The Treatment (38 page)

“
It's cancer of the sixty Capstan a day, love. It's the same way your mother went—it'll be the way you'll go too. Family tradition.
” He'd always been rat-thin, but when he died Carl was even thinner—like something from a concentration camp, she thought. And as soon as he'd gone the others lost interest and drifted away, and the wind came in off the fens and blew through the garage at night and made the corrugated iron rattle.

Now Tracey found her keys and got back into the old Datsun. She was hot in spite of the rain and immediately the windows steamed up. She put the radio on, turned the car round and drove off along the top of the quarry, the car jerking and lurching in the potholes. Wet ferns and nettles slapped down on the windscreen and behind her the trailer's little curtained window got smaller and smaller until it had disappeared in the dripping forest.

She had a plan, and had just taken the first steps toward making it a reality. She knew that there was nothing left for her here—Carl's death had left her high and dry. She didn't know how she was going to make next month's rent—she didn't even know how much it was, or whether Carl had a deal with the landlord. Christ, she didn't even know
who
the landlord was.
You always kept me away from the money, Carl, didn't you?
But she had some ideas. Once, twenty years ago, Carl had gone to Fuengirola—he knew people out there and had some business to deal with. It was the only time he'd been out of England, and he'd come back with stories of drinking cocktails on yachts and a postcard of a little village that looked in the sun like sugar cubes stuck to the edge of the mountain. It looked like heaven up there—so close to the sky, and the olive trees and the bright flowers hanging over the walls, blazing like gypsy scarves. Tracey Lamb felt sure
she could be happy there. And she thought that the key to that happiness, the money to make it a reality, might come from DI Caffery's need to discover what had happened to Penderecki's boy.

Ayo came out from the curtains holding a bedpan full of plastic line clamps and bloodied towels.

“Oh!” She put her hand on her chest. “You made me jump.”

The good-looking detective again—the one she'd imagined blabbing her mad ideas to. About Ben and Hal and how Josh was peeing on things. Maybe she'd tell him, make him laugh, show him there were no hard feelings.

“What's happened? What's going on?”

“Eh? Oh … She looked back to where Alek Peach lay groaning softly. “He got agitated, coming out of sedation. Pulled his radial artery line out—it looks worse than it is.”

“The blood?”

“We were giving him blood when he pulled it out. Most of that,” she nodded to the floor, “is from the bag, not from him. He's in no danger.”

“Right.” He started toward the bed. “I'll talk to him now.”

“Uh—” Ayo skillfully put herself in his way. “I'm sorry. Mr. Friendship still hasn't given me the all-clear.”

“Mr. Friendship is more interested in pissing me off than anything.”

“Maybe you should talk to
him
about that.” She held up her hand to guide him out the door. When he didn't move she dropped her head to one side. “Look, I'm sorry, and I really mean that. I'm sorry. If it was up to me …”

“Ayo, listen,” he hissed. “It was
him
. He did it. He killed his son.”

Ayo closed her mouth.
So he is a suspect—they should have warned us.

“Come on, Ayo …”

“Look.” She closed her eyes and held up her hand. “Thank you for telling me, but I'm sorry, you know, I have to not care what you
think
he's done.”

“Oh, for Christ's sake,” Caffery ground out. “You crappy fucking do-gooders.”

Her eyes snapped open. “There's no need for that.”

“I know.” He looked around the room, helpless, frustrated. “But you're just proving that really you don't give a shit. I mean, did you
read
the newspapers about Rory? Did you read what that man in there
did
?
To his own son?
”

Ayo swallowed, her blood pressure rising. “I've already explained my—our—position, so …” She pressed her hand to her belly. The baby was kicking, as if it was angry on her behalf. “… so if you'd be good enough to leave now, please—please just respect us, OK? Or I'll have to call Security.”

“Thanks, Ayo,” he said. “Thanks for the generosity of spirit.” He opened the door to leave. “I'll remember it.”

“And don't come back until we call you,” she yelled down the ward after him, “which could be several days.”

Afterward her hands were trembling. She put down the bedpan and went into the nurses' station, where she sat, breathing carefully, waiting for her heart to stop thumping. One of the junior nurses was concerned. “Hey? You OK?”

