The Calling of the Grave

Chapter 30

Roper peered into the gloom, trying to make me out. In the kiln's dark interior he couldn't see me any better than I could him.

'Glad you're none the worse after last night,' he said. 'Lucky escape you had, by all accounts.'

My heart was still thumping as I tried to unscramble my thoughts. 'What are you doing here?'

I heard rather than saw him shrug. 'Oh, I just came to check on things. Miss Keller really should have a lock fitted. Unless she wants people to be able to walk in here, of course.'

The notion seemed to amuse him.

'I didn't see your car,' I said.

'I left it in a lay-by further up the road. Thought the walk would do me good.'

And prevent anyone from seeing he was here. I was starting to think more clearly now. Starting to think that Darren Walker could have been telling the truth about the police officer at Monk's caravan. DI Jones might not exist, but that didn't prove anything.

Whoever he was, he'd hardly have given his real name.

I tried to sound unconcerned, gauging my chances of getting past Roper to the door. 'Did Simms send you?' 'The ACC's got enough on his plate as it is at the moment. No, this was just to satisfy my curiosity, you might say.' There was a click and the lamp on the workbench came on. It had been knocked on its side; Roper stood it upright, tutting as he looked round. 'Somebody made a mess, didn't they?'

The light revealed a scene of devastation. Sophie's bowls and dishes had been swept from the shelves to break on the floor. Even the heavy electric kiln had been pushed on to its side, its door hanging open.

'Looks to me like someone was searching for something, wouldn't you say?' Roper was smiling but his eyes were sharp and appraising. 'Mind telling me what you're doing here yourself, Dr Hunter?'

'I've come to collect my car.'

'Funny place for a garage.'

'My bag's in the house. Sophie keeps a spare key in here.'

'Does she, indeed?' He scanned the kiln. 'Good at hiding things, Miss Keller. But then a former BIA like her should be. Comes from knowing where to find them, I expect.'

I lost patience. There was no point playing games. 'Did you find what you were looking for?'

'Me?' Roper seemed genuinely shocked. 'I think we're getting our wires crossed, Dr Hunter. I didn't do this.'

He sounded offended. I wasn't entirely convinced, but I felt my suspicions begin to recede. 'Then who did?'

'Well, now, that's the question, isn't it?' Roper considered the wreckage, absently scratching his stomach. 'How well do you know Miss Keller?'

'Why?'

'Because I'm trying to decide if you're involved in this.'

There was a sudden edge to his voice, and my last doubts about him disappeared. I'd never really taken Roper seriously before. He'd always seemed like an appendage of Simms, promoted for loyalty rather than ability. Looking at him now I began to wonder if there was more to him than that.

Perhaps Sophie wasn't the only one good at hiding things.

'Until this I hadn't seen her in eight years,' I said carefully.

'You sleeping with her?'

I bit back the urge to tell him to mind his own business. 'No.'

He gave a grunt of satisfaction. 'Tell me, Dr Hunter, doesn't the timing of all this strike you as a bit odd? Terry Connors crops up out of the blue to warn you you're at risk from Monk. Asking if you've heard from any of the old search team. Then Miss Keller – or Miss Trask as she's started calling herself – calls you asking for help. She turns up unconscious and her house is trashed. Except that the burglar didn't bother to take anything.'

'She said some money and jewellery were missing.'

He waved that away. 'You don't believe that any more than I do. And I'm not convinced by her "amnesia" either. Someone breaks into her house and knocks her out, and she can't remember anything about it? Please.'

'That can happen.'

'I'm sure it can, but she didn't seem too worried about it. So why did she lie? Who was she protecting? Herself or somebody else?'

I opened my mouth to object, but he was only saying what I'd thought myself. I just hadn't wanted to accept it. 'What's your point?'

'My point is I don't believe in coincidences.' He prodded a piece of clay with his foot. 'If you've something valuable you want to hide there's two ways to go about it. One is to put it somewhere really safe, where no one will ever be able to find it. The trouble is if you can think of it, chances are somebody else will as well. The other way is to put it somewhere no one will ever think to look. Somewhere so obvious they won't even realize it is a hiding place. Preferably where you can see it every day.'

I stared at the workbench where Sophie had built up the mound of clay scraps. Just a bad habit. I remembered how she'd come in here as soon as we'd got back from hospital, claiming she was looking for the spare key. How she'd run her hand across it, as though to reassure herself. Right out in the open but too big to move.

No wonder she hadn't wanted to go to a safe house.

'I think she was hiding something in a ball of dried clay,' I said. Sophie hadn't even bothered to put a lock on the kiln door, practically announcing that there was nothing of value inside.

Roper smiled. 'I'm less interested in where it was hidden than in what it was. All this started when Jerome Monk escaped, so there has to be a connection. And whatever was here, it was important enough for Miss Keller to risk facing him rather than leave it untended.'

