Cage of Bones

away so he couldn’t hear it. Because God was love. And he was love. And he would let him out again.

So he sat outside the cave. And tried to relax.

Breathe in the air. Feel the sun on his face. Hear the river go past, lapping at the bank. Watch the water. See the leaves fall on it.

Relax.

Don’t think about the Gardener. Don’t think about letting him out.

Ignore his cries. Listen to the water.

Relax.

Just relax.

And don’t think about what the Gardener had done. And what he was going to do.

As soon as Paul let him out again.

48

Rose was angry. Really angry.

Anger was nothing new to her, but this kind was. Sudden and quick. And very, very deep. With a scattergun aim.

Glass had phoned her earlier in the morning. She had been up. It felt like she was always up. Since she had been put on long-term sick, she had had trouble sleeping. More than she had told Marina or any of the police doctors. Much more. Insomnia. Bad, verging on the chronic. She had tried over-the-counter remedies. Prescription pills from her GP. Drinking excessively before bed. Exercising until she was too physically exhausted to move. A long, hot, relaxing bath, even. And nothing had worked.

So she had learned to live with the lack of sleep. Learned to lie in bed at night staring at the ceiling, the walls. Closing her eyes, letting the film play on the backs of her eyelids. The same one. Always the same one.

That day in the boat, unable to move, those hands on her body… Fighting, losing…

Her eyes would open. And there would be the walls, the ceiling. Her bedroom. Just the silence, the shadows. And Rose. Alone. Always alone.

She had even tried to lose herself in sex. Not love – she didn’t want that level of intimacy, didn’t want anyone seeing behind the shield, couldn’t cope with it – but sex. Just to feel exhilarated, wanted. Alive. To have another body next to her to keep the shadows, the darkness at bay. To let her sleep. That hadn’t worked either. She had soon found that she couldn’t bear anyone to touch her. And she hated to have anyone next to her for the night. She would lie awake watching them sleep, wondering how long it would be before their hands were on her body, forcing her, fighting with her…

No.

So she had coped with the silence, the shadows, on her own. Alone. She had no choice. And if she was being honest with herself, she wouldn’t say she was cured. She would just say she was stronger. Better armoured.

And that was enough. It had to be.

But she was also angry. Especially after Glass’s call.

‘Just a catch-up. Checking in. Seeing how your case is progressing.’ As businesslike as ever, but did she catch a hint that he was thinking about her at home? Wondering what she was wearing, perhaps? She put it out of her mind. Just imagination.

She thought of the previous day. The fight in the pub. Obviously nothing had been said. She hadn’t been reported. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Just running down a few leads today. Ex-boyfriends, that kind of thing. Nothing concrete yet.’

She was sitting on the edge of the unmade bed. It seemed like this room, not even the rest of the flat, was her world. The TV in the corner, clothes, both clean and soiled, piled and thrown on the floor. Old mugs, ringed with coffee stains, sat on half-read paperback books. Plates with hard, curling crusts poked out from under the bed. She sighed.

‘Time scale? Any ideas?’

‘Early days,’ she said, kicking an empty white wine bottle under the bed, hearing it roll to a stop, clink against another one already under there. ‘But it won’t take long, I don’t think. Something’ll break soon.’

‘Good. Good.’

‘I thought we were meeting this morning? Having a proper catch-up?’

‘Yes… ’ Glass’s voice became cautious, guarded. ‘Bit difficult. All kicked off here.’

She stood up. ‘But I thought I was coming in to the station.’

‘No.’ Said quickly. Sharply. ‘Like I said, it’s all got busy here. A couple of cases taking up all the space, the manpower. I think it’s best we talk this way. For the time being.’

And that was when the anger started to rise. Because she realised as he spoke what he was doing. Sidelining her. And she knew who had all the office space, whose cases were getting the upgraded treatment. Oh yes. She didn’t even have to ask.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Fine. I’ll call when there’s news.’

And broke the connection. Threw the phone on the bed. Sat down beside it.

Phil Brennan. Fucking Phil Brennan again. Always him. Always. She had a special streak of hatred reserved just for him. Because he was everything she saw herself as not being. Successful. Popular. Promotable. Yes, she knew she had been promoted, but even so. It happened more easily for him. It always had.

She looked round the room again. Her world. Everything she had, all that she had to show for her life.

She had never wanted to be a police officer. Not really. It was something she had done to impress her dad. He had been a DCI in the Met. Well-regarded. Well-decorated. One of the finest thief-takers of his time. That was what everyone said about him. That was what he said himself. But with a few more profanities thrown in.

And she had looked up to him. Admired him. But from a distance. It had always been that way, even before the divorce. He had always been out. Working, or networking, he called it. His mother had come to resent it. Partying, she said. Getting freebies off slags. He had laughed it off at first, told her she didn’t know what she was talking about. It was the way the job worked, the culture. He had to go, had to be seen at those places, those parties. Her mother had said nothing then. Just glared at him in silent resentment. Let things continue that way.

She turned a blind eye to the whoring, the drinking. But she reluctantly accepted the unexpected presents, the bonuses. Holidays, home improvements, new cars. All on the sudden windfalls. She wasn’t stupid. She knew her silence was being bought. And she entered into that complicity, albeit grudgingly. As long as the two worlds were separate, then she didn’t need to know the other one existed.

The house of glass and cards held. For years and years. Until one world invaded the other. Until her mother found she had been given a dose of the clap.

She had confronted Rose’s father about it. How could he? How the hell could he? The money, yes, a blind eye. The drinking, she had said nothing. Even fucking those slags… that was one thing, but bringing it home, into the family, infecting her, that was… that was something else. That was intolerable.

Her father had tried shrug it off. Just one of those things. Her mother wouldn’t let him. Kept on at him. On and on, all those years of silent resentment, bottled hatred, slewing out. Shouting that she could see at last. That the scales had fallen from her eyes, that she was blind no more.

That was when he had walked out. But not before he had hit her. Hard. Smashed her to the ground, left her lying in teeth, blood and agony on the kitchen floor. Years of silent, pent-up hatred coming out of him, too.

And Rose had been left. Brought up along with her brother by her shattered mother. Now silent, withdrawn, almost catatonic for the rest of her life.

Rose should have grown up to hate her father. And she did. But she hated her mother more. The spineless way she had given up on life, the way she drifted through the years like a ghost that wasn’t yet dead. When she was finally diagnosed with cancer, she seemed to find it a relief. An excuse for her to stop living. And Rose never forgave her for that. Never stopped resenting her.

And never stopped trying to impress her father, either. That was why she had enrolled in the police force. Just to impress him. But it hadn’t worked. Living with his third wife, in declining health somewhere on the south coast,