Gone

  ‘Oh, Christ.’ She marched inside, down the hallway, until she could see Emily, cross-legged on the floor, smiling at the TV screen. Caffery followed. Janice drew the door closed and turned to him.

  ‘How the hell did he do it?’ she spoke in a low whisper. ‘A tracking device. When on earth did he have the chance to put that on?’

  ‘You picked it up from us, didn’t you, yesterday? The forensics team delivered it to the offices at MCIU?’

  ‘Yes. I signed for it. Cory wanted Emily to get back into it as soon as possible. Didn’t want her to get a problem with it. I didn’t have any idea there was a—’

  ‘You didn’t stop anywhere on your way to your mother’s?’

  ‘No. We went straight there. Cory was in his car behind us.’

  ‘And at your mother’s? What did you do with it there?’

  ‘I put it in the garage. There’s never been a chance for anyone to get near it.’

  Caffery shook his head. There was something shuttered about his eyes that she didn’t understand. ‘Has Emily talked about what happened? In any detail?’

  ‘No. The woman from CAPIT said not to push it. She said it would come out when Emily was ready. Why? Do you think he had a chance to put it on when he had her?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

  ‘But your forensics people. If he’d done it then they’d have . . .’ Suddenly she got it. Suddenly she knew why his eyes were so guarded. ‘Oh, my God. Oh my God. You mean your men didn’t check the bloody car properly.’

  ‘Janice, just get Emily ready, will you?’

  ‘I’m right. I know I am. I can see it in your face. You think the same thing. He put it on when he – I don’t know – when he crashed the car maybe and they didn’t find it. They didn’t find a bloody tracking device stuck right up under the car. Well, what else did they miss? Did they miss his DNA too?’

  ‘It was a thorough job. A very thorough job.’

  ‘A thorough job. A thorough job? Would Martha’s parents think they’d done a “thorough job”? Hmm? If they heard your men swept the car and missed something like that, would they have any faith left in you at all?’ She stopped and took a slight step back. He hadn’t moved but she’d seen something in his face and realized that he wasn’t just riding this thing carelessly, that it was biting him too. ‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered stupidly, holding up a hand in apology. ‘I’m sorry. That wasn’t necessary.’

  ‘Janice, believe me, you can have no idea just how sorry I am. About all of this.’

  35

  It took less than an hour for Caffery to get the guilty parties assembled. Both of the MCIU’s briefing rooms were in use so he held the meeting at a desk in the open-plan HOLMES computer room, all the computer inputters trying to get on with their jobs around him. He seated the crime-scene manager and the guy who had driven the Costellos to the house in Peasedown at a low coffee-table towards the edge of the room where the HOLMES girls had their lunch and coffee breaks. DC Prody was there too – at a nearby desk, half listening, half leafing through some paperwork. Paperwork from the jacker case, not from the Kitson review file. Caffery had already checked.

  ‘Would Martha’s parents think you’d done a thorough job?’ The first person whose wings Caffery really wanted to pin was the crime-scene manager, a thin guy who bore more than a passing resemblance to Barack Obama. His hair was cut short and neat, which made him look too distinguished for this profession, as if he should be a high-level corporate lawyer or a doctor. He’d been the one who’d taken the car into the forensics ‘surgery’ in Southmeads and combed it for the jacker’s DNA. ‘Would they? Hmm? Think you’d been thorough? Would they see the job you did on the Costellos’ Audi and say, “There’s a fine job. We’ve got confidence in this force. They’re pulling out all the stops”?’

  The CSM looked back at Caffery stonily. ‘The car was done. From top to bottom. I’ve already told you.’

  ‘So tell me this. Where’s the “bottom” of a car? Where is the legal bottom of a car in your head? The door sills? The exhaust pipe?’

  ‘It was checked. There was no tracker on it when it came into my surgery.’

