Gone (32 page)

‘Hey, Ted,’ he tested. ‘We know you’re here.’

His voice came back to him.
We know you’re here
. Dulled by the soil walls, it sounded flat. Unconvincing. He continued on, torch pushed out in front of him, arm stiff. The hairs were standing up on the back of his neck. The Walking Man’s face came to him in the gloom:
He is cleverer than any of the others
. Within about eight yards he found himself up against a wall. He’d come to the end of the tunnel. He turned and looked back towards the entrance. He shone the torch all around, up at the girders and the wooden supports. A dead end?

No. About two yards back the way he’d come he saw a hole in the side of the wall at about waist height. He’d walked straight past it.

He went back a few paces, bent at the waist, and shone the torch into the hole. It was an opening to another tunnel. It shot off at an angle of about forty-five degrees, but it went too far for
the torch beam to pick out the end. He sniffed. There was a smell of something like stale, unwashed clothes. ‘Are you here, you shithole? Because if you are I’ve got you.’

He went into the opening, bent over, hands up in front of him. His back and shoulders brushed the ceiling – so much for the suit. The tunnel sloped slightly downhill for about ten feet, then opened into a small room that had been hollowed out, wider here than the rest. He stopped at the entrance, body braced in the defensive stance, ready to back straight up if anything came flying at him. The torchlight played through the small cavern. His heart was still bouncing in his chest.

He’d been right in thinking he wasn’t on his own down here. But it wasn’t Ted Moon he was with.

He scrambled back into the tunnel, pushed the radio out so he had line of sight with the entrance. ‘Uh – those units backing up? You getting me?’

‘Yup – loud and clear.’

‘Don’t come into the tunnel. Repeat: don’t come into the tunnel. I need the CSI down here and . . .’ He dropped his face. Put his fingers to his eyes. ‘And, look, better get someone from the coroner’s office too.’

The CSI team had been on a job just two miles away and were the first to arrive, even before the doctor. They sealed off the entrance and set up fluorescent tubes on tripods to flood the cave with light. They wandered in and out wearing their Andy Pandy suits. Caffery didn’t say much to anyone. He went out and met them at the inspection pit, put on boots and gloves, then went back down the tunnel with them and stood in the room, his back against the wall, arms folded.

The cave was littered with newspapers and old food containers. Beer cans and batteries. At the far wall two industrial pallets were stacked one on top of the other. A form wrapped in a dirty sheet, stained and brittle, covered with dead insects, lay on them. The shape was unmistakable. A human lying on its back, arms folded across its chest. From top to bottom it probably measured about five feet.

‘You haven’t touched anything?’ The crime-scene manager came in, dropping tread-plates in a line from the entrance to the body. It was the distinguished-looking, aloof one. The one who’d done the Costellos’ car. ‘You’re too clever to have done that, of course.’

‘Put my face close to it. Didn’t touch the wrapping – I didn’t need to. You can tell when something’s dead. It doesn’t take much, does it, even for a thick-as-shit cop?’

‘You’re the only one who’s been in here?’

Caffery rubbed his eyes. He lifted a hand vaguely in the direction of the body. ‘That’s not an adult, is it?’

The CSM shook his head. He stopped next to the piled pallets and scanned the body. ‘That’s not an adult. Definitely not an adult.’

‘You can’t tell how old, can you? Could she be ten? Or could she be younger?’

‘She? How do you know it’s a she?’

‘Do you think it’s a he?’

The CSM turned and gave him a long look. ‘They told me this is the jacker case still? They told me you’ve got Ted Moon in the frame for it.’

‘They told you right.’

‘That murder – the girl, Sharon Macy – it was the first job I did on the force, eleven, nearly twelve, years ago. I spent a day cutting her blood out of floorboards with a scalpel. Remember it like it was yesterday – I still get nightmares about him.’

The doctor arrived, coming through the entrance bent double, A woman with nicely cut hair and a belted raincoat. She’d put bootees on over her smart shoes and gloves. In the room she straightened, throwing her head back, one hand raised against the glare of the lights. Caffery nodded at her, gave her a tight smile. She had natural straw-coloured hair tied back and she looked too young and nice to be doing this. She looked as if she should be selling patisserie or helping people with dental hygiene.

‘Is this anything to do with those car jackings?’ she asked.

‘You tell me.’

