by Neil Cross
‘That I sucked my first cock when I was three and it was yum yum in my tum tum.’
Luther looks down at his hands. He knows this woman’s madness has seeped into him like the stink of cadaverine. It’s impossible to wash off. You can wash and wash and wash. You have to wait until it fades away.
‘You told him this?’ he says.
‘Oh, yeah. I hate it when people get on their high horse about paedos. It’s all hype. Kids love it.’
He grips the edge of the table. Counts down from five. ‘How did Henry react, when you told him this?’
‘He got angry.’
‘How angry?’
‘He went absolutely tonto on me. Ranting and raving, his hair all sticking up. He reminded me of Hitler. He says no kid can enjoy it, it’s not physically possible, they’re too young to understand. And I said: If they’re too young to understand, what’s the big deal? ’
‘And what did he say to that?’
‘That paedos come from defective genes. That they should be banned from breeding.’
‘He say that about anyone else?’
‘Everyone else. Murderers. Rapists. Jews. Arabs. Blacks.’
‘They should all be-’
‘Bred out.’
‘That’s what he said, is it? Those are his words. “ Bred out ”.’
She nods, enjoying herself. ‘For the good of the human race.’
‘Backtrack a bit,’ he says. ‘This argument. Where did it take place?’
‘In the front seat of his car.’
‘Exactly how angry did he get? Angry enough to hit you?’
‘No.’
‘Did you feel in any danger?’
She gives him a faint, patronizing smile. ‘A man attacks you,’ she says, ‘you go for his eyes and his bollocks. I don’t care how strong he is. Eyes and balls. They’re a man’s weakness. In every way.’ She squeezes her breasts, does the Marilyn pout.
‘Why were you in the car?’
‘Because we were on the way to this self-help group. The infertile couples thing.’
‘Okay,’ says Luther. ‘When did he take you there?’
‘This is like a year after the social workers idea. He said that wasn’t going to work. He couldn’t get the kind of baby he wanted that way. He was really pissed off.’
‘What did he mean, “the kind of baby”?’
‘He wanted a good one.’
‘A good one?’
She smiles and nods, as delighted as Luther is horrified.
‘So he took you to an infertility support group?’
‘Yes.’
‘And that didn’t seem weird to you?’
‘Not really. He had his eye on this one couple-’
‘The Lamberts?’
‘That’s them. He said they were going to the support group even though she was pregnant. He was really excited. He said it was the best way to get to know them.’
‘Backtrack again. “He had his eye on this one couple”. What does that mean?’
‘It means, he had like a shortlist of people he wanted to take a baby from. A newborn baby.’
‘What shortlist?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘How many people were on it?’
‘I don’t know. I wasn’t interested. I didn’t ask. But I do know the Lamberts were his favourites. He like, loved them.’
‘He loved them? He was in love with Sarah Lambert? With Tom Lambert?’
‘With them. Together. He said they were perfect. He showed me a tape of them fucking. I think it was them. It was difficult to see in the dark. But he said it was them.’
Luther has a feeling in his gut. ‘He had a tape of the Lamberts.. being intimate.’
She nods, delighted.
‘Taken without their knowledge?’
‘Lots of them. Yes. Tapes of her on the loo, tapes of him shaving. Tapes of them watching TV. Tapes of them screwing.’
Luther’s hand is shaking. He sets down the pen.
‘He had lots of tapes,’ Sweet Jane says. ‘Lots of families.’
‘What families?’
‘Fucked if I know. He just wanted to show them rutting each other. He thought if I saw normal people having normal sex the way normal people do, he’d make me normal.’
‘Is that the word he used? “Normal”?’
‘It was his favourite word. Everyone’s got their thing, right? Everyone’s got something that turns them on. His was being normal. He just wanted to be normal.’
‘How many couples did he show you?’
