The Calling (14 page)

It’s followed by helicopter footage of John leaning against a wall and apparently weeping.

Zoe’s hand goes to her throat.

Cut back to the young man with the microphone. Blond and ruddily handsome, a little chubby.

‘Well, Lorna,’ he says, to the anchor, to the viewers, to Zoe, ‘this must be the moment all police officers dread. Although I should stress that we’ve yet to have official confirmation, our sources do tell us that, following the dramatic call made to a London radio station early this morning, police have indeed found the body of a baby here at St Pancras Old Church in central London. Details are very sketchy at this time—’

Zoe snaps off the TV and calls John.

She gets voicemail.

He never answers his fucking phone. It’s one of those things about him. It drives her insane. He says if you go around answering your phone, all it does is ring.

‘John,’ she says, ‘it’s me. I don’t know what time it is. It’s early. I’ve just seen the news. Give me a call as soon as you can. I just want to know you’re okay. Please. Just – y’know.’

She hangs up. Tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. She puts her face in her hands. She says her own name like a mantra:
Zoe, Zoe, Zoe
.

Then she cranes her neck and looks at the ceiling.

Her phone rings. She snatches it up. It’s Mark. He says, ‘Have you been watching the news?’

‘I’m watching it now.’

‘Jesus Christ, Zoe. Are you okay?’

She doesn’t know.

Mark says, ‘Have you heard from him?’

‘No.’

‘Do you think he’s okay?’

‘I don’t know,’ she says, testily. ‘I really don’t know who’s okay and who’s not.’

‘Listen,’ he says, not rising to the bait. She loves him for it. ‘Whatever you need me to do, I’m here. If you want me to come over, I’ll be right over. If you want me to stay away, I’ll stay away. Just let me know.’

She says, ‘Look. Thanks. I appreciate it. I really do. But we had a row last night. A pretty bad one. And then, here he is on TV, crying. That’s not like him. And . . . I just don’t know. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve got to go.’

‘Go where?’

‘To work.’

After a moment he says, ‘Is that a good idea?’

‘What else am I supposed to do?’ she says. ‘Hang around the house all day, watching the news? If I did that every time John was up to his neck in something horrible, I wouldn’t have a job to go to.’

Howie gets in about two minutes before the police courier arrives from Bristol. She hasn’t even taken off her coat when he hands over the Kintry and York files, taped up in a second-hand Jiffy bag.

Howie thanks him, lays the Jiffy bag on her messy desk.

The courier is a young PC with a heavy West Country accent. She offers him a cup of tea. He prefers one of the Cup a Soups he sees next to the water-spotted kettle. He’s been up all night and he’s hungry.

He drinks the soup. They chat about the case in very general terms. Then he rinses the cup, wishes her good luck and leaves.

Howie takes a coffee to her desk, slips on a pair of noise-reducing headphones, opens the Jiffy bag and digs out the files.

Luther’s barely through the heavy doors of the buzzing unit when Benny grabs his elbow and drags him into the office, Ian Reed’s dry cleaning still hanging there behind the door.

Benny’s twitchy, wide-eyed, washed-out.

Luther says, ‘Christ, Benny. How much sleep did you get?’

‘Not that much. It was niggling at me. It’s difficult to sleep when you know you could be doing something useful – in case things didn’t work out.’

‘Well, things didn’t work out.’

‘I heard that. You okay?’

‘Tickety-boo. What’ve you got?’

‘Facebook.’

‘I thought we’d done that.’

‘Well, yes and no,’ Benny’s rushing now, eager to tell him something. He reins himself in, takes a breath and says, ‘What’s the golden rule of social networking?’

Luther hangs up his coat. ‘Don’t do it?’

‘No. The golden rule is – only put up information or images you’re happy for everyone to see and are happy to put your name to. And the Lamberts seem to have done that, by and large.’

‘But?’

‘But the problem is, when I say
happy for anyone to see
, it really does mean
anyone
. The problem with social networking, the internet in general, is it’s easy for someone to pretend to be someone they’re not. For instance,’ he stands, ‘do you mind?’

Luther gets out of Benny’s way, lets him access the old beige computer with 15-inch monitor he’s got tottering on his desk – brought here when Traffic had a refit, got themselves some nice flatscreens.

Benny logs on to Facebook, taps a few keys.

Then Luther’s looking at his own Facebook page. Except Luther doesn’t have a Facebook page.

