The Calling (17 page)

DCI Luther is not present.

Cornish reads the following statement:

‘As you know, the Metropolitan Police Service is investigating a very serious offence and has no comment to make regarding any threats made by the man who calls himself Pete Black.

‘I’d like to remind you at this time that whoever committed this atrocity against Mr and Mrs Lambert and their child, nobody made him or her do these things. He or she perpetrated these horrors of his or her own free will. If the perpetrator of these crimes is indeed the man calling himself Pete Black, then the Metropolitan Police Service once again extends its heartfelt wish for him to hand himself over to the proper authorities. He can be assured that he will be treated in full accordance with the law.

‘We believe that the phone calls made to a London radio station are in fact a cry for help from a very desperate man. And we’re keen, if he’ll let us, to give him the help he needs.

‘However, given the danger to the public this man represents, let me reiterate that we’re asking members of the public to help us identify and apprehend him. Someone out there knows who he is. In order to hasten this process, the Metropolitan Police Service has authorized a reward of one hundred thousand pounds for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the man calling himself Pete Black.

‘That’s concludes the statement. I will, however, take one or two questions. Let’s keep it orderly please, ladies and gentlemen.’

Here they come, in a flashing, overlapping babble:

‘Will you be making an apology to Pete Black?’

‘I refer you to my statement, which you should consider the last word on this matter.’

‘Will Pete Black kill again if you refuse to do as he says?’

‘That would be entering into unwarranted realms of speculation.’

‘How big is the threat?’

‘That’s impossible to gauge at this time.’

‘If Pete Black does kill another family, will heads roll in the police service?’

‘I’m not entirely sure I understand what that question means.’

‘Who takes responsibility for signing off DCI Luther’s tactics?’

‘I do.’

‘Has DCI Luther been removed from the case because of tensions inside the investigation?’

‘DCI Luther has not been removed from the case.’

‘Are you willing to back DCI Luther?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Have you drawn up a psychological profile?’

‘No comment.’

‘What do we know about the killer? Has he done this before?’

‘No comment.’

‘Should you have known earlier?’

‘Once again, I don’t understand the question.’

‘Do you have faith in your senior investigating officer?’

‘I have absolute faith in my senior investigating officer.’

‘Then where is he?’

‘You’ll appreciate that he’s busy.’

‘Is he off the case?’

‘No.’

‘Shouldn’t he be?’

‘No.’

‘Did you make a mistake by not giving Pete Black an apology?’

‘No. We did not.’

‘How many Londoners are in danger tonight because of questionable operational decisions taken by DCI Luther?’

‘If any Londoners are in danger tonight, and I stress the word “if”, then it’s because of a man calling himself Pete Black. Once again, I urge Londoners to search their hearts and their consciences. If you know who this man is, please contact us on the hotline. That’s it. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and good afternoon.’

While Cornish and Teller address the mobbed press room, Luther and Howie huddle at Benny’s desk.

‘I trawled the records,’ Benny says. ‘Looked at everyone on the sex offenders’ register. I went through the list of names.’

‘Anyone we like?’

‘I’m not feeling it. So I looked off-register a bit, followed my nose.’

‘How far?’

‘I get to thinking, what if, during his years off the radar, our Pete’s
not
abducting kids. Maybe he’s
buying
them.’ He shows Luther a mugshot. ‘This is Vasile Sava. He’s a child broker. He arranged the illegal adoption of babies from all over Eastern Europe. Anybody tried to buy or sell a baby in London, chances are he’d know them.’

‘And why do we like him exactly?’

‘Because when they arrested him and trawled his database, a “Mr Torbalan” was included in his list of clients. That’s one of the names for the guy who steals away the bad kids.’

Luther claps his shoulder. ‘Nice work, Ben. Where does he live?’

Benny hands him a printout.

‘Take disinfectant,’ he says. ‘Plus maybe garlic and a crucifix.’

Bill Tanner watches the lunchtime news, because he always does.

He’s surprised to see the copper who came round the other night sitting hunched behind the desk at some press conference or other, looking trapped and uncomfortable.

Bill feels for him; he’s a decent bloke, and it’s always a sad thing to see a big man made to look small.

Bill turns the telly over but there’s nothing else on. He tries a bit of Radio 2; it’s the same story. He catches snippets of it, knows it’s horrible – a story he doesn’t want to hear, more evidence that the world’s going to hell in a fucking handbasket.

