‘Just polite interest. Y’know – I was thinking about the bollocking Pearce gave me. Sounded like maybe I should have been paying more attention.’
‘Pearce? The combed-over old twonk?’
She half smiled and rubbed her nose. ‘It’s just I get accused of being unprofessional and it starts to -’ she made a gesture with her shoulders ‘- make you uncomfortable. That sort of thing.’
‘I can’t see how you’ve done anything wrong. Your team searched a lake. You didn’t think you’d find her but you still searched the lake. It’s not your fault she’s gone alien-abduction style.’
A few drops of rain fell and Flea zipped up her fleece. The cop in the traffic car opened the door and tipped the remains of the coffee from the Thermos cup on to the ground.
‘You haven’t a clue, then. No idea where she went?’
‘Ha.’ He put his hands into his pockets. Looked at the clouds. ‘Nothing. And sorry to sound cynical but the truth is I don’t give a stuff what happened to her. She’ll probably turn up in some Soho studio coked out of her gourd. Or in a beach hut in Antigua.’
Below them in the lane the traffic cop got out of the car, stood and brushed crumbs off his trousers. Flea watched him suck in his stomach and tuck his shirt into his trousers. ‘That’s not the official line, is it? That you don’t think she’s dead.’
‘I don’t think anything. Never have done. I’m not working her case.’
She was following the cop carefully now. There was something about his appearance, the top of his head, the widow’s peak in his tightly shaved hair. Then she got it. It was PC Prody. The traffic cop who’d followed Thom home and breathalysed her. He began to climb the slope towards them. Came four, maybe five, steps. It was enough.
‘’Scuse me,’ she muttered. ‘Something I forgot to do.’
She pulled out her car keys and slithered down the slope away from him. She got into the Clio, slammed the door and was reaching for the ignition when Caffery caught up with her. He put his head in through the open window. ‘You didn’t answer my calls.’
‘I’ve been busy.’
‘I called three times.’
‘I know.’ She fumbled with the keys. Her fingers were trembling. ‘I’ve been busy.’
‘Too busy to acknowledge a phone call?’
‘Yes.’
‘I only wanted to ask you something.’
‘I told you, I’ve been busy.’
‘Hey!’ He leant through the window suddenly. ‘Hey. What’s the matter with you? What the hell is wrong?’
She stopped fumbling with the keys and looked over at Prody. He’d stopped halfway up the slope and was staring at her, puzzled. She rested her hands on the steering-wheel and fixed her eyes on a point in the windscreen. Took five deep breaths. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve had a lot on my mind.’
There was a pause, then Caffery sighed and pulled back a bit, resting one elbow on the door, running his hand through his hair as if he was tired. ‘Christ. Me too. I’m sorry.’
‘Truce?’
‘Truce.’
He smiled. He looked at the car, at the wheels, the back seats, the upholstery, casually, as if he was thinking of buying it. ‘New car?’
‘Yes.’
‘Very nice. Smells new.’
Twin lines of sweat broke under her arms and ran down her sides. ‘Smells new?’
‘Yes. What happened to the old one?’
‘The old one?’ On the slope Prody had his hand up, smiling uncertainly. As if to say ‘Hi. No bad feelings, eh?’ The lines of sweat on her back converged and thickened into one. ‘I’m thinking of selling it.’
‘Shame. A good car, the Focus, so they tell me. More Focuses in the UK than sheep. Or something like that. Not that I know much about cars.’
A couple of drops of rain fell and Prody took a step forward. She turned the keys and put the gear lever into reverse. Caffery held on to the door as if he might be able to stop her leaving. ‘When you’re ready to talk, you know where I am.’
‘When I’m ready.’ She glanced again at Prody, released the handbrake and reversed out of the space. She was going so fast that Caffery had to take a step back to avoid getting his feet run over.
19
He watched the Clio spin its wheels. It churned up mud as it climbed out along the coned-off lane and disappeared. When it had gone he walked back up the slope.
The traffic cop was standing a few yards away, hands open, a bewildered expression on his face. ‘Maybe she didn’t like us watching.’ He looked at the assembled cars and vans and shrugged, as if he was thinking that every other bugger in the force had pulled in for a gawp, and why did he get singled out? ‘I’m sorry – I heard the call come in and I was just passing. I didn’t realize she…’ He trailed off, dropping his hands, the air gone out of him. ‘I thought we were OK. In all honesty I didn’t think there was any resentment there.’
‘Resentment?’
‘No. No – not that kind. We don’t know each other. Not really.’
‘Then what?’
‘It was stupid. I nicked her. The other night – Monday.’
‘For?’
‘Speeding.’
Caffery almost whistled. He liked this, the idea of Sergeant Marley breaking the law. Suited her somehow.
‘It was midnight. I was on duty over near Frome – not usually my patch, but I’ve had this call to a drunk and when I get there someone else’s taken it. So I’m on my way back to Almondsbury when this car goes past – not that one, a Ford.’
‘A Focus.’
‘Yeah.’ He gave Caffery a slow look. ‘Yeah. Silver. It’s swerving all over the place, trying to take half the tarmac with it. So off I go, blues ’n’ twos, tonking down the road, and anyway the car just takes off with me hanging on its tail. You can imagine, can’t you, me calling in its plate, thinking I’m on a TWOC chase and giving it that round these corners? And by the time I’ve got the name back and recognized it’s her, she’s pulled off the road and is in her house. I knock and she comes to the door with some lame excuse about how she wanted a piss or something.’
‘The old bladder defence.’
‘The bladder defence. Course, that’s where I went wrong. Should’ve left it, shouldn’t I? But she’d got me. Wound me up big-time. So I nailed her all the way I could. Breathalysed her.’
‘You didn’t?’
‘Did. And, fair enough, she was stone cold. So I closed the record after that. But, y’know…’ The cop paused, scratched his head ‘… obviously she doesn’t want an apology off me.’
Caffery looked back at the place where the Clio had disappeared. ‘Which day did you say it was?’
‘This Monday just gone.’
Monday, Caffery thought. That happened to be the night Misty Kitson had gone walkabout from the clinic. It also happened to be the night before he and Flea had arrested the little Tanzanian and his sick-minded boss. She’d been fine that day considering the circumstances. Still, he thought, as he went to his car and swung inside, she was as guarded as hell most of the time. Christ only knew what Flea Marley got up to in her private world.
He put the key into the ignition and sat there for a moment or two, thinking about what he was going to do when he turned it. He had known just from looking at Flea that pursuing her, or even trying to call her, was a waste of time. He waited a few more moments for his thoughts to settle. Then he turned the key.
He wasn’t going to chase her. He was going to chase the CSI guys. He wanted to know more about that dog.
20
Beatrice Foxton lived near Glastonbury Tor, down in the lowland, which only three hundred years ago had been a vast, marshy sea. Caffery met her and her dogs in a field near the house and they stood together in the wet grass, Beatrice smoking cigarettes and throwing sticks for the dogs. It was kind of reassuring to see a woman who cut dead people open for a living smoking. It made him wonder why he was breaking his neck trying to give up.