And important enough for someone to knock her unconscious and leave her for dead while they searched the house. My mind was whirring now, the last cobwebs of fatigue dropping away.

'Terry Connors tried to persuade me to take Sophie away yesterday afternoon,' I said. 'That's why he wanted to see me.'

'Did he now? Then perhaps Monk did him a favour. Got her out of the way long enough for him to find what he was looking for.' Roper considered the debris littering the floor, a smile playing round his mouth. 'For someone who's suspended he seems to be taking an unhealthy interest in this case. I think it's time we had a serious talk with DS Connors.'

A cold feeling was forming in the pit of my stomach. I'd been too tired to wonder why Terry was waiting for me outside the hospital. I'd put his questions down to curiosity, but that wasn't what struck me now. He'd claimed he didn't know where Sophie lived, yet I hadn't told him how to get here.

He'd already known the way.

'I've just seen him,' I said. 'He gave me a lift.'

Roper's smile vanished. 'Connors was here?'

'He dropped me off and then went.'

'Shit!' Roper reached in his pocket for his phone. 'We need to go. I should-'

But before he could finish a shadow stepped through the doorway behind him. There was a sickening thunk of metal on bone as something swung against the back of his head, and Roper pitched face first on to the ground.

Breathing heavily, Terry stood over him with a short length of scaffold gripped in his hands. His mouth stretched into a snarl as he looked down.

'Bastard had that coming for a long time.'

It had happened so quickly there was no time to react. I stood there, stunned by Terry's appearance as much as by the sudden violence. There was a wildness about him, a look of fevered desperation. His once-neat hair had been snagged by branches, and his shoes and trouser bottoms were splashed with mud. Panting, he wiped his mouth on his sleeve as he lifted his gaze to me.

'Jesus, David. Why couldn't you just have got your things and left?'

My mind was starting to function again. I hadn't heard a car engine: Terry must have parked and doubled back across the fields. Perhaps when he saw Roper's car in the lay-by. The policeman lay where he'd fallen. Dark blood glistened on his head, nearly black in the lamplight. I couldn't see if he was breathing or not.

Terry raised the pole threateningly as I started towards them. 'Don't try it!'

I stopped, keeping out of reach. 'Put the pole down. Just think what you're doing.'

'You don't think I have? Christ, you think I want this?' A spasm of anguish crossed his face. He lashed out and kicked a piece of clay. It ricocheted off the scaffolding that propped up the curving wall of the kiln and skittered off into darkness. 'You want to blame somebody, blame Keller! This is her fault!'

I thought about what Roper had said. About the ball of clay, now in fragments on the floor. 'What was she hiding that was so important?'

At first it seemed he wasn't going to answer. He shook his head, but his grip on the scaffolding pole seemed to loosen.

'Zoe Bennett's diary.'

It took me a moment, but then I began to understand. Zoe, the extrovert of the two Bennett twins, who, unlike her sister, preferred partying to studying. And Terry, a womanizer still smarting after being forced to transfer from the Met in disgrace. What better way to salve his ego than with a pretty, vivacious seventeen-year-old with aspirations to be a model?

'Your name was in it,' I said.

His shoulders slumped. The scaffolding pole had sunk lower, almost forgotten.

'I'd been seeing her for a couple of months. The photos don't do her justice; she was a real looker. Trouble was she knew it. She'd got it all worked out: how she was going to go to London, sign up with a big model agency. She was impressed because I'd been with the Met, could tell her stories about Soho and all the rest.'

He grinned at the recollection, but it quickly faded. His mouth twisted.

'Then I saw her with someone else. Some cocky young bastard in his twenties, flash car. You know the sort. We had a row. Things got out of hand. I hit her and she went mental. Screaming at me, saying she'd see to it I got sacked, that she'd say I raped her. We were in my car and I was scared people would hear. I just wanted to shut her up, so I got hold of her throat, and… and it was just so fucking quick. One minute she was struggling, and the next…'

I looked down at Roper, dead or unconscious at his feet. 'Jesus, Terry…'

'I know! You think I don't know?' He'd lowered the scaffolding pole altogether, but still gripped it in one hand. He ran the other through his hair, his face stricken. 'I'd got a lock-up, so I hid her body in there. I thought… I thought if I didn't do anything it'd be treated like just another teenage runaway. Zoe was always saying how she was going to go to London.'

'She was seventeen!'

'Oh, don't start,' he snapped, with a flash of his old temper. 'What was I going to do? Give myself up? That wouldn't bring her back! I'd got Debs and the kids to think about. What was the point in spoiling their lives?'

I felt sickened. 'Did you kill her sister as well?'

