But then she turns around and lies to me. You should see her face when she does that. Ugly don’t even come near it. Luckily now I have REARRANGED things in that department. She looks much better now. But please, Martha’s Mummy please can you find it in your heart to do me a kindly favour???? Pretty please? Can you tell the police cunts that they can’t stop me now so don’t bother. It’s started now, hasn’t it, and it ain’t going to stop just sudden. Is it now?
Is it?
The Walking Man finished reading. He looked up.
‘Well?’
‘Take it away from me.’ He thrust the letter at Caffery. His eyes had changed. They were bloodshot and dead.
Caffery returned it to his pocket. He repeated, ‘Well?’
‘If I was really a seer or a clairvoyant this would be the time I would tell you where that child is. I would tell you now and I would tell you to use whatever powers you have to get to her, whatever the cost to your life and profession, because that person,’ he jabbed a finger towards the pocket where the letter was, ‘is cleverer than any of the others you’ve brought to me.’
‘Cleverer?’
‘Yes. He’s laughing at you. Laughing that you think you can outsmart him, you petty Bow Street Runners with your truncheons and your dunce’s hats. He is so much more than he seems.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I don’t know.’ He unfurled his bedroll and laid it out. He began to arrange the sleeping-bag. His face was hard. ‘Don’t ask me more – don’t waste your time. For the love of God, I’m not a psychic. Just a man.’
Caffery took another swig of cider and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He studied the Walking Man’s face as he got ready for bed. Cleverer than any of the others. He thought about what the jacker had said: It’s started now, hasn’t it, and it ain’t going to stop just sudden. Is it now? He knew what the words meant: he was going to do it again. He was going to choose another car at random: any car, any driver. The only important thing would be the child in the back seat. A girl. Under twelve. He was going to steal her. And all Caffery had to go on was that it would, in all likelihood, happen within a radius of ten miles from Midsomer Norton.
After a long time of staring at the darkness on the edge of the firelight, Caffery picked up a foam mattress and unrolled it. He got out his sleeping-bag and settled on his back, the bag tucked around him to keep out the cold. The Walking Man grunted, and did the same. Caffery looked at him for a while. He knew he wouldn’t speak again tonight: it was the end of the conversation and from that moment on not another word would be uttered. He was right: they lay in their respective sleeping-bags, looking at their own section of the sky, thinking about their own worlds and how they were going to battle through what life brought them in the next twenty-four hours.
The Walking Man slept first. Caffery stayed awake for several hours, listening to the night, wishing the Walking Man was wrong, that clairvoyance or a supernatural power did exist and that it was possible to divine, just from the noises out there, what had become of Martha Bradley.
12
When Caffery woke, aching and frozen, the Walking Man was gone. He must have got up and dressed in the dark, leaving nothing but the blackened fire and a plate with two bacon sandwiches on it next to Caffery’s bedroll. It was a hazy day. Cold again. An arctic breath in the air. He waited a few minutes for his head to clear, then got up. He ate the sandwiches standing in the field, chewing thoughtfully and looking down at the patch of earth where the Walking Man had planted the bulb. He cleaned the plate with grass, packed up his bedroll and stood again with the things under his arm, studying the way the land lay: the fields stretching away, grey and dull at this time of year, bisected and criss-crossed with hedgerow. Although he knew little about the Walking Man’s movements, he did know there was always a place near by, a protected place, that he could store a few things: things to be used the next time he passed. Sometimes that place was as far as half a mile from the camp.
The clue came from the grass: grey and stiff with frost. The Walking Man’s footsteps were black, leading clearly away from the campsite. Caffery half smiled. If he hadn’t been meant to follow them, those footsteps wouldn’t be visible. The Walking Man never left anything to chance. Caffery set off, stepping carefully inside them, surprised to find his feet fitted exactly.
