The Calling (35 page)

Jan invites them to sit.

Luther and Howie perch on the edge of a Laura Ashley sofa.

Jan sits in a matching armchair. Wrings her gardener’s hands, knotty with arthritis.

Anxious people are compelled to fill silence. So Luther and Howie sit and wait.

‘It’s vile,’ she says. ‘The things he’s done. It’s vile. He wasn’t brought up like that.’

‘I can see that,’ Luther says. ‘You have a very lovely house. Have you lived here long?’

‘Since 1965.’ Said with pride and a touch of something like embarrassment.

‘And is your husband—’

‘Upstairs,’ she says. ‘I’m afraid he’s not well. Fibromyalgia. And all this . . .’

Luther nods and, with a small gesture, directs Howie to go upstairs and check on the husband.

Howie half stands, addresses Jan Madsen. ‘Do you mind?’

‘Not at all. Second door on your right, top of the stairs.’

Howie thanks her, then leaves the room and heads upstairs, into the smell of Mr Sheen furniture polish.

She raps gently on the bedroom door. Hears a whispered, ‘
Come in
?’

Howie opens the door. Jeremy Madsen lies in bed. A tall, raw-boned man, balding and heavily liver-spotted. His wife’s senior by perhaps a decade.

She takes in the room, the cluttered dressing table and the solemn wardrobes. Leather slippers arranged next to the bed.

Howie introduces herself, shows her badge, and whispers, ‘I’m sorry to bother you.’

Jeremy sits up. He has a slight palsy. He squints through one eye. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers in return. ‘Migraine. Very bad.’

‘You’ve had a shock,’ says Howie.

‘I can answer your questions,’ he whispers.

‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary. I’m sure your wife can give us everything we need. Please.’

Jeremy nods. The movement causes his face to twist in pain.

Howie says, ‘Can I get you anything? Some water?’

‘I’ll be fine.’ His liver-spotted hand shakes like a diabetic’s. ‘I just need to – if you wouldn’t mind?’

‘No, of course not’

Howie takes Jeremy’s shoulder, bony through the soft pyjamas. She helps him lie back down.

She hovers at the edge of the bed as he turns into a foetal position.

Embarrassed, Howie slips from the room and heads downstairs.

In the living room, Luther leans forward, still perched on the edge of the floral sofa. ‘Has Henry been in contact?’

Jan Madsen nods. ‘He did call, yes.’

‘When?’

‘About an hour ago.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Nothing. There was just noise on the line.’

‘Then how did you know it was him?’

‘I’d been waiting.’ She almost spits it. ‘He always did come to us when he was in trouble.’

She plucks at her knee, can’t meet Luther’s eye.

‘What did he want?’

‘Money. What else?’

Howie enters the room and quietly sits.

‘Henry called,’ Luther says. ‘An hour ago. Didn’t speak.’

Howie immediately stands. ‘I’ll get a trace on the call.’

Luther reaches up, takes her arm. Shakes his head. ‘He’ll be long gone. I’ll text through a request to trace.’

Howie hesitates, unsure, then rejoins him on the sofa. Their thighs are touching.

Luther raises his hip, digs out his phone. Begins awkwardly to thumb out a message. Frowning as he concentrates, he says, ‘You’re aware that Henry is a suspect in a very serious crime?’

Jan nods. Looks away. Toys with her bare wedding-ring finger. Luther looks at the pale band where the wedding ring had been, then at those swollen, arthritic knuckles.

‘I have to ask,’ he says. ‘Why didn’t you call the police when he rang?’

‘To say what? My estranged son called, didn’t say anything and then hung up? I’d have been wasting your time.’

For a moment, Luther discontinues his meticulous, hunt-and-peck texting. ‘Mrs Madsen. Nobody’s blaming you for this.’

She nods, pretending to believe him. Tugs at her wedding-ring finger.

‘Are you and Henry in contact?’ Howie says. ‘Generally speaking?’

‘We haven’t heard a peep in twenty years.’

Luther lowers his voice. ‘We understand that Henry was adopted?’

Jan snorts at her lap; an expression of ancient, incalculable bitterness. ‘Do you have children?’

