The man pulled on the Santa Claus mask, stepped over the low stone wall – a wolf taking its time – and walked calmly to her side of the car. Opened the door.
‘Get out.’
The woman’s response was to throw her hands into the air. It was an instinctive thing, to protect her face, and it succeeded only in clearing the way for him to reach over and unfasten her seatbelt. By the time she realized her mistake it was too late. He was already pulling her out of the car.
‘Get out, bitch.’
‘No! No! No!’
But he was strong. He took her by the hair and dragged her out, her hands scrabbling at her scalp, legs kicking, frantically trying to find purchase. She got a knee wedged up under the steering-wheel and her left hand into the sill above the door, but she couldn’t hold it. With one wrench she was out, staggering, dropping once, cutting her knee through the tights. She got her fingers into his gloved hands, tried to get him to release her hair, but he dragged her backwards, ignoring her nails in his hands. She bounced her feet off the ground, kicked and screamed. He could feel little pieces of hair popping out all over her scalp as he flung her up against the front door of the house.
‘Fuck off.’ She pushed him away with all her might. ‘Get away from me.’
He gave her a shove, sent her staggering across the porch. Her arms went up, pinwheeled, slammed into the brick pillar, scraping the skin on her hands. Her left leg shot out, almost stopped the forward momentum, failed. She stumbled, went down, landing on her right shoulder. She rolled on to her side in time to see the man jump into the driver’s seat and start the engine. The radio came to life, pumping ‘When A Child Is Born’ into the cold air. The engine revved, a cloud of fumes shot out of the exhaust, the handbrake came off and he twisted in his seat to reverse the car rapidly out of the driveway.
The car stopped in the middle of the road just long enough for Prody to change gear, then screamed away. It was only then, with the almighty squeal of brakes rocking round the street, that any of Skye Stephenson’s neighbours realized what was happening. One or two came running out of their doors, down their paths, but it was too late. The cherry-red four-by-four had turned the corner at the end of the road and disappeared from sight.
73
Clare Prody didn’t wear makeup and she didn’t colour her lifeless blonde hair. She dressed nicely and plainly in neutral and pastel separates from mid-price high-street stores like Gap. Flat shoes. She looked as if she might come from the same socioeconomic bracket as Janice Costello. But then she opened her mouth and it was pure country bumpkin that came out. A Somerset girl, Bridgewater, and the furthest she’d strayed out of the area had been the train to London twice – once for Les Mis and once for The Phantom. She’d been a trainee nurse at Bristol Royal, dreaming of working with children, when Paul Prody had walked into her life. He’d married her and cajoled her into giving up work and staying at home with the two children, Robert and Josh. Paul had a good job, and Clare was dependent on him. It had taken her years of abuse to get up the courage to leave.
Caffery scrutinized her where she sat on the other side of his desk. She’d arrived at the offices wearing the first things she’d had to hand when his call came – a jogging T-shirt and khakis. For some reason she also wore a chequered blue blanket around her shoulders, clasped at her chest in bloodless fingers. It wasn’t because she was cold. It was something more. It was because she felt like a refugee. Someone in the permanent process of running away. Her face was pale, as if there wasn’t enough blood in her body, but her nose was an awful chapped red. Since she’d arrived half an hour ago she’d cried enough to break a person’s heart. She simply couldn’t believe this was happening to her. Just couldn’t believe it.
‘I can’t think of any more.’ Her eyes were fixed on the names scrawled on the whiteboard over his shoulder. Her lips were quivering. ‘I really can’t.’
‘It’s OK. Don’t push yourself. It’ll come.’
Clare had written the most comprehensive inventory of every person she could think of – anyone her husband might include in his appalling vendetta. Some of the names the team had already thought of, some they hadn’t. A few doors down the corridor a whole room of officers was frantically working through them. Getting on to the local police. Phoning direct warnings. MCIU was at its tensest ever because there wasn’t a person in the unit who wasn’t seized with the absolute conviction that Prody would strike again. And that their biggest hope lay in pinpointing his next victim. Caffery, who, because of his fury, believed he sensed Prody more keenly than anyone in the building, thought it would be soon. Very soon. This morning, maybe.
‘They were lucky.’ Clare’s eyes had travelled away from the list of names and had come to rest on the photos pinned up. She looked at Neil and Simone Blunt. At Lorna and Damien Graham. ‘So lucky.’
‘He let them off lightly.’
She gave a dry, hopeless laugh. ‘That’s Paul for you. He’s very precise. The punishment always fits the crime. If you’d really upset him you’d get it worse. He wasn’t as angry with Alysha’s mum, with Neil . . .’ she squinted at the name ‘. . . Blunt. I suppose he must have introduced himself at the Citizens’ Advice Bureau, I just don’t remember. I sort of recognize his face but I would never have known his name. I do remember that day, though, because afterwards Paul was waiting for me outside. Threatened to kill me.’ She shook her head as if she still couldn’t quite fathom her own stupidity. ‘I missed it all. Jonathan Bradley used to be Robert and Josh’s headmaster – the boys and I even went up to Oakhill when Martha was kidnapped and left flowers outside his house and I still didn’t make the connection.’
‘He’s very, very clever, Clare. Your husband is very clever. Don’t blame yourself.’
‘You knew. You worked it out.’
‘Yes, but I had help. And, anyway, I’m the police. I’m supposed to make connections.’
While Caffery wished he could claim some subtle sleuth’s sleight-of-hand here, he couldn’t. It had been a simple phone call from the hospital lab, something routine, that had started the slats falling in his head. Paul Prody still hadn’t brought his shirt in to be tested. The technicians had run out of tests to do for inhalants and were starting to ask themselves if the jacker had used an oral sedative. Prody’s stomach contents would make a very welcome addition to their pipettes and beakers. After the phone call Caffery hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the clean look of Janice’s mouth in the garden yesterday. White and pink and scab-free. Unsettlingly so. And then he’d understood what it was in the photo of the safe-house kitchen that had been bugging him. It was the little line of beakers on the drainingboard. The last thing Paul Prody had done in the safe-flat was serve cocoa to the family. To Janice, her mum and Emily.
Caffery got to his feet, went to the window, where Myrtle lay on her bed, and looked out at the watery sky. He’d managed a quick rinse in the men’s, with pump-dispenser soap and handdryers, and a shave with the disposable razor he kept locked in his filing cabinet, but his suit was crumpled and somehow he still felt dirty. As if Paul Prody had crawled inside his skin. Waiting to hear was like waiting for a storm to come. Not knowing which direction it would be, which roofs the dark clouds would tower above. But he could feel Prody out there like a vibration in his skin, on this rainy winter’s day, moving nimbly around in the cold city and the countryside. Things were already happening out there: already the force had its tentacles out. They were going to find him today. And when they did they’d find Flea Marley too. Caffery was a hundred per cent sure of that awful reality. A junior DC had left the offices an hour ago to check her house and the whole of the Underwater Search Unit were being woken from their beds by the telephone team in the next office. But everyone suspected the answer lay with Prody.