The footsteps stopped a third of a mile away at the far end of the next field and there, tucked secretly in the hedgerow, was the usual assortment of supplies covered with polythene: tinned food, a cooking pot, a flagon of scrumpy. Caffery tucked in the bedroll and the plate and secured the polythene around everything. When he straightened to leave he noticed something: about a yard along the hedgerow, tight under the hawthorn, a tiny patch of ground had been disturbed. When he crouched next to it and gently moved away the earth he found the bruised, tender tip of a crocus bulb.
Every person in the world had habits – Caffery thought later that morning as he pulled into a pub car park six miles away in Gloucestershire – from the obsessive compulsive who had to count every pea he ate, every light switch he touched, down to the drifter who seemed to have no aim and no direction yet could always find a good place to make camp and sleep. Everyone moved in patterns to some degree or another. Those patterns might be all but invisible, even to the persons themselves, but they were there, nonetheless. The Walking Man’s patterns, the places he stopped, the places he planted crocuses, were slowly revealing themselves to Caffery. And the jacker? Caffery turned off the engine and opened the door, looked at the police vehicles: the forensics van, the four Sprinters belonging to the search units. Well, the jacker had patterns too. And they’d become clear. Given time.
‘Sir?’ The police search adviser – the POLSA – a small guy with neat John Lennon glasses, appeared next to the car. ‘A word?’
Caffery followed him across the car park and through a low stone doorway into a room the landlord had set aside for the police to use. The games room, it smelt of stale beer and bleach. The pool table had been pushed to one side and replaced with a row of chairs; the dartboard was invisible behind a flip-chart stand where a series of photographs had been mounted.
‘The briefing’s in ten – and it’s going to be a nightmare. This area the soil man’s given us – it’s massive.’
Every forensic test known to man had been thrown at the Bradleys’ Yaris. There were signs of a struggle in the back seat – the upholstery had been torn and there were strands of Martha’s pale blonde hair in a window seal, but the car hadn’t yielded any fingerprints that didn’t match a member of the Bradley family. The latex gloves, of course. No blood either and no semen. But there had been soil lodged in the treads of the tyres and an expert in forensic soil analysis had spent the night analysing the samples. He had put it together with how many miles the Bradleys estimated had gone on the clock, and decided there was only one place a car could have picked up a soil signature so unique: before the jacker had dumped it in Wiltshire he’d stopped somewhere out here in the Cotswolds, somewhere within a radius of about ten kilometres from this pub. Half the police force, it seemed, from the vehicles in the car park, had descended on the area.
‘We knew it was going to be a wide net,’ said Caffery. ‘The soil man didn’t have much time – we paid him to stay up all night.’
‘With the area he gave me, I’ve identified about a hundred and fifty buildings that should be searched.’
‘Shit. We’d need about six units to do that properly.’
‘Gloucestershire’s offering manpower. We’re on their patch.’
‘An interforce operation? I don’t even know how you do that. I’ve never done a memorandum of understanding in my life, it’s a logistical nightmare. We need to narrow it down.’
‘That is narrowed down. Those hundred and fifty are just the buildings you could hide a car in. About thirty per cent of them are garages, mostly connected to private homes, so they’re easy, but there are others you need Land Registr
y searches even to find out who owns them. And this is the Cotswolds, area of outstanding natural beauty. Half the places are second homes: Russians running some prostitute ring in London want to own a house next to Prince Charles but never bother to visit. It’s either absentee rich bastards or bolshy farmers with single-bore shotguns. Think Tony Martin.’ He tapped the back of his head. ‘A round in the skull as you’re running away. Welcome to rural bliss. Still, on a bright note, it rained yesterday. Perfect weather for it. If he parked out here the tracks will still be visible.’
Caffery wandered over to look at the photos on the board. A series of tracks. Made last night in the lab using casts of the Yaris’s tyres.
‘There was something else in the soil, they told me. Wood chip?’
