Gone (28 page)

She stared up at it. Water plinked steadily down – tight little sonic dots in the silence. The grille at the bottom was half-broken, hanging precariously from the roof and matted with dripping plant debris. But it was what was hanging through the gap in the grille that caught her eye. A length of climbing rope attached to a hook, with a karabiner that was looped into the handles of a huge black kitbag that cast a mangled shadow into the water below. It was strong enough to lower a large object down into the canal. A body for example. And there was something else out of place in the tunnel. A smudge of light further out in the water, its colour slightly different from that in the rest of the tunnel. She lowered her chin and concentrated. Something was floating among the debris on the water, just past the column of moonlight. A shoe. She knew the type: a cross between a plimsoll and a Mary Jane. Pastel-printed and soft, with a little buckle over the top. The sort of thing a child would wear. And exactly what Martha had been wearing when she disappeared.

A line of adrenalin shot down Flea’s chest and out to the ends of her fingers. This was really it. He’d been here. Maybe he was here now, somewhere in the shadows . . .

Stop it. Don’t
imagine
. Act. He couldn’t follow her back through this hole – the only smart thing was to withdraw, retrace her steps back down the canal, and raise the alarm. She began to pull back but halfway through found she was stuck, her shoulders wedged in the tiny gap. She tugged frantically at her right arm, twisting sideways, trying to loosen it that way, but her ribs were jammed into the roof, her lungs squashed. She forced herself to stop, reminding herself not to panic. In her mind she was screaming. But she let her head go slack on one side and took the time to calm herself, keeping her breathing slow to allow her lungs to open against the pressure.

From somewhere in the distance came a familiar sound. Like thunder. She and Wellard had heard it the other day. A train racing along the track – she could picture it – the air flying off it, earth and rock shuddering under it. She could picture, too, the metres and metres of stone and clay sediment above her. And her lungs: two vulnerable oval spaces in the darkness. The smallest movement of the earth could squash them to a place where nothing would open them again. And Martha. Maybe little Martha’s body somewhere ahead in the canal.

A rock fell, close to Flea’s head. It tumbled down the scree into the water with a splash. The tunnel was shaking.
Shit shit shit
. She took the deepest breath she could, jammed her knees against the opening, braced her left hand against the boulder and pulled with all her strength. She came through into the first chamber in a rush, reversing feet first, scraping the underside of her chin on the boulder. The caving line slipped down the slope and she toppled after it, the rucksack with her, landing on her backside in the water.

All around her the chamber creaked and screamed. She fumbled for the torch in the rucksack, clicked it on and shone it upwards. The whole cavern was vibrating. A fracture in the ceiling lengthened in a shot – like a snake going through grass – and a
deafening crack ricocheted around the little chamber. Bent double, she staggered through the water to the only shelter she could see – the stern of the barge. She had just managed to squeeze herself into the space behind it before the air was filled with the roar of falling debris and the whistle of rock racing past her ears.

The noise seemed to last for ever. She sat in the muck, hands over her head, eyes closed. Even when the noise of the train had dwindled she stayed there, listening to little rockfalls somewhere in the darkness. Every time she thought it was over there would come another trickle of small stones slithering down and splashing into the water. It was at least five minutes before the chamber was quiet and she could raise her head.

She wiped her face on the shoulders of the immersion suit, shone the torch around and began to laugh. A long, low, humourless laugh, like a sob, that echoed around what was left of the chamber and sent noises back that made her want to cover her ears. She dropped her head against the hull of the barge and rubbed her eyes.

What the fuck was she supposed to do now?

Moonlight crept out from behind shredded clouds, the cold canopy of stars reflected in the quarry fading in the blue glare. Sitting in the car on the track at the edge of the water, Caffery watched in silence. He was cold. He’d been here more than an hour. He’d snatched four hours’ dense, uncomplicated sleep at home and snapped awake just before five with the certainty that something out in the freezing night was expecting him. He’d got up. He knew staying at home, wakeful, would only lead to trouble – would probably lead to his tobacco pouch and the whisky bottle – so he’d put Myrtle in the back seat and driven around a bit, expecting to see the Walking Man’s camp over the hedgerow. Instead, somehow, he’d ended up out here.

It was a big quarry, about the size of three football fields, and deep too. He’d studied the schematics. At one point it was well over a hundred and fifty feet deep. The underwater rocks were scabby with plants, abandoned stone-cutting machinery, submerged niches and hidey-holes.