‘I don’t know. Ten? Twelve? It did nothing for me. Except this one couple… the wife was a tiny little thing. Shaved snatch. No tits to speak of. Nipples like threepenny coins. She was a bit of yum.’
‘And these weren’t films downloaded from the internet?’
‘No. He’d taken them himself.’
‘Without the couples’ knowledge.’
‘Apparently.’
‘How did he get these films?’
‘His son helped him.’
‘His what?’
‘Son.’
‘What son? You didn’t mention a son.’
‘I think I just did.’
‘How old is the son now?’
‘I don’t know. Twenty?’
‘Did you meet the son?’
‘Once or twice. Henry would drop him off while we were on the way to the hospital.’
‘Drop him off where?’
‘Nowhere in particular. Just places.’
‘What’s the son’s name?’
‘Patrick.’
‘What does Patrick look like?’
‘I don’t know. Normal.’
The amused, pewter light in her eyes is dimming. She’s getting bored. He knows he’s coming to the end of it now.
‘And after these meetings of the IVF group,’ he says, ‘he’d just sit and — what? Just watch Tom and Sarah Lambert. What happened then?’
‘He tried to make friends with them.’
‘Did he succeed?’
‘Did he fuck. They thought he was creepy.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because he was. He was all creepy and hand-wringy like a little toad. He made her flesh crawl. I think the man wanted to fuck me, though. He had that look. He couldn’t stop looking at me.’
Luther can’t stop looking at her either.
Ten minutes later, Sweet Jane Carr is removed to her cell.
Luther signs out and is led through the echoing maze, bleak with night. He steps outside, into the glow of prison lights. Drizzle dances in their gaunt radiance.
Outside the gates, two police cars are waiting.
Rose Teller is there. Arms crossed, head bowed.
He strides up to her.
‘He called himself Henry Grady,’ he says, too quickly for her to get a word in. ‘I’ve got a good description. He’s got a son, Patrick. And he’s got some kind of database, a list of people he’s watching — the way he watched the Lamberts. For whatever reason the Lamberts were his favourites. But there are more. And he’s not a paedophile. He’s a family man-’
She crosses her arms and shifts her weight. She’s wearing an impatient, scowling expression.
‘He wants to be normal,’ Luther says. ‘He thinks of himself as an outsider; he’s always been an outsider. He didn’t grow up in a conventional household. That could mean anything — a cult. Hippies. But most likely it means he was adopted. Adoption can have a negative effect on some kids; even a really good adoption. Henry never felt like he belonged. And now he’s trying to make a family around him. That’s why he gets so angry. Any dad would, if someone accused him of being a paedophile. He’s-’
‘All right,’ she says. ‘Stop now.’
The words are jammed behind his mouth, crammed up behind his eyes.
‘We need to look for a man called Finian Ward,’ he says. ‘And any bogus social-worker activity in Bristol during the mid-nineties. I think that’s ho
w he knew to target Adrian York. He’d pose as a social worker and-’
‘Stop,’ says Teller.
He stops. His hands drop to his sides.
She says, ‘Go home.’
‘What do you mean? He’s out there. Tonight. Right now. And I’m getting close to him.’
‘Hundreds of good coppers are after him. We’ll feed everything you’ve given us into the pool.’
‘Boss, you can’t do this to me. I asked to come off the case. You made me stay on. And now here we are. I can smell him. I’ve got his stink.’
‘And to get here, you assaulted one witness and threatened another.’
He grits his teeth, thinks of Howie and the phone call from the dank concrete balcony. ‘Exigent circumstances,’ he says.
‘That’s not a defence. Not in law. Not to me.’
‘Boss,’ he says. ‘There’s a family out there tonight. He’s probably got keys to their house. He’s going to let himself in and do what he wants to them.’ He shows her his watch, the ticking second hand. ‘Now,’ he says. ‘Tonight. You know what that means. You saw what he left of the Lamberts.’
‘And you haven’t slept for three days. It’s showing.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You can’t keep still. You’re pacing. ‘
‘I’m frustrated.’