  ‘Let me tell you a story.’ Caffery sat back in his chair, twirling a pencil in his fingers. He was being an arse, he knew, a showman, but he was furious with the guy and wanted to make a spectacle of him. ‘Back in London when I was on the Murder Squad – the Area Major Investigation Team, as they called it in those days – I knew a forensics guy. He was quite high up. I won’t repeat his name, because if I did you might have heard of him. Now, some muppet in Peckham had offed his wife. We didn’t know where the body was but it was sort of clear what had happened – she was missing, he was found trying to hang himself from a tree out on Peckham Rye, and the walls in their flat were covered with blood, including some handprints. Now, both Mr and Mrs Muppet had form, drugs stuff, so their dabs were on file – you can see where I’m going with this, can’t you?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘I figured I’d get the fingerprints from the wall, match them to the missus and then even if the body never turned up we’d at least have the makings of a case to pass to the CPS. So the flat’s been photographed, et cetera, and now my forensics guy’s got a free rein. He can do whatever it takes to get a nice print off the wall. Some of the prints are up high – still don’t know how they got there, if maybe the husband was lifting her up or what, but somehow the poor unfortunate woman got her hands up almost eight feet in the air. Well, as you know, the science boys are supposed to carry tread-plates – but on this occasion my man’s left them somewhere, or used them all up, or whatever. So, he sees this pine chest, with a TV on top of it, about a foot away from the prints he wants. He pulls it out of the corner, stands on it, gets the dabs off the wall and pushes the chest back. Bingo – they belong to Mrs Muppet. Except two days later a relative’s clearing up the flat and notices a nasty smell coming from – you guessed it – the trunk. When it’s opened the wife’s body’s in there, and on the carpet under it is blood, with a mark, in blood, where the trunk’s been pulled out and pushed back. When we go back to the forensics guy what does he do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘He shrugs and says, “Oh – I thought it was a bit heavy when I pulled it out.” I thought it was a bit heavy!’

  ‘What’s your point?’

  ‘My point is that there are some people in your profession – and of course I wouldn’t make assumptions about you – but some people who are so tunnel-visioned they fail to spot the glaringly bloody obvious. Kick aside the sodding great confession note just to get to the blood spatter on the wall.’

  The CSM pursed his lips, gave him that slightly superior look again. ‘The car was checked, Mr Caffery. It came into the morning’s surgery and went straight to the top of the list – you’d put an express order on it. We cleaned it top to tail. Everything. There was nothing under it – not a thing.’

  ‘Were you personally overseeing the surgery?’

  ‘Don’t try to nail me on that. I don’t personally supervise every job that gets done.’

  ‘So you didn’t see it happen?’

  ‘I’m telling you it was done thoroughly.’

  ‘And I’m telling you it wasn’t. You didn’t check it. At least have the grace to admit it.’

  ‘You’re not my line manager.’ The CSM pointed a finger at Caffery. ‘I’m not a cop, I don’t work by your rules. I don’t know how you run your debriefs round here, but I don’t have to take it. You’re going to regret talking to me like this.’

  ‘Maybe. But I doubt it.’ He held out a hand, indicating the door. ‘Please, feel free to leave. Make sure the door doesn’t hit you on the arse as you go.’

  ‘Funny man. Funny.’ The CSM crossed his arms. ‘That’s OK, thank you. I think I’ll stay. I’m getting to like it here.’

  ‘Suit yourself. Give the HOLMES girls some entertainment.’ Caffery turned to the surveillance driver who’d taken the
Costellos to the first safe-house. He wore a suit, a neat tie, and was sitting forward, his elbows on his knees, staring intently at a point on Caffery’s chest.

  ‘Well?’ Caffery leaned forward and turned his head sideways to try to meet the guy’s eyes. ‘What about you?’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘Isn’t part of your training to check the car you’re getting into? I thought that was the deal – you never get into a car you haven’t completely checked. Thought it was habit. Instinct – drummed into you.’

  ‘What can I say? I’m sorry.’

  ‘Is that it? I’m sorry?’

  The driver puffed out a breath and sat back. He opened his hands to indicate the snotty crime-scene manager. ‘You just told him to have the grace to admit it, and I’m admitting it. I didn’t check, only had half my mind switched on, and now I’m sorry. Very sorry.’

