Poppet

The Man from the East

THE LAND SURROUNDING Bristol’s so-called ‘feeder’ canal was once the city’s hub for coal-gas generation, an industry which left long tracts of the land unusable due to high levels of cyanide. In spite of an expensive urban-regeneration programme in the 1980s it remains a speckled and bitty landscape, home to derelict churches blitzed in the war, car showrooms and industrial units. The old bonded warehouses that line the canal have been largely bricked up. It is to this bleak corner of the city that the Major Crime Investigation Team has moved its operations, into a cast-concrete 1970s building which once served as offices for an electricity company.

Caffery is one of the few people in MCIT, aside from the superintendent, who has managed to carve out a personal space in the vast open-plan offices. His has a view of the Spine Road flyover and the cream-and-orange tower blocks at Barton Hill. The room contains a desk, chairs, a small red Ikea sofa, a coffee- and tea-making station with a tiny portable fridge that can barely accommodate a six-pack of beers and a carton of milk. There are no personal photographs or certificates or press clippings, just a large photograph of Misty Kitson and the filing cabinet with her case papers in it. He wheeled it in here when there wasn’t enough space in the incident room for other, more active operations. On the wall next to Misty’s photo three laminated OS maps bristle with pins of different colours. Each has a significance to him – locations connected to Misty’s disappearance. Other locations remain in his head. They are the ones that haven’t yet been brought to the attention of his colleagues.

He spends the afternoon considering and analysing those pins – trying to get to a place where he can decide how to go forward. He’s had several months to think about this problem and he’s got a long-game walking around his head. A solution. But for the solution to work he needs the cooperation of one person. A woman – a fellow cop. The person he’s protecting. She is the only obstacle. And he still doesn’t know how to make that approach. It could go so badly wrong.

He stands a pace away from Misty’s photograph, studies her, hoping for some guidance. Her face is a little bigger than life-size – her eyes are on the same level as his. She was a pretty girl. Whatever the cynics say about her they can’t take away her prettiness. He tries to get his eyes to focus on hers, but the spacing’s not right. The proportions are wrong. He stops trying and lowers his chin. Leans forward, his forehead resting against hers.

A knock on the door. Caffery steps back from the picture. He moves to the desk and sits down. Groping for something to seem occupied with, he clicks the computer out of standby and drags the keyboard over.

‘Yes?’

The door opens. The superintendent puts his head through the gap. ‘You free?’

Caffery checks his watch. ‘Thought you’d gone home.’

‘You wish. We need a chat.’

‘A chat? An ominous chat?’

‘No – a spot of box-ticking.’ He holds up a file, gives it a shake. ‘Review team report.’

Caffery gets up and pulls out a chair. The superintendent comes in and sits in it. He is a big sandy-haired man – an ex-CTIU terrorist-squad guy who got moved when something that no one speaks about happened with one of the unit’s weapons. He doesn’t beat about the bush.

‘So – the news is this. The search for our friend’ – he nods at Misty’s photo – ‘is going to be scaled down. It’s haemorrhaging money.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning I can’t be wasting one of my few inspectors on something that’s going nowhere. I’m giving it to a DS. It’s not a category-A any more.’

Caffery picks up a pen and slowly taps it on the table. ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘You can’t do that.’

‘Here, let me just write that down so the review team can read it: DI Caffery apologizes but says we can’t do that.’

‘I mean it – you can’t move the case. I believe in finishing what I start.’

‘And the Home Secretary believes in deficit reduction. The HR department is on the Atkins diet – we are starving. We are lean. We cut corners, we axe, we tighten belts. It’s not a question of what you want me to do – it’s not even a question of what I want to do – it’s a question of what we’ve got to do. There’s been no new intel since the day she disappeared and now I need you somewhere else. You can spend tomorrow morning briefing one of the DSs and then you pick up the first job that comes through the door – I don’t care if it’s a category-A bells-and-whistles serial killer or a cat-D domestic. It’s yours.’

‘No. It’s exactly the wrong time to be doing this. Jacqui Kitson’s in town.’

The superintendent pauses. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘She’s got interviews lined up. The press are going to be crawling all over us. It’s not a good moment to be shuffling the case down the ranks. We need to address it. At least give the press something to chew on – draw attention away from her.’

The superintendent considers this for a short while, scrutinizing Caffery’s face, trying to decide if he’s bluffing or not. The superintendent’s always struggled with this inspector who chose not to climb the ranks when everyone knew he could have. This city guy who walked in one day out of the East with a bunch of London ways and attitudes, the one who joined the unit in person, yet never really in his heart. Not a team player – a bad-tempered, lone wolf, who won’t take orders yet invariably manages to nail a case. He’s got the best detection rates in the unit, and that makes the superintendent furious and proud and pissed off and insecure all at once. He’s forever trying to find ways of reasserting his authority over Caffery.

‘It’s already decided. You’re SIO on the next operation. End of.’

‘Then I’ll do both jobs – the next job and keep Misty’s.’

‘I need my DI to be a hundred per cent there for whatever gets assigned to us.’

‘Watch me. I’ll deal with whatever comes through that door and I’ll get the press off our backs over Misty.’

‘What are you going to give them? Another reconstruction? Her walking down the steps of the clinic? Because that worked wonders last time. Lost count of the leads that gave us – not.’

Caffery taps the pen a little harder. He’s been thinking about this all day; the superintendent is right, the reconstruction didn’t work. He’s sure the best way to keep the press happy, at the same time as moving his private long-game forward, is to instigate another search of the area she went missing. But if Misty’s disappearance loses its category-A status the open-ended budget will dry up.

‘Give me three more weeks. I’ll get you results.’

The superintendent sighs, resigned. ‘OK – give the press what they need. But whatever job comes through the door gets your full attention too. Are you hearing me?’

‘Loud and clear.’

‘That’s what I like about you, Jack,’ he mutters sarcastically. ‘Just love the way we’re always on the same wavelength.’

Caffery doesn’t get up and hold the door when the superintendent leaves, instead he stays where he is, tapping his pen on the table. He senses Misty’s eyes on him, but he resists turning to face her.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he murmurs eventually. ‘It’s all in hand.’