Every ten minutes or so a car went by on the road half a mile away. Some had their headlights on although it was midday. Tracey Lamb lit a cigarette and leaned back against the rusty old Datsun, staring at the cars. She felt confident, pleased with herself. When she got home yesterday she had taken Carl's 'book' and sat in his bedroom, on his bed that bed was his pride and joy black and silver lacquer with mirrors set in the headboard, and started calling his friends. None of them seemed to know about Penderecki's death as if they cared and when she told them about the visit from DI Caffery they all went into a panicking free fall
'Jesus Christ, Tracey'. Don't bring your shit to my doorstep.'
'It's not just my shit '
And then horrified realizations at the end of the line. 'Tracey? Tracey, whose fucking phone is this? Don't tell me you're calling on your own phone?'
'Why?'
'Oh, you stupid fucking slag, you're even stupider than I thought And down went the phone. By the time she'd got to the end of the book the bush telegraph had been humming and the phones had all been taken off the hook. She had sat there smoking, among Carl's barbells, the weight-lifting belts and his DVD collection. She'd wanted to cry. The gates were closing and she'd been left outside. Penniless.
Well, fuck you all, she'd decided fuck every last one of you, you bunch of perverts. She should have given them all up to Caffery the arse holes
Now she wiped her face, threw the cigarette into the undergrowth, straightened and coughed up a little phlegm. Here the grass and ferns stood high and thick and undisturbed; this was the little clearing Carl had used for dumping dodgy vehicles. At the far end, past the dead cars and among the wild poppies and storks-bill, so far over it was almost in danger of falling into the quarry, was the caravan. It was old the rain was turning it green in places and the scratched acrylic windows were thick with condensation. Peeling letters on the side were a reminder of Carl's attempts to start a hot-dog stand. The business hadn't taken off, but the sign was still there she could see a faded stencilled price list, 'Hot Dog 15p', and the nailed-up hatch he'd cut in the side. The Borstal boys used to live in the caravan when they stayed. They always seemed to be drunk on White Lightning cider and puking up into the quarry. Carl, who could always find work for an extra pair of hands, had liked having them around, especially in the late seventies when he had somehow wangled the licence to pick up wrecks from car accidents. 'Cut and shunt', they called it, and most of the write-offs somehow found it back on to the streets with a little help from the Borstal boys: re sprays welding, fibreglass filling, get rid of those etched windows. Carl would pay them in duty-free cigarettes and gin from his beer runs to Calais, or he'd give them the car radios to fence if they could stop the bereaved parents claiming them. How many times had Tracey witnessed one of the Borstal boys standing in the garage explaining to a couple why they couldn't have the radio from their dead son's car: 'The radio's not in a very pretty state, as it happens, probably best left well alone eh?' And if they persisted: 'I never wanted to say this but you can't 'ave the radio cos there's claret all over it and something worse clogging up the tape deck.' That would usually end the argument.
They'd cut up cars like abattoir animals using every spare piece. Carl really had a way with him the only thing he hadn't been able to out-think was the cancer. He got it, like a present, for his forty-eighth birthday.
'It's cancer of the sixty Capstan a day, love. It's the same way your mother went it'll be the way you'll go too. Family tradition.' He'd always been rat-thin, but when he died Carl was even thinner like something from a concentration camp, she thought. And as soon as he'd gone the others lost interest and drifted away, and the wind came in off the fens and blew through the garage at night and made the corrugated iron rattle.
Now Tracey found her keys and got back into the old Datsun. She was hot in spite of the rain and immediately the windows steamed up. She put the radio on, turned the car round and drove off along the top of the quarry, the car jerking and lurching in the potholes. Wet ferns and nettles slapped down on the windscreen and behind her the caravan's little curtained window got smaller and smaller until it had disappeared in the dripping forest.
She had a plan, and had just taken the first steps towards making it a reality. She knew that there was nothing left for her here Carl's death had left her high and dry: she didn't know how she was going to make next month's rent she didn't even know how much it was, or whether Carl had a deal with the landlord. Christ, she didn't even know who the landlord was. You always kept me away from the money, Carl, didn't you? But she had some ideas. Once, twenty years ago, Carl had gone to Fuengirola he knew people out there and had some business to deal with. It was the only time he'd been out of England, and he'd come back with stories of drinking cocktails on yachts and a postcard of a little village that looked in the sun like sugar cubes stuck to the edge of the mountain. It looked like heaven up there so close to the sky, and the olive trees and the bright flowers hanging over the walls, blazing like gypsy scarves. Tracey Lamb felt sure she could be happy there. And she thought that the key to that happiness, the money to make it a reality, might come from DI Caffery's need to discover what had happened to Penderecki's boy.
Ayo came out from the curtains holding a bedpan full of plastic line clamps and bloodied towels.
'Oh!' She put her hand on her chest. 'You made me jump.'
The good-looking detective again the one she'd imagined blabbing her mad ideas to. About Ben and Hal and how Josh was peeing on things. Maybe she'd tell him, make him laugh, show him there were no hard feelings.
'What's happened? What's going on?'
'Eh? Oh…' She looked back to where Alek Peach lay groaning softly. 'He got agitated, coming out of sedation. Pulled his radial artery line out it looks worse than it is.'
'The blood?'
'We were giving him blood when he pulled it out. Most of that,' she nodded to the floor, 'is from the bag, not from him. He's in no danger.'
'Right.' He started towards the bed. 'I'll talk to him now.'
'Uh Ayo skilfully put herself in his way. 'I'm sorry. Mr. Friendship still hasn't given me the all-clear.'
'Mr. Friendship is more interested in pissing me off than anything.'
'Maybe you should talk to him about that.' She held up her hand to guide him out of the door. When he didn't move she dropped her head to one side. 'Look, I'm sorry, and I really mean that. I'm sorry. If it was up to me…'
'Ayo, listen,' he hissed. 'It was him. He did it. He killed his son.'
Ayo closed her mouth. So he is a suspect they should have warned us.
'Come on, Ayo…'
'Look.' She closed her eyes and held up her hand. 'Thank you for telling me, but I'm sorry, you know, I have to not care what you think he's done.'
'Oh, for Christ's sake. You crappy fucking do-gooders.'
Her eyes snapped open. 'There's no need for that.'
'I know.' He looked around the room, helpless, frustrated. 'But you're just proving that really you don't give a shit. I mean, did you read the newspapers about Rory? Did you read what that man in there did} To his own son?'
Ayo swallowed, her blood pressure rising. 'I've already explained my our position, so…' She pressed her hand to her belly. The baby was kicking, as if it was angry on her behalf. '… so if you'd be good enough to leave now, please please just respect us, OK? Or I'll have to call Security.'
'Thanks, Ayo,' he said. 'Thanks for the generosity of spirit.' He opened the door to leave. 'I'll remember it.'
'And don't come back until we call you,' she yelled down the ward after him, 'which could be several days.'
Afterwards her hands were trembling. She put down the bedpan and went into the nurses' station where she sat, breathing carefully, waiting for her heart to stop thumping. One of the junior nurses was concerned. 'Hey? You OK?'
'God I dunno. I think so.' Ayo put her head back and breathed in through her nose. Her pulse was racing, she felt nauseous she supposed it must be some form of panic-attack. The nurse, seeing her clammy face, her shaking hands, came in and put the kettle on.
'I'm going to make you some camomile tea. Can't have you stressed in your condition, can we, Mother?'
'God, thanks you're a lamb.' Ayo settled back, rolling the top of her tights down and cupping her hands around her stomach. A Braxton Hicks came and went, but she breathed her way through it. For God's sake he only raised