  Caffery glared at him. There was no answer to that one. The guy was right. And he, Caffery, was the twat: sitting like old Nero in the gladiators’ ring, twirling his damned pencil. Whatever their mistakes, whatever the force’s shortcomings, the point was that the jacker was outsmarting them. And that was scary. ‘Shit.’ He threw the pencil down. ‘This is all going to shit.’

  ‘Yours maybe.’ The CSM got to his feet. He turned in the direction of the far door. ‘Not mine.’

  Caffery twisted round and saw, coming through the room, making her way between the tables, a plump young woman in a black trouser suit. With her sternly straightened blonde hair and orange tan she had the same look as some of the HOLMES indexers. But he didn’t recognize her, and the tentative look on her face said she was new. She was clutching a plastic envelope in one hand.

  ‘Thank you.’ The CSM stood and took it from her. ‘Stop here for a bit. I’m not going to be long. We can drive back together.’

  The girl waited awkwardly next to the low sofas while the CSM sat down and shook the contents of the envelope out on to the table. A dozen photographs fell out and he sorted through them with his fingertip. They all showed a car from different angles: interior, exterior, rear view. It was a black car with champagne interior. The Costellos’ Audi.

  ‘I think that’s the view you’re after.’ He pulled out a photograph and pushed it across the table to Caffery. It showed the car’s underside, exhaust pipe and floor pan, clearly date-stamped from yesterday: 11:23 a.m. Caffery stared at it for a second or two. He wished he’d taken a paracetamol. It wasn’t just his head any longer: now his bones were aching from sitting outside in the cold with the Walking Man last night. The car in the photo was clean. Completely clean.

  The CSM said, ‘Do I get an apology? Or is that too much to ask?’

  Caffery picked up the photograph. Held it so tightly the nail on his thumb went white. ‘You brought it over here, didn’t you? The Costellos collected it from here.’

  ‘They didn’t want to come all the way to the surgery. They’re in Keynsham? Somewhere near it? They decided it was easier to pick it up here. I had it driven over. Thought I was doing you a favour.’

  ‘You signed it in with my office manager?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who must have signed it out . . .’ Caffery studied the photograph. Somewhere between here and the Costellos’ the car had picked up a tag. Which meant – the hairs went up on his arms – the only time, the only time, it could have picked up something was while it was here, downstairs in the car park. A secured car park that even a pedestrian couldn’t get into. Unless they had an access code.

  Caffery raised his sore eyes. He looked at the people in the offices. The warranted officers and the police staff. The auxiliaries. There must be a hundred people who had access to this place. Something else hit him. He remembered thinking the jacker had had the luck of the devil to skirt past the ANPR point. Almost as if he’d known where the cameras were.

  ‘Boss?’

  He rotated his head slowly. Prody was sitting forward, a strange look on his face. He was white. Very white. Almost grey. In his hand he was holding one of the jacker’s letters. The one that had gone to the Bradleys. The one that talked about rearranging Martha’s face. ‘Boss?’ he repeated quietly.

  ‘Yeah?’ Caffery said distantly. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Can I have a word with you in private?’

  36

  The Underwater Search Unit was trained for general support work and for specialist searches. Its responsibilities towards finding Martha Bradley ended there. So, with the disastrous canal search completed, the offices at Almondsbury outside Bristol slipped back to their routine business and PC Wellard at last found time to do the computer-based diversity training each officer was required to complete. A two-day course of sitting in front of a screen clicking buttons to say, yes, he understood it was wrong to judge, wrong to discriminate. When Flea arrived he was in a room off the main office, staring grumpily at the screen. She knew not to speak about yesterday at the canal. She put her head round the door and smiled. Pretended it hadn’t happened. ‘Afternoon.’

  He held up a hand to acknowledge her. ‘’Ternoon.’

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Just about getting there. I think it’s working. You won’t catch me calling a nigger a nigger any more.’

  ‘Jesus, Wellard. For crying out loud.’

