Mo Hayder - Poppet

‘I heard that too. Do you want your breakfast or not?’

‘ Breakfast? ’ Melanie whispers. ‘ Breakfast? ’

‘It’s a family tradition – when I come home from work. Don’t panic.’ He jabs a finger at the stairwell that leads to his section. ‘I’ve got the same thing up those stairs – mirror image. Only a wall separating us.’

Melanie raises her eyes to the ceiling – to the oak beams. ‘Is there a doorway?’

‘No.’

‘So to get to you from there I’ve got to … what? Come down here and go up?’

‘Yes. Or you could just throw your chips in and stay with me.’

THE COFFEE IS from a little sachet like a teabag and has grounds floating in it. But it’s dark and strong and exactly what Caffery needs at this time of day. He loads it with sugar and eats four biscuits in the over-bright, fluorescent-lit staffroom at Wickes. Lately he’s been having to remind himself to eat. When he forgets, he’ll catch sight of himself in a window and see a stranger’s face that his inbuilt pigeon-holer immediately categorizes as: Forty something. Stressful job. Not married .

Bolt, who clearly is married and anxious to get home, has done a till-receipt search but turned up nothing under the name Handel. Now he’s setting up a laptop linked to the CCTV’s external drive. Caffery hangs his jacket on the back of the chair, sets his coffee down, and fishes out his phone. He blows up the photograph of Handel that AJ messaged him earlier and props the phone against the monitor.

There are fifteen hundred hours of video footage loaded on the drive, but he can narrow those hours down. Handel was released only fifty-four hours ago. The goods must have been purchased between then and last night, when he was last seen at the hostel. That info alone cuts out a huge wad of data. Also the receipt for the iPod dock is time-and-date stamped for five p.m. Tuesday and, though it’s a gamble, Caffery’s willing to bet Handel didn’t come all the way here from the hostel twice. Either he bought the dock and then remembered something and went back into the shop, or vice versa. More likely vice versa, since you don’t ‘forget’ seven carrier bags of hardware.

He quickly skips to the Tuesday-evening section of the till-camera recording and, sure enough, there is Handel standing in the queue, waiting to be served. Caffery compares it to the photo on the phone. Stained sweatpants and the stripy orange-and-brown sweater AJ talked about. The haircut is seriously random too – a bit like a monk’s. He is staring intently at other customers, making everyone uneasy – standing too close to the woman ahead of him. She steals nervous glances at him over her shoulder.

No – there’s no way he’d be able to walk into a hotel and book a room.

He is holding several carrier bags. Bulging. In fact he has to put them on the floor as he pays for the docking station. As he does, the assistant glances anxiously past him a few times. Probably trying to catch the eye of the security guard in case something kicks off. But Handel just picks up his bags and then walks out of the shop. The waiting customers exchange relieved glances.

Caffery skips back through the footage – the hurried blurs of customers, staff zipping in and out, stopping for milliseconds to talk to cashiers, customers, then equally quickly vanishing. Then, just ten minutes ahead of his iPod-dock purchase, Handel appears in the cash queue. This time he has no carrier bags but a trolley loaded with goods.

Caffery freezes the picture. The boxes and reels and tins in the trolley are unidentifiable from the image. He unpauses the video and lets it run real time.

Handel is as unsettling this time as he is in the later footage. Small though he is, something in his face makes people around him uncomfortable. One or two other customers push trolleys to the end of the queue, but within seconds of being in Handel’s vicinity they change their minds and steer their trolleys to another counter. One begins to unload goods on to the conveyor belt then changes her mind. She actually packs things back into her trolley and heads off, trying to appear casual, as if she’s forgotten something.

Caffery watches closely as the cashier runs Handel’s items through the till. Again he freezes the picture. He has nothing to write on so he rolls up his shirtsleeve and jots down the time code on his arm. He gets up, goes to Kieran Bolt’s office door, and knocks.

SOMETIMES THINGS ARE so beautiful you can tie yourself in knots trying to explain them or capture them. Maybe it’s Mum’s death, and the way he remembers her, or maybe it’s simply that AJ is a grown-up now – whatever, he’s learned to accept beauty when it comes his way, appreciate it, and believe it will come to him again. He doesn’t care that it’s a bit new-age, wisdom-of-the-universe stuff. It’s the way he’s learned to view the world.

Except there’s one problem with it. Because – while it’s easy to look out of his window at the acres of green, at the boundless cloudy horizon – and accept and believe in it all and its continuity – he finds he can’t accept the fact that Melanie Arrow is sitting here at the old kitchen table, eating Patience’s nine p.m. breakfast. He simply can’t believe it and he can’t help wanting to own it and contain it. Wishing he’d done it earlier yet at the same time being glad he waited until it was right. It’s as if Mum is sitting in the corner smiling contentedly at Melanie – proud and glad that at last he’s done the right thing. Because an angel may as well have plopped down in their cottage. Someone to transform him – make him a better person.

‘More?’ Patience stands with her hand on her hip, the skillet in her hand, looking down her nose at Melanie, who has just, generously, consumed a pile of sausages, eggs, coconut ‘bammy’ cakes and fried pumpkin. Apparently the pumpkin patch is going crazy and Patience seems determined to feed every last one to Melanie. Not to mention the lovage brandy she keeps slopping into her glass. ‘Don’t you want to eat more?’

AJ digs his teeth into the mug he’s sipping coffee from, vowing not to speak or interfere. If Mum was still alive she’d say that Patience has really got her sass out tonight. Melanie is the biggest challenge Patience has had in years. Probably since the 50–1 she backed at Kempton Park. She is all scrutiny, subjecting the first girlfriend her nephew has brought home in years to a stewards’ inquiry. The giveaway fail for Melanie will be any food cowardice. For AJ, Patience wants big, child-bearing women with huge breasts and hips. The slightest hint of a food hater will turn her into a mean-eyed bitch from hell.

‘Some dumpling? Haddock? I’ve got haddock poached in milk – I can do you a bowl with a dumpling and a bit of toast to soak it up? Some more of my lovage brandy?’

The breakfast Patience has provided is the most elaborate to have graced this table in living memory. Melanie has been appreciative to a fault, but there has to be a tipping point.

‘I was supposed to be on a diet,’ she tells Patience. ‘But honestly, you’ve got diet saboteur written across your forehead.’

She’s trying to humour Patience, but instead of a smile she’s rewarded with more food ladled on her plate. Patience turns away, unimpressed – still challenging. Melanie eats dutifully, her eyes on Patience’s back. She casts AJ the occasional brave glance and he nods encouragingly. He wants to explain in more detail – this is your initiation ceremony, Melanie. You’re doing well, it won’t always be like this … But maybe she’s already worked that out, because she applies herself to the task with a ferocity he’s only seen her use in the clinic.