Cut to the Bone (22 page)

‘Did the press conference with the parents deliver anything?’ said DS Lowe, as though running on the same track as him.

‘Nothing concrete,’ said Kate.

They heard the sound of tyres screeching as a Transit van came towards them. Moments later, the sound of dogs barking filled the air.

‘I’ll get Ruby’s T-shirt,’ said Zain.

Chapter Sixty-three

Hampshire police had sent two female dog handlers. Kate was impressed by the representation of women in the force, and commented on it to Zain.

‘You think? I reckon there’s a man up there somewhere, though, sending the women, because they’re not as good. In his opinion. I’m laughing, though; they’re better.’

‘Are you trying to kiss my ass, Harris?’

‘Is it working?’

The dogs, bloodhounds, had caught Ruby’s scent from the T-shirt they had brought with them from her flat. They went crazy inside the cottage for a while, where she had been recently. In the bedrooms, the basement. Something odd happened, though. When one of the dogs got near to the chair Ruby had been tied to, it panicked. The dog yanked its chain, started whimpering, scared.

‘Fuck me,’ said Zain.

The handler looked around, asked for light to be brought, and a magnifying lens.

‘Cayenne pepper,’ she said. ‘Someone’s put it down, to affect the dogs.’

The dog was taken back to the holding van. It always surprised Kate how animals of strength, with the ability to tear a new throat for a man, could be rendered passive that way. The other dog, Diva, picked up Ruby’s scent, its handler avoiding the chair, back up the stairs to the kitchen, through the back door and into the woods.

Diva started a light canter, her handler trotting along with her. She darted through a break in the trees, invisible from a distance. When you got close, you could see the disturbance in the natural alignment of forest.

Kate followed with Zain and Rob at a brisk walk. Her boots fared better than Rob’s shoes. She glanced at them meaningfully.

‘DS Lowe offered me a spare pair of wellies, but I’m good,’ he said.

‘You should have taken her up on her offer,’ said Zain.

‘I have a reputation to maintain,’ replied Rob.

‘These country gals probably like men in wellies.’

‘She’s not country; she’s from a town.’

‘Is she indeed? What happened to the forensics woman?’ said Zain.

‘We had a nice time.’

‘Do you think work is a dating agency?’ said Zain.

‘I hear jealousy in every syllable, mate,’ said Rob, slapping Zain on the shoulder.

‘Can you check what stage the moon was at in its cycle,’ Kate cut in. ‘I want to know how dark it was the night Ruby went missing.’

She pictured Ruby with no awareness, brushing branches across her face, tripping over loose rocks, fallen bits of wood. To be filmed, to be led.

‘Dan must have used night-vision glasses,’ she said. ‘He knew where he was taking her. Her scent leads this way for a reason. There are no tyre tracks; he didn’t drive.’

They walked on, Diva barking softly ahead of them. They caught up with her, eating treats from her handler’s palm, about a half hour later.

‘What happened?’ said Kate.

‘Take a look,’ said the handler.

Kate walked forward, and saw why they had stopped.

Chapter Sixty-four

She was sitting in the passenger side of Zain’s car, the door open.

‘Any joy?’ she said, when Rob walked past her.

‘They’re bringing another dog, searches for cadavers. Tomorrow we can access one that searches under water. In case.’

‘Sounds like a circus act,’ said Kate.

‘The rest is going to be a manual job for now,’ Rob said.

‘We’ll stay and help,’ she told him. ‘Get DS Lowe to recommend a hotel in Winchester, then get Lia to book us in.’

Diva had run until she reached a creek. She lost Ruby’s scent there. A rowboat was moored to the side. It reminded Kate of home, a boy she had loved. He used to take her sailing at night, the banks lit by fireflies. Had it been love? Probably teenage hormones confusing her feelings. She remembered the ache he used to cause in her body, just seeing him, knowing he was near.

Ruby must have been put in that boat, and taken somewhere. Diva could track over water, but the stream was running. She had set off in one direction along the bank, but had then become unsure, headed the other way.

‘I’ll take her across, start on the other bank,’ said her handler.

Diva had run along, trying to pick up the scent, until the creek hit a bank of trees that acted as a dam of sorts. The dog then became excited, picking up speed, and headed onwards. Until it reached a minor road.

‘She got into a car here,’ said her handler.