‘Yes. So maybe a timber yard. Stainless-steel swarf, too, and flecks of titanium. The titanium’s too small to say what process it came from so it’s probably not relevant at this point, but the stainless steel means some kind of engineering plant. I’ve outlined seven in the area. And a couple of timber yards. I’m going to divvy up my team – half of them knocking on the buildings, the other half trying to find those tyre tracks.’
Caffery nodded. Tried to hide how despondent he felt. A radius of ten kilometres. A hundred and fifty buildings and Christ only knew how many driveways and lanes. It was going to be searching for a needle in a haystack. Even with extra units from Gloucestershire, with the warrants and the paperwork it was going to take for ever. And – the jacker’s words came back to him: It’s started now, hasn’t it, and it ain’t going to stop just sudden – time was the one thing they didn’t have.
13
Flea’s unit spent only 20 per cent of its time diving. During the rest they did other specialist operations, confined space and rope-access searches. On occasion they did general support-group work, including wide-range searches like this one in the Cotswolds.
They’d sat through the POLSA’s briefing in the smelly games room. Her team was handed the job of hunting for tyre tracks. He’d given them a map with about six miles of road outlined in red and pointed them in the general direction, but when she came out of the briefing, got into the Sprinter van with the team and pulled out of the car park, instead of turning left to head out to the area, she turned right.
‘Where are we going?’ Wellard, her second-in-command, was sitting behind her. He leaned forward in the seat. ‘It’s the other way.’
She found a small passing space in the narrow lane, pulled the van over and cut the engine. She hooked her elbow over the back of the seat and gave the six men a long, serious look.
‘What?’ said one. ‘What is it?’
‘What is it?’ she echoed. ‘What is it? We’ve just sat through a ten-minute briefing. Short. Not long enough for anyone to fall asleep. Hurray. There’s a little girl out there, eleven years old, and we’ve got a chance to find her. Now, there was a time when every one of you, to a man, would have come out of a briefing like that at a run. I’d have had to put muzzles on you all.’
They stared back at her, mouths half open, eyes dull and bovine. What had happened to them? Six months ago, when she’d last given it a thought, they’d been healthy young men, every one of them committed to and excited about his job. Now they had nothing: no spark, no enthusiasm. And one or two even looked like they were putting on weight. Getting flabby. How had this happened under her nose? How the hell had she not noticed?
‘Look at you now. Not a flicker. That.’ She held up her hand, rigid, horizontal. ‘That is your brain-wave pattern. Flat. Not a spike. What the hell happened, guys?’
No one answered. One or two dropped their eyes. Wellard folded his arms and found something to gaze at out of the window. He pursed his lips as if he was going to—
‘Whistle? Don’t you dare whistle, Wellard. I’m not dense. I know what’s going on.’
He turned back to her, raised his eyebrows. ‘Do you?’
She sighed. Ran a hand through her hair. Sank back deflated in her seat and looked out of the windscreen at the brittle winter trees lining the road. ‘Of course,’ she muttered. ‘I know what’s going on. I know what you’re saying.’
‘It’s like you’re not here any more, Sarge,’ he said. Some of the others murmured an agreement. ‘It’s that thousand-mile stare. Going through the motions. You say we’ve lost it, but if there’s no one at home at the top of the pile then you might as well give up. And, not that it’s all about the money, but it’ll be the first year we won’t be seeing our competency pay at Christmas.’
She turned again and eyed him steadily. She loved Wellard. He’d worked for her for years now and he was one of the best men she knew. She loved him more than she loved even her brother, Thom. A hundred times more than she loved Thom. Hearing Wellard speak the truth was hard.
‘OK.’ She knelt up and put her hands on the back of the seat. ‘You’re right. I haven’t been at my best. But you –’ she pointed a finger at them ‘– you guys haven’t lost it. It’s still there.’
‘Eh?’
‘OK. Think back to what the POLSA said. What was in the tyre treads?’
One shrugged. ‘Wood chips. Titanium and stainless-steel swarf. Sounds like a manufacturing place.’
