An unearthly silence falls on the hall. Oliver waits – tensed – ready for something else. It takes some time for him to realize that they aren’t going to come back. The muscles around his eyes twitch violently with the need to close.
He cannot move. He’s on the left side of the galleried landing. He can see shadows, recognize shapes, and begins to realize there is something at eye-level across the banisters that doesn’t belong. Something that is bigger and longer than the chandelier that hangs there.
Litton
THE AREA AROUND Litton, viewed on a map, is mostly long wooded tracts, only interrupted from time to time by the blue slash of a reservoir, or the occasional collection of red roofs where a hamlet nestles. Caffery spends a long time drawing out lines radiating from the place the Walking Man found Bear. It’s a technique he’s seen used by the specialist police search advisors at work, and it’s taught him a lot of the questions to ask. The vet says the dog is in good health apart from the injury and the bizarre stomach contents. Caffery’s guessing she hasn’t been missing for a long time – certainly only a day or two. But how far could a small dog walk in a day or two? And which direction would it go? How long is a piece of string – where do you start in guessing the unguessable?
In the end it’s the flip of a coin. He decides to go south of the place Bear turned up, starting in a village at the end of furrowed farmland, because somehow those ploughed fields look like an easier stretch of land for a small dog to have negotiated than the surrounding forests. He drives slowly, trying to get a feel for the area, Bear bolt upright on the back seat, alert, her ears cocked, watching the scenery flash past.
It’s a typical Mendip village, tiny and picturesque like a watercolour greeting card with wisteria-loaded buildings and an old pub, its sign creaking lazily in the slight breeze. Hansel and Gretel chimneys sit on the cottage roofs. But the place has an empty, hushed feeling, and as he parks up he senses it’s not the right place – that he’s off-piste. Sure enough, when he opens the car door Bear shows no sign she recognizes it, just slips mildly out on to the hot pavement and stands, looking around, waiting for him to tell her what to do next.
Ordinarily Caffery trusts his instinct, but he’s got no better ideas than this as a starting point, and thinks that if he at least begins to walk he might eventually lock into something important.
Thus he embarks on one of the longest, most fruitless of mornings, trudging from house to house, holding his card in one hand, the dog on the lead in the other, putting cards through the letter boxes of empty houses and stopping to listen to the rambling stories of the elderly, of the desperate for company. The complaints and the pleas, because he’s in authority and must be able to do something to help them in their plight with the electricity board. Or the noisy neighbour. You need the perseverance of an ox and the hide of a rhino to do this job.
By lunchtime he’s tired. They’ve worked their way through the village and have entered a wooded area where the houses are further apart, an assortment of two-bedroom cottages with creeper-loaded eaves and gnarled apple trees dotted around, interspersed with huge stonebuilt mansions with garages and long driveways.
He comes to a modern building with a spanking new Range Rover parked in the driveway. It’s an ugly house, painted yellow, and is occupied by a brunette in her mid-forties. She offers him a cold drink, inviting him in. His feet hurt, and he’s thirsty. What’s more she’s wearing tight postbox-red jeans and a white vest top that shows a lot of flesh.
‘I’ve got beer,’ she prompts.
After some consideration he declines, accepts a glass of water, a drink for Bear, then heads on his way.
‘Should have asked for a laxative for you,’ he tells Bear as they come to the driveway of a house. There’s a FOR SALE sign in the trees. It has a piece of ivy growing across one corner so it’s been here some time. ‘We’ll make this the last one, eh?’
Together they go up the overgrown driveway, the rain in the potholes soaking their feet, the huge shrubs on either side of the drive crushed underfoot, the patterns of tyres stamped into the leaves. They pass a stables on their left – unused – a stone summerhouse, similarly unused with moss growing in its roof tiles. To their right is a fence and beyond it trees. From time to time Caffery gets glimpses of pale hummocks and he realizes it’s a BMX course in there – an unofficial obstacle course, all the hummocks covered in sacking to afford the bike tyres grip.