‘No,’ Luther says.

‘Well, we tried,’ says Jan. ‘Jeremy and I. We tried and tried. No IVF in those days. This is the early seventies.’

‘And how old was Henry when you adopted him?’

‘Two. Just turned two. He was a helpless little thing. You wouldn’t treat a dog the way his mother treated him. The poor little thing, he’d been beaten, starved and God knows what. Locked him in a cupboard when her gentleman callers paid a visit. She hit him. Called him all sorts of things. Effing this, effing that.’ That bitter laugh. ‘God, we were so nervous. But people had told us,
You’ll fall in love at first sight
, or
Once you see him it’ll all just slot into place
. But walking into that room, seeing that little boy with his dirty knees and his hair all sticking up. I looked at him and my first thought was:
I don’t like the look of you
.

‘And I detested myself for it. Absolutely detested myself. I was riddled with guilt from the minute we got him home. After that, I think I was in denial.’

In the slightly hesitant use of the term, Luther hears years of anguish and self-recrimination.

‘If you don’t feel the kind of love you think you should be feeling,’ she says, ‘they pick up on it. They do. Children are so perceptive.’

‘There’s something called Adoptive Child Syndrome,’ Luther tells her. ‘About ten per cent of adopted children show some kind of behavioural disorder. It’s nobody’s fault.’

‘We didn’t have syndromes back then,’ she says. ‘In our day it was all about nurture. And the truth is, I didn’t feel maternal towards him.’ She’s watching her hands. She begins to tug on them, knuckle by knuckle. ‘I did feel
protective
,’ she says. ‘I couldn’t bear the thought of anything bad happening to him. And I felt
sorry
for him. But I didn’t love him. Not like that. Not for a long time. And by then, by the time I’d come to love him as my own child, as a mother’s supposed to, well. It was too late.’

‘How old was he when the trouble started?’

‘Seven, I suppose. Jeremy and I went for an anniversary dinner. Just this little Bistro they used to have on the High Road. We left him with a babysitter for the first time. He set fire to his bed.’

Luther winces.

‘And it just got worse from there. We tried everything. Psychiatrists. Psychologists. Whatever we thought might possibly work, we tried it.’

She coughs into her fist and sits back. Drained, to be reliving it all.

Luther says, ‘Can I get you a glass of water?’

‘If you wouldn’t mind, thank you.’

Luther heads to the kitchen. On the way, he nods to Howie. Points to his phone.

Howie frowns:
What?

Luther steps into the kitchen, texting. He finds the glasses in a high cupboard and draws off a glass of water.

On the window behind the sink is a small jar of petroleum jelly. The lid is loose.

Luther looks at it as he finishes the text. He addresses it to Rose Teller, Ian Reed, Benny Deadhead and Isobel Howie.

Then he carries the glass of water through to Jan Madsen.

She takes it, gratefully. Takes a sip. Sits holding it in her lap.

‘Adopted kids,’ Luther says, sitting. ‘They sometimes get to wondering about their biological parents. Especially the birth mother.’

‘Don’t they just. God knows, Henry made an absolute Madonna of his. Concocted all these mad fantasies about her.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as, he came from bad blood.’

‘That’s how he put it? Bad blood?’

‘Bad blood. He was obsessed with the idea.’

‘Where did it come from?’

‘Jeremy’s a vet. Retired now, obviously. But the only thing Henry ever showed any positive interest in was the animals. So we tried to get him involved. We bought him a little mongrel pup. Digby. We thought that might help.’

‘Did it?’

She takes another sip of water. Her hand is shaking. She says, ‘God knows. He had it for a few weeks. Then it ran away and never came home.’

Luther thinks he knows what happened to the dog. He thinks Jan Madsen probably knows, too.

He sends the text, then pockets his phone and says, ‘What did you actually tell Henry about his birth mother?’

‘That she was too young. That she loved him, but wanted to give him a better life than she could provide. But he wouldn’t believe us. And he was right. The truth is, she was a prostitute. And mentally ill. She used to self-administer electric shocks to her own head. Using a car battery.’

‘So you lied to him.’

