Poppet (12 page)

She lowers her rucksack to the ground and clicks the head torch on. It has to be angled down so it’s illuminating the tarmac. The area needs to be searched in the finest detail. Things need to be removed before the team comes through here. One slip and she will be in the deepest shit. If she has to put half the hedgerow into her rucksack, she’s going to. There mustn’t be anything – anything at all – to connect this location with what really happened to Misty Kitson.

She pulls on the nitrile gloves and sets to work. It’s no different from any other fingertip search she’s done – a regular grid pattern to make sure every inch of the road is covered. She collects everything she finds – regardless of what – and puts it in the rucksack. A crisp packet, two beer tins, some toilet paper. A ring-pull that looks about fifty years old and an old CD. Maybe none of it is relevant, maybe all of it.

When she’s a hundred per cent sure there is nothing left here except the dead leaves and the naked blackberry bushes, she pulls the torch off her head and uses it to inspect the road itself – the tarmac. The skidmarks are still here but they are so, so faint. She has to sink to her haunches and rest her hand on them to believe they still exist. A year and a half ago they were like a deep scar on the road – but nearly eighteen months of rain and sun and English seasons have leached the rubber away.

The sound of a car engine grows in the distance. A few seconds later headlights – from the direction she’s parked. She gets up and steps smartly into the verge, clicking off the head torch as she does. As the car appears round the corner she presses herself tightly against a tree. Puts her hands in her pockets and drops her face, presenting as few reflective surfaces as possible.

The car passes. And almost instantly slows. And then, just fifty metres away, it stops. Her heart sinks. The engine is killed, and in the sudden silence comes the clear click of a door closing. Footsteps.

A crunch of gravel. Whoever it is they’re close, really close. Slowly, furtively, she rolls back into the shadows, her shoulders tight. She slides down the tree until she’s sitting and pulls the hood of her coat over her face. Like an ostrich. Head in the sand. She stays absolutely still, monitoring the footsteps. Just her and the thick drumbeat of her heart in her ears, greenish commas of light pulsing behind her eyes from the headlights. No reason for someone to stop out here in the middle of nowhere. No reason whatsoever. This is no-man’s-land.

The noise stops and she dares to glance sideways. There – about a yard away, are two feet in walking boots. The lizard part of her brain scurries over them – knows they’re familiar – can’t quite connect to why they are and what it all means.

She raises her eyes. DI Jack Caffery is standing there. Dressed in black all-weather gear. His hands in his pockets, looking down at her.

High Street

AJ ONLY HAS
to wait for ten minutes, feeling like a stalker or a nervous teenager outside the girls’ school gates, before Melanie appears at the off-licence, same as last night. He loiters outside, watching her speak to the sales assistant. Nodding. Concentrating on putting her pin number in the terminal.

Moments later she emerges, the long sleeves of her blouse peeking out of her raincoat, bouncing with each step. She is so close, almost two metres away, when she sees him.

‘Oh no,’ she groans, bringing herself up short. ‘You caught me again.’

‘It’s not what it looks like – I wasn’t following you. I always do my shopping here.’

She smiles tiredly. ‘Well, this isn’t what it looks like either.’ She opens her carrier bag and shows him two cartons of orange juice. ‘To go with the vodka at home.’

AJ peers up at the darkening sky, then over at his car, then up and down the street. He wishes he knew which angle it is that makes him look like Presley because he’d adopt it right this second. Instead he says:

‘Vodka has its limitations, in my humble opinion. I wonder if you’ve ever ventured into the wild-and-woolly world of cider drinking.’

‘Wild and woolly?’

‘Yes – we’re, uh, tree huggers. Most of us have beards and wear Fair Isles – I’m the exception to the rule.’ He nods up the street to the old pub, beloved of the local cider connoisseurs. ‘But if you did ever want to risk the hairy element – that would be the place to start.’

She turns and glances over her shoulder at the pub. She stares at it for a long time. His heart sinks – she’s formulating a way to say no. But when she turns back she’s smiling. She puts a hand over her eyes to shield it from the overhead street light so she can meet his gaze.

‘I dunno,’ she says. ‘You sure I’m not a little overdressed?’

The Ostrich

‘HI,’ CAFFERY SAYS
, as if he’s just wandered in on Flea in her office. ‘Think you’ve got time for a chat?’

