Gone

by Mo Hayder

  Now the sun stood exactly between the middle and the outer one. She looked at it for a long time. Then she checked her watch: 27 November. Exactly six months to the day since she’d hidden the corpse in the cave.

  She thought of the disappointment in Caffery’s face. The lightless reflection of his eyes last night. She drained her drink. Rubbed her arms to make the bumps go away. How long was it supposed to go on? When something so impossible and unimaginable had happened, just how long were you supposed to shut down for?

  Six months. That was the answer. Six months was long enough. Too long. The time had come. The corpse wasn’t going to be found. Not now. She’d have to pack the whole thing away in the back of her mind because it was time for other things. It was time to get the unit back on track. Time to prove she was the same sergeant she’d always been. She could do it. She was going to blot the disappointment out of everyone’s eyes. Maybe then the walls in her own eyes would come down. Maybe the day would come when there weren’t sour milk and meals for one in the freezer. And maybe, just maybe, the day would come when there’d be someone else standing on the gravel driveway with her, drinking Tanqueray and watching the night lower itself on to the lighted city.

  10

  Caffery’s head felt full of lead. Like a cold, miserable ball with It’s not working etched on it. He went down the corridor opening doors, delegating tasks. He gave Lollapalooza the job of tracking down known sex offenders in the Frome area, and told Turner to tickle up any more witnesses to either jacking. Turner looked a mess: unshaven, and he’d forgotten to take out the diamond stud earring he wore at weekends. The one that, with his spiky highlighted hair, gave him the look of a devout clubber and sent the superintendent into paroxysms of abuse. Before he left the office Caffery pointed it out to him. Stood at the doorway, said, ‘Uh, Turner?’ and waggled his own ear up and down to give him the clue. Turner pulled it out hurriedly, pocketed it, and Caffery went on his way ruminating that no one in the unit seemed to give a damn about looking professional. There was Turner with his earring, and Lollapalooza with her killer heels. Only the new guy, the traffic cop DC Prody, seemed to have checked in the mirror before he’d left home that morning.

  He was sitting neatly at his desk when Caffery came in, lit only by a small lamp. He was shaking the mouse on the mouse mat and frowning at the screen. Behind him a workman, standing on a stepladder, was painstakingly removing the plastic cover from the fluorescent light fitting on the ceiling.

  ‘I thought these computers were supposed to time out,’ said Prody.

  ‘They are.’ Caffery pulled back a chair. ‘After five minutes.’

  ‘Mine’s not. I leave the room, come back and it’s still hot to trot.’

  ‘The number for IT’s on the wall.’

  ‘That’s where the extension list is.’ Prody unpinned it and put it in front of him. Lined it up. Placed his hands on the desk and considered it carefully, as if its tidiness pleased him. He was such an orderly man compared to Turner and Lollapalooza. There was a dark-blue gym bag hanging on the wall and you could tell from Prody’s physique that it got used. He was tall and broad and solid, with tightly trimmed hair that was just edging into grey at the sideburns. A big, handsome Kennedy jawline, slightly tanned. The only thing screwing up his appearance was the evidence of teenage acne. Looking at him Caffery saw, with a moment of surprise, that he was expecting good things from this guy. ‘Every day’s a little better. I’m not such a noob any more. They’re even giving me leccy at last.’ Prody nodded to the workman. ‘They must like me.’

  Caffery held up a hand to the workman. ‘Mate? Can we have some space here? Just for ten.’

  He got down the ladder without a word. He put his screwdriver into a toolbox, closed it and left the room. Caffery sat down. ‘Anything new?’

  ‘Nothing really. No bites from the ANPR points – not on the Yaris or the partial index on the Vauxhall in Frome.’

  ‘It’s definitely the same guy as the earlier two jackings. No getting away from it.’ He put the Ordnance Survey map between them. ‘You were in Traffic before you came over here.’

  ‘For my sins.’

  ‘Do you know Wells, Farrington Gurney, Radstock?’

  ‘Farrington Gurney?’ He laughed. ‘Just a little. I mean, I lived there for ten years. Why?’

