The Calling

CHAPTER 14

Pete Black: ‘Are we on air?’

Maggie Reilly: ‘You’re live on the air to London.’

‘Good. I saw what that policeman said about me on the news. The press conference. He was lying about me. That policeman. So let me tell you this. I want him to apologize. Properly. I want him to say sorry for the lies he told about me.’

‘What lies did he tell? As far as I can see-’

‘That I’m pathetic. That I’m in pain. I’m not in pain. I was trying to help. I wanted to help that little baby. And he comes on TV and insults me. Well, I’ve had enough. More than enough. I’ve had it up to here with scum like that, pricks who think they can talk to me any way they want to. I want an apology. A public apology.’

‘I don’t think that’s going to happen, Pete. I don’t think the police will apologize to you.’

‘Well, they’d better.’

‘And what does that mean?’

‘I want you to get a police officer on the line and I want an apology. I know they’re listening. I know they’re tracing this call. They think they’re so clever. They think they’re so smart. They think they’re whiter than white. Well, I’ve had enough.’

Silence.

‘Either they apologize — or what happens next is their fault.’

‘What does that mean, Pete? What’s going to happen next?’

‘That’s not for me to say. All I want is for the police to come on here, on the radio, on your show, and say sorry for what they said about me.’

‘Pete, you’ve freely admitted to killing two people.’

‘What about all the hookers and all the dealers, eh? What happens to them? All the vandals and all the hoodies and all the dole scum? All these lowlifes, all these generations of parasites living in shitty, dirty, horrible council flats. They get away with murder. The police turn a blind eye to them, don’t they?’

‘Pete, I’m not sure-’

‘If they don’t apologize, I’ll do it again.’

‘Do what again?’

‘I think you know what I mean.’

‘No, I think London needs you to be very clear here. I think London needs to know exactly what you’re saying.’

‘I’ll tell you what I’m saying. I’ve got keys to all your houses. I’ve got keys to all the houses in London. If they don’t apologize to me, then I’m going to come for all the mummies and all the daddies and all their little babies. I’m going to let myself into someone’s house tonight and I’m going to open them up and I’m going to gobble on their insides and I’m going to fuck them and I’m going to fucking eat them, all right? Do you understand me now? Do you fucking feel sorry for me now? Do I sound like I’m in pain now? You lying cunts. Do you understand me? Do you understand what I’m going to do?’

Teller clicks a mouse to stop the playback. ‘That’s enough of that, I think.’

Luther sits back in the chair. His eyes flick to Cornish. ‘There’s more?’

‘Another minute or so. They killed the live feed, of course.’

‘Another minute of-’

‘Just ranting,’ Teller says. ‘Cunt this, cunt that.’

‘I need to hear it.’

‘You can hear it at your own desk. I’ve heard enough.’

‘We get a location?’

‘Hyde Park. Two and a half square kilometres of open parkland. Limited CCTV coverage. Thousands of people moving in thousands of different directions. He might as well have called from the moon.’

Cornish rolls up a sleeve. Doesn’t seem to like it. He unrolls it again and buttons the cuff. ‘Will he make good on this threat?’

‘Yes,’ says Luther. ‘He’s like the rest of them. He’s grandiose, self-important, ego-driven. He can’t stand to be thought of as weak. He’d rather be hated than pitied. And he’d rather be feared than either.’

‘Well,’ Teller says. ‘If we had a PR problem before, we’ve got a humdinger now. Can we find him before tonight?’

‘How?’ says Luther. ‘Tell me how, I’ll do it.’

‘I don’t know. Sprinkle some fairy dust. Do your thing.’

‘Okay. Then let me do what he’s asking. Let me go on TV, on radio, whatever, and apologize.’

‘That’s not going to happen,’ Cornish says.

‘There’s a family in London who won’t see the sunrise tomorrow if it doesn’t. You can bet he’s already picked them out.’

He outlines what Benny told him about the likelihood of Facebook stalking. Cornish and Teller listen, increasingly despondent.