‘What choice did we have? Lie to him or tell the truth and break his heart? Which would you have chosen?’

Howie’s phone vibrates with an incoming text.

She reaches for it.

‘Apparently it’s not uncommon,’ Jan says. ‘Troubled adoptees try to provoke rejection. They’re trying to make their adoptive parents prove their love by behaving more and more unacceptably. And that was Henry to a T. We completely lost control of him. There was animal cruelty. Shoplifting. More burglary. Sexual misconduct.’

Luther reaches for his notebook, flips it open. He pats down his pockets, looking for a pen. ‘What kind of misconduct?’

‘He exposed himself,’ says Jan Madsen. ‘To some very young girls.’

Howie checks her phone.

She sees the incoming text is from Luther’s phone:

Howie stares at the phone for six or seven long seconds. She reads the message half a dozen times.

Her eyes flick from the message to Luther and back again. Luther gives no indication.

He just sits there, scribbling a note as Jan talks.

Scary Mary Lally leads Search Team Two to a vacant residential property on a quiet street in Muswell Hill.

The house is in the early stages of renovation. There is a skip outside. The house is full of the previous resident’s furniture. Gypsum board, plaster, paint cans and drop sheets.

In the garage in the rear of the property they find the deceased owner’s car and boxes of personal effects.

While searching the garden, the dogs become agitated.

Lally follows the dog handler into the house, where the dogs become progressively more excited.

DS Lally calls DCI Reed.

‘Mia’s definitely been here,’ she says. ‘Her smell’s all over the place. We found hair dye in the sink upstairs.’

‘So he’s dyed her hair? He’s disguising her?’

‘Looks like it, Guv.’

Reed thanks her. He says, ‘Post somebody to keep an eye on the place. Make sure he doesn’t come back.’

Reed is still on the phone to Lally when a text message arrives. It’s from Luther.

Reed skims it, then stands so abruptly he kicks his chair over. His neck spasms. He grabs it. He says, ‘Look, Mary. Something’s come up. Keep looking and let me know.’

He hangs up the desk phone and turns to face Benny.

Benny is slowly looking up from his own phone.

‘Holy shit,’ Reed says.

Clutching his neck, he runs out the door and sprints across the bullpen. He bursts into Teller’s office.

She’s already putting on her coat.

‘Right,’ she says. ‘Let’s have it.’ She strides away, on her radio.

Reed follows, thumbing out a hasty reply: sit tite! on our way.

Howie pockets her phone and waits for Luther’s next move.

He glances over his notebook and says, ‘So when was the last time you actually saw Henry?’

‘When he came out of prison.’

‘This is when he was, what? Twenty-one, twenty-two?’

‘Yes. He came to see us.’

‘And what did he say?’

‘That he hated us. That he never wanted to see us again. And,’ she looks Luther in the eye, ‘that he was going to start his own family. A big family. Five sons. Five daughters. They were going to live on a farm. Raise animals. Pedigree animals. Rare breeds. He was going to love them all. The animals and the children. He was going to give them all the love in the world. But as far as he was concerned, Jeremy and I were dead.’

‘And he hasn’t been in contact since?’

She shakes her head, frowning. ‘There are times the phone goes and nobody’s there. And I wonder. And sometimes when I’m locking up at night, you forget to close the curtains. You glance outside and you do think – there’s someone out there, in the darkness at the end of the garden. Do you think that may have been him?’

‘No,’ Luther lies. Then he rips the top sheet off his notebook and passes it to her.

She reads it. Her eyes well. She looks into Luther’s eyes and nods.

Luther is very calm. He mouths the words:
Keep talking
. He passes her another note.

Jan shakes her head vigorously, gestures for his notepad.

Luther mouths the word,
Buried?

‘He was a very troubled young man,’ Luther says, passing her the notepad. ‘None of this was your fault.’

Jan scribbles on the notepad.

She hands him the notepad.

Luther writes:

Passes her the notepad. She reads it. Nods. Yes, Mia.

Then she writes:

Her eyes go to the computer, and Luther understands. The Madsens were in the middle of transferring money to Henry’s bank account when Luther and Howie showed up.