The Treatment

Twenty-four.

In Norfolk the forest at the top of the quarry was quiet, only the ghostly pitter-patter of rain on the leaves. Every ten minutes or so a car went by on the road half a mile away. Some had their headlights on although it was midday. Tracey Lamb lit a cigarette and leaned back against the rusty old Datsun, staring at the cars. She felt confident, pleased with herself. When she got home yesterday she had taken Carl's 'book' and sat in his bedroom, on his bed that bed was his pride and joy black and silver lacquer with mirrors set in the headboard, and started calling his friends. None of them seemed to know about Penderecki's death as if they cared and when she told them about the visit from DI Caffery they all went into a panicking free fall

"Jesus Christ, Tracey'. Don't bring your shit to my doorstep."

"It's not just my shit '

And then horrified realizations at the end of the line. "Tracey? Tracey, whose fucking phone is this? Don't tell me you're calling on your own phone?"

"Why?"

"Oh, you stupid fucking slag, you're even stupider than I thought And down went the phone. By the time she'd got to the end of the book the bush telegraph had been humming and the phones had all been taken off the hook. She had sat there smoking, among Carl's barbells, the weight-lifting belts and his DVD collection. She'd wanted to cry. The gates were closing and she'd been left outside. Penniless.

Well, fuck you all, she'd decided fuck every last one of you, you bunch of perverts. She should have given them all up to Caffery the arse holes

Now she wiped her face, threw the cigarette into the undergrowth, straightened and coughed up a little phlegm. Here the grass and ferns stood high and thick and undisturbed; this was the little clearing Carl had used for dumping dodgy vehicles. At the far end, past the dead cars and among the wild poppies and storks-bill, so far over it was almost in danger of falling into the quarry, was the caravan. It was old the rain was turning it green in places and the scratched acrylic windows were thick with condensation. Peeling letters on the side were a reminder of Carl's attempts to start a hot-dog stand. The business hadn't taken off, but the sign was still there she could see a faded stencilled price list, "Hot Dog 15p', and the nailed-up hatch he'd cut in the side. The Borstal boys used to live in the caravan when they stayed. They always seemed to be drunk on White Lightning cider and puking up into the quarry. Carl, who could always find work for an extra pair of hands, had liked having them around, especially in the late seventies when he had somehow wangled the licence to pick up wrecks from car accidents. "Cut and shunt', they called it, and most of the write-offs somehow found it back on to the streets with a little help from the Borstal boys: re sprays welding, fibreglass filling, get rid of those etched windows. Carl would pay them in duty-free cigarettes and gin from his beer runs to Calais, or he'd give them the car radios to fence if they could stop the bereaved parents claiming them. How many times had Tracey witnessed one of the Borstal boys standing in the garage explaining to a couple why they couldn't have the radio from their dead son's car: "The radio's not in a very pretty state, as it happens, probably best left well alone eh?" And if they persisted: "I never wanted to say this but you can't 'ave the radio cos there's claret all over it and something worse clogging up the tape deck." That would usually end the argument.

They'd cut up cars like abattoir animals using every spare piece. Carl really had a way with him the only thing he hadn't been able to out-think was the cancer. He got it, like a present, for his forty-eighth birthday.

"It's cancer of the sixty Capstan a day, love. It's the same way your mother went it'll be the way you'll go too. Family tradition." He'd always been rat-thin, but when he died Carl was even thinner like something from a concentration camp, she thought. And as soon as he'd gone the others lost interest and drifted away, and the wind came in off the fens and blew through the garage at night and made the corrugated iron rattle.

Now Tracey found her keys and got back into the old Datsun. She was hot in spite of the rain and immediately the windows steamed up. She put the radio on, turned the car round and drove off along the top of the quarry, the car jerking and lurching in the potholes. Wet ferns and nettles slapped down on the windscreen and behind her the caravan's little curtained window got smaller and smaller until it had disappeared in the dripping forest.

She had a plan, and had just taken the first steps towards making it a reality. She knew that there was nothing left for her here Carl's death had left her high and dry: she didn't know how she was going to make next month's rent she didn't even know how much it was, or whether Carl had a deal with the landlord. Christ, she didn't even know who the landlord was. You always kept me away from the money, Carl, didn't you? But she had some ideas. Once, twenty years ago, Carl had gone to Fuengirola he knew people out there and had some business to deal with. It was the only time he'd been out of England, and he'd come back with stories of drinking cocktails on yachts and a postcard of a little village that looked in the sun like sugar cubes stuck to the edge of the mountain. It looked like heaven up there so close to the sky, and the olive trees and the bright flowers hanging over the walls, blazing like gypsy scarves. Tracey Lamb felt sure she could be happy there. And she thought that the key to that happiness, the money to make it a reality, might come from DI Caffery's need to discover what had happened to Penderecki's boy.