  He held both hands up. Surrender. ‘I’m sorry, Sarge, but this is an insult. Being taught to do the things that’re supposed to come naturally? Even the black guys on the force – sorry, the British individuals of Afro-Caribbean descent – think it’s an insult. The decent human beings in the force don’t need to be taught this shit, and the bastards who do need to be told it just tick the boxes, smile and say the right thing. Then they’re off to their BNP meetings, shaving their heads and getting the George Cross tattooed where the sun don’t shine.’

  She took a deep breath. Wellard was hard-working, uncomplaining and totally colour-blind, loved every guy in the team as much as the next. He of all people didn’t need this training. He was right. It was an insult to people like him. But there were others who needed it rammed home.

  ‘I can’t get into this, Wellard. You know that.’

  ‘Yeah – and that’s what’s wrong with the world. No one will say it. It’s bloody McCarthyism all over again.’

  ‘I don’t give a stuff about McCarthyism, Wellard. Just finish the sodding thing. You only have to tick the right bloody boxes. A trained seal could do it.’

  He returned to clicking around the screen. Flea closed the door and went to her desk, where she sat, gazing blankly through the open door into the locker room, trying for the hundredth time to focus on the idea sitting just out of her line of vision.

  A Christmas card was taped to one of the lockers, the first, as solitary and naked as a January snowdrop. Everything else – the boots on the rack in the corner, the noticeboard with all the filthy postcards and stupid cartoons – had been there for months. Years. They’d been there when Thom had run Misty over – she was sure of that because she remembered sitting in exactly this place trying to work out what the rotten-meat stench was. She hadn’t known at the time that it was coming from her own car parked outside. That the smell of decomposing flesh in the boot was being carried into the building by the air-conditioning system.

  Air-conditioning. She drummed her fingers on the table. Airconditioning. She felt the electromagnetic field crackle around her skull and her neck, pushing goosebumps up on her arms. What alarms were kicking off in the back of her head? The exchange of gas. The replacement of old air for new. She thought of where Misty was now: the way the air made its way up from the cave deep in the rock, along unseen passages, tiny crevices no wider than a finger, and out, out, out into the open.

  And then, in a rush, it came to her. She stood and pulled out her project file, a loose-leaf folder full of all the things that needed doing in the unit day after day, leafed quickly through it until she found the notes from the search yesterday. Shakily she pulled them out, spread them
on the desk and stood with her hands on the table, poring over them, the whole thing slotting into place in her head.

  Air shafts. That’s what she’d been missing. The fucking air shafts.

  Someone knocked at the door.

  ‘Yes?’ Half guiltily she shovelled the paper back into the file, turned her back to the desk. ‘What?’

  Wellard appeared. He was holding a pad with a message written on it in his untidy handwriting. ‘Sarge?’

  ‘Yes, Wellard.’ She leaned back on the desk to hide the file. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Got a job. Just got the call.’

  ‘What sort of job?’

  ‘Arrest warrant.’

  ‘Who are we supposed to be arresting?’

  ‘Don’t know. They told us to expedite our journey to the RV point. No firearms coding, but sounds pretty hefty all the same.’

  She looked at him steadily. ‘You do it, Wellard, you act up for me. I’m taking the afternoon off.’

  Wellard always stepped in as acting sergeant when she couldn’t be there but usually a handover would be scheduled in advance. He frowned. ‘You’re rostered for today.’

  ‘I’m ill. I’ll self-certify.’

  ‘You’re not ill.’ He looked at her suspiciously. ‘Hey. It’s not ’cos of what I said, is it? You know, when I said you won’t catch me calling a n—’

  She held up a hand to stop him, her heart racing. ‘Thank you, Wellard. No. That’s not why.’

  ‘Then, what?’

  If she told him the way her mind was careening along he’d lose it with her. He’d tell her she was obsessed and that she should let it go. He’d make fun of her or, worse, threaten to tell the inspector. Or give her a lecture. Or even try to come with her. Anyway. She’d be fine. Nothing was going to happen. ‘Because I’m sick. Swine flu – whatever looks good on the forms. I’m going home now to put my feet up.’ She bundled the file into her rucksack and swung it over her shoulders, straightened and gave Wellard a bright smile. ‘Good luck with the arrest. Don’t forget to put in for the acting’s allowance.’