Will wished he could see more from the sparse lights of the makeshift runway. He thought there were several men and at least four big dogs. There were mutterings in English, but some in another language, too. Not French, unless it was a strange dialect he’d never heard. It sounded too guttural.
The plane took another sweep over the field. Another light, held at about waist height flashed three times, then after a pause, three times more. Two minutes later, the plane was down and the voices were much more urgent and a good bit louder. Will inched forwards to see better, crinkling up his eyes and craning his neck.
Some time later, he heard it: unmistakable footsteps coming towards him across the dry grass. One of them must have seen him. He was about to get up and run. Then he swore silently to himself. All that would do was ensure that he was seen and caught and probably killed, like Jamie. Keeping still was the only possible way of protecting himself. It might not work. But the alternative definitely wouldn’t.
The man stopped only feet away from him. His breathing was short and sharp, like someone facing danger. The snuffling grumble of one of the dogs was close by too. Will could just see the man as a slightly darker blodge against the darkness of the backdrop, with two small points of glitter where his eyes must be. They disappeared and the blodge shifted and twisted.
Eyes, Will thought. That must be what gave me away.
He should have shut them. But he couldn’t bear to have no warning of whatever was going to happen to him. The man took a few more steps forward. Will ducked his head towards the ground and nearly screamed as his face landed in a nettle patch. His skin burned as the poison bit into it. Shifting sideways as quietly as possible, he kept his eyes down to stop them from sparkling. The other man’s sharp, shallow breathing showed he knew he wasn’t alone.
‘Keep those fucking Dobermanns out of my way,’ he shouted over his shoulder, in such unmistakably middle-class English that Will nearly rolled back into the nettles.
‘I need a slash and I don’t want them chewing my plonker,’ the man went on, using slang Will hadn’t heard since school.
The man unbuttoned his trousers and Will put a hand over his head. But the man aimed in the opposite direction. As the stream dwindled, he said quietly in clumsy, British-accented French, ‘Restez la. Ne bouge pas. Ne parle pas. Compris?’
Will’s mouth was dry and his throat felt tighter than a hangman’s noose. Who was this Englishman? He produced a hoarse, muttered ‘Oui’, thanking God the man thought he was French.
‘Bien.’
He shook himself and buttoned his fly, before trampling noisily away and leaving Will with about a million questions crashing about in his head. There was only one that mattered. Why on earth had he been protected?
There were clanking noises whenever the wind dropped, and other sounds, too, human and furtive. Something heavy was being dragged over hard surfaces.
At last the plane took off again and the lights were put out. Several journeys were made on foot to and from the field. Those sounds told Will that whoever was making them was carrying heavy weights. He was sure this was the equivalent of the journeys made to and from the plane in Jamie Maxden’s video. When they stopped, he was going to have to find enough courage to go down the fields after them and find out exactly what they were doing in their stinking dog-protected buildings.
He tried to tell himself that he’d done enough to convince Trish at least. His nettle-savaged face still stung. He had bruises all over his stiff body from lying on the ground for so many hours. But there was too much he still didn’t understand. He didn’t even know for sure whether tonight’s plane was the same one Jamie had filmed. Maybe when he watched Jamie’s video again he’d be able to get everything he needed.
And maybe you won’t, stupid, he told himself in his father’s voice. No, he had to go down to the farm.
One of the dogs howled in the darkness, then fell silent. Someone must have thrown it some meat. Would the food be enough to keep the animals so sated they’d miss a stranger creeping around them?
No, of course it won’t, stupid. It was his father’s voice in his head again. They’re guard dogs.
Will pushed himself to his feet, shaking his arms and lifting one shoulder after the other, before wagging his head from side to side to ease the aches. At least he could pee now.
Even that was only a distraction. He had to go down to the buildings and deal with whatever happened to him there. If he flunked this, he might as well give up everything for ever.