She can’t do anything now except respond. Get her big ugly ostrich head out of the sand.

‘Yeah.’ She stands casually, straightening her jacket and brushing some of the mud from her hands, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world to be sitting behind a tree in the middle of nowhere on a freezing-cold night. She gives him a tight, teenage grin and a wave. ‘Hi. How’re things?’

‘Fine. You?’

‘Freezing.’ She comes out and stands in front of him. Wraps her arms around her – shivers. ‘One of the boys left a GPS unit out here today. They’re too lazy to come back and get it, so who’s the obvious monkey who has to do it?’ She makes bunny ears on her head. ‘The sergeant – because that’s what we’re here for. A few extra hundred quid a month in return for taking all the shit, all the responsibility. I’d go back to being a grunt like’ – she snaps her fingers – ‘
that
.’

He nods, silently. His eyes are very dark and very steady. He’s not having any of it.

She holds up her hands, to say OK, whatever. ‘But how the hell did you find me?’ She gestures around at the empty road stretching into the darkness. ‘Out in the middle of—?’

‘A guess.’

‘A
guess
? You
guessed
I’d be here? Seriously?’

‘Yes.’

‘Explain.’

He laughs ironically – as if to say,
The explanation is so long, so embroidered and ornate and convoluted it would take a thousand years
. Then his face sobers. ‘I ordered the extra search. You know that.’

‘Yeah.’ She gives a grim smile. Shoves her hands into her pockets. ‘Look, I hope this won’t come as a surprise to you, Jack, but everyone’s thinking WTF about this search – why you ordered it. The only answer we can come up with is you’re doing it to keep the press happy.’

He inclines his head in assent. ‘You’d be right. There’s no new intel – it’s to distract them from the attractive prospect of Misty’s mum being in town. It’s a waste of time. We’re not going to find Misty’s body. Not here.’

‘Aren’t we? What makes you so sure?’

There’s a pause, then he turns his eyes to hers. He shakes his head. His expression is so serious her confidence curls up and dies.

‘
What?
’ she murmurs. ‘Why’re you looking at me like that?’

Again he shakes his head. He looks so sad. So very sad.

‘What?’

He shrugs apologetically, then says, ‘I know what happened.’

Cider Drinking

THE GRASS IN
the beer garden is still spotted with rain but the landlord has lit the chimineas and it’s warm enough to sit outside. They choose a gnarled old table next to the hedge that divides the garden from the street. The hedge is a dense evergreen laurel, but pedestrians can just be glimpsed passing on the other side.

AJ has lined up four glasses of different ciders on the table between them. Three are almost empty – Melanie is peering thoughtfully into the fourth.

‘You can see the bottom, can’t you?’

She nods. ‘And bubbles.’

‘Now, don’t take this the wrong way, but if I’m honest I’m going to say this one will appeal to you more than the other three.’

She looks up at him. ‘What – because I’m a woman, you mean?’

‘It does tend to be more of a lady’s cider. Sparklier. Sweeter – sort of golden, isn’t it? Appealing to look at. Not enough tannin in it for my taste.’

‘In that case …’ She pushes it away. Folds her arms petulantly. ‘In that case I’m not interested. You drink it.’

‘I can’t. I can’t possibly. I’ve got a reputation to protect – anyone could wander by and catch me drinking it. That’ll be my cred right out of the window.’

‘Misogynist.’

‘Dungaree wearer. I should have known it when I saw your car – Beetle – dead giveaway.’

‘Ewwww.’ She wrinkles her nose and peers at him as if he’s a cockroach just scuttled out from under the table. ‘A fascist.’

He nods happily. ‘And the worst sort of fascist. The liberal who got mugged – we make the nastiest conservatives. We’re as bad as ex-smokers when we meet a liberal – want to kill them. Attila the Hun was dangerously and irresponsibly liberal.’

She laughs. She’s got a sweet laugh. He’s surprised he’s just said that and wonders if he’s half serious. ‘I don’t really mean that,’ he says. ‘I’m not really a fascist.’

‘I don’t care if you are. It’s a tough system we work in. It’s tough to see the way it’s abused.’

‘A waste of taxpayers’ money. And we’re dancing to Brussels’ tune most of the time.’

‘I know it. And I also know that if I hadn’t been a woman I wouldn’t have done half as well. I was up against three men for the job – I was maybe as good as two of them, not as good as the other, but what panel member was going to give him the job ahead of me?’

