Gone

57

‘You’re wrong. He’s not watching you. You can relax.’

Caffery was in the kitchen with the guy from the high-tech unit at Portishead, a tall, sculpted, ginger-haired guy who didn’t look as if he worked for the police. He wore a skinny tie, a weird sixties suit with narrow lapels, and the bag he carried was fake crocodile skin. He’d turned up in some vintage Volvo number, like an extra from a Sean Connery flick. But he seemed to know his stuff. He made Caffery remove the camera from the slot in the wall and rest it on a piece of card on the kitchen table. Then the two men stood together, peering down at it.

‘I promise you he’s not watching.’

‘But the gubbins on the back. That’s a radio transmitter, isn’t it?’

‘Uh-huh. He’s probably got it linked to a high-speed USB receiver so he can record directly to the hard drive. I dunno, maybe his plan was to be sitting somewhere out there in a car just watching the whole thing on his laptop, but he’s not there now.’

‘You sure?’

The guy smiled. Calm. ‘One hundred and twenty per cent. We scanned it. Anyway, this little thing’s nothing impressive. Very low end, off the shelf, cheap as chips. The stuff the security services use is about a hundred times more powerful – uses microwaves – but this? He’d have to be somewhere on the estate to pick it up and the units have run the whole diameter. There’s no one out there. Sorry. I have to admit I was excited for a bit. Actually thought we might find the bastard sitting in his car tapping away on the keys of a nice little Sony.’

Caffery looked him up and down. The high-tech unit had already traced the phone number Moon had sent the the photo from. It was a pay-as-you-go, purchased in a Tesco somewhere in the south of England at least two years ago. Switched off, but they’d already been able to say where the text was sent from. Near junction sixteen of the M4. Halfway between anywhere and anywhere. Then the unit had sent this red-haired character to the vicarage. There were winklepickers on his feet and his blackframed glasses were out of Alfie. Caffery studied the shoes. Then his face. ‘What do we call you, then? Q?’

The guy laughed. An unamused, nasal sound. ‘Never heard that one before. Never, ever, ever. It’s true what they say about MCIU – you guys really are a stitch. A laugh a minute.’ He unzipped the bag and produced a small box with a circular red LED display. ‘No, I’m just an anorak. Two years in high-tech and before that two years in the technical support unit at Serious Crime – you know, SOCAT, who’ve got the covert-surveillance boys?’

‘Doing things we don’t admit to the Crown Prosecution Service?’

‘Hey-hey.’ He touched the knot of his tie. He had freckles across his nose. Pale eyes. Like an albino. ‘See, I know that’s a joke. I can tell by the cute way your eyes crease.’

Caffery bent to peer again at the camera. ‘Where would someone pick up a bit of kit like this?’

‘That? Anywhere. A few hundred quid, probably less. Off the Internet. They’d ship it, no questions asked.’ He smiled, revealing very small, evenly set teeth. ‘Nothing illegal about having an enquiring mind.’

‘What I’d like to know is why he wants to get a view of an empty bedroom. He knows they’re not here any more.’

‘Sorry, mate. I’m from the gadgetry department. Psychology’s second door on the right.’ He straightened, ran his hands down his tie and glanced around the kitchen. ‘But there’s another one – in here. If that’s of any interest.’

Caffery stared at him. ‘What?’

‘Yes. There’s one in here too. Can you see it?’

Caffery scanned the walls, the ceiling. He couldn’t see anything.

‘It’s all right. You won’t be able to. Look at this.’ He held out what looked like a small hand torch. A little circle of red diodes danced across the top of it. ‘I had my own budget at SOCAT, never had to go through Procurement. Believe me, I didn’t waste a penny. Everything I bought has made its money back in saved time and man hours. This is the Spyfinder.’

‘You really are out of a Bond movie.’

‘You know what? I’ve got an idea. How about we abandon that source of amusement – just for the time being.’ He held the unit at an angle for Caffery to look at. ‘That Close Encounters dance? That’s light reflecting off a camera optic.’

‘Where?’ Caffery’s eyes ran over the walls, the fridge, the cooker. The row of Martha’s birthday cards on the windowsill.

‘Concentrate.’

He followed the direction Q’s attention was locked on.

‘Inside the clock?’

‘I think so. Inside the number six.’

‘Fuck fuck fuck.’ Caffery went to stand in front of the clock, hands at his sides. He could see a glint in there but it was wasting. Tiny. He turned back to the kitchen: the old veneer cupboards, the frayed curtains. The carton of cream Jonathan had poured on the apple pie still sitting there, going rancid. And the pile of newspapers, the smell of vomit. Why the hell would Moon want to watch this empty kitchen? What would he be getting out of it? ‘How long would it have taken to put them in?’

‘Depends on how good he is with the technology. And he’d have to have gone outside to check they were working, that he was picking them up on his receiver.’

‘He’d have been coming and going? In and out?’

‘To get it right. Yes.’

Caffery sucked air through his teeth. ‘A surveillance team is one of the biggest expenses the force can carry. Makes me wonder why we bother.’

‘I think I know.’

The two men turned. Jonathan was standing in the doorway. He was holding Philippa’s laptop in both hands. He wore an odd expression. His head was on one side, as if he was listening for the first knockings of madness.

‘Jonathan. You’re supposed to be in the car.’

‘I was. I’m not there now. Moon put the cameras in to look at Martha. He put them in before he took her. They’ve been here for more than a month. That’s why the surveillance team didn’t see anything.’

Caffery cleared his throat. He glanced at the techie, then beckoned to Jonathan.

‘Put it down.’ He moved things off the table. ‘Here.’

Jonathan came stiffly into the kitchen, put the laptop on the cleared space and flipped it open. The computer paused for a moment, then came to life. The photo of Moon in the Santa mask, lying on the bed, came up on the screen. It had been zoomed in so that only part of the wall and part of his shoulder were in the frame. ‘That.’ Jonathan tapped the screen. ‘See it?’

Caffery and Q gathered round. ‘What are we looking at?’

‘That picture. That drawing.’

Pinned to the wall above the bed was a felt-tipped picture – a young girl’s image of a mythic land. Martha had drawn clouds and hearts and stars and a mermaid in the top corner. She’d drawn herself standing to one side, holding the reins of a white pony. Near her, dislocated as if floating in space, were two dogs

‘Sophie and Myrtle.’

‘What about them?’

‘No necklace. No flowers.’

‘Eh?’

‘Philippa’s birthday is on November the first. Martha dressed Sophie up for the day. And when it was over she came up here and drew flowers and necklaces on Sophie in the picture. Rose remembers her doing it. So does Philippa. But look. No roses, no necklaces in this picture.’

Caffery straightened. Hot and cold needles pricked along his back. Everything he’d thought he was certain of was wrong. Wrong, completely wrong, and built on foundations of sand. The whole case had just turned upside-down.