The Calling (28 page)

She sits on the edge of the bed. She can’t speak.

The man kneels down. He puts his face very close to hers. She can smell his breath. He says, ‘Are you hungry?’

She shakes her head.

‘Thirsty?’

She nods.

‘I’ll get you some water in a minute. Okay?’

She nods.

‘Now. I know that right now you’re scared. Last night was very upsetting for all of us, wasn’t it?’

She doesn’t know what to say. She says, ‘That’s all right.’

‘Good girl,’ he says. ‘I know this isn’t the nicest bedroom in the world, but you’ll soon get used to it.’

Mia swallows. Her throat is dry and shaky. She says, ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well. This is your home now.’

‘I don’t want it to be my home.’

‘I know you feel like that now,’ says the man. ‘And you’ll keep feeling like that for a little while. But soon it’ll change, and it’ll get so you like it here. And once you’ve grown to like it a little bit, I’ll let you come upstairs, watch some TV. Do you like TV?’

‘Yes,’ says Mia.

‘Good,’ says the man. Then he gives her a look like he loves her and he’s glad she’s home. It makes her wet herself again. The dark pool spreads all over the blanket.

‘Don’t worry about that,’ says the man. ‘It’ll dry.’

He shuts the door and Mia hears the screeching slide of the bolt.

She sits in silence, clasping the edge of the bed. She’s too scared to move. She can’t even think. When she turns her head she sees the bookshelf in the corner and its meaning wells up inside her until the thought is too big for her head.

An hour later, or five minutes, he comes back. She hears the door under the stairs opening, his footsteps on the concrete steps. Then the frightful shriek of the rusty bolt and the hinge and he stands in the doorway.

In one hand he’s got a bucket.

He passes it to her. He says, ‘This is for you to do your business in. But if you look extra closely, there’s a present inside.’

She stares into the blue plastic bucket. Inside it is a tiny rabbit. It’s trembling. She reaches in to lift it out. It turns in the bucket and bites her finger.

She withdraws sharply. She considers the baby rabbit, cowering and terrified in its circular blue prison.

‘Just leave him in there for a bit,’ says the man. ‘Then tip over the bucket. Let him have a sniff round and get used to the place. Once he’s done that, you can be best friends. Would you like that?’

She gives the man a nod because she’s too scared not to.

‘Smile,’ says the man. ‘I just got you a present.’

She smiles.

‘That’s good,’ says the man. ‘What are you going to call it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘It’s got to have a name,’ says the man.

Mia can’t think of any names. She can’t think of any words at all. But she wants to please the man. She glances in desperation at the bookshelf.

‘Peter,’ she says.

‘Excellent,’ says the man. Then he says, ‘Well, you and Peter have had a long night. Why don’t you take forty winks?’

‘Okay.’

‘If you need to do a wee or a poo,’ he says, ‘do it in that bucket, okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘I’ll get you a proper toilet tomorrow. Ones like they have in caravans. That’ll be nice.’

‘Yes,’ she says.

‘Good,’ says the man. ‘Goodnight, then.’

‘Goodnight.’

The man hesitates in the doorway, seems to chew something over. Then he says, ‘Do you like babies?’

‘Yes,’ says Mia.

‘Do you want lots of babies, when you’ve grown up?’

‘Yes,’ says Mia.

‘Good,’ says the man.

He closes and bolts the door and walks upstairs and closes and bolts that door, too.

And in here it stinks of mouldy blankets and damp air and those old books, the smell of age and decay in them. Mia knows she will never open those books, not even if she’s so bored she wants to die, because she knows that many children have leafed through those books in the before time. There may be drawings in there in another childish hand and if there are she couldn’t bear it.

Mia sits on the bed, looking down at the rabbit. Its nose is twitching, super-alert to its surroundings.

Gently, Mia tips the bucket onto its side. Then she inches back on the bed and puts her back to the cold wall and tries not to move or breathe and just concentrates on the rabbit.

After a long, long time the bucket moves slightly on the cold floor. She can see the rabbit’s nose, twitching away at the edge.

Then the rabbit pokes out its head and looks around. Its eyes are liquid brown.

The rabbit bolts from the bucket so quickly Mia gives out a little scream and jumps.

The rabbit bolts under the bed into the corner. It huddles there, terror-stricken.

Mia knows not to disturb it. She knows to give it time. She begins, patiently, to pick the scab on her knee. She sings herself a song. It’s a happy song that makes her think of happy times. But thinking of happy times is like being kicked in the tummy. She doesn’t know what to do.

