Wolf

  He takes her to the box room on the first floor. It is the one that the family call the ‘rose room’ because everything has roses on it. The walls, the bedspread, the drapes. Even the curtain rail is printed with roses. The room rarely gets used in spite of all the money spent on it.

  Molina tells her to sit next to the radiator and begins fiddling with the shackles then eases on the cuffs. He is considerate, trying not to tug at her. She is facing the door and can see out on to the landing. As Molina works, the door to the bedroom opposite, Kiran’s bedroom, opens and Honey comes out. He glances once in her direction then closes the door behind him and walks calmly down the stairs. It must mean Mum has been put in there. Lucia studies his face in profile, trying to get the measure of him. There’s something in his expression she can’t quite identify. She can’t decide if he’s very dangerous or just faking.

  Molina finishes what he’s doing. He stands back and gives her a questioning look. ‘Are you OK? Are you comfortable?’

  She is silent for a moment. Then she says, ‘All that made-up stuff about Minnet Kable? Was that necessary?’

  Molina narrows his eyes at her. He seems to be thinking about a retort, but it passes. ‘I asked, are you comfortable? Can you move?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Yes.

  ‘And you didn’t have to hit me so hard. Did you?’

  He ignores this.

  ‘Can I have Bear? I want my dog.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She makes a point of holding his eye. She is conscious of the CCTV lens gleaming in the ceiling above him. It’s her secret weapon. It’s recording everything and Molina doesn’t even realize. He goes around the room rattling the window catches. As he’s doing it, Honey comes up the stairs pushing Oliver in front of him. Dad’s face is loose, his mouth hanging open, the front of his shirt stained with water. He reaches the landing and spots her watching him. His eyes go to the handcuffs. An awful resigned, clouded expression crosses his face.

  Honey pushes him onwards, stumbling into the second bedroom. It’s Lucia’s own bedroom – the one that she’s painted purple and brown and black – and as Honey kicks open the door she gets a glimpse of all her familiar things, her crucifix and her poster of Marilyn Manson. Her mothy All Saints dress on a black clothes hanger on the wardrobe door. No camera in there – she insisted when Dad put the system in that there had to be a place she could call her own.

  The door closes. Lucia sits quite still. Her face doesn’t change.

  You are a normal, healthy, clever girl. Very clever. No one can say who Lucia is, except Lucia herself.

  Yes, she thinks now, looking at that closed door. No one can say who Lucia is except Lucia herself.

  The Peppermint Room

  MATILDA WAS THE first to be moved upstairs. She is in Kiran’s bedroom, directly above the disused scullery, and is fastened to the radiator by her left hand. She sits with her back to the window, her feet stretched out so they touch the red tiles of the hearth. The men are moving around the house. Doors open and close. Then suddenly Honey is standing in the open doorway, smiling at her. Under his arm is Bear. He stoops and sets the dog down, then, without a word, turns and leaves, locking the door behind him.

  Bear runs to Matilda. She scoops the dog up with her free hand and holds her on her lap, pressing her face against her furry head. Either Bear has vomited downstairs or she’s somehow swallowed down whatever piece of jewellery was stuck in her throat because she’s stopped that awful convulsive movement. She licks Matilda’s face and chin, a habit she has when she’s nervous and needs reassurance. Usually she gets a telling off for it. Not now.

  Matilda’s head is spinning – this cannot be happening. She must be dreaming.

  Desperation is a kind of holy state … a film where they all had to kill each other to save their own skins … don’t think about it – put it out of your mind …

  She hugs Bear tighter. Tries not to cry, to get her thoughts straight. She is fairly sure that Lucia has been put in the rose room, and that Oliver has been put in Lucia’s bedroom – what they call the amethyst room, with all Lucia’s ghastly posters. It’s made Matilda’s imagination boil, trying to guess what these men want, how much they’ve invented and how much is real. The intestines looped nightmarishly in that bush for her to find. Elaborate games, leaving her bewildered – not sure any more if the sky itself is real.

  When you’re so scared that you’d do anything, anything at all, then we’ll tell you what we want …

  But why? Why?

