The Reckoning on Cane Hill: A Novel (28 page)

Groves stared at that for a moment, feeling an immense sadness that was impossible to describe. A sensation of emptiness and loss that was profound, almost spiritual. The feeling that God shouldn’t allow decent people to endure such misery.

But there was guilt there too.

I’m sorry, Caroline. I should have noticed
.

I should have realised you weren’t doing well
.

Sean would have said there was no need for the guilt – that it wasn’t his responsibility. But Groves had never found it easy to stop caring for someone. Even though he wasn’t with Caroline any more, he should still have recognised how quickly she was heading downhill. It seemed the least he could have done; not just for her, but for Jamie as well. She had been Jamie’s mother, after all; for his son’s memory, he should have looked after her.

And I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you either, Jamie
.

The grief rose in him, ending with a twist in his throat. His son had been murdered, and what had he done? Held on to the last vestiges of himself as a police officer, intent on doing the right thing, on bringing the perpetrators to justice. Carrying on as before, ultimately. Trusting that God had His reasons.
Right now, Caroline’s reactions, from her loss of faith to her disintegration, seemed far healthier and more natural than his own. Perhaps he really hadn’t cared as much as he should have done. Perhaps if there was a man murdering these predators in his place, that man was right.

Groves took out his phone as he went downstairs, unsure at that moment exactly what he was planning to do, but needing to talk to Caroline: wanting to apologise to her for everything he had done and everything he had not. He opened the front door, leaning on the frame, and just as he did, the phone buzzed in his hand.

He looked down at it. The screen display read:
Unknown Number
.

Someone at the department, he guessed, although he’d presumed that Sean would be in touch with him first. He answered the call and held the phone to his ear.

‘David Groves speaking.’

For a couple of seconds there was silence on the line. And then that familiar tinkling nursery rhyme began. ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’, with scratches and pops in the background. Groves stared out at the street through the rain, looking up and down the hill, wondering if he was being watched.

‘Who is this?’

There was no reply, just that scratchy recording, as though the simple tune were coming from a different era, across time itself.

‘Tell me who this is!’

Abruptly the music cut out, and the line was silent again. Except Groves could hear someone breathing softly.

He spoke more quietly now: ‘Who are you?’

It was a man’s voice that replied. Quiet and calm.

‘Mr Groves,’ he said. ‘Do you want to see your son again?’

For a moment, the world around Groves receded into the distance, and the sound of the rain diminished until it was softer and quieter than even his heartbeat. It felt like he was underwater.
More than anything
, he thought, even though he
knew the man’s promise was a false one. Even though the only way he’d see Jamie again was in death.
More than anything
. He tried to speak – to say something, anything, in reply – but his voice wouldn’t work.

‘If you do,’ the man said, ‘then you need to listen to me very carefully. Because I’m going to tell you how.’

Mark

As though coming back to life

I picked Mercer up at the end of his road.

‘Does Pete know you’re here?’ he asked as we set off.

‘Not as such. But I imagine he knows I’ll be pursuing the investigation in the best way possible in order to move it forward.’

I wondered what Mercer thought about Pete now, especially after the awkward encounter in the office yesterday. Whether he had any opinion on how Pete was handling the responsibility of leading the team. There had been more than a hint of nostalgia in the way he’d gazed around the new premises: a sense that he missed his old life even though he understood he could never return to it, the way you’d miss someone you’d loved once but could no longer have.

It was also apparent in the way he’d agreed to come with me to the hospital. After I’d told him a little about the new developments in the case, I’d been half expecting to have to cajole him into meeting me. Instead, there had been a few moments of silence, when I could picture him looking around the house, considering. Then he’d quietly told me to meet him at the end of the road. He had been waiting outside when I arrived, the rain pattering gently down around him.

I didn’t need to ask whether he’d told Eileen where he was going.

He seemed distracted now: lost in thought. I had broken with strict protocol and allowed him to sit in the passenger seat beside me. I glanced at him and saw that he was sitting very still, staring straight ahead. His hands were pressed down tightly on the pile of paperwork he’d brought with him. It was a hastily assembled patchwork of his notes and research: a fragmented attempt to understand the case that had half destroyed his life and brought his distinguished career to such an ignoble end. On top of it, his hands looked terribly old and weak, the skin papery and thin. He didn’t turn to look at me as he spoke.

‘How
have
things been?’

‘Since ... ?’

‘Since I left.’

‘I only worked with you for a day,’ I said, ‘so I’m not sure how different it is.’

He didn’t reply.

I took the turning that would take us on to the ring road.

‘Do you miss it?’ I said.

Again he didn’t reply. But out of the corner of my eye I saw one of his fingers tapping thoughtfully against the top of the pile of papers, the obsessive research with which he’d filled his retirement. It was a stupid question, of course. Detective work had been everything to John Mercer, the basis of his entire life. Just because it had nearly killed him didn’t change that.

‘Every day.’ It was as though he was talking more to himself than to me. ‘But it’s in the past now. I know I can’t go back.’

It was my turn to be silent. After a moment, he sighed to himself, moving slightly, as though coming back to life.

‘Tell me about the man who was found dead today.’

I did, although there still wasn’t much to say. Dr Gordon Peters was a drug addict, apparently, although his career record was unblemished. He had worked at a few different places, but for the last couple of decades he’d been employed at the main hospital, precisely where we were heading. There seemed a reasonable possibility that he was the man Charlie had described in the ambulance.

Mercer thought it over.

‘And he was scarred the same way Matheson has been?’

‘Yes. Although it was done with much less care.’ I thought about the weapon used, and the lack of precision. ‘Possibly even by someone different.’

‘If they’re supposed to represent sins, I wonder what Dr Peters had done wrong?’