Mia shuts down. She curls into a ball on the bed. She puts her thumb in her mouth.

Sucking it, she falls asleep.

Zoe’s propped up in bed, feeling jetlagged and half real. She’s been awake all night, trying not to think of it.

She gives up, reaches for her laptop. Navigates to a news website.

Suspected kidnapper of Mia Dalton
, she hears.
Murder of Dalton family. Second home invasion in two days. No comment on suspected link to the killer of Sarah and Tom Lambert and the kidnapping of baby Emma Lambert. London stunned. DCI John Luther
.

And there’s John. Tiny on the laptop screen. Stomping away from a drizzly crime scene, a big man with a big walk, buttoning his coat.

Zoe’s phone is charging at the wall. She grabs it and calls John.

‘DCI Luther,’ he says.

‘John,’ she says. ‘It’s me.’

There’s a pause. He ends it by saying, ‘Not now.’ He hangs up.

John has been many things before: distracted, evasive, depressed, wild. But he’s never been dismissive.

He always says how remarkable he finds it, that people are more polite to strangers than to the people they love. He strives to be courteous to her, takes pride in it, and she loves that about him.

Loved that about him.

That’s when Zoe knows they really are done. When John slips into the past tense.

Luther steps out of the station and hurries across the street. Howie’s leaning against his car, arms crossed, waiting in the rain.

She passes him a buff envelope.

He opens it. Rain splats on the paper.

He scans the document, then looks up. ‘I’ve never even been to Swindon. How far is it?’

‘Sixty-odd miles. I’ll drive.’

Before getting in, he hesitates.

He says, ‘Isobel, are you sure you’re okay about this?’

She can’t meet his eyes. ‘I am if you’re sure you’re right.’

‘I’m right.’

‘Then I’m sure. Hop in.’

He holds up a finger.

‘One call,’ he says.

Howie gets in the car and starts the engine.

She feels sick.

Luther calls Ian Reed.

Reed says, ‘What’s up?’

He’s bleary. He’s been asleep. For a moment, Luther is disoriented by this thought. He realizes that, separated for just a few days, he and Reed have somehow slipped into different worlds.

Reed says, ‘So how’s it going?’

‘Complicated. How’s the neck?’

‘Better.’

‘Better enough to get you into work?’

‘Do I need to?’

‘Mate,’ says Luther. ‘I really need you. I’m doing some bobbing and weaving here.’

‘Let me get dressed. I’ll see you at the factory.’

Luther thanks him, then hangs up and gets in the car.

He and DS Howie head to Swindon.

Reed removes the soft neck brace and calls Teller to let her know he’s coming in.

She’s too busy to thank him; she just briskly and efficiently briefs him. He drinks a mug of instant coffee and knots his tie.

He tells her he’ll be at work within the hour, then goes to get his jacket.

He’s necking painkillers with water when the intercom buzzes, sudden and fretful.

Reed opens the door on a dishevelled, spectacled middle-aged man. He’s affecting the bewildered air of a curate out hunting for fossils. Reed’s never met him, but he recognizes Detective Superintendent Martin Schenk at once.

Schenk removes his slightly absurd beanie. A few strands of hair stand electrified. He gives Reed a shy grin. ‘DCI Reed?’

‘You got me, Guv.’

‘You’re looking very well, considering.’

‘I’m doing okay. Keen to get back on the job.’

‘Quite so, quite so.’ Schenk twists the beanie in his hands, as if anxious. Schenk is not anxious. ‘A very busy night,’ he says. ‘For your colleagues.’

‘So I hear,’ Reed says. ‘That’s why I’m up. All hands on deck.’

‘One of the perpetrators of this enormity,’ Schenk says, ‘is in the ICU, as I understand it.’

‘Apparently. The son.’

‘Under armed guard.’ Schenk shakes his head, as if to lament the state of the world. ‘So you’re pitching in?’

‘I can walk,’ Reed says. ‘I can still pick up a phone. I’ll leave the actual running round to someone else.’

Schenk nods in admiration. The admiration is real. He says, ‘Would you mind if we had a chat first?’

‘Not in principle,’ says Reed. ‘In practice, Guv, it’s not the best time.’

‘Absolutely. Which is presumably why I’m having such trouble getting through to Detective Superintendent Teller. If I was a more paranoid man, I’d think she was avoiding me.’