‘Yes.’ She nodded coaxingly. ‘What about the titanium? Did that ring any bells?’
They stared back at her. Not getting it.
‘Oh, come on,’ she said impatiently. ‘Think back. Four, five years? You were all on the unit then: you can’t have forgotten. A water tank? Freezing day. A stabbing. You dived it, Wellard, and I was surface side. There was some dog kept coming out of the woods trying to mount my leg. You thought it was bloody hysterical. Don’t you remember that?’
‘Over near the Bathurst Estate?’ Wellard was frowning at her. ‘The guy chucked the weapon in the hatch? We found it in about ten minutes.’
‘Yes. And?’
He shrugged.
She looked expectantly from face to face. ‘Christ almighty. I’ve got to hand-feed you. Remember the place – decommissioned factory? It wasn’t on this POLSA’s map because it’s closed down. But do you remember what it had been making when it was open?’
‘Military gizmos,’ said someone at the back of the Sprinter. ‘Parts for Challenger tanks, that sort of thing.’
‘See? The grey matter’s starting to stir.’
‘Which, I’m guessing, has some components made out of titanium? And stainless steel?’
‘I’d bet my life on it. And do you happen to recall what we had to drive through to get to the damned water tank?’
‘Christ on a bike,’ Wellard said faintly, realization dawning on his face. ‘A timber yard. And it’s this direction – the way you’re heading.’
‘You see?’ She started the engine, threw them a look in the rearview. ‘I said you hadn’t lost it.’
14
Caffery stood alone on a small track that ran through pine forest, the air around him scented and muffled by the trees. A hundred yards to his right there was a decommissioned arms factory, and to his left a lumber-yard surrounded by worn, weatherboarded sheds. Sawdust, darkened to an apricot colour by the rain, was piled under a huge rusting hopper.
He kept his breathing slow and quiet, his hands slightly held out at his sides, his eyes focused on nothing. He was trying to get something elusive. Some kind of atmosphere. As if the trees could give up a memory. It was two in the afternoon. Four hours ago Sergeant Marley’s team had ignored the POLSA’s instructions and headed out here. They hadn’t had to search long, just thirty minutes, before one of them had discovered a remarkably clear set of tyre tracks that exactly matched the Yaris’s. Something had happened here last night. The jacker had been here and something important had happened.
Behind Caffery, further back up the track, the place was overrun with crime-scene investigators, search teams and dog handlers. An area had been taped out, fifty yards radius from the point of the clearest tyre marks. The teams had found footprints ev
erywhere. Large deep marks made by a man’s trainers. They should have been easy to cast for analysis but the jacker had studiously obliterated them, scoring the mud in criss-crosses with a long, sharp instrument. There were no child’s shoes anywhere, but some of the man’s prints, the CSI team had pointed out, were especially deep. Maybe the jacker had subdued or killed Martha in the car, then carried her away and dealt with her somewhere in the surrounding woods. Problem was, if he’d carried her, her scent wouldn’t have touched the ground. And the weather was disastrous for the dog team – what scent line there might have been had been blown and rained away. The dogs had come in excited and salivating, straining at the leashes, then spent two hours chasing their tails, bumping into each other and running in circles. The lumber-yard and the derelict factory to Caffery’s right had been searched. There, too, the teams turned up nothing – no clues that Martha had been anywhere near them. Even the disused water tank, now cracked and dry, hadn’t got any clues to cough up.
He sighed, let his eyes come back into focus. The trees were giving him nothing either. As if they would. The site might as well be dead. From the direction of the lumber-yard, where they’d set up a work station, the crime-scene manager was wandering down the track. He wore his Andy Pandy forensics suit, the hood pulled down to his shoulders.
‘Well?’ said Caffery. ‘Anything?’
‘We’ve cast what he’s left us of the prints. Do you want to see?’
‘I guess.’
They walked back to the lumber-yard, their footprints and voices muffled by the trees.