‘Beyond helping to keep a woman prisoner, drug her, manipulate her?’ I shook my head. ‘Obviously, to whoever’s behind this, things like that don’t count as sins. I can’t decide about the addiction issue.’

‘If they were using him all this time, they must have been aware.’

‘They?’

‘All this would take several people. And they’ve obviously used Peters’ services before.’ He thought about it for a moment. ‘But he did a poor job this time with Matheson, didn’t he?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Whatever sedative he gave her, it seems like it was too much. Perhaps he set everything back slightly. For people as organised and precise as this, maybe a mistake like that would be a sin.’

‘Maybe.’

‘And his murder is also a sign, of course. Or at least, the spiderweb is. A way to make sure I came to the hospital, so I could hear whatever it is that Matheson is meant to tell me.’ He thought about it. ‘The web seemed ... authentic?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Very similar to one of the 50/50 Killer’s. Whoever drew it had at least seen one before. It’s not the same as the others, obviously, because they were all unique to the couples. But it’s no copycat.’

I told him my theory about the scarring serving a similar purpose to the spiderwebs. That they were intricate designs, particular to the individual disfigured by them: their sins visualised in a similar way to the relationships of the couples patiently watched, stalked and attacked by the 50/50 Killer.

‘And yet the 50/50 Killer is dead,’ Mercer said.

‘But we never found out where he came from.’

‘No.’

‘He had a history,’ I said. ‘A past. Once upon a time, he must have had a family.’

I saw Mercer tapping his files again.

‘I know you’ve, been researching a book about the case,’ I prompted. ‘What have you found?’

He sighed. ‘Bits and pieces. Nothing concrete. Every time I find a thread and follow it, it doesn’t go anywhere. A possible rental in one identity here, another there. But no real records. I can’t be sure any of it is actually him. I still don’t know his real name.’

I nodded to myself. On the one hand, it was ridiculous that a man might appear out of nowhere, his past shrouded in a mist that couldn’t be shone through. Everyone leaves a trace. And yet it didn’t-surprise me that the 50/50 Killer of all people would be someone who had done precisely this. I was increasingly sure that we needed to blow that mist away, though, and that when we found where he had come from, we’d find the place where Charlie had been held all this time.

I took the turning for the hospital.

Mercer stared ahead. ‘Do you remember the last time we were here?’

That first day again. I’d spent the early hours of that snowy morning interviewing a man called Scott, teasing out details of a story that would end in tragedy for so many of us.

‘Yes,’ I said.

I thought about adding that it was very different now. That Charlie was in an entirely different wing of the hospital. That it was morning. That time had passed, and we were here for different reasons. And that this wouldn’t necessarily end in the same tragedy that it had back then. But as I pulled in to the car park, it didn’t feel like any of that made any difference at all.

Groves

The fire station

In the far north of the city, driving along the ring road, Groves passed the spot where two years earlier he’d walked into the woods and identified his son’s body. The memory of that night was visceral, but it was embedded more in his heart than his head: a sudden shiver in his chest, like walking through a cold spot in a supposedly haunted house.

He glanced in the mirror and watched the small parking area recede behind him. It seemed so innocuous and ordinary in the midday light and drizzle.

Do you want to see your son again?

The man on the phone had refused to answer any questions. Instead, he had simply given Groves a series of directions. He was to drive north, skirting the edge of the woods, passing the spot where he had come that night. About a mile further on, he would see a place on his left-hand side. He would know it when he saw it.

Groves watched the counter on the dashboard. Outside the car, there was nothing of interest to see. Just the woods on the right, and a high red-brick wall on the left, its top ringed with coils of old razor wire, which had fallen down the stone in places, like ivy.

What are you doing, David?

He couldn’t explain it, even to himself. The sensible thing to do would have been to call Sean and tell him what had happened. And yet even as he’d realised that, he’d started to rationalise himself out of making that decision. What did it prove? It was only his word about the content of the call, and he had a strange feeling that if he did report it, then whatever he was supposed to see here would be gone by the time the police arrived.

But deep down, he knew the real reasons he was heading here on his own. It burned him that he’d tried to do the right thing and it had backfired on him – placed him under suspicion. And he wanted to meet the man behind all this.

He rounded a corner, a mile past the footpath that had led to his son’s makeshift grave, and saw it up ahead.

A section of the wall had broken down, falling like steps into what had once been a large opening, big enough for vehicles, and now stretched even wider. Through that, Groves could see an open expanse of tarmac, and what appeared to be an abandoned factory of some kind.

He indicated force of habit – and drove into what turned out to be an old car park. It was only as he pulled up in front of the crumbling building that he realised it wasn’t a factory at all, but the remains of an old fire station.

He stared out through the windscreen, rain pattering down steadily on the glass. He vaguely remembered the place now: the station had closed down years ago, and was little more than a shell now. The main building was in the centre of the area, with two cavernous bay doors open to the elements. Shards of glass littered the tarmac in front. Inside, beyond the brick dust and piles of broken timber, he could see fading graffiti on the walls. A door to one side of the bays, which looked like it led into a reception area, was missing, and the space was half blocked by debris, the plinth above collapsed. Grass had sprouted around the base of the building, and at the far end of the car park, the surrounding undergrowth had encroached metres over the tarmac.

Groves stepped out of the car. Standing still for a second and listening, he heard nothing but the rain. The place had the air of an ancient temple – of work done by long-forgotten human hands that was already being undone and reclaimed by nature.

His footfalls echoed as he stepped into the huge bay. Old wooden beams rested against one wall, charred and thinned in the middle. There were rusted tanks and some trampled-down green sheeting. Up close, he realised that the graffiti he’d seen was desultory and half finished, as though whoever was responsible had realised that nobody would ever see it and had given up partway through. This far out, the place wasn’t even a draw for bored kids.