The helicopter passed. Essex stared up at grey sky beyond shifting silvery leaves. A bird circled, tilting its eye to watch him. His heart followed its cellular instinct and struggled on, pumping the last useless spoonfuls of sap out of the holes in his wrists.
Odd, he thought, I can't feel the rain on my face. Why can't I feel it landing on my face?
Twenty seconds later his heart, its inside walls sticky, webby, almost dry, shuddered a little and stopped. The rain came in clear pellets, hard as glass balls bouncing off his open eyes.
The helicopter missed Caffery and Bliss — it passed a quarter of a mile away from the ditch, continuing on, following the road towards the estuary.
Far below, under the tree cover, Caffery had reached the lip of the ditch when something made him pause.
He pressed his temples, as if there was a pain under the skin he could massage away. He turned and stared for several seconds at Bliss, waiting patiently — ornamented in blood and fluid. A bullfinch, attracted by the object tangled in the wire, had appeared a yard away in a sycamore sapling. It was no bigger than an infant's fist. It blinked, assessing for food, head on one side. Caffery stared at it for a long time before drawing a deep breath, slithering down the ditch again, pulling his shirt down over his fingers and taking the wire in his hands.
A thin, vivid spray filled the air — the vessel was pierced. Bliss squealed and jerked; his feet danced — hands jagged reflexively towards his neck. Caffery held his breath, tightened his grip and the vessel popped audibly, pushing a liquid rope of blood onto Bliss's white neck and hair.
Caffery stood back and watched quietly, absentmindedly pressing his black thumbnail into his palm, as Bliss's vitality emptied onto the ground. The detail that this was a life finishing didn't touch him — instead he felt only triumph, light-headed triumph.
Afterwards he counted to 100 to make sure it was over. Then he turned away, straightened his shirt and climbed back up the ditch.
Sergeant O'Shea's men found Joni's body blocking the narrow hallway. A quick glance told them she was dead. No-one could have lived with these injuries; her spine was clearly snapped and a broken bottle had been inserted in her vagina. Quinn went into the bungalow with the camera crew. After twenty minutes she reappeared, grim-faced, to escort Caffery and Maddox inside.
'He's left the other one in there.' She shone a torch down the darkened hallway. 'In the living room.' Quinn stopped and turned to them. 'You sure you want to see this?'
'Of course,' Caffery muttered. His shirt was wet with rain and blood. 'Of course.'
Quinn pushed the door open.
There was the smell of a holiday chalet about the room. The blinds were drawn, the furniture upright. Bright flowered cushions were propped on wicker dining chairs. Someone had been having a birthday party, a child's birthday party. Birthday cake was smeared on the table. The balloons bobbing against the ceiling were spattered with blood.
'Here.' Quinn stepped into the room. 'Turn round and you'll see.'
'Where?'
Quinn shone the torch over the saloon doors and up to the kitchen ceiling.
Maddox drew in a breath. 'Oh, Christ.'
She had been suspended, face down, like a tarpaulin swinging above the kitchen. Electric flex was wrapped around her wrists, looped up through a single hook in the ceiling, and wrapped back around her ankles. She was naked, except for a sheaf of clingfilm wrapped around her head and shoulders. Mummified. A thin stripe of daylight shone across blood-streaked thighs.
Quinn put her hand on Caffery's arm. 'Forensics, sir.'
'No.' He stepped into the room.
'Jack,' Maddox warned. 'Jack. We need forensics in here first. Jack—'
Caffery crossed the room slowly, the big muscles in the top of his chest contracting, his body instinctively sealing up its response. Underfoot the lino was tacky. His toes brushed against the metal room divider and he stopped, his hands on the swinging doors.
The grotesque creation twisted slightly, as if touched by a breeze. Under the clingfilm Rebecca's face was squashed and swollen.
Slowly, minutely, Caffery allowed himself to breathe.
Your imagination, Jack — see — it's not the Goliath you believe — it could never have invented this. And you really believed you wanted to find Ewan. You really thought you wanted to see.
A single pendulous drop squeezed out between a flap in the clingfilm under Rebecca's nose.
'Becky?' The tear dropped onto the lino. 'Becky?'
A vein in her neck twitched.
53
Rebecca was treated at Lewisham General. Caffery had refused to let her go to St Dunstan's. There were CT scans, angiographies, blood transfusions. Ninety-four hours elapsed before the ITU consultants could be sure she would live. As soon as he got the news Jack made the decision he had been pondering. He played God and jury, weighed judgement in a personal court, and chose, quite calmly, not to confess to Bliss's killing.
For four days he had been considering his options: disciplinary proceedings, hearings, internal inquiries. A criminal conduct dismissal and an independent trial. He tested these against letting it rest, letting the world go on believing that Bliss had died in the accident — before he could be reached.
Now he told himself that this self-preserving choice could, paradoxically, give him a new weapon. He had killed and not confessed — he was now the predator who knew his quarry. He could stand upright and invisible in the killer's own amphitheatre. The decision made, he surprised himself by adapting quickly — by the time Bliss's inquest rolled around Caffery was effortless in his lies, nailing the coroner's gaze down as he delivered his neat string of untruths.
Odd how calm you are. Is that all there is to it? Is it really this simple to lie and be believed?
But, seamless as he imagined the change, Rebecca wasn't deceived. She saw immediately that he was carrying something new — she had touched his face on her first day of consciousness and said simply, 'What?'
He pulled her hand to his mouth and kissed it. 'When you're well,' he murmured. 'As soon as you're well, I promise.'
But it was slow; there had been three more blood transfusions before she was out of danger and ten days later she remained too weak to accompany him to the funeral. So he drove alone out to the small Suffolk church and sat parcelled into a cold pew next to Marilyn Kryotos, uncomfortable in his hired suit.
Two pews ahead, Essex's mother sat dry-eyed, too bewildered to cry, pinpoint butterfly bows shivering in the netting of her hat. Caffery had found himself embarrassed to see Essex's features so carefully distributed between her and her husband, as if it was a vulgarity for them to show themselves amongst the arum lilies in the nave. He wondered if he would recognize his own face meted out between his parents if he ever saw them again. He wondered what sort of hat his mother might wear to a funeral, and the realization that he had no idea, no sense, made goosebumps rise on his arms.
The canticles began. Kryotos inched forward on her pew next to him, resting her elbows on the prayer-book ledge. She dropped her head.
'Mummy?' Jenna, in a small black velvet dress, black tights and patent button-over shoes, slipped off the pew and clung to Kryotos's leg, staring worriedly up under her hair. 'Mummy?'
On Kryotos's right Dean sat quietly, pulling at the collar of his first adult shirt. He was embarrassed. None of them could pretend not to notice the tears darkening the tapestry hassock at Kryotos's feet.