'I'm your informant. You're supposed to register me. Have you?'
'Of course I have.'
'You're the liar.' She smiled. 'I know your sort you're worse than my sort because you're legal. Much worse.'
'Don't threaten me, Tracey '
'Five K and I'll show you what happened.'
'Uh-uh.' He turned to go. 'You're in a sit com now, Tracey.'
'Listen!'
'No way.' He started towards the car, holding up his hand to dismiss her. 'No fucking way.'
'You'd be really, really surprised what I found out me brother knew all along.' She jumped up, determined he shouldn't go. This was her one-way ticket sauntering away across the sunny forecourt. 'You'd be surprised what happened to Penderecki's boy and what I can tell you about him.' Caffery was walking faster now and she hurried after him, her arms extended, her feet in the yellow high heels pecking the ground like a wading bird. 'Look, I'm not fucking with you why would I?' The phlegm rattled away in her throat. 'I can show you exactly what happened to him. Not tell you, I'll show you.'
'Tracey.' Caffery stopped and held up his finger warningly 'Cut the bullshit, Tracey. I mean it!' A flock of crows took to the air from the trees behind him, startling her by the way those wings darkened the sky so quickly as if the crows wanted to emphasize his words. 'I'm going straight back to London,' he said, 'and I'm going to hand the whole thing over to the Yard and don't fucking ring me again with your fairy-tales.'
'But '
'But nothing.' He swung the keys on his finger and turned for the car, leaving her standing next to the rusted old Fiat.
'Fuck,' she muttered after a while, deflated. The Jaguar reversed up the drive and she stood, watching the flock of crows bank away against the blue sky. When they had disappeared behind the trees she turned and limped back to the house.
Afterwards she sat on the doorstep, staring out at the hangar, at the rusting old engines, and the old Land- rover roofs tangled in woodbine. She had almost forgotten she was holding a cigarette. It was only when it burnt her fingers that she dropped it. She scowled, leaned over, pulling her hair back from her face, and let a globe of granular phlegm drop directly on top of the burning butt. She was scuffing the phlegm with her shoe, so she didn't slide on it in the morning, when she heard wheels on the gravel. She looked up, suddenly nervous.
'Oh, fuck.' She got to her feet, wheezing, sliding the locks on the door and hurrying back inside the house. Maybe he meant it maybe here come the mates She had got half-way down the corridor when she heard the voice ahead of her.
Tracey!'
That made her stop just by the kitchen door, her heart knocking against her throat. She swallowed. Rested her bitten nails on the doorpost and leaned cautiously back into the hallway. He was standing motionless in the sunlit front doorway, his hands in his pockets, his face tight. A wasp had got into the house and was banging itself on the ceiling. 'What?' she called. 'What do you want?'
'Three grand.'
'What?'
'I said three grand I'll give you three.'
Roland Klare could have told the police that they needed to be looking for someone more than just Alek Peach. Oh, yes, he could tell them that in one sentence. He knelt on the sofa, his nose and hands pressed against the window, one knee jerking up and down nervously, and stared out at the lovely trees and dried-up lawns of Brockwell Park. The photographs hanging in a row in his darkroom clearly showed Alek Peach raping his son. But the same images made something else quite clear: they made it clear that Alek Peach hadn't been the only person in the house at the time. They made it clear that someone else had been involved the someone who was holding the camera. Klare made a little clicking noise in his mouth and tapped at the window, wondering what to do next. 'Hmmhm, yes,' he muttered. 'Hmm.' He pushed himself away from the glass and turned back to the big, well lit living room, rubbing his hands nervously.
Twenty-five.
Caffery got back to Shrivemoor just after 6 p.m. and as he parked he saw Kryotos, dressed in a cream jacket, climbing into her husband's car. He crossed the road. 'Anything happened?' he asked, both hands on the roof, looking up the road to check that no cars were coming in this lane. ' Logan back?'
'Been and gone, photocopied some Actions and left them in your pigeon-hole nothing doing.'
'Shit.' He bent down, looked into the car and nodded at Kryotos's husband. 'Pardon my language.'
'No problem.'
'There're some messages for you,' Kryotos said, putting on her seat-belt and eyeing Caffery cautiously. He had that run-ragged look about his eyes again. 'That dentist, he called, wants to talk to you, and someone called Gummer, oh and West End Central have found Champ Keodua-wotsit for you, if you still want to see him.'
'Peach?'
'No change.' She nodded up at the incident-room windows where the sunlight bounced off the silver anti-blast film. 'Danni's still up there.'
'Shit.'
'I know. She's not in the best mood.'
'OK.' He straightened up and knocked on the car roof. 'Right, thanks, Marilyn. See you tomorrow.'
The incident room was empty and Danni was in the SIO's room filling in her duty sheets for the month. Next to her was an open bottle of Glenfiddich an oiler courtesy of a Sunday tabloid journalist doing an article on geographical profiling: Caffery and Souness had talked her through the Rossmo/Barwell stuff and she'd squeezed three articles out of it.
'Danni?'
She looked up. 'Oh,' she muttered. 'You.' She went back to her work.
He stood awkwardly in the doorway, watching her, not certain whether to leave or stay. When she seemed determined not to speak to him he sat down at his desk, hands folded on his stomach, and stared out of the window in silence. Before long Souness caved in.
'Right.' She signed off the form, threw her pen on the desk and sat back in her chair. 'Spit it out.'
'OK…' He put his hands flat on the desk and looked out of the window for a moment, thinking how to approach this. 'I He turned to her. 'Look about this morning.'
'Yes?'
'I'm sorry.'
She pursed her mouth, looking at him suspiciously with her narrow, blue eyes.
'It was out of all proportion,' he continued. 'I'm finding this case, y'know, not great, for the reasons you know all about and I suppose I haven't been sleeping.' He shrugged. 'Just means I'm sorry.'
Her mouth remained in its sour little bud knot. 'I see.' She picked up the pen and tapped it on the desk, up- ending it, tapping, staring at the desk. She seemed about to say something, then changed her mind and rubbed her head. She stretched her arms in the air and looked out of the window. 'Oh, fuck,' she muttered. 'I suppose I'll have to forgive ye.'
'Oh,' he sighed, 'well thanks, you know, thanks for the build-up.'
'That's OK.' She put her finger in her ear and jiggled it ferociously, looking sideways at him. 'I don't think I could get my head that far up my own arse.' Could ye not have come up wi' something a wee bit better than that?'
'Next time, I'll try.'
'You do that,' she said, swivelling her chair round to face him, her hands clasped on her stomach. 'Anyway have ye seen this?' She shook her belly up and down. 'See that? I'm losing weight.' She looked up at him, her face serious. 'And didn't you say something about owing me dinner?'
