“Right.” He stood up to leave. “Always nice to see you, Tracey.”
“Wait!” She half stood, her eyes bright and desperate.
“What?”
She glanced nervously at the guard and lowered her voice to a hiss: “You never asked me about the boy, you never asked me about Penderecki's boy.” Lowering herself back into the chair, she pushed her hair behind her ear and dropped her eyes to the table. “I thought we was going to talk,” she murmured out of the side of her mouth.
“No.” He bent over and put his hands on the table, his face close to hers. “No, Tracey. I'm tired of being dicked by your sort.”
“I know something.”
“I don't think so. You're lying to me, but it's not the first time and, believe me, it's no novelty to me.”
“Nineteen seventy-three,” she said, “in the autumn.”
Caffery, who was taking a breath to reply, stopped. He stared at her, his eyes moving across her face. He shouldn't let himself be pulled in again—she was just putting up another smokescreen and if Penderecki had told Carl about Ewan then there'd be no mystery about when it happened. But, of course, you can't let it go, can you? He sat down again, subdued, crumpling into the chair and putting his head in his hands. He sat like this for over a minute, resenting her, hating her, wanting to hit her. “Go on then.” He looked up, wearily drawing his hands down his face, knowing. “Roll out the spiel.”
“Nah.” Lamb looked sullenly at him. She scratched under her armpit and sniffed loudly, looking around the room with her nose tipped up. “Nah,” she said, looking at the ceiling. “You need to try a little harder than that. 'S not that easy, is it?” She summoned up phlegm, spat into the polystyrene cup, wiped her mouth and raised her eyebrows at him. “You've got to convince me. You've got to prove you ain't nothing to do with the dirty squad. Because it's funny how they come sniffing around right after you did, isn't it?”
He nodded and sat looking at her, stroking his chin, a therapist assessing a patient. Had Tracey Lamb known more about him she would have stopped there. She wouldn't have blatantly fed his mood pure oxygen. “Well?” she asked, cocking her head and smiling. “Come on. It's your turn to be nice to me.”
And with that she'd crossed the line. She'd lost him. He sat forward and spoke very quietly: “Don't dick with me, Tracey.” He said it into her face. “Because if I ever see you on the street I'll kill you.”
“Oh,” she said archly, her lips white. “Well, fuck you, then, 'cause maybe I don't know anything after all.”
“Well, what a surprise.” He got to his feet. “The only difference is I mean what I say.”
He walked to the door, pulling up his sleeve to reveal the little security stamp. An officer appeared at his side, jangling keys on a long chain, and guided him to a small black box, pushing his hand under the UV. “Under the light. That's it.” The stamp on his hand lit up and she looped the keys, unlocked the door and held it open for him. He paused, half turning to look back to where Lamb stood, her hands on the table, glaring at him. She mouthed something and raised her eyebrows, but Caffery turned away, thanked the officer and moved on out the door. He was trembling.
Fuck. Lamb fell back into the chair, kicking angrily at the table legs. She couldn't believe he'd gone. She had been so close. So fucking close. She looked around her, at all the mothers and the daughters and the babies, and knew she was alone. Totally alone.
She was sullenly sticking her fingernails in the side of the Styrofoam cup when she saw the senior officer watching her. “Yeah?” she said, raising her eyebrows sarcastically at her. “What you staring at?”
31
THE INCIDENT ROOM WAS EMPTYING for the day. Most of the computers had been turned off and Kryotos had washed up all the cups. She was already halfway out of the office, pulling on her jacket, when she saw him coming out of the lift. She knew Caffery. She knew not to argue with him when he had that look on his face. My God, that look. “Come on, then,” she said, taking off her jacket without even waiting for him to speak. They went back into the incident room, where she booted up the aging PC and tapped in the new fields he gave her: prison sentences beginning in 1989, attacks on police officers using a knife or razor blade, and addresses in SW2, specifically addresses on the perimeter of Brockwell Park. “Where'd you get all this, Jack?” Souness was in her braces and shirtsleeves, a cup of coffee in one hand, a docket in the other. She'd wandered out of the SIOs' room and come to stand behind Kryotos and Caffery. “Where's this all been massaged from?”
