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CHAPTER
ELEVEN

“What have you done with her?”

“Who?”

Erica backed away from me slowly as I unlocked the cage. “You know who. That tart you took out yesterday. Where is she?”

“What do you care? You’ve spent the whole week begging me to get rid of her.”

“Oh, my God.” She turned and braced herself against the sink. “I meant get her away from
me
, not take her round the back and fucking kill her.”

“Well, unfortunately, it’s not you who makes the decisions around here.” I locked myself in with her, dropped fresh milk and a new box of cereal at the foot of her bed. “What did you think I was going to do, drop her off in rehab?”

She whirled around to face me, her cheeks suddenly pale and drawn, her mouth curled into a sad grimace. Her dark eyes fluttered back sticky tears. “Why?” she murmured.

I felt something stirring, not in my trousers as I would have expected but deeper, somewhere down in the pit of my stomach. I felt my fingers twitching at my sides, my arms fighting their own urge to reach out to her. “Erica,” I said firmly, “don’t cry for her. She left her children at home so she could go out and suck off strangers for smack.” She stood rooted to the spot, covered her face with her hands as she began to sob. I changed tack, gave up hiding my frustration. “All right,” I said, “she’s had a miserable, tortured life, and now she’s in a far better place, and I’m sure someone’s looking after her kids. Is that preferable? For fuck’s sake, Erica, get over it.”

“I’m not crying for her!” she wailed, hands gone, the sadness in her eyes joined by just a trace of the familiar venom. “Are you completely fucking stupid? I’m too busy being locked in this fucking cell waiting to die to be worried about that horrible whore!” I sat down quietly on the edge of the bed as she let herself go. She spun around, tugged at her hair, jabbed at her thighs with her fists and let out a screech that I feared might shatter the lightbulbs. And then finally, she breathed a heavy sigh and shook it all right out of her head. “I’m crying for myself,” she whispered.

I’ve never once had the inclination to open the cage door and just stand aside. I’ve faced it all in this room: tears, seduction, attempted hanging. They come, they brandish their feminine wiles and eventually, inevitably, they go. But it’s never of their own accord. They all insist that they want to be free, to taste the fresh air and to gaze up at the clear blue sky. They coo, they demand, they beg me to open the door and to let them run. And yet without fail, when the door is finally opened, they beg me to let them stay because in their hearts, they know that they’re safe in the cage. There are no ghosts in here.

“Trust me,” Erica said, sniffing, “if you opened that door right now, I’d take my chance.”

I didn’t know how much I’d said aloud. It didn’t matter. “I know you would, Erica,” I said softly. “And right now—” for some reason I couldn’t even begin to understand “—that’s exactly why I’m not going to open it.”

For the first time in over a week, I slept right through the night. I dreamed of flight, of soaring over jagged peaks and rolling hills, landscapes filled with colors I’d never seen and cannot describe. By morning, when I was woken gently by the patter of rain on the windows, I was refreshed and blissfully relaxed. I hummed a made-up tune while I fetched my tea and toast and flicked on the television. It was almost unnerving.

Erica was up before me and was leafing through a
Cosmopolitan
I’d left her. Not having sought her preference before buying it, I was unsurprised to note her bored expression. I resolved to rectify it at my earliest convenience; in the meantime, though, she had a more pressing engagement.

She tossed the magazine to the floor as I let myself in. The expected complaint, however, didn’t come; she simply smiled politely and said, “Good morning.”

If her mood was alarmingly bright, her appearance was quite the opposite. Dark rings under bloodshot eyes, hair tangled and limp, clothes creased and torn and dark with dirt. Cotton wool dressing, stripped of its fabric plaster, held to her face with dried blood. Her pillows and sheets stained black with grime and sweat. A stale, oppressive odor in the air. “Good morning to you, too,” I said.

“No new roommate for me today?”

“No, no such luck.” She spoofed a huff of disappointment. “Don’t be disheartened, though, I’ve got some good news for you.”

“Great. I could do with some of that. Don’t tell me...you died in your sleep?”