Benny says, ‘I set this up in your name last night.’

Luther looks at it. ‘How?’

‘Easy. I know your birthday, right? I know where you went to school, uni, blah blah blah. You can easily get these details online. What I didn’t have to hand was a photograph of you. But I happen to know you like David Bowie, right? And I know your favourite album.’

‘
Low
.’

‘Right. So I dig up the cover image for
Low
. Use that as your profile picture. Anybody who knows you, sees it and thinks:
Typical John Luther! Bowie fanatic!
So nobody’s got any reason to think this isn’t you. Now all I have to do is look up a few old friends of yours. Again, that’s easily done because I know where you went to school. I send out a bunch of friend requests.’

‘Tell me you haven’t done that,’ says Luther.

‘No way. I value my ability to walk. But listen, the point is, I knocked up this page in ten minutes – for educational purposes only. Just to show you how easy it is, to be someone else online.’

‘Okay. Point made. Internet bad. So?’

‘So I combed through all the Lamberts’ online “friends”. Sarah Lambert’s got 250-odd, Tom Lambert’s got 70. He’s a very occasional user. So let’s put him to one side for the moment, come back to him if we need to. Let’s concentrate on Sarah. She’s got 253 friends: of those 253 friends, 185 post once a week or more. Of the remaining 68, most are occasional users. What happens a lot is, people start up a new account and go posting happy: what they had for breakfast, funny things the kids have said. But that loses its appeal pretty quickly, and their postings get fewer and fewer as the weeks go by. Some people sign up, make one or two postings, decide it’s not for them and are basically never seen again.’

‘How many of those we got?’

‘About half a dozen: Tony Barron, Malcolm Grundy, Charlotte Wilkie, Ruby Douglas, Lucy Gadd, Sophie Unsworth.’

Luther nods, feeling something now – something coming down the line at him.

‘I contacted them all this morning,’ Benny says.

‘What do you mean? Officially?’

‘No chance. I rang round, pretending to be from a charity. Phoned their workplaces. That kind of thing.’

‘You’re in the wrong job, mate. So how’d it play?’

‘Tony Barron, Malcolm Grundy, Charlotte Wilkie, Lucy Gadd, Sophie Unsworth – all of them check out – or seem to at a first pass. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to do a bit more due diligence on them, belt and braces.’

‘All right, consider it done. But the last name?’

‘Ruby Douglas.’

‘Who’s Ruby Douglas?’

‘Ruby Douglas went to the same prep school as Sarah Lambert. Moved away when she was thirteen. So you’re talking about a very loose, very old acquaintance – if you can even call her that. Someone Mrs Lambert may remember, but hasn’t actually seen for more than twenty-five years.’

‘Okay.’

‘This “Ruby Douglas” joined Facebook three years ago, befriended the Lamberts and a few others the same day. Then didn’t make one post. Not a single post, until—’

‘Until?’

‘Until Mrs Lambert announced she was pregnant.’

Luther’s heart is loud in his chest now.

He says, ‘Let me see the post.’

‘There are fifty-nine comments and thirty-eight “likes”. One of those “likes” was posted by Ruby Douglas. That’s the only posting she ever made. To anyone. Ever.’

At length, Luther says, ‘You tried to contact her? Ruby Douglas?’

‘Oh yeah. No deal.’

‘We don’t think this is actually her, do we?’

‘Not a chance.’

‘So we’re saying Pete Black stalked the Lamberts on Facebook?’

‘It’s so easily done,’ Benny says. ‘Seriously. People have no idea of the kind of person who’s out there, watching them.’

Luther’s sense of triumph fades. He sits. Thinks about it. ‘So the announcement of the pregnancy is what got them killed? He was
waiting
for it.’

Benny says nothing. Knows there’s nothing to say.

‘Can we trace the user back?’ Luther says. ‘‘‘Ruby Douglas”, find him that way?’

‘Whoever it was used a free webmail address to sign up. Not traceable. Posted from different public ISPs.’

‘The ISPs any use?’

‘One of them’s a public Wi-Fi hotspot. The other’s a café in East London.’

‘The chances of getting security camera footage?’

‘After all these months? Pretty small.’

‘Worth a try, though. I’ll get someone on it.’

But there’s more. He can see it in Benny’s eyes.

He forces himself to sit still.

