Poppet

MCIT

ISAAC HANDEL DIED from a wound to the liver where the Stanley knife entered. He didn’t draw anyone’s attention to it at the scene and it wasn’t picked up by the police officers. Any blood was attributed to the thump he got on the nose in the scuffle. No matter how often they replay the tapes of what happened in the secure cell that day, no one can be sure how he got the wound.

Melanie insists it was self-inflicted. Her prints are on the knife, but she insists that happened in the scuffle and that she had nothing to do with Isaac’s death.

This is the part that Caffery can’t square up – because he is reasonably sure Isaac had something else planned. He is nagged by the sense there’s something he hasn’t seen, hasn’t attended to. The missing pliers and wire Isaac Handel bought at Wickes? What was he planning to use those for? A wire. To do what? Ignite a chemical fire somewhere, the way he did with his parents? If so – where? When there’s time, Caffery’s going to call Penny Pilson – ask her what she makes of it. Did Isaac leave the trip wire for the police – or was it really a way of setting fire to his parents’ bodies without having to be there? He’ll tell her that now he understands what she meant when she said … Things are not what they seem.

For now, though, he’s too busy with Melanie Arrow and the long, untidy string of deceptions and untruths she trails behind her.

Isaac’s doll of her – shiny face, slightly feline eyes – doesn’t do justice to her true nastiness. He can’t recall the last time he felt so contemptuous of a person. She continues – even in custody at Trinity Road – to argue her case. To lie and lie. When the CSI start coming back with hard proof of her involvement: her DNA on a pen in Zelda’s room, Zelda’s DNA on her father’s radiation mask, she changes tack. She admits the charges but pleads insanity. She blames the system, her childhood, her ex-husband. She even blames Caffery. When, during an interview, she unbuttons the top of her blouse, subtly, so that no one in the room aside from him notices, he tells the PACE officer to stop the recording because he’s leaving. He tells him to carry on without him. He’d prefer never to see Melanie’s face again.

The superintendent has largely kept off Caffery’s back, but now that the Beechway case has moved down to interviewing and statement-taking and debriefings and liaising with the CPS, he wants to know what Caffery intends doing with the teams out in the cold at the Farleigh Park rehab clinic. They’ve got one or two more days until they complete the search; the staff hours spend on this is astronomical. Caffery’s time is nearly up – next week the case gets moved down to one of the detective sergeants. He hasn’t had a chance to get to the search site for three days and that’s fine – he isn’t going to deal with Flea Marley again, no matter how he’s felt about her for the last eighteen months. She’s missed their biggest chance to resolve Misty’s disappearance, she’s wasted all the effort and intricate planning he’d put into motion. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever forgive her. Eventually he’ll decide how to go about giving Jacqui Kitson what she wants, but he’ll have to start from scratch. Misty, meanwhile, stares at him from the wall. That constant, unspoken, disappointment in her expression.

Enough is enough. He’s been living on four hours’ sleep and coffee for the last seventy-six hours. He shuts down the computer, gets his jacket, and heads for the door. He’s crossing the car park to his Mondeo when he notes a little Renault parked next to the barrier. As he gets closer he sees Flea Marley is sitting at the wheel, the window open, watching him steadily.

He hesitates, looks left and right, half wondering if he can vanish, or find a distraction so he won’t have to speak to her. Then, resignedly, he heads over to the car.

‘Yes, what?’

She doesn’t answer. She is dressed in her regulation black combats and polo shirt. Her hair is tucked under a cap and she wears no make-up. She’s got a faint winter suntan from the long days of fruitless searching around the clinic.

‘Jack, we need to speak.’

‘Here we go again.’

‘Come with me?’

‘What, for another mystery tour that ends nowhere?’

‘Give me a chance.’

He glances all around the car park again. Half hoping for a reason to say no. There isn’t one. He pockets the keys, walks around to the passenger seat, throws his waterproof on the back seat and gets in. The car is tidy, her kit in the back, an iPod on a stand but no music playing. He fastens his seat belt. ‘Where are we going?’

She starts the car and begins to drive. They go out of the security gates and turn on to the feeder canal road, then head over the Lawrence Hill roundabout and on to the motorway. She’s got such a look of purposefulness that Caffery keeps quiet. If she’s going to drive off a cliff in her fury, part of him feels so weary he doesn’t know whether he’d fight. He doesn’t even reach into his pocket for his V-Cigs. Fighting is for those who have something to gain.

On the M4 the sun comes out behind them. He can see in the rear-view mirror the clouds stalling in the west, in a towering bank – almost as if they’ve given up chasing the little Clio and are content just to watch it make its escape. Flea takes the A46 exit, heading south in the direction of Bath. At first Caffery assumes she’s taking him to her house, but she doesn’t. She sails past the turning and continues on the bypass towards Chippenham. Then she takes a sudden left and a right and loses him in a morass of lanes he doesn’t recognize.

He fishes his phone out and tries to keep track of where they are, using his free hand to brace himself against the car frame as she throws the Clio around corners. Are they going to the clinic? If so, it’s not a route he’s taken before. But Flea knows this countryside well – she grew up here. Caffery’s only been here for three years and he is lost – the GPS signal ducks in and out, struggling to keep up. Eventually he gives up and sits in silence, the phone resting on his thigh.

After a quarter of an hour she pulls off the road on to a rutted, rain-soaked track which leads into a forest. It is so rarely used that the trees bend inwards over the car. Branches scrape the roof and brown autumn leaves stick to the windscreen as they bounce over the uneven ground.

About a hundred metres down, the track comes to an end and Flea stops, cuts the engine. Ahead is a stile – mossed and almost invisible with the amount of bramble that covers it. The woods are silent. Just the distant caw of rooks.

‘Right,’ Caffery says, looking around. ‘You want me on my own – probably to explain again why you won’t do it. Because there’s only one other thing you can want privacy for – and I’m guessing from the atmosphere that’s not on the cards.’

She ignores him. Throws the door open and gets out – goes to the back of the car. He doesn’t twist to watch her, he can monitor her in the mirror. Her face is fixed as she opens the boot, pulls something out, and returns to his side of the car. She stands next to his window and drops it at her feet.

He opens the door and peers down at it. It’s a giant holdall – blue and white with a logo on it.

‘Game of tennis?’

She narrows her eyes at him. She loops a GPS unit around her neck, shoulders the bag and heads off towards the stile. She’s wearing black walking boots and she pushes through the brambles as if they’re not there. Caffery is dressed in office shoes and his suit, but he does have his Triclimate jacket on the back seat. He grabs it, and jumps out of the car – follows before he can lose sight of her.