The Black Eagle was as full of men as the pub in Smithfield, but the atmosphere was entirely different. The meat porters had been a cheerful lot, hungry and bustling. These men were tense and still. An acrid haze of cold cigarette smoke hung over their heads. One or two women sat among the drinkers, but they were mostly grey haired and looked as held-in as the men. Some lively sounds banged around at the far end of the building, where Trish could see glimpses of green baize and pool balls. In the main bar the crowd was quiet.
‘What’ll you have?’ Pete Hartland asked.
Trish had no wish for beer, but it wasn’t hard to see that a request for wine in a place like this would make the two of them stand out even more clearly than her haircut and tidy black suit. Already there had been some aggressively curious glares. She wished she still had her old gelled spikes; at least they hadn’t marked her out as anything but an eccentric.
‘Scotch, please,’ she said, discreetly pulling a ten-pound note out of the top pocket of her jacket and offering it to him. She couldn’t make a young constable pay for such an expensive drink for her.
‘OK.’ He looked surprised but took the cash and shouldered his way through the crowd at the bar.
Trish looked behind her and saw two thickset men with very short hair get up from a microscopic table. She shot between the crowd and perched on one empty stool, ignoring the waves of fury she could feel at her back. If she sat still, she thought, and didn’t make any noise or thrust her femaleness at any of them, they might forget she was here. Pete would just have to find her. The last thing she was going to do was wave at him or call his name.
It took a while, but that could have been because the crowd at the bar held back his order. He’d brought her a double and himself a pint in the kind of straight glass with a bicep-like bulge at the top that had long ago replaced the old-fashioned dimpled tankards she’d liked as a child.
‘Cheers,’ he said, raising the glass but keeping his wrist between her and the drink as though she might grab it.
She nodded and wet her lips with the whisky. It was raw and burned her tongue as she licked them.
‘Is he here?’
‘Yeah. Two tables over to the right, back to the wall. Always sits like that. He’s the one with the red polo shirt.’ Hartland flicked open a packet of cigarettes and shook one forward to offer to her.
‘No thanks.’
He struck a match and she looked casually away, as though protecting her eyes from the spark or the smoke. Daniel Crossman wasn’t hard to identify. There was only one red shirt. He wasn’t looking in her direction so it seemed safe to study him.
Above the open shirt collar was a face no different from any of the others in the pub: watchful and lined about the eyes and mouth. He must have been in his early forties. From what she could see through the fug, his eyes were grey, his lips were thin and dry, and he carried his shoulders high and tight. He looked as though he had just sat down for a moment and was ready to spring into action any second, and yet there were three pint glasses in front of him, messy with foam. One had an inch or two of beer in the bottom.
There was no one on the stool opposite him, and neither of the drinkers beside him looked at him or spoke.
One of the barmen was collecting glasses, going from table to table with orderly efficiency. Trish watched Crossman watching him, picking up whole bunches of glasses between the fingers and thumb of one hand and lifting them on to the tray he held on the other. The tray was full
before he reached Crossman’s table, so he turned away. Trish saw Crossman’s gaze following him resentfully. He pushed his empty glasses to one side, before wiping his hand on a very white handkerchief. Then he stood, uncoiling his body with neat control.
He was wearing the ubiquitous jeans, but they were much cleaner than Trish thought anyone’s jeans had a right to be, and ironed into savage creases. He stepped out through a narrow gap between the tables and walked straight over to her.
‘What are you looking at?’ he said, bending down to speak straight into Trish’s ear. The buzz and clatter of the rest of the pub receded. She could feel his. breath on her ear.
‘Hey!’ Pete said. ‘What d’you think you’re doing?’
‘And you, keep your sodding mouth shut.’ He turned back to Trish. ‘I asked you a question.’
She gathered her wits and said carefully. ‘I was looking at the barman and wondering how he balanced that heavy tray, even when he had to bend down for the glasses.’