Dot’s better off out of it.

Thinking of her gives Bill that trembly feeling in his shanks. He supposes it’s loneliness, but loneliness is such a silly word, a pop-song word, a Herman’s Fucking Hermits word. It’s got very little to do with the awful feeling in his guts and in the top of his legs. If he sits still, he knows it’ll sweep up his spine and round the back of his head and he’ll start to cry like a fucking baby. In moments like this, he sees that the house stinks of cold and dirt.

He grabs the lead and collar from the hook on the back of the kitchen door. Little Paddy goes mad. He always goes mad for a walk.

Bill shuffles over to grab his grey windcheater and his Hush Puppies. He zips his windcheater to his chin and puts on the bobble hat Dot bought for him.

Then he and Paddy step outside.

It’s all a bit awkward. Bill needs a walking stick and one hand’s still in plaster. So he has to slip the loop of the lead over the plaster and kind of hook it there. Luckily Paddy’s got a bit of arthritis in his hips, Yorkies get that, and he’s happy to trot at Bill’s heel, stopping every now and again to cock his leg. He’s a fearless little thing, and Bill admires that.

Time was, he’d have been embarrassed by little Paddy. He was Dot’s dog, really. He wasn’t a man’s dog; a man wants a companion, not one of these ridiculous fierce fuckers all the young ones have these days, the mean little ones with the tiny eyes and the puffed-out chests and the bandy legs. When Bill was a bit younger, the dogs you were scared of were German Shepherds and Dobermans.

Working on the bins in the sixties and seventies, you’d swap stories of fierce dogs. The dogs you swapped stories about were always black and tan.

But those dogs were intelligent and handsome; even a ratty and half-fed Alsatian had understanding in its eyes, that’s why the police used them. And Dobermans were used as guard dogs for good reason. These muscular little things, all jaw and chest, they looked like fucking idiots, like wife beaters.

Bill and Paddy wander along, a bit shaky but doing all right.

He pops into Mr Patel’s to pick up a copy of the
Racing Post
and twenty Benson & Hedges, then wanders down to William Hill. Even the bookie’s not what it was.

A bookie’s used to have a sorry, collegiate air about it, all the labourers and the cabbies and the alkies. He’d pop in after his shift ended, it was still early. Dot would be at work. He’d spend a pound or two, go home and have a nap. Then he’d tidy round a little bit: Dot always came home to a clean house, although that wasn’t something you talked about down the pub.

But Bill was brought up in the navy, he knew how to keep things neat and tidy and everything in its place – and Dot worked long hours and came home footsore.

Bill never did the laundry, and he never cooked a meal in his life except sometimes a bit of egg on toast for the kids when Dot was poorly. (More often, he’d send them down the chippie and they’d eat a nice bit of cod in front of
Nationwide
– that Sue Lawley and her legs.)

But he’d happily do a bit of hoovering, wash up the breakfast things, have a tidy round, do a bit of dusting, make the bed (he got satisfaction out of making the sheets drum-tight). He’d clean the windows, have a potter round the garden if the weather was nice. Then he’d spend an hour at the allotment and be home in time for tea.

It seemed to him that that whole world, black and white, three channels, Sue Lawley and her legs, a decent shabby bookies, fried egg sandwiches, a pub without horrible fucking music blaring in your ears all day, it was all gone, like men wearing hats.

Bill bets a few quid, watches a few races, doesn’t make a penny but enjoys himself anyway.

Then he goes out. Poor little Paddy’s tied to a lamp post. His little legs are shaking with cold and the terror of abandonment and he’s looking up at Bill with a kind of pleading relief. Bill feels a bit guilty. He says, ‘Sorry there, boy. Was I gone a long time? Was I?’

He doesn’t care who’s listening. He’s an old bloke with an old dog, fuck them all.

It takes him a long time, but he stoops and lets the dog jump into his arms. Little Paddy cringes into his barrel chest, like he’s trying to push inside Bill.

A Sikh kid, the first softness of dark beard round his chops, eases up to him. ‘You all right, mate?’

When Bill was this kid’s age, he’d never in a million years, a hundred million years, have considered calling an elder ‘mate’. He’d have been clipped round the ear. But the kid doesn’t mean any disrespect, in fact he means the opposite of it. Bill responds by saying, ‘Yes, I’m fine thank you, mate.’