Then Cornish says, ‘But if we give this prick what he wants today, what does he ask for tomorrow? Do we give him that, too? And if we do, what does he ask for the next day? And the day after that? And the day after that?’

Luther sags, knowing he’s right.

‘Take me off the case,’ he says.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘It may be enough to appease him.’

‘We already talked about this. We don’t give in to blackmail. More importantly, we can’t be seen to give in to blackmail.’

‘With respect, Boss, we’ve got to react somehow. We’ve got to give him something.’

‘And if we do,’ Cornish says, ‘we give a green light to all the loonies that come after him. Psychopaths don’t get to use the media to control the investigation of their crimes.’

‘Long term, absolutely. Short term, it’s the best tactic I can think of. Release a statement saying you’ve suspended me, pending investigation into my running of the case. Hang me out to dry.’

‘Holy Christ,’ says Teller. She leans over, digs in her drawer, removes a bottle of aspirin with a tamper-proof lid. Struggles to open it.

‘You can absolutely do this,’ says Luther. ‘You say the police don’t respond to a criminal’s demands. But you can imply I did something wrong, say I mishandled the chain of evidence. Say I’m emotionally incapable. God knows they’re showing footage of me crying about every ten seconds. That might be enough to assuage him, mollify his ego.’

Teller doesn’t answer.

Neither does Cornish.

‘If we don’t do this,’ Luther says, ‘he’ll make good on what he said. Tonight. And he knows what he’s doing. He’s been doing this stuff for a long time without us even noticing him. He’s probably got a pool of possible targets. Families like the Lamberts. Houses he knows inside out. We can’t just sit back and let it happen. We can’t do that, can we?’

There’s a long silence. Then Cornish says, ‘John, I understand. I honestly do. But we can’t grab our ankles and let this psycho have his way with us.’

‘Sir,’ Luther says. ‘Seriously.’

Teller warns him with a glance: Shut. Up.

‘It doesn’t matter how we dress it up,’ Cornish says. ‘We’d be sending a clear message. We’d be telling the entire world that we’re running scared of this prick, that he gets exactly what he wants from us. We can’t have that. We just can’t. For the precedent.’

Luther walks out of Teller’s office. He can feel the eyes on him. All the coppers in the bullpen. He must have been shouting.

Howie lifts a file from her desk and waves it to catch his attention. It’s a shy, defiantly jaunty little gesture, and in that moment he loves her for it.

He approaches. ‘How we looking on that thing?’

‘Fine,’ she says. ‘Actually, Boss, can I borrow you for a minute?’

‘Of course. Bring those.’ He nods at the files.

Howie scoops up the York and Kintry files, neatens them, follows Luther to his narrow office.

She nods to Benny and shuts the door. Luther closes the blinds.

‘Is it just me,’ Benny says, ‘or is this actually getting pretty bad?’

‘It’s actually getting pretty bad,’ Luther says.

Howie and Benny give him a sympathetic look. He shrugs it off; he’s been getting them all day, since weeping at the churchyard.

He takes off his jacket, hangs it over the back of his chair, loosens his tie.

He sits and rubs his face. Takes a series of long, slow breaths. Closes his eyes. Keeps them closed. ‘Okay. Talk me through it. Where are we?’

‘Well,’ says Howie, ‘we know we’re dealing with a very particular animal here. We also know this isn’t his first offence; he’s far too confident. Too self-important. He’s narcissistic with an overdeveloped sense of grievance. And to judge by his voice, word selection, intonation, he’s in his late twenties at the earliest, more like mid-thirties plus. Put all that together, you’re looking at a likely serial offender.’

‘But it’s definitely his first time with this MO.’

‘With this MO, yeah. But MO and signature are two different things. MO consists of everything he requires to carry out the crime: type of crime, victimology, the setting of the crime, method used. MO changes. Signature doesn’t. So what was he doing before he cut open the Lamberts? We’ve been looking at one credible prior offence, maybe two: the abduction of Adrian York and the attempted abduction of Thomas Kintry. This is Bristol, mid-nineties. So we’re talking fifteen, sixteen years ago. And these were slightly older children. Adrian York was six. Thomas Kintry was twelve.’