‘Hah!’ Crossman straightened up. ‘You must think I’m stupid. You’re another of Inspector Lyalt’s dyke policewomen, aren’t you? He work for you?’ He jutted his chin towards Pete. ‘Too wet behind the ears to be out on his own? That it?’
Trish could see Pete longing to be up and at him. No wonder Caro had been afraid he might attack Crossman. Trish had never seen anyone wanting a fight so much.
‘No, he doesn’t,’ she said, trying to copy Andrew Stane’s refusal to react to aggression. ‘And I am not a police officer. Why should you think I was?’
‘Because your boyfriend here is. So who are you then?’
‘Hey, mate, leave the lady alone.’ It was the barman back for another trayful of dirty glasses. ‘She’s done you no harm.’
‘That’s all you know.’ He still hadn’t stopped looking at Trish. ‘This is harassment. I’ll be making a complaint. You can depend on that.’
Trish looked at the barman and was glad to see he was older than she’d first thought, and quite as tough-looking as any of the drinkers. Maybe he’d been in the army with them. He nodded to her, then squared up to Crossman.
‘Go on. You’ve had enough. Time to go home.’
Trish watched Crossman’s hands bunch and sat very still indeed. She wished she’d never agreed to come here. She didn’t think she was in any danger, but she’d probably made life a lot harder for Caro, and she’d learned nothing she hadn’t already known or guessed. Crossman was an angry man, probably unhappy, who was prepared to pick on anyone he perceived as weaker than himself. She hated the thought of Kim in his power, but there was nothing she could do here to help keep the child out of it.
‘Go on. Leave her alone,’ said the barman, pushing his way towards them.
A bigger, older man, called out, ‘Hey, Dan! Come and settle an argument for us. John here thinks the AK47 is a brilliant weapon. I think that’s bullshit. Come on. I’ll buy you a drink.’
Crossman hesitated, then moved towards him. The barman leant over Trish’s table to grab some glasses from the other side of her.
‘This isn’t a good place for you,’ he said.
‘Why not?’
‘Can’t you see?’ He looked around the crowd, then across the table at Pete Hartland. ‘You: take her somewhere else. Whether you meant it or not, it’s provocation. He doesn’t need that. Nor do his family. And nor do I. OK?’
Pete drained his pint, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. Trish abandoned her Scotch. They waited just long enough to satisfy Hartland’s self-respect, then oozed as unobtrusively as possible towards the door. The men shifted to let them out. No one said anything.
The exhaust-laden air outside tasted very sweet. Trish knew the whole uncomfortable episode had been her fault. She should never have listened to Hartland. He was too young to know any better.
‘You see what he’s like?’ he said before they were more than twenty yards from the pub’s front door. ‘What did you think of him?’
‘Nothing I hadn’t expected. And nothing to give me any clues to whatever else he’s been doing or threatening to do. That barman was right: we shouldn’t have gone in there. Crossman recognized you, even if he got me wrong; my presence with you will just have complicated your job. I hate to think what Caro will say when she hears about it. And Andrew Stane.’
‘But you must have been able to see something else.’ Hartland was nearly crying with the effort of thinking the situation into something it could never be.
They had reached the river now. On the opposite side was the disciplined bulk of Tate Britain, sitting in the thin early moonlight amid its cloak of trees. Trish stopped with her back to it, leaning against the cool stone balustrade. She wanted to comfort him, but there was nothing she could say that would help.
‘What about his body language? That must’ve told you something.’
‘What do you want me to say that you don’t already know, Pete? Crossman’s body language was both aggressive and defensive. It shows that he’s wary and on a short fuse. He’s probably paranoid, ’too. But then he’d have a right to be, wouldn’t he? We were there to spy on him. He looks fit and tough, but then so did ninety per cent of the rest of them.’
Hartland took a step away from her, then came back. She wanted to tell him that all evening his own body language had been expressing indecision and petulance, both of which betrayed a childish need to get his own way.
‘Caro thinks you’re brilliant,’ he said at last, his face crumpling at the unfairness of her failure.