“No, that’s obviously not it,” I assured her. “No, the good news is that you’re coming out with me.”

Her face fell. “Coming with you where?”

“Outside.”

“I don’t fucking think so. In fact, I don’t think I’m going anywhere with you unless you drag me.”

“Well—” I laughed “—that’s obviously not a problem, but there’s really no need. I’ve run you a bath, that’s all, but if you don’t want it, I’ll happily get in there myself.”

Erica simply stared, mouth agape, eyebrows furrowed, clearly struggling to comprehend what I’d just said. I hoped she was making better sense of it than I was. “What happens when I get out of the bath?”

“You dry yourself with a towel, get dressed and come back to your room, and then maybe tell me what you’d prefer to read,” I said.

“And what about you? If you’re expecting to sit on the toilet and perv over me...”

“We’ve been through this. Are you coming or not? I don’t want to let it get cold.”

She shook her head in perplexed amusement and slid hesitantly off the bed. As unconvinced as she plainly was, she threw on her jumper and followed.

“Stick your clothes in here.” I held open a bin bag through the crack in the bathroom door, behind which I’d allowed Erica the privacy to undress.

“Are you going to wash them?” She dropped in her tattered pants.

“No, I’m going to burn them.”

“I like this jumper.”

“It’ll only fall apart if I put it in the machine.”

“Well, can you at least try?” She thrust it into the bag, along with her blackened bra. “It’s not like I’ve got anything else to wear.”

I snatched away the bag and held out an unopened pack of briefs.

“Oh, my God, is it Christmas already?” She snatched the knickers from me. “And if so, can I have a heater in my room?”

“Bra.” I passed it through.

“This is the wrong size.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“I fucking knew you’d been peeking. Anything else, or can I get in the bath now?”

One by one, I slid each of the half-dozen shopping bags into the bathroom. “These are all a bit summery,” I said, “but they were the best I could do.”

She was silent for a moment; I could only sense her, as still as stone. Finally, softly, her voice cracking, she asked, “How long have I got?”

“Take as long as you need,” I said.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.” I listened to the gentle sniffs and sobs drifting around the door frame. My hand reached out to push the door open, my feet itching to step inside; I quietly cursed them, stood firm in spite of them. “Erica,” I said flatly, “all of the windows and doors up here are locked. The window in there has a rockery below it and two miles of open country beyond that, so it’s simply not worth the effort.”

“I know,” she whispered.

“You’ve got everything I could think of in there—shampoo, conditioner, there’s some nice coconut soap. You’ve got scrubs, moisturizers, a new toothbrush because you’ve somehow ruined the last one I gave you, and there are some little bottles of bath oil in there, too, if you like that sort of thing. That leg wax thing, I don’t know if it’s any good or not, but it’s the best thing I could find without a blade in it. Oh, and there’s a hairbrush in one of those bags. I forgot to hook it out. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“If you want to have a shower afterward, make sure you pull the curtain round. And when you’re done, come down and we’ll find you some lunch. Enjoy.”

“You’re a sick bastard,” she muttered as I gently closed the door.

CHAPTER
TWELVE

I was coating strips of rump in a honey and mustard glaze when I heard the crunching of tires on gravel. I wiped my fingers on an old tea towel and was at the front door in time to see Detective Inspector John Fairey swing his Extra Value Feet out of his dirty blue Ford. He stared at me in scornful amusement as he slammed his door, rounded the car and waited for his sidekick, Green, to get her sensible shoes into gear. She struggled free of her seat belt and followed two steps behind him as he marched toward the house. He quite clearly thought that I’d step aside and let him in; since it was pissing down, however, I stopped him with an unwelcoming glare just beyond the threshold of the wooden porch. He stood there expectantly, but he was getting nothing but wet until he showed some proper decorum.

I raised both eyebrows, tilted my gaze toward his breast pocket. He took the bait and raised his badge. I saw his badge and raised him a smile. He folded his wallet.