“I dunno.” He didn't meet her eyes. “Just a hunch.”
Even as he said it he felt her eyes snap down on him, in that wry, all-seeing way of hers, and he had to turn his head slightly sideways so she couldn't look in through his face.
“Jack?” He moved away, toward the SIOs' room, but Souness had him by the tail and she knew it. She could take her time working her way up, hand over hand. “Don't walk away from me, Jack.” She followed him calmly. “I know you too well.”
“Just a bit of fucking privacy, Danni.” He sat down at his desk. “If that's not too much to ask.”
But she stood in the doorway, leaning calmly against the frame, sipping her coffee. “Jack Caffery's got a wee secret.” She looked over her shoulder, closed the door and came into the office. She put the coffee on the desk and bent down to him, her voice a low whisper. “Jack, I wish ye'd tell me more.”
He pushed his face nearer hers, his voice matching hers. “What am I supposed to tell you?” he whispered. “Danni?”
“You're supposed to tell me if something's happening to ye—something that could affect your future in the force.”
“OK, then,” he said, sitting back and opening his hands. At last it was happening. “Come on—out with it. I've been waiting for this.”
She shushed him, holding her finger to her lip. “Why's the love of my life suddenly so interested in you, Jack? Why's Paulina started subtly bringing you into the conversation all the time?” She jerked her chin at the phone. “I've just had her now, in her snaky little way, bringing the conversation back to you.”
“I don't know, Danni. Do you?”
“Don't be sarcastic with me.” She looked at him, her chin dropped, her eyebrows raised. “If she was just shopping around, looking for a bit of quick recreational dicking, I'd understand. You look like you could do the honors, I'll give ye that. But it's not, is it? It's something else.”
He didn't answer. Souness's face was close to his. He dropped his eyes and stared at his hand where it lay on the desk, opening and closing it. He didn't want to be the first to say it. He wanted her to have the opening shot.
“Who is it?” she said eventually. “Eh? Who is it's got you looking like you want to blatter someone?”
“No one.”
“You're lying. You've been gone all afternoon and now you come back with a face ready to take someone apart. And it's the same person gave you those new parameters.”
He shook his head. “No.”
“If something's happening I won't be coming to your aid. Ye do know that?”
“You won't have to.”
“I'll forget your name if it means I can cover my own arse.”
He nodded. “It won't come to that. I promise.”
“Jack.” Kryotos was at the door, a cool smile on her face. Souness straightened like a guilty child, immediately dropping this hard-faced, Ping-Pong match.
“Marilyn,” Caffery pushed back his chair, “what?”
“This.” She was holding a single-page printout. “Detained under Section 41—a genuine loony tunes. Can I go home now?”
She was right to be so smug. She had poured all the new search parameters into the database and out of the soup one name had bobbed up. When Caffery saw it he shook his head. “Shit.” He handed the paper to Souness. “I know that name.”
No one answered the door. They'd hammered and called, and now, in the little uncarpeted landing, they had a silent audienc
e of neighbors standing in the doorways, arms folded, the East Enders theme playing in living rooms behind them. Caffery lifted the letter box and peered in.
“What do you think?” Souness murmured next to him. Neither she nor Caffery had mentioned Paulina all the way here. It was just as if they'd agreed to drop it until this was dealt with. “Well?”
“He's not here.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.” He straightened and pulled off his jacket. “He's off somewhere.” He handed Souness the jacket and began loosening his tie. “With someone else, probably.”
“Oh, Christ Almighty.” She saw what he was going to do and turned hurriedly to the audience. “If ye'd all just like to go inside. That's it.” She made shooing gestures at them, as if to sweep them all back into their flats. “Come on now, nothing to see here.” Slowly, reluctantly, they closed their doors and she turned back. “Jack,” she hissed, “we don't even know if this is him.”
“We will soon.” He emptied his pockets, handing her his keys and some loose change.
“Oh, Jesus—I hope you remember how to fill out a PropDam.”
“Remember?” He took a step back. “I could do it in my sleep.” He rammed his foot into the door. “Police!” His voice echoed around the small, dank landing. Letter boxes opened slyly behind them. A second kick. The door shuddered, seemed for a moment to bow at the center, but the two Yale locks held.
