Mo Hayder: The Treatment

Cue outraged women's groups, salivating glee from the tabloids and schizophrenic cat and mouse, press-dodging games from Morant. On future ambitions? "Being banned by Giuliani -that would be quite fun." And most oft-repeated hack question? "When are you going to chuck in the art and do what you really want to do -model?" Random 2 opens at the Zinc Gallery, Clerkenwell, 26 August-20 September.

As long as the world thinks she's resilient, that's all she cares about. He closed the magazine, rested his face for a moment in his hands and tried not to think about her. Out of the window London 's midnight lights sparkled like luminous-spined sea creatures. He wondered if Rory Peach was looking at the same lights.

"Coffee?"

He jerked a little where he lay. Opened his eyes. "Marilyn?"

Marilyn Kryotos, the manager the 'receiver' of the cumbersome HOLMES murder database, stood in the doorway staring at him. She wore pink lipstick and a navy-blue dress, one lapel pinned with a mother-of-pearl brooch in the shape of a bunny. "Did you sleep here?" She sounded half impressed, half disgusted. "In the office?"

"OK, OK." He straightened from the desk, pressing knuckles into his eyes. It was a little before dawn and the night was pink around the bottom of the Croydon skyscrapers. A fly floated feet up in the mug of Scotch. He checked his watch. "You're early."

"First light. Half the team are here already. Danni's on her way to Brixton."

"Fuck." He groped for his tie.

"Do you want a comb?"

"No, no."

"You need one."

"I know."

He went to the twenty-four-hour filling station opposite the office, bought a sandwich, a comb, a toothbrush, and hurried back, past the area maps lining the corridor, stopping to pick up the spare shirt he kept in the exhibits room. In the men's he- stripped off his shirt, splashed water across his chest, under his arms, and bent to put his face under the tap, wet his hair, then went to the air dryer, lifting his arms, pushing his head under it to dry his hair. He knew he was in the silent eye of the storm. He knew that as the country woke, as televisions came on and the news spread, the incident-room phone would begin to ring. Meanwhile there was red tape to wade through, community-impact assessment meetings to be arranged with the borough commander, and case reviews to think about. The stopwatch had started and he had to be ready.

"Did you get that thing about Rebecca?" Kryotos stood in the incident room, holding a coffee mug and a cake tin.

"The Time Out, you mean?" He took the coffee and together they went back into the SIO's room.

"She looked lovely in it, didn't she?"

"She did." He put the coffee on the desk and picked up the new murder manual the blue and white loose-leaf file that had appeared on the window-sills of every police station since the Lawrence inquiry and leafed through it, running a mental check list of all the tasks he should complete today.

"I called the hospital," Kryotos said. "Alek Peach made it through the night."

"Seriously?" He looked up. "Can he talk?"

"No. He's still got that tube thingy down his throat, but he's stable."

"And Carmel?"

"Came out of her sedation and she's busy getting herself discharged."

"Jesus, I wasn't expecting that."

"Relax. There's a wooden top with her. She's going to a friend's."

"OK. Speak to the uniform and tell him to call when she's settled."

"Her. It's a WPC

"Her. Tell her to call when Carmel 's settled and say I'll be on my way, and then, Marilyn, can you get a Quest Search off to Hendon for me?"

"Yup." She put down the tin, found a pen in his desk-tidy, sat down in Souness's chair and jotted down the key search words he gave her. "Abduction', 'intruder', 'handcuff, and 'child', with an age range of five to ten. He didn't have to be careful what he said to Kryotos she was probably the most level headed member of the team no matter what the crime, she handled the details that passed through her hands with a calmness he sometimes envied.

"Is that it?"

"No." He thought for a moment, closing the murder manual and putting it back on the window-sill. "Let's see, sex offenders. Include that, OK? And do the usual check of the nonce register."

"Right." She recapped the pen, pushed herself to her feet and picked up the tin. She paused, smiling at his hair, which was still slightly rumpled. If anyone suggested she had an unprofessional fondness for DI Jack Caffery, who was two years her junior anyway, she would develop a high colour and abracadabra a healthy marriage out of her hat with two robust children, Dean and Jenna proof that she and Jack Caffery were colleagues and friends, and that was all. The only person utterly convinced by her argument was Caffery himself. "Banana bread." She tapped the lid of the tin. "Me and Dean made it. I know it sounds a bit bonkers but you can stick it in the toaster, put some butter on it and, oh, God, even though I say it myself, it is to die for."

"Marilyn, thanks, but '

"But you'll get your own breakfast? Something not so sweeeet?"

He smiled. "I'm sorry."

"You do know, of course, that other people are falling all over themselves for my banana cake?"

"Marilyn, I don't doubt that for a moment."

"You wait, Jack." She lifted the tin on one palm like a waiter and turned for the door, her nose in the air. "One of these days I'll break you."

(18 July)

Mrs. Nersessian's house, with its modern leaded windows and carefully painted wagon-wheel on the front wall, gleamed like a polished stone. It took her several minutes to unlatch all the chains on the front door. Caffery realized that he must have had a vague image of the person who would be Carmel Peach's friend, and it wasn't Bela Nersessian: she was a short, red-haired woman sepia skin, long earrings, ruched black blouse embellished with gold necklaces. As soon as she saw Caffery's warrant card she gripped his wrist with varnished fingernails and pulled him into the house.

"She's in the bedroom, the poor love, having some quiet time. Come on." She beckoned him. "Come with me."

They went upstairs, past framed family photographs, pictures of the Virgin Mary in mother-of-pearl frames, a glass chandelier pinging with cleanliness. Bela Nersessian went slowly, clutching the banister and turning slightly sideways in her tight knee-length skirt. Every few steps a new thought came to her and she would pause and turn to him. "Now, if I was the police I'd be searching those lakes in the park." Or: "I've had an idea. Before you leave we'll say a little prayer for Rory, Mr. Caffery. Shall we do that?"

On the top landing Mrs. Nersessian switched on a small crystal-based lamp, plumped up a yellow silk cushion on a small chair, then stood at the bedroom door, smoothing her blouse and taking a deep breath.

She knocked on the door. "Someone to see you, Carmel lovey." She pushed open the door and stuck her nose inside. "There you are, love. I've got someone to see you, OK?" She stepped back out of the room and stood on tiptoe to whisper in Caffery's ear: "Tell her I'm praying, darling, tell her we're all praying for Rory."

The bedroom smelt of perfume and smoke. It was full of pink satin on the bed, the radiator, the dressing-table, like the inside of a jewellery box. It was at the back of the house: had the curtains been open the park would have been visible, but maybe the neat little WPC sitting on a pink chair near the window, her hands crossed on her lap, had worried about Carmel seeing the park, because they were firmly closed.

When the WPC saw Caffery she half stood, "Sir," and sat down, nodding at the bed. On the bed, facing away from the door, wearing a large T-shirt with a 1998 World Cup motif on the back and a pair of white leggings, lay Carmel Peach, a raw-skinned woman with thin limbs and chapped red arms. In front of her rested a packet of Superkings, a lighter and a crystal ashtray. He couldn't see her face but he could see that both her wrists were bandaged: Carmel Peach, everyone knew, had tried hard to pull her own hands off in order to escape from the handcuffs and reach her son.