down here right now and get me, you stupid tranny. Come on down, Robbie. I'm waiting-'
Rob felt the anger overwhelm him. He leapt from his chair and ran out of the tent. An Irish policeman went to stop him but Rob just punched him out of the way. He was sprinting now. Running down the green, wet, skiddy Irish hill, to save his daughter. Running as fast as he could. His heartbeat was like a mad bass drum thumping in his ears. He ran and ran, he half fell on the soggy turf then got up again and he threw himself down the hill and pushed past some more policemen with guns and black helmets who tried to stop him, but he screamed at them and they fell back and then Rob was at the cottage door and he was inside the cottage.
Police were running up the narrow cottage stairs but Rob overtook them. He dragged one policeman out of the way, feeling as if he could throw someone off a cliff if he had to. He felt stronger than he had ever felt in his life, and angrier than was possible: he was going to slay Cloncurry and he was going to do it now.
Moments later he was at the locked and sealed door and the cops were shouting at him to get out of the way but Rob ignored them: he kicked and kicked at the door, and somehow it gave way: the locks buckled. He kicked again. He could feel the bones in his ankle almost crack but he kicked a final time and the door groaned and the hinges snapped and Rob was in.
He was in the bedroom. And there was…
Nothing. The room was…empty.
There was no chair, no laptop, no Cloncurry; no Lizzie. The floor was scattered with the signs of a squalid occupation. Half-opened tins of food. Some clothes and dirty coffee cups. A newspaper or two; and there, in the corner, a pile of Christine's clothes.
Rob felt his mind orbiting close to insanity. Being pulled into some vortex of illogic. Where was Cloncurry? Where was the chair? The discarded hood? Where was his daughter?
The questions whirled in his mind as police filed into the room. They tried to usher Rob out, to take him away, but he didn't want to go. He needed to solve this dark and concussing puzzle. He felt fooled, humiliated and griefstruck. He felt a serious proximity to madness.
Rob looked frantically around the room. He saw little cameras, trained on the space. Was Cloncurry somewhere else? Watching them? Laughing at them? Rob could somehow feel the hideous buzz of Cloncurry's laughter, somewhere, out there on the internet, laughing at him.
And then he heard it. A real noise. A muffled noise coming from the wardrobe in the corner of the room. It was a human voice, but gagged and muffled: Rob knew that sound very well by now.
He pushed another Gardai officer aside, went straight to the wardrobe and opened the door.
Two wide frightened eyes stared at him from the darkness. A muffled voice of pleading, and relief, and even love, moaning from behind a gag.
It was Christine.
44
Rob was sitting in a swivel chair at Dooley's desk. Dooley's office was on the tenth floor of a gleaming new building overlooking the River Liffey. The views from the picture windows were stupefying, from the junction of the river and the Irish Sea in the east, to the soft Wicklow Hills beyond the city, to the south. The hills looked green and innocent under clearing skies. If Rob squinted he could actually discern the low, sullen shape of Montpelier House on top of its wooded hill, a dozen miles away.
The view of Montpelier returned him to stark reality. He swivelled to face the room: the office was full of people. Just ninety minutes had elapsed since the terrifying drama at the cottage under Hellfire Wood. They'd had one brief message from Cloncurry showing that Lizzie was still alive. But where? Where was she? Rob bit a fingernail, trying to work it out, desperately trying to piece the puzzle together.
Christine was talking animatedly and lucidly. Dooley leant towards her. 'Are you sure you don't need the paramedics to-'
'No!' she snapped. 'I'm fine. I told you. They didn't harm me.'
Boijer interrupted. 'So how did they get you to Ireland?'
'Boot of a car. In a car ferry. Judging by the rancid smell of diesel and seawater.'
'You were stuck in the boot?'
'I survived. It was only a few hours in the car, and then the boat. And then here.'
Forrester nodded. 'Well, that's what we guessed. They were driving between Britain and Ireland, taking the ferry, avoiding customs controls. Miss Meyer, I know it's traumatic but we need to know as much as we can, as soon as we can.'
'As I said, I'm not traumatized, Detective. Ask me anything.'
'OK. What do you recall? Do you know when the gang split? We know they kept you and Lizzie together, for a day or two in England: any idea where?'
'Sorry.' Christine was talking in an odd way, Rob noticed: staccato, sharp. 'I have no idea where they kept me, sorry. Somewhere near Cambridge perhaps? The first drive wasn't long, maybe an hour. Lizzie and I were both in a car boot. But then they took us out. Hooded and gagged. They were talking a lot, and I guess then they split up. After about a day and a half maybe? It's hard to tell when you are in a gag and hooded and fairly terrified.'
Forrester smiled, quietly and apologetically. Rob could sense him trying to work through the logic. Boijer said, 'But I still don't get it. What was the whole drama for? The poor woman in the video, the stick in the garden, when he threatened to kill the girl. What was that about?'
'He saw it as an opportunity to torture Rob. Psychologically,' said Christine. 'That's Cloncurry's style. He's a psychotic. Flamboyant and theatrical. Remember, I was with him a while. Not the best hours of my life.'
Rob glanced her way; she stared right back. 'He never touched me. I wonder if he's asexual. Either way, I do know he's an exhibitionist. A show-off. He likes to make people watch what he does. Make the victims suffer, and make those who love them suffer too…'
Forrester had stood, and walked to the window. The soft Irish sun was on his face. He turned and said quietly, 'And human sacrifice was traditionally performed in front of an audience. De Savary told me that. What was the word he used…the propitiary power of sacrifice comes from its being watched. The Aztecs would haul people to the top of pyramids so the whole town could see their hearts being pulled out. Right?'
'Yes,' Christine added. 'Like the Viking ship burials-very public ceremonies of sacrifice. And the impaling of the Carpathians-again, a big public ritual. Sacrifice is meant to be observed. By the people, by the kings, by the gods. A theatre of cruelty. That's the appeal for Cloncurry. Prolonged, public and very elaborate cruelty.'
'And that's what he was planning for you, Christine,' Forrester said gently.' A public impaling. In the cottage garden. I guess the gang in Ireland fucked up.'
'How?'
'They started arguing and shooting,' Dooley said. 'I think the gang lost control, without him-without the leader.'
'But there's another thing,' Boijer added. 'Why did Cloncurry leave the gang in Ireland when he must have known they would get caught, get shot even?'
Rob laughed bitterly. 'Another sacrifice. He sacrificed his own men. In public. He was probably watching as the Gardai killed them. He had those cameras everywhere in the cottage. I imagine he enjoyed the whole thing, watching it on his computer screen.'
The central question had been raised. Boijer voiced it.
'So. Where is Cloncurry? Where the hell is he now?'
Rob glanced at the policemen in turn. At last Dooley said, 'Surely he must be in England?'
'Or Ireland,' Boijer replied.
Christine suggested, 'I think maybe he's in France.'
Forrester frowned. 'Sorry?'
'When I was tied up and hooded I'd hear him going on and on about France and his family there. He loathed his family, family secrets, all that. His horrible inheritance. That's what he kept saying. How much he hated his family-his mother, in particular…In her stupid house in France.'
'I wonder…' Boijer stared at Forrester with a significant expression. The DCI nodded sombrely. 'Maybe the