  ‘The superintendent’s muttering about bringing in a geographical profiler. Meanwhile I think someone who’s spent enough time out on the roads knows more about the way the land lies than a psychologist.’

  ‘And I get paid half as much, so I must be your man.’ Prody pulled the lamp towards himself and hunched over the map. ‘What’ve we got?’

  ‘What we’ve got is a fuck-awful situation, Paul, if you’ll pardon my language. But let’s suck that one up and think what to do about it. Look at this. The first jacking’s over in minutes, but the second one, he took longer. And he went a weird route.’

  ‘Weird how?’

  ‘He came up the A37, going north, and kept going. Past Binegar, past Farrington Gurney. Then he turned back on himself.’

  ‘He was lost?’

  ‘No. Definitely not. He knew that road really well. He told the girl there was a Little Chef up the road a long time before they got to it. He knew where he was. And that’s what I’m wondering. If he knew the area why did he take the route he did? Is there something along there he was attracted to?’

  Prody ran his finger along A37, the road that came down from Bristol into the Mendips. He went down south, past Farrington Gurney, past the turn the jacker had taken. He stopped north of Shepton Mallet and was quiet for a moment or two, frowning.

  ‘What?’ Caffery said.

  ‘Maybe he knew the road from north to south, but not from south to north. If he travelled it often in this direction he’d know this way to Wells, but he might not know it coming from the south. Which might mean that whatever he was using the road for – going to work or visiting friends or whatever – he only knew it up to this point. So he was stopping his route somewhere here, south of Farrington, north of Shepton. And yesterday’s jacking was here. In Frome.’

  ‘But I’ve got a witness who thinks the Vauxhall must have come through from Radstock, which is in the direction of Farrington. So let’s just say this general area is important to him somehow.’

  ‘We could put ANPR on these roads too. If they’re not already over-committed around Frome.’

  ‘Know anyone in the Tactical Traffic Unit?’

  ‘Been trying to get away from the bastards for the last two years. Leave it to me.’

  Caffery had noticed a file on the side unit. He stopped listening to Prody and stared at the name on the spine. After a moment he put his hands on the chair arms and pushed himself upright. Went across to the unit and glanced casually at it.

  ‘The Misty Kitson case?’

  ‘Yup.’ Prody didn’t lift his eyes from the map he was studying, trying to figure out a good place to position the ANPR units.

  ‘Where’d you get the file?’

  ‘The review team had it. Thought I’d give it a quick flick through.’

  ‘Thought you’d “give it a quick flick through”?’

  Prody stopped looking at the map and raised his eyes to Caffery. ‘Yes. Just – you know, see if anything jumped out at me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why?’ He said it cautiously, as if it was a trick question, as if Caffery had asked him something obvious, like Hey, Paul, why do you breathe in and out? ‘Well – because it’s fascinating? What happened to her? I mean a girl in the drying-out bin for a couple of days wanders out of the clinic one afternoon, and next you know, ta-da, she’s gone. It’s just . . .’ He shrugged. Faintly embarrassed. ‘Interesting.’

  Caffery looked him up and down. Six months ago the Misty Kitson case had been a serious headache for the unit. At first there’d been a kind of excitement about it. She’d been a minor celebrity, a footballer’s wife and very pretty. The media had fallen on
it like hyenas. That had excited a lot of the cops in the team. But when, after three months, the unit had consistently come back empty-handed, the lustre began to tarnish. Humiliation had set in. Now the case had been back-burnered. The review team still had it, and they still chastised and sent periodic recommendations to MCIU over it. The press were still interested too, not to mention the occasional starstruck cop. But most of MCIU would have liked to forget they’d ever heard the name Misty Kitson. Caffery was surprised at this – Prody going to the review team off his own bat. Writing his own ticket like he’d been around the place for years and not just two weeks.

  ‘Let’s get this straight, Paul.’ He picked up the file and felt its weight testing the bones in his fingers, trying to pull his hand down. ‘You only still want to know what happened to Misty Kitson if you’re in the media. Now, you’re not in the media, are you?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I said, you’re not in the media, are you?’