The doctor raised her eyebrows at the CSM for more information. But he just shrugged and went back to his boxes and tread-plates. ‘OK.’ Her voice had a low, nervous shake to it. ‘Fair enough.’ She crossed the room cautiously, keeping to the treadplates. At the head of the corpse she stopped. ‘Uh – can I cut this? Just to get a look at the face?’

‘Here.’ The CSM gave her a pair of Toughcut scissors from his kit. He pulled one of the fluorescents down to light what she was doing and got out a camera. ‘Just let me get a couple of shots as you’re doing it.’

Caffery pushed himself away from the wall and came across
the tread-plates, stopping next to the doctor. Her face was pale in the greenish light. There were faint pink circles on her cheeks.

‘Right.’ She gave him a sickly smile and he saw that she was completely out of her depth. Too young. Trying to act grown-up. Maybe it was her first time. ‘So, let’s see what we’ve got.’

When the CSM had his photos, she gripped the sheet in her gloved fingers and tried to insert the scissors. A slight tearing sound came from the cloth. Caffery exchanged glances with the CSM. Something was stuck to the underside of the sheet.

It’s not you, Emily. It’s not you
. . .

The doctor wrestled the scissors, struggling to make a hole in the sheet, her hands shaking. It seemed to take for ever before the blade pushed through the fabric. She paused for a moment. Put the back of her wrist to her forehead. Smiled. ‘Sorry about that. It’s tough.’ Then, almost to herself, ‘Right . . . what next?’ She snipped a line into the sheet, about ten inches long. Very carefully opened it. There was a pause. Then she looked at Caffery, her eyebrows raised as if to say,
There. That’s not what you were expecting, is it?
He took a step forward and shone the little light into the shroud. Where he’d pictured a face, he saw instead a skull, stuck to the sheet and coated with powdery brown matter. It wasn’t Martha either. But maybe he’d already known that from the condition of the shroud. This body had been dead for longer than a few days. This body had been dead for years.

He looked up at the CSM. ‘Sharon Macy?’

‘That’s where my money would be.’ He fired off a few more shots. ‘If I was a betting man. Sharon Macy. As I live and breathe. Swear I never thought I’d see her body. Ever.’ Caffery took a step back. He scanned the roughly hewn walls, the primitive buttresses. Moon must have been building it since before he was banged up. It took intelligence and strength to do something like this, to construct something so complex and efficient. The entrance to this chamber had been well hidden – Caffery’d nearly missed it. There could be other tunnels, other places. There could be a whole ants’ nest system right under their feet. Maybe Emily and Martha’s bodies were down here too somewhere. There, he
thought, you used the word
bodies
. So you do think they’re dead.

‘Inspector Caffery?’ A man’s voice from the tunnel behind. ‘Inspector Caffery – are you there?’

‘Yeah? Who is it?’ He crossed the tread-plates to the entrance and shouted down the tunnel. ‘What’s up?’

‘Support group, sir. I’ve got a phone call for you. Young lady. Can’t get through on your phone – says it’s urgent.’

‘On my way.’ He held up his hand to the doctor and the CSM, turned and bent to walk back down the low tunnel. The supportgroup officer was standing in the car pit, his huge frame blocking out the light. Caffery could see the flashing light of the phone he was holding aloft under the Cortina chassis. ‘Need to be out here to keep the signal, Boss.’

Caffery took the phone from the officer and, using the lightweight steps the CSI team had put up, scrambled out of the pit, crossed the lock-up to the window and leaned there, blinking, in the freezing daylight. ‘Inspector Caffery – how can I help?’

‘Sir, can you get over here ASAP?’ It was the Bradleys’ FLO. The tall brunette with the shiny hair. He recognized the slight Welsh lilt immediately. ‘Like now.’

‘Get over where?’

‘Here – to the Bradleys’ safe-house. Please. I need some advice.’

Caffery put a finger in his other ear to block out the sounds of the CSI team behind him. ‘What’s up? You need to speak slowly.’

‘I don’t know what to do. There’s nothing in my training to cover this. It came ten minutes ago and I can’t hide it from her for ever.’

‘Hide
what
from her for ever?’

‘OK.’ The FLO took a few deep breaths, got herself under control. ‘I was sitting at the breakfast table – usual scene, Rose and Philippa on the sofa, Jonathan making another cup of tea, and Rose’s phone’s on the table in front of me and suddenly it lights up. Usually she has the ringer on but maybe she doesn’t get many texts because she’s got that alert turned off. So, anyway, I look at it, just casually – and . . .’

