Gone

30

Caffery got a call from a cop in Gloucestershire. The Walking Man had been arrested for loitering around a local pharmaceuticals factory. He was interviewed at the police station in the old market town of Tetbury, then cautioned and released into the open air. The duty inspector had taken him to one side before he had left and suggested, in the politest possible way, that it might be a good idea for the Walking Man not to be spotted again anywhere near the factory. But Caffery was beginning to know some of the shapes and crevices of the Walking Man’s character and guessed that if he’d been interested in something he wouldn’t let a little thing like an arrest stop him.

He was right. When he arrived at half past ten, parked the car with Myrtle asleep on the back seat and got out, he spotted the Walking Man almost immediately. He’d set up camp about fifty yards from the barbed-wire perimeter in a clump of trees where he could see the factory compound without being spotted from the security post.

‘You haven’t walked far today.’ Caffery found a spare piece of bed foam and unrolled it. Usually it would be out ready for him. Usually there’d be a meal for him too. Tonight the scent of food hung in the air, but the pots and plates had been cleaned and replaced neatly near the fire. ‘You started the day up here.’

The Walking Man made a low grunt in his throat. He snapped open the flagon of cider and poured some into a chipped mug, set it next to his sleeping-bag.

‘I’m not here to give you more hassle,’ Caffery said. ‘You’ve already spent most of the day in the police station.’

‘Five hours wasted. Five good daylight hours.’

‘I’m not here on police business.’

‘Not here about that nonce? The letter-writer?’

‘No.’ Caffery ran his hands down his face. It was the last thing he wanted to talk about. ‘No. I’ve come for a holiday from that.’

The Walking Man filled a second mug with cider. Handed it to Caffery. ‘Then, it’s her you want to talk about. The woman.’

Caffery took the mug.

‘Don’t look at me like that, Jack Caffery. I’ve told you I’m not reading your mind. I’ve been wondering when you’d talk about her again. The woman. The one you’re always thinking about. When you were here in the spring she was all you could talk about. You were burning for her.’ He threw a log on the fire. ‘I envied you that. I’ll never feel like that again for a woman.’

Caffery bit the cuticle on his thumb and stared blankly into the fire. He thought ‘burning’ was the wrong word for the polluted, knotted mess of half-finished thoughts and impulses he had about Flea Marley. ‘OK,’ he said after a while. ‘Let me tell you how it starts. There’s a name you see in newspapers sometimes. Misty Kitson. A pretty girl. She went missing six months ago.’

‘I didn’t know that was her name but I know who you mean.’

‘The woman – the one we’re talking about – knows what happened to Kitson. She was the one who killed her.’

The Walking Man raised his eyebrows. His eyes glittered red. ‘Murder?’ he said lightly. ‘A terrible thing. What an immoral woman she must be.’

‘No. It was an accident. She was driving too fast. The girl, Kitson, stepped out of a field on to the road . . .’ He trailed off. ‘But you know that already, you bastard. I can see it in your face.’

‘I see things. I’ve watched you walking the route the girl took when she left the clinic. Over and over again. The night you walked until the sun came up?’

‘That was in July.’

‘I was there. When you found the place it had happened – the skidmarks in the road? I was there. Watching you.’

Caffery didn’t speak for a while. It didn’t matter what the Walking Man said, how much he denied it, being with him was like being in the presence of God: someone who saw everything. Someone who smiled indulgently and didn’t interfere when mortals made their mistakes. The night of the skidmarks had been a good one. A night when everything had fallen into place and the question had moved from being why Flea had killed Kitson – for a long time all Caffery’d known was that she’d disposed of the corpse – and became why the hell, if it was an accident, hadn’t she just given the straight cough? Walked into the nearest cop shop and told the truth. She probably wouldn’t have even done a custodial. And that was what was still eating him now, and blocking him every step of the way – why she hadn’t just confessed. ‘It’s funny,’ he murmured. ‘I never had her down as a coward.’

