There was a long silence. Moon looked from Caffery to Turner and back again. ‘He killed her.’ He held his hands up in the air. ‘I’m not saying he didn’t. He killed Sharon Macy. But not to piss the parents off. And I wasn’t having an affair with that slag of a woman. Definitely not. Cut me open.’ He tapped his chest. ‘Cut me open and give me to your scientists. They’ll tell you what’s on my heart and what ain’t. I wasn’t having an affair with her.’
Caffery smiled lightly, meaning, yeah, yeah, yeah. You keep going with your fantasy, Peter, but we’ll get to the truth of it. ‘Sure there’s nothing you want to add?’ he said. ‘Bearing in mind we’re speaking to the Macys tonight?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Just here’s me thinking we’re going to hear a totally different story from them.’
‘You won’t.’
‘I think we will. I think we’ll hear that you were schtupping the Macy mother, and that your son killed Sharon because of it. I think we’re going to hear a whole catalogue of what he did to them later. The letters he sent them after the event.’
‘No, you won’t. Because he never did. He was banged up straight after.’
‘We will.’
‘You won’t. It’s not him,’ Moon said. ‘It’s not my son.’
There was a knock. Caffery let his eyes rest on Moon a bit longer. Then got up and went to the door. He found Prody standing in the corridor, slightly out of breath. He had a scrape on his cheek that Caffery didn’t remember seeing at the safe-house this morning. His clothing was a bit awry.
‘Jesus.’ Caffery closed the door behind him. He put a hand on Prody’s arm and led him a few steps down the corridor, away from the meeting room to the very back of the building where it was quiet and they couldn’t hear the phones ringing in the main offices. ‘You OK?’
Prody took a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his face. ‘Just about.’ He looked exhausted, completely drained. Caffery almost said to him: Hey, about the missus. I’m sorry. Don’t let it get to you. But he was still pissed off about a lot of things. Mostly the staying-overnight thing. And about Prody not calling him with progress on what the hell had happened to Flea. He took his hand away from Prody’s arm. ‘Well? Have you found something?’
‘It’s been an interesting afternoon.’ He shoved the handkerchief back into his pocket and ran a hand across his bristly haircut. ‘I spent a long time at her office – turns out she was rostered today and never showed. So people are starting to get a bit antsy, saying it’s not like her, et cetera, et cetera. So I went to her house but it’s all shut up – locked. No car there.’
‘And?’
‘Spoke to the neighbours. Now it turns out they are a bit calmer about the whole thing, put it all into perspective. Said they saw her yesterday morning packing the car – diving equipment, suitcase. She tells them she’s going on a weekend break – away for three days.’
‘She was supposed to be at work.’
‘I know. All I can think is she’s got the roster wrong, got a dud DMS printout, thinks she’s on a long annual or something. The neighbours were absolutely clear about it. They spoke to her. Unless one of them’s cut her up and put her under the floorboards.’
‘They didn’t have the name of the place she’s staying?’
‘No. But maybe it’s somewhere out of signal range. No one can get her on her mobile.’
‘Is that all?’
‘That’s all.’
‘What about that?’ He gestured at the scrape on Prody’s face. ‘Where’d you get that little artefact?’
Prody pressed his fingers to it gingerly. ‘Yeah – Costello really gave it to me. Suppose I deserve it. Is it that bad?’
Caffery thought about what Janice had said: ‘My husband is fucking Paul Prody’s wife.’ God, life was never easy.
‘Go home, mate.’ He put his hand on Prody’s back. Patted him. ‘You haven’t had a break in two days. Go home and put something on that. Don’t want to see you in the office until the morning. OK?’
‘I guess. I guess. Thank you.’
‘I’ll walk you down to the car park. Dog needs a pee break.’
They stopped at Caffery’s office and collected Myrtle from her place under the radiator. The three of them walked silently through darkened corridors that sprang to life with light as they entered, the men letting the old dog set the pace. In the car park Prody got into his Peugeot. Started the engine. Was about to pull away, when Caffery banged on the window.
Prody paused, sitting forward in the seat, his hand on the key. A look of annoyance crossed his face, and for a moment Caffery was reminded of the thing he didn’t trust about Prody. That the guy was a usurper. Trying to step into his own shoes. But he cut the engine. Patiently unwound the window. His pale eyes were very still. ‘Yeah?’
‘Something I wanted to ask you. About the hospital today.’
‘What about it?’
‘The tests they ran – they can’t find what Moon used to knock you out. None of you are testing positive for any of the major inhalant groups. And you had different reactions from the Costello women. You were the only one who heaved. Can you maybe speak to the hospital? Give them a bit more information.’
‘A bit more?’
‘Yeah. Maybe just give them the shirt you were wearing if you haven’t washed it. They’ll test your stomach contents. Just give them a call, mate. Make the men in the white coats happy?’
Prody let all the air out of his lungs. Still his eyes hadn’t moved. ‘Jesus. Yes. Of course. If I have to.’ He wound up his window. Started the car again and drove out into the street. Caffery followed a few steps behind, then stopped with one arm looped wearily over the gate, watching until the little Peugeot lion logo, lit red by the brakelights, disappeared from view.
He turned to Myrtle. Her head was down. She wasn’t looking at him. Caffery wondered if she felt as empty as he did. As empty and as scared. There wasn’t much time. He didn’t need a profiler to tell him what was next. Somewhere there was a family with cameras in their kitchen. In the parents’ bedroom too. He could sense it. Could smell it coming. In fact, if he had to put a stopwatch on it, he’d say there was less than twelve hours left before it happened again.
64
Jill and David Marley were sitting in the tops of the plane trees that bordered the garden. ‘London planes. The lungs of London.’ David Marley was smiling as he spoke. He was drawing tea from an elaborate samovar into a delicate bone-china cup. ‘Breathe in, Flea. Have to keep breathing in. No wonder you feel so sick.’
Flea began to climb the tree to her parents. But it was hard going – the leaves were in the way. Too thick, too choking. Each had a different colour and a different texture that she sensed as a taste in her mouth, either thin and acid or smooth and suffocating. Fighting her way through just a foot of them took for ever.
‘Keep breathing,’ came her father’s voice. ‘And don’t look down at yourself.’
Flea knew what he meant. She knew her stomach was swelling. She didn’t need to look down to know. She could feel it. Multicoloured worms as thick as fingers weaving their way through her intestines. Breeding and rolling and growing.
‘Shouldn’t have eaten it, Flea.’ Somewhere overhead in the trees her mother was calling. ‘Oh, Flea, you shouldn’t have touched that sandwich. You should have said no. Should never trust a man with clean trousers.’
‘Clean trousers?’
‘That’s what I said. I saw what you were doing with that man in the clean trousers.’
Tears ran down Flea’s face, a sobbing noise was coming out of her mouth. She’d climbed all the way up the tree. Except now it wasn’t a tree. It was a staircase – like an Escher painting, a staircase that started in a rickety Barcelona building, then twisted and stretched into the air above the roofs, sticking out naked and unsupported in the blue where clouds raced by. Mum and Dad were at the top. Dad had walked down a few steps and was holding his hand out to her. At first she’d reached for it gladly, knowing that taking Dad’s hand was salvation, but now she was crying because, no matter how hard she tried to grasp it, he was subtly avoiding letting her do it. He wanted her to listen.