“Most people are soft.” Ayo leaned farther out the window, smiling in the soft evening air. She was seven months pregnant and she carried it well: from behind she looked as slender as a teenager with her long limbs. Like a carving in a print dress, thought Benedicte, she would never get fat.
“There's something wrong in those towers,” Ayo said. She was craning her neck to the left, to Arkaig Tower and Herne Hill Tower, the doomy twins at the bottom of the park. “They're evil.”
“I know—great guardians of Brixton.” The cork came away with a dull pop and she began to fill two crystal flutes. “Champagne?”
“Oh, Ben.” Ayo pulled the window closed and turned to settle on the sofa. “I'm sure even thinking about champagne is bad for the baby.”
“Come on. I took acid and Es when I was pregnant with Josh.”
“See? See? I rest my case.”
“It can't be as bad as all the crap at the hospital.”
“Yeah—I got a lecture about it. No chemotherapy, no X rays, no ribavirin.” She stretched her feet out on the floor, dropping her chin on her chest. “God, I can't remember what my feet look like. Have you seen the size of these knockers? Darren thinks he's died and gone to heaven. Ah …” She took the drink from Benedicte and rested the glass on her bump, slyly watching Josh from half-closed eyes. “Ben?” she said innocently.
“Mmm?”
“You know with Josh?”
“Yeah?”
“Did he press on your bladder? Make you wee twenty times a night?”
“Mu-um.” Josh half sat up. “Can you two stop?” He held his hand up and snapped it open and closed. “Yak yak yak yak yak.”
Ayo nudged him with her foot. “Smarty-pants.”
Josh giggled and rolled onto his back, play-kicking at her. “Yak yak yakety-yak.”
“Help.” She struggled to get up, spilling champagne. “Help me, Ben. Your sprog is attacking me.”
“Hyperactive child. He should probably be on medication.” Benedicte helped Ayo to her feet, out of the way of Josh. “Come and let me show my house off to you—come and see the room that's going to save my life.”
The two women went up the stairs, clutching their champagne, giggling, Josh yelling insults after them. Smurf lolloped along behind, and this time Ben didn't send her back downstairs. “Be-en,” Ayo hissed, the moment they got out of Josh's earshot. “Ben, what do you think about this business? You know, the little boy in the park.”
“Oh—God.” Ben switched on the light on the landing. “Screwy. I'm sort of glad we're traipsing out to shagging Cornwall.” She'd been following it on TV. Two members of SERPASU, the South East Regional Police Air Support Unit, had resigned over the incident, and the BBC had devoted five minutes to it at the beginning of the program. The worst thing, for Ben, was a piece of video taken from a helicopter. A news crew, filming the search in the park the day after the kidnap, had analyzed the footage and discovered what they claimed was Rory Peach: a tiny patch of light curled in a tree. They broadcast it with a circle imposed over the top so the viewer knew where to look. Benedicte had found it disgusting. “I don't want to think about it, to be honest. I've thought about it enough.” She pushed her hair behind her ear and smiled at Ayo. “Come on, let's change the subject, OK? Now,” she paused with her hand on the door and made a solemn face, “this is the room that is going to save my life.” She opened the door. “Ta-da!”
Ayo peeped inside. The bedroom was no more than a box painted cream with blue curtains and a scalloped blue lampshade in the center of the ceiling. It smelled of paint and new carpets. “Ummm.” She smiled. “Nice.”
“I know it's not nice, exactly.” Benedicte made a face and poked Ayo in the arm. “But it's the first time I've had somewhere I can go for some peace and quiet. Now,” she closed the door and opened the next one, putting her hand inside the door to turn on the light, “the bathroom.”
They both peered inside. Josh's trainers, which were covered in mud from the woods, had been hosed off and were upside down on the edge of the bath. But there was something else out of kilter in here. Benedicte stepped inside. The floor, the little white pedestal mat under the toilet, and even a corner of the bath mat draped over the bath edge were wet. She could smell it instantly—they'd been urinated on. “Jesus,” she muttered, switching off the light and slamming the door. “Wait here, Ayo.” She hurried down the stairs. “Josh! Josh!”
