The little cabin was concealed around the hill at the far side of the main cave entrance. The cave system was empty. The ticket office was locked. The Dashwood Estate was largely deserted: all the staff had been asked to stay away.
Boijer and Forrester had three constables with them in the cabin. They took it in turns to look at the CCTV images. The day was hot: cloudless and perfect. As the hours dragged by, Forrester stared out of the little window and thought about the newspaper article he had read, a Times piece about the Yezidi and the Black Book. Some journalist in Turkey was, it seemed, onto another thread of the same bizarre story.
Forrester had read the article again last night, and then called De Savary to ask his opinion. De Savary had confirmed that he’d read the article and agreed that it was a peculiar and rather intriguing echo: and then he told Forrester there was a further link. The journalist’s French girlfriend, mentioned in the article, was actually an ex-student and a friend. And she was coming to visit him the following day.
DCI Forrester had asked De Savary to question the girl. To find out what the possible connection was, between Turkey and England. Between there and here. Between the Yezidis’ sudden fear and Cloncurry’s sudden violence. De Savary had agreed to ask the questions. And, at that moment, Forester had felt a certain hope. Maybe they could crack this. But now, fifteen hours later, that optimism had gone again. Nothing was happening.
Forrester sighed. Boijer was telling a salacious story about a colleague in a swimming pool. Everyone chuckled. Someone handed out some more coffee. The day trudged by and the Portakabin grew stuffier. Where were these guys? What were they doing? Was Cloncurry just teasing them?
Dusk came, soft and balmy. A serene and tranquil May evening. But Forrester’s mood was bleak. He went for a walk. It was now 10 p.m. The gang wasn’t coming: it hadn’t worked. The detective scuffed along in the darkness, glaring at the moon. He kicked an old Appletise bottle with his shoe. He thought of his daughter. App-ull. App-ull. Appull dadd-ee. His heart filled with the mercury of grief. He fought back the sense of purposelessness: the sense of cold anger going nowhere; the bleakness of everything.
Maybe the old Sir Francis Dashwood was right. Where was God anyway? Why did He allow such terrible things? Why did He allow death? Why did He allow the death of children? Why did He allow people like Cloncurry? There was no God. There was nothing. Just a small child lost in the caves, then silence.
‘Sir!’
It was Boijer, running out of the Portakabin followed by three armed constables.
‘Sir. Big Beamer, in the car park-right now!’
Forrester’s energy returned instantly. He chased after Boijer and the armed cops. They sprinted around the corner, towards the car park. Someone had switched the lights on: the anti-burglary lights they had installed on the fencing all around the car park. The entrance to the caves was flooded with dazzling light.
In the middle of the bare car park was a big, new, glossy black BMW. The windows of the car were tinted, but Forrester could see large figures inside.
The constables trained their rifles on the car. Forrester took the megaphone from Boijer, his amplified voice booming across the floodlit emptiness: ‘Stop. You are surrounded by armed police.’ He counted the dark shapes in the car. Five, or six?
The car remained motionless.
‘Get out of the car. Very slowly. Do it now.’
The car doors stayed shut.
‘You are surrounded by armed police. You must get out of the car. Now.’
The constables crouched lower, training their rifles. The driver’s side car door was opening, very slowly. Forrester leaned forward, to catch his first glimpse of the gang.
A can of cider rolled onto the concrete with a clatter. The driver emerged from the car. He was about seventeen, visibly drunk, and visibly terrified. Two more figures got out and raised their shaking hands. They were also seventeen, eighteen. They had strings from party poppers draped pinkly over their shoulders. One of them had a red lipstick kiss on his cheek. The tallest of them was wetting himself, a big stain of urine spreading across the front of his jeans.
Kids. They were just kids. Students on a prank. Probably trying to spook themselves in the evil caves.
‘For fuck’s sake!’ Forrester snapped at Boijer. ’For fuck’s sake.’ He spat onto the ground and cursed his luck. Then he told Boijer to go and arrest the kids. For something. Anything. Drunk driving.
‘Jesus!’ The DCI slouched back to the Portakabin, feeling like an idiot. He was being made a fool of by this bastard Cloncurry. The posh young psychopath had escaped them again: he was too smart to fall for a dumb trick like this. So what would happen next? Who would he kill? And how would he do it?
A piercing and terrible idea gripped the DCI. Of course.
Forrester ran to the police car, grabbed his jacket and found his mobile. With shaking hands he keyed in the number. He lifted the phone to his ear, urging the signal to kick in. Come on come on come on. Forrester was ardently praying he wasn’t too late.
But the phone just kept ringing.
37
By the time Hugo De Savary woke up his boyfriend was already halfway out of the door. Mumbling about an anthropology lecture at St John’s.
When De Savary got downstairs, he saw that his handsome young lover had left behind the usual mess in the kitchen: breadcrumbs everywhere, an eviscerated Guardian, marmalade smeared on an uncleared plate and coffee grounds dark and soggy in the sink. Yet De Savary didn’t mind. He was happy. His boyfriend had kissed him passionately this morning: kissed him awake. They were really getting on well. And, even better, De Savary had one of his favourite days ahead of him: a day of pure research. No stressful writing; no boring meetings in Cambridge, let alone London; no important phone calls to make. All he had to do was sit in the garden of his country cottage, go through some papers and read an unpublished thesis or two. A very nice day of leisured reading and thinking. Later he might drive over to Grantchester and do some chores and some book shopping: at about 3 p.m. he had his only social engagement, with his old pupil, Christine Meyer. She was coming for the afternoon, and she was bringing the daughter of her boyfriend, the journalist who had written the richly intriguing piece in The Times about the Yezidi and the Black Book and this strange place called Gobekli Tepe. When she had contacted him Christine had said she wanted to talk about the links between her boyfriend’s story and the murders across England.
De Savary was keen to talk about this. But he was also simply keen to see Christine again. She had been one of his brightest students-his favourite student-and she was doing good work at Gobekli Tepe, it seemed. Good but rather hair-raising work, judging by the more excitable elements of The Times article.
He spent a quick ten minutes clearing up the breakfast things. Then he texted his lover: Is it utterly impossible to slice bread without destroying the kitchen? Hugo xx
As he sluiced the dark coffee grounds down the sink, he got a text back. Dont napalm my village ok Ive got finals xxx
De Savary laughed out loud. He wondered if he was falling in love with Andrew Halloran. He knew it was foolish if so: the lad was only twenty-one. De Savary was forty-five. But Andrew was so very handsome, in a seductively uncaring way. He just threw clothes on and seemed to look perfect every morning. Especially with a little stubble to offset the deep blue eyes. And De Savary quite liked the fact that Andrew was probably seeing other men, too. A little mustard on the sandwich: it helped. The sweet torment of jealousy…
Collecting his papers and books, he walked out into his garden. It was a beautiful day. Almost distractingly so: the birdsong was too sweet. The scent of late May blossom too heady. De Savary could hear children laughing in a garden across the Cambridgeshire meadows, though his cottage was very isolated.