“A bottle of red wine is fine.”
“Right. I’ll order pizza and a bottle of red wine. Anything else?”
“Not right now, no.”
“Maybe some bottled water, too, hey? Can’t be too careful. Fizzy or still?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Tracy. “Tap water’s fine with me.”
“Fizzy,” said Jaff. “Right. Good. Good.” His leg was twitching from the coke now, and he made no move toward the telephone. “What about Madison?”
“Madison?”
“Yeah. The blond girl on the desk. She’s American. I bet she’d be game for it. Shall I see if I can get her to nip up, too, for some fun and games? A threesome?”
“Don’t bother on my account. She’s probably busy, anyway.”
“I suppose so.”
“Look, do you want me to call?” Tracy asked. She stood up and walked toward the telephone. “I’ll do it, if you like.”
Jaff wagged his finger as he swiftly intercepted her. “Clever try,” he said. “No doubt there’s some secret code you can use to communicate with Madison and get her to put you through to your father. You like your father, don’t you? Love him, even. I hated mine. No way. I’ll do it.” He went over to the phone and ordered a pizza with green peppers, pepperoni and chicken, and a bottle of chardonnay, then hung up, licked his lips and walked over to her, coming a little too close for comfort. Tracy started to back slowly away. “While we’re waiting, though,” he said, “why don’t we…? I mean, it has been a while. Work up an appetite. Know what I mean? Even if it is just the two of us.”
“You mean sex?” Tracy said, hoping she didn’t sound as incredulous as she felt. “After everything that’s happened? You want sex? You’re sick, you. You must be joking.”
But the expression on his face said not. “I’ll show you how sick I am,” he said. “And how much I’m joking.”
Tracy felt his hand grasp her throat and push her toward the bed behind. The backs of her knees hit the edge of the mattress, and her legs buckled, causing her to fall back. She knew then that he wasn’t joking.
15
ANNIE CABBOT FELT AS IF SHE WERE DRAGGING HERSELF up from the depths of the ocean, huge shadows circling her in the dark green mist, slimy fronds of underwater plants undulating in the water, wrapping themselves around her arms and legs to immobilize her as she tried to float to the surface, pulling her back. She struggled in the grip of invisible tentacles that wouldn’t let go, no matter how much she kicked and thrashed. The pressure of the water pushed down on her chest, into her lungs, so she couldn’t breathe but only flail uselessly as the tentacles hauled her down. She opened her mouth and breathed in deep gulps of salt water, and suddenly she was floating free, calm, wrapped in a warm cocoon, rising up, up. Just as she was about to give in to the drowsy warmth that was spreading through her body, she burst to the surface and her lungs were suddenly filled with cool air.
Annie’s first sensation was of pain; her second was panic. There was something stuck down her throat, and she felt as if it was choking her. As she fought to control her racing heart she could hear the buzzing and beeping of the machines surrounding her. Okay, she told herself, opening her eyes and slowly adjusting to the dim light. Be calm. You’re in hospital. Hooked up to machines. She had thought someone was with her-Ray, her father-but she soon realized that she was actually alone.
She couldn’t remember how she had got there, and she only had the poorest recollection of why, but she was alone in a room, her bed slightly raised, propping her at a thirty degree angle. There were tubes coming out of her chest as well as the one down her throat, and IVs hooked up to a catheter on the back of her hand. Pouches of blood, plasma and clear liquid hung on stands beside the bed. Beyond them was an illuminated screen which told her that her blood pressure was 125/91 and her heart rate 102. Even as she watched, the automatic sphygmomanometer strapped to her upper arm activated itself. Her BP was now 119/78, heart rate 79. She tried to relax. That was better, she thought. Not bad at all. But her throat still hurt and her breathing felt the same way it had under the ocean in her waking dream.
As she took stock of herself and her various aches and pains, needles and machines, she realized that one thing struck her above all others: she was still alive. Maybe she was dying, a machine doing her breathing for her, or maybe she had even died and been brought back, but right now she was alive. Her brain felt slow and heavy, as if it were stuffed with warm cotton wool, and her memory felt tenuous and flimsy, but it still worked. Her nose also seemed to be in the right place, ears, arms, legs and torso, too. What really hurt most of all were her chest and her back. Painkillers dulled some of it, but not enough. From her neck down to her stomach, front and back and inside, she felt as if she had been beaten black and blue by a giant cricket bat. Maybe she had been. Maybe that was why she was here. She could feel her toes, though, even wiggle them; and she could clench and unclench her hands, so she knew that her neck or her back weren’t broken.
Annie had a hazy sense of people going about their business outside her room, of muffled conversations, laughter and tannoy messages, but there was no clock, and she didn’t know where her watch was, so she had no sense of time, day or night. She lay there trying to calm the images of fear and panic that had first crowded her mind on her trip back from the underworld. She felt dreadfully thirsty and noticed a plastic cup of water on the bedside table, complete with a bendy straw, then she realized she couldn’t drink anything with the tube down her throat. Nor could she call out. Feeling the panic rise again, she looked for a bell or a buzzer, and finding a button, pressed it, but even as she did so, she became aware of people dashing into the room, and there was no doubt that one of them was Ray, bearded and disheveled as ever. She couldn’t speak, but her heart ached with love for him, and she was sure the tears streamed down her cheeks as she lay back, exhausted with her efforts, and waited for the doctor and nurses to take out the tube that was choking her.
EVERYONE IN the boardroom close to midnight that Thursday night was tired, but none of them would entertain any ideas of sleep until Annie’s shooter had been brought to justice, and until Banks’s daughter was safe. Banks and Winsome were present, along with Gervaise, and Doug Wilson, Geraldine Masterson, Vic Manson, Stefan Nowak and several uniformed officers from Traffic, Patrol and Communications. They had already been cheered by the news that the fingerprints Vic Manson had taken from the photograph The Farmer had handled matched those on the magazine of the Smith & Wesson automatic found in Erin Doyle’s possession. It confirmed the link they already suspected between The Farmer, Jaff McCready and the murder of Marlon Kincaid. But there was no sign of Justin Peverell on the electoral rolls.
“I think we’re getting to the stage now where everyone’s feeling just a bit twitchy,” Gervaise said when Banks and Winsome had finished telling everyone about their visits to Victor Mallory and The Farmer. “There are just so many sides to the equation.” She glanced at Doug Wilson and Geraldine Masterson. “What did you get from West Yorkshire Homicide and Major Enquiries?”
Wilson indicated that Geraldine Masterson should do the talking. “Not a lot, ma’am,” she said, clearly nervous to find herself performing in front of such a distinguished audience for the first time. “Detective Superintendent Quisling was able to confirm that the body of Marlon Kincaid was discovered beside a bonfire close to Woodhouse Moor, Leeds, in the early hours of sixth November, 2004.”
“By a jogger?” Banks asked. “A dog walker?”
“No, sir. Someone had to douse the flames, make sure the fire was out. Health and Safety.”