‘I can’t help that. Nothing about Daniel Crossman’s behaviour gave me any new information. I must go.’
‘Yeah.’ He walked away.
Now it was her turn for indecision. Should she let him go without trying to help? Or should she pass on what she’d taken such an unforgivably long time to learn for herself? She hurried after him. ‘Pete.’ He paused but didn’t turn. ‘Pete, it’s good to be personally involved with what you’re doing,’ she said, ‘but you’ll only fog your own perceptions if you can’t learn to keep your distance.’
He did turn then. The street light turned his pink face orange, but it didn’t disguise the cold anger, which showed a lot more in common with the drinkers than he’d probably guessed. ‘Keeping your distance didn’t do much for your perceptions just now, did it?’
He was as tense and watchful as the battle-stressed men in the pub. Was it his work that had done that to him?
‘That’s true,’ Trish said. ‘But don’t take it as a reason to go after Crossman yourself. Please.’
‘Nothing else is going to stop him torturing little children.’
‘Pete, think of what Caro would say. She’s been terrified of what you might do because anything outside the law is going to screw up any chance there is of nailing Crossman one day.’
His face set in concrete obstinacy.
‘Think about it. If you go after him, you’ll ruin your own career, probably Caro’s as well, and whatever satisfaction you get will be at the cost of never having Crossman properly punished and his family made safe.’
Still he didn’t respond. But he hadn’t moved away either. Trish felt like Sisyphus all over again.
‘Pete! Come on. Concentrate.’
‘I’ll try. But I can’t wait for ever. If nothing’s done, I’d rather get him and be sacked than know he’s never going to pay for his crimes.’
Will turned his face this way and that to work out where the wind was coming from. The gusts made it harder than ever. His father would have been able to tell without a moment’s thought. He’d have forecast tomorrow’s weather too, more accurately than any computer-assisted weather man.
Forget him, Will told himself. You don’t have to measure yourself against him. And even if you did, now wouldn’t be the time.
Tonight’s wind was coming from the south, he decided. He worked his way back round the farm buildings, pausing now and then to make sure he could feel the gusts blowing straight against his fac
e. Now he came to think about it, it wasn’t that difficult. All he had to do was make sure he was breathing in the stink from the buildings.
In the distance he could hear the faint chink of chains. The dogs must still be there, but so far they hadn’t noticed him. He crept closer, bending at the knees as though that would make him less obvious to them.
His eyes were well adjusted now and in the faint blue-grey starlight he could make out the bulk of the buildings and see the gleam of unshuttered windows here and there in the long low facade. He’d go for one of those. Speeding up, he stopped crouching and ran upright and fast towards the gleam. Only when he was within about ten feet of it did he drop again and crawl forwards. No lights showed inside the windows.
At last he was right up against the sides of the building. He could feel the roughness of the wood against his cheek and smell the creosote with which it had been treated. A much better smell than the rest; cleaner, even if it was chemical. There was no sound nearer than the wind in the trees now.
He craned his neck forwards, then turned his head. With his neck at full stretch, he lifted his lids just a little.
At first he could see nothing but vague heaps in the greater darkness inside. Soon he made out windows on the opposite side of the long room into which he was looking. The building formed one side of a courtyard. Through the further windows he could see the dark slinking shapes of the dogs. They were restless, but maybe that was no surprise with the smell of old raw meat all around them.
Will had a torch in his pocket, a slim pencil-like thing. When he was sure that there were no men awake with the dogs, he switched it on, cupping it in his hand, then directed it through the dusty window. At first all he could see clearly were the cobwebs that had been spun from frame to frame. Then, moving the narrow beam systematically, he made out a heap of carcasses, some still in their black wrappings; others ripped open. There was a series of metal baths, leading to a bigger table with great butcher’s boards on it and rows of knives. Sliding the beam around, peering to get a view of the nearest side of the room, he thought he could see piles of polystyrene trays and there was definitely an industrial-sized shrink-wrapping machine.
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