Benny says, ‘The thing about cyber-stalking, it’s not like the real-world equivalent. To someone like this, the internet is like a dessert trolley. He could be watching any number of people. I mean, he could be watching
dozens
of people. Or hundreds. He’d know when they were sick, when they’re well. When they were on holiday. When they’re at meetings, out of town. He’d know what their kids look like, what their pets are called, what they watch on TV. He might as well be in their house.’

Luther thinks of Pete Black, out there, omniscient, full of jealousy and hatred.

Waiting for the next child. And the child after that.

Then Teller comes to the door.

He says, ‘Boss?’

‘The day’s not getting better,’ she says.

She leads him to her office, where the news is playing on her computer.

On a rolling news channel, Maggie Reilly is being interviewed by a slim young Anglo-Indian woman in Armani and killer heels.

Maggie looks severe and focused, a solemn presence; not at all like she spent a sleepless night waiting for a madman to call and make her famous again.

‘Whatever the facts of the matter may be,’ she says, ‘the man who calls himself Pete Black, the alleged killer of Tom Lambert, Sarah Lambert and now baby Emma Lambert, very clearly blames the police for the tragedy that took place overnight.’

The interviewer leans forward. She has a thin sheaf of papers in one hand. ‘But surely no one can blame the police for doing their job?’

‘No one’s blaming the police,’ Maggie says. ‘They were doing a difficult job in what were clearly very difficult circumstances. It’s just that, in this once instance, perhaps blindly following procedure wasn’t the optimum strategy.’

‘Are you suggesting the police should have met “Pete Black’s” demands and guaranteed not to stake out the hospitals?’

‘Of course, it depends on the police service’s operational priorities: catching a killer or saving the child. All I’m saying is, perhaps it’s an option they could have explored.’

‘But as you know, police are refusing to comment on operational details. They simply won’t say whether they had officers posted at hospitals and churches.’

Maggie Reilly laughs. ‘I’ve been a journalist too long to trust a “no comment” from the police, no matter how prettily it’s dolled up.’

‘Maggie Reilly, we’ll leave it there. Thank you.’

Luther rubs the flat of his hand in slow circles around the crown of his head.

He says, ‘This is all such bullshit. The baby was long dead. She’s been dead since yesterday. He’s mortified by that. The baby dying wasn’t part of his plan, whatever his plan was. He can’t accept the blame, so it must be someone else’s fault. He’s passing the burden of guilt on to us.’

‘I know that. You know that. Whether people out there,’ she gestures, meaning the wider world, ‘actually want to believe it. That’s a different matter.’

Luther tugs at his ear, considering. He says, ‘I don’t think I can do this.’

‘Do what?’

‘This.’

She gives him the Duchess look.

‘Things aren’t good,’ he says. ‘At home. Between me and Zoe.’

‘I see. She’s being a madam, is she?’

‘It’s not that.’

‘It’s always that. You’re not the first copper to marry a spoiled cow. You won’t be the last.’

‘Boss, that’s not fair. She just—’

Teller gestures with open palms:
Just what?

Luther rubs his face, exhausted. He needs to shave and change his shirt. ‘I’m not right,’ he says. ‘In myself.’

‘So what are you suggesting we do?’

‘I’ve been meaning to ask about leave of absence. Stress leave. Whatever you want to call it.’

‘And whose idea was this? Yours, or Princess Tippietoes?’

‘Both of ours.’

Teller removes her spectacles, blinks at him like an owl. ‘If we take you off this now, it looks like an admission of guilt. It’s like declaring we did something wrong.’ She puts the glasses back on, shoves them up the bridge of her nose. ‘They’ll crucify the fucking lot of us.’

Luther practically folds in on himself. Crossed arms, hunched shoulders. ‘We shouldn’t react to this bullshit anyway,’ he says. ‘You can’t run a case via the media.’

‘You can’t run a case like this any other way,’ she says. ‘That’s the truth of it. If Pete Black controls the story, he controls everything. We look like the Keystone fucking Cops. That’s why we’ve called a press conference, and that’s why you’re going to front it.’

He can’t speak.

‘Welcome to the world of modern policing.’ She points to the TV, the endlessly cycled image of Luther in the graveyard, weeping. ‘Like it or not,’ she says, ‘this little Kodak moment makes you the caring, sharing face of the Metropolitan Police Service. People might be quick to stand in judgement where the Met’s concerned. But everyone loves a big, tough man who can cry over a baby. Which makes you the public face of the investigation. Congratulations.’