“That bottom one's a deadbolt, Jack.”
“I know. POLICE!” He slammed out his foot, landing the kick perfectly along the line of the locks, jarring the tendons in his knee. The top Yale sprang out of its footing but the bottom one held. He hopped backward, getting his balance. “Fucking thing.”
“Och, look,” Souness said impatiently, patting her pockets for her mobile. “You'll never hoof it down. We need the ghostbusters, Jack. I'll give them a call.”
“OK, OK—just give me a—” He stepped back, pushing his hair off his forehead, and landed the third kick where he wanted it, about four inches to the right of the locks. The thin outer skin of the door crumpled. The next kick went straight through. “There.” He hopped back, dragging away long splinters of wood, and began ripping at the opening, breathing hard, dropping pieces of honeycombed interior onto the floor. He pushed his hand into the hole and patted along the inside, his face hard against the door. “Good.” He looked at Souness. There was a thumb-turn at the back of the deadbolt. “Got it.” The lock rotated easily. He and Souness were in.
Neither spoke. They stood, peering cautiously into the darkened hallway.
Souness took a deep breath. She pocketed her mobile, handed Caffery his jacket and keys, and stepped across the threshold. From somewhere inside, somewhere in the darkness, came a stale smell. She hesitated, felt in her pocket for the sturdy torch. “You sure he's not here?”
“I'm sure.” But his voice was low. Cautiously he flicked on the light and they both stood, looking into the hallway. It was an unremarkable, council-block hallway, ending a few feet ahead in a doorway. No carpet on the floor; the boards were bare. The walls were woodchip and on either side of the hallway were two painted doors. “Hello?”
Silence.
“This is the police, Mr. Klare.”
Silence.
From the landing behind them came the creak of another letter box opening. “Nosy wee fuckers.” Souness closed the battered door with her foot and turned back to Caffery, who was standing at the first door, his hands up, palms facing the door, an odd softness in his expression as if there was warmth coming from it.
“Jack?”
He didn't answer. The hair on his arms prickled, standing straight up against his shirt. On the door, in tiny, almost invisible letters, someone had written very plainly the word “Hazard.”
He turned to Souness and smiled.
Outside it was getting dark. From the window in the living room they could see the weather rolling in for miles around—clouds as big as cathedrals stalked above the park, pink evening light prismed up from the horizon. Souness put some calls in to mobilize the locals, to get a bulletin out to the area cars, to mount surveillance on the flat and to get the SSCU over to Arkaig Tower to see if they could pick up some DNA to match to their target. “Right,” she said. “Let's give the place a wee spin, then. Before the cavalry arrive.”
They brought the lifts to the top floor, jammed them and propped open the door to the staircase—if Roland Klare decided to come home between now and the time new officers arrived, they wanted to hear his footsteps on the stairs. They zoned the flat roughly between them: Souness wrapped polythene freezer bags around her hands and took the living room and bathroom while Caffery did the kitchen and the bedroom. They used lights only in the rooms that didn't have windows: in the others they relied on what daylight remained. Klare's flat, they soon found, was a warehouse: every imaginable object was hoarded here, from a collection of vacuum cleaners to a tawny owl in a glass dome. Some areas were filthy—the smell of the bathroom made Souness put her hand over her mouth— and the fridge was full of rotting food: they could well imagine Klare was responsible for the mess in the Peaches' attic. But in erratic ways the flat had been kept scrupulously clean. The kitchen had been scrubbed: in some places the worktop had been so manically scoured that small scoops of the Formica had worn through and showed chalky white. Cloths sat in a large boiling pan on the hob. The floors, none of which had carpets, were obsessively clean.
With the first stone Souness turned she found something of interest. “Hey, Jack,” she called, “have a deek at this.”
He went into the living room and found her standing at a metal-framed desk, silhouetted against the sunset, staring into an opened drawer. “What's that?”
“Fuck knows.” She picked it up and they both peered at it. It was a battered notebook, a rubber band around it. “What d'you make o' that, then?”
He took her elbow and lifted it higher, tilting it toward the window so he could see better. The words “The Treatment” had been carefully stenciled in a box on the front cover, and the curling pages were covered with detailed drills and formulae, all written in a tiny, hectic scrawl. Looking at it made his skin tingle. “Grab it, then.”
