‘You’re a mind reader too. The fecundity of your talent is unimaginable. Just a moment. Let me pour myself another drink – I’ve been waiting for this and I’d like to be comfortable to hear it all.’ He pours another cider and settles down, his hand resting lightly on the dog’s head. He’s got the gnarled look of a decaying forest god, twined with creepers. ‘So tell me – what’s my reason?’
‘It gives you something over me, because you know – you must know – that he used to have a connection to Tracey Lamb.’
‘Tracey Lamb?’
‘You know who I mean. You don’t fool me. You know she was one link in a long chain of paedophiles. And that the ring was operated by her brother and by Ivan Penderecki.’
The Walking Man’s face changes. He leans towards Caffery. ‘Ivan Penderecki? The one who killed your brother, you mean?’
Something inside Caffery goes cold. It takes him a moment before he speaks again, and when he does his voice is lower and more intense. ‘Once you said these words to me – you said, “What would some old vagrant in the West Country know about a boy’s disappearance thirty years ago in London?” ’
‘You have perfect recall too.’
‘I’ve thought about that statement. Thought about it and thought about it. And now I understand. Because you are precise, you fucking old pedant, you care about the value of each word, nothing goes to waste. You are interested in the interpretation of words – and the interpretation of that sentence to most people is I don’t know anything about your brother. But actually that wasn’t what you said, was it? What you said was a question, not a statement. “What would an old vagrant know?” A question demands an answer – and this is the answer I give you. I think an old vagrant could, and does, know a lot.’
‘I see.’
‘I want you to make Derek Yates speak to me.’
‘That won’t happen. I can promise you that much – he won’t see you.’
‘I can make him. I’ve got in a request for a professional visit. He doesn’t have to give consent for that.’
‘But he won’t tell you anything.’
‘Then you speak to him. You can make him tell you,’ Caffery mutters. ‘Unless you already know. That wouldn’t surprise me, if you already knew.’
‘Because you can read my mind?’
Caffery scowls at him and the Walking Man smiles.
The Scientist
IN THE PURPLE jewel that is Lucia’s bedroom Oliver stares out of the window. It’s a blustery but bright night; a full moon. As a child, Oliver imagined that the moon had its own light. It was only when he was at senior school that he discovered, to his embarrassment, that the glow was sunlight bouncing off the inert mass of cold rock. He was disappointed, he felt let down rather by the moon. He decided to ignore it and focus on things that emitted genuine light. The sun. Lasers.
First and foremost Oliver is a scientist. But in many circles, circles that count, he is more, much more than that.
His obsession with light came from his early physics lessons as an eleven-year-old boy – learning the basic principles. He particularly loved lasers, believed them to be science’s closest equivalent to alchemy, and could spend hours watching their play, their properties and their powers. He earned an MSc at university and went to NASA, where he tinkered for years with space-junk projects – specifically a ‘laser-broom project’, the notion that all the deceased satellites and corroded spacestation debris could be made safe by a laser that would atomize the fragments. He left NASA and spent a short time in the British army – the education branch of the Royal Corps of Signals, where for a while he was a second lieutenant, adding to his database of communications and target identification knowledge, which led to a succession of posts in research and development with various private companies. ‘Free space optics’ – the use of lasers in communication – was his specialist area, but for years he trod water, never quite finding the magic, the practical application that suited his vision of lasers.
Then Minnet Kable murdered two teenagers less than a mile from The Turrets. And everything in Oliver’s life changed. Outwardly he became a success. Inwardly he became something he still doesn’t like or recognize.
It’s an uneasy journey to make, but now he travels back to the days following Hugo and Sophie’s murders. A police helicopter circled for two days afterwards and Oliver had a security officer from his company sent down from London. The officer stayed for a week, until the day Kable walked calmly into a police station in Wells, his hands out, ready to be cuffed.