  Bear stops licking, and Matilda lets her on to the floor. She paces the floor, sniffing at things. Matilda watches her. She is sure that if Bear barks or makes a fuss the men won’t hesitate to kill her. That feels like a certainty – not speculation or fear, but a concrete fact.

  Matilda looks around the room. It’s so familiar, but she tries to study it now with fresh eyes, to really take in every detail. It is painted in Kiran’s favourite minty green, with fresh, stripey curtains. There are still Airfix Spitfires and Harrier jets, suspended by nylon wires to the ceiling, gathering dust. Kiran’s daughter loves those airplanes. He still uses this room when he brings his own family here from Hong Kong for the summer – there is a double bed with a fluffy quilt and a single bed installed in the corner for her granddaughter. Even a cot hung with a dangly carousel ready for the new baby which is due in six weeks.

  How can they get a message to Kiran? Will he try to call? Sometimes he does phone when he knows they’re coming down here – just to check they’ve arrived safely. But not always.

  The windows are locked, but there’s a tiny draught coming from the place in the fireplace where the two flue walls have decayed, forming a breach between the two which has been hastily stuffed with newspaper. Something she’s been meaning to get to for months, because the baby won’t be able to sleep in a draughty room. Something glints under the skirting board about three feet away. She tries to tilt into a position to see it better; it looks like an old piece of wiring, but she can’t get to it from here and, even if she could, what use would a piece of wire be? Her eyes are drawn to another section of the skirting board. This part is closer to where she sits and she knows what it is because there’s an extra section of wood which has been nailed over the board.

  When the children were little, maybe six and nine, Matilda caught them smuggling notes to each other after lights out, tiptoeing on to the landing and slipping messages under each other’s doors, so she relegated anything like pencils, paper, scissors, paint to a room downstairs. They could keep nothing in their rooms beyond books and toys. The children found a way past that. They found devious hiding places in their rooms. One by one the hiding places were discovered, and each time the children emerged with more sophisticated hiding places. One weekend they managed to prise away part of the skirting board and hide their belongings in there – Matilda sent Ollie up here with a hammer to secure the skirting board. He was so angry he nailed it closed, complete with the gluepots, the envelopes, the clogged paintbrushes, in spite of the children’s tears.

  She kneels and lowers herself on to her stomach. By stretching full-length she can reach the section of board. The nails have been blobbed with paint over the years; she chips the paint off and sees the silver heads underneath, as fresh as the day Oliver closed it up. She tries to grip the edges of the board, but she can’t, her fingers are too big to slip into the crevice. She jams at the underside of the board, but that is also too narrow a gap to slot her fingers into.

  She rolls back painfully and sits up, breathing hard, rubbing her wrist where the cuff has chafed. Even if she could get into that hidey-hole the chances she’d find anything in there of any help are next to nothing. Say there was a pair of the children’s craft scissors, old and blunt, what would she do? Hack her way out of the handcuffs? Hardly. Unlock one of the windows? If she was a locksmith. And anyway, then what? There are no passing pe
destrians to wave at, no cars, nothing. Just the trees and the birds.

  She gazes at the window, imagines herself opening it and climbing out. Beneath it is an ornate lead hopper faded to white by age. It leads to a drainpipe that goes down to the gabled roof of the rundown room that was once a scullery. It’s now derelict, just a handy place to keep a lot of their gardening equipment. The drainpipe is twined with clematis; she pictures herself trying to clamber down it.

  A noise comes from the hallway and Bear stiffens, gives a low, threatening growl. The key turns in the lock and the door opens. It’s the smaller, redheaded one with the glasses, the one who calls himself Molina. He is holding a tray. On it are cartons of juice, a jug of water and a few wrapped sandwiches, the type you get in service stations.

  Bear snarls. Molina ignores her. He comes in, kicks the door closed behind him and sets the tray on the floor in front of Matilda.

  ‘Dinner,’ he says. ‘Eat it.’

  Matilda looks at the food, speechless. She doesn’t know what to make of it. It should be a nice thing – something generous – to be bringing food into a room on a tray. It should have happy associations: hotels in foreign lands, honeymoons, Mothering Sundays. But she decides she’s never in her life seen anything as sinister as that tray of food.