“Back so soon, Inspector?” I chirped. “What can I do for you today that I couldn’t do yesterday?”

“Well, you can start by giving me a satisfactory explanation for what I’ve got in my pocket,” he said.

I was ready for him this time. My eyes held steady. My face retained its color. The sky hung steadfastly in its designated place. “If you’ve got a rash,” I informed him, “I can assure you it didn’t come from me.”

Green choked on a chuckle beneath the umbrella she’d silently raised behind his back. Fairey soldiered bravely on.

“Come inside?” he said. “I’m getting very wet.” His hair was already flat against his head, every furl of his long gray coat a raging river. He looked thoroughly miserable, unlike Green, who had taken to biting the back of her hand.

“Yeah, why not?” I could think of a hundred reasons why not, but I articulated none of them.

He shook himself down and stepped past me into the hall. Green followed, folding her grin into her umbrella and shaking it out behind her. “Morning.” She smiled, with just a hint of apology.

“Good morning, Sergeant Green. You should have let me know you were coming. Lunch is nowhere near ready, I’m afraid. I’m marinating.”

“Sounds painful,” she deadpanned.

“Can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee? Gin?”

“Actually, I wouldn’t mind a glass of wa—”

“This is a criminal murder investigation,” Fairey boomed, somewhat extraneously, “not a fucking tea party.”

“Fuck.” I chuckled, before I could stop myself. “Somebody got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning. Are you going to let him talk to you like that?”

Green signaled her agreement via an exasperated shrug. Fairey scowled back at me, eyes half-closed, plainly biting his tongue and attempting to count to ten. I turned away from him to address his diminutive colleague.

“I’m sorry,” I said, grabbing a glass tumbler from the draining board and rinsing off the suds. “What is it you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Well,” she began, “in case you weren’t aware, we’ve found Ke—”

“I’ll ask the questions,” Fairey barked, stunning her into openmouthed silence.

“Look,” I said, “you’ve obviously had a shitty morning, but honestly, storming into my house with all guns blazing and effing and blinding at Sergeant Green is only going to make things worse, because I’m just going to refuse to talk to you.”

His leg was beginning to twitch. I wondered, as I handed Green her glass of water, what it would take to make him tapdance. “No, you look,” he snarled. “We’ve found Kerry Fallow’s body, and g—”

“Farrow,” Green correc—

“That’s what I fucking
said
!” he snapped. “Now you’d better start talking, my friend,” he continued, tearing a crumpled sheet of paper from his coat pocket and thrusting it under my nose, “because you’re not looking too clever right now.”

“What’s this?”

“That,” he proclaimed, “is from a camera at the quarry, a mile and a half from where Kerry disappeared and fifty yards away from where we found what’s left of her last night.”

“Sixty thousand,” I said.

Fairey’s voice faltered, and he glared at me for a split second before spitting, “What?”

“Sixty thousand,” I repeated. “The number of these vans sold by Ford in this country every year.” Behind Fairey, Green issued a vindicated nod that told me I wasn’t the first to set off along this route. “And that one—” I indicated the grainy surveillance photo in his hand “—is not mine. But you knew that, didn’t you? Otherwise you’d be dragging it onto a low-loader and carting it off to be dismantled. If you want to go out to the garage and play Spot the Difference, you’re more than welcome.” Smile just the right side of smug. “But you’re barking up the wrong tree. It’s an entirely different van.” Nor, in fact, had they found Kerry’s body, but of course, I couldn’t very well tell him that.

His toe was tapping now, his fists clenched at his sides. “Fucking hell,” he seethed.

I swung open the key cupboard and aimed the garage door opener out through the window. “Door’s open,” I said. “Take your time.”

“I’ve had enough of this. You’re trying to make a fucking mug out of me.”

“You don’t need my help with that,” I said.

He ignored my remark and launched straight into it. “I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Kerry Fallow.”

Green shook her head disconsolately to herself. “Farrow,” she muttered.

