‘I’m sorry. I assumed that’s why you called.’
Teller looks at Reed. He’s standing, arms crossed, in the middle of the road, craning his neck to watch a helicopter searchlight sweeping streets and gardens.
‘No,’ Teller says. ‘It’s not that. Well, I don’t think so.’ She kneads her brow. She hasn’t showered or changed her clothes in forty-eight hours. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ she says. ‘Who knows, where John’s concerned?’
Zoe waits on the line. Teller can picture her expression, and briefly detests her.
‘Have you heard from him,’ Teller says, ‘in the last hour or two?’
‘No. Why?’
‘Is that actually true? I’m not Schenk, and this isn’t some arse-hole’s toy car we’re talking about. This is important.’
‘Rose, I haven’t heard from him. Why?’
‘Because we’ve lost him.’
‘What do you mean, you’ve lost him?’
‘If this goes any further, Zoe, I mean any further at all, then we’re absolutely fucked. Have you got that? He’s fucked us, one and all.’
‘Rose, it won’t go any further. I won’t say a thing.’
Teller recounts the events of the day. The Daltons. Mia Dalton. Patrick, who was Adrian York. York’s mother. Henry Madsen and his dead dogs and his burning house and the terrible cell in the basement.
She tells Zoe about Madsen’s adoptive parents. His mother slaughtered in the family kitchen. And about DS Howie, stabbed under the breast, fighting for her life in the back of an ambulance.
Zoe is at Mark’s.
They’re in the living room, cuddled up naked under a soft blanket. They’ve been watching a DVD, sharing a bottle of wine and smoking a joint.
Now Mark sits with the DVD remote in hand, thumb hovering over the pause button as Zoe listens to Teller.
Her eyes widen and her hand goes slowly to her throat.
She looks fragile and lovely and for a moment Mark pities Luther for loving this woman and losing her.
Zoe says, ‘I don’t understand. What are you trying to tell me?’
‘As far as I can see,’ says Teller, shouting above the noise of her less cosy surroundings, ‘we’ve got two options. Option one: little Mia’s dead and John’s quietly taken Henry Madsen away to kill him.’
She gives Zoe a moment to process this.
‘What’s option two?’
‘We don’t know what option two might be.’
When Zoe’s able to speak, her voice is very small. She says, ‘Rose, I haven’t heard from him. I absolutely swear.’
‘You’ll have to speak up. It’s noisy here.’
‘ He hasn’t called! ’
‘All right,’ Teller says. ‘But not a word to anyone, okay? Because this could be really bad.’
‘Not a word.’
‘And if he does get in contact…’
‘I’ll call you. Straight away.’
‘Straight away.’
‘Absolutely. The moment. Rose?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Is he okay?’
‘To be honest with you — no, I don’t think he is.’
There’s nothing more to say. Zoe mumbles thanks and hangs up.
She stares at the phone.
Mark doesn’t ask. He just puts a warm arm around her bare shoulders. They huddle there, naked on the sofa, under a blanket that smells faintly of sex, in this good house with its air of weed and sharp green plants and books and leather.
Luther drives onto Colney Hatch Lane, turns at speed.
Madsen pounds at the windows, mouths to the other cars, people on the streets.
Luther speeds past. He turns onto Hampden Road, using two wheels, then Sydney Road.
By degrees, the streets become quieter. Luther does not slow down.
He turns onto Alexandra Road. It’s silent, but for the clamouring engine of the old Volvo. The street is lined with 1930s redbrick flats, functional and neat.
Then the flats run out and the road reveals itself to be a cul-de-sac — except for a pathway which leads, via a primary-coloured fence, off the street to a park.
Luther stops the car with a skid. He and Madsen sit for a moment.
Luther says, ‘Get out.’
‘No.’
Luther laughs.
‘You can’t do this,’ says Madsen.
Luther drags Madsen from the car. Madsen cries out. He screams and begs. His voice cracks. But Luther knows that nobody will come to Madsen’s assistance, because Luther knows that nobody ever does.
He locks his elbow round Madsen’s carotid artery and squeezes. In a few moments, Madsen’s legs go weak, threaten to fold from under him.
Luther frog-marches him, dazed, into the park.
There is a stark, white hunter’s moon. Across it, clouds blow, loose as cannon smoke.
He shoves Madsen past the playground, the red swings, the jaunty roundabout, into the darkness beyond; an urban wasteland whose borders are marked by feral birch and ash saplings.
Madsen’s head is clearing. He draws in a lungful of air; ready to bawl for help. Luther throws him to the ground. Drags him along.
This area used to be a sewage works, then a rubbish tip. It’s been derelict since 1963. Five years ago, Luther attended the scene of a murder here. A prostitute called Dawn Cadell.
He drags Henry through the pale, wild saplings onto a tussocked grassland colonized by invasive rhododendrons, buddleia, Japanese knotweed. He navigates the waist-high foliage by moonlight.
He hauls Madsen to his feet and shoves him into the trees, a heavy young forest of oak and ash.
Under that whispering canopy, it’s quiet. The moon’s eye winks out. There’s just the ragged sound of their exerted breathing, the night wind through invasive weeds. The faint ambient radiance of electric light pollution.
Human feet have created a system of paths through the trees. They’re called desire paths.
Luther always liked that.
He marches Henry down the largest of them.
They pass into a clearing. The white moon shines bright on a thick, weedy meadow that’s littered with the rusty corpses of cars. No wheels. No windows. No glass. A bone yard of Metros, Beetles, an upended post-office van, scattered like the husks of giant insects.
And nestling close to the treeline, half swamped with foxglove and lupin and briar, is the rotting corpse of a caravan.
Luther marches Henry to the caravan and shoves him inside.
It smells strongly of damp and decomposition.
Luther forces Henry to sit on the U-shaped bench surrounding the dining table, which is still bolted to the floor. The bench’s vinyl is ripped, exposing the foam beneath. It crawls and ticks with invertebrates.
They sit in darkness and silence.
Madsen shudders, monkey-grinning.
When he’s got his breath back, Luther says, ‘So where is she, Henry?’
Madsen hugs himself for warmth. ‘What time is it?’
‘Eleven thirty-two. Where is she?’
