Mo Hayder - Poppet

Caffery can’t dive. And he hasn’t got Flea’s connections. All he knows is that Misty is somewhere here. He’s been patient so far, but he’s a determined bastard when he gets the bit between his teeth, and it’s not beyond him to mount some insane diving job – maybe privately, maybe with a unit from another force. He’s senior enough to be able to work it if he wanted – he’d only have to come up with the flimsiest of pretexts. Flea can’t afford to take that chance.

She wears an ordinary fleece on her upper half; on her lower half is a dry suit – rolled down to her waist. She gets out now, drags her kitbag from the back seat and closes the door gently. The click, which in most settings would be virtually inaudible, seems to echo like a gunshot over the silent water. She unzips the bag and begins to dress. This is the part she hates. In the water she’s fine – it doesn’t matter how big or small she is – but out of the water she is at a disadvantage. She struggles to carry all the equipment – the cylinders, the weight belt.

At the edge of the quarry she sits and pulls on her fins. From this point a rusted ladder leads into the water which she scans again, looking for some ripple or change in the mirrored surface. There is only one other person in the world who knows about this place – only one person skilled enough to enter, and he is long gone, Flea has no idea where. He won’t give the secret away – she can be sure of that. He was one of the shadow people – on the wrong side of this country – and it’s no surprise he didn’t stick around. Maybe he’s dead. She’s been back several times to check; the place has been deserted for months. She is on her own.

She makes her final checks. Weights, releases, air. That jaw-aching bite of rubber as the regulator goes in her mouth – the sudden Darth Vader suck and whistle of breath. The entrance to the cave is far beyond the safe fifty metres authorized by British diving safety associations. It’s not something to be attempted on compressed air – let alone by a diver who’s yet to be signed off as fit by the barotrauma experts. Flea’s ear is the weak point – her left ear. The signs she’s got to look out for are nausea and a pain that radiates across the side of the face. Vertigo and confusion can come at around the time the eardrum shatters. She can’t afford for that to happen. If she bursts the eardrum again, this will be her last dive. Ever.

She places one hand flat against the regulator to pin it to her face for the descent, in the other she holds the inflator tube for her buoyancy vest. Then she plops, straight into the water, dropping through the dark.

AJ TRAILS THOUGHTFULLY back to his car. He drives home with the radio turned off because he wants to keep his head clear. The business cards of the cops who were at that conference are in the big folder in Melanie’s office – but AJ doesn’t need their names. If he wanted to, he could just bell the unit they work for: the Major Crime Investigation Team, if he remembers rightly. It can’t be that hard to find. If he was sure his suspicions about Handel were justified, he might do it. Yeah right, he thinks, as he turns into the rutted track to Eden Hole, like it’s entirely because you’re not one hundred per cent certain. And absolutely nothing to do with the fact you’d upset Melanie if you did. Coward.

He gets out and stands for a moment in the cold, his back to the car. From here the land rises up to a plateau that runs across the top of an escarpment at the beginning of the Cotswolds. The escarpment is bleak and wind-blasted, with skeleton trees dotted along the summit.

Upton Farm is less than four miles away, on the other side of the escarpment. He’s never been there, but he knows where it is, because people locally whisper the name. Until now, with his usual philosophy of seeking only necessary information and nothing more, AJ hasn’t wanted to know what went on there. Or what Isaac did that weirded Jane Potter out so much.

Inside, the cottage is warm, with a fire lit and good smells coming from the kitchen. It’s jam-making season, which means the kitchen’s overrun by a constant succession of bubbling cauldrons, spoonfuls of jam smeared on frozen plates in the freezer and sticky jam thermometers on every surface. Patience mocks AJ for his wassailing, tree-hugging ways, but when he comes home from a walk laden with blackberries from the hedgerow and the pink-streaked Kingston Black apples that fall in the abandoned orchard at the end of the forest, she’s delighted. She rolls up her sleeves and starts sterilizing jars.

Today she has an apron on and is clucking around the place with skimmers and piles of sealing discs. Breakfast is set – banana fritters and toast and coffee and one of the Forager’s Fayre jars he bought her. He takes off his jacket and greets Stewart, then he sits and butters toast, spreads some jam on it. Stewart watches him from his bed next to the Aga.

‘Turns out your dog was born under a wandering star,’ Patience says tightly. ‘Maybe he’s like his daddy – got himself a lady friend.’

‘Why? Where’s he been?’

‘I dunno – sowing his wild seed, I guess.’

‘He’s neutered, Patience.’

‘Doesn’t stop him disappearing. Maybe we should neuter you too.’

There’s a little barb in there, and AJ wonders whether to explain to Patience where he was last night and where he’s going tonight. He decides not to. She’s a grown woman, she can work it out. He butters another piece of toast.

‘Have you ever been up past that orchard?’ he asks. ‘The one I get the Kingston Black apples from. It’s up in The Wilds. Between the church and Raymond Athey’s land.’

‘I know where it is, thank you. But you won’t catch me up there. The place on the other side of it is haunted.’

‘Haunted?’

‘Things happen up there.’

‘Upton Farm, you mean?’

Patience doesn’t answer. Her mouth forms an irritated moue as she busies herself, clattering around with the jam pots, lining them up on the table where he’s eating.

AJ’s not ready to let it go though. ‘We were living here fifteen years ago. Something happened at Upton Farm. Do you remember what?’

‘I remember a boy went mad – killed his parents. Is there more I need to know?’

‘Killed his parents?’

‘That’s what I said.’

AJ’s been in the mental-health system so long nothing should shock him any more – he’s known serial killers who’ve had a far higher body count than two. Even so he still can’t quite imagine Isaac Handel doing it. And so nearby too.

‘Why’re we talking about it?’ Patience says. ‘Hey, Stewart, your dad’s come home, but instead of walking you he’s sitting around eating and talking about ghosts. What do you think about that?’

AJ shakes his head resignedly. He finishes his toast then takes his cup and plate to the sink, washes them and sets them on the draining rack.

Imagine – little pudding-basin-hair Handel killing two people. How does it work that someone can do things like that and there’s no sign of it left on their faces for the world to see?

AJ gets his coat and the dog lead. ‘Come on, Stewie. Let’s get some fresh air, eh?’

Outside, it soon becomes obvious that, although Patience might be in a strop, she is at least right on one count: there’s definitely something odd about Stewart. AJ stands in the rain, hood up, throwing a stick into the field, but Stewart is hesitant to run after it – as if he’s suddenly grown cautious about his surroundings.

‘Go on, boy, go on,’ AJ urges.

Eventually the dog goes into the field, but AJ knows something is wrong. Sure enough, Stewart doesn’t pick up the stick but wanders around sniffing. Then he trots to the edge of the field where a stile leads into a patch of woodland.