17
A long time had elapsed, too long for the carjacker to have survived, but the ambulance and fire crews had turfed out anyway. They loitered half-heartedly on the quarry edge, peering into the water and watching the various police units come in. As the CSI team took videos and the dive team worked, one by one the emergency services gave up the vigil, trundling off to other calls. The last were going as Sergeant Marley was coming out with the body-bags.
Caffery sat in the heavy afternoon light, car window wound down, and watched the men on the pontoon take the bags from her, disentangle her from the umbilical, and throw an aluminium heat blanket over her. They washed her down and helped peel her out of her drysuit. When the CSI team had gone and she was alone – sitting on the tail plate of the unit van, he approached with a cup of coffee he’d finagled out of the fire crew earlier.
Her face was patchy and swollen and her nose was running. She looked at the coffee dully.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Smile now and you’ve got it over and done with. For the whole day.’
She looked him up and down. ‘So they’ve sent MCIU out. I’m glad. Even if he’s not in there I’m glad you’re taking an interest this time. I always knew he was going to do it again, the jacker.’
‘The unit didn’t send me.’ Caffery sat down on the tail plate close to her and handed her the coffee. ‘It’s me. I wanted to speak to you.’
‘Yeah?’ She didn’t sound interested. ‘About what?’
‘Free-diving. Ever heard of it?’
‘Competitive apnoea. I’ve heard of it.’
‘What do you know about it?’
‘I know it’s the fastest way to kill yourself. That or jumping off Clifton Suspension Bridge. It’s a toss-up which is most effective. Why? Been a bit depressed lately?’
‘I heard it’s possible to dive to more than a hundred metres without breathing apparatus. That’s what I’m told.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m not getting into this. You forget, in my line of work I do expert witnessing. I’ve faced down enough smarmy defence briefs in my time to know how not to be led.’
‘Well, that’s funny. I didn’t think I was trying to lead you into anything.’
‘Yes, you are. You want me to believe in your Tokoloshe.’ She wiggled her hands at him. ‘Scary monsters in the water.’
‘I just want to know what’s possible. I want to know what the Tanzanian we’ve got in custody is capable of.’
‘Then you need to know the facts. Over a hundred metres is a world record – a world record – for someone in absolute peak physical condition, using fins, a rope, weighted sleds, a team of helpers, pure oxygen inhalation. The whole nine yards. Your average Joe just can’t leap in and do it – he’d be lucky, extremely lucky, to manage ten. So if you’re suggesting anyone could have just dived to fifty metres without-’
‘I didn’t say fifty. I said a hundred. That’s what the record is. Why did you think I said fifty?’
‘Hundred, then. To go a hundred metres without fins, without swallowing cylinders of oxygen before, then I’m saying get real. Do you know how the professionals manage it?’
‘No.’
‘They trick their brains.’ She tapped the side of her head. ‘They override the part of the brain that reminds them to breathe. You ever see one of those guys come up from a dive? Trust me, it’s not funny. They’re basically dead. They need to be slapped around to make them breathe again.’
‘And if they were wearing clothes?’
‘Clothes?’
‘Yes. Or something strapped to them. Plastic or rubber or something. Prosthetics.’
‘Anything like that would make it harder. There’s no way anyone who wasn’t a world-class professional could dive to a hundred metres.’
Caffery was quiet for a while. There were red marks on her face from the mask and her eyes were bloodshot. But it was more. More than just the tiredness of diving. ‘You’re upset. I’ve upset you.’
She breathed out. ‘Not you.’
‘Then what?’
‘It’s nothing. Seriously. It’s…’ She looked at the still water reflecting back the lowering sky. There was a long silence. Then she rubbed her arms as if she was cold. ‘It’s just what I found in the quarry. Shook me up a bit. That’s all.’
‘Something shook you up? I thought you were cast iron. Why’s today any different?’
‘Dunno. Just wasn’t expecting an animal.’
‘An animal?’
‘This jacker character’s not in there. Christ knows what the witness saw or thought he saw or where the Lexus is because the damned quarry’s empty. But there was a dog. The CSI’ve got it.’
Caffery looked up at the trees, their new growth dull and unreflective on this leaden morning. That morning Hinton, the vehicle-recovery company, had made a pissy phone call to DS Turnbull. When they’d turned up at quarry number eight there’d been no scooter, red or otherwise. Quarry number eight was beyond those trees. And the lay-by Lucy Mahoney had parked in was only a mile past that. She’d had her dog with her. ‘There wasn’t a collar, was there?’
‘Not that I saw.’
‘What kind of dog was it? Could it have been a spaniel?’
‘Maybe. It was about the right size. But it’s difficult to say after what’s been done to it. It’s been in there a few days. It would have been another week or so before it floated. You know – enough gases build up and the whole thing just lifts off the floor. Even with what’d been done to it, the stomach membranes were holding in the gasses. The whole thing would have come up eventually. In spite of how messed around it is.’
‘Messed around?’
‘Messed around with. A rat would swim out to eat it if it was floating. But not down to that depth. There’s no other wildlife down there could have done it. Some newts, maybe. Nothing else.’
‘What’re you saying?’
‘I’ve seen quite a few dead dogs kicking around in this job and usually I leave them – you can’t bring them all to the surface unless there’s, you know, some sort of evidential gain. But then there are one or two you think, Now that isn’t right.’ She nodded to where the team were assembling the equipment. ‘Did you see what they put the dog in?’
‘How they put it in two bags?’
‘One for the body.’
‘And one?’
‘For the skin. Whoever dumped it here…’ She gazed across the water at the lonely quarry. ‘Whatever bastard dumped it here, he made sure he’d skinned the poor sod first.’
18
Flea did the paperwork for the dive, packed away the equipment and pulled on a fleece. She checked her phone – nothing from Thom. She helped the boys secure the dive truck, patted it on the back and watched it trundle away through the mud. It was mid-afternoon and the clouds over the quarry were moving now. In the lane the marked traffic BMW was still parked – the cop inside was having coffee out of a Thermos. About twenty feet on the slope above it, Jack Caffery was outlined against the clouds. He seemed to be looking out across the quarry as if he was concentrating on something in the sky.
‘You done?’ he said, when he saw her scrambling up the slope towards him. ‘Bit warmer now?’
‘Here.’ She handed him a business card. ‘It’s the CSI’s number. For the dog. They’re taking it to a vet’s to have it scanned, see if there’s a chip. Still want it?’
‘Sure. Thanks.’
‘Jack. I’ve been meaning to-’
‘Yes?’
She hesitated. She still hadn’t quite worked him out. Still hadn’t decided which side of the line he was on. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you. About the Kitson case.’
‘The Kitson case?’ He frowned. She knew it wasn’t what he’d been expecting. ‘What about it?’