‘That’s abnormal for a start,’ Benny says. ‘These men, they usually have a very specific preference — age, sex, ethnicity, hair colour.’

‘Okay,’ says Howie. ‘So he abducts children. We don’t know what criteria apply because, even if we assume these cases are genuinely linked, victimology seems inconsistent. At best, he’s working from a radically different MO after an apparent fifteen-year silence. During those fifteen years, we can imagine that either he’s resisted the urge to offend, he’s been in prison, or-’

‘Or he’s been offending under the radar,’ Luther says. ‘So where are we on the name? Pete Black?’

‘Well,’ says Howie. ‘I’m getting to that. That’s actually what I wanted to talk about. It could be a coincidence, but…’

‘But what?’

She dry-swallows, excited and nervous. She slips a note from the thinnest of the files and reads from it. ‘In the Netherlands “Zwarte Piet”, meaning Black Pete, is a servant of Sinterklaas. He delivers presents on the fifth of December and…’ She looks at Luther.

He’s opened his eyes. He’s looking at her.

‘He takes naughty kids away in the empty bags,’ she says. ‘In some stories, the Zwarte Piets themselves were kidnapped as kids, and the kidnapped kids make up the next generation of Zwarte Piets.’

‘Which fits with the Adrian York abduction,’ Luther says. ‘Which was a child abduction nobody even believed was an abduction. Not until it was too late.’

‘So what if, during the last fifteen years he hasn’t been inactive, or in prison? What if he’s just been quiet?’

She begins laying documents on Luther’s desk. Doing so, she tells him that numerous cultures have a mythical bogeyman who’s portrayed as a man with a sack on his back, a man who carries naughty children away.

‘There’s El Hombre de la Bolsa, meaning the Sack Man. In Armenia and Georgia it’s the Bag Man. In Bulgaria, it’s Torbalan. In Hungary it’s zsakos ember, “the person with a sack”. In North India, he’s the Bori Baba or “Father Sack”. In Lebanon he’s Abu Kees, that’s literally “The Man with a Bag”. In Vietnam, it’s Mister Three Bags. In Haiti, it’s The Gunnysack Man.’

Luther looks at the images: trolls and ogres and twisted fairytale things, scrawny, beak-nosed old men bearing away bawling children.

He stands. His legs won’t let him sit. He paces the room.

He says, ‘I think this is good. I think this has meaning. Benny, I need you both to trawl records, look for a link to any of these characters. Black Peter. The Gunnysack Man. Father Sack, whoever. Anything pops up, anything, let me know straight away.’

At 4.07, Cornish and Teller front the second hastily convened press conference of the day.

DCI Luther is not present.

Cornish reads the following statement:

‘As you know, the Metropolitan Police Service is investigating a very serious offence and has no comment to make regarding any threats made by the man who calls himself Pete Black.

‘I’d like to remind you at this time that whoever committed this atrocity against Mr and Mrs Lambert and their child, nobody made him or her do these things. He or she perpetrated these horrors of his or her own free will. If the perpetrator of these crimes is indeed the man calling himself Pete Black, then the Metropolitan Police Service once again extends its heartfelt wish for him to hand himself over to the proper authorities. He can be assured that he will be treated in full accordance with the law.

‘We believe that the phone calls made to a London radio station are in fact a cry for help from a very desperate man. And we’re keen, if he’ll let us, to give him the help he needs.

‘However, given the danger to the public this man represents, let me reiterate that we’re asking members of the public to help us identify and apprehend him. Someone out there knows who he is. In order to hasten this process, the Metropolitan Police Service has authorized a reward of one hundred thousand pounds for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the man calling himself Pete Black.

‘That’s concludes the statement. I will, however, take one or two questions. Let’s keep it orderly please, ladies and gentlemen.’

Here they come, in a flashing, overlapping babble:

‘Will you be making an apology to Pete Black?’

‘I refer you to my statement, which you should consider the last word on this matter.’

‘Will Pete Black kill again if you refuse to do as he says?’

‘That would be entering into unwarranted realms of speculation.’

‘How big is the threat?’