  ‘No. I mean, I’m a—’

  ‘You’re a cop. Your official stance might be “We’re still pursuing lines of enquiry,” but the truth in here,’ he tapped his temple, ‘is you’ve moved on. The unit’s screwed the lid on the Kitson case. It’s over. Finished.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Be honest. Aren’t you intrigued?’

  Caffery didn’t need to be intrigued. He knew exactly where Misty Kitson was. He even knew roughly the route she’d taken out of the clinic’s grounds because he’d walked it himself. He knew who had killed her too. And how. ‘No,’ he said levelly. ‘Of course I’m not.’

  ‘Not in the slightest?’

  ‘Not in the slightest. I’m fighting one serious fire here with the jacker case. And I need all hands on deck. I don’t need my men wandering into the review team and “having a flick through” old cases. Now.’ He dropped the file on Prody’s desk. ‘Do you want to take it back or shall I?’

  Prody was silent, looking at the file. There was a long pause, and Caffery sensed him struggling not to argue. In the end he swallowed it. ‘Yeah, whatever. I’ll do it.’

  ‘Good.’

  Caffery left the office, feeling irritated and jangled. He closed the door softly, not giving in to the urge to slam it. Turner was standing outside his room, waiting for Caffery as he came down the corridor. ‘Boss?’ He was holding a piece of paper in one hand.

  Caffery stopped in his tracks, gave him a long look. ‘From your face, Turner, I’d say I’m not going to like what you’re going to tell me.’

  ‘Probably not.’

  He held out the paper. Caffery closed his thumb and forefinger on it. But something stopped him taking it from Turner’s hand. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘We got a call from boys in Wiltshire. They found the Bradleys’ Yaris.’

  Caffery’s grip on the paper tightened. Still he didn’t pull. ‘Where?’

  ‘On some disused farmland.’

  ‘And Martha’s not in it. Is she?’

  Turner didn’t answer.

  ‘If she’s not in it,’ Caffery’s voice was calm, ‘it doesn’t mean she won’t still turn up.’

  Turner coughed, embarrassed. ‘Uh – read it first, Boss. Wiltshire faxed it over. They’re getting their own SOCOs to drive the original down to us personally.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A letter. It was on the dashboard, rolled up inside some of her clothing.’

  ‘What clothing?’

  ‘Uh.’ He gave a long sigh.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Her underwear, Boss.’

  Caffery stared at the paper. His fingers were burning. ‘And what does it say?’

  ‘Oh, Christ. Like I said, Boss, maybe you should read it.’

  11

  The man crouched at the edge of the camp, the fire lighting his filthy face and beard red, making him look like something born not of woman but of a volcano. Caffery sat a few feet away, watching him in silence. It had been dark for four hours already, but the man was busy planting a bulb in the frozen earth. ‘There was once a child,’ he said, trowelling the earth away. ‘A child called Crocus. Crocus was a girl child with golden hair. She loved to wear purple dresses and ribbons.’

  Caffery listened in silence. In the short time he had known the vagrant, whom the locals called the Walking Man, he’d learned to listen and not to question. He’d learned that in this relationship he was the pupil and the Walking Man was the teacher – the one who chose most things about their encounters: what they talked about, where and when they met. It was six long months since they’d last sat together, but maybe the twentieth time Caffery had searched for him. Those hunts had been long lonely nights, driving lanes at five miles an hour, stretched up in the driver’s seat, craning his neck to see over the hedgerows. Tonight, almost the moment he’d begun looking, the campfire had sprung up like a beacon in a field. As if the Walking Man had been there all along, watching Caffery’s efforts with amusement. Waiting for the time to be right.

  ‘One day,’ the Walking Man continued, ‘Crocus was taken by a witch and condemned to live trapped among the clouds where her parents could neither speak to her nor see her. They still don’t know for sure if she’s alive, but every spring, on her birthday, they turn their eyes to the sky and pray that this spring will be the one their child is returned.’ He patted the ground around the bulb and dribbled some water on to it from a plastic bottle. ‘It is an act of faith, to continue to believe their daughter is still there. An act of absolute faith. Can you imagine what it must have been like for them never to know for sure what had happened to their daughter? Never to know for sure if she was dead or alive?’

