Helen presses her finger and thumb to her eyes so hard that brightly coloured spots of light seem to explode behind her eyelids.
‘Just tell me what you want,’ she says, and her voice sounds childlike and weak.
‘Last night,’ comes the reply. ‘The young gentleman whom you have had in custody. He made an error of judgement. He has caused great distress to your sergeant and his family. Distress we had not intended. For this reason, the young man in question is no longer under our protection. More than this, he is yours to do with as you will, should you find him before one of my associates does. However, I am advised that Mr Downey has not taken kindly to the indignities he suffered. More than that, he feels that the lady who took his money and embarrassed him is personally accountable for all of the inconveniences he has endured. I have every faith in my associates’ ability to locate him and bring this situation to resolution, but you may be well advised to keep Mrs McAvoy somewhere safe. I do not think her husband would respond to this communication in the same manner as you. Having done so, I feel a lightening of my conscience. For this reason alone, I am grateful to you, and can guarantee that there will be no further communications from myself or my associates. I thank you for your time, and hope that you enjoy the rest of your morning jog. Goodbye.’
As Helen stares at the phone, it returns to playing her music.
Helen looks behind her, up the dirt track, through the tunnel of overhanging, interlocking branches. Her world seems to
be narrowing. The scent in her nostrils is suddenly thick and overpowering. She can smell dead creatures in the hedgerows. Can hear the sound of spiders chewing on desiccated corpses in their webs. She can hear the screams of dragonflies and ladybirds and the crunch as sloes are squashed beneath careless feet.
Helen is no longer jogging.
She wants to run for her life.
*
The sky seems to be moving in a series of freeze-frames. As McAvoy looks up, the dragon he had previously spotted in the skies becomes a cliff face, then jerks, unsteadily, into a choir congregation.
He turns back to the road. Watches as the first spots of rain begin to kiss the glass.
Looks up again.
Now the heavens are a snapshot of a storm-lashed ocean. The clouds broil as waves, curling and crashing in upon themselves in an explosion of black and grey.
McAvoy looks at his phone. It may be due to the fall from his pocket or a consequence of the storm clouds that block out the light, but he is struggling to get a signal. He has managed to call Pharaoh and update her, but was halfway through a garbled conversation with Ben Nielsen when he lost his phone signal, and he cannot seem to get it back. Thankfully, he had already received most of the information he needed. Got the address. The name. The next piece of a puzzle that’s turning his brain to paste.
The car comes to a lazy halt in a parking space on Rufforth Garth. He’s on the edge of Hull’s Bransholme estate. It used to be Europe’s biggest council estate, though nobody ever took
the time to write that on the marketing materials or ‘Welcome to Bransholme’ signs. The area has had a lot of money spent on it in recent years, and while it has not exactly become an address to boast about, living on Bransholme is no longer a tick in the ‘against’ column when applying for a job. It’s a sprawling community of small, near-identical houses. Most are crammed into cul-de-sacs that branch off from main roads sporting so many speed-bumps they look corrugated.
McAvoy takes a deep breath, steps from the vehicle.
Wincing into the fine rain that has begun to blow in on a harsh wind from the east, McAvoy looks around at the nearby vehicles for one that matches the registration plate he has scrawled on his notepad. He can’t see it. Can’t see the van that screeched away from a hospital in Norfolk with Hoyer-Wood’s surgeon in the back, and then deposited a rotting corpse on the tarmac. It’s all Volkswagen Golfs and old BMWs – their suspensions lowered so they give off a pretty shower of sparks as they scrape the speed bumps.
McAvoy rubs some colour into his cheeks then heads for the address Ben had shouted down the phone at him over the sound of static and rushing wind. He pushes open a metal garden gate and walks down a well-tended front path. He finds himself in front of an old-fashioned and single-glazed front door. The two panes of frosted glass at its centre do not look particularly sturdy. Were he to lean on it he fancies it might fall down. He decides this could be useful, so files the information away without allowing himself to think too hard about it.
Three raps on the glass: a policeman’s Morse code for ‘open the fucking door’.
No answer.
Tries again, louder now.
He opens the letter box and feels cold air against his face as he looks into an untidy kitchen and down at dirty linoleum. He wonders what he expected to see. Feels an urge to giggle as he imagines seeing Angelo Caneva standing over Dr Pradesh with a scalpel and some surgical rib-spreaders. He wonders if he should have uniformed support. Whether he should wait for Pharaoh. Whether he has got the whole fucking thing completely wrong.
