour.
She babbled through the guilt.
‘I try to stay healthy too,’ she said. ‘Because of the baby, of course. But even when I’m not … y’know …’
The boy nodded at her cappuccino. ‘My mother said you shouldn’t drink coffee,’ he said. ‘When you’re expecting.’
Catherine was amused by his use of the word ‘expecting’. It sounded very old-fashioned coming out of his young mouth.
‘This is decaf,’ she smiled.
‘Or smoke,’ he added.
‘I don’t,’ she nodded, ‘luckily. But my mother smoked with me. I weighed less than six pounds.’
‘Is that bad?’ he said.
‘Yes, quite,’ she said. ‘Of course, she claims it was normal. People weren’t as educated back then, were they?’
As if he would know, she thought. He was a child. His idea of back then was probably last Christmas.
For the first time in her life, Catherine felt old. A fat old lady waddling about, mothering strangers, made confident by her lack of sexuality.
The boy stared into his tea but didn’t drink it. The silence stretched. Catherine put a piece of cake in her mouth, and then quickly another. She wanted to finish it fast so she could go.
I have to dash, but you enjoy the rest of your cake.
‘I don’t know how much I weighed,’ the boy finally said. ‘I think I used to know, but I’ve forgotten.’
‘Your mum will know,’ said Catherine. ‘To the ounce!’
‘She’s dead,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry.’ And she really was. Sorry his mother was dead – but more sorry she’d mentioned her. How awkward!
There was a gaping silence, and then the boy said, ‘She was murdered.’
‘Oh no!’
It was all Catherine could say. What else was there? The only logical thing to say after that bombshell was to ask when and how and did they ever catch him and are you all right … And none of those were questions you asked of some stranger you’d only just met – or anyone in a coffee shop.
But the boy looked at her properly for the first time, as if he wanted her to ask questions – as if daring her to ask.
Catherine bit her lip. She didn’t want to as
k. She didn’t want to know.
She had to get this back on a more normal, formal footing. She spoke stiffly. ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’
The boy gave no acknowledgement of her words – just continued to stare straight into her face. She avoided his eyes and looked at the counter, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, when told someone’s mother has been murdered, to check for muffins.
‘A stranger killed her with a knife.’
Catherine gasped.
She felt sick. Tossed about and queasy. A little boat on a high sea. Holding on to the sides of the table to ride out the storm she’d called down upon herself.
‘Stop it,’ she whispered. ‘Stop it, please.’
But the boy didn’t stop it. Instead he leaned forward to close the space between them and said softly, ‘She was pregnant too.’
The blood drained from Catherine’s head. She gripped the edge of the table so hard that her fingers went white.
‘What?’ she said, cocking her ear towards him like a deaf person. ‘What did you say?’
‘You heard me,’ he said.
Catherine had heard him. That was why her mouth was open, her breathing shallow. Unconsciously, she splayed a guardian hand over her unborn baby.
‘She was killed with that knife.’
‘The knife …’ Her voice cracked. She tried again. ‘The knife you left in my house?’
‘No!’ The boy looked surprised.
‘No,’ he said again. ‘The knife I found in your house.’
Jack Bright withdrew the knife from the mud-crusted hiking boot, then slowly frowned at it – confused by recognition.
The shell handle shimmered like oil on water. The blade was serrated on one edge, curved on the other to a cruel point …
He felt Pam’s grip on his wrist; heard the inhuman howl of their lives falling apart, and he knew – somehow he knew – that the knife – this knife! – had murdered his mother.
He dropped it with a panicky clatter and backed away from it on his knees, dazed by fear and uncertain memory.
Then his head snapped up at the exorcist cry:
‘WHOEVER’S THERE HAD BETTER GET THE HELL OUT OF THIS HOUSE!’
Snap_‘The best crime novel I’ve read in a very long time’ Val McDermid Page 11