‘I didn’t see all of them. There’d be people in and out – subcontractors, that sort of thing. We sacked one lot of builders, brought in another. I lost track of all the faces – all the cups of tea I made. But I’m sure – almost sure – I never saw him.’
‘I’d like, if possible, when Cory turns up, to get the details of all those workmen. The names of the builders you sacked. I’d like to be speaking to them as soon as possible. Have you got it all in a file at home? All the details? Or can you remember them?’
She sat for a few moments with her mouth half open, staring at Caffery. Then she let the air out of her lungs, dropped her head and rapped her forehead with her knuckles. One-two-three. Onetwo-three. One-two-three. Hard: making the skin redden. As if she wanted to knock some thoughts out of her head. If it had gone on any longer he’d have grabbed her hand. But the rapping stopped as abruptly as it had started. She composed herself – eyes closed now, hands folded primly on her lap. ‘I know what you’re telling me. You’re telling me that he’d been watching Emily.’ She kept her eyes closed and spoke rapidly, as if she had to concentrate on getting every word out before she forgot it. ‘That he’d . . . stalked her? That he was in our house?’
‘We found some cameras in the Bradleys’ house today. So we went back to Mere – looked at your place. And we found the same thing.’
‘Cameras?’
‘I’m sorry. Ted Moon was able to install a CCTV system in your house without you knowing.’
‘There weren’t any cameras in my house.’
‘There were. You’d never have seen them – but they were there. They were put there long before all this started, because there’s no sign of a break-in since you left.’
‘You mean he put them there when we were here, staying with my sister?’
‘Probably.’
‘So he was watching her? He was watching Emily?’
‘Probably.’
‘Oh, Christ. Oh, Christ.’ She put her face into her hands. ‘I can’t bear this. I can’t bear it. I just can’t do it.’
Caffery turned away and sat there, pretending to focus on the horizon. He was still thinking about all the assumptions he’d made, and the avenues he’d ignored. About how stupid he’d been not to see it all before. He should have known, when Moon came back for Emily and didn’t just drop it, that he’d chosen her a long time before the kidnap. That she wasn’t a random hit. But most of all Caffery was thinking that of the times he was grateful to be alone, childless and loveless, this was one of them. It really was true what they said: the more you have, the more you have to lose.
60
Flea wasn’t hungry but she needed the fuel. She sat on the ledge in the hull, her legs in the sludge, and listlessly chewed the sandwich Prody had left her. She was shivering, her whole body convulsing. The meat in it was greasy and heavy-tasting, with tiny bits of cartilage and other gristle. She had to follow each mouthful with a gulp of water to wash it down her sore throat.
Prody was dead. No doubt in her mind. At first she’d watched the rope moving back and forward, leaving a scar in the moss and slime on the wall. That had gone on for fifteen minutes. It had stopped when he’d got to the top of the forty-foot shaft. ‘Going for a walk,’ he’d yelled down at her. His voice echoed and bounced around the tunnel. ‘No signal.’
Of course there’s not, she thought bitterly. Of course not. But she’d wet her lips and yelled, ‘OK. Good luck.’
And that had been that.
Something had happened to him on the surface. She knew what the top of the air shaft was like. Years ago, on the training exercise, she’d been there. She recalled woods, bridle-paths, grassy glades and yard after yard of impenetrable undergrowth. He’d have been tired. Would probably have sat down at the top of the shaft to recover after the climb. Easy pickings for Martha’s kidnapper. And now the day was on the wane. The great circle of daylight powering down from the shaft had moved slowly across the canal, throwing down the shadows of plants. It had thinned to an irregular sliver on the moss-covered wall, like a smiling mouth. All the shadows in the tunnel were starting to run into another so when she looked through the hole she couldn’t see the corners of the tunnel any more. Could hardly see Martha’s shoe.
Prody had reacted badly to the shoe. He’d been in Traffic, first on the scene to all the unimaginable accidents. He was supposed to be unflappable, but something about the shoe had shocked even him.
She lifted her arm and studied her hand. Her fingers were patched purple and white – one of the early symptoms of hypothermia. The body-racking shivering wouldn’t last. That would go as she sank nearer to death. She balled up the cellophane, pushed it inside the bottle. There was hardly any light left. If she was going to get out of here she had to do it now. She’d spent an hour sculling around the sludge and had already found an old acrow – an iron pit prop – lying in the sump hole. It was covered with slime but not too rusted and she’d lodged its top plate under the hatch. She’d found a sturdy six-inch nail that she could wedge into the acrow-winding mechanism and for the last two hours she had been laboriously tightening it, pushing the prop up into the hatch. She planned to dislodge the windlass. And then what? Crawl to the surface and be picked off like a First World War soldier going over the top? Better than dying from cold down here.
Hey? You know how to make God laugh? Tell him your plans.
she got to her feet, legs creaking and aching. Wearily she put the bottle into the net pocket of the rucksack, then reached for the nail to start winding the acrow. It was gone.
It had been on the ledge – right here next to her. She moved her hands frantically, skimming over the rivets and the slime. Half an hour it had taken to find that nail, feeling around in the muck at the bottom of the barge sump. She fumbled for the head torch in the rucksack, pulled it out and the nail came with it. Fell, plinkplink, on to the ledge.
She froze. Stared at the nail. It had been in the rucksack. But she’d left it on the ledge. She remembered making a careful decision to put it on there. Or did she really remember that? She put her hand to her head, momentarily dizzy. She did remember putting it on the ledge, she was sure. It meant her memory was slipping. Another symptom of hypothermia shutting her system down.
She picked up the nail in numb fingers. It wasn’t quite thick enough for the hole in the acrow and she pushed it easily into the mechanism. There were tender gullies in her palms where the nail had dug in earlier, even through the gloves, and now she lined it up with those channels, ignoring the pain, and leaned all her weight on the nail. It didn’t move. With a grunt she did it again. And again. It didn’t move. Fucking thing. She rammed at it again. Still nothing. And again.
‘Shit.’
She sat on the ledge. Sweat prickled under her arms in spite of the cold. The last time the nail had moved was more than an hour ago. And then it had been less than half a centimetre. A sign like that was telling her to give up.
But she had no other choice.
The right ankle cuff on her immersion suit felt wrong. She submerged her hand in the water and touched the ankle carefully. The cuff itself was OK but, above it, the neoprene bulged tight as if water was trapped in there. She used her hands to lift her leg out of the muck, rest it on the ledge. She strapped on the head lamp and she leaned over to study the suit. Above the ankle it ballooned out. When she moved her leg she could feel fluid sloshing around. Gingerly she slid a finger under the cuff and pulled it. Something like water gushed out. Warm. Red in the torch beam.
Fuck. She leaned her head against the bulkhead, took deep, slow breaths to stop the giddiness. The wound in her thigh had opened and that was one hell of a lot of blood to lose. If she’d seen someone else lose that much she’d be getting them to hospital. And fast.