The house begins to reveal itself above the trees. A Georgian villa, with a side-gabled roof, cracked with age. Caffery and Bear get to the house and Caffery rings the bell. When the door isn’t answered immediately he leans out of the gabled porch to see if there’s anyone in the garden. No one. He rings again. This time he leans in to the door and puts his ear up to it, checking the bell is working. He hears it clearly, but no one answers.
He turns from the doorway and steps back on to the drive. There are two cars parked in the front – a Land Rover and a smart Lexus in cherry pink. Someone must be home. He goes around the side of the house, the little dog following silently.
He pauses, holding his hand up. Bear stops instantly. There’s a fading wooden conservatory at the side of the house with people inside. The windowpanes are steamed with condensation from the many pot plants that are dotted around, some yellowed and dying. But although the glass is semi-opaque he can clearly make out a figure in uniform – a woman, a nurse – and another, someone in a wheelchair. Male or female, he can’t tell for sure, but he can see the person is naked from the waist down. He can make out bulky shins. Red-spiked skin. Varicose veins.
The nurse is speaking. He can’t make out what she’s saying, but he can get the emotion behind it. Irritation. Sarcasm. She’s quite short and stocky – Asian, possibly Filipina, he can’t say for sure – and her face is etched in a furious scowl. As she talks she works, wrapping something in a bin liner, tying it tight. It’s only when she snaps open a bag and begins pulling things out, wipes and towels and a pair of incontinence pants, that he understands the scene. She is changing the woman – he’s decided it’s a woman just from the length of the greyblond hair – who has soiled herself.
The nurse stands at the woman’s side and bends, so that the woman’s upper torso is lying across her back, her arms dangling like cobwebs. By half straightening her legs the nurse is able to lift the woman up from the wheelchair just enough to slip the pants under her. She bends her knees again, lowering the woman, then pushes her roughly back into the chair, fastens the tapes at either side. The woman seems barely aware of any of this. Her head lolls.
The nurse pulls the woman’s nightie down over her knees, goes to the table and picks up a dressing gown from the back of one of the chairs. She is about to return when something outside the conservatory catches her attention. She stays where she is, the dressing gown in her hand, staring out. It’s not Caffery she’s looking at, he hasn’t moved or drawn attention to himself, she is looking beyond him – as far as the woods at the foot of the garden.
She is looking at the fence and the treeline where the BMX track is. Caffery turns to follow the direction of her eyes. He sees the faint smudge of the hummocks in there – like sleeping beasts – but nothing moves. There’s no noise.
In the conservatory the nurse has snapped out of her trance. She drapes the dressing gown around the woman’s shoulders. She crosses to the windows and one by one lets down roller blinds until the conservatory is completely closed off from the garden.
‘Are you all right there?’
Caffery turns, caught off guard. Standing a few feet down the path is a very tall, well-built man in his late seventies, leaning on a walking stick. Dressed in a Barbour jacket and baggy brown corduroy trousers tucked into his wellingtons, he has rough grey hair in a mad halo, a huge, almost comical bushy moustache, like an Edwardian villain. His cheeks are tinged pink with anger.
‘Have you found what you’re looking for? Wandering around as if you own the place?’
Caffery walks carefully and respectfully down the path to meet him.
‘I’m sorry, Mr …?’
‘Doesn’t matter what my name is. What’s yours?’
‘My name is Jack Caffery.’
‘And what are you? Looking to lift a few more lawn mowers? Is that what’s in your head?’
Caffery feels in his pocket for his card. He holds it out. ‘Sorry – I tried the bell.’
The man sees the warrant card and his demeanour changes. His head, which has been poking out on his neck aggressively, like a turtle, retreats. The folds of skin gather around it.
‘Yes. Well, I wasn’t to know.’ He licks his lips. ‘So? Police? What’s happened?’
‘I’m doing a house-to-house enquiry. Is this your place?’
‘Yes – but you can’t come in.’
Caffery pauses, the badge half in his pocket. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘I said you can’t come in. The place is a mess – our cleaner hasn’t turned up – and anyway …’ He rubs his nose. Clearly uncomfortable.
‘And anyway?’ Caffery coaxes.
The man shakes his head. There are broken veins in his nose and his eyes are so slack you can see the inside rims. ‘Just – just you can’t go inside. It’s not a good time for us. For me and my wife.’