“Right.” Souness slipped the notebook into a freezer bag, put it inside her jacket and turned back to the living room. “Come on, snap-snap.”
They worked for another ten minutes, neither sure exactly what they were looking for. In a magazine rack Souness found a card picturing a toddler in a nappy with the caption: “I HATE TO BOTHER YOU WITH A PERSONAL PROBLEM …” She opened it and read the punchline: “BUT I'M HORNY.” In the bedroom, deflated and tucked into a drawer, Caffery found a blow-up doll of a male child, a tag in Japanese attached on the seam at the ankle. They were definitely in the right place, and it was all so weird, he thought, like an after-hours museum, all Klare's collection neatly ordered on fold-out tables— metal, the sort you might see at a jumble sale. Caffery noticed that none of the collection touched the floor, everything rested on these tables—it made him think about how Rory Peach had been stored, off the ground, the way a big cat would drag a carcass into a tree.
He was still wondering about this when, ten minutes later, he pushed open a cupboard door in one of the bedrooms and found what he knew they were looking for. “Hey, Danni,” he called, “got a moment?”
“What?” She came in from the living room, puffing, holding her arms above her head and squeezing past the tables to get to him. “What you got?”
“I don't know.” He reached inside and switched on the light.
“Red bulb,” Souness muttered, peering suspiciously into the cupboard. “Freaky.”
“It's a darkroom.”
“Eh?”
“It's a darkroom—look.” He pointed to a small plastic table covered in equipment: bottles of chemicals, a pair of rubber gloves, trays, a lamphouse mounted on a stand that he guessed was for printing film. Set aside from the clutter, at the far end of the table,
was a biscuit tin, sealed with brown tape. “Darkroom equipment.” He reached in his pocket for his army knife, slit the tape on the tin, popped the lid off and looked at what was inside. “Oh, shit.”
“What?”
“Here we go.” He handed the torch to Souness and started pulling out prints.
“Photos.”
“What?”
“Look.”
Souness came into the cupboard and shone the torch on the photos. Human faces stared up at her. “Oh, God,” she said, tipping back a bit on her heels. The images were blurred but she thought she knew what she was looking at. She recognized the crosshatched lino on the floor. “Rory Peach?”
“I think so.”
“Jesus.” She picked up the top photograph and stared at it. “Poor wee mite.” She had Alek and Rory, and the truth of what had happened to them in number thirty Donegal Crescent, in her hand, and it made the blood go from her face. “Not enough that he's dead,” she said quietly. “He had to go through that first.”
“I know.” Caffery was rummaging in the tin. Underneath the pictures of Rory Peach he found an old Polaroid of a child wrapped with torn sheets, a gag on his face, his hands placed across his chest like a pharaoh. He knew what this was. He recognized the wallpaper. And the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles poster. “He was right,” he said, handing the photo to Souness. “He was fucking right—it wasn't a hoax.”
“Who was right?”
“DI Durham.” There were more pictures of the same child underneath. “See? It's the Half Moon Lane family.”
“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, what the fuck ever happened to them, then?”
“I don't know. I just don't know.” Farther down, under the Polaroids, he found a photograph of a boy—face-down in a scatter of dead leaves, his trousers and underwear pulled down to his knees. This, he knew instantly, was Champaluang Keoduangdy twelve years ago—one of Roland Klare's earliest victims. “Jesus,” he muttered. “It's all here.” He lifted the tin and found underneath it four more Polaroids. These pictured a boy tied to a radiator, a white radiator against a cantaloupecolored wall. The boy, it was clearly a boy, lay on his side. He was white, he looked about Rory Peach's age and he wore sandals, a blue T-shirt and shorts—just like the child in the Half Moon Lane photograph. The child's face was half hidden, a glimmer of brown tape on the side of his cheek where he'd been gagged, and his shorts had been half unzipped to show his underwear. It wasn't Rory Peach and it wasn't the Half Moon Lane child. This time when she saw it Souness began stamping her feet. “Oh, my God,” she muttered. “Oh, my God, I smell trouble. My God. I think you were right.”