Ayo came out from the curtains holding a bedpan full of plastic line clamps and bloodied towels.

"Oh!" She put her hand on her chest. "You made me jump."

The good-looking detective again the one she'd imagined blabbing her mad ideas to. About Ben and Hal and how Josh was peeing on things. Maybe she'd tell him, make him laugh, show him there were no hard feelings.

"What's happened? What's going on?"

"Eh? Oh…" She looked back to where Alek Peach lay groaning softly. "He got agitated, coming out of sedation. Pulled his radial artery line out it looks worse than it is."

"The blood?"

"We were giving him blood when he pulled it out. Most of that," she nodded to the floor, 'is from the bag, not from him. He's in no danger."

"Right." He started towards the bed. "I'll talk to him now."

"Uh Ayo skilfully put herself in his way. "I'm sorry. Mr. Friendship still hasn't given me the all-clear."

"Mr. Friendship is more interested in pissing me off than anything."

"Maybe you should talk to him about that." She held up her hand to guide him out of the door. When he didn't move she dropped her head to one side. "Look, I'm sorry, and I really mean that. I'm sorry. If it was up to me…"

"Ayo, listen," he hissed. "It was him. He did it. He killed his son."

Ayo closed her mouth. So he is a suspect they should have warned us.

"Come on, Ayo…"

"Look." She closed her eyes and held up her hand. "Thank you for telling me, but I'm sorry, you know, I have to not care what you think he's done."

"Oh, for Christ's sake. You crappy fucking do-gooders."

Her eyes snapped open. "There's no need for that."

"I know." He looked around the room, helpless, frustrated. "But you're just proving that really you don't give a shit. I mean, did you read the newspapers about Rory? Did you read what that man in there did} To his own son?"

Ayo swallowed, her blood pressure rising. "I've already explained my our position, so…" She pressed her hand to her belly. The baby was kicking, as if it was angry on her behalf. '… so if you'd be good enough to leave now, please please just respect us, OK? Or I'll have to call Security."

"Thanks, Ayo," he said. "Thanks for the generosity of spirit." He opened the door to leave. "I'll remember it."

"And don't come back until we call you," she yelled down the ward after him, 'which could be several days."

Afterwards her hands were trembling. She put down the bedpan and went into the nurses' station where she sat, breathing carefully, waiting for her heart to stop thumping. One of the junior nurses was concerned. "Hey? You OK?"

"God I dunno. I think so." Ayo put her head back and breathed in through her nose. Her pulse was racing, she felt nauseous she supposed it must be some form of panic-attack. The nurse, seeing her clammy face, her shaking hands, came in and put the kettle on.

"I'm going to make you some camomile tea. Can't have you stressed in your condition, can we, Mother?"

"God, thanks you're a lamb." Ayo settled back, rolling the top of her tights down and cupping her hands around her stomach. A Braxton Hicks came and went, but she breathed her way through it. For God's sake he only raised his voice to you and look at the state you're in you're all set to go into premature labour over it. This poor, poor child, she thought for the thousandth time, a neurotic for a mother how will it cope?

"I'm sorry if I jumped the gun." The armed guard stood a little outside the I.C.U, embarrassed, shuffling from foot to foot. "All we heard were the alarms, and the nurses getting aerated thought you should be here."

"It's OK." Caffery's mobile was ringing. "Really -call me any time. Especially call me' he fished in his pocket for the phone, hit the OK button, and used his thumb to cover the speaker 'especially call me when the lovely Mr. Friendship gives us a clear, OK?" He nodded briefly, and turned away, speaking into the phone. "Yeah? DI?"

"It's me. I've heard something."

He hesitated, trying to place the voice. When he had it he raised his hand to the armed officer and headed off down the corridor. "Tracey," he said, as soon as he was out of earshot. "Say that again."

"I heard something that might be useful to you. Something about what we talked about."

"Nah that's OK, we managed on our own, after all."

At the other end Tracey paused for a moment. "I'm not talking about Brixton," she said. "I'm talking about that boy of Penderecki's."

Benedicte remained where she had shrunk, eyes pricking and bright with fear. She had meant to be a warrior, meant to save her family. Instead she had scuttled back and lain on the floor, panting, weeping in the sour darkness, a hopeless lump bubbling away. A shitty little curled-up coward on the floor. If she was rolled on to her back she would remain locked in this position, like a brittle bluebottle, dead from terror. Pathetic.

And all she could think was: He is a monster. Josh was right a monster.

Thick red lips, white hairless skin. Like Snow White, his dark hair was so luxuriant and shiny it almost didn't look real like a shampoo advert. His trainers were scuffed and dirty and the red nylon Adidas sweatpants were stained. She could imagine cloven hoofs and thick-haired legs under those trousers. And he was wearing pink rubber gloves.

