The Calling Of The Grave

The bald spot must kill him.

The silence built between us. I knew what was coming next.

'Lot of water under the bridge.' He was looking at me with an undecipherable expression. 'I always meant to get in touch. After what happened to Kara and Alice.'

I just nodded. I'd been waiting for the inevitable condolences, in the same way you tense yourself against a blow. Even after all these years the words seemed wrong, as though my wife and daughter's death contravened a fundamental law of the universe.

I hoped he'd leave it at that, duty done. But he wasn't finished.

'I was going to write or something, but you know how it is. Then later I heard you'd moved, packed in forensics to be a GP in some Norfolk backwater. So there didn't seem much point any more.'

There wouldn't have been. Back then I hadn't wanted to see anyone from my old life. Especially Terry.

'Glad you're back in the traces now, anyway,' he went on, when I didn't say anything. 'I hear on the grapevine that you've been doing some good work. Back at the university forensic department, aren't you?'

'For the time being.' I didn't want to talk about it. Not to him. 'When did Monk escape?'

'Last night. It'll be on the lunchtime news. Bloody press is going to have a field day.' His expression matched the sourness in his voice. Terry had never liked journalists, and that much clearly hadn't changed.

'What happened?'

'He had a heart attack.' He gave a humourless grin. 'Wouldn't think a bastard like that had one, would you? But he managed to convince the doctors at Belmarsh to transfer him to a civilian hospital. Halfway there he broke his restraints, beat the shit out of the guards and ambulance driver and disappeared.'

'So it was staged?'

Terry shrugged. 'Nobody knows yet. He had all the symptoms. Blood pressure sky high, erratic heartbeat, the works. So either he faked them somehow, or it was real and he escaped anyway.'

Ordinarily, I'd have said both were impossible. A high-security prison like Belmarsh would have a well-equipped hospital wing, with blood pressure and ECG monitors. Any prisoner displaying cardiac symptoms bad enough to be considered an emergency wouldn't be in any condition to escape: the attempt alone would probably kill them. But this wasn't an ordinary person we were talking about.

This was Jerome Monk.

The percolator had started to bubble. Glad of something to do, I got up and poured the steaming coffee into two mugs. 'I thought Monk was at Dartmoor, not Belmarsh.'

'He was, until the bleeding hearts decided Dartmoor was too "inhumane" and downgraded it from a Category A to C a few years ago. After that he was shuffled round to a couple of other maximumsecurity prisons before Belmarsh drew the short straw. Hasn't mellowed him, by all accounts. He beat another inmate to death a few months back, and put two wardens in hospital when they tried to pull him off.' He raised his eyebrows at me. 'Surprised you didn't hear about it.'

It might have been an innocent comment, but I doubted it. I'd been in the US earlier that year, and before that I'd been recovering from a knife attack and hadn't been paying much attention to the news. It was impossible to tell if Terry knew about that, but something told me he did. It was like him to probe for a response, just for the sake of it.

Keeping my face neutral, I spooned sugar into one of the mugs and handed it to him. 'Why are you telling me all this?'

Terry took the coffee from me without thanks. 'Just a precaution. We're warning everyone Monk might have a grudge against.'

'And you think that applies to me? I doubt he even remembers who I am.'

'Let's hope you're right. But I wouldn't like to predict what Monk's going to do now he's escaped. You know as well as I do what he's capable of.'

There was no denying that. I'd examined one of his victims myself, seen first hand the savage damage Monk had inflicted on a teenage girl. Even so, I still couldn't see that I was in any danger.

'We're talking about something that happened eight years ago,' I said. 'It isn't as if I had anything to do with Monk's conviction, only the search operation afterwards. You can't seriously think he'll care about that?'

'You were still part of the police team, and Monk's not one to discriminate. Or forgive. And you were there at the end, when everything went pear-shaped. You can't have forgotten that!

I hadn't. But I hadn't thought about it in a long time, either. 'Thanks for the warning. I'll bear it in mind.'

'You should.' He took a careful sip from the mug before lowering it. 'You keep in touch with any of the others?'

It seemed an innocuous enough question, but I knew Terry better than that. 'No.'

'No? I thought you might have worked with Wainwright on other cases.'

'Not after Monk.'

'He retired a while back. 'Terry blew on his coffee to cool it. 'How about Sophie Keller? Ever see anything of her?'

'No. Why should I?'

'Oh, no reason.'

I was growing tired of this. 'Why don't you tell me why you really came here?'

His face had grown red, and I could feel my own had matched it as the old antagonism flared. Didn't take long, did it?

'I told you, it's just a precaution. We're notifying everyone-'

'I'm not an idiot, Terry. You could have phoned, or got someone else to phone. Why come all the way to London to tell me yourself?'

There was nothing friendly in his manner any more. He fixed me with the cold-eyed stare of a professional policeman. 'I had some other business to attend to in town. I thought I'd stop by and give you the news myself. For old times' sake. My mistake.'

But I wasn't going to be fobbed off that easily. 'If Monk's going to go after anyone from back then, it's not going to be me, is it?'

Terry's face had darkened more than ever. 'I came here to warn you. Consider yourself warned.' His chair scraped as he stood up. 'Thanks for the coffee. I'll see myself out.'

He strode to the hallway, then seemed to change his mind. He stopped and turned. His mouth was a bitter line as he glared at me.

'I thought you might have changed. I should have known better.'

He walked out without a backward glance. I stayed at the table, the past so close I felt I could almost step into it. Can you pick Alice up later?

The flat seemed subtly different somehow, less my own. But my hands were steady enough as I collected the mugs. I hadn't touched my coffee but I no longer wanted it. I poured it down the sink and watched the dregs swirl down the drain. I didn't know why Terry had really come to see me, but the years hadn't changed one thing.

I still didn't trust him.

Chapter 9

Monk's escape was the main story on the lunchtime news. An audacious prison escape by a notorious killer would have made headlines no matter who it was.

When it was Jerome Monk it was guaranteed.

The story was on the radio as I drove into the lab. I listened to the headlines, then switched it off. There'd be nothing I didn't already know, and despite Terry's warning Monk's escape didn't concern me. I was sorry he was free, and sorry he'd hurt more people in the process. But Jerome Monk wasn't my problem. Eight years was a long time, too long for him to care about me. Or me about him.

Still, try as I might to pretend otherwise, I couldn't shrug off Terry's visit as easily as that. I was long past apportioning blame for what had happened, but seeing him again had dredged up painful memories, stirred up an emotional sediment that refused to settle. I'd been looking forward to a leisurely Sunday, and a rare day off. I was supposed to be meeting two colleagues and their wives for lunch in Henley-on-Thames, something I'd been promising to do for weeks. But Terry's reappearance had changed all that. Knowing I wouldn't be very good company I'd called and made my excuses. I needed time by myself to come to terms with what had happened, to pack my memories back in their box.