Mo Hayder: Gone

The sun crept the last few degrees to the horizon, sent orange light streaming across the sky in huge shards. She put her hand over her eyes and squinted at it. There were three poplars on the edge of the garden to the west: one summer Dad had noticed something about them that had pleased him no end. On the solstices the sunset lined up exactly with one of the two outer ones, while on the equinoxes it set directly behind the middle one. ‘Perfectly aligned. Someone must have planted them like that a century ago,’ he’d said, laughing, surprised by the cleverness. ‘Just the sort of thing the Victorians would have loved. You know, Brunel and all that malarkey.’

Now the sun stood exactly between the middle and the outer one. She looked at it for a long time. Then she checked her watch: 27 November. Exactly six months to the day since she’d hidden the corpse in the cave.

She thought of the disappointment in Caffery’s face. The lightless reflection of his eyes last night. She drained her drink. Rubbed her arms to make the bumps go away. How long was it supposed to go on? When something so impossible and unimaginable had happened, just how long were you supposed to shut down for?

Six months. That was the answer. Six months was long enough. Too long. The time had come. The corpse wasn’t going to be found. Not now. She’d have to pack the whole thing away in the back of her mind because it was time for other things. It was time to get the unit back on track. Time to prove she was the same sergeant she’d always been. She could do it. She was going to blot the disappointment out of everyone’s eyes. Maybe then the walls in her own eyes would come down. Maybe the day would come when there weren’t sour milk and meals for one in the freezer. And maybe, just maybe, the day would come when there’d be someone else standing on the gravel driveway with her, drinking Tanqueray and watching the night lower itself on to the lighted city.

Caffery’s head felt full of lead. Like a cold, miserable ball with It’s not working etched on it. He went down the corridor opening doors, delegating tasks. He gave Lollapalooza the job of tracking down known sex offenders in the Frome area, and told Turner to tickle up any more witnesses to either jacking. Turner looked a mess: unshaven, and he’d forgotten to take out the diamond stud earring he wore at weekends. The one that, with his spiky highlighted hair, gave him the look of a devout clubber and sent the superintendent into paroxysms of abuse. Before he left the office Caffery pointed it out to him. Stood at the doorway, said, ‘Uh, Turner?’ and waggled his own ear up and down to give him the clue. Turner pulled it out hurriedly, pocketed it, and Caffery went on his way ruminating that no one in the unit seemed to give a damn about looking professional. There was Turner with his earring, and Lollapalooza with her killer heels. Only the new guy, the traffic cop DC Prody, seemed to have checked in the mirror before he’d left home that morning.

He was sitting neatly at his desk when Caffery came in, lit only by a small lamp. He was shaking the mouse on the mouse mat and frowning at the screen. Behind him a workman, standing on a stepladder, was painstakingly removing the plastic cover from the fluorescent light fitting on the ceiling.

‘I thought these computers were supposed to time out,’ said Prody.

‘They are.’ Caffery pulled back a chair. ‘After five minutes.’

‘Mine’s not. I leave the room, come back and it’s still hot to trot.’

‘The number for IT’s on the wall.’

‘ That’s where the extension list is.’ Prody unpinned it and put it in front of him. Lined it up. Placed his hands on the desk and considered it carefully, as if its tidiness pleased him. He was such an orderly man compared to Turner and Lollapalooza. There was a dark-blue gym bag hanging on the wall and you could tell from Prody’s physique that it got used. He was tall and broad and solid, with tightly trimmed hair that was just edging into grey at the sideburns. A big, handsome Kennedy jawline, slightly tanned. The only thing screwing up his appearance was the evidence of teenage acne. Looking at him Caffery saw, with a moment of surprise, that he was expecting good things from this guy. ‘Every day’s a little better. I’m not such a noob any more. They’re even giving me leccy at last.’ Prody nodded to the workman. ‘They must like me.’

Caffery held up a hand to the workman. ‘Mate? Can we have some space here? Just for ten.’

He got down the ladder without a word. He put his screwdriver into a toolbox, closed it and left the room. Caffery sat down. ‘Anything new?’

‘Nothing really. No bites from the ANPR points – not on the Yaris or the partial index on the Vauxhall in Frome.’

‘It’s definitely the same guy as the earlier two jackings. No getting away from it.’ He put the Ordnance Survey map between them. ‘You were in Traffic before you came over here.’

‘For my sins.’

‘Do you know Wells, Farrington Gurney, Radstock?’

‘Farrington Gurney?’ He laughed. ‘Just a little. I mean, I lived there for ten years. Why?’

‘The superintendent’s muttering about bringing in a geographical profiler. Meanwhile I think someone who’s spent enough time out on the roads knows more about the way the land lies than a psychologist.’

‘And I get paid half as much, so I must be your man.’ Prody pulled the lamp towards himself and hunched over the map. ‘What’ve we got?’

‘What we’ve got is a fuck-awful situation, Paul, if you’ll pardon my language. But let’s suck that one up and think what to do about it. Look at this. The first jacking’s over in minutes, but the second one, he took longer. And he went a weird route.’

‘Weird how?’

‘He came up the A37, going north, and kept going. Past Binegar, past Farrington Gurney. Then he turned back on himself.’

‘He was lost?’

‘No. Definitely not. He knew that road really well. He told the girl there was a Little Chef up the road a long time before they got to it. He knew where he was. And that’s what I’m wondering. If he knew the area why did he take the route he did? Is there something along there he was attracted to?’

Prody ran his finger along A37, the road that came down from Bristol into the Mendips. He went down south, past Farrington Gurney, past the turn the jacker had taken. He stopped north of Shepton Mallet and was quiet for a moment or two, frowning.

‘What?’ Caffery said.

‘Maybe he knew the road from north to south, but not from south to north. If he travelled it often in this direction he’d know this way to Wells, but he might not know it coming from the south. Which might mean that whatever he was using the road for – going to work or visiting friends or whatever – he only knew it up to this point. So he was stopping his route somewhere here, south of Farrington, north of Shepton. And yesterday’s jacking was here. In Frome.’

‘But I’ve got a witness who thinks the Vauxhall must have come through from Radstock, which is in the direction of Farrington. So let’s just say this general area is important to him somehow.’

‘We could put ANPR on these roads too. If they’re not already over-committed around Frome.’

‘Know anyone in the Tactical Traffic Unit?’

‘Been trying to get away from the bastards for the last two years. Leave it to me.’

Caffery had noticed a file on the side unit. He stopped listening to Prody and stared at the name on the spine. After a moment he put his hands on the chair arms and pushed himself upright. Went across to the unit and glanced casually at it.

‘The Misty Kitson case?’

‘Yup.’ Prody didn’t lift his eyes from the map he was studying, trying to figure out a good place to position the ANPR units.