‘You’re wired.’
She takes his elbow, leads him away.
‘I’m pretty sure Sava won’t file a report,’ she says. ‘A bloke like that sees a bit of harassment as cost of business. And nobody will believe a word Bixby said.’
‘So what’s the problem?’
‘The problem is, you did it.’
He exhales, helpless and trapped. He holds out his hands as if petitioning the moon. ‘Boss, I’m fine.’
‘You got a pretty decent result from Jane Carr,’ Teller says. ‘How’d you pull that off? Don’t say you flirted with her. Because I tell you, mate, you’re not her type.’ She skewers him on her bright raptorial gaze. ‘What if we ask the screws to toss her cell? They going to find anything?’
He shoves his hands in his pockets, wanders in a baffled circle.
‘I can’t go home with all this happening,’ he says. ‘I can’t.’
‘That’s not your decision.’
‘Seriously,’ he says. ‘Make up your mind. I’m on or I’m off.’
‘Go home, John.’
He pinches the bridge of his nose. ‘All right,’ he says. ‘All right, I’ll go home and I’ll get my head down. But do me a favour?’
‘Depends.’
‘Anything happens, you get a good sniff, give me a call.’
‘Done.’
He scuffs his feet. Scowls. ‘I’m honestly fine,’ he says.
But he accepts it, and heads home.
There is no single register of prank calls made in London during any twenty-four-hour period.
But tonight there are many more such calls than usual.
London-wide, mischievous teenage boys, hate-filled ex-lovers, racists, stoned students and the mentally ill call many hundreds of different families, warning them that Pete Black is coming for them.
Hundreds of people are terrorized. Several dozen of them call 999. They include a number of families who share the surname Dalton.
All calls are logged, but are subject to triage.
Nobody thinks the man who calls himself ‘Pete Black’ will call ahead to warn his targets he’s on his way.
CHAPTER 19
Luther’s home shortly after 8.40 p.m. Zoe’s not back yet.
He checks his mobile for messages before letting himself through the red door and into the dark hallway. Eleven missed calls. Three voicemails from Zoe, increasingly worried and exasperated. She gave up calling several hours ago.
He wonders where she is.
He turns off the phone, pockets it and steps further into the house, hangs his coat on the banister.
He doesn’t know what to do.
He trudges through to the kitchen and plugs the phone in to charge.
He goes upstairs to the bathroom. He cleans his teeth and washes his face. He looks at himself in the mirror, beaded with water, then goes downstairs and turns on the TV. He cycles through the channels three times, then turns it off.
He walks around the house turning lights on. Then he goes back to the kitchen, checks his phone, clears away Zoe’s breakfast things, puts the dishwasher on.
He opens the fridge and looks at their food, their bottled sauces, their fruit and milk and yogurt, displayed under surgically bright light. He stands in the cool breath long enough for the fridge to start beeping at him.
There’s a carton of milk in there, bought on Monday when the Lambert baby was still in her mother’s womb. And now the child lies with her parents on a slab. Their eyes are low and sly, the artfulness of the dead, as if they know something you don’t, something you’ll find out soon enough.
But the milk is still good enough to drink; he could make a cup of tea with it. He looks at the milk while the fridge beeps and he doesn’t hear the keys in the latch or the door open or Zoe set her bags down in the hallway. He doesn’t hear her walk down the hall and linger in the kitchen doorway.
She says, ‘You’re home.’
He ignores the redundancy. It’s just one of those things people say to one another. Most words people say to each other don’t mean what they seem to. Spoken words carry their real meaning like rats carry infected fleas.
‘I called about a hundred times,’ she says. ‘Your phone was off.’
‘If you leave your phone on, all it does is ring.’
The fridge is still beeping. He shuts the door. He thinks that if he could explain about the milk, then everything will be all right.
He says, ‘Did you see the news?’
