Mo Hayder - Gone

Prody muttered something – might have been ‘sorry’, but Caffery didn’t much care. He’d had enough – enough of the cold and the media and the way his force was behaving.

He felt in his pocket for his keys. ‘Get back to the office and take your friends with you. You’re all about as welcome here as a cockroach in a salad bowl. If it happens again a little bird will be winging its way to the superintendent.’ He turned smartly, walked away and mounted the steps that led up to the village green they were using as a RV point, doing up his raincoat as he went. The place was almost deserted, just a man in a torn sweater in the back garden of one of the houses, emptying leaves into a large wheelie. When Caffery was sure no one had followed he opened the door of the Mondeo and let Myrtle out.

They went under an oak tree – the dead leaves still clinging to it rustled in the breeze – and the dog squatted unsteadily to pee. Caffery stood next to her, hands in his pockets, looking at the sky. It was bitterly cold. Driving out here he’d had a phone call from the lab. The DNA from the milk tooth matched Martha’s. ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured to the dog. ‘I still haven’t found her.’

Myrtle looked back at him. Drooping eyes.

‘Yeah, you heard me. I still haven’t found her.’

The night that Thom killed Misty Kitson had been clear and warm. The moon had been up. He had been driving on a remote country lane when it happened. There was no one around and after he’d accidentally hit her, he’d bundled the body into the car boot without being seen. Drunk and with his back firmly to the wall, he’d driven to Flea’s house to take refuge. On the way his reckless driving had picked him up a tail, a traffic cop who’d arrived seconds after Thom on Flea’s doorstep, breathalyser kit in hand. Flea must have left her brains in a pot under the bed that night because, with almost no coercion, she’d stood in for her brother. At the time she hadn’t known what was in the boot of the damned car. If she had she wouldn’t have done the breathalyser for him. Wouldn’t have sworn to the cop that she had been driving. Given him a nice zero reading.

The cop who’d breathalysed her was here now, a few feet away in the low-ceilinged pub, his back to her, ordering a drink. DC Prody.

She moved her half-finished pint of cider to the other side of the table, pulled her sleeves down over her hands, tucked them into her armpits and shuffled down in the seat. The pub – at the easternmost entrance to the canal, the place they’d made the first exploratory entry – was typical of the Cotswolds, stone-built, thatched, with enamel signs on the walls and soot-flashed brick-work above the fireplace. Guest ales and lunchtime menus scrawled on blackboards. But at two o’clock on this dreary November day the only living souls in the place were an elderly whippet asleep next to the fire, the barman and Flea. And Prody. He’d notice her eventually. No way he wouldn’t.

The barman gave him his lager. Prody ordered food and took a few sips of the drink. He relaxed a little, turned on the stool to look at his surroundings. And saw her. ‘Hey.’ He picked up the glass and came across the room. ‘Still here?’

She forced a smile. ‘Guess.’

He stood behind the other chair at the table. ‘Can I?’

She pulled her wet jacket off the back so he could sit down. He got himself comfortable. ‘Thought all your unit had gone home.’

‘Yeah, well. You know.’

Prody put his glass neatly on a beer mat. He wore his hair very short. A widow’s peak. His eyes were pale green and he looked as if he’d been on holiday in the last month, somewhere hot – there were white creases at his temples. He turned the glass round and round on the mat, looking at the wet mark it made. ‘I didn’t like hearing you get that bollocking. Wasn’t necessary. He didn’t need to talk to you like that.’

‘I dunno. Maybe it was my own fault.’

‘Nah – it’s him . He’s got his hair off over something. You didn’t hear the chewing out he gave me after you went. I mean, what’s his fucking problem?’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re sulking too, then? Not just me?’

‘Honest truth?’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘I’ve worked eighteen-hour days since this thing started and it’d be nice to think there was a pat on the head at the end of it. Instead I get the big fuck-off pill. So, far as I’m concerned, he can stick his CCTV warrants. Stick his overtime. Don’t know about you,’ he raised his glass, ‘but I intend taking the afternoon off.’

Since that night in May, Flea had seen Paul Prody a few times at work – once on the day the unit had searched a quarry for Simone Blunt’s car, other times around the offices the USU shared with the traffic police. Prody had struck her as a gym bunny, always on his way to the shower with a triangle of sweat down his Nike T-shirt. She’d avoided speaking to him directly – had watched him carefully from a distance – and over the months she’d become sure he had no idea what had been in her car boot that night. But that had been back when he was in Traffic. Now he was at MCIU, which would give him more reason to think back to that night. It killed her not knowing just how high in MCIU’s priorities the Kitson case was, what sort of staffing level was assigned to it. Course, these weren’t the sort of questions a person could just pop out indiscriminately whenever they felt like it.

‘Eighteen-hour days? That’d take the smile off your face.’

‘Sleeping on the sofa, some of us.’

‘And . . .’ She tried to melt the urgency from her words so they came out nonchalant. ‘And how much manpower – sorry, staffing – have you got? Are you still working other cases too?’

‘No. Not really.’

‘Not really?’

‘That’s right.’ Something cautious came into his voice, as if he knew she was feeling him out. ‘No other cases. Just this – the jacker. Why?’

She shrugged, turned her eyes to the window, pretended to be watching the rain dripping off the woody wisteria stems that hung in front of the panes. ‘Just thought eighteen-hour days must be tough on everyone. On your personal lives.’

Prody took a deep breath. ‘Weird – but you know something? That comment’s not especially funny. You’re a bright woman, but the sense of humour box is looking empty, if you don’t mind me saying.’

She shot her eyes back to him, puzzled by his tone. ‘Beg pardon?’

‘I said it’s not funny. You want to laugh at me, do it at a distance.’ He tipped back his head and drained his pint in one. There were patches of colour on his throat, as if he had a rash. He scraped the chair back and got to his feet.

‘Hey!’ She put a hand up to stop him. ‘Wait. I don’t like this. I’ve said something I shouldn’t have said, but I don’t know what.’

He pulled on his coat and buttoned it.

‘Jesus. A half-decent person would at least tell me what I’d said wrong. This just came out of nowhere.’

Prody gave her a long look.

‘ What? Tell me. What did I say?’

‘You really don’t know?’

‘No. I really, really don’t know.’

‘The jungle drums don’t do USU?’

‘What jungle drums?’

‘My kids?’

‘Your kids? No. I’m . . .’ she put a hand in front of her eyes ‘. . . in the dark. Totally. I swear.’

He sighed. ‘I don’t have a personal life. Not any more. I haven’t seen my wife or my kids in months.’

‘How come?’

‘Apparently I’m a wife-beater. A child-abuser.’ He pulled off his coat and sat down again, the colour in his neck slowly disappearing. ‘Apparently I beat my kids to within an inch of their lives.’