Oliver was haunted by thoughts of what happened at the Donkey Pitch. He didn’t admit it to Matilda, but privately he spent long hours feverishly trying to make sense of it all. When the family were staying in The Turrets he’d find excuses to walk alone, and invariably he’d find himself at the Donkey Pitch. He stood at the place the bodies were discovered, he studied the trees where the intestines were wound. He walked the perimeter, kicked among the leaf litter. He found a cave, a hovel strewn with beer cans and bat droppings, and hunted around in it, wondering whether Minnet knew about the cave – whether he’d slept there. Waited there, perhaps.
One of the members of the local golf club worked for the coroner’s office, and for months Oliver sought him out, found excuses to be at the bar when he was, bought him drinks. Once the case had been through the courts, the coroner loosened up and slowly Oliver was able to glean some of the details that hadn’t been made public. The thing that stuck in his head the most was the way Kable attacked the couple. The brutality of it, the efficiency, tormented him.
Hugo and Sophie were making love when it happened (Oliver still isn’t sure if Lucia knows this detail, he doesn’t want to ask). It was a warm evening and the couple were lying on a blanket at the foot of a large oak – Hugo on top of Sophie – when Kable approached. He was holding a Stanley knife, which later he’d use to remove their insides. And an ice pick.
In one single movement the ice pick pierced Hugo’s buttock. It missed his spine by millimetres, travelled through his bowel, and emerged from the front of his abdomen, where it continued its journey and pierced Sophie’s stomach.
Oliver couldn’t get rid of this image. Two injuries, one blow. It followed him every way he turned. Dogged him and taunted him.
Then slowly, imperceptibly, and maybe out of self preservation, the thoughts metastasized from something that hounded him into something he could use. He’ll never admit it to Matilda but the only way he could deal with the images was to use them as an inspiration in his work. It took him to an arena he is still ashamed of.
And he is fairly sure that this is why the two men are in the house. The whole thing is his fault.
Fishing
AN OWL MOVES low over the darkened forests and fields and tracks. Weshimulo, Cailleach, Oidhche – in ancient folklore she has clairvoyance. Without her aid, Athena can only see half the truth, not the whole truth. Cailleach can uncover lies like no other. Now she skims the treetops, gliding on an air current, not moving her wings. As she rounds the edge of a coppice she comes unexpectedly on a clearing where a small campfire burns. The flames send orange light to the underside of her wings and quickly, almost as if the light is scorching, she banks left, diverting her course, away from the fire – heading to the west. As she goes she lets out a screech. A warning there is something unnatural or predatory down there.
In the clearing Caffery sits forward, elbows on his knees, his eyes locked on the Walking Man’s face. He is waiting for him to speak, but the Walking Man takes his time, finishing his drink, then carefully wiping his mouth and his beard clean.
‘I know when I am defeated,’ he says. ‘And this is one of those times.’
‘You’ll speak to Derek Yates?’
‘I might be persuaded.’
Caffery narrows his eyes suspiciously. The Walking Man is never straightforward. ‘Might be? Then what’s the price? There’s always a price with you – always. I know you’re going to make me work f
or it.’
‘Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, give a man a fishing pole and he will eat for life.’
‘So you’re going to teach me to fish? Go on then, get started.’
The Walking Man is silent for a while. He sits back and rubs his beard a few times, thinking about this. Then he speaks. ‘Come, little dog. Come here.’
He’s made no movement, has hardly changed his tone of voice, but the dog instantly obeys. It trots around the edge of the fire, passing Jack without so much as a sideways glance, as if he’s no more than a ghost, and makes its way to the Walking Man. Without any further instruction it sits a pace away from him, looking at him, licking its lips.
The Walking Man gives it a scrap of food. He lifts first one paw then the other, inspecting the pads, spitting on them and holding them to the firelight to get a better view.
‘You’re going to mend, little dog. You’re going to mend.’ He strokes the dog thoughtfully. Then he reaches inside his filthy jacket and pulls out a crackling paper bag. Jack recognizes it. The crocus bulbs he bought for the Walking Man almost two years ago. ‘What are these for, Jack Caffery? Detective?’
‘They mark your circle. You believe your daughter is inside the circle – and when you’ve searched it, you mark it – to remind you.’
‘And crocuses because …?’