Caffery returns the badge to his pocket. ‘I’ll respect that. I know what it’s like not to be expecting visitors, Mr …?’
‘Colonel.’ The man reaches in his pocket and pulls out a business card. Holds it out to Caffery, who takes it and reads.
‘Colonel Frink. I’ve got one question. That dog.’ He nods at Bear, who is snuffling in a flowerbed. If Caffery is very lucky, she’s thinking about a bowel movement. ‘Do you recognize it?’
‘Do I recognize it? No. I’m not in the habit of befriending strays. Why would I know that dog?’
‘She’s called “Bear”.’
‘So?’
‘She doesn’t belong to one of the neighbours? I mean …’ Caffery indicates the view: the numerous valleys visible from this vantage point, the occasional reddish-brown blur of roofs above the trees. ‘The houses round here are spread out – but I guess you meet some of the neighbours.’
‘Hardly. In our position we don’t have much time to socialize – what would be the point?’
Caffery raises an eyebrow. ‘The point?’
‘My wife is ill. MS. We’re army people and we’re only temporary here while we wait to sell the place. We’ve got no desire to stay in this area, absolutely none.’ His eyes stray to the fence where the BMX track is. ‘Yes,’ he says gruffly. ‘The sooner we can get out, the better.’
‘You don’t like the area?’
‘No, we don’t. When I retired, we stayed in Germany. We’ve only come back here because of her health. To be nearer the family.’
‘Come back?’
‘This was our house. Children grew up here – the grandchildren …’ He trails off at the word ‘grandchildren’ as if it’s tainted with an unpleasant memory. Then he turns and gives the house a look of immense sadness, as if it represents all the misery and woe in the world. The walls are covered in ivy, the trellises all falling away listlessly, pulling pieces of masonry with them. ‘Damned management company didn’t look after it. It’ll sell – to some developer, I suppose. And then we can get the hell out.’
‘Don’t like the countryside then?’
The man reddens more. ‘Mr Caffery—’
‘Yes – I’m sorry. Nosy of me. So you definitely don’t recognize this dog?’
‘As I said before – no.’
‘What about Mrs Frink? Would she know?’
‘Please,’ the colonel says. ‘Don’t insult us. It’s been months since my wife knew anything. Can’t speak, can’t hear. Bloody mess we’re in, if you want the truth.’
‘I’m sorry.’
The colonel waves his comment away. ‘Now, have we come to an end?’
Caffery considers asking, What’s behind that fence on the BMX course that bothers your nurse so much? But he doesn’t. Instead he holds his hand out to shake. ‘It was a pleasure making your acquaintance.’
‘Thank you.’ The colonel shakes his hand. ‘Thank you and goodbye. You can find your own way out, I take it.’
He turns, using his stick, and makes his awkward, limping way back to the house. His shoulders are hunched, his head lowered, as if it’s a fight to hold it up under the force of gravity.
Bear watches him go, her head on one side. Caffery says nothing. Doesn’t move for a while, because he’s thinking that it’s always the same when he meets older people, all he sees is their fragility. All he can picture in his head is his mother – and wonder where she is, what she is doing. Whether she’s alive. And if she is, whether she has ever got over losing Ewan and being left with the other child. Jack. The one that, given the choice, she’d have preferred to lose.
‘Come on,’ he tells Bear, when the sound of the slamming door has echoed out across the lawn. ‘Let’s go have a look in those trees.’
Handcuffs
IAN IS IN the kitchen next to the cooker. His hands are behind his back – cuffed. He is standing up on tiptoe and trying to slot them down over the hob igniter, which is the exact shape and size of the cuff key. He contorts and twists his body in the effort. It’s a trick he’s seen Honig doing. Now he’s realizing that Honig has made it look a lot easier than it actually is.
Theo Honig is on his camp bed, idly toying with a giant mug of frothy latte. He has decorated the top of the latte with cocoa powder in the shape of a pair of breasts. He uses a spoon to scoop the froth off the right breast. Puts it in his mouth and closes his eyes, savouring the taste. He whistles to himself breezily – that old song from the film where Dustin Hoffman bangs Mrs Robinson.