The Walking Man finished attending to the fire. He settled down on his bedroll, the mug in both hands, his head against a log. The edges of his huge beard gleamed red in the firelight. ‘That’s because you don’t know the full story.’

‘What full story?’

‘The truth. You don’t know the truth.’

‘I think I do.’

‘I very much doubt it. Your mind hasn’t properly formed around it. There’s one more corner you haven’t turned or even thought about turning. In fact, you can’t even see it’s there.’ He made a small motion with his hands as if he was tying an intricate knot. ‘You’re protecting her and you can’t yet see what a nice circle that makes.’

‘A nice circle?’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘I don’t get it.’

‘No. You don’t. Not yet.’ The Walking Man closed his eyes and smiled contentedly. ‘Some things you have to work out for yourself.’

‘What things? What circle?’

But the Walking Man was motionless, the light of the fire playing across his blackened face, and once again Caffery knew he wouldn’t be drawn on the subject. Not until Caffery brought back to him some evidence that he’d worked at it. The Walking Man didn’t give anything away for free. It irritated Caffery – this smugness. It made him want to shake the guy. Made him want to say something that hurt.

‘Hey.’ He leaned forward. Looked hard at the smiling face. ‘Hey. Should I be asking you about the compound? Should I be asking if you’re going to try to break into it?’

The Walking Man didn’t open his eyes, but his smile faded. ‘No. Because if you asked that question I’d ignore it.’

‘Well, I’m asking you anyway. You’ve given me the job of second-guessing you – of trying to fathom you. And that’s what I’ve been doing. That compound has been here ten years.’ He nodded to where the arc lights shone through the trees. He could just make out the top of the barbed-wire fence, like a gulag. ‘It wasn’t here when your daughter was killed and you think she might be buried there.’

Now the Walking Man opened his eyes. He tilted his chin down and stared angrily at Caffery. Nothing playful in his belligerence now. ‘You’re trained to ask questions. Aren’t you trained to know when to shut up as well?’

‘You told me once that every step you walked was your preparation. You said you wanted to follow her. It was a mystery to me, why you walked, but I think I know now. You say you’re not a seer, but you can tread the same piece of land I tread and read in it a hundred things I would never read.’

‘You can talk all you like, policeman, but I make no promises I’ll listen.’

‘Then I’ll talk. I’ll tell you everything I know about what you’re doing. I know what the walking is about. Some things I haven’t figured yet. The crocuses – they’re in a line and that means something, but I don’t know what. Then there’s the van Evans dumped in the Holcombe quarry after he’d got rid of her body. That was stolen from you in Shepton Mallet and I don’t know why you’re so far away from where it happened. But I know everything else. You’re still looking for her. For where she was buried.’

The Walking Man held his gaze. His eyes were dark, ferocious.

‘Your silence,’ said Caffery, ‘says it all. Don’t you know that you can learn more about a man from what he doesn’t say than from what he does?’

‘Learn more about a man from what he doesn’t say than from what he does. Is that a policeman’s adage? Some bargain-basement homily from the cosy offices of Her Majesty’s law-keepers?’

Caffery half smiled. ‘You only bait me when I’ve touched on something.’

‘No – I bait you because I know how effete and useless you really are. You’re angry, and you imagine it’s because of the evil in the world when what really infuriates you is how toothless you are about that woman. How straitjacketed and hand-tied. That’s what you can’t stand.’

‘And you’re angry because you know I’m right. You’re angry because, for all your insight and sixth senses, you come to something like this,’ he waved at the factory compound, ‘and you can’t get in to search it. And there’s not a damned thing you can do about it.’

‘Get away from my fire. Get away from me.’

Caffery put down his beaker. He got to his feet and carefully rolled up the piece of foam, placing it next to the plates and other belongings. ‘Thank you for answering my questions.’

‘I didn’t answer them.’

‘Yes, you did. Trust me. You did.’