Caffery shakes his head. ‘I don’t recall. Something about a story – a child who goes missing – a little girl called Crocus.’
‘And the girl, on a predetermined day each year, sweetly lowers her face through the clouds to speak to her parents.’
‘Does your daughter do that?’
The Walking Man stares at Caffery, his eyes reflecting the flames. He and Caffery have the same eyes. It’s like looking in a mirror.
‘Well?’ Caffery prompts. ‘Is that what you’re saying – that your daughter visits you? Because my brother doesn’t. I haven’t seen him, or his ghost. Not once since the day he left.’
The Walking Man’s voice is dry. ‘Maybe she is finding ways to communicate with me.’
‘What ways?’
‘A child came to me. A little child, so big.’ He holds his hand out in the air, to indicate a small child. ‘Blonde, like my daughter. With grazed knees and green eyes. She came from a van – a white van.’
‘The same as your van, the one Evans used to abduct your daughter.’
‘She wore a dress the colour of a blue crocus, but she wasn’t a ghost, she wasn’t a spirit, she wasn’t an illusion. She was real, she had a real voice and real eyes. She came as a signal – a signal never to give up. And I made that real child a promise.’ He lifts the dog and sets it so it’s facing Jack. It puts its head on one side and opens its mouth, its tongue lolling out. ‘I promised her to help.’
‘To help what? The dog? Is it her dog?’
‘No. Crocus found this dog – it is a refugee, an orphan, a runaway. But it is also an emissary. I don’t know from where and I don’t know how it came here, and I don’t know why. But …’ He pauses and gives an ironic grin. ‘I know a man who can find out.’
‘You want me to find out where the dog came from?’
‘And I want you to find out why it had this on its collar.’
He gets to his feet and comes to stand near Jack. Holds his hand out in a downturned fist, as if it’s a drugs deal they’re doing. But when, after a moment or two, Caffery opens his hand to receive what’s there, it turns out to be a crumpled piece of grey card. He takes it, unfolds it and squints down at it. It’s been torn, the writing smudged by water, and most of it is missing. But two words are legible.
Help us …
He frowns. Turns the note over. ‘What’s this?’
‘I don’t know. It was attached to her collar.’
‘A joke?’ He shakes his head, not sure. ‘Kids maybe – a prank.’
‘A prank? Interesting. Would you care to prove it?’
‘Has the dog got an address? Phone number?’
‘No, just a name: Bear. Though a less likely-looking bear I’ve yet to meet.’ The Walking Man peers at the dog, as if he’s gently chastising her for her lack of bulk and height. ‘Pets these days have pieces of electronic equipment inserted under their skin – tracking systems – the sort the government would like us all to wear.’ He takes the note from between Caffery’s fingers and goes slowly back to his place. Sits down and picks up the dog. ‘Will you find out who this dog belongs to?’
‘If I do, you’ll speak to Derek Yates for me?’
‘I will.’
The wind changes and with it the smoke turns tail like a wraith and blows into Caffery’s face, making his eyes smart. But he doesn’t close them. He stares at the Walking Man, hardly breathing. His heart bounces crazily around in his chest. He is suddenly closer than he has ever been to finding out what happened to Ewan.
‘Shit,’ Caffery says irritably, a prick of sweat starting on his back because of course he’ll find who the dog belongs to. He’d go to the ends of the world if he was guaranteed a clue about Ewan. ‘Damn you to eternity. Give me the dog.’
Tea
MORNING. MIST CLINGS to the ground and to the walls of the house. But the roof is so tall, so high above sea level, that the turrets stretch up into the clear air, proud, their windows and tiles lit pink by the rising sun. In the kitchen the lights are on and the kettle is coming to the boil. Two suits dangle on hangers from the curtain rail and there are two camp beds made up in the corner. In one Ian the Geek sleeps. The other, Honig’s, has the sheets and covers thrown back.
He is already awake and dressed in a black T-shirt and black undershorts. He is at the cellar door, on his knees. A bowl of soapy water is next to him. He is using a scrubbing brush to clean the floor and he is not happy. Not happy at all. When Ian the Geek at last yawns and opens his eyes, Honig scowls at him.