Ian twists sideways and then, like magic, the cuffs snap open. He shakes his hands, massages his wrists, stares at the handcuff. Not that difficult after all. He feels good. He does it again. This time it takes less than three minutes. Ian is the master of electronic devices and networks, computer viruses and manipulating imagery, not sleight of hand or weapons or the things that are Honig’s forte. He’s impressed even himself with this escape.
Just as he is about to try it again, Honig shakes his head. ‘No no – not like that.’ He stands and crosses the room, his hand out. ‘Give them to me.’
Ian hesitates. The two men are in the security division of a company named Gauntlet Systems. Not a British company, but a global company, with headquarters in New York. Ian has been with the company five years, whereas Honig has eight years under his belt and that, in theory, makes him the superior. Ian would like to argue but he doesn’t. He passes the cuffs.
Honig begins assembling them so he can prove just how easy it is. Ian goes to his unmade bed where his bag sits. He begins unpacking the video equipment Gauntlet Systems has given them for this job. By the time he looks up, Honig’s handcuffs have come open with a snap. He’s holding them up to Ian. ‘Ta-da!’ he says, straight-faced. ‘The Man from Beyond.’
‘Very good.’ Ian flicks off the lens cap and begins checking the focus. As the technical guy, Ian has to be the one who records everything, because a record is what the boss, Pietr Havilland, wants and is paying for. Ian studiously inspects the camera controls. Fiddles with light balances and colour settings. He does a few practice shots then checks the viewfinder. ‘Are we ready?’
Honig yawns and glances at his watch. ‘No rush. Keep them waiting. That’s where the imagination comes in.’
‘Imagination?’
‘I believe that’s the word I used. The reason we are getting paid so generously is to mess with their heads. Whack-’em-and-run merchants don’t get paid shit – not enough for you to haul your arse out of bed. What we’re getting is serious money. And why? Because we are expected to be creative. That is the whole point of us.’
He re-attaches the handcuffs and gets on his tiptoes again – unlocks the cuffs for the second ti
me.
‘You know who had real imagination?’ He slings down the cuffs, wanders over to the table and picks up his cup. ‘That Minnet Kable character. I mean, those killings? Un-fucking-believable.’
Ian practises his camera moves – starting with a close-up of the fruit bowl on the table, then a swift pan across to the window, pulling focus as he does. This is just grandstanding from Honig. He pretends to know all about what happened to those teenagers; in truth he knows only what Pietr Havilland has told them.
‘What he did with those intestines?’ Honig goes on. ‘I mean – is that extreme or is it not? And waiting in a cave like that – then, when they come past, bam! – he’s on them.’
‘You don’t know he waited.’
‘Yes I do.’
‘How?’
‘For fuck’s sake – what is this? The Spanish Inquisition? It’s what happened. Anchor-Ferrers told Havilland when he sold him the Wolf. That’s where he got the inspiration for it. Are you going to be like this the whole time we’re here?’
Ian hesitates. ‘I’m sorry. I’m just nervous.’
That seems to calm Honig a bit. He spoons a bit more latte into his mouth. Eyes Ian carefully – as if he’s not sure about him at all. He drains the cup. Puts it on the draining board.
‘We’ve screwed up losing the dog and we cannot afford to cock up again. You’re being too soft on the girl – I noticed when we were upstairs just now, you made eye contact with her.’
‘The girl? Lucia?’
‘Lucia?’ Honig shakes his head. ‘Lucia? You see? That’s just what I mean. You use her name.’
‘I’m just being professional.’
‘Professional? If you’re a true professional you’ll forget what your lousy little dick is telling you. You’re on a short leash after what happened in New York.’
Ian has a rush of anger at the mention of New York. He isn’t as experienced as Honig in the field. This is their first time paired together and it hasn’t got off to a good start. Ian was chosen for the job because he is a technical whizz and because he spent time in this part of Somerset as a youngster, so knows the land. This made him perfect as the advance party to come and set the scene. But on the final day, when Pietr Havilland briefed them in Gauntlet Systems’ New York office, the boss threw a new scenario into the job.