Benedicte knew exactly when she'd seen him before. It had been one morning in the camping shop on Brixton Hill. He had been behind her one minute, back turned to them as if he didn't want to be seen, hood pulled smartly over his face the next she knew he was outside, holding up Smurf's tail to examine her. Now she thought about it she could convince herself that it had been Josh he was trying not to be seen by. Did Josh know him? Or was it just that Josh was the main focus of his interest? Suddenly her blood ran cold. The Peaches, they were supposed to be going on holiday too. Had he heard her talking to the assistant about the holiday in Cornwall? She tried to remember what she had said in the shop. Something about a long car journey, and Oh, Jesus, yes he would have overheard her talking about it she'd even told the shopkeeper when they were leaving for Cornwall. Maybe he'd followed them home, been watching ever since, and in that case it was all her fault.

Suddenly Smurf, who was lying next to her, lifted her head and began to howl, a high-pitched pained squeal, the sound that comes when the pain is deeper than skin and muscle.

"Sssh…" Benedicte tried to hush her, stroked her, tried to coax her to the copper pipe to drink, but Smurf turned away and dropped her head on the floor. Ben sat back and began to pray. Oh, Ayo, Ayo -please, God, come early realize something's wrong please.

Caffery drove through the afternoon lanes. It had been raining in Suffolk, but now the sun was out, shining through the pollarded willows and making a patchwork of the road. Through tree tunnels he went, past horse farms, pleached maple corridors and low spreading ornamental junipers on perfect lawns. His hands were damp. Rebecca is right you are so desperate to get fucked around that you just jump to it. Leave your backbone at the door, Jack, why don't you? Tracey Lamb, that bundle of selfish impulse wrapped in a human skin, had only to put her hand behind her back, look him in the eye and say, "Guess what I've got in my hand," and she'd got him by the nose. The smallest crumb, the smallest possibility that she could tell him something about Ewan, and he was prepared to risk everything.

For a moment, just outside Bury St. Edmunds, he got the sudden impression he'd picked up a tail. The flash of sunlight on a windscreen, a grille glinting in the rear-view, a red car, low, like a sports car. It had been with him for miles. He adjusted the mirror, wondering if he was being touched. What would the rubber heelers want with you? And before he even finished the thought the answer came to him: Of course.

Rebecca had talked.

Jesus fucking Christ, Rebecca, you did it, you've talked she'd given them chapter and verse on what he'd done to her and what he'd done to Malcolm Bliss. Heart pounding now, suddenly panicked, he jammed his foot on the accelerator, leaned across the front seat, flipped open the glove compartment and dragged out the map. The road slipped away under the wheels of the Jaguar and the speedo crept up past seventy, eighty. From a driving course at Hendon he knew plenty of surveillance-avoidance techniques, but most of them depended on local knowledge, so he flipped open the map on the steering-wheel, steadying the car with the pressure of his knees and raced through the pages. He found the Thetford page and jabbed a finger down to anchor it, shooting a look in the mirror.

No! His hand drifted from the map. He couldn't believe it. The car had melted into the distance. He was alone on the road.

"Shit." He held the car steady, staring in the rear-view mirror to make sure he wasn't imagining it. Nothing. Just a silent road stretching out behind. He fumbled around for his mobile, holding it up, jabbing at it with his thumb to check he hadn't got a message if something was happening Souness would have warned him, given him a head start, he was sure. But there was no message icon and the road behind was deserted. He'd imagined it. Imagined the whole thing. If that doesn't make you sit up and take notice…

"Right." He dropped the phone on the passenger seat, pushed the map aside, and let the car continue for two miles in silence, the blood pounding in his head. He was strung out, he decided, looking at the way his hands were shaking. When he got back to London he was going to tell Souness and Paulina all about it. Because Lamb was just spinning him a line. He knew in his heart that was all she was doing. Don't get your hopes up.

He told himself this so many times as he drove into Norfolk past abandoned, boarded-up houses on deserted roads, past rubbish tips and derelict industrial greenhouses that by the time he found Lamb sitting on the step outside the back door smoking a cigarette, dressed in pale leggings, high-heeled yellow sandals and a Shania Twain T-shirt, he had convinced himself not to listen to anything she said.

"Tracey," he said. "What do you want?"

She took a drag on the cigarette, looked up at him through the smoke and smiled. "You want some tea?"

"Not really, no."

"OK." She nodded. She had watched him climb out of the car, his shirt blinding white in the sun, and waited for him to cross from the garage. Yes. She'd been right. She could see it in his face. And as he approached, taking off his sunglasses, she saw him glance, just once, over his shoulder at the road behind him. And that little gesture told her everything: He shouldn't be here he knows that. He's just as bent as I thought. I was right this is going to be easy. "Who are you working for?"

