Gone

49

The road to Pucklechurch had a forty-miles-per-hour speed limit. Caffery did sixty whenever the dreary trails of commuters thinned enough to let him. When he arrived it was getting light and the streetlamps had been switched off. Nick was standing on the front path wearing a houndstooth coat and smart high-heeled boots. She was looking up and down the road, biting her fingernails. She shot to the kerb when she saw him and tugged open his door. ‘I can smell something. I got the door open just enough and got my head through the crack and there’s a smell.’

‘Gas?’

‘More like a solvent. The way glueheads always smell – you know?’

Caffery got out of the car and looked up at the flat, the closed windows, tight curtains. Nick had left the front door open as far as it would go on the two chains. He could just see the blue carpet on the stairs inside, a few scuffmarks on the walls. He glanced at his watch. The entry team should be here any minute. They didn’t have far to come.

‘Hold this.’ He pulled off his jacket and handed it to her. ‘And look the other way.’

Nick took a few steps back and held up her hand to shield her eyes. Caffery threw himself at the door, half turning so his shoulder made the contact. The door leaped on its hinges, shuddered noisily, but the chains held and he ricocheted back on to the path. He hopped a little, got his balance and came back at it. He gripped the wooden frame that lined the small porch with both hands, braced himself and shoved his foot at the door. Once. Twice. Three times. Each time it shivered, made deafening splintering noises, and each time it bounced straight back into the frame.

‘Fuck.’ He stood on the path, sweating. His shoulders were aching, his back was jarred from the kicks. ‘Getting too old for this.’

‘It’s supposed to be a safe-house.’ Nick took her hands from her eyes and looked at the door dubiously. ‘And it is. Safe, I mean.’

He looked up at the windows again. ‘I hope you’re right.’

A white armoured Mercedes Sprinter pulled up. Caffery and Nick watched six men in riot gear pile out – 727: Flea’s unit.

‘We meet again.’ As the rest of the team pulled the red battering ram out of the van Wellard came forward to shake Caffery’s hand. ‘Starting to think you fancy me.’

‘Yeah, well, the uniform’s kind of rugged. You acting again?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘Where’s your sergeant?’

‘Honestly? I don’t know. Never turned up at work today. It’s not like her, but recently nothing’s like her.’ He tipped his visor back and looked up at the side of the house. ‘What’ve we got here? Think I know this place. This the old rape suite, is it?’

‘We’ve got a vulnerable family inside, lodged for witness protection. Lady over here,’ he gestured to Nick, ‘turns up half an hour ago. She’s expected but no one comes to the door. Chains are on inside. There’s a smell too. Like a solvent.’

‘How many souls?’

‘Three, we think. Woman in her thirties, another woman in her sixties and a little girl. Four.’

Wellard raised his eyebrows. He looked at the flat again, then at Nick and Caffery, and silently beckoned to the men. They trotted over, carrying the battering ram between them. They flanked the door and swung the ram at it. With three deafening thuds the door splintered in two, one half hanging off the two security chains, the other on the hinges.

Wellard and two of his men stepped over the door and into the hallway, shields at the ready. They streamed up the stairs, yelling as they had in the Moons’ flat – ‘Police, police!’

Caffery followed, face screwed up at the astringent fumes. ‘Open some windows, someone,’ he yelled.

As he got to the top of the stairs he saw Wellard at the end of the landing, holding a door open. ‘Your lady in her sixties.’

Caffery looked through the door and saw the woman on the bed – Janice’s mother. In cream pyjamas, her short white hair pushed back from her tanned face, she lay on her side, one arm stretched up, the other drooped across her face. She was breathing in a slow, depressed way that made Caffery think of hospices and RTCs. She stirred at the noise and half opened her eyes, her hand lifting vaguely, but she didn’t wake.

Caffery leaned over the staircase and yelled to the men below, ‘Someone get some paramedics ASA.’

‘Adult male here,’ called another officer. He was in the kitchen doorway.

‘Adult male?’ Caffery joined him. ‘Nick said he’s not . . .’ He didn’t finish the sentence. The window in the room was slightly open. There were some washed dishes and mugs on the draining-board, a plate of food covered with clingfilm on the side and an empty wine bottle on top of the fridge. A man lay on the floor, his head bent at a strange angle against the cabinets, vomit covering his white shirt. But it wasn’t Cory Costello. It was DC Prody.

‘Jesus Christ – Paul? Hey!’ Caffery crouched and shook him. ‘Wake up. Wake the fuck up.’

Prody moved his jaw up and down. A long line of drool dangled from his lip. He lifted a hand and made a weak effort to brush it away.

‘What the hell happened?’

Prody’s eyes half opened, then closed again. His head drooped. Caffery went back into the hallway, his eyes watering at the fumes.

‘Are those paramedics on their way?’ he yelled down the stairs. ‘They’d better be. And, for the second time, will someone open the fucking windows?’ He stopped and looked to the end of the landing. An officer – Wellard, still with his visor down – was standing at another opened door, at the front of the flat this time. It must be the room that looked out over the road. He was beckoning slowly. He was doing it without turning because whatever was in front of him had him riveted.

Caffery experienced a moment of pure, full-on fear. Suddenly he wanted out. Suddenly the last thing he wanted to know was what Wellard was looking at.

His heart bumped low and hard in his chest as he crossed the landing and came to stand next to him. The room in front of them was dark. The curtains were drawn and the windows closed. The chemical smell was much stronger. There were two beds in plain sight: a single pushed up against the window – empty – and a rumpled double bed. A woman lay on it: Janice Costello, from the tangle of dark hair. Her back rose and fell.

Caffery turned to Wellard, who gave him a strange look. ‘What?’ he hissed. ‘It’s a woman. Isn’t that what you expected?’

‘Yes, but what about the little girl? I’ve seen two women and a man but I haven’t seen a little girl. Have you?’