Earlier this year there had been a time when he had been plagued by a man, a Tanzanian illegal immigrant who had followed him round the county, watching him from the shadows like an elf or a Gollum. It had gone on for almost a month and then, as quickly as the man had started, he had stopped. Caffery had no idea what had become of him – whether he was alive or dead. Sometimes he caught himself looking out of the window late at night,
wondering where he was. In some perverse, lonely corner of his psyche he missed him.

For a while the Tanzanian had been living here, in the trees around this quarry. But there was more about this place that made Caffery’s skin prickle at every noise, every shift of light around the car. This was where Flea had dumped the corpse. Misty Kitson’s body was somewhere in the silent depths.

You’re protecting her and you can’t yet see what a nice circle that makes
.

A nice circle.

A single winter cloud moved across the moon. Caffery stared at it – at the moon. A faint fingernail in white, a tentative but perceptible wash of light on its dark side. Riddle me this, riddle me that. The Walking Man, the clever bastard, always fed him clues. Kept him crawling along, his tongue to the ground. Caffery didn’t think the Walking Man’s anger would last. Not in the long run. Still, Caffery hadn’t found him tonight, and that fact alone felt like a rebuke.

‘Obstinate old shit,’ he told Myrtle, who was on the back seat. ‘The miserable, obstinate old shit.’

He pulled out his phone and keyed in Flea’s number. He didn’t care if he woke her or what he was going to say. He just wanted to put an end to it. Here and now. Didn’t need the Walking Man and his mumbo-jumbo, riddles and clues. But her line went straight to answerphone. He hung up and put the mobile back into his pocket. It had been there for less than ten seconds when it rang. He snatched it out, thinking it was her calling back, but the number was wrong. It was a withheld number.

‘It’s me. Turner. At the office.’

‘Jesus.’ He rubbed his forehead tiredly. ‘What the hell are you doing at this time in the morning?’

‘I couldn’t sleep.’

‘Thinking about all the overtime you could finesse?’

‘I’ve got something.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Edward Moon. Known as Ted.’

‘Who is . . . ?’

‘Who is the younger brother of the fat bastard.’

‘And I should be interested in him because?’

‘Because of his rogues’-gallery shots. You’ll have to look at them, but I’m ninety-nine point nine. It’s him.’

The hair went up on the back of Caffery’s neck. Like a hound with the first scent of blood in its nose. He blew air out of his mouth. ‘Rogues’ gallery? He’s got form?’

‘Form?’ Turner gave a dry laugh. ‘You could say that. He’s just done ten years at Broadmoor under Section 37/41 of the Mental Health Act. Does that count as form?’

‘Christ. That sort of sentence, it must have been . . .’

‘Murder.’ Turner’s voice was calm, but there was an edge of excitement in it. He’d got the scent of blood too. ‘A thirteen-year-old A girl. And it was brutal. Really nasty. So . . .’ A pause. ‘So, Boss, what would you like me to do now?’

‘My colleagues are having a look around your place. You’ve seen the warrant, it’s all kosher. You can stay here as long as you don’t try to obstruct the search.’

It was just before seven in the morning and Caffery was back in the Moons’ damp little flat. There were the remains of a fried breakfast on the table, ketchup and Daddie’s sauce bottles, with two smeared plates. Dirty pans were piled in the sink in the kitchen. Outside it was still dark. Not that they could see out: the little paraffin heater in the corner had steamed up the windows and condensation ran in wriggling rivulets down the glass. The two men, father and son, sat on the sofa. Richard Moon wore a pair of joggers that had been split at the ankle cuffs to allow his enormous calves to fit through and a navy T-shirt, with the word ‘VISIONARY’ on the chest and sweat-stains under the arms. He was staring fixedly at Caffery, sweat beading on his upper lip.

‘Odd, isn’t it,’ Caffery sat at the table, regarding him carefully, ‘that you never mentioned your brother yesterday?’ He leaned forward, holding out the photo ID Ted Moon had used to get in and out of MCIU’s offices. ‘Ted. Why didn’t you mention him? Seems odd to me.’

Richard Moon glanced at his father, who raised his eyebrows warningly. Richard lowered his eyes.

‘I said, it seems odd, Richard.’