“You don’t have to say anything,” he continued, “but it may harm your defense if you fail to mention when qu—”

“You’re an idiot,” I replied. “That’s what I have to say. Sergeant, please tell Inspector Clouseau that—”

My words hadn’t struck me as particularly harsh, but they hit a nerve in John Fairey.
“Right!”
he growled as he made a desperate, red-faced lunge for my throat.

Green let out a gasp of “What the f—” and grabbed clumsily at his coat, catching nothing but air. I leaned into him and allowed him the satisfaction of grasping the collar of my shirt, fighting the temptation to hook my fingers into his throat and gouge out his windpipe.

Fortunately for both of us, Green found her feet and, with a cry of “John, for Christ’s sake!,” seized her seething superior by the back of the neck and hauled him clear. “Go and check the van,” she commanded, holding his arms tight against his sides, her warm face suddenly hard edged and ice cold.

Fairey didn’t move when she loosened her grip; he just stared, his bared teeth betraying the red mist before his eyes.

“The false accusation is enough,” I said. “Please don’t compound the issue by assaulting me.”

“That’s enough,” Green insisted, plainly seeing right through my impression of wounded indignation. “John. Go. Walk it off. Now.”

Slowly, deliberately, he let his shoulders drop, his hips slouch. The fire in his eyes flickered and subsided, and he strolled on out of the house without another word.

“I’m so sorry,” Green said. “Are you okay?”

“Why is that man so angry?” I frowned.

“Being called an idiot probably has something to do with it, but I’m not going to make excuses for him.”

“No,” I said, “quite right. Not your job. He is an idiot, though.”

“He’s not stupid,” she said. “Just overeager. He acts before he’s got all his facts straight sometimes.”

“Quite,” I agreed, “which is hardly any way to solve a crime, is it? I don’t know if he’s trying to spring some sort of trap by pretending to be inept and telling me everything he knows or doesn’t know, but either way, someone needs to make sure he never plays poker. And then they need to remind him that a picture of a random van doesn’t constitute evidence linking me to whatever it is you’ve found.”

Green opened her mouth to reply before a frown startled across her face. “What?” she said.

“What?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do...” Did I say something wrong? “What?”

“What do you mean,
whatever it is we’ve found
?”

“You said you’d found the girl’s body.”

“Are you suggesting we haven’t?”

“No, I’m suggesting it has nothing to do with me.”

“Because it’s not Kerry Farrow?”

I laughed. Someone had to. “Because I haven’t murdered her and dumped her in a gravel pit,” I said.

She paused, choosing her words. It came as a pleasant surprise when she didn’t ask me where I
had
dumped her. “John’s convinced you’ve got something on your conscience where this case is concerned,” she said.

That made me laugh even harder. “Moral man, is he?”

“No, but he
is
goal-oriented, and he thinks you’re as creepy as hell. He’s dying to find something that’ll stick to you, so if you’ve got anything you want to get off your chest...”

I glanced out the window to see Fairey screw his photo into a ball and throw it angrily at the side of my van. “And what about you?”

“Me? I’m moral beyond reproach. Also entirely convinced you’re up to something. Little bit behind on the
what
.”

“Well—” I laughed “—as soon as you figure out what it is, be sure to let me know. I’ve been convinced I was up to something for years.”

She nodded her assurance and said, “What are you cooking?”

“Venison.”

She pursed her lips and wrinkled her nose; a shiver danced over her shoulders. “Bambi.”

“Didn’t feel a thing,” I said as I dropped a sliver into the glaze, although judging by the skepticism on her face, I suspected I knew less about slaughtering deer than she did. “Now, is there anything else I can do for you, or have you finished with your little good-cop-bad-cop routine?”

She watched me for a moment, thoughtfully chewing her lip as though searching for some snappy comeback with which to punctuate her exit rather than face a self-conscious walk of shame to the car. When it came, though, her response intrigued me. “Just as long as you know who’s who,” she said.

And then, with barely pause to consider what the hell kind of game I was being sucked into, I watched in silent, stunned horror as she turned and walked right into Erica.