In the TV room Josh looked up. He knew immediately from his mother's voice that he was in trouble. He moved an almost imperceptible fraction along the sofa away from her and Benedicte paused, momentarily ashamed that she could have that effect on her nine-year-old son. “Jo-osh.”
“Yeah?” He was cautious.
“That mess upstairs.”
He didn't answer.
“Josh! I'm speaking to you.”
“What mess?”
“You know what mess. The one in the bathroom.”
Josh's mouth dropped open and he half stood. “I never—I never went in there.”
“Well, someone did. It wasn't Smurf—she's been with me all day and the door was closed.”
“I never, Mum, honest. Honest.”
“Oh, for heaven's sake.” She got bleach, rubber gloves and a bowl from under the kitchen sink and slammed the cupboard door. “You'll have to learn, Josh, not to lie. It's important.” She went upstairs to where Ayo was cleaning the mess up with a roll of Andrex. “He's turned into an absolute liar since we got here. It's like everything's gone haywire since we moved in.”
“Maybe the house is cursed.”
“Probably.” Benedicte unhooked the carrier bag from the bin under the sink and held it out for Ayo to dump the used tissue. “Probably built on ancient Navajo burial ground.” She didn't smile when she said it.
The mosquitoes had landed a live one. They banked and throttled next to Caffery's ears, flying in formation between the thistle and ragwort, alighting on his hands and sucking eye-popping tubes of blood up into their proboscises. He slapped at them, flicked them, but they clung, drunken and bloated, in his sweat and wouldn't move as he crouched, scraping at the earth and root matter with the claw hammer. The sun had dropped sulkily into the roofs, throwing its last rays into the bitter green cutting.
Should have brought a torch, you dickhead.
Every step, every rock he turned, he recorded, straightening up to photograph his work, flooding the little cloister with artificial blue light. Then, at nine-fifteen P.M., after two hours of scraping and digging, he pushed the hammer once more into the soil and hit something unfamiliar. Something that didn't give like soil but slid and whispered. Oh, shit, here we go. Heart thumping, he threw aside the hammer and dropped forward onto his knees, scraping at the earth with his bare hands. In the dim twilight he saw a flash of plastic.
He stopped digging, rocking back a little on his heels, his chest tight—for a moment he thought he might vomit. He had to close his eyes and breathe carefully through his nose until the sensation went away.
16
IT WAS A BLUE-CHECKERED LAUNDRY BAG with plastic handles and it didn't contain Ewan's remains. Caffery carried it slung over his shoulder, back down the tracks like a weary sailor on shore leave carrying his kit—it bumped on his back and left a grimy patch on his T-shirt. Night had come, the moon was out and he had to move slowly, feeling his way through the nettles with his feet. At his garden he fished inside his saturated T-shirt for the key on the tape. He was dragging, disappointed, but he wasn't going to give up. He knew that Penderecki had sent him to find this bag for a reason.
The house was cool; the French windows stood open, and he could smell cigarillo smoke, so he knew Rebecca was there. He didn't shout up to her or go upstairs to check the bedroom. He didn't want to speak to her at this moment. Instead he went into the living room, swung the bag from over his shoulder and emptied the contents. He stood, looking at what was on his floor for a few minutes, then went into the kitchen. The wine in the freezer was
almost frozen; he rattled the huge chunk of ice, rinsed a glass, opened the bottle and poured. The glass immediately clouded with condensation and his fingers stuck to it when he touched it. He swallowed it whole, not tasting it, refilled his glass, lit the remains of the spliff he'd left in the ashtray, and went back into the living room. He sat on the sofa, hands on his knees, staring blankly at what Penderecki had intended him to find.
By far the largest percentage of all child pornography was homemade—historically little had been made for commercial distribution, and at one point or another Caffery had seen examples of it all. His time in Vice had been before the big split, before Obscene Publications, the “dirty squad,” had become the dedicated pedophile unit and farmed its adult porn concerns out to Vice. In his day the responsibilities of the two units had often overlapped. He had seen most of what lay on his living room floor before.
