The Calling of the Grave

THE PRESENT
Chapter 8

I'd just come out of the shower when the doorbell rang. I swore and grabbed my bathrobe. Still towelling my hair, I glanced at the kitchen clock as I hurried into the hall, wondering who would be calling at nine o'clock on a Sunday morning.

I paused to look through the peephole I'd had installed in the front door. I was expecting to see a pair of polite young men with evangelical eyes and ill-fitting suits, hoping to sell me the dream of everlasting life. But I could only see one man through the distorted bubble of glass. He had turned to gaze at the street, so all I could see of him was his broad shoulders and short dark hair. It was thinning at the crown, exposing a palm-sized patch of scalp that he'd unsuccessfully tried to hide with a comb-over.

I unlocked the door. I'd been advised by the police to fit a security chain after I'd been attacked the previous year, but I'd never got round to it. Even though the person responsible still hadn't been caught, the peephole seemed paranoid enough.

I'd take my chances.

The pewter sky cast a cold light when I opened the door. The lime trees lining the road outside my flat had shed most of their leaves, covering the street with a whispering mat of yellow. Although the October morning was cold and damp the visitor wore a suit without any sort of coat. He turned and gave a thin smile, eyes taking in my bathrobe.

'Hello, David. Not disturbing you, am I?'

What struck me afterwards was how ordinary it felt. It was as though we'd only seen each other a few weeks ago, not the eight years it had been.

Terry Connors hadn't changed. Older, yes; the hairline was higher than it used to be, and the skin of his face held a tired pallor that spoke of long hours spent in cars and offices. There were lines around his eyes that hadn't been there before. But while the good looks were more weathered, the square jawline a little heavier than I recalled, they were still intact. So was the cockiness that was part and parcel of them. He still looked down on the world in a literal and figurative sense: even though he was on the lower step, the muddy eyes were on a level with mine. I saw them flick over me, no doubt taking in changes just as mine were doing. I wondered how different I must look myself after all this time.

It was only then that the shock of seeing him hit home.

I had no idea what to say. He glanced back down the street as if it led to the past that lay behind us. I noticed that his left earlobe was missing, as though neatly snipped off with a pair of scissors, and wondered how that had happened. But then I bore scars of my own since the last time I'd seen him.

'Sorry for turning up unannounced, but I didn't think you should hear it on the news.' He turned back to me, his policeman's eyes unblinking and unapologetic. 'Jerome Monk's escaped.'

It was a name I hadn't heard in years. I was silent for a moment as it caught up with me, bringing back echoes of the bleak Dartmoor landscape and the odour of peat. Then I stepped back and held open the door.

'You'd better come in.'

Terry waited in the sitting room while I went to get dressed. I didn't rush. I stood in the bedroom, my breathing fast and shallow. My fists were clenched into tight balls. Calm down. Hear what he has to say. I pulled my clothes on automatically, fumbling at the buttons. When I realized I was delaying facing him I went back out.

He was standing by the bookshelf with his back to me, head canted at an angle so he could read the spines. He spoke without turning round.

'Nice place you've got here. Live by yourself?'

'Yes.'

He pulled a book from the shelf and read the title. 'Death's Acre. Not much for light reading, are you?'

'I don't get much time.' I clamped down on my irritation. Terry always had a knack of getting under my skin. It was part of what had made him such a good policeman. 'Can I get you a tea or coffee?'

'I'll have a coffee so long as it's not decaf. Black, two sugars.' He replaced the book and followed me to the kitchen, standing in the doorway as I filled the percolator. 'You don't seem very concerned about Monk.'

'Should I be?'

'Don't you want to know what happened?'

'It can wait till I've made the coffee.' I could feel his gaze on me as I put the percolator on the heat. 'How's Deborah?'

'Thriving since the divorce.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Don't be. She wasn't. And at least the kids were old enough to decide who they wanted to live with.' The smile crinkled his eyes without warming them. 'I get to see them every other weekend.'

There wasn't much I could say. 'Are you still in Exeter?'

'Yeah, still at HQ.'

'Detective Superintendent yet?'

'No. Still a DI.' He said it as though daring me to comment.

'The coffee'll be a few minutes,' I told him. 'We might as well sit down.'

The kitchen was big enough to double as a dining room. It was more comfortable in the sitting room, but I didn't want Terry in there. It was strange enough having him here as it was.

He took a seat opposite me. I'd forgotten what a big man he was. He'd obviously kept himself fit, although the signs of encroaching middle age were still there.

The bald spot must kill him.

The silence built between us. I knew what was coming next.

'Lot of water under the bridge.' He was looking at me with an undecipherable expression. 'I always meant to get in touch. After what happened to Kara and Alice.'

I just nodded. I'd been waiting for the inevitable condolences, in the same way you tense yourself against a blow. Even after all these years the words seemed wrong, as though my wife and daughter's death contravened a fundamental law of the universe.

I hoped he'd leave it at that, duty done. But he wasn't finished.

'I was going to write or something, but you know how it is. Then later I heard you'd moved, packed in forensics to be a GP in some Norfolk backwater. So there didn't seem much point any more.'