  ‘There you go.’ He holds up the sandwiches and looks at the dates. ‘Any preference? This one’s tuna.’

  ‘My husband. My daughter – where are they? Is Lucia in the rose room?’

  ‘I can’t believe you asked me that. I just can’t believe you had the nerve.’ He doesn’t sound annoyed when he says it, just amused. ‘Did you really expect an answer to that?’

  She turns her eyes to his. ‘Who are you and what do you want?’

  ‘Questions, questions.’

  ‘Were you in prison with Kable – is that it? Or have you just read about him? Is that what it is?’

  Molina reaches behind her and unsnaps the handcuff. Then he stands and holds out a hand.

  ‘There is blood on the kitchen floor. Did you put that there?’

  ‘Please. Get up.’

  She hesitates. Eyes the hand suspiciously. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m taking you to the toilet. It might be your last chance until this evening. You don’t want to wet yourself, do you?’

  Matilda considers making a run for it, but he is stocky with an anvil-shaped head and wide shoulders, long arms. She knows she won’t get far, so she struggles to her feet. He takes her hand and leads her out of the room on to the galleried landing. This feature of the house was the chief reason she wanted to buy The Turrets. It stretches around the central atrium, ending in a grand stone staircase that sweeps down to the entrance hall. On the occasions they spent Christmas here, the children used to hang tinsel from the gallery. Once Matilda arranged for a local group of handbell ringers to perform at a party. The ringers were arrayed around the gallery, each behind a lighted candle.

  Now the gallery is drab, the big tapestry curtains drawn across the stained-glass window so no light comes through. The central candelabra is on, but the illumination is dim. As Molina pushes her towards the bathroom she has time to note two other doors are closed: the rose room and Lucia’s room. So she is right about where Oliver and Lucia are.

  Molina pushes her into the bathroom.

  ‘Four minutes – I’m timing you.’

  She closes the door behind her and reaches for the key to lock it but of course there’s nothing there. She stands in the sudden brightness, scanning the room quickly. The window is shut and locked, the key nowhere to be seen. She immediately opens the medicine cabinet to find Ollie’s razor, or her tweezers, but it’s empty – completely cleaned out. Her eyes dart around, hyper-vigilant – there has to be something. Something.

  ‘There isn’t anything,’ says Molina from the other side of the door, as if he can see what she’s doing. ‘Don’t waste your time trying to find anything – there’s nothing.’

  She sits on the toilet and urinates, all the time looking for something. The mirror. She stares at it. Can she somehow crack it? A shard of that could be a lethal weapon. She flushes and with the noise of the water covering her, she slams a hand into the mirror. Nothing happens except for a knock at the door.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ says Molina. ‘We’re not that stupid. Do you want me to come in there with you?’

  ‘No.’ She subsides, breathing hard. ‘No.’

  Defeated, she begins to wash her hands, still looking at the mirror. He’d hear it if it crashed; she wouldn’t stand a chance. They’ve thought of everything because – and the thought scares her now she’s let it coalesce – they are professionals, not fly-by-nights.

  She uses her foot to click open the bathroom cabinet. It swings open. It’s virtually empty save for the cardboard tube of a spent toilet roll. She finishes washing her hands. There’s nothing else in the room – nothing. Just a bar of soap, a small handtowel, and the mirror.

  ‘Time, Mrs A-F. Time.’

  She studies her face in the mirror: the lines and the folds and the wiry grey hair curling at the temples. She is old. But she is cunning.

  ‘I’m coming,’ she calls. ‘I’m right there.’

  She turns off the tap, dries her hands and at the last minute bends and scoops the toilet-roll tube out of the cupboard. She pushes it into the inside of her bra. Then she straightens her clothing, switches off the light and leaves the room.

  Half a Century

  THE WEST COUNTRY is the only place in the drenched little island of Great Britain where summer is supposed to reign. Somerset is rumoured to be named after a tribe called the summer people, who always slept in the open air and danced in the sun. The truth is that although the west is warmer than the rest of England, it’s also wetter. Warmed by the Gulf Stream, it’s the closest to a jungle the UK can offer. In the coastal regions, palm trees look like postcards from the Caribbean. Rhododendron, with its vaguely erotic blooms, is considered a pest.