He put his keys in his pocket and nodded into the house. "Can you turn the music down?"

"I said who are you working for?"

He sighed. "I'm not working for anyone. I'm Bill. I told you that."

"Then this lad this kid that Penderecki done who is so interested in him?"

"Just me."

"You're a liar." She took another drag on the cigarette and pointed it at him. "I know your type there's gelt in it, isn't there? I don't know who that lad was, or anything, but you know what I think? I think someone really, really wants to know. And when someone really wants to know there's always gelt in it somewhere." She wiped her hands on the dirty leggings, pushed the ironweed hair behind her ear and made a face. She summoned phlegm into her throat and hawked it on to the ground. "Five K."

"What?"

"Five K and I'll tell you '

"Five grand? Do I look like a '

"I mean it five K and I'll tell you exactly what happened."

"Piss off, Tracey. You're a liar. And I don't have to pay, Tracey, to force information out of you. I'm all that's standing between you and the dirty squad and I won't hesitate '

"Oh, no." She gave him a slow smile. "You'll pay me."

"I fucking won't." He looked up at the sky and began feeling in his pocket for his keys. "You're full of crap."

"I'm your informant. You're supposed to register me. Have you?"

"Of course I have."

"You're the liar." She smiled. "I know your sort you're worse than my sort because you're legal. Much worse."

"Don't threaten me, Tracey '

"Five K and I'll show you what happened."

"Uh-uh." He turned to go. "You're in a sit com now, Tracey."

"Listen!"

"No way." He started towards the car, holding up his hand to dismiss her. "No fucking way."

"You'd be really, really surprised what I found out me brother knew all along." She jumped up, determined he shouldn't go. This was her one-way ticket sauntering away across the sunny forecourt. "You'd be surprised what happened to Penderecki's boy and what I can tell you about him." Caffery was walking faster now and she hurried after him, her arms extended, her feet in the yellow high heels pecking the ground like a wading bird. "Look, I'm not fucking with you why would I?" The phlegm rattled away in her throat. "I can show you exactly what happened to him. Not tell you, I'll show you."

"Tracey." Caffery stopped and held up his finger warningly "Cut the bullshit, Tracey. I mean it!" A flock of crows took to the air from the trees behind him, startling her by the way those wings darkened the sky so quickly as if the crows wanted to emphasize his words. "I'm going straight back to London," he said, 'and I'm going to hand the whole thing over to the Yard and don't fucking ring me again with your fairy-tales."

"But '

"But nothing." He swung the keys on his finger and turned for the car, leaving her standing next to the rusted old Fiat.

"Fuck," she muttered after a while, deflated. The Jaguar reversed up the drive and she stood, watching the flock of crows bank away against the blue sky. When they had disappeared behind the trees she turned and limped back to the house.

Afterwards she sat on the doorstep, staring out at the hangar, at the rusting old engines, and the old Land-rover roofs tangled in woodbine. She had almost forgotten she was holding a cigarette. It was only when it burnt her fingers that she dropped it. She scowled, leaned over, pulling her hair back from her face, and let a globe of granular phlegm drop directly on top of the burning butt. She was scuffing the phlegm with her shoe, so she didn't slide on it in the morning, when she heard wheels on the gravel. She looked up, suddenly nervous.

"Oh, fuck." She got to her feet, wheezing, sliding the locks on the door and hurrying back inside the house. Maybe he meant it maybe here come the mates She had got half-way down the corridor when she heard the voice ahead of her.

Tracey!"

That made her stop just by the kitchen door, her heart knocking against her throat. She swallowed. Rested her bitten nails on the doorpost and leaned cautiously back into the hallway. He was standing motionless in the sunlit front doorway, his hands in his pockets, his face tight. A wasp had got into the house and was banging itself on the ceiling. "What?" she called. "What do you want?"

"Three grand."

"What?"

"I said three grand I'll give you three."

Roland Klare could have told the police that they needed to be looking for someone more than just Alek Peach. Oh, yes, he could tell them that in one sentence. He knelt on the sofa, his nose and hands pressed against the window, one knee jerking up and down nervously, and stared out at the lovely trees and dried-up lawns of Brockwell Park. The photographs hanging in a row in his darkroom clearly showed Alek Peach raping his son. But the same images made something else quite clear: they made it clear that Alek Peach hadn't been the only person in the house at the time. They made it clear that someone else had been involved the someone who was holding the camera. Klare made a little clicking noise in his mouth and tapped at the window, wondering what to do next. "Hmmhm, yes," he muttered. "Hmm." He pushed himself away from the glass and turned back to the big, well lit living room, rubbing his hands nervously.