‘Better wipe that up,’ Rebus said, turning away. ‘You wouldn’t want anything marking that stainless surface of yours, would you?’
38
There was still no sign of Billy Horman.
His mother Joanna had cried at the press conference, ensuring TV coverage. Ray Heggie, Joanna’s lover, had sat beside her, saying nothing. When the crying started, he’d tried to comfort her, but she’d pushed him away. Rebus knew he’d drift away eventually, as long as he was innocent.
GAP was as active as ever. They were holding a vigil outside the High Court while the jury retired to reach a verdict in the Shiellion case. They’d lit candles and tied placards to the railings. The placards detailed child-killers and paedophiles and their victims. The police were instructed not to move the protesters on. Meantime, there were fresh news reports of paedophiles being released from prison. GAP sent members to the relevant towns. It had become a movement now, Van Brady its unlikely figurehead. She hosted her own news conferences, blown-up photos of Billy Horman and Darren Rough on the wall behind her.
‘The world,’ she’d said at one meeting, ‘should be a green field without limits, where our children can play free from harm, and where parents can leave their children without fear. That is the purpose and intention of the Green Field Project.’
Rebus wondered who was writing her speeches for her. GFP was a departure for GAP, a funding application to set up patrolled play areas with security cameras and the like. To Rebus, it sounded less like the world as green field, more like the world as prison camp. They were applying to the Lottery and the EC for cash. Other housing schemes had made successful bids in the past, and were lending a hand to Greenfield. They wanted something like two million quid. Rebus shuddered to think of Van and Cal Brady in charge of such a fund.
But then it wasn’t his problem, was it?
His immediate problem, as he knew when he picked up the ringing phone, was Cary Oakes.
The voice on the line belonged to Alan Archibald. ‘He’s agreed.’
‘Agreed to what?’
‘To go out to Hillend with me. To walk across the hills.’
‘He’s admitted it?’
‘As good as.’ Archibald’s voice shook with excitement.
‘But has he said anything specific?’
‘Once we get out there, John, I know he’ll tell me, one way or the other.’
‘You’re going to torture him, are you?’
‘I don’t mean it like that. I mean once he’s there, the scene of the crime, I think he’ll crack.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure. What if it’s a trap?’
‘John, we’ve been through this.’
‘I know.’ Rebus paused. ‘And you’re still going.’
The voice quiet now, calm. ‘I’ve got to, whatever happens.’
‘Yes,’ Rebus said. Of course Archibald would go. It was his destiny. ‘Well, count me in.’
‘I’ll ask him—’
‘No, Alan, you’ll tell him. It’s both of us or no go.’
‘What if he—’
‘He won’t. Trust me on this. I think he’ll want me out there too.’
The tape was still running, but Cary Oakes hadn’t spoken for a couple of minutes. Jim Stevens was used to it, used to long pauses as Oakes gathered his thoughts. He let another sixty seconds spool on before asking: ‘Anything else, Cary?’
Oakes looked surprised. ‘Should there be?’
‘That’s it then?’ Still Stevens left the tape running. Oakes only nodded, and reached his hands behind his head, job done. Stevens checked his watch, spoke the time into the machine, then squeezed the Stop button. He slipped the recorder into the breast pocket of his pale mauve shirt. It was pale because it had been through about three hundred washes in the five years since Stevens had bought it. He knew the other reporters thought he’d filled out in the past half-decade. The shirt could have proved them wrong, but would also have proved how seldom he bought new clothes.
‘Satisfied?’ Oakes said, getting to his feet, stretching as if after a long day at the coal-face.
‘Not really. Journalists never are.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because no matter how much we’re told, we know we’re not getting everything.’
Oakes held his hands out. ‘I’ve given you blood, Jim. I feel like you’ve taken a transfusion from me.’ That unnerving grin again; so lacking in humour. Stevens wrote date and time on a sticker, peeled it off and placed it down one edge of the cassette case. He made this tape number eleven. Eleven hours of Cary Oakes. It wasn’t enough for a book, but it might get him the contract, and the rest of the book could be padded: trial reports, interviews, photographs.
Only thing was, he didn’t think he was going to find a publisher. He wasn’t even going to try.
‘What are you thinking, big man?’ Oakes asked. He’d taken to calling Stevens ‘big man’. Stevens wasn’t naive enough to take it as a compliment; at best it was weighted with irony.
‘I’m... not really thinking at all.’ Stevens shrugged. ‘Just that it’s over, that’s all.’
‘So now it’s pay-off time for old Cary.’
‘You’ll get your cheque.’
‘What good’s a cheque? I said cash.’
Stevens shook his head. ‘A cheque, has to be or our accounts department would have a breakdown. You can use it to open a bank account.’
‘And sit around how long waiting for it to clear?’ Oakes had been pacing the room. Now he came to Stevens’ chair and leaned down over him, staring him out. Stevens blinked first, which seemed victory enough for Oakes. He propelled himself back upright and angled his head to the ceiling, letting out a whoop of laughter. Then he leaned down again long enough to pat one of Stevens’ resilient cheeks.
‘It’s OK, Jim, really it is. I never really needed the money anyway. What I needed was for you to think you had me by the balls.’
‘I never ever thought that, Oakes.’
‘No more first names, huh? Did I upset you or something?’
Stevens shook the tape box. ‘How much of this is crap?’
Oakes grinned again. ‘How much do you think, partner?’
‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.’ He saw Oakes glance towards the clock by the bed. ‘Going somewhere?’
‘My work here’s finished. Nothing to keep me.’
‘Where are you going?’ Stevens didn’t know why, but while Oakes had been laughing, he’d switched the recorder back on. Situated as it was in his shirt pocket, he didn’t know how much it would pick up. He could hear its small motor working, feel it grinding against his chest.
‘Why should you care?’
‘I’m a reporter. You’re still a story.’
‘You haven’t seen the best of it, Jimmy baby.’
Stevens ran a dry tongue over his lips.
‘Do I scare you, Jim?’
‘Sometimes,’ Stevens admitted.
‘You’re bigger than me, heavier anyway. You could take me, couldn’t you?’
‘It’s not always down to size.’
‘True, true. Sometimes it’s down to just how rip-roaring crazy and ferocious your opponent is. Is there a touch of madness in me, Jimbo?’
Stevens nodded slowly. ‘And ferocity too,’ he added.
‘You better believe it.’ Oakes was examining himself in the wall-mirror, running a hand over his cropped head. ‘And it’s a hungry madness, Jim. It wants me to eat people up.’ A sly sideways look. ‘Not you, though, don’t worry on that score.’
‘What score should I worry on?’