Peter had spent the day feeling lethargic. He wondered why he felt so tired. Perhaps he was ill. He had finished Animal Farm and was rereading it. He had cried when Boxer, the horse, was taken away to the slaughterhouse. He felt a certain kinship with the animal, bewildered by events he couldn’t understand and beyond his control. Deep down, though, he didn’t really think anything bad was going to happen to him. He had a child’s faith in his own immortality.
This lunchtime there had been a welcome variation in his routine. He had been given soap, shampoo, a towel and clean clothes, jeans, underwear, a T-shirt and a fleece, all in his size. He took a shower for the first time in a week, revelling in the sensation. He was a bit concerned about the TV camera in case it saw him naked, he was a shy boy, but he’d lived with the camera so long now he hardly noticed it. He put his new clothes on and played with Tito for a while. He was feeling a lot better. He suspected that the clothes might be a sign he was going home. His heart thudded with wild excitement at the thought.
On the other side of the heavy steel door the judge, recently arrived on the island, watched him play with the dog through the one-way spy hole at eye-level. His eyes drank in the boy’s physical grace, his long-limbed beauty, his straw-blond hair. The thought that soon the boy would be his to do his bidding was incredibly arousing. Saliva flooded his mouth as he watched unseen. He played various sexual scenarios in his head and decided that, as before, for a while he would want the child unconscious while he explored his body for a couple of quiet hours at least. He found the thought incredibly arousing.
The judge believed himself to be a connoisseur of pleasure. He wouldn’t tip a fifty-year-old brandy thoughtlessly down his throat out of the bottle, or guzzle a Roux brothers’ meal as though it was motorway service-station food. No, beautiful things should be savoured, and he fully intended to savour Peter. He would take his time. This treat had cost him a great deal of money but it would be worth every penny.
The child was due to eat soon. The judge had already issued his instructions to Conquest and the Rohypnol would be given in his drink, as it had been the day before. He’d allow time for the drug to take effect, and the child would be delivered to the Bridal Suite in the upstairs part of the house at about nine o’clock. He turned and went up the stairs that led to a door beside the kitchen in the entrance hall, and walked up the broad, heavy, carved wooden staircase to his bedroom. Conquest had offered him food but the judge had tasted Robbo’s cooking. He shuddered at the memory. It was as crude as Robbo. It was as criminal as Robbo. Such things really shouldn’t be allowed; they certainly shouldn’t be encouraged. The only people in the house tonight would be Robbo, Conquest, Clarissa and the judge.
Upstairs in his room the judge stripped slowly, and wrapped his aged, thin, naked body in a silk, Chinese robe and laid out what he would need for later. Viagra to sustain himself, he needed to last. Cocaine, to heighten his pleasure, and a bottle of 1986 Premier Cru Margaux, his favourite Bordeaux. He also had a pack of three Cohiba Esplendido Cuban cigars. He looked up in irritation at the smoke alarm on the ceiling; he would have to lean out of the window because of Conquest’s ludicrous smoking ban. He turned on the TV and selected the channel that would bring him the feed from Peter’s cell. He rewound the image and watched the boy undressing for his shower, making judicial use of the freeze-frame. He looked at his watch. Not that long to go really. He stared hungrily at the boy’s buttocks. Very soon, oh yes, it would be very soon now.
Enver looked at his watch. It was eight o’clock. The sky was darkening and soon it would be night. There was a three-quarters full moon in the sky, but it was obscured by cloud. The boat, minus the judge, had returned from the island and lights showed in the lodge. They also showed around the lodge as well. The jetty and foreshore were floodlit. There was no possibility of taking one of the boats unobserved. He wondered how they would get over to the island. There seemed no chance now. For a delirious moment he hoped they would call in the police on some spurious excuse. Hanlon would think of something. The boy was over there, there was an Appeal Court judge over there, Conquest was over there presumably, what more did they need? Everybody could be scooped up in one fell swoop.
He had tried talking to Hanlon about what they would do, but had been rebuffed. Now she turned to him. ‘Come on, Sergeant. Follow me.’
He knew then they wouldn’t be calling for help. His hopes faded and reality set in. Hanlon would say, yes, they could call for help and with a high court judge barring the door which copper would dare enter the premises? They’d need a search warrant and what magistrate would issue one based on their evidence? Enver thought, maybe we could stretch the PACE section 18, which permitted an inspector to search premises if the suspect was in custody. They could claim Bingham qualified, albeit indirectly, and hopefully if they found the boy they’d be home and dry. Then he thought, and if Conquest has him elsewhere, we’ll be found guilty of causing Bingham’s torture. We have broken so many rules, so many laws, we’d make police history and not in a good way. No, there was no question of outside help. They’d be doing this the hard way. Hanlon’s way, as she’d doubtless intended all along.
Hanlon slithered backwards on her hands and knees, Enver following, and they dropped into the gully where the stream was. They followed its path down to the beginning of the beach where it trickled across the pebbly sand, into the sea. On the island they could see lights in the window of Conquest’s house. The lodge to their right was about five hundred metres away from where they stood, ablaze with light. Enver guessed they would be practically invisible in the gloom.
A sand dune screened them from view of the house. Hanlon turned to Enver. She looked at her watch. ‘What time do you make it?’ she asked.
‘Ten past eight,’ he said.
‘Fine. I’m going over there.’ She pointed to the island. In an Iron Man triathlon, Hanlon could swim 2.4 miles at sea in an hour and a half. This was only half a mile, but there would be currents and the sea was choppy. Still, she reckoned she could do it in half an hour. On the plus side, the salt water would be buoyant and she certainly had all the motivation she needed. ‘If I’m not back with the boy by ten, call for backup. You can get a signal from the car, but my phone’s dead down here, have you got a signal?’
He took his phone out of his pocket and checked. No signal. ‘No,’ he said bitterly, thinking, we wouldn’t have this problem in London.
‘How are you getting over there, ma’am?’ he asked, feeling stupid.
Hanlon stood up and unzipped her tracksuit jacket. She took her training shoes and socks off, then her T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms. She was wearing nothing now but black Lycra shorts and sports bra. Her supple, muscular body gleamed palely in the fitful moonlight. Enver suddenly thought with a shock, she’s unbelievably attractive, and then smiled at how ridiculously inappropriate the thought was. Then he smiled again at the cliché of the ugly duckling’s transformation into a swan, like in a film when the unattractive girl turns out to have been a stunning beauty all the time. He should, by rights, now gasp in amazement and say, ‘My God, Detective Inspector, you’re beautiful.’ Of course, he thought, Hanlon was perfectly aware of how attractive she was. She just didn’t choose to show it. He thought too, thank God it’s not me having to take my clothes off, I can’t imagine DI Hanlon swooning in delight at the sight.