  Caffery’s been here for three years now, learning the ways of the land. He’s learned to expect not lines of traffic and diesel fuel, commuters in rain-streaked buses, but sheep being driven home along the lanes and cows straying on dangerous corners. The suffocating smell of rapeseed in the spring and fertilizer in the autumn. He’s learned that just when you think summer should be on its way, in the west it always rains.

  It’s bucketing down this afternoon, drops leaping from the ground and leaving gritty scars on the window. He sits in the kitchen, uplit by the screen of the iPad. He has one elbow on the table and is sucking on his V-Cig, his eyes fixed vaguely on the oily rainstreaks. He is pondering where he’s come to and what it means.

  The afternoon has been spent making phone calls. He’s pulled strings and used the right vocabulary, been careful to whom he speaks and how. He’s also used the web, flicking through everything he can find on Derek Yates to back up what he’s being told from his sources.

  So far this is what he knows: Derek Yates, d.o.b. 1948 (which would put him now at sixty-six) was part of Penderecki’s circle. In 1989 he committed a horrific assault on an eleven-year-old girl, for which he did time in Belmarsh – which is where, Caffery guesses, he was introduced to some members of the paedophile ring, namely Penderecki and Carl Lamb, Tracey’s brother. After an attack by a fellow prisoner left him with internal injuries, Yates was moved from Belmarsh and placed in the secure unit at Long Lartin – a Category A facility which has the largest ‘supermax’ segregation unit in Europe.

  Long Lartin is in the West Country, not far from where Caffery lives now. It sends a chill through him, thinking of this guy so close all this time. The court records indicate Yates was placed there because he had family ties in the area. He was eventually released in 2005, for just one year. By 2006 he had already reoffended and was returned to the high-secure unit at Long Lartin, which is where he remains.

  Does he know something about what happened to Ewan? It’s an outside chance, but it’s al
l Caffery’s got.

  Actually Derek Yates has proved to be not too difficult a quarry, there are huge amounts about him on the web. Even an article about him in the Guardian. The journalist was granted an interview as part of an article on the prison population at Long Lartin who were waiting for placement in psychiatric units. Yates comes across as a little manic – stuff about the government, the screws and the system and wanting to move out of the high-security Perrie Wing – but Caffery reads the whole thing, wondering all the while what he’s going to extract from it.

  Yates is in ‘Rule 45’ segregation as he is considered a vulnerable inmate because of his crimes … Has few friends … he refuses most requests for interviews, though has one regular visitor – not a family member, but an ex-prisoner from a different section of the prison. ‘When he was on the inside he wouldn’t have been allowed near me – me being what I was, him being what he was.’ Otherwise his is a lonely existence … Inmates considered mentally ill are called ‘Fraggles’ by the other inmates … Is Yates mentally ill? … ‘I hear things,’ he says. ‘Sometimes it’s impossible to keep myself still. The doctors said I’m probably meant to be in a hospital. Not here.’

  Where Caffery has failed is getting a visit with Yates. He’s called Long Lartin, posing as a friend, and has been moved, relentlessly, around the system. The dedicated booking line for visitors asks him for a VO reference number. When he can’t provide one, the woman at the other end says, bluntly, ‘How do you know Mr Yates is here?’

  ‘He is, isn’t he?’

  ‘I’ll pass your information into the system, and if he is with us I will contact you with his answer of whether he wants to speak. But I can tell you now: that will never happen.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘If you really are a friend of his, you’ll know the answer to that.’

  Caffery calls someone on the professionals’ line and fails again to talk his way in. He explains he’s with the major crime unit and that he’s looking into a case Yates was loosely connected to and that he needs immediate access to the prisoner. But the woman at the other end is firm. He’ll have to go through the normal protocol: get the unit to raise a production order and see if Mr Yates will respond to the request. If he says no, Caffery’s got no choice but to send an outline of what he wants to the governor. She promises she will put through a request to Derek Yates, but explains he’s very controlled about who he sees. You will have to be very special for him to break his rules. There is only one person who visits him.