“God—I dunno. I think so.” Ayo put her head back and breathed in through her nose. Her pulse was racing, she felt nauseated—she supposed it must be some form of panic attack. The nurse, seeing her clammy face, her shaking hands, came in and put the kettle on.

“I'm going to make you some camomile tea. Can't have you stressed in your condition, can we, Mother?”

“God, thanks—you're a lamb.” Ayo settled back, rolling the top of her tights down and cupping her hands around her stomach. A Braxton-Hicks came and went, but she breathed her way through it. For God's sake—he only raised his voice to you and look at the state you're in— you're all set to go into premature labor over it. This poor, poor child, she thought for the thousandth time, a neurotic for a mother—how
will
it cope?

“I'm sorry if I jumped the gun.” The armed guard stood a little outside the ICU, embarrassed, shuffling from foot to
foot. “All we heard were the alarms, and the nurses getting aerated—thought you should be here.”

“It's OK.” Caffery's mobile was ringing. “Really—call me anytime. Especially call me—” he fished in his pocket for the phone, hit the OK button and used his thumb to cover the speaker “—especially call me when the lovely Mr. Friendship gives us a clear, OK?” He nodded briefly and turned away, speaking into the phone. “Yeah? DI?”

“It's me. I've heard something.”

He hesitated, trying to place the voice. When he had it he raised his hand to the armed officer and headed off down the corridor. “Tracey,” he said, as soon as he was out of earshot. “Say that again.”

“I heard something that might be useful to you. Something about what we talked about.”

“Nah—that's OK, we managed on our own.”

At the other end Tracey paused for a moment. “I'm not talking about Brixton,” she said. “I'm talking about that boy of Penderecki's.”

Benedicte remained where she had shrunk, eyes pricking and bright with fear. She had meant to be a warrior, meant to save her family. Instead she had scuttled back and lain on the floor, panting, weeping in the sour darkness, a hopeless lump bubbling away.
A shitty little curled-up coward on the floor
. If she was rolled onto her back she would remain locked in this position, like a brittle bluebottle, dead from terror. Pathetic.

And all she could think was:
he is a monster. Josh was right—a monster.

Thick red lips, white hairless skin. Like Snow White, his dark hair was so luxuriant and shiny it almost didn't look real—like a shampoo advert. His trainers were scuffed and dirty and the red nylon Adidas sweatpants were stained. She could imagine cloven hoofs and thickhaired legs under those trousers. And he was wearing pink rubber gloves. Benedicte knew exactly when she'd seen him before. It had been one morning in the camping shop on Brixton Hill. He had been behind her one minute, back
turned to them as if he didn't want to be seen, hood pulled smartly over his face—the next she knew he was outside, holding up Smurf's tail to examine her. Now she thought about it she could convince herself that it had been Josh he was trying not to be seen by. Did Josh know him? Or was it just that Josh was the main focus of his interest? Suddenly her blood ran cold.
The Peaches, they were supposed to be going on holiday too
. Had he heard her talking to the assistant about the holiday in Cornwall? She tried to remember what she had said in the shop. Something about a long car journey, and—Oh, Jesus, yes—he would have overheard her talking about it; she'd even told the shopkeeper
when
they were leaving for Cornwall. Maybe he'd followed them home, been watching ever since. In that case it was all her fault.

Suddenly Smurf, who was lying next to her, lifted her head and began to howl, a high-pitched pained squeal, the sound that comes when the pain is deeper than skin and muscle.

“Sssh …” Benedicte tried to hush her, stroked her, tried to coax her to the copper pipe to drink, but Smurf turned away, dropping her head on the floor. Ben sat back and began to pray.
Oh, Ayo, Ayo—please, God, come early—realize something's wrong—please.

Caffery drove through the afternoon lanes. It had been raining in Suffolk, but now the sun was out, shining through the pollarded willows and making a patchwork of the road. Through tree tunnels he went, past horse farms, pleached maple corridors and low, spreading ornamental junipers on perfect lawns. His hands were damp.
Rebecca is right—you are so desperate to get fucked around that you just jump to it. Leave your backbone at the door, Jack, why don't you?
Tracey Lamb, that bundle of selfish impulse wrapped in a human skin, had only to put her hand behind her back, look him in the eye and say, “Guess what I've got in my hand,” and she'd got him—by the nose. The smallest crumb, the smallest possibility that she could tell him something about Ewan, and he was prepared to risk everything.