‘And what?’

‘I think it’s from him. It has to be from him. Ted Moon. A text.’

‘Have you read it?’

‘I haven’t got the balls. Just haven’t. I can only read the subject heading. And, anyway, I don’t think it’s a text text. It’s an MMS.’

A photograph. Shit. Caffery stood up straight. ‘Why do you think it’s from him?’

‘From the subject heading.’

‘Which is?’

‘Oh, Christ.’ The FLO’s voice dropped a notch. He could picture the look on her face. ‘Sir – it says, “Martha. The love of my life”.’

‘Don’t do a thing. Don’t move, don’t let Rose see it. I’ll be there within the hour.’

On the way back to his car Caffery palmed two paracetamol into his mouth, washing them down with scalding coffee from a support-group officer’s Thermos. He ached everywhere. He had a list of calls to make as he drove the twenty-five miles to the Bradleys’ safe-house, Myrtle lying sleepily on the back seat. House-keeping calls: his superintendent, the Silver commander of the support groups at HQ, the press office. He put in a call to the office and found that Prody had discharged himself from the hospital already, had been debriefed and was back in the incident room, champing at the bit to do something to make up for last night. Caffery told him to find out from Acting Sergeant Wellard whether Flea had turned up anywhere.

‘If she hasn’t . . .’ He pulled up outside the safe-house at HQ. It looked fairly normal. Curtains open. One or two lights on. A dog was yapping inside. ‘. . . speak to the neighbours, find out who her friends are. She’s got some weird shit-for-brains brother somewhere – speak to him. Find yourself a chuck-away phone or one from the unit and text me your number. And call me when you know something.’

‘Yup, OK,’ Prody said. ‘I’ve got a couple of theories already.’

It was the FLO who opened the door and he could tell right away, just from her face, that things were even worse than when she’d made the phone call. She didn’t give him her sarcastic, appraising raised eyebrows. She didn’t even comment on his filthy suit. She just shook her head.

‘What? What’s up?’

She stepped back in against the wall, opening the door wide so he could see along the hallway. Rose Bradley was sitting on the stairs in a pink housecoat and slippers. Her arms were tucked into her stomach, her head drooping. A thin, mewling sound was coming from her mouth. Philippa and Jonathan stood in the living-room doorway watching her helplessly, their faces like stone. Philippa held Sophie by the collar. The spaniel had stopped barking but was eyeing Caffery suspiciously, her hindquarters twitching.

‘She got the phone,’ the FLO murmured. ‘She’s like a bloodhound when it comes to the damned thing. She managed to get it off me.’

Rose rocked back and forth. ‘Don’t make me give it to you. You’re not going to see it. It’s
my
phone.’

Caffery took off his coat and dropped it on to a chair next to the door. The hallway was hot and slightly damp. The walls were covered with blue-swirled anaglypta wallpaper. This was supposed to be accommodation for visiting police chiefs but it was awful. Truly awful. ‘Has she opened it?’

‘
No!
No, I haven’t.’ She rocked harder, her forehead on her knees, tears soaking into the housecoat. ‘I haven’t opened it. But it’s going to be a picture of her, isn’t it? It’s going to be a picture of her.’

‘Please.’ Jonathan had his finger against his temple. He looked as if he might fall over at any moment. ‘You don’t know that. We don’t know what it is.’

Caffery stood on the staircase two steps down from Rose and looked up at her. She hadn’t washed her hair and an unpleasant, spicy odour was coming from her. ‘Rose?’ He held out a hand. Either for her to put her own hand into, or the phone. ‘You know that whatever it is, whatever is on the photograph, it could help us find her.’

‘You saw that letter. You
know
what he said he was going to do to her. It was terrible what he said he’d do. I know because if it hadn’t been awful you would have let me see it. What if he’s
done one of the things he said he’d do and what if this is a photograph of it?’ Her voice rose. It was tight and sore, as if the vocal cords were chafing against each other from constant grief. ‘
What if that’s what the photograph is? What if that’s what it is?
’

‘We won’t know until we’ve had a look. Now, you’ve got to give me the phone.’

‘Not unless I can see what’s on it. You’re not hiding anything else from me. You can’t.’

Caffery glanced at the FLO, who was standing with her back to the door, her arms folded. When she saw his face, realized what he was going to do, she raised her hands resignedly, as if to say,
It’s your funeral
.