‘The place stinks. And what’s this on the floor? Looks like blood.’
‘I think it is.’ Ian the Geek props himself up on his elbows. ‘I had to park round the other side of the house and bring everything through this way. That’s how it got there.’
Honig narrows his eyes. Ian the Geek sleeps in an insane deerstalker hat. It must be a techno thing, Honig thinks, a geek thing.
‘You brought everything through the house? Why did you do that?’
‘If I’d left the car at the front I could have been seen. It was quicker to go through the house.’
Honig is unimpressed. Ian was sent out here a day in advance to set the whole thing up and so far he’s made a number of errors. Matilda Anchor-Ferrers spotted the blood yesterday – the family could have been tipped off before the whole thing was set in motion. They can’t afford carelessness. And worse, in Honig’s book, to allow this level of hygiene to pass is unforgivable. A deer’s entrails being dragged through a kitchen? Ian the Geek is obviously on a different plane to him.
‘The rest of the animal though? You did something sensible with that?’
‘In a canal.’
‘A canal?’
‘Miles from here. Miles and miles. Don’t worry.’
Ian yawns again. He throws back the covers and pads over to the kettle. He unsnaps the fresh box of teabags that the Anchor-Ferrers brought down from London, then begins to make tea using some of the Sèvres porcelain that looks to Honig to be worth several hundred pounds.
Honig finishes scrubbing. He carries the bowl into the utility room and empties it into the sink. He washes it, then his hands, and goes back into the kitchen, coating his hands with little puffs from his antibacterial spray.
‘You’re making tea?’
Ian looks over his shoulder at him. ‘Shouldn’t I be?’
‘How about coming next door to see if there’s a dog in the trap?’
Ian the Geek shrugs. ‘OK.’ He squeezes the teabags and hooks them out of the pot with a spoon. He sets a digestive biscuit on each saucer, as if they’re having tea at the Ritz or something. The two men pull on fle
eces and boots, they don’t bother with trousers – they aren’t going to be seen – and they each carry a delicate cup and saucer out into the misty morning.
The trees are barely visible, and everywhere tall grasses loom out of the haze. It’s an amazing place this – awesome – especially now with the lawn covered in dew and the crystal drops of water on the spider webs. Honig breathes deeply, enjoying the way the cool air brings him to life.
They get to the scullery and push open the door. It’s still dark in here so Honig rests the cup and saucer on the window-ledge and uses the torch app on his phone to illuminate the place. It is silent, the cobwebs casting ghostly shadows. The slop trailing out of the bucket is beginning to smell, but as they get nearer they see it hasn’t been touched. There is no dog clamped in the jaws of the trap.
Honig hunts around the scullery, kicking at things, to make sure the dog hasn’t come in and hidden, while Ian the Geek stands in the doorway and finishes his tea, his back straight, his head up. He is balancing the cup and saucer as if he’s the most delicate and well-mannered person ever born. As if he’s standing in the posh drawing room of a hunting lodge, and not in a brokendown scullery, wearing just a sweater with his hairy legs all naked and goosebumpy. The deerstalker hat flaps round his ears.
Honig takes a step over to the bucket and frowns down at it. ‘Kable must have been wack,’ he says. ‘I mean, it’s one thing disembowelling a dead animal, another thing entirely pulling the innards out of a human while they’re still alive.’
‘Yes. I suppose it took real guts.’
Honig looks blankly at Ian the Geek. The comment was meant to be a joke. But it’s not remotely funny. He doesn’t laugh or even acknowledge he’s heard. He turns his attention back to the intestines. ‘You’d think something would have eaten it, wouldn’t you? All the way out here in the country – there must be hundreds of foxes wandering around. And badgers – they’d eat this, wouldn’t they?’
‘Maybe they don’t like deer.’
‘Well, if something doesn’t eat it soon we’re going to have to …’ He breaks off. He’s just spotted something in the mess. Something small and silver. ‘What’s that?’