For a moment, just outside Bury St. Edmunds, he got the sudden impression he'd picked up a tail. The flash of sunlight on a windscreen, a grille glinting in the rearview, a red car, low, like a sports car. It had been with him for miles. He adjusted the mirror, wondering if he was being touched by the Yard's internal investigators, the CIB.
What would the rubber heelers want with you?
And before he even finished the thought the answer came to him:

Of course.

Rebecca had talked.

Jesus fucking Christ, Rebecca, you did it, you've talked
—she'd given them chapter and verse on what he'd done to her and what he'd done to Malcolm Bliss. Heart pounding now, suddenly panicked, he jammed his foot on the accelerator, leaned across the front seat, flipped open the glove compartment and dragged out the map. The road slipped away under the wheels of the Jaguar and the speedo crept up past seventy, eighty. From a driving course at Hendon he knew plenty of surveillance-avoidance techniques; most of them depended on local knowledge, so he flipped open the map on the steering wheel, steadying the car with the pressure of his knees, and raced through the pages. He found the Thetford page, jabbed a finger down to anchor it and shot a look in the mirror.

No!
His hand drifted from the map. He couldn't believe it. The car had melted into the distance. He was alone on the road.

“Shit.” He held the car steady, staring in the rearview mirror to make sure he wasn't imagining it. Nothing. Just a silent road stretching out behind. He fumbled around for his mobile, holding it up, jabbing at it with his thumb to check he hadn't got a message—if something was happening Souness would have warned him, given him a head start, he was sure. But there was no message icon and the road behind was deserted. He'd imagined it. Imagined the whole thing.
If that doesn't make you sit up and take notice …

“Right.” He dropped the phone on the passenger seat, pushed the map aside and let the car continue for two miles in silence, the blood pounding in his head. He was
strung out, he decided, looking at the way his hands were shaking. When he got back to London he was going to tell Souness and Paulina all about it. Because Lamb was just spinning him a line. He knew in his heart that was all she was doing.
Don't get your hopes up.

He told himself this so many times as he drove into Norfolk—past abandoned, boarded-up houses on deserted roads, past rubbish tips and derelict industrial green-houses—that by the time he found Lamb sitting on the step outside the back door smoking a cigarette, dressed in pale leggings, high-heeled yellow sandals and a Shania Twain T-shirt, he had convinced himself not to listen to anything she said.

“Tracey,” he said. “What do you want?”

She took a drag on the cigarette, looked up at him through the smoke and smiled.

“You want some tea?”

“Not really, no.”

“OK.” She nodded. She had watched him climb out of the car, his shirt blinding white in the sun, and waited for him to cross from the garage. Yes. She'd been right. She could see it in his face. And as he approached, taking off his sunglasses, she saw him glance, just once, over his shoulder at the road behind him. And that little gesture told her everything:
He shouldn't be here—he knows that. He's just as bent as I thought. I was right—this is going to be easy.
“Who are you working for?”

He put his keys in his pocket and nodded into the house. “Can you turn the music down?”

“I said
who
are you working for?”

He sighed. “I'm not working for anyone. I'm Bill. I told you that.”

“Then this lad—this kid that Penderecki done—who is so interested in him?”

“Just me.”

“You're a liar.” She took another drag on the cigarette and pointed it at him. “I know your type—there's gelt in it, isn't there? I don't know who that lad was or anything, but you know what I think? I think someone really,
really
wants to know. And when someone
really
wants to know,
there's always gelt in it somewhere.” She wiped her hands on the dirty leggings, pushed the ironweed hair behind her ear and made a face. She summoned phlegm into her throat and hawked it onto the ground. “Five K.”

“
What?
”

“Five K and I'll tell you.”

“
Five grand?
Do I look like a—”

“I mean it—five K and I'll tell you exactly what happened.”

“Piss off, Tracey. You're a liar. And I don't have to pay,
Tracey
, to force information out of you. I'm all that's standing between you and the dirty squad and I won't hesitate—”