‘No comment,’ he muttered.

‘No comment? Is that an answer?’

Richard’s eyes shifted around, as if there were lies in the air and they needed a place to hide. ‘No comment.’

‘What is this no-comment shit? Have you been watching
The Bill
? You’re not under arrest, you know. I’m not recording this, you haven’t got a brief, and the only thing you’ll achieve with your no-comments is to royally piss me off. And then I might change my mind and decide you are under arrest. Now, why didn’t you tell us about your brother?’

‘No comment,’ said Peter Moon. His eyes were cold and hard.

‘You didn’t think it was relevant?’ He pulled out the sheet Turner had printed from the
Guardian
’s database. The CPS were going to pull their files to fill in the details but the stark facts on this printout were quite enough to tell Caffery what they were dealing with. Moon had killed thirteen-year-old Sharon Macy. He’d concealed the body somewhere – it had never been found – but he’d been convicted anyway on the DNA evidence. According to the intelligence there hadn’t been any problem with that because Sharon’s blood had been all over Ted Moon’s clothes and bedding. The bedroom floor had been so deep in blood it had soaked through the boards in some places. The stains on the ceiling in the room below had still been spreading when the team arrived to arrest him. He’d done ten years for it until, a year ago, the home secretary had agreed with what the RMO, the responsible medical officer, had said: that Moon was no longer a danger to himself or to others. He had been released from Broadmoor on a conditional discharge.

‘Your brother did that.’ Caffery pushed the database printout in front of Richard Moon’s face. ‘What sort of bitter pig kills a thirteen-year-old girl? Do you know what the coroner said at the time? That her head would have had to have half come off to make that much blood. Don’t know about you but it makes me queasy just thinking about it.’

‘No comment.’

‘Here’s the deal. You tell me now where he is and we can talk about you bypassing an obstruction charge for not mentioning it earlier.’

‘No comment.’

‘Do you know how long you can get banged up for obstruction? Eh? Six months. How much of that time do you think you’d last, fat boy? Especially when they hear you were protecting a nonce. Now, where is he?’

‘I don’t—’

‘Richard!’ His father silenced him. He put a finger to his lips.

Richard Moon looked at him for a moment, then dropped his head back. Sweat was running down into the neck of his T-shirt. ‘No comment,’ he muttered. ‘No comment.’

‘Boss?’

They turned.

Turner was standing in the doorway holding a bulky envelope wrapped in a freezer bag. ‘This was in the lavvy cistern.’

‘Open it, then.’

Turner unzipped it, poked around dubiously. ‘Papers. Mostly.’

‘What are those doing in your cistern, Mr Moon? Seems a strange place to keep your filing.’

‘No comment.’

‘Jesus. Turner, give me that. Have you got any gloves?’ Turner put the envelope on the table and got a spare pair from his pocket. Caffery pulled them on and shook out the contents of the envelope. It consisted mostly of bills, the name Edward Moon popping up over and over again. ‘And . . . ah – what’s this?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘It looks fascinating.’ Using his thumb and forefinger he pulled out a passport. Flipped it open. ‘The missing passport. As I live and breathe. What are the chances of that? Some arsehole breaks in here, steals all your stuff, comes back years later and leaves it in the bog. I love happy endings.’

The Moons stared back at him dully. Peter Moon had gone a deep, almost bluish red. Caffery couldn’t tell if it was anger or fear. He threw the passport on to the table with the bills. ‘Did you let your brother use this to get him through that CRB sweep? You’re clean but he’s dirty. Particularly dirty, if you ask me.’

‘No comment.’

‘You’re going to have to make a comment eventually. Or start praying your pad-mate hasn’t got AIDS, fat boy.’

‘Don’t call him that.’

‘Ah.’ Caffery turned to the father. ‘You going to speak to me now, are you?’

There was a pause. Peter Moon closed his lips and moved them up and down as if he was fighting the words. His face was like a red fist.

‘Well?’ Caffery put his head politely on one side. ‘Are you going to tell me where your son is?’

‘No comment.’

Caffery slammed his hands on the table. ‘Right – that does it. Turner?’ He raised his chin at the two men sitting on the sofa. ‘Take them in. I’ve had enough of this. You can come in and do the real thing, Mr Moon. You can have your own brief, give him the no-comment treatment and then we’ll see about whether . . .’ He trailed off.