‘You’re being modest.’

She gives a rueful smile. ‘Maybe. I don’t know. But I do still care. I do care about them – every last one of them. From Zelda to Moses to Isaac Handel to Monster Mother. I care about them all.’

AJ presses his lips together. He decides not to answer that. Zelda? He’s just not going to lie on that issue.

‘So.’ He changes the subject. ‘Have I made you into a cider drinker? Do you like it?’

She beams at him. ‘I love it!’

‘Another? I’ll get you a man’s cider this time.’

Her glittering smile doesn’t change. ‘No thank you. I’ll have a vodka.’

‘You hate cider, don’t you?’

‘Yes. I’d puke if I had any more.’

He shakes his head. ‘You’re so adventurous. Open to new possibilities – flexible.’

‘I know. Make the voddy a double.’

AJ gets the drinks. When he sets them on the table he finds he can’t keep up the humour.

‘What is it?’ Melanie says. ‘Has something happened?’

‘No,’ he says. ‘Nothing.’

‘Then what?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Don’t tell me nothing. It’s a lie. And I’m your boss.’

AJ’s trapped. He can’t say what he’s really thinking – it would be the cider talking – so he says the first thing that pops into his head that sounds vaguely funny. ‘Oh, you know. Just I found my first grey pube today. Forty-three and already I’ve got grey pubes.’

Melanie begins to open her mouth – all ready to answer that comment – then she realizes what he’s said and her mouth freezes as if her jaw has seized up. Her eyes open a little wider. AJ’s heart sinks. It was meant to be funny but he got it so, so wrong. The first rule of basic human psychology: never assume intimacy and ease too early on. He wants to defend himself, but of course it’s too late. Not only could this cost him any chance he might have had with her, she could accuse him of sexual harassment – he could get fired – he could be blacklisted.

But Melanie grins.

‘What?’

‘That,’ she says, ‘is the best answer I’ve ever heard.’

‘Is it?’

‘Yes. Is it true? Because I’ve had two since I was thirty-six. They glint at me in the bathroom mirror every time I have a shower. Sometimes I think they’re mocking me.’

Usually AJ can come back with something, but now he hasn’t a clue. For four years he’s thought Melanie was off limits – that she was too serious and strait-laced ever to be interested in him. But, in the last twenty-four hours, he’s learned she’s completely different outside the unit – a natural, lovely human being with problems like the rest of the world. She’s struggling with her job, she likes a drink, she’s been having an affair with someone she shouldn’t, and she’s got two grey pubic hairs. Which glint when she gets out of the shower.

He wishes she hadn’t said anything about the pubes and getting out of the shower. Too much – too much. He does that thing old-fashioned guys do when they’re nervous. He slides a finger into his collar and moves it side to side as if he’s struggling with his Adam’s apple.

‘Anyway,’ she says, ‘you’re lying. I can tell from looking at you it’s not true.’

‘Well, OK. It’s not true.’

‘Good.’

‘Actually, I noticed them two weeks ago.’

She shakes her head and smiles. ‘I mean you’re not worried about pubic hairs. It’s more than that.’

He feels defeated. And tired. He blinks. ‘OK, I’ll tell you the truth. I’m just thinking about what happened – remember our misunderstanding at that party?’

‘I do. And I don’t think it was a misunderstanding.’

He lowers his chin. ‘I didn’t misunderstand you?’

‘No. I flirted with you. I was single – I’d just got divorced. I was on the lookout.’

‘And,’ he says slowly, putting the pieces together, ‘by the time I came back and asked you, you were—?’

‘With Jonathan.’

‘With Jonathan,’ he echoes, thinking, What a twat, what a lame wanker he’s been. He puts his head in his hands and groans. ‘I can’t believe it. You mean, all this time – all this time, you and I could have been … ?’

She smiles a little shyly, holding his eyes. And then she gets half to her feet, puts her hands on the table, leans across and kisses him full on the mouth.

Hit and Run

FLEA’S FACE IS
drained and white – as if all the moonlight is bouncing off it. Her eyes are locked on Caffery’s.

‘
You what?
’ she murmurs. ‘
What did you say?
Say it again.’

He stands in the hollow night and repeats it – almost guiltily. ‘I know what happened to Misty. I know what happened and where. It was here. On this stretch of road.’