A twelve-year-old and an eighty-five-year-old calling each other mate. There’s got to be some good in that, hasn’t there?

The kid says, ‘Are you sure?’

Bill says, ‘I’m a bit stiff, but I’m all right.’

The kid nods, a bit embarrassed Bill thinks, and walks on.

Bill makes his way home. He’s knackered now and his legs hurt, he needs to pop a couple of pills. But he’s glad he got some fresh air. Paddy’s light as a bird and, cuddled to Bill’s chest, he radiates a kind of desperate satisfaction, a bliss just to be there.

Bill’s nearly home when the two big blokes step out of the alley between the blocks. The big white one, Lee Kidman, in his leather jacket and his dyed hair, the fat Asian-looking one, Barry Tonga, in his baggy shorts and oversized white trainers, a fucking handkerchief or something tied round his head.

The first thing that happens, before Bill can open his mouth is that he pisses himself in fear. He hardly knows it’s happening – there’s a big, warm spread across his pants and down his leg and then straight away it goes cold. It’s probably been more than seventy years since Bill wet himself but he knows the feeling straight away and it makes him want to weep in rage and shame. He cuddles the little dog to his chest because he doesn’t want it to see. He knows how stupid that is, except Paddy’s the last part of Dot that he’s got, she loved the little fucker and the little fucker loves Bill, and he’s a weak little thing really, all skin and bone.

The thugs chest-push Bill into the alley.

‘You silly old cunt,’ says Kidman. He looks like he fancies himself; one of them blokes who thinks he’s God’s gift, but who actually gives women the creeps.

The other bloke, his big moon head on massive shoulders, he’s a mystery. He’s got tattoos all up his arms and down his legs. He’s wearing three-quarter-length shorts. In this weather.

Kidman grabs Bill’s bad wrist and a jolt of agony shoots up his arm. He says, ‘Take his offer. Take his money. Look at you. Pissing yourself. You should be in a home.’

‘You fucking prick,’ says Bill, and is horrified to note that he’s weeping. He doesn’t want to but he can’t help it. And he can’t think of anything to say. He’s lain in bed for hours planning what he’s going to say to these geezers, should they come for him again. He’d rehearsed it again and again, the withering contempt, the dignity he’d stand on. But now all those words are gone and he’s standing there dripping with his own piss and he’s crying; the words are flown straight out of his head. He cuddles the little dog. It cringes there. It shakes and shivers, feeling Bill’s fear.

Kidman shoves Bill into the wall. Bill staggers back. Kidman plucks the skinny dog from Bill’s arms, holds it to his face, makes queer little kissy-kissy noises.

‘Who’s this, then?’ he says in a mincing poof’s register, horrible coming from such a big man. ‘Who’s this liddle thing, this little precious thing, then?’

‘You leave him be,’ says Bill. ‘He’s only a dog.’

Kidman doesn’t address Bill directly. He speaks to the quivery, wet-eyed Paddy, tickles him under the wishbone chin with a great spatulate finger, manicured and pink-nailed.

‘I am going to fuck you up,’ Kidman says to Paddy. ‘I am going to fuck you up, liddle doggie, yes I am.’

‘Don’t,’ says Bill. ‘You leave him alone.’

‘Because your daddy didn’t listen to my daddy,’ says Kidman, ‘no he didn’t. He didn’t, did he? And now I’m going to fuck you up, little doggie. I am going to fuck you up. Say bye bye now. Say bye bye to daddy!’

He raises Paddy’s paw between thumb and forefinger, makes Paddy wave to Bill.

‘You fucking bully,’ says Bill. ‘You horrible fucking bully.’

‘I am,’ says Kidman. ‘I am a horrible bully, aren’t I, liddle doggie? I am a howwible, wowwible, liddle bully.’

He takes Paddy’s neck in one hand, Paddy’s hips in the other, then he twists like he’s wringing out a towel.

Paddy yelps as his spine breaks. He voids his bowels and his bladder. Kidman laughs and skips backwards to avoid it, dropping Paddy to the ground.

Paddy makes a horrible noise of a kind Bill has never heard before. He wouldn’t even know what to call it.

Bill howls. He draws back what used to be a feared fist, a great hammer of a knuckle sandwich, but now it’s freckly and tremulous. He takes a step anyway.

But Tonga waddles in and grabs him in a full nelson. Bill can smell his sweet aftershave.