‘You won’t get him during the day, love.’
McAvoy turns. A woman in her late thirties is standing by the front gate. She has a small child on her hip. The woman has a wrinkled, puckered mouth and features; her hair is long, lank and bottle-black and she has a leather jacket on over a small vest top and tight black jeans. She’s wearing a lot of make-up and has a vaguely Gothic look about her, though the effect is spoiled somewhat by the tiger-feet slippers.
‘You’re after Nick, yeah?’
McAvoy turns away from the closed door. Gives the woman his full attention.
‘When did you last see him?’
She looks up, her eyes revolving unnaturally, as if she is scanning the inside of her skull.
‘You a copper?’
McAvoy isn’t sure how to answer. He wants her to talk to him. Wants her to like him.
‘He’s a bright-looking lad,’ says McAvoy, at last, nodding at the child in her arms. ‘What’s his name?’
The woman smiles, showing smoker’s teeth. ‘Reebok,’ she says, with a laugh.
McAvoy doesn’t know what facial expression to pull. ‘That’s different.’
She shrugs. ‘He’s not mine, don’t worry. I think it’s bloody daft, but if she wants to name her kid after a running shoe, who am I to judge? There’s a kid in my daughter’s class called Pebbles. Could be worse.’
McAvoy walks towards her, ready to show her his warrant card. He is reaching into his pocket when the child fixes him with a piercing look, and then bursts out laughing. McAvoy and the woman look at the boy, who is pointing at McAvoy and giggling hard.
‘Am I that funny?’ asks McAvoy, trying to look offended.
‘Brave, Brave,’ says the child, and sets off in another fit of hysterics.
The woman shrugs, good-naturedly. ‘He must think you look like someone from the film.’
‘Which film?’
‘Disney cartoon. Scottish princess, wants to be a warrior. Billy Connolly’s the voice of the dad …’
She stops herself. Looks him up and down and appears to agree with the child. She sniggers a little, then uses her sleeve to wipe the rain from the child’s face.
McAvoy gives in to a little laugh of his own and then closes his fingers around the warrant card. Holds it tight enough to hurt.
‘You’re a neighbour?’
‘Next door,’ says the woman, jerking her head. ‘I’m Jen.’
McAvoy shakes her hand. It’s cold and slim and the palm feels slightly clammy. He introduces himself.
‘I was hoping to talk to Nick.’
‘He works days. Some nights too. Busy man, but you’ve got to go where the work is, don’t you?’
As they talk, the rain begins to come down harder. There
is a low rumble and the face in the clouds tears itself in two. The sky becomes an ocean, upended and draining onto the city below.
‘Jesus, look at this,’ says Jen, huddling into her coat. ‘Do you want to come inside?’
McAvoy pulls up his jacket collar and follows her into the neighbouring property. In moments he is soaked to the bone, his hair stuck to his face, shirt clinging to the muscles in his chest, arms and back.
McAvoy shakes himself like a damp dog. Looks up. He finds himself in a square kitchen. A small patio table and chairs sit next to a plain white door. The table supports a basket of unwashed laundry, which contains an unfeasible amount of leopard-print underwear and jogging trousers. The heat in the room comes from the far side, beside the metal sink that overflows with pots and pans soaking in a sea of cold water and dissolving bubbles. The door of the oven is wide open and heat emanates like dragon’s breath. Three small children and a Dalmatian are sitting in front of it, eating biscuits and playing with blocks.
‘I’m a childminder,’ says Jen, filling the kettle. ‘That’s Pauline, Luke, and the little one’s Colin.’
McAvoy looks at the toddler, who is sucking on a plastic brick and trying to get his hand into his nappy.
‘He looks a Colin,’ he says, and then leans himself against the wall. He tries to order his thoughts.
The phone number that Maria Caneva supplied him with is registered at the house next door to this one, on Rufforth Garth. The electoral register shows the occupier to be a Nick Peace. Before he lost the phone signal, McAvoy had instructed Ben Nielsen to dig up anything and everything on Peace, and to
cross-reference those checks with Angelo Caneva. Like shapes in the clouds, McAvoy is starting to see fuller pictures.