Copies of Magpie, the magazine for the Pedophile Information Exchange Network; a stack of Dutch, German and Danish magazines—Boy Love World, Kinde Liebe, Spartacus, Piccolo. Two scuffed copies of the book Show Me, and three editions of the glossy Dutch publication Paidika—the Journal of Pedophilia. Then a pile of zip disks secured with an elastic band. Passwords for news groups, and a photocopied list, a message splashed across the top: “WARNING WARNING WARNING!! If any of the usernames below try to join your chat room log off IMMEDIATELY.” At the bottom of the laundry bag, wrapped in Somerfield carrier bags and taped with brown parcel tape, was a stack of unmarked videocassettes. Spliff in his teeth, he ripped off the tape and shook out the videos. He plugged the first into the VCR, found the remote control, started the tape and sat back on the sofa, holding a lighter to the joint. The screen flickered—he knew what to expect. It was years since he'd looked at this kind of thing, years since Vice, when he'd had to look at these images and had spent each night lying awake at night, trying, like most officers new to the unit, to find a place in his head to put it all. Or, failing that, to build something around them. And the biggest fear—the fear they all had, but would never share—what if, what if … oh, Christ, what if I'm aroused by it? Tonight he knew what to expect, and it wasn't the pictures he was afraid of. His heart was thumping not out of pity for the children he was going to see bullied and tormented for the camera, his heart was thumping for the chance that he might see Ewan.
The tape rolled and the screen showed the scratching, the white flecks of magnetic interference. Would you recognize him? Nothing at the beginning. He sat forward with the remote control and skipped forward through the tape. The screen continued to flicker. On it went, on and on, with no image until, with a sudden creak, the tape butted up against the rollers. He'd come to the end. There was nothing on this tape. He ripped it out of the machine and plugged in a second one, started it, fast-forwarded it. Again he got all the way to the end and found no image.
“Jack?”
He looked up. “Go back to bed, Rebecca.”
“What's going on?”
“Nothing—really. Go to bed.”
But he'd piqued her interest. She was barefoot— wearing only a pair of his gray boxer shorts and a short-sleeved vest she padded into the room, trying to look over his shoulder. “What is it?”
“Really, Becky …” He stood up, holding out his hands, ushering her away from the stuff on the floor, from the video. “It's nothing. Go back to bed, eh? Go on.”
She blew air out of her nose. “Will you come up too?”
“Yes,” he said, without thinking. “I'll bring you a drink. I promise.”
“OK.” That quelled her. She turned obediently on her heel and went back up the stairs and Caffery sat for a moment staring at his hands, wondering what to do. Eventually he got up, got two fresh glasses of wine and went upstairs. In the bedroom she was lying on the bed with her hands under her head. The lamp was on and her hair was loose, running down over one shoulder. She had taken off her vest and was smiling at him.
Right. OK. Don't overreact. He put the glasses down on the bedside table and sat at the foot of the bed. “Re-becca—look.” He couldn't make the complex adjustment she wanted—not now. “I'm sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” She rolled onto her front and walked toward him on all fours. She pressed her hands flat on his chest and kissed his shoulders, hicked the sweat stained base of his neck.
“I'm busy downstairs.”
“That's OK.” She wrapped her arms round his neck. Her hair smelled of cigarillo smoke and something flow-ery—she pressed herself against him, her smooth breasts soft against his arm, and in spite of himself his heart dilated helplessly. “Becky, please …” She buried her face in his neck and trailed her fingers down his stomach, where the muscles fluttered weakly. She pushed her hand inside his trousers. He reached down and took her hand. Held it away from him. “No. Not now …”
She sshed him and wriggled her hand out of his grip, put it back inside his shorts.
“Becky.”
“Ssh—it's all right.”
She pulled her hand out of his trousers, sat up and rolled the shorts down to her knees, kicked them off her feet, and turned on one knee. She placed her hands flat on the bed and bent over in front of him on the bed—her back to him, her hips jacked up in the air. He stared at her, disbelieving, not knowing what to say or do. There was something so primitive—so crude. He knew he didn't stand a chance. He stood, unbuttoned his trousers and dropped his shorts, kicked them aside and stood behind her. “Move down a bit.” He dragged her hips toward him. She leaned forward to help, her chin touching the bed, reaching between her legs to guide him. “I won't last—”
“Sh—it's OK.”
