Mo Hayder - The Treatment

"He's off the Hickman line and the Gambro. I've kept him on a little pain relief but I'm surprised, and very encouraged, by his response. He was hardly even dehydrated after three days without water. As a matter of fact, since we took him off ventilation," he paused at the door and swiped his card, 'he's done so well we've moved him to this progressive care section." He led them into the front of the unit, where five empty beds were ranged along the walls. "We're getting him set for a move to another ward or even discharge. Amazingly resilient. There you are." Alek Peach sat in profile near the window. "Strong as an ox, that one. Strong as an ox."

An ox indeed. If a bull had ever sat back on its haunches in a chair with a blue hospital blanket tucked over its lap it would have looked a little like Alek Peach. In spite of his defeated posture the real sense of Peach was of his size: his bones must have been massive, as dense as iron bars, to support that height and muscle. His dyed black hair was worn slightly long, he was dressed in checked green pyjamas, and under his chair was hooked a black re breath rubber balloon and a catheter bag. He didn't respond when the two detectives approached.

Souness moved a chair to sit down and Caffery drew the pastel-green curtains around the bed. He cleared his throat. "Mr. Peach. Are you sure you feel up to this?"

Peach turned slowly to them. His black Elvis sideburns were growing out and needed redyeing. When he tried to nod, his head seemed to droop, as if he was having problems holding up its enormous weight and it might flop forward on to his chest.

"Right." Caffery sat next to Souness, looking carefully at him. "First of all we're sorry about Rory, Mr. Peach, very sorry. We're doing everything. Keeping positive."

Hearing Rory's name Peach squeezed his eyes closed and wiped his huge hand across his face, the thumb on the bridge of the nose, the palm covering his mouth. He sat like this for long seconds, not breathing. Then he dropped his hand and moved it in a convulsive circle on his chest, opening his eyes to stare at the ceiling.

Caffery glanced at Souness and said, "Alek, look, we won't take long, I promise. I know it's difficult for you but it would help if you could tell us anything you can remember what he did while he was in the house, where he kept you, whether he left the house at any point."

Peach's hand stopped circling. His face tightened a little. He dropped his eyes and stared fixedly at the pulse-oximeter clip on his thumb, as if he was trying to focus his strength and will. Caffery and Souness waited expectantly, but Peach didn't speak for some time. They weren't going to get much for their twenty minutes. Shit. Caffery sat back and pressed a knuckle to his forehead. "Look, can't you even tell us how old he was? If he was white or black? Anything?"

Alek Peach turned to look at him. His eyes drooped, showing tired inner rims. He lifted his hand, shaky, bruised and swollen from IV needles, and pointed a finger at Caffery. His expression was ferocious, as if the I.C.U ward was his living room and Caffery was a stranger who had just swung in casually off the street and sat down on the sofa, feet on the coffee table.

"You." His chest shook, straining against the cotton pyjamas. "You."

Caffery put a finger on his chest. "Me?"

"Yes, you."

"What about me?"

"Your eyes. I don't like your eyes."

In the men's, Caffery stood on the toilet and stuffed a paper towel inside the ceiling smoke alarm. He locked the cubicle, rolled a cigarette, leaned his head against the wall and smoked slowly, only relaxing when he felt the welcome thump of nicotine against his heart. Instead of recognizing Peach's distress he had instantly grown angry at the hostility. His blood pressure had risen and he had shoved his feet out across the floor, preparing to spring up. It was only the cough and warning look from Souness that had straightened him out, prevented him slamming the door as he left the ward.

"Right," he muttered to the cubicle wall. "So Rebecca's nailed it. You are a fucked-up, hair-trigger little time-bomb." He flicked ash into the toilet pan and scratched the back of his hand. She couldn't have worked it better. As if everything was conspiring to back up her diagnosis of him. As if she'd paid them -Penderecki, Peach to say it: "The stripe of the goat is to look into the eyes of other's and see itself looking back."

Your eyes. I don't like your eyes.

No one would ever know or guess just how far he had been pushed. They would never know how, in the hot centre of an estuary wood, panting and tangled in blood and wire, Malcolm Bliss had sworn to Caffery's face that he'd left Rebecca dead in a nearby house. '7 fucked her first, of course."

For that Caffery had killed him, a quick turn of the wrist. The barbed wire had punctured the carotid artery and irreparably damaged the jugular. "Christ," he'd murmured to himself when he read the postmortem protocol. "You must have tightened it harder than you thought." But that was all. He was still waiting, in a sort of numb suspension, a year later, for remorse to kick in. He thought he'd covered himself. He thought everyone believed Bliss's death had been an accident. He'd never guessed that people could look at him and see the killer, the liar, looking back out of the holes in his face.

No, fuck it. You're letting her get to you. He slung the cigarette in the toilet pan. If Rebecca wasn't ready to talk to him about what had happened last year -talk to him and not to the press then he wasn't going to let her run around excavating his feelings and making crazy connections between Ewan and his own inability to stay in control.

When Souness came out of the unit Caffery's heart sank. She was tight-lipped and sat in the passenger seat on the drive back to Shrivemoor in silence. From time to time she gingerly touched her face and scalp where the sun had burned them for two days in the park. They had hoped Peach would be able to tell them enough about the behaviour of the intruder for DS Quinn and the forensics team to focus on hot areas in the house, areas where the attacker had lingered, shedding hairs or fibres. But Souness's face said that hadn't happened. Neither spoke until they got to Shrivemoor.

"Not good news, I take it."

Souness sighed and dropped the bundle of papers on her desk. "No." She flopped into the chair, leaning back, her mouth open, her palms pressed against her burning cheeks. She stayed like this for a long time, staring at the ceiling, gathering her thoughts. Then she dropped forward, feet planted wide on the floor, elbows on knees, and looked at Caffery. "We're sooooo fucked, mate. So fucked."

"No leads?"

"Oh, we've got one lead a great lead. The guy wore trainers, Peach thinks."

"He thinks?"

"Yeah." She nodded at his disappointment. "He's not sure what make, but he thought maybe they were cheap ones and suggested Hi-Tec'

"Hi-Tecs? Magic. As if we've never seen that on a witness statement before."

"Good, eh?" She scratched her chin. "I pushed him for all he could give me. He co-operated I believe him. I don't think there's more." She swivelled the chair, fired up her PC and began to type up the report for Kryotos to enter in HOLMES:

On the 14th July I was at home at number 30 Donegal Crescent. My son Rory and me were playing on the Play Station in the basement. We were supposed to be going down to Margate the next day for a long weekend. No one else was in the room. I believed at that time that my wife, Carmel Peach, was upstairs, but I hadn't seen or heard from her for some time, so at about 7.30 (p.m.) I came upstairs to see where my wife was. I had not heard anything suspicious and all the doors were locked, the windows closed.

I came into the hallway and turned to face the stairs at which point I believe I was hit from behind. Nothing was said