think he’ll bother you, not with what I can say about him and what he’s been up to. As for Jonny Crane, he doesn’t know anything about today or your part in it, remember?
I arranged for you to come to the flat this afternoon. Crane thinks of you only in the past tense.” I couldn’t help adding, “I’m sorry for what I put you through.”
She studied me as if she were seeing me for the first time. She nodded. “Thank you, Danny. What are you going to do about Tony? You know he’s looking for you?
He’s got a gun. Another one. Our house is full of guns.”
“I’m going to help him find me. With your help, Kate. One phone call is all it will take.”
TWENTY FIVE
The fog was clearing as I walked down through Soho. Clumps still shredded themselves on St Martin’s spire and menaced the alleyway between the Strand and the river. As I crossed the Hungerford footbridge, a train gasped past me into Charing Cross leaving chunks of smoke clinging to the girders. Mist lay along the river like a dirty yellow blanket.
Kate had made the call, telling Caldwell what had happened this afternoon and that Wilson might be dead. Her voice was strained and clipped when she told him that Liza had revealed their three-sided relationship. Her anger fuelled two patches of red in her cheeks. I could hear Caldwell’s voice rising and accelerating as he begged for understanding. Kate cut off his bluster as though reprimanding a careless servant. She told him I wanted to meet him, just the two of us, and settle this thing. She didn’t tell him – because she didn’t know – that if I didn’t come back from the meeting, Mary had instructions to give his name to Jonny Crane. Tony seemed to have responded with alacrity. And now we were converging on the meeting ground. I’d chosen somewhere open but quiet, and with a queer resonance for this whole damned business.
I picked up a bus outside Waterloo station. We chugged through the patchy smog to Camberwell Green, past my office. I didn’t want to meet there; too cramped, too many police watching. I got off and made my way up Denmark Hill past the hospital. I seemed to be climbing out of the murk. The sign for Ruskin Park beckoned.
I climbed over the fence and started down towards the pond. From there I’d be able to see people entering the park but it was far enough away to be private.
Fog billowed through the trees, making it hard to follow the path. But the smell of decay led me easily to the stagnant water. I stood gazing into the mist, wondering if I could pull this off without getting shot. I went over my questions again and again, which is why I didn’t hear her coming.
“Hello, Danny.”
I spun round. My heart lifted. Valerie was walking towards me. She was wearing a long coat against the night, just like the first time.
“Hey, it’s great to see you, Val! I’ve missed you! Where have you been?”
“Where have I been? You’ve got half the police in the country looking for you and you ask me where I’ve been?” she laughed.
“It’s a long story, but it’s coming to an end. Tony Caldwell is the killer. He killed the girl in France and he killed the prostitutes here.”
She seemed a long way from being surprised. “See. I knew it wasn’t you, Danny.”
“But, Val, what are you doing here? How did you find me?”
“I’m here when you need me.”
“But you can’t stay here, Val. It’s too dangerous. Caldwell is coming to meet me. You mustn’t hang around. I don’t want you hurt.”
“Silly. I’ll be OK. I’ll give you moral support.”
Through the sound-dampening fog I heard the noise of a car wheezing up the hill and slowing. Then I saw the twin beams of light cutting through the heavy air, as the big Riley rolled to a stop by the park gates.
“It’s him, Val! You’ve got to go! I’ll be fine. I’ve got a gun, you see?” I dug into my pocket and pulled out the small calibre weapon Mary had given me. It was barely more than a starting pistol, but it would do the job. I hoped I wasn’t going to need it.
Val searched my face as though it was the last she’d see of it. She smiled sweetly then backed away into the mist.
I could see the car clearly. There were two people in it. Kate was at the wheel.
She was staring straight ahead, her eyes unseeing. Caldwell was alongside her.
She killed the engine and silence fell. She cut the beams of light and the car was left silhouetted by the masked glow from a streetlamp. High above me, the clouds cleared and the stars began to stutter into being. But down here wraiths still swirled and danced through the trees and across the pool.
Caldwell opened his door and got out. Kate stayed hunched over the wheel. I wondered what their conversation had been like. What excuses had he produced?
Had he denied it? What did she believe now?
He straddled the fence and began walking towards me, a long stride, heels hitting hard on the path like he was pacing out a cricket square. And suddenly I knew that gait. I’d seen it loping away from me. Down a back alley in Avignon.
This time he was wearing a thick coat and hat against the clinging air. His hands were in his pockets. As he got closer I could see that whatever he’d done wasn’t getting to him. A bit red and strained round the eyes, but none of that bulging, berserker look the public expects in the insane. Take it from me, and I’ve seen plenty, some of the craziest guys in the world look perfectly normal until you engage them in conversation and find they can only talk about rats or the colour red.
Caldwell stopped ten feet from me. How was I going to knock that smile off? “Well, McRae. You’ve saved me a lot of trouble. I’ve been hunting high and low for you.”
“You have it wrong, Caldwell. I’ve been hunting you. Didn’t Kate tell you the cavalry won’t be coming to save your neck?”
“You mean Wilson? An oaf. He got what was coming to him.”
“I thought you were buddies?”
“A common cause.”
“When did you point him my way?”
He laughed. “Remember that first visit he made to your office? You don’t think that was an accident, do you?”
No, I didn’t. Too many coincidences. “Did you know him before?”
He shook his head. “He likes giving interviews. I saw his name.”
“After the first murder?”
He said nothing. I changed key. It was too soon to go down that road. “Your sister has been very helpful. I mean the Graveney one.”
He frowned. “You shouldn’t have told her that. She didn’t need to know.”
“Because it spoiled your games? What were these games, Caldwell? They sound fun.”
The frown vanished from his face. He grinned, like a dog grins just before it takes a piece out of your leg. He considered the question for a while.
“We had a dare. A double dare. Truth, dare, kiss or promise.”
“The kid’s game?” I asked with wonder. We used to play it in Hayward Park. A gang of us, girls and boys, average age ten, looking for excuses to cop a feel or allow a secret passion to be dragged from us in front of our object of desire. We’d spin a bottle and the loser had to call out his or her choice: tell the truth, take a dare, kiss a girl, or make a promise. The loser had the right to pronounce on the action.
I remember Lizzie Kirkland getting a double dare to put her hand up my short trousers. I think she was disappointed. It seemed a big deal at the time. But it wasn’t very brave or inventive alongside what Caldwell was telling me…
“Not kids!” he exploded. “At first, yes. But it was more important than that.
Kate liked it. It was our thing. The thing only we knew about. No one else would have understood. The game
