Pig Island (41 page)

“My God,” she whispered, putting both hands to her face. “My God, you mean it, don’t you? You really mean it. It wasn’t him.”

“It’s not just your fault—they wanted it to be him as much as you did. But looking at it now, I think you and Danso both, you were clutching at straws.”

She breathed in and out a few times through her nose, moving this information around her head. Then slowly, very slowly, she raised her eyes to the kitchen window, to the curtains drawn tight against the morning. She turned and looked down the corridor to the lock on the door. “Oh, no,” she whispered. She put a hand to her throat. “This is a barricade, isn’t it?” She looked at me. “Isn’t it? A barricade? They think he’s on his way.”

I didn’t say anything for a long time. Then I took her hands. “They’ll be here in two hours. There’s a police car outside. We’re going to be fine.”

Chapter 9

For the last few days the skies over London had been draped swollen over the rooftops, inert, not breathing. But late that morning, just before lunch, the clouds gave up their stalemate. They dropped a barrage of hailstones on the little terraced houses of north London, which bounced off the roofs like buckshot, danced pogo in the street.

We didn’t speak much that morning, but I was sure Angeline and me were both thinking the same thing: that Malachi was clever, that he could slip through air vents and up chimneys and through knotholes in the floorboards. She had turned on all the lights, looked under the beds and checked inside every cupboard. Then she went to sit in the living room and tried to read her newspaper. But she couldn’t concentrate. From time to time she’d get up and go to the french windows, flick open the curtain and stare at the rain-drenched garden. “There’s someone in a tree,” she said at midday, putting her nose against the glass. I came to look. It was a police officer, dressed in boots and a blue sweater with epaulettes. When he saw us he waved. We raised our hands in reply. After that Angeline stopped peering out at the garden. She left the curtains closed.

I wasn’t content with the locks on the windows: I’d hammered nails into the runners of the sash windows to seal them and closed up the letterbox with packing tape. I took a torch into the attic, ripped my jeans as I crawled around checking all the tiles, every brick, every rafter, every rotting roll of insulation, the hail clattering on the roof inches above my head. It was like hearing hell fall out of the sky.

“The cellar,” I said, when I’d finished. Angeline looked at me from the sofa, where she sat biting her nails and anxiously watching the clock. “I’m going to check the cellar.”

“Do you have to?” She sprang to her feet and limped after me to the cellar door. “Can’t you stay up here? They’ll be here in a minute.”

“I won’t be long.”

I went down the rickety steps, fumbling with the torch. Angeline stood at the top of the stairs, watching until I disappeared from view into the gloom. I’d bolted the garden door from the outside and pushed the lawnmower against it, but now I hammered an extra four nails into the wood until I was sure it would never move. When I’d finished I sat down on an old deck-chair and clicked off the torch, letting the darkness come to rest round my head and shoulders. It smelt of moss and petrol in here, and something older, more familiar. Overhead Angeline had left the doorway and was in the kitchen, making the floorboards creak.

I switched on the torch and shone it up into the braces under the kitchen floor, listening to her moving about, watching the little puffs of dust coming out of the ceiling. She’d stiffed me with those comments about the PHM. She couldn’t see it, but she’d totally stiffed me. I was going to have to talk Finn into getting that bit of the manuscript retracted. I let the beam travel down the wall into the box-vaulted recesses that stretched out under the front garden. Everything was as I remembered it, all the crap piled up, the fridge-freezer glinting dully at me. Strange how nothing down here had changed when upstairs everything was so different.

The doorbell rang. I went up the steps, clicking off the torch and running the bolt on the cellar door, giving it a kick to wedge it into place. “They’re here.” I went to the front door. I switched on the porch light and pressed my face close to the window. “Yeah?” I called. “What d’you want?”

“It’s us,” came Struther’s dry answer, raised above the clatter of the hail. “All the way from sunny Oban.”

I pulled off the chains and bolts and opened the door. They stood huddled in the porch, cold and sombre in the overhead light, their shoulders wet with hailstones. In the dark street beyond, another marked police car waited, lights flashing lazily, its driver turned in his seat to watch us, resting his elbow on the steering-wheel.

“Our ride from Heathrow,” Danso said, when he saw me looking. “I admit I wasn’t expecting that kind of co-operation from the Met, the stories you hear.” He leaned back and cast his eyes around the front garden, first over one shoulder, then the other. “Joe?” he said, peering past me into the warm hallway. “Hate to bother you, son, but it’s cold out here.”