Terry seemed to flinch. He no longer looked at me, but there was something like shame in his eyes. 'Lindsey found Zoe's diary,' he said dully. 'There was my phone number, details of how often we'd met. What we'd done. She didn't tell anyone because she didn't want to hurt Zoe's reputation. She thought because I was a police officer I might be able to help find her.'

Christ. So she'd gifted Terry with the only piece of evidence that could implicate him in her sister's death. And, in the process, made herself the only witness.

'Don't look at me like that!' Terry yelled. 'I panicked, all right? If that had come out it would have been all over! I couldn't afford to be questioned. And she looked so much like Zoe, just seeing her was like she was accusing me!'

'And Tina Williams? Why did…' I broke off as I realized. Another teenager, dark-haired and pretty. 'She was just a decoy, wasn't she? So it'd look like a serial killer and take attention off the twins.'

A strange look came over Terry's face, as though he was confronting a part of himself he barely recognized. He shrugged, but he still wouldn't look me in the eye.

'Something like that.'

The shock had gone now, replaced by anger and disgust. 'I saw her, Terry! I saw what you did! For Christ's sake, you stamped on her face!'

'She was already dead!' he yelled. 'I lost it, all right? Jesus, you think I wanted to do it? Any of it? You think I enjoyed it?'

It doesn't matter: they're still dead. But it explained a lot of things. Like Terry's behaviour during the search, especially when Monk inexplicably offered to take us to the graves. Pirie had been closer to the truth than we'd realized when he'd said that Tina Williams' horrific injuries might be an expression of her murderer's shame, an attempt to erase his own guilt. That hadn't made sense when we'd thought Monk was the killer, but it did now.

No wonder Terry's life had fallen apart.

Through the doorway behind him I saw it was growing darker outside. The lamp cast a cocoon of brightness, beyond which the kiln's gloom seemed to deepen. I'd no idea how long I'd been there, but I couldn't expect any help. Roper still hadn't moved, and from what he'd said no one knew where he was. Somehow I had to get past Terry, although I'd no idea how. There was nothing nearby to use as a weapon except broken pottery.

'Was DI Jones the best name you could come up with?' I asked, stalling.

'Worked that out as well, did you?' Terry actually smiled. He seemed calmer, as though relieved to be finally confessing what he'd done. 'It was either that or Smith. Monk was too good an opportunity to miss. I'd still got some of Zoe's things hidden away, but I had to move fast before his place was swarming with SOCOs. I wasn't as careful as I should have been. Almost fell over Walker. But I flashed my warrant card and put the fear of God into him. Said if he kept his mouth shut I'd look after him.'

And for eight years Terry had been as good as his word. More lives than a bloody cat, Naysmith had said. Always managed to slip off. Small wonder when there was a police detective on his side, making sure any evidence was conveniently lost or mislabelled. Only when Terry had been suspended himself, and DI Jones finally let him down, had Walker broken his silence.

And Monk had beaten him to death for it.

Terry would have guessed why. He must have been frantic when

Monk escaped. Especially when there was still one piece of evidence that could link him to Zoe Williams.

'How did Sophie get the diary?' I asked.

'Nosy bitch went snooping through my things. It was about a year after the search. Debs had kicked me out so I was renting a flat. Me and Sophie had got together again. I always meant to get rid of the diary, but I never did. Stupid really. I'd hidden it, but Sophie always was good at finding things.'

He sounded bitter. Part of me registered that their relationship wasn't the fling Sophie had claimed, but now wasn't the time to dwell on that. I thought I saw Roper's hand moving, but kept my attention on Terry.

'How much did she know?'

'Only that I'd been screwing Zoe, the diary made that much obvious. She was more pissed off because it was while I'd been seeing her than anything. She went ballistic. She wouldn't tell me what she'd done with the diary, only that it was somewhere "safe".' His face turned ugly at the memory. 'It didn't matter so much when Monk was in prison. She couldn't tell anyone without admitting she'd been withholding evidence. But when Monk escaped… That changed everything.'

'That's why you panicked and came to see me. To see if Sophie had told me anything.'

'I didn't panic. I just wanted the fucking diary back! And I know Sophie. If she was going to go running to anyone from back then, I knew it'd be you.'

He's jealous? There was a bubbling groan from the floor. Terry looked down at Roper in surprise, as though he'd forgotten him. The policeman twitched, his eyes fluttering.

'Don't!' I shouted, as Terry hefted the scaffolding pole.

He paused, the pole still raised. I thought there might be something like regret in his face. 'You know I can't let you go now, don't you? You know that.'

I did. And I didn't know what I was expecting. 'What about Sophie?'

'What about her? She can't do anything without the diary.'

'Don't you even care what you've done to her?'

'What I've done to her? Jesus! The blackmailing bitch's made my life hell for years!'

'She was scared. And she's in hospital now because of you!'

He stared at me, Roper momentarily overlooked. 'What are you talking about?'

