Mo Hayder: The Treatment

They were passing a small turning. Rebecca opened the window and leaned out, peering down the little track. A rusting sign hung on the gate and beyond it the track disappeared into the trees. Then it was gone, the Jaguar had passed the turning, and Rebecca found herself looking at a disused chalk quarry, long rusty stains down the edges, an abandoned caravan in the trees at the top, four pheasants taking off in formation over it. She wound up the window and Jack put his foot on the accelerator and they continued, on to Bury, Rebecca saying a silent prayer that whatever happened today, Jack would be OK, Jack would be calm and smooth at the end of it.

The centre of Bury St. Edmunds seemed to be full of flowers: impatiens and forget-me-nots tumbled out of window-boxes, roses, peonies, columbine crammed against low garden walls. When they arrived they could hear bells striking in the abbey's Norman tower. They parked next to the court, got coffee from the WRVS shop and stood outside in the sun, waiting for Lamb's case to start.

"It's going to be fine," Rebecca said. They'd chosen to stand slightly behind the white Securicor van parked in the front. Caffery didn't want to be seen by the young barristers from the crown court who crunched around in the gravel talking on their phones and practising golf swings. He might know one of them. "I promise you, Jack, it's going to work. No one will know you they'll have got the tapes, and everything will work she won't get bailed."

"I don't know." Either the caffeine had kicked in, or he was more nervous than he realized. His hands were shaking. "I don't know."

"Well, I do, and I'm telling you. It's going to be fine."

When Lamb's case came up they put out their cigarettes in the bottom of their coffee cups, went inside and climbed the narrow staircase to the public gallery. The sun streamed down from the huge white atrium there was nowhere to hide from the light and the court was suffocatingly hot and hushed, the clerks and probation officers' faces shiny above their collars. The public gallery was a hard little bench up behind the dock, separated from the court only by glass. Caffery and Rebecca slid into their seats, Caffery unbuttoning his cuffs, rolling up his sleeves, Rebecca tugging at the neck of her dress to let air in.

"Number 111 on your list. Tracey Lamb, Alvarez representing."

Alvarez, Caffery guessed instantly, was the pepper pot woman sitting on the right of the table -short, squat, dressed in a grubby sky-blue suit like a down-at-heel air hostess. But the CPS solicitor? He scanned the faces he had no idea what the prosecution solicitor looked like. It took him a moment to realize it was the grey man facing Alvarez with the froggy neck, dressed as if he'd wanted to match Alvarez, in a sky-blue shirt and a yellow tie.

Caffery sat back a little so that his face was hidden by the railing. He didn't want to make himself too visible to the CPS. Nervous, Jack? Slightly nervous?

Lamb was brought into the court and climbed the two steps into the dock. Even through the thick glass Caffery could hear her emphysematous breathing. "Is that her?" Rebecca hissed, inching forward, trying to see her face. She wore a Nike zip top over a tight white T-shirt and had her back to them, looking straight out at the court. Someone coughed.

"This is a charge relating to a video that came into the police's possession several years ago." The CPS lawyer was on his feet, beginning his outline. "The woman in the video was subsequently identified by the investigating officer as the defendant."

Caffery shifted and Rebecca rested a cool hand over his, but he couldn't relax. Tracey Lamb's back was less than two feet away from him. She put her little polystyrene sputum cup down on the ledge in front of her and took off her jacket the T-shirt was pulled drum tight across swells of adipose. Even now, if he closed his eyes and conjured the oiled click of a tool in his palm, he could imagine the rest. He could imagine sliding it into that back he knew what it would look like: he'd seen enough bloodied fat sloughed away on the autopsy block. He imagined her enlarged elephant's heart squeezing the blood out through the ribs.

At that moment, as if his thoughts had reached through the air, Lamb pretended to cough. She covered her mouth and dipped her face slightly, to the side, turning sufficiently to see behind her into the public gallery. At first she seemed surprised to see him. She let her eyes wander over Rebecca and then back to Caffery. They stared at each other for a long time. Then Tracey Lamb dropped her hand from her mouth and smiled. Her long rabbit's teeth pressed into her bottom lip. She winked.

"Miss Lamb, if you could look at me, please." Bethuen, the district judge, a long woman with a regal neck, seemed to be the only person in the place not sweating. On her red leather chair, under the coat-of-arms, she sat rigid and calm in her checked Jaeger jacket, looking down over her spectacles at Lamb. "This is a very serious offence you know that, don't you?"

"Yeah." Lamb turned back to face the court, a smile twitching on her mouth. "Yeah I know that."

"Good. Then let's see if we can pay attention." Bethuen had found the notes of the Narey hearing and was holding the register open at that page. "I see a certain Mr. Cook refused bail." She took off her spectacles and looked up. "In spite of the fact that prosecution weren't going to argue." She allowed herself a small raised eyebrow. "Nice to know that the spirit of Draco is still alive and well in the twenty-first century, isn't it? Now," she looked down at the CPS solicitor, 'this is basically a new bail application. Am I right?"

"That's right."

Alvarez, who was at the solicitors' bench drawing a biro around the metal spirals of her notepad, back and forward, back and forward, nodded to herself and gave a small, confident smile. "Bethuen makes out she's a real ogre," she'd told Tracey, just before the hearing. She'd pulled back the cell wicket and thrust one of her yellow smiles into the space. "Good morning, Tracey." She had the enthusiasm of a morning DJ and she trilled a little on the "R' in Tracey. "Bethuen makes out she's an ogre but there's a secret liberal heart beating under all that hounds tooth You'll be out of here in an hour."

And Jack Caffery was directly behind her in the public gallery, dressed casually in a pale blue shirt. He'd got the answer phone message. He was early, and it was going to take some boxing and coxing to hold him off until she could sort things out at the caravan, but the important thing was that he was here. If he had the money with him they could shake hands on it today.

"The uh prosecution…" The little prosecution lawyer stood. He laid his right hand across the absurd yellow tie, as if he was swearing an oath, and half bowed to the judge. "The prosecution is in possession of…" He looked down and turned over a paper. "That is to say, some new evidence has come to light." In the public gallery Caffery squeezed Rebecca's hand. "And the Crown has no choice but to object to bail on the grounds that this new evidence strongly suggests that Miss Lamb is likely to commit further of fences

Alvarez jumped to her feet. "Madam."

"Yes?"

"I would have thought that if Prosecution had this information he would have had the courtesy to tell me."

"Shall we hear what the new evidence is?" Bethuen pushed her glasses up her nose and turned with a cool smile to the prosecution. "Something which strongly suggests she might reoffend? I'd very much like to hear that."

Alvarez subsided at the bench.

The CPS solicitor cleared his throat. "The investigating officer has viewed four videos, similar videos to the one brought originally, but more recent."

Lamb jiggled her shoulders nervously, looking from Alvarez to the prosecution and back again. A few feet behind her, Caffery dug his nails into his palm, making white half-moons in the skin. He didn't like Bethuen's voice she didn't sound as if she was going to give the CPS the time of day. But it has to work. He let out his breath and looked up through the atrium at the blue sky, his teeth metallic in his head, hoping, hoping, praying it would work.