I stepped back to allow them in, placing the torch nose down on the windowsill. “He’s not dead.” They came in and I shot the bolts. I put the chain on and turned to them, my back to the door. “Is he? Not dead. And you know where he is.”

Struthers nodded. “We know where he is.”

“Listen,” said Danso. “Can we—‘ He looked around the hallway. ”I think we should go and sit down for this.“

I stared at him, suddenly angry. “He’s here, isn’t he? In London. And you’ve known it for days.”

“I think,” Danso said, more slowly and deliberately this time, taking in me and Struthers with his tone, “we should sit down for this.” He put his hand on the living-room door. “This way, is it?”

We went into the living room, me angry, Danso weary, his feet dragging. Struthers came behind, ostentatiously checking out the room, lifting the curtain and peering out at the police cars in the road. “Nice place,” he said, dropping the curtain and looking around at the posters and the drab houseplants. “But, then, it’s a nice job you’ve got.”

“There you are,” Danso said, raising his hand to Angeline. She’d appeared at the kitchen door, wiping her hands on a tea-towel. “Hello, wee lassie. Saw you in the paper this morning. You’re famous.”

“Hello,” she said, with a weak smile. She looked at Struthers. “Hello.”

“Hello,” he muttered, standing stock still staring at her, at the low-cut sweater, the glitter of something at her neck, her hair caught up in a slide so little curls just covered her ears. “How are you?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m—‘ She swallowed and put the tea-towel on the counter. She limped into the living room and stood in front of Danso. ”It wasn’t him, then? That’s what Joe said. The man you showed me, it wasn’t Dad.“

“We’re so sorry, hen.” He gave her a sad smile. “So sorry you had to go through all that.”

“I’m sorry I made a mistake.”

“No.” He shook his head. “Don’t be.”

We all stood for a moment, looking at each other, embarrassed. “Well,” she said, with a tired shrug, “you’d like a drink?” She pointed at my drinks cabinet, at the VSOP Armagnac Finn got me last birthday. “I’ve got brandy. Or some gin. There’s lime-flavoured tonic water in the fridge. Oakesy only drinks Newcastle Brown Ale and you won’t want that.”

“No, thanks, pet, we’re on duty.” He indicated the sofa. “Can we?”

“Sorry,” she said. “Of course.”

Struthers took off his coat and draped it over the sofa arm. He dropped down, settling himself comfortably with his legs stretched, patting the sofa and nodding approvingly, like he was in a showroom, testing the furniture. “Joe,” Danso lifted up the tails of his coat and sat down on the sofa, with a soft ‘ooof’ like any movement pained him, “we need to ask you a few questions.”

“Ask me some questions? What about I ask you some questions and what about you give me some answers? Is Malachi in London?”

“If I give you my assurance you’re safe, would you believe me?”

I hesitated.

“I mean it, you’re quite safe. You and Angeline. But we’ve got to follow up a new line of investigation and that’s where you come in. Bear with us, son. It’s going to sound like we’re going round the houses a bit.”

“But we’re not,” Struthers said, still checking out the sofa, bouncing his arse up and down to test the springs. “We’re going somewhere.”

I sat on the other sofa opposite them, moody. There was an empty glass on the table between us—the G and T Angeline had been drinking. “Well?” I folded my arms, trying to calm down. “What?”

“Look, I know we’ve done this to death,” Danso put his elbows on his knees and leaned forward to look at me, “but, see, it’s that car again. I want to go back and think about that car you saw outside the house the day Lexie was attacked.”

“The saloon?”

“Because the surveillance PC’s version is different from the version you gave us. The lad’s saying you first came to the house from the east. From the road that ran along the bottom of the playing-fields.”

“That’s right.”

“Right?”

“Yeah. But I never saw the car parked up. I’ve thought about it and I’m sure.”

Danso sighed. “Joe, Joe, why didn’t you tell us this earlier? You never said you came from the east.”

“Didn’t I?”

“No. You said you’d come along the main road, that you’d parked opposite the police car.”

“Yes, but I …‘ I closed my mouth. Opened it, and closed it again. ”So? So I forgot. What difference does it make?“

“It means that when you drove up to the main road you’d already been to the house.”