‘That’s impossible to gauge at this time.’

‘If Pete Black does kill another family, will heads roll in the police service?’

‘I’m not entirely sure I understand what that question means.’

‘Who takes responsibility for signing off DCI Luther’s tactics?’

‘I do.’

‘Has DCI Luther been removed from the case because of tensions inside the investigation?’

‘DCI Luther has not been removed from the case.’

‘Are you willing to back DCI Luther?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Have you drawn up a psychological profile?’

‘No comment.’

‘What do we know about the killer? Has he done this before?’

‘No comment.’

‘Should you have known earlier?’

‘Once again, I don’t understand the question.’

‘Do you have faith in your senior investigating officer?’

‘I have absolute faith in my senior investigating officer.’

‘Then where is he?’

‘You’ll appreciate that he’s busy.’

‘Is he off the case?’

‘No.’

‘Shouldn’t he be?’

‘No.’

‘Did you make a mistake by not giving Pete Black an apology?’

‘No. We did not.’

‘How many Londoners are in danger tonight because of questionable operational decisions taken by DCI Luther?’

‘If any Londoners are in danger tonight, and I stress the word “if”, then it’s because of a man calling himself Pete Black. Once again, I urge Londoners to search their hearts and their consciences. If you know who this man is, please contact us on the hotline. That’s it. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and good afternoon.’

While Cornish and Teller address the mobbed press room, Luther and Howie huddle at Benny’s desk.

‘I trawled the records,’ Benny says. ‘Looked at everyone on the sex offenders’ register. I went through the list of names.’

‘Anyone we like?’

‘I’m not feeling it. So I looked off-register a bit, followed my nose.’

‘How far?’

‘I get to thinking, what if, during his years off the radar, our Pete’s not abducting kids. Maybe he’s buying them.’ He shows Luther a mugshot. ‘This is Vasile Sava. He’s a child broker. He arranged the illegal adoption of babies from all over Eastern Europe. Anybody tried to buy or sell a baby in London, chances are he’d know them.’

‘And why do we like him exactly?’

‘Because when they arrested him and trawled his database, a “Mr Torbalan” was included in his list of clients. That’s one of the names for the guy who steals away the bad kids.’

Luther claps his shoulder. ‘Nice work, Ben. Where does he live?’

Benny hands him a printout.

‘Take disinfectant,’ he says. ‘Plus maybe garlic and a crucifix.’

Bill Tanner watches the lunchtime news, because he always does.

He’s surprised to see the copper who came round the other night sitting hunched behind the desk at some press conference or other, looking trapped and uncomfortable.

Bill feels for him; he’s a decent bloke, and it’s always a sad thing to see a big man made to look small.

Bill turns the telly over but there’s nothing else on. He tries a bit of Radio 2; it’s the same story. He catches snippets of it, knows it’s horrible — a story he doesn’t want to hear, more evidence that the world’s going to hell in a fucking handbasket.

Dot’s better off out of it.

Thinking of her gives Bill that trembly feeling in his shanks. He supposes it’s loneliness, but loneliness is such a silly word, a pop-song word, a Herman’s Fucking Hermits word. It’s got very little to do with the awful feeling in his guts and in the top of his legs. If he sits still, he knows it’ll sweep up his spine and round the back of his head and he’ll start to cry like a fucking baby. In moments like this, he sees that the house stinks of cold and dirt.

He grabs the lead and collar from the hook on the back of the kitchen door. Little Paddy goes mad. He always goes mad for a walk.

Bill shuffles over to grab his grey windcheater and his Hush Puppies. He zips his windcheater to his chin and puts on the bobble hat Dot bought for him.

Then he and Paddy step outside.

It’s all a bit awkward. Bill needs a walking stick and one hand’s still in plaster. So he has to slip the loop of the lead over the plaster and kind of hook it there. Luckily Paddy’s got a bit of arthritis in his hips, Yorkies get that, and he’s happy to trot at Bill’s heel, stopping every now and again to cock his leg. He’s a fearless little thing, and Bill admires that.