'Monk didn't cause the haematoma. You did, when you forced your way into her house looking for the diary.'

'Bullshit! I don't believe you!'

'It's a contrecoup injury from where she hit her head on the bathroom floor when she fell. She discharged herself from hospital before they could pick it up. She obviously wanted to come home to see if the diary was still safe. And even then she didn't tell anyone what had happened. She was terrified, but she still protected you!'

'She was protecting herself! She was looking out for herself, the same as she always does!' He levelled the scaffolding pole at me. 'You think you're going to make me feel guilty about her? Forget it, she brought it on herself!'

'And if she dies it'll be just another accident? Like Zoe Bennett?'

The way he stared at me told me I'd gone too far. The only sound was the mournful sigh of the wind outside the kiln. Terry shifted his grip on the pole.

'At least tell me where they're buried,' I said quickly.

'What for? You had your chance eight years ago.' His face seemed to close down, blank of expression. 'Let's get this over with.'

He started towards me, then suddenly staggered. I thought he'd tripped until I saw that Roper had clutched hold of his leg. The lower half of the policeman's face gleamed wet with blood in the lamplight, and his front teeth were snapped off at the gum. But his eyes were bright and full of malice as he tried to drag himself to his feet.

'Fucker!' Terry yelled. He lashed out with the scaffolding pole as I rushed at him. I ducked back, falling against the kiln's central chimney, and felt something grate beneath my shoulder. Wrenching his foot free, Terry kicked at Roper's head as if it were a rugby ball. There was a sound like a dropped watermelon and Roper flopped limply. As Terry came at me again I grabbed the loose brick where Sophie hid her spare key and flung it at him. He tried to block it, but it caught him a glancing blow in the face before clumping to the floor.

'Bastard!' he spat, spraying blood and spittle, and swung the length of scaffolding at my head.

I managed to get an arm up but the metal pole smashed into my chest. My breath exploded as I felt ribs break. Agony burst through me, and as I crashed to the floor Terry stepped up and whipped his foot into my stomach.

I doubled up, unable to breathe. Move! Do something! But my limbs wouldn't obey. Terry stood over me. He was gasping for breath himself, his face slick with sweat. He touched his fingers to his scalp where the brick had struck him and stared at the blood on' them. His features contorted.

'You know what, Hunter? I'm glad you didn't go when you'd got the chance,' he panted, and raised the length of metal over his head.

The kiln door banged shut behind him.

Monk, I thought instinctively. But the doorway was empty. The door flapped loosely in the wind, and as Terry spun round to face it Roper lurched into him.

He was barely able to stand, but he caught Terry off balance. His momentum carried them past me and slammed them into the ancient scaffolding against the kiln's wall. The rickety structure shuddered under their weight, ringing like a giant tuning fork as loose spars clanged to the floor. It swayed drunkenly from the impact, and for a second I thought it would hold. Then, as though in slow motion, the entire scaffold gave a creaking groan and collapsed on top of them like a stack of cards.

I thought I heard a scream, though I couldn't tell who from. I tucked into a tight ball, covering my head as planks and steel poles came crashing down. The air was filled with a clamour like insane bells that seemed to go on and on.

Then silence.

My ears rang as the echoes died away. Slowly, I unwrapped my arms from around my head. The air was thick with dust. The kiln was in darkness: the falling scaffold had knocked out the lamp. I coughed, gasping as pain shot through my broken ribs. The floor was littered with scaffolding and broken timbers. I made my way across them, relying on touch to guide me.

'ROPER? TERRY?'

My shout died away. A brick thumped down in the darkness, jangling the fallen poles like discordant wind chimes. In its wake I heard only the pitter-patter of falling mortar. Sophie had told me the scaffolding had been shoring up the kiln's unstable chimney and outer wall for decades.

Now there was nothing to support it.

There wasn't anything I could do by myself: I needed to get to a phone. I could just make out the light from the door through the murk. I picked an unsteady path across the tangle of scaffolding towards it. The air outside was sweet and clean. A last faint light remained in the sky as I hobbled towards the house, arm pressed to my injured ribs.

I was almost there when I heard a rumble behind me.

I looked back in time to see the kiln collapse. It seemed to sag and then, without fuss, simply toppled in on itself. I stumbled further away, shielding my eyes as a billowing cloud peppered me with grit. Then all was quiet again.

I lowered my arm.

A skein of dust hung like smoke over what was left of the kiln. Half of the brick cone was gone, leaving a jagged ruin against the evening sky. The section of wall with the door was still intact. I limped back to it, covering my mouth and nose with my sleeve as I peered through the doorway. It was partially blocked with bricks that spilled out from inside.

This time I didn't bother to shout. A final brick tumbled down on to the rubble with a sound like falling skittles, then there was nothing. Not a sound, nor any sign of life.

The kiln yawned in front of me, dark and silent as a grave.