“Yes. I mean, no, not
inside
the house. No. I’d stopped
outside
the house. In the car.”

“Joe?” Struthers leaned forward, elbows on knees like Danso. “Remember when we went out to Cuagach?”

I looked from him to Danso and back again. “Yeah,” I said cautiously. “For the forensics. Why?”

“Remember how I asked you if you’d been in the chapel? And you said only for a few minutes to take photos? You can’t think back now, I suppose, and recall something else happening in there?”

“Something else?”

“Something that would have left your DNA?”

“No. Fingerprints. I told you, probably just some prints. Can you get DNA from prints now? Maybe you can.”

“I’m thinking about blood. Remember our thirty-first victim? Our hair and skin on the floor? Blood.”

‘
Blood
?“ I blinked at him. I wasn’t getting it, just wasn’t getting it at all. ”No. Not blood.“

“Nothing happened that could have left traces of your blood, hair and skin? A fight, maybe? Because the DNA on that thirty-first victim? Remember him—in the chapel? It turns out to be yours, Joe.”

“What?”

“Your DNA. You’re our thirty-first victim. And remember that crack in the cupboard at the rape suite?”

I shook my head, holding up my hands and appealing to Danso: ‘Hang on, hang on. Where’s this going?“

“Sorry. I don’t think you heard me—let’s try again. That crack in the cupboard at the rape suite? Do you remember when it got there?”

“I said, where’s this going?”

“You told my boss here you cracked the cupboard when you were having a fight with your wife. When was that fight?”

“That’s it,” I said, pointing a finger at Struthers, fixing him in the eye. “I
said
, where the
fuck
is this going? My DNA’s in the chapel, so fucking what? I got a twatting off Dove and they took me somewhere. I was half-conscious so it could have been the chapel, for all I fucking know, but
what
has it got to do with a fucking
cupboard
?”

“Don’t point at me. Put your hand down.”

“I
said, what has that got to do with a fucking cupboard
?”

“That’s enough.” Danso cleared his throat and looked up at me with watery eyes. “I didn’t want to do it like this, but please,” he pointed at my finger, “please drop your hand.”

“What’s going on?”

“Your
hand
, please, Joe.”

I lowered it slowly, narrowing my eyes at him. “Come on, old man. What’s happening here?”

“I’m sorry.” He shuffled inside his jacket and pulled out his warrant card, putting it on the table in front of me. He couldn’t meet my eyes. “You know who I am anyway—but let’s make it official. That’s me, DCI Danso, and I am cautioning you, Joe Oakes, under section fourteen of the Criminal Procedure of Scotland Act, 1995.”

‘
Cautioning
me?“

“You’re going to be questioned about a series of murders in Argyllshire at the end of August and in the first week of September 2005, which we believe you may have been involved in.” He put the card back into his pocket and said, “You’re not bound to answer, but if you do your answers will be noted and may be used in evidence.”

I stared at him, thinking,
This is a joke. This is someone’s idea of fun … What, Danso old boy, are you wearing suspenders under that suit? Is that the gag
? I sat back in the chair, swallowing hard, shaking my head very slowly. “No,” I muttered, looking from one to the other and back again. “No. This is a joke.”

“We’re doing this under Scottish law, Joe, under our cross-border powers, and that means we’re detaining you. If I’m going to be strict about it I’d say I don’t even need to give you a solicitor, but I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“We
could
just question you for four hours. Imagine that—you and me on our own for four hours.” Struthers raised his eyebrows. “I don’t know about you but I could look forward to that.”

I gave a weak laugh. “No fucking way. Stop it now.” I looked from one to the other, still hoping to see the crack of a smile, the wink:
Aah—had you going
! ‘Stop, because you’re talking bollocks. It started off funny but now it’s just arse. Let’s end it here.“

But Danso was watching me seriously, a film clouding his eyes. Struthers was smirking, his arms folded across his chest like he was concealing a weapon. I thought of the blue police lights flashing silently on and off in the street outside, and something dull clenched under my ribs. They’d been here all day. It wasn’t to protect us. It was to stop me leaving the house. Angeline lifted my arm and pulled it round her shoulders, burying her face in my chest. I put my hand on her head and pressed it into me, not taking my eyes off Struthers. I hated him at that moment more than I’ve ever hated anyone. “Well?” I hissed. “You’d better start giving me some answers.”