Time was, he’d have been embarrassed by little Paddy. He was Dot’s dog, really. He wasn’t a man’s dog; a man wants a companion, not one of these ridiculous fierce fuckers all the young ones have these days, the mean little ones with the tiny eyes and the puffed-out chests and the bandy legs. When Bill was a bit younger, the dogs you were scared of were German Shepherds and Dobermans.

Working on the bins in the sixties and seventies, you’d swap stories of fierce dogs. The dogs you swapped stories about were always black and tan.

But those dogs were intelligent and handsome; even a ratty and half-fed Alsatian had understanding in its eyes, that’s why the police used them. And Dobermans were used as guard dogs for good reason. These muscular little things, all jaw and chest, they looked like fucking idiots, like wife beaters.

Bill and Paddy wander along, a bit shaky but doing all right.

He pops into Mr Patel’s to pick up a copy of the Racing Post and twenty Benson amp; Hedges, then wanders down to William Hill. Even the bookie’s not what it was.

A bookie’s used to have a sorry, collegiate air about it, all the labourers and the cabbies and the alkies. He’d pop in after his shift ended, it was still early. Dot would be at work. He’d spend a pound or two, go home and have a nap. Then he’d tidy round a little bit: Dot always came home to a clean house, although that wasn’t something you talked about down the pub.

But Bill was brought up in the navy, he knew how to keep things neat and tidy and everything in its place — and Dot worked long hours and came home footsore.

Bill never did the laundry, and he never cooked a meal in his life except sometimes a bit of egg on toast for the kids when Dot was poorly. (More often, he’d send them down the chippie and they’d eat a nice bit of cod in front of Nationwide — that Sue Lawley and her legs.)

But he’d happily do a bit of hoovering, wash up the breakfast things, have a tidy round, do a bit of dusting, make the bed (he got satisfaction out of making the sheets drum-tight). He’d clean the windows, have a potter round the garden if the weather was nice. Then he’d spend an hour at the allotment and be home in time for tea.

It seemed to him that that whole world, black and white, three channels, Sue Lawley and her legs, a decent shabby bookies, fried egg sandwiches, a pub without horrible fucking music blaring in your ears all day, it was all gone, like men wearing hats.

Bill bets a few quid, watches a few races, doesn’t make a penny but enjoys himself anyway.

Then he goes out. Poor little Paddy’s tied to a lamp post. His little legs are shaking with cold and the terror of abandonment and he’s looking up at Bill with a kind of pleading relief.

Bill feels a bit guilty. He says, ‘Sorry there, boy. Was I gone a long time? Was I?’

He doesn’t care who’s listening. He’s an old bloke with an old dog, fuck them all.

It takes him a long time, but he stoops and lets the dog jump into his arms. Little Paddy cringes into his barrel chest, like he’s trying to push inside Bill.

A Sikh kid, the first softness of dark beard round his chops, eases up to him. ‘You all right, mate?’

When Bill was this kid’s age, he’d never in a million years, a hundred million years, have considered calling an elder ‘mate’. He’d have been clipped round the ear. But the kid doesn’t mean any disrespect, in fact he means the opposite of it. Bill responds by saying, ‘Yes, I’m fine thank you, mate.’

A twelve-year-old and an eighty-five-year-old calling each other mate. There’s got to be some good in that, hasn’t there?

The kid says, ‘Are you sure?’

Bill says, ‘I’m a bit stiff, but I’m all right.’

The kid nods, a bit embarrassed Bill thinks, and walks on.

Bill makes his way home. He’s knackered now and his legs hurt, he needs to pop a couple of pills. But he’s glad he got some fresh air. Paddy’s light as a bird and, cuddled to Bill’s chest, he radiates a kind of desperate satisfaction, a bliss just to be there.

Bill’s nearly home when the two big blokes step out of the alley between the blocks. The big white one, Lee Kidman, in his leather jacket and his dyed hair, the fat Asian-looking one, Barry Tonga, in his baggy shorts and oversized white trainers, a fucking handkerchief or something tied round his head.