Kate looked on, seeing nothing but road in either direction. Planning. Dan had known what he was doing. He was taunting them, wanted them to be part of his game. To be part of the chase.

The curse of the internet. Too much information on how to commit crimes undetected.

It meant the search area for Ruby was expanding further. Until they knew where Ruby had been taken, where she got out off the car, the dogs would be of little use. Kate wasn’t taking any chances, though; she was dealing with someone who was meticulous. The body might have been dumped in the water, buried somewhere nearby. A painstaking, intensive, laborious search was starting. Rows of officers and volunteers had agreed to search while there was still daylight. The officers would search on into the night, but she wasn’t hopeful. It felt like filling the time, doing something because doing nothing wasn’t an option.

Hope was arranging a second press conference with the parents.

And through it all, Twitter was being used as a weapon to criticise her and to campaign for Dan’s release. It seemed that if you were famous or vaguely attractive, you couldn’t possibly be guilty.

Back in London, Stevie Brennan had interviewed Dan, confronting him with the facts of what they had found at his Hampshire property.

‘He was shitting it,’ she said when providing an update. ‘His eyes kept widening, on cue, every time I mentioned something. The cottage, the cellar, the chair, the stream. He denied it, said it was someone setting him up. I asked him who hated him that much; he said half of YouTube did. The jealous, failed half.’

‘Was he really that articulate? Last time I saw him he was in floods of tears,’ Kate said.

‘Yes. I think prison is sobering him up,’ said Stevie.

‘Still no alibi?’ asked Kate.

‘Still no alibi,’ said Stevie.

Chapter Sixty-five

Lia had booked them into a Holiday Inn, outside of Winchester. It was midnight when they checked in, Kate’s legs feeling as though she had climbed twelve flights of stairs. Through her window she looked into a black shadowed copse, the tops looking like broken glass shards.

Kate kicked off her boots and lay back on the bed in her room, curled up and started to fall asleep. She woke up a few minutes later, her room phone ringing.

‘Riley,’ she said.

‘They’ve opened the restaurant for us, if you want to get something?’ said Zain.

‘You’re going to eat at this hour?’

‘I’m starving,’ he said.

‘I need to shower. I’ll be another half hour yet,’ she said.

‘That’s fine, I’ll wait.’

‘Where’s Pelt?’

‘Asleep,’ said Zain.

‘Alone?’

‘No idea.’

Liar, she thought.

They were seated in the bar, sated after a rough and ready dinner. Zain had opted for a tuna and red pepper Panini, while she had gone for steak.

‘You don’t drink?’ she said, as he sipped his lime and soda.

‘Rarely,’ he said.

She was on her second vodka. It felt indulgent.

‘Don’t think we’ve ever done this,’ he said. ‘Just hung out.’

They weren’t alone in the bar. Executive types were drinking amiably around them. She noticed inebriated heads turning her way, becoming more blatant as the time wore on. She was the only female there.

The bartender was black, with short hair and a French accent. He stood with his hands behind his back, leaning against a tall stool, when he wasn’t serving.

‘You haven’t been with us long enough,’ she said.

‘Or am I just not welcome at Friday night drinks?’

‘There is that as well,’ she said, smiling.

He didn’t bite, or take it badly, just stared into the distance. His blue eyes gave him a lupine quality, smouldering against his olive skin.

She checked her phone. Ryan had sent her a joke, making her smile.

‘Boyfriend?’ said Harris.

‘Why would you say that?’

‘No reason.’

‘My sitter, actually,’ she said.

The word hovered; Zain pulled it out of the air and ran with it. ‘Babysitter? I didn’t know you had kids.’

‘I don’t,’ she said. Her face was hot; she tried to cool it with the ice in her drink, but failed. What could she say? House-sitter? Dog-sitter?

The tiredness, the intensity and the drink were all loosening her up, and she said to Zain, regretting it as soon as she did: ‘No, a sitter for my mother.’

He raised his eyebrows slightly.

‘Like a carer?’

‘Yes. In a way.’

‘Body or brain?’ he said.

‘Brain,’ she said, draining her glass. ‘Get me another vodka, will you? Straight up.’ Zain returned a few moments later, long enough for her to carry out a discourse in her head. Should she tell him the details? Would everyone else find out? Would it affect how people saw her, her ability to do her job?

