‘Kill me, you’ll never know.’
‘Well, that’s true. But it doesn’t end well for you either, does it?’
A long moment of silence.
‘Half an hour,’ Madsen says. ‘Can you stand it?’
‘No. Can you?’
Madsen laughs.
Luther sits back. Regards him through the rich, fungal darkness. Reek of leaf humus, rotten plywood. Rubber gone to rot.
Madsen leans forward. ‘You can hurt me all you like,’ he says. ‘But you’ll do life for it. And I won’t tell you a fucking thing.’ His quaking begins to subside as dominance and control pass back to him. ‘Still,’ he says. ‘At least you’ll know she died a virgin.’
They breathe the same fetid air.
Madsen breaks the silence. ‘What time is it now?’
‘Eleven thirty-eight.’
‘Just over twenty minutes.’
Luther shudders with cold.
‘If you wanted to kill me,’ Madsen says, ‘the place to do it was back at Mum’s house. Who’d ever know if it was self-defence or not, eh? So here’s what I think. I think you want little Mia back more than you want anything in the world.’
‘Yes,’ says Luther.
‘So there’s got to be a way out of this, hasn’t there? There’s got to be a way I get what I want and you get what you want.’
Rats creep in the cancerous frame of the squalid caravan. Reptilian tails drag over blisters of rust.
‘It’s not going to happen,’ Luther says, at length. ‘If I let you go and you’ve lied, I’ve got nothing. And you’re a liar, Henry. That’s your problem. You’re a liar.’
They sit.
Madsen says, ‘How long?’
Luther looks at his watch. He doesn’t answer.
He stands. He goes to the caravan door.
Madsen says, ‘Where are you going?’
‘To call my wife.’
Luther steps into the moonlight. Wet grass to his knees. Rosebay willowherb. Bits of pram extend from it, the arc of a corroded oil drum. Low-hanging trees, heavy with recent rainfall. The pale, oxidizing caravan with its corrupt human cargo.
He watches the beam of a distant helicopter as it probes the streets. Searching for him. Searching for Madsen.
He turns on his phone and calls Zoe.
Her phone rings and rings and rings.
He waits.
Zoe jumps when her phone rings.
She grabs it. It’s John.
She looks at Mark before answering. He makes a gesture: Do what you have to.
So Zoe stands naked in the middle of Mark’s living room, wrapped in the blanket like a Roman statue.
Mark sits bollock-naked on the sofa, places a Moroccan cushion over his lap, rolls a calming joint.
In a better world, on a happier night, it would be funny.
Zoe takes the call. ‘John?’
He hears her voice saying his name. Twenty years of love in it.
‘Zoe,’ he says. His voice is rendered a near murmur by the solitude and the darkness.
He says, ‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘Where are you? Everyone’s looking for you.’
He sees the helicopter searchlight poking the gardens, the allotments, the suburban sheds.
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘We’re frightened for you,’ she says. ‘Everyone’s really scared. Come home.’
‘I can’t. I’m lost. I don’t know where I am.’ He wants more than anything in the world to be with her now; to have her naked and warm and in his arms. ‘I need help,’ he says. ‘I need your help.’
‘Whatever I can do,’ she says. ‘Whatever it is.’
‘I’ve got him,’ says Luther. ‘The man who did this. All these terrible things. I’ve got him.’
‘John, that’s-’
‘But the little girl he took. He buried her somewhere. Buried her alive. I don’t know where she is. She’s only got a few minutes left. She’s terrified. Right now. She’s in a box in the ground and she’s terrified. She’s dying. But he won’t tell me where she is. He’s enjoying it. The pain he’s causing. The power he’s got. He’d rather let her die.’
He waits for a reaction. But there’s only silence on the line.
He says her name.
And still, that silence.
‘I could hurt him,’ he says at last. ‘If I did that, I think I could find her.’
Her can hear her sobbing now. Trying not to.
‘But I’d have to really hurt him,’ he says. ‘I mean, really hurt him. So I need you to tell me what to do. What’s the right thing to do? I need you to tell me. I need your help.’
Zoe is weeping. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she says. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry. I don’t know.’
‘No,’ says Luther. ‘No, of course not.’
He hangs up. He turns off his phone.
He looks at the moon until his heart has slowed and his voice has regained some strength. Then he turns the phone on again and calls Ian Reed.
Henry doesn’t hear the content of that first call. But he reads body language well.
He sees that Luther is resigned to something. His head weighing heavy on his chest.
Henry turns to the caravan window, tries to slide it open.
He can’t.
It’s rusted shut.
Then he runs a hungry finger around the window seal. The rubber has hardened and cracked. It’s brittle and crumbles to the touch.
Henry braces himself against the dining table. He presses the window with the palms of his hands.
He heaves and heaves.
The window frame squeals.
He doesn’t care.
With a long screech, the window pops from its frame.
Henry squeezes through the gap. He jumps into the nettles and the brambles.
He picks a desire path and runs.
Luther listens to Henry battering his way out of the caravan.
He looks at his watch.
Finally, Reed answers. ‘John, for fuck’s sake. Where are you?’
‘Have you found her?’
‘We searched all five properties on the list. They’d been at one, briefly. By the time the search team got there, they’d moved on.’
‘What kind of property?’
‘House. They were converting it.’
‘Where was it?’
‘Muswell Hill.’
