a first-floor window on to the concrete patio if he didn't.
By the time the interview was over all three of them were shaking. Caffery realized now how little he'd thought through what it had been like in number thirty. To hear it come out of Peach's mouth awed and silenced him. Maybe that was why Peach had given him the bullshit about his eyes maybe he'd been afraid that Caffery would look right into him and see all the lies he'd had to tell about Rory.
They walked down the stairs in silence. Souness bought them both coffee from a vending machine and they went out into the shocking sunshine. The car was too hot to drive, so they opened the doors and sat on the seats with their feet on the tarmac, sipping their drinks.
'So,' Souness said, after a while, pulling the rear-view over to check her face, removing a little fleck of dirt from the corner of her eye, 'where does that put us now?'
Caffery was silent. He sat with his feet apart, elbows resting on his knees, staring into the coffee. Peach had told them how panicky the troll had got when the doorbell rang, how he'd whimpered and barged around the kitchen trying to get out. But Peach had still been blindfolded and was unable to give them a better description of him. Still, one thing he had said was jammed in Caffery's head.
'Jack? I asked you a question.'
'Yeah sorry.' He drank his coffee down and crumpled the plastic cup. 'How are we doing for tick-tocks?' He checked his watch. 'Right, my lads'll be back from door-to-door by now you feel like going through their statements for me?'
'And where are ye going to be?'
'I'm going home.'
'Ye're just going tae dump me here in the middle of shagging Camberwell?'
'No. I'll drive you back first.' He took the keys out of the door and put them in the ignition. 'You deserve a lift after what you just did.'
Souness, who was holding her collar out and blowing air down it to try to cool down, stopped when she heard that. She turned to him, a suspicious look in her eyes. 'Jack? That wasn't a wee compliment slipped through there, was it now?'
'Don't let it go to your head. Now, come on, shut the door.'
It was the first time Caffery had been home this early for a long time. The sunlight illuminated unused dusty corners of the house, and the windows needed cleaning. The answer phone was blinking he put his briefcase on the sofa, opened the french windows and listened to the message while he sat at the top of the garden steps pulling off his shoes and socks.
'It's me, Tracey. I got remanded.'
'I'm not interested, Tracey.' He padded into the kitchen. 'You're a fucking liar and I've stopped playing.'
'They never give me bail and I got custody instead and I'm in Holloway, if you want to see me.' She hesitated as if she was about to say something and Caffery, in the kitchen, reaching into the back of the fridge to retrieve a solitary old can of Heineken, paused and looked round into the hall. 'And, anyway, that's where I am. You could bring me some fags,' she added pathetically, 'if you wanted. And a phone card.'
Yes, you slag. He slammed the fridge. Yes, you're still a wind-up merchant. He padded into the hallway to wipe the message and found Rebecca waiting for him on the stairs.
'Who's Tracey?'
He stood, surprised and open-mouthed, guilty to be standing here in his own hallway. 'I didn't see your car.'
'I had to park round the corner. It's jammed outside.' She came down two steps so she was eye to eye with him. 'Who's Tracey?'
He sighed, avoiding her eyes.
'Well?'
'It doesn't matter.' He turned away, starting towards the kitchen. He knew that if he told her it would start an argument what Rebecca wanted to hear was that he was doing something in return for her gesture, that he was giving up Ewan. She certainly didn't want to know the sort of bait he was still taking. 'She's no one.'
'Jack, tell me.' She came down two more steps. 'Jack-'
'No you don't want to hear.'
'Please.'
'What?' He turned back to face her. 'I've just said you don't want to know, so leave it at that.'
She didn't flinch. 'Just tell me who she is.'
'Someone who's got me here.' He grabbed his balls. 'If you really want to know she's someone who's got me here and's enjoying jerking me around.'
'Why?'
He took a breath to reply, but changed his mind. 'No, leave it it's all about Ewan.'
'Oh.' She was silent. She tucked her bottom lip under her teeth and dug a little hole in the wooden banister with her thumbnail. He turned to go but she stopped him. 'Jack.'
'What?'
'It's OK, you know.'
'What?'
'About Ewan it's OK. You can't change your life just because your dumb, neurotic girlfriend wants you to.'
He was humbled. They sat at the kitchen table and talked and he was honest with her: he told her about finding the videos 'They've been in the hall cupboard all along' about going to see Tracey, about the arrest, about the way he'd gone to the Soho bank with the cash, paid it in and promised himself to forget it all. She sat opposite him, smoking thoughtfully, occasionally stopping him to ask a question. From time to time he had to remind himself that this was really happening, that they were sitting talking about it, and Rebecca wasn't just dismissing it, or sliding in cutting comments here and there.
'Jack,' she said, looking at the tip of her cigarillo, 'you know, it's true, it all really winds me up.' She wiped her face and pressed the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger. 'But,' she dropped her hand and looked up, 'it's only because I get scared. Only because I get scared of how tense you get. I get scared you'll hurt someone or yourself.'
'Me too.' He sighed, shaking his head. 'I get scared too.' He covered her hand with his. 'Rebecca…'
'What?'
'We'll have to talk about it later.'
She held up her hands. 'That's OK that's fine, really.'
'I've got to get on I'm in the middle of something.'
'Yes.' She put out the cigarillo and started to get up. 'Don't let me stop you.'
'I think you should go out.'
'Why?'
'Trust me I think you should go out.'
Roland Klare took the camera from the tin, bundled everything into a bag and left the flat, fumbling with his keys and nearly dropping them. He was anxious, he was sweating, but he had made up his mind. It was time.
The lift took him all the way to the ground floor without stopping once. He walked calmly out of Arkaig Tower, pausing in the street, his mouth moving, uncertain which was the best way. One or two passers-by looked at him suspiciously, but he was used to these odd stares and he just flapped his tongue out at them leave me alone, I am doing the right thing, doing what ought to be done -and turned right, away from them, clasping the bundle to his chest, heading off down Dulwich Road. The passers-by paused to look at the eccentric figure in ill-fitting, dirty clothes, hurrying in the direction of central Brixton. But they soon continued on their way and didn't think much more about it. That was the thing about Brixton always expect the unexpected.
It was 5 p.m. when he found it. As soon as Rebecca had gone to the bottom of the garden, with a cup of tea and a magazine and a promise to knock on the french windows if she wanted to come in, he got the videotapes from the cupboard and found the notes he'd made. Somewhere in his tearful, dreadful rambling, Peach had said something that had stuck and wouldn't go away. 'He kept saying that everything smelt of milk. He went around sniffing everything and complaining about it. Everything smelt of milk.' Caffery knew it had been among the tapes somewhere, but he couldn't automatically link that snatched piece of vocabulary to a specific scene. He consulted the notes he'd scribbled in the incident room and eliminated most of the tapes several had no soundtrack, or only a