Her mind was clouded, and she had an urge to confess. See his reaction. If he was OK, then maybe that was a start? She could peel off the layers of deception with the rest of the team?

‘Were you all right today?’ she said instead. ‘You went a bit quiet in the basement.’

He didn’t meet her eyes, looked away at the other drinkers. ‘Yeah, I was OK. Just had a flashback to something, that’s all.’

‘Anything to do with what happened with SO15?’

‘It always is,’ he said. ‘Everything is to do with what happened.’

‘What did they do to you?’

He ran his fingers through the hair on his face. What was that? It wasn’t quite a beard, but was too long for stubble. She caught herself imagining what it would feel like, running her fingers over it. She remembered doing that to her brothers when they had shaved their heads, feeling the prickly new growth. She didn’t think it would feel that way if she reached out and touched Zain Harris. The sensations in her fingers would be the least heightened part of the process.

He caught her staring at his mouth. She smiled with her own.

‘You really want to know?’ he said.

Kate felt awake suddenly. Excited, even.

‘Yes,’ she said.

Chapter Sixty-six

Zain went to the bar, ordered a Scotch diluted with ice and a splash of soda water. His father’s drink.

The bartender was obviously tired, his movements laboured. He struggled to pick the ice up with a fork and spoon. He filled another glass with vodka, diluted it with Coke, for Kate.

It was nearly 2 a.m. The bar was empty. Just the two of them left. A heater was pumping warm air over him when he sat down, making him uncomfortable. It was prickly. His mother used to say that about British summers. The heat is prickly. She was used to summers in Istanbul and Delhi.

Zain was wearing a navy T-shirt he had in his car, with jeans. Pelt had borrowed a second T-shirt from him. He thought of the cocky sergeant, wrapped up in his sheets, wrapped around DS Lowe. The feeling of resentment and disapproval twisted in him again. As did a sense of arousal.

Zain took a sip, feeling the fire in his throat. The heat made him sweat as he watched Kate leave her drink untouched. She already had three vodkas swimming around in her. She seemed eager, a willing audience.

‘You told me you were taken, caught in a trap?’ she said.

Caught in a trap. Like an animal. That fit.

‘Yes. They grabbed me, blindfolded me, bound my hands with plastic ties, my legs, too. Kicked my head a couple of times. Out of sheer hatred or to cause me to black out. Probably both.’

‘You were alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where did they take you?’

Zain remembered snatches of a drive, some moments awake, some not. The smell of greased cloths, the taste of the metal. The hardness of the van floor.

‘I still don’t know. It was a holding cell, a basement somewhere. I was left shackled to some pipes. My eyes were never uncovered. Even when they beat me.’

She moved her chair closer to him. He caught the scent from the body wash she must have used earlier.

‘I lay there, and I didn’t have a clue what was happening around me. Time, it just goes. I tried, I mean I tried to count the seconds, the minutes. But you give up after a while. And I was never awake all the time.’

‘Did they ever speak to you?’

Conversations he couldn’t repeat. Ones he had shared in his debriefing. The relentless questions, the breaking down of Zain Harris. He wasn’t a spy; he wasn’t trained to deal with interrogation techniques. He didn’t have a cyanide capsule. He’d had to learn the hard way.

‘No,’ he lied. ‘They were trying to trade me. It was hopeless. They weren’t in some Middle Eastern dugout; they were operating on British soil. Where could they go?’

‘What did they want?’

‘Safe passage, destination of their choice. It was all bollocks. They were on a suicide mission; they wanted to take as many people like me with them they could.’

He remembered the electrodes. Attached to his feet first, his nipples. Then his testicles. The pain, it got so intense he’d passed out.

‘How long did they hold you?’

‘A week I found out afterwards.’

The words seemed inadequate to his ears. A week. Is that all it was?

‘Portsmouth. That’s where I ended up.’

‘Why there?’ she said, her voice a whisper now.

‘They had a shipping container. They were going to use it to smuggle me out.’

‘What happened then?’ said Kate.

Visions flooded his head. Zain felt anxiety in his bloodstream. The pills. He didn’t have any. Fuck, no. Panic joined the anxiety. His heart started hammering inside his ribcage, loud and fast and strong. So strong he thought it would burst. He imagined it exploding, the way Ruby’s head had exploded, the way the brain matter spattered out from her skull. His heart spattering out from his chest.