‘Like I said, I was hoping to talk to your neighbour,’ says McAvoy, as chattily as he can manage over the sound of the playing children and banging pots. ‘Well, his friend, more accurately. Angelo?’
Jen stops what she is doing and turns to him, drying her hands on her trousers.
‘You said you were Old Bill, yeah?’
McAvoy nods. ‘I’m investigating several murders. It really is important.’
Jen seems to be weighing things up. This is an estate where talking to the police is only acceptable when the community officers are running a tombola at a family fun day, or providing safety checks on your children’s bicycles. Jen seems about to clam up.
McAvoy decides to help her see sense.
‘You heard about the murder off Anlaby Road, I’m sure …’
Jen nods, then drops her voice, as if it’s wrong to say ‘murder’ in front of children.
‘I heard he pulled her heart out, or something. Sick bastard.’
McAvoy looks at the children, then gives a gentle jerk of his head to tell her to come closer. She does so. Her head only comes up to his chest and from here he can see her grey roots and smell her perfume. He can breathe in the sunflower oil and fabric softener of her hair.
‘He didn’t pull her heart out,’ says McAvoy, quietly. ‘He caved it in. He performed CPR on her body until her ribcage cracked open and he turned her insides to mush. Then he sliced open the femoral artery of a nice mum over the water. Her kids found her.
Then he battered a bloke to death with a defibrillator machine in a rage because he couldn’t electrocute the poor sod to death. Last night he abducted a surgeon and left an unidentified corpse at the scene. All that these people had done wrong was save the life of a man who was far worse than they were. It really is important I speak to Nick, or Angelo. Please, Jen, what can you tell me?’
There is silence in the room, save for the gleeful chatter of the children and the rain beating hard against the glass. The kitchen feels too dark, suddenly, and Jen switches on a light. It breaks the spell. McAvoy recoils from the light like a vampire. He feels too exposed. Too visible. He’s aware of his scars and scrapes and creases and knows that Jen must see them too.
Jen looks him up and down.
‘Sick bastard,’ she says, again, and McAvoy hopes she is referring to the killer.
‘Please, Jen …’
The woman gives a little shrug, and seems to make a decision. She doesn’t seem overly horrified at what she has heard. Just grimly accepting of further proof that the world can be a horrible place.
‘I’ve lived here two years,’ says Jen. ‘Nick’s lived next door the whole time. He has a little girl. Well, I say he has …’
McAvoy leans closer, wondering if he should suggest they go into another room or put the kids somewhere else. He does neither. Instead he asks her about Angelo Caneva.
‘His friend,’ he says, softly. ‘Angelo.’
Jen smiles. ‘Little chap, yes? Slightly built. Big brown eyes. Very shy. Yeah, he lived there for a bit. Bit of a weird set-up, two grown men and a little girl, but you get all sorts on this estate …’
McAvoy wants to pull out his notepad but fears spoiling the moment. He concentrates on breathing and listening.
‘What do you know about Nicholas?’
‘Nice enough chap,’ says Jen. ‘Helped me out a couple of times. My boiler went off and he came and fixed the pilot light and I once got locked out and he jimmied the bathroom window. Brought me a bottle of something on New Year. Yeah, nice enough bloke if you could stop him talking about football.’
McAvoy pauses. Thinks hard. ‘When did you last see Angelo?’
Jen looks up and to the left. ‘Few weeks, maybe? Maybe more. I don’t know.’
‘And Nick?’
‘Oh, just a couple of days back. He always says hello. He tries to stay cheerful but it can’t be easy after that bitch waltzed in and took his daughter …’
McAvoy looks up at the ceiling. There is a damp patch spreading out from the corner above the sink. In it, if he squints and cocks his head, he fancies he can see the same leering, sunken-eyed face.
‘His daughter?’ asks McAvoy.
‘Nick’s ex-wife won custody of little Olivia,’ she says, looking as if the information pains her. ‘Broke his heart, I reckon. She’s such a lovely little girl, too. Big eyes and the cutest smile. She’ll get a nicer tan over there, of course, but it was Nick that brought her up …’
‘Over where?’
‘Benidorm, I think,’ says Jen. ‘Somewhere sunny, anyway.’
McAvoy looks down at the floor, hoping it will give him something more than the ceiling.
‘How did Nicholas take that?’
‘His world fell apart. He must have been hell to live with because I never saw Angelo much after that …’