He fell forward and kissed her back, her hair was in his mouth, he reached around to find her breasts, his heart expanding hard upward. She was so pliant. He got his cock inside her, wrapped his arms around her waist, then, suddenly, as clear as a bell on a cold day, he heard her say: “Stop.”
He stopped, opened his eyes. She was staring up at him, looking up over her shoulder at him, her eyes wide and serious.
“What?” He trembled with the effort of not moving. “What's the matter?”
“Stop. I've changed my mind.”
“You're joking.”
“No is no.” She looked at his face. “Honestly, Jack—I mean it.”
But it was too late. Something in his stomach, something that was close to opening anyway, broke. He grabbed her by the hair, wrenching her head back, and pushed himself into her as hard as he could, his heart pumping like a pile driver.
“Jack.” She tried to crawl away across the bed but he held her. He heard her sob. He knew her face was slamming into the bed and that there was blood—a line of blood in the corner of her mouth, he saw it but he couldn't stop. She was crying, tears running down her face, but he didn't stop. He didn't stop until he had come. Then he thrust her head back down, pulled out of her and padded into the bathroom, where he stood in the shower, his head bent, one hand on the wall, the warm water pouring over his neck, and began to cry.
Carmel Peach hadn't been mistaken about the photographs taken in her house. They were currently on a roll of film, tucked inside a bag, a bag constructed from an old bomber jacket, and lying on the floor in Roland Klare's bedroom.
Klare had spent a long time going through the photography book, in great detail, making copious notes as he worked, listing the things he needed. Now, late in the night, he was consulting the list as he hunted through the rooms for the makings of a darkroom. He had already made his biggest find, earlier this evening: a cumbersome negative enlarger that had been stored for some months behind a pile of magazines. He had found it in a dustbin at the back of a photographer's suppliers in Balham—it was cracked and the timer was broken, but in Klare's world nothing, nothing was beyond rescue. Now the enlarger had been resurrected and was safely installed in the bedroom cupboard, the place that was going to serve as a darkroom. It was a big prize.
However, as he continued his hunt through the rooms,
through the various boxes and corners of his flat, he was starting to see a problem. Klare collected things quickly, so quickly, in fact, that he frquently filled up a room within a matter of weeks, and periodically had to have a clear-out, taking everything from one room down to the dump and redistributing what remained in the flat in the cleared space. Sometimes he was careless, got himself agitated and ended up dumping things he hadn't meant to, and now he was starting to think he'd thrown away some of the things that he needed. Although he had a sealed plastic developing tank (this he'd got from the same bin as the enlarger; it looked like a Tupperware container and was cracked but mendable—Make a note of that—need some glue, some Araldite), an old washing-up bowl for washing the prints in, tape to light-seal the cupboard and plenty of discarded cat litter trays that could serve as print developing trays— although he had all this, when he ran an inventory against the list he realized there were still things missing: some print fixer, developer, stop bath, a safelight. As he stared at the list a nervous tic started in the corner of his eye. Stop bath—the book said he could make that from vinegar if necessary, but a safelight? A safelight, fixer and devel-oper—these were things he could only get from a supplier. Face twitching with frustration, he wandered around the flat muttering to himself, checking and checking again that there'd been no mistake, that there weren't bottles hidden in some dark corner. But no—if he was going to get these photos developed he'd have to go down to Balham and maybe even spend some money.
Out of the living room window the moon was bathing Brockwell Park in silver, but Roland Klare, immensely discouraged now, wasn't interested in the view. He drew the blind, dropped down on the sofa, clicked on the television and sat for several hours, staring blankly at it.
17
July 23
HE WENT TO SHRIVEMOOR. It was the only place to go. He was composed enough to put a suit in the car for the next day, to put the malt whisky into a carrier bag on the backseat, and to pack most of Penderecki's stash away in the downstairs cupboard. The videocassettes and the zip disks—those he took with him.