Mo Hayder - Poppet

‘Maybe it doesn’t show in the photos.’

‘It doesn’t show in the CSI report either. There’s some blood in the downstairs hallway, but Isaac would need to have been dripping with it for you to see it on the ground outside. Graham and Louise had been dead three hours – their blood would have been mostly dry by then anyway.’

‘I can’t remember what I saw. I just knew he was in the barn.’

‘The front door to the house is wide open, and yet, for some reason, instead of going into the house, you go straight to the barn?’

Pilson doesn’t answer. Caffery tries a different tack. ‘OK – for the sake of argument, let’s say it’s something – copper’s nous maybe – leads you, against all evidence, away from the house and over to the barn. And then …’ Caffery locates the section of the report, reads: ‘ The access door to the big barn was open. I looked around the door frame and saw Isaac Handel in the hayloft. He appeared to be covered in blood .’

Caffery runs a thumb along the folder, so that it will lie open at the page. ‘You want to modify your statement, Mr Pilson?’

‘What? You expect me to remember it better after all this time?’

‘No, I expect you to remember it accurately, to tell me the truth. I’ve just come from that barn. It’s pitch-dark in there. You can’t even see the hayloft from the access door – you’ve got to be a good six feet inside the barn – and still you’d have to bend backwards to get a good look.’

Pilson is shaking his head, but he doesn’t look like an ex-cop any more; he looks like anyone who’s been caught in a lie and won’t admit it.

‘Fine,’ Caffery says. ‘So you’re trying to work out how much trouble you’re in. Why not let me fill in the blanks for you? You’re protecting someone – I don’t know who, but I’m going to find out. OK?’ He pauses, giving time for that to sink in. ‘And when I do, I’ll be coming back here to charge you with obstruction. And if Handel does anything else in the future, it’ll be on your head.’

Anxiety crosses Pilson’s face briefly. ‘Handel can’t do anything, He’s inside. High Secure.’

‘That’s right. High Secure – which, every six months, whether the patients ask for it or not, holds the statutory MHA discharge tribunals. And this time … ta-dah!’ He gives a flourish of the hand, like a magician. ‘Isaac Handel was discharged. I guess that’s why they go through the whole rigmarole – to make sure the ones who need to be kept in are. And the ones who don’t need to be kept in get let out.’

Pilson’s mouth closes. You can almost hear his teeth dancing one against the other. ‘They’ve let him out ? Are you having a … ? Aren’t they supposed to tell us when they let people like that out?’

‘Our unit was informed, as is the protocol. Though most relevant parties are retired now, like yourself. Besides, what’s to worry about? The doctors say he’s stabilized. The tribunal reckons he’s safe to live in the community.’

There’s a pulse beating in Pilson’s temple. He glances towards the kitchen where his wife is.

‘Would you like me to get her to lock the doors?’ Caffery says. ‘Would that make you feel better?’

‘They don’t know what they’ve done. Letting him out.’

‘But you do. Who called it in? Who were you protecting?’

For half a minute, Pilson says nothing, just keeps taking deep breaths, shaking his head every so often. He reaches across the table and with trembling fingers he turns the crime-scene photographs over so they are face down.

‘My sister,’ he says miserably. ‘I was protecting Penny.’

THE STORY HARRY Pilson has to tell is old, and sadly familiar to Caffery, who has heard every imaginable tale of adultery over the years. Every possible combination, every conceivable twist. Still he can’t help feeling sorry for the guy. The more he talks, the more Caffery understands why he lied.

Fifteen years ago Pilson’s sister, Penny – who was married at the time – was having an affair with Graham Handel, Isaac’s father. On the day of the killings she went up to the house to see him. She intended finishing the affair. By the time she arrived, Graham Handel and his wife had both been dead some hours.

Penny knew she had to report it, but she had no excuse to give her husband for her presence up at the house. So Harry agreed to cover for her. Together they conjured up the phone call. The fake woman. Fake name, fake address.

‘She’s drifted away from me,’ Harry says. ‘Or I’ve drifted from her. I think she’s ashamed, even now – it was a bleak spot in her life. When you see her, will you send her my love? Tell her I still think about her. Ask her how that mongrel dog of hers is.’

Penny is now divorced from the husband she wanted to protect, and lives in the last house in the village. The Old Mill. Harry has told Caffery it’s the house with grass growing on the roof, and he sees it immediately, even in the dark: a green froth on the old clay roof tiles. At the windows are Swiss-style shutters – a heart cut in each centre – and there’s a hand-carved business sign above the porch – Forager’s Fayre, Home-made Preserves .

He has to rap loudly to get an answer. When the door opens, he sees Penny is quite different from her brother. Much younger – probably mid-forties – and very pretty, with heavily kohled eyes and bright henna-red hair cut pixie-style. A faint, quizzical smile.

‘Yes?’

‘Penny Pilson?’

‘That’s me.’

He holds up his card. ‘Have you got a moment? Just some routine questions.’

Penny’s face falls a little. But she doesn’t ask him what the routine questions are. She holds the door open and lets him in. The hallway is narrow with bare stone walls, the floor tiles also stone – worn in clear twin grooves by centuries of foot traffic. Penny beckons him to follow and heads away down the corridor. She’s small and voluptuous. She wears a falling cascade of bracelets on her arms, battered jeans and beaded leather thong sandals on her dainty feet, which are bare, in spite of the cold.

It’s a high-ceilinged building – brick-walled, but warmed by a huge wood burner in the centre of the floor. At one end of the space is what looks like a commercial kitchen, where industrialsized pots simmer on a huge catering-style stainless-steel cooker, filling the air with the smell of stewing fruit. There are pyramids of freshly picked apples in the corner, and a trestle table at the far end of the room houses a range of jars – all hand-labelled, and tied with hemp or raffia. Every wall is covered in shelves similarly piled with jars.

Penny clicks on the overhead light and takes a pile of paperwork off a chair for Caffery to sit.

‘Tea? Coffee? Something stronger?’

He smiles. ‘I’d love a Scotch, but under the circumstances …’

‘I make the best plum vodka. I’ll get you some.’

Caffery tilts back in his chair, his head turned to watch her moving around the kitchen. ‘Can I just say that you’re a bad woman. If I was an alcoholic – which I probably am on some level – you’d have co-dependent or enabler stamped on your forehead. Not to mention I’m driving.’

‘I’ll make it a small one. Just to taste. Just to leave you wanting more.’

He shakes his head. This is the sort of woman who can spell trouble for men. Earthy and sexy. Knows how to feed the senses. Obviously her appeal wasn’t lost on Graham Handel. She fills a tiny glass with a ruby-coloured liquor. It catches the light and reminds him Christmas is not far off. He sniffs and sips. It’s the taste of a hundred different berries, a hundred different spices.