The first thing that happens, before Bill can open his mouth is that he pisses himself in fear. He hardly knows it’s happening — there’s a big, warm spread across his pants and down his leg and then straight away it goes cold. It’s probably been more than seventy years since Bill wet himself but he knows the feeling straight away and it makes him want to weep in rage and shame. He cuddles the little dog to his chest because he doesn’t want it to see. He knows how stupid that is, except Paddy’s the last part of Dot that he’s got, she loved the little fucker and the little fucker loves Bill, and he’s a weak little thing really, all skin and bone.

The thugs chest-push Bill into the alley.

‘You silly old cunt,’ says Kidman. He looks like he fancies himself; one of them blokes who thinks he’s God’s gift, but who actually gives women the creeps.

The other bloke, his big moon head on massive shoulders, he’s a mystery. He’s got tattoos all up his arms and down his legs. He’s wearing three-quarter-length shorts. In this weather.

Kidman grabs Bill’s bad wrist and a jolt of agony shoots up his arm. He says, ‘Take his offer. Take his money. Look at you. Pissing yourself. You should be in a home.’

‘You fucking prick,’ says Bill, and is horrified to note that he’s weeping. He doesn’t want to but he can’t help it. And he can’t think of anything to say. He’s lain in bed for hours planning what he’s going to say to these geezers, should they come for him again. He’d rehearsed it again and again, the withering contempt, the dignity he’d stand on. But now all those words are gone and he’s standing there dripping with his own piss and he’s crying; the words are flown straight out of his head. He cuddles the little dog. It cringes there. It shakes and shivers, feeling Bill’s fear.

Kidman shoves Bill into the wall. Bill staggers back. Kidman plucks the skinny dog from Bill’s arms, holds it to his face, makes queer little kissy-kissy noises.

‘Who’s this, then?’ he says in a mincing poof’s register, horrible coming from such a big man. ‘Who’s this liddle thing, this little precious thing, then?’

‘You leave him be,’ says Bill. ‘He’s only a dog.’

Kidman doesn’t address Bill directly. He speaks to the quivery, wet-eyed Paddy, tickles him under the wishbone chin with a great spatulate finger, manicured and pink-nailed.

‘I am going to fuck you up,’ Kidman says to Paddy. ‘I am going to fuck you up, liddle doggie, yes I am.’

‘Don’t,’ says Bill. ‘You leave him alone.’

‘Because your daddy didn’t listen to my daddy,’ says Kidman, ‘no he didn’t. He didn’t, did he? And now I’m going to fuck you up, little doggie. I am going to fuck you up. Say bye bye now. Say bye bye to daddy!’

He raises Paddy’s paw between thumb and forefinger, makes Paddy wave to Bill.

‘You fucking bully,’ says Bill. ‘You horrible fucking bully.’

‘I am,’ says Kidman. ‘I am a horrible bully, aren’t I, liddle doggie? I am a howwible, wowwible, liddle bully.’

He takes Paddy’s neck in one hand, Paddy’s hips in the other, then he twists like he’s wringing out a towel.

Paddy yelps as his spine breaks. He voids his bowels and his bladder. Kidman laughs and skips backwards to avoid it, dropping Paddy to the ground.

Paddy makes a horrible noise of a kind Bill has never heard before. He wouldn’t even know what to call it.

Bill howls. He draws back what used to be a feared fist, a great hammer of a knuckle sandwich, but now it’s freckly and tremulous. He takes a step anyway.

But Tonga waddles in and grabs him in a full nelson. Bill can smell his sweet aftershave.

‘Stop now, Poppy,’ says Tonga, almost kindly. ‘Stop now.’

Bill flails and windmills, he tries to stamp on Tonga’s feet. He howls again.

Kidman looks down at Paddy, then looks at Bill and winks.

‘You fucker,’ says Bill. ‘You mean fucker. You horrible fucker.’

Kidman cackles. Then he draws back his great foot and kicks Paddy fifteen feet down the alley.

Paddy’s still alive when he lands. Bill can tell because his wet eyes are looking at him with adoring incomprehension, as if Bill could stop this happening with just a stern command and a point of the finger. Because Bill is God to little Paddy, his Dot’s Yorkshire terrier.

