Mo Hayder - Gone

Something clinked. It rolled away from her foot an inch or two. She pushed her sleeve to her upper arm and, bending at the waist, lowered her hand into the freezing water. Groped in the muck. She found the object and pulled it out.

A mooring spike. Straightening, she shone the torch on it. It was about a foot long and shaped like a long fat tent peg with a splayed top where, over the years, it had been hammered into the banks for tying up to. Thicker than a blade and sharper than a chisel, it could easily have made the spikes in the CSM’s plaster-of-paris cast. The jacker might have used it to score out his footprints.

She climbed out of the hull and stood, water streaming off her, on the towpath. She looked along the faintly gleaming canal. All the barges would have used a spike just like this. The place must be littered with them. She studied the spike in her hand. It would make a good weapon. You wouldn’t want to argue with someone holding this. No. You wouldn’t argue. Especially if you were only eleven years old.

The dog’s name was Myrtle. She was threadbare, half crippled by arthritis. Her white and black tail hung off the end of her bony back like a limp flag. But she hobbled along obediently behind Caffery, got in and out of the back seat of his car without complaining, though he could tell it hurt her. Even waited patiently outside the forensics lab at HQ in Portishead while he struggled with the technicians and tried to push forward the testing of the baby tooth against Martha’s DNA. By the time he was done with the lab he was feeling sorry for the damned dog. He stopped at a Smile store and got armfuls of dog food. The chew toy seemed a bit hopeful but he bought it anyway and put it on the back seat next to her.

It was late, gone ten, by the time he got back to the MCIU building. The place was still busy. He took Myrtle limping along the corridor, running the gauntlet of people poking their heads out of offices to speak to him, hand him reports, messages, but mostly to pat the dog or make wisecracks about her: Jack, your dog looks like I feel. Hey, it’s Yoda in a coat. Here, furry Yoda .

Turner was still there, dishevelled and a bit sleepy but at least no earring. He spent a little time bringing Caffery up to date on the trawl for the Vauxhall, which still hadn’t borne fruit, and gave him contact details for the superintendent who’d authorized the surveillance on the vicarage. Then he spent a longer time crouched down talking nonsense to Myrtle, who wearily lifted her tail once or twice in acknowledgement. Lollapalooza came in, still in full makeup, but she was letting her guard down: she’d taken off her high heels and rolled up her sleeves to reveal the down of fine dark hairs on her arms. She hadn’t done well on the sex offenders, she admitted. CAPIT had a short list of people they thought could meet the criteria: they’d been checked on overnight. But what she could tell Caffery was that chondroitin was the way to go with the dog’s arthritis. That or glucosamine. Oh, and cut all grains out of the poor animal’s diet. By which she meant all grains. All of them.

When she’d gone he opened a can of Chum and let it gloop on to one of the cracked plates from the unit kitchen. Myrtle ate slowly, her old head on one side, favouring the left side of her jaw. The food stank. At ten thirty, when Paul Prody stuck his head in the door, the smell was still there. He made a face. ‘Nice.’

Caffery got up, went to the window and opened it a fraction. Cold damp air came in, bringing with it the smells of drunks and takeaways. One of the shops opposite had Christmas lights in the window, Christmas officially beginning in November, of course. ‘So?’ He sat heavily in his chair. Arms hanging at his sides. He felt half finished. ‘What’ve you got for me?’

‘Just in the last few minutes spoke to the press office.’ Prody came in, sat down. Myrtle was lying on the floor, digesting her meal, her chin on her paws. She raised her head and watched him with a vague, burned-out interest. Even Prody was showing signs of wear and tear. His jacket was creased and his tie was undone round his neck as if he’d spent a couple of hours on the sofa at home, watching soaps. ‘The nationals, the locals and all the TV stations ran pictures of the Bradleys’ house. The number on the door was quite clear and so was the sign: “The Vicarage”. The cuttings agency is still searching, but so far all anyone can come up with is some copy about “the Bradleys’ house in Oakhill”. Nothing more specific than that. No road name. And no mention of the tooth. Anywhere.’

‘It could be him, then.’

‘Looks like it.’

‘That’s good.’

‘Good?’ Prody gave him a level look.

‘Yes. It means he knows the Oakhill area – knows the A37. It’s great.’

‘Is it?’

Caffery dropped his hands on the desk. ‘No. It’s something, but it’s not “great” at all. We already knew he was familiar with that area. What does it add to our intel? That he knows an estate every bastard in the area has to drive past on their way to work.’

They looked across at the map on the wall. It was covered with tiny pins, the heads coloured. The pink ones were personal to Caffery: they marked the places he knew the Walking Man had been. A pattern was emerging there: a long band stretching upwards from Shepton Mallet, where the Walking Man had once lived. But the black pins were the ones Caffery couldn’t mould a pattern from – six of them: three at the places the jacker had struck, the other three at places that had some relevance – the vicarage in Oakhill where he’d left the baby tooth, the area near Tetbury where the Bradleys’ Yaris had been parked briefly and the place near Avoncliff in Wiltshire where it had been abandoned.

‘There’s a station near where he left the car.’ Caffery squinted at the black pins. ‘If you look at it there’s a railway line runs through there.’

Prody went to the map, tilted sideways from the waist and studied the pins. ‘The line that goes from Bristol through Bath and Westbury.’

‘The Wessex line. Look where it goes after Bath.’

‘Freshford, Frome.’ He looked over his shoulder at Caffery. ‘Martha was taken in Frome.’

‘And Cleo was taken in Bruton. On the same line.’

‘You think he’s using the train?’

‘Maybe. He drove to the Bradleys today, I’m sure of it. And he must have used a car to get out to Bruton – the Vauxhall, maybe. But when he jacks someone else’s car he has to come back, pick up the Vauxhall, at some point.’

‘So maybe he lives near one of the stations on the line?’

Caffery shrugged. ‘Well, it’s tentative, but let’s go with it. In the absence of anything else. In the morning I want you to get on to Railtrack, take in their CCTVs. Know the routine for that?’

‘I think so.’

‘And, Prody?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Just because Turner wears his Glasto look after six p.m., Lollapallooza thinks it’s cool to go barefoot and I’ve got a Labrador in my office, it doesn’t mean you get to lower your standards.’

Prody nodded. Did up his tie. ‘It’s a collie, Boss.’

‘A collie. That’s what I said.’

‘Yes, Boss.’ Prody half opened the door to leave, when something occurred to him. He stopped and came back in, closing it behind him.

‘What?’

‘I took the file back. Last night, like you said. No one even noticed I’d had it.’

For a moment Caffery couldn’t think what he was talking about. Then he remembered. Misty Kitson.

‘Good. ’S what I said to do.’

‘Thought I’d really pissed you off there for a bit.’

‘Yeah, well, I had a fly up my arse yesterday. Don’t take it seriously.’ He pulled the keyboard over. Needed to check his emails. ‘See you.’