Mo Hayder - Gone

‘Mr Bradley. Jonathan.’

They shook and Jonathan pulled a chair up to the table. ‘Here. Have a seat. I’ll make more tea.’

Caffery sat. It had been cold out in the lumberyard and his hands and feet felt hard and heavy. Finding the tracks should feel like an uptick in their box. Truth was, it hadn’t moved them forward. The teams were still out there on the knock, rousing every householder and farmer. Caffery kept waiting for the POLSA’s number to flash up on his phone screen. He wanted it to happen but, God, please don’t let it happen now, he thought, not here in front of the family.

‘You haven’t finished your tea, darling.’ Jonathan put his hands on his wife’s shoulders and bent over to her. ‘I’ll make you a fresh one.’ He took the cup and the basket from the table to the side. ‘Look, Mrs Fosse’s made us something to eat again.’ His voice was unnaturally raised, as if this was an old people’s home and Rose in the last stages of dementia. ‘Nice of her. Need neighbours like that.’ He pulled the linen cloth from the basket and sorted through the few things the woman had left. Some sandwiches, a pie and some fruit. A card, and a bottle of red wine with ‘organic’ printed on the label. Caffery kept his eye on the bottle. He didn’t think he’d refuse if they offered. But the pie went into the microwave and the bottle stayed on the side, unopened, while Jonathan busied himself pouring hot water into a teapot.

‘I’m sorry about this,’ Caffery said, when they had cups of tea and slices of hot apple pie in front of them. Jonathan had seemed determined to keep up an illusion of normality, setting the table, serving food. ‘Interrupting you like this.’

‘It’s OK.’ Rose’s voice was a monotone. She didn’t look at him or the food, but kept her eyes on the TV set. ‘I know you haven’t found her. The lady told us.’ She gestured at the FLO, who had settled at the other side of the table and was busy opening a huge file to take notes of the conversation. ‘Told us nothing’s happened. That’s right, isn’t it? Nothing’s happened?’

‘No.’

‘They told us about the car. They said there was some clothing in it. Martha’s. When you’re ready we’ll have it back, please.’

‘Rose,’ said the FLO, ‘we’ve talked about this.’

‘I’d like the clothing back, please.’ Rose took her eyes off the TV and turned them to Caffery. They were swollen and red. ‘That’s all I’m asking. Just to have my daughter’s property back now.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Caffery said. ‘We can’t do that. Not yet. It’s evidence.’

‘What do you need it for? Why do you have to hold on to it?’

The underwear was in the lab at HQ. They were desperately throwing test after test at it. So far no trace of the jacker’s semen. Just like in the car. That made Caffery really uneasy, how controlled the guy was. ‘I’m sorry, Rose. I really am. I know this is hard. But I have to ask you some more questions.’

‘Don’t be sorry.’ Jonathan set a pot of cream on the table and distributed dessert spoons. ‘It helps to talk. It’s better to be able to talk about it than not. Isn’t it, Rose?’

Rose nodded numbly. Her mouth fell open a little.

‘She’s seen all the papers, hasn’t she?’ Caffery asked the FLO. ‘You showed her the one with Martha on the front page?’

The FLO got up, took a paper from a sideboard and put it on the table in front of him. It was the Sun . Someone in a women’s clothing store the Bradleys had visited on the Saturday morning had sold the newspaper footage of Rose and Martha browsing near the window thirty minutes before the kidnapping. The newspaper had published a frame with a time stamp and the headline:

The last photo? Just half an hour before she is snatched by a monster eleven-year-old Martha shops happily with Mum .

Rose said, ‘Why did they have to write that? Why did they say the last photo? It makes it sound as if . . .’ She pushed the hair off her forehead. ‘It makes it sounds as if – you know. As if it’s all over.’

Caffery shook his head. ‘It’s not all over.’

‘Isn’t it?’

‘No. We’re doing absolutely everything we can to bring her home safely.’

‘I’ve heard that before. You said it before. You said she’d be having her party.’

‘Rose,’ Jonathan said gently, ‘Mr Caffery’s only trying to help. Now, here.’ He poured some cream on to her plate, then his own. He put a spoon into her hand and, taking his own, loaded it with apple pie and put it into his mouth, chewing carefully, his eyes on hers. He nodded significantly at her plate, trying to get her to copy him.

‘She hasn’t eaten a thing,’ the FLO whispered. ‘Not since it happened.’

‘Typical you, Dad,’ Philippa said from the sofa. ‘Think food’s going to cure everything.’

‘She needs her strength. She really does.’

Caffery took the cream jug and poured it over his pie. He took a mouthful, and smiled encouragingly at Rose. She stared blankly at the newspaper on the table. ‘Why did they have to write that?’ she repeated.

‘They’ll say whatever sells papers,’ Caffery said. ‘There’s not a lot we can do now. We did get the rest of the footage from the shop, though, and we’ve looked through it.’

‘Why? Why did you need to do that?’

He arranged a chunk of pie on his spoon – did it carefully, taking his time. ‘Rose, look. I know you’ve gone through it all before – I know it’s painful, but I want to go back over that morning. I specifically want to talk to you about the shops you and Martha visited.’

‘The shops we visited? Why?’

‘You said you’d left the food shopping until last.’

‘Yes.’

‘I think you said you were looking for a cardigan? Was that for you or for Martha?’

‘For me. Martha wanted tights. We went to Roundabout first and got her some. She wanted ones with hearts . . .’ Rose paused. She pressed her fingers to her throat and struggled to maintain her composure. ‘With hearts,’ she continued, in a small voice. ‘Red ones. And when we’d got those we went to Coco’s. I saw a cardigan in there I liked.’

‘Did you try it on?’

‘Did she try it on?’ said Jonathan. ‘Does it matter if she tried a cardigan on? I’m sorry to sound rude, but what’s that got to do with anything?’

‘I’m just trying to establish a bit more about what that morning was like. Did you take your coat off and try the cardigan on?’

‘You’re not “trying to establish what the morning was like”.’ Philippa glared at him from the sofa. ‘You’re not doing that at all. I know why you’re asking. It’s because you think he was watching them. You think he was following them before they went anywhere near the car park, don’t you?’

Caffery took another forkful of pie and chewed, holding Philippa’s eyes.

‘It’s true, isn’t it? I can see from your face. You think he was following them.’

‘It’s just one line in our enquiries. In my experience, random is rarely that random.’

‘Does that mean you’ve got some more evidence?’ asked Jonathan. ‘Does that mean he’s communicated with you again?’

There was something small and hard in the mouthful of pie. Caffery didn’t answer while he worked it to the front of his mouth and pushed it with his tongue into the paper napkin. A piece of tooth, covered in pie. A broken tooth right in the middle of a case like this when he really didn’t have time for a trip to the dentist.

‘Mr Caffery? Has there been another communication?’

‘I meant what I said. I’m trying to establish a little more of what . . .’

He trailed off, frowning at the napkin. It wasn’t a piece of tooth at all. It was a whole tooth. But it hadn’t come from him. He ran his tongue around his mouth. No gaps. And, anyway, it was too small. Much too small to have come from an adult.