Kidman saunters down the alley, grinning and self-conscious. He puts his big, handsome, horrible face to Bill’s and says, ‘Where’s your wife buried?’

Bill doesn’t understand.

‘I said, where’s your wife buried?’

‘That’s none of your business.’

‘It is if I want to dig her up and fuck her.’

Bill struggles, but Tonga holds him until all the strength is gone. When Tonga lets go, all Bill can do is sag to the ground, sit with his back to the alley wall, his legs out before him.

Kidman and Tonga watch for a bit without speaking. Kidman is grinning ear to ear. Tonga looks a bit more sombre. But then, he’s got a sombre face.

Then Tonga checks his watch and chin nods. Places to be.

They walk away.

Zoe leaves work the second she can. She takes the glass lift to street level and steps outside, belting her coat.

She walks. She takes a right, then a left. There’s a little road at the bottom, a crooked lane. And that’s where Mark’s car is waiting; a tired-looking Alfa Romeo. Mark is at the wheel. Her heart swells to see him.

She slides in next to him, the smell of old vinyl and leather and roll-ups. The ashtrays overflow with crushed cigarettes.

They drive to his place, a big double-fronted Edwardian in Camberwell. They light candles and sit at his kitchen table in the remodelled basement. The table is scarred, antique, beautiful.

He pours them each a glass of wine, then concentrates on skinning up a joint.

She sips her wine and says, ‘What am I going to do?’

‘What do you want to do?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I could take you there. To the police station.’

‘If he’s not answering his phone, it’s because he doesn’t want to talk.’ For half a minute, she concentrates on tearing a cigarette paper to shreds, flattening the pieces in front of her, making them neat. ‘This is it, see? This is what happens. When things are fine, it’s fine. But when things go bad, he just ups and disappears. Surely if he’s going through all this, surely this is the time he should need me around?’

‘Maybe he doesn’t want to worry you.’

‘I’m worried enough. I’m frightened for him. I’m tired of being frightened for him. I don’t know.’ She looks at her lap, the shreds of paper. ‘I don’t know.’

‘It’s pretty intense,’ says Mark. ‘Everything he’s going through.’

‘So you’re defending him now?’

‘Christ, no. But I didn’t come here to bury him, either. I feel for the man. I watched him cry over a dead baby today. And here I am, sleeping with his wife.’

She gives him a flirty smile. ‘Don’t be presumptuous.’ She moves her wine glass around on the table like a planchette on a Ouija board.

She bites her lower lip, thinking it over. Then she says, ‘Can I tell you something?’

‘Anything you want.’

‘My worst confession? It’s pretty bad.’

‘Is it something you did?’

‘Shit, no. I’ve never done anything. I’ve been good my entire life.’

Mark doesn’t comment in the way that most men would, working in a double meaning, an undercurrent of sex. He just holds her gaze for a moment, scratches at his short beard, lights the joint.

‘Do you ever get these thoughts,’ Zoe says, ‘these feelings, that go round and round your head at three in the morning and you’re ashamed of feeling them?’

‘Everyone does.’

He takes a few puffs, then passes the joint to Zoe. She hesitates before accepting it.

‘Sometimes I actually wish he was dead,’ she says. ‘I lie in bed and fantasize about him actually dying. Because it just seems so much easier that way. My problems would be solved — I could mourn John, and be free, and not hate myself for it. And everyone would feel bad for me, instead of thinking I’m a total bitch.’

She inhales, holds her breath for as long as she can, then exhales a thin plume of smoke. Passes the joint to Mark.

‘Thoughts like that don’t make you a bitch,’ he says. ‘They’re just an escape fantasy. We all have them. The same thing happens with the spouses of terminal patients. It doesn’t make them bad, either. It’s just one of the ways we cope.’

They smoke for a while. The candles flutter, throw black dancing shapes on the wall.

‘I’m leaving him,’ she says. ‘I’ve had enough of this bullshit. I’m leaving him.’

‘Good,’ Mark says.

He reaches out, takes her hand. They finish the joint and go upstairs.