be him. In the family room Josh was scrabbling at the rope again. 'Josh, don't say anything, don't move,' she hissed. 'Keep quiet.' He obeyed her, kept quite still, and in the silence she could hear her heart thudding. It's OK, she told herself. If it is the police they'll see something's wrong -they'll know something's wrong and they'll come and find us, I'm not giving myself away if it's him
The doorbell rang once more. She sucked in a breath, biting her lip, the look in her eyes keeping Josh pinned where he was. The sound of the bell hung in the silence. To anyone on the garden path at the front of the Churches' deluxe polished oak door, with double glazing and thermal seals, the house would have appeared quite uninhabited.
Souness came in, placed both hands on the desk and leaned forward. 'Right.'
'OK.' Caffery threw his pen down on the desk. 'Lecture?'
She nodded. 'Lecture. I got through to the consultant. We had a wee slanging match about my DL'
'Great.'
'Jack, what were ye thinking?' She pulled up her chair and sat down. 'Can you imagine the field day Peach's brief'll have?'
'I don't care, Danni, I've got to speak to him. He's got someone else. I know it.'
She closed her eyes, pursed her mouth and shook her head. 'Jack, you're squeezing me. I've spoken to the gov and what he's saying is clear: you've got your man, put the resources into closing it, put your energy into being ready for the interviews when Peach is well enough. We've got another critical incident come in this morning, they want this Peckham rapist off the back-burner and we just haven't got the manpower, Jack, for what, in the cold light of day, is a domestic incident, we haven't got '
'Maybe I shouldn't be on the case anyway.'
'Don't talk nonsense '
'Maybe I've lost my perspective.'
'Oh, please, cut the melodrama She stopped. Caffery had stood up. 'Jack? Ye've to try to see it from my point of view.'
'I'd love to, Danni,' he picked up his keys, his cigarettes and put them into his pocket, 'but to be-honest I don't know if I could get my head that far up my own arse.'
Souness shot to her feet. 'Don't ye speak to me like that.' She lifted her finger to him, her lips a dry, angry pink. 'I did nothing to merit that I'll discipline ye for it.'
'Thank you.' He stood, pushed some papers into a drawer and locked it. Pressed pens into the pen tidy and pushed his chair firmly under the desk so that it lined up perfectly. Suddenly his taste for the job had turned. 'I think I'll go now. Since there's nothing else to be done but sit around with our feet up and wait for Peach to get better.'
'Go on, then, fuck off home.' She rubbed her head until it was hot. She was furious. 'The rest should do you some good.'
But when Caffery turned to the door Kryotos was standing there holding a green message form. 'What?'
'Call from the hospital.'
'That's OK, Marilyn.' Souness reached past Caffery and took the form. 'I got through to them on another line.'
'No I mean, not the hospital, I mean the sergeant. On the ward. It's Alek Peach. They want one of you. Urgently.'
'Josh The house was silent and Benedicte's heart rate had slowed. But now she was seized with the idea that she'd been wrong. 'Josh, listen can you get out of that rope?'
He nodded and redoubled his efforts, gnawing at the nylon with his teeth.
'OK, darling, OK, listen. When you're free just go straight into the hall and open the front door. Into the hall and open the door.' Josh looked from his father to his mother, his eyes huge with fear. 'Go on, darling. I promise you it's OK. Just hurry.'
With one last tug of the rope he freed himself. He was up, staggering a little, his leg muscles cramped, shooting out a hand to steady himself, but he was up. He held out his thin arms in front of him, as if it was dark, and pattered over to the kitchen sink, turning on the tap and putting his mouth under it to drink. Benedicte could almost smell how cold the water was. When he straightened, panting, water dripping from his chin, she whispered to him, 'Good boy, now go and open the door.'
But Josh pulled a glass down from the cupboard, filled it with water, and knelt down next to Hal. He pulled the packing tape from his father's mouth, rested the lip of the glass against Hal's lips, tipping water into his mouth. Hal bucked a little, almost choked, then greedily swallowed the water, his Adam's apple moving madly. Benedicte watched, impatient, resisting the urge to tell Josh to hurry. He was sitting next to Hal, as expert as a nurse, running a hand over his forehead and pouring more water into his mouth. 'You next, Mummy,' he said.
'OK, baby but first go to the door, OK, go to the door there might be someone out there to help us.'
'OK.' He put the glass on the floor and stood, unsteady on his feet, looking down once at Hal, who was thrashing his head from side to side, his mouth moving, trying to speak. Josh turned to the hallway, using the kitchen cabinets to keep his balance, jolting his way to the door. Benedicte could just see the bottom of his feet and his reflection in the laminate flooring. Tiny, thin little boy. He reached up, fumbled with the catch, and opened the front door.
She stayed there, her eye bulging down from the ceiling like the silent dome of a CCTV camera clicking on and off. There were no sounds from the hallway for several minutes. She imagined him opening the door and simply stepping out into a summer's day, bluebirds maybe, carrying a ribbon in their beaks, flying over the park.
The door slammed and she could see the reflection coming back. One tall, with heavy dark hair, one her son, being led back into the room the familiar ease of an older brother guiding a small boy through a shopping centre. Except that Josh was crying silently.
She should have stayed, should have pushed through the ceiling, should have torn away her own skin before she let someone hurt Josh, but instinct sent her squirming back up through the hole, whimpering like a child, pulling the dangling light fitting behind her like a trap-door spider. Her ankle twisted, pain shot up her leg, but she didn't scream.
She knew that figure she knew exactly whose it was. And now everything made sense.
Caffery left the Jaguar in the car park, forgot to pay and display, and raced into the building. He took the stairs two at a time, the squeal of his shoes on the shiny lino making orderlies pushing wheelchairs stop and stare.
He ran. Ahead of him, at the end of the long, polished corridor, the door to the I.C.U flew open. A nurse came out, pressing a crumpled paper towel against the bib of her uniform. As he got closer to her he could see darkness on the towel and when they passed each other he saw it was blood that was mashed into her bib.
The door opened again and this time the police officer came out, his face pale, blood on his hands. 'In there.' He nodded. Caffery pushed past him into the unit.
The window in the nurses' room was open, a soft breeze playing through the ward. In Peach's small annexe curtains had been pulled around his bed, and two nurses, faces set, busied themselves, silently mopping the floor and the walls. The curtain, lit from within like a vast, stretched Hallowe'en lantern, had a huge peacock-tail stain in the centre, a great, plumed splatter of blood, almost the size of a human. And beneath the bed on the floor where the nurses mopped shiny and rubbery as black PVC, more blood flattened out towards Caffery's feet.
Two miles away in Brixton DC Logan was enjoying that Red Stripe in the Prince of Wales. The marketing girls at Clock Tower Grove had been funny with him, stared at the sweat marks under his arms, so he'd given up and come back down the hill. He could fake the report, he decided. Jack Caffery, it was well known in AMIT, had gone off the rails recently: probably his head done in by his nutty girlfriend with her trick pelvis and weed habits. DI Jack Caffery was crazy. Everyone knew he was letting loose in all directions, giving everyone both barrels for no reason. And Logan had not liked the sly threats Caffery'd made about his overtime. Young Turk, my arse, Logan thought, going to the bar for a refill.
Twenty-four.
In Norfolk the forest at the top of the quarry was quiet, only the ghostly pitter-patter of rain on the leaves.