  ‘Your daughter’s body was never found,’ Caffery said. ‘You know how they felt.’

  ‘And your brother’s wasn’t either. So that makes us twins.’ He smiled. The moonlight caught his teeth, which were even, clean and healthy in his blackened face. ‘Peas in a pod.’

  Peas in a pod? Two men who couldn’t have been more different. The insomniac lonely cop and the bedraggled homeless guy, who walked all day and never slept in the same place twice. But it was true they shared things in common. They had the same eyes. Astonishingly when Caffery looked at the Walking Man he saw his own blue eyes staring back at him. And, more importantly, they shared a story. Caffery had been eight when his older brother Ewan had disappeared from the family’s back garden in London. The ageing paedophile Ivan Penderecki, who lived over the railway tracks, was to blame, Caffery had no doubt, but Penderecki had never been charged or convicted. The Walking Man’s daughter had been raped five times before she was murdered by an itinerant offender on probation, Craig Evans.

  Craig Evans hadn’t been as lucky as Penderecki. The Walking Man, who in those days had been a successful businessman, had taken his revenge. Now Evans lived in a chair in a long-term care facility near his family home in Worcestershire. The Walking Man had been precise about the injuries he’d inflicted. Evans no longer had eyes to watch children nor a penis to rape them with.

  ‘Is that what makes you different?’ Caffery said. ‘Is that what makes you able to see?’

  ‘To see? What does that mean?’

  ‘You know what I mean. You see. You see more than others see.’

  ‘Supernatural powers, you mean.’ The Walking Man snorted. ‘Don’t talk mumbo-jumbo. I live out here and off the ground, like an animal. I exist and I absorb. My eyes are open wider and more light gets into them. But it doesn’t make me a seer.’

  ‘You know things I don’t.’

  ‘So? What do you expect of yourself? Being a cop doesn’t make you superhuman. No matter what you think.’

  The Walking Man came back to the fire. He lifted some more wood on to it. His walking socks were spread out to dry on a stick shoved into the ground near the flames. They were good socks. The most expensive money could buy. Made from alpaca. The Walking Man could afford it. He had millions tucked away in a bank somewhere.

  ‘
Paedophiles.’ Caffery sipped his cider. It stung the back of his throat and sat flat and cold in his stomach, but he knew he’d drink the whole mug and more before the night was finished. ‘My specialist subject. Stranger kidnaps. The outcome is usually the same: if we’re very lucky the child gets returned almost immediately after the assault, and if we’re not, the child will be killed within the first twenty-four hours.’ It was nearly thirty hours since Martha had gone. He lowered the mug. ‘Or, now I think of it, maybe that’s when we are lucky.’

  ‘If the child is killed in the first twenty-four hours you’re lucky? What’s that? Police logic?’

  ‘I mean that maybe it’s a better outcome than those who are kept alive longer.’

  The Walking Man didn’t answer. The two men were silent for a long time, pondering that. Caffery raised his eyes to watch the clouds roll across the moon. He thought how lonely and majestic they were. He imagined a child with golden hair peeping down from them, watching for her parents. Somewhere in the woods a fox cub was calling. And Martha was somewhere out in the great spread of the night. Caffery reached inside his jacket pocket. He pulled out the photocopied letter that had been wrapped inside her underwear and held it out. The Walking Man grunted. Leaned over and took it. Opened it and began to read, tilting the paper forward so it caught the light from the fire. Caffery watched his face. A handwriting expert had already decided the jacker was trying to disguise his writing. While the Bradleys’ car was being crawled over by the forensics guys, Caffery had spent a long time in his office, poring over the letter. Now he knew every word by heart.

  Dear Mummy of Martha,

  I am sure Martha would of wanted me to get in touch with you though it’s not like she’s said or anything. She’s not very TALKATIVE at the moment. She has told me she likes BALLET DANCING and DOGS, but you and I know very well that girls of this age lie all the time. THEY ARE LIARS. See what I think is I think she likes other things. Not like she’s going to admit that to you now, of course. She LOVED the things I did to her last night. I wish you could of seen her face.