There wouldn't have been. Back then I hadn't wanted to see anyone from my old life. Especially Terry.

'Glad you're back in the traces now, anyway,' he went on, when I didn't say anything. 'I hear on the grapevine that you've been doing some good work. Back at the university forensic department, aren't you?'

'For the time being.' I didn't want to talk about it. Not to him. 'When did Monk escape?'

'Last night. It'll be on the lunchtime news. Bloody press is going to have a field day.' His expression matched the sourness in his voice. Terry had never liked journalists, and that much clearly hadn't changed.

'What happened?'

'He had a heart attack.' He gave a humourless grin. 'Wouldn't think a bastard like that had one, would you? But he managed to convince the doctors at Belmarsh to transfer him to a civilian hospital. Halfway there he broke his restraints, beat the shit out of the guards and ambulance driver and disappeared.'

'So it was staged?'

Terry shrugged. 'Nobody knows yet. He had all the symptoms. Blood pressure sky high, erratic heartbeat, the works. So either he faked them somehow, or it was real and he escaped anyway.'

Ordinarily, I'd have said both were impossible. A high-security prison like Belmarsh would have a well-equipped hospital wing, with blood pressure and ECG monitors. Any prisoner displaying cardiac symptoms bad enough to be considered an emergency wouldn't be in any condition to escape: the attempt alone would probably kill them. But this wasn't an ordinary person we were talking about.

This was Jerome Monk.

The percolator had started to bubble. Glad of something to do, I got up and poured the steaming coffee into two mugs. 'I thought Monk was at Dartmoor, not Belmarsh.'

'He was, until the bleeding hearts decided Dartmoor was too "inhumane" and downgraded it from a Category A to C a few years ago. After that he was shuffled round to a couple of other maximumsecurity prisons before Belmarsh drew the short straw. Hasn't mellowed him, by all accounts. He beat another inmate to death a few months back, and put two wardens in hospital when they tried to pull him off.' He raised his eyebrows at me. 'Surprised you didn't hear about it.'

It might have been an innocent comment, but I doubted it. I'd been in the US earlier that year, and before that I'd been recovering from a knife attack and hadn't been paying much attention to the news. It was impossible to tell if Terry knew about that, but something told me he did. It was like him to probe for a response, just for the sake of it.

Keeping my face neutral, I spooned sugar into one of the mugs and handed it to him. 'Why are you telling me all this?'

Terry took the coffee from me without thanks. 'Just a precaution. We're warning everyone Monk might have a grudge against.'

'And you think that applies to me? I doubt he even remembers who I am.'

'Let's hope you're right. But I wouldn't like to predict what Monk's going to do now he's escaped. You know as well as I do what he's capable of.'

There was no denying that. I'd examined one of his victims myself, seen first hand the savage damage Monk had inflicted on a teenage girl. Even so, I still couldn't see that I was in any danger.

'We're talking about something that happened eight years ago,' I said. 'It isn't as if I had anything to do with Monk's conviction, only the search operation afterwards. You can't seriously think he'll care about that?'

'You were still part of the police team, and Monk's not one to discriminate. Or forgive. And you were there at the end, when everything went pear-shaped. You can't have forgotten that!

I hadn't. But I hadn't thought about it in a long time, either. 'Thanks for the warning. I'll bear it in mind.'

'You should.' He took a careful sip from the mug before lowering it. 'You keep in touch with any of the others?'

It seemed an innocuous enough question, but I knew Terry better than that. 'No.'

'No? I thought you might have worked with Wainwright on other cases.'

'Not after Monk.'

'He retired a while back. 'Terry blew on his coffee to cool it. 'How about Sophie Keller? Ever see anything of her?'

'No. Why should I?'

'Oh, no reason.'

I was growing tired of this. 'Why don't you tell me why you really came here?'

His face had grown red, and I could feel my own had matched it as the old antagonism flared. Didn't take long, did it?

'I told you, it's just a precaution. We're notifying everyone-'

'I'm not an idiot, Terry. You could have phoned, or got someone else to phone. Why come all the way to London to tell me yourself?'

There was nothing friendly in his manner any more. He fixed me with the cold-eyed stare of a professional policeman. 'I had some other business to attend to in town. I thought I'd stop by and give you the news myself. For old times' sake. My mistake.'

But I wasn't going to be fobbed off that easily. 'If Monk's going to go after anyone from back then, it's not going to be me, is it?'

Terry's face had darkened more than ever. 'I came here to warn you. Consider yourself warned.' His chair scraped as he stood up. 'Thanks for the coffee. I'll see myself out.'

He strode to the hallway, then seemed to change his mind. He stopped and turned. His mouth was a bitter line as he glared at me.

'I thought you might have changed. I should have known better.'

He walked out without a backward glance. I stayed at the table, the past so close I felt I could almost step into it. Can you pick Alice up later?

The flat seemed subtly different somehow, less my own. But my hands were steady enough as I collected the mugs. I hadn't touched my coffee but I no longer wanted it. I poured it down the sink and watched the dregs swirl down the drain. I didn't know why Terry had really come to see me, but the years hadn't changed one thing.

I still didn't trust him.