Her lip trembles with fury. ‘Of course I saw the news. I’ve done nothing but talk about the fucking news all day. My mother called to talk about the news, and to ask if you were all right. The entire world’s talking about the news. The only person who hasn’t talked to me about the fucking news is you.’
He’s rocked by her ferocity. He swallows it and says, ‘Do you want a drink?’
‘No.’
Nor does Luther. He puts the kettle on.
She says, ‘There’s nice stuff in the tin.’
She means the tall tin of loose-leaf black tea; it’s the kind of thing she brings home from the farmer’s market.
She’ll take great pleasure in showing him these things, lifting them from shopping bags item by item. They linger in the kitchen — him drinking proper tea, Zoe drinking something herbal — and she talks him through the speciality bread, the organic meat, the spices and the wines and the organic vegetables, the rank boutique cheeses. She passes them to him for inspection. He comments on the leanness of the beef, the pleasing density of the bacon, the weight of the organic eggs, the tincture of the wine. He doesn’t have much of a palate, food is food, but he loves those Saturday afternoons in the summer and autumn, sitting here in the kitchen with his wife.
Later, if it’s a really good day he’ll sit reading while she cooks. She’s not a chatty chef; she likes to concentrate, empty her mind. She’s prepared and methodical, first laying out the ingredients strictly in accordance with the recipe.
Only when she knows she’s got everything she needs to hand does she begin to improvise. It’s from this improvisation that she takes real pleasure.
She doesn’t know it, but she talks to herself while she’s cooking, rehearsing work conversations through half-opened lips, observations related to the food, things to do with her working week. Working it all through.
He likes to hunch over his book, only pretending to read, listening. He loves her fiercely and acutely in those moments, running through her private thoughts and imaginary conflicts.
Later, she sips wine and flicks through the Saturday newspapers as he washes up. He doesn’t mind washing up. She’s told him more than on
ce that washing up is in his nature.
Now the water in the kettle seethes and Zoe is looking at him with ice in her eyes. He’s worn out. A muscle in his upper arm twitches. He says, ‘I should have called.’
‘Yes, you should have called.’
‘I was-’
‘Busy?’
Yes, he wants to say. I was busy. But he doesn’t. He says, ‘I’m sorry.’
She takes off her coat, finally. Hangs it over the back of a kitchen chair. Then she embraces him, puts her head onto his neck so he can smell her hair and her skin; even that she’s smoked a crafty cigarette today, probably guilt-ridden and scared on his behalf, pacing the forlorn smoking area outside Ford and Vargas. Calling him names under her breath, hating him because she was scared for him. The smell of that cigarette fills him with tenderness and regret.
‘I should have called,’ he says. ‘I should have. But I was caught up. It was pretty bad.’
‘Because it was a baby?’
Their eyes lock. ‘Babies are never easy.’
She squeezes past him, opens the fridge, takes out the wine.
‘I thought you didn’t want a drink.’
‘I changed my mind. I can do that. I can change my mind.’
She pours herself a glass.
He waits. Then he says, ‘What does that mean?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing means nothing.’
‘Well, that did. That meant nothing.’
Acting on autopilot, she passes him the bottle with the cork half jammed back in the neck. He puts the bottle back in the fridge and slings the heavy door shut.
She gulps wine, then says, ‘We need to have a talk.’
‘We’re talking now.’
‘Not about this. About me and you.’
‘What about me and you?’
‘I think you know. In your heart, you have to know.’
‘Know what?’
‘John, seriously. Do you have any idea how much I hate this?’
‘Hate what, Zoe? I don’t know what we’re saying here.’
‘This marriage,’ she says.
His legs go weak.
He has to sit.
‘You mean being married to me.’
‘No. I mean… me and you together.’
‘I don’t understand. I don’t know what you’re saying.’
‘You do know what I’m saying. I’ve been saying it for years now. I’ve been saying it louder and louder.’