‘Well, she’s pretty hectic.’

‘Absolutely. It’s just – we do have one or two things to clear up.’

‘I told you,’ Reed says. ‘I don’t know who assaulted me. It was—’

‘All over very quickly. Absolutely. You’ve already been over that. Absolutely.’

‘Then what?’

‘Are you familiar with a chap called Julian Crouch?’

‘I know of him, yeah. Heard of him. He’s a dirty fucker. Pardon my French.’

‘Oh, I’ve been a copper since dinosaurs roamed the earth,’ Schenk says. ‘There’s not much language I haven’t heard. I was nicking people like Julian Crouch when it was all “blags”, “far-out” and “nostrils”.’

Nostrils
is seventies slang for a sawn-off shotgun. Reed appreciates the reference, and likes Schenk for it.

Reed is scared of liking Schenk.

‘So what about him?’ Reed says. ‘Julian Crouch. What’s he got to say for himself?’

‘That you’ve been harassing him.’

‘When?’

‘Tonight.’

‘As alibis go I’ve got a pretty good one.’

‘Well, he did suggest it may not have been you
personally.’

‘Then who did I send? My dad?’

Schenk smiles, sadly. ‘Somebody torched Mr Crouch’s car this morning.’

‘Somebody what?’

‘Torched his car. A Jaguar. Vintage.’

Reed laughs. Knows he shouldn’t, but can’t help it. ‘When?’

‘Four or five hours ago?’

The mood must be contagious, because Schenk gives him a smile so broad and open it’s almost beautiful.

‘Look,’ says Reed, sobering. ‘The man’s a dirtbox. He’s made more enemies than you and me put together. It could be anyone. Besides which, I’m a copper. I don’t go round torching people’s cars.’

‘The, um, chap who actually torched the car—’

‘Did Crouch get a look at him?’

‘Oh yes. Didn’t I mention?’

‘No. You left out that bit.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Schenk says. ‘I’m jumbled up. When I get a call that early in the morning, I’m all at sixes and sevens until I’ve had a decent breakfast. And all the proper cafés are closing. Have you noticed that? You want a full English, but these days it’s all
low GI
this and
good cholesterol
that. It hardly counts as breakfast at all. A copper needs a decent fry-up. Although don’t mention that to my wife.’

‘So anyway,’ says Reed.

‘Yes,’ says Schenk. ‘Sorry.’ He digs out his notebook, licks the end of a pencil stub. ‘Well, I won’t use the racial terms employed by Mr Crouch, but he describes a very tall black man –
six foot fucking seven
is, I believe, the term he used. Wearing a long coat. Possibly tweed.’

‘And . . .’ says Reed.

‘Well,’ says Schenk, putting the notebook away, maintaining the charade that it wasn’t a prop. ‘I know you and a DCI John Luther are very close. And this description, forgive me if I’m wrong, but does it evoke DCI Luther to you the way it does to me?’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Reed says.

‘But it doesn’t exactly rule him out, does it?’

‘This wasn’t John.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because after a week like John’s had, the last thing he’s got time to do is go round setting fire to people’s cars.’

‘Not even to avenge a grave insult to an old friend?’

Reed is quiet now. Knowing better than to speak.

‘Coppers talk,’ says Schenk. ‘It’s common currency you were beaten up by Crouch’s thugs.’

‘Gossip isn’t the same thing as evidence. I don’t know who beat me up. And John wouldn’t go off piste based on chitchat.’

‘And you’re sure of that?’

‘He loves his job,’ Reed says, ‘he wouldn’t jeopardize it over something like this. It’s not in him.’

‘But as you say, he’s had a traumatic time. On a day like that, who’d blame a man for going a little over the edge?’

‘All you’ve got to do,’ Reed says, ‘is speak to his wife. I’m sure she’ll tell you where he was.’

‘I intend to. Zoe is it?’

‘Yeah,’ says Reed. ‘Zoe.’

‘And how are Zoe and John?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well. Marriage to a copper – it can be difficult. We all know that.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Reed says.

Schenk gives him a meek, humorous look that suggests he’d like to if only he wasn’t here, doing this.

‘Well anyway,’ Schenk says. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing.’

He means exactly the opposite.

Reed looks at him. Bright blue eyes in pale skin. ‘I don’t mean to be rude,’ he says, indicating the door.

‘Goodness gracious,’ Schenk says. ‘What am I thinking? Can I give you a lift? Do my bit?’