On Tuesday morning they had a reply from the pathologist, stating that the swab record from Horackova was indeed a match for the mitochondrial DNA found in the kids in the cauldron. Quill called up the arresting officer of the time and filled him in, just in case Horackova had relatives who should be contacted and could be interviewed. But there were none. And, so far, there were no replies from any of the London nicks that had been forwarded his message about anomalous perp statements. ‘If we don’t get a lead by tomorrow night,’ he told his team, ‘I’ve put a plan in place for any footballer that scores a hat-trick.’ He handed a folder to Ross. ‘It’s not much, but it’s all we’ve got.’
‘I didn’t think you were going to call me,’ said Joe, eyeing Sefton over his pint. They’d been talking about pretty well nothing for an hour. And Sefton was getting more and more tired, and more and more certain of what he needed. And he was so aware of ‘We smell death near you soon,’ and he needed to find some way past all of this.
‘I’ve been busy.’
‘You look like. .’
‘Yeah.’
‘Do you want to tell me anything?’
‘Yeah.’ So he told Joe everything. Copper: he showed him his warrant card, because he wanted to establish a baseline for the shit to follow. UC. Losley. Everything. He was totally breaking the rules, thus leaving himself entirely vulnerable, but, what the fuck? Joe’s expression grew worried, then scared. ‘Walk away if you want to,’ Sefton said. ‘I need to tell somebody or I’ll go mental. I need someone to talk to about this, to bounce some ideas off, and. . just to talk to. I’m not being listened to, and we’re running out of time. It’s match day tomorrow and we might be going to hear about some kids being fucking boiled alive.’
‘So this is why a lot of the news about Losley makes no sense.’
‘You believe me?’
‘I think. . I’ll reserve judgement. Maybe this is. . a sort of a metaphor for something, but I saw you when you met “Jack” that time, and you weren’t faking that. The least I can do is listen.’
Sefton grabbed him by the back of his head and kissed him. ‘Okay,’ he said after, ‘maybe that’s not the least I can do.’
On match day, Ross woke to her alarm, aware that she’d had terrible dreams, but not remembering them. She went in to work with her iPod playing loudly in the car. Not using the radio, because then she’d hear about Losley. She didn’t want to hear about Losley until she walked into the Portakabin, and then it was all about Losley. Because at that point she could do something.
Do something about Losley? It seemed even more deferred now. That discontinuity was sinking deeper and deeper into her, so she felt that it would one day reach her heart and kill her. What did getting Losley matter, if her dad was in Hell? Continual torment. No passing of time. No ending. She had felt it distantly. She had heard Costain describe it. She could imagine it. And imagine it she did, till she stopped herself. She thought instead of the kids they were trying to save. Then she felt guilty. And so that cycle went round and round.
The newspapers were full of anticipation, a pile of them sitting on the table. That Losley face was everywhere, today looking like a badge in the top right-hand corner of the Star. The Sun had put a green filter over the photo.
‘It’s as if she’s become a cartoon character,’ said Quill. ‘Except people are also terrified of her. Families are taking their kids out of school and moving off to the country-’
‘The rich ones,’ said Costain.
‘-but the public deal with it by making her into. . I don’t know, Mr Magoo with murder too. She’s bloody everywhere.’ He must have seen the look on Ross’ face, because he led her over to where Sefton had placed his holdall on one of the tables.
‘If we find her today,’ said Sefton, stepping forward, ‘we’re as ready as we can be.’
‘If this was an episode of CSI, we could use that single photo of her to find her in databases, crowd scenes, bloody. .’ Quill waved a hand to finish his sentence. He looked as if he’d had a few last night.
‘I think that feeling,’ said Ross, ‘of not being able to control things is why people started doing stuff like Losley does, way back when. That’s why it’s town stuff. Everyone going back and forth in the city, doing deals, getting one up on each other, when maybe you were used to how it was in the country, just working your land and stuff, same thing happening every year. . The city makes you want it now, makes you want it easier. But the bureaucracy of the city also grinds against that, makes you look for a way to get round it.’
‘Dark satanic mills,’ said Sefton. ‘But the city changes all the time. And the users we’ve met dress old. It’s as if, long ago, a few people worked out some ways to use this stuff, which worked back in the day, and they’ve been passing those methods on. Maybe this lot are bottom of the food chain. They’re just. . living in the ruins, playing out the same old games.’
‘They’re like junkies,’ said Costain. ‘They’re not really using it. It’s using them.’
‘Maybe they’re still getting used to their new freedom, if someone was previously policing them. I wonder who that was? The bigger dogs? I think Losley’s the only one of those we’ve had a scent of.’
‘It’s a pity,’ said Ross, ‘that we can’t tell the public about the forgetting, however she manages that.’
‘Thankfully,’ said Quill, who had been reflexively checking his emails again, ‘coppers have less imagination than the general public. We’ve got something here.’
Late last night, Terry and Julie Franks, who lived in Brockley, had been arrested on suspicion of murder. Mr Franks’ brother, puzzled, amazed and then outraged when he’d continually asked about his nephew and niece, and been rebutted with increasing vehemence, had finally gone to his local nick. ‘’Cos the Franks,’ said Quill, ‘have insisted they don’t have any children!’
‘She wouldn’t want to keep them for long,’ said Costain, ‘so she’s taken them ready for tonight.’
‘I’d say she won’t kill them until she knows she needs to,’ said Ross. ‘She must know that taking them, even with this forgetting bit, is the most dangerous thing she does. Most of the long boiling process must therefore happen post-mortem. No hat-trick, she hangs on to the kids for next time.’
Quill got on the phone and started yelling. ‘No, tomorrow’s not good enough. I want them put in a fucking van and brought over here for interview right now. You read the papers, don’t you? Yeah, bit of a hurry on here!’
Sefton was pinning a map of London to the wall. He stuck a red pin in Willesden. Ross realized he was indicating where Losley’s houses were, and she looked up the other addresses to add further pins. Sefton finally added a speculative white pin at the Franks’ address in Brockley. ‘Look at how far away that is,’ he said.
‘Indicative of a new base,’ said Costain. ‘Fucking A.’
Ross brought up the council bill records for Brockley, and started spooling through them, though that was going to take her hours.
Quill suddenly shouted incoherently. ‘Patterns!’ he continued. ‘Patterns with the victims! This is what I’ve been missing! Frigging map!’
Ross swiftly brought up a list of where every victim with a pile of the soil in their garden had lived. They grabbed yellow-headed pins and, between them, covered the map.
Then they stepped back.
And inclined their heads and squinted, as if they were looking at a particularly difficult piece of modern art.
‘It’s sort of like a. . jumping horse,’ said Sefton. ‘Maybe?’
‘There’s a kind of concentration around. .’ began Quill.
‘Storks on the roof,’ said Ross.
‘Eh?’
‘Is there a genuine correlation between number of children born in Dutch houses and the number of storks that come to nest on the roof, supposedly bringing babies?’ said Ross. ‘The maths says, “God, yes”; it screams out at you. But that’s because bigger houses equals richer families, equals more incentive to breed. At least, that was the case back when rich people did breed more. Here all it means is that, yes, this pattern isn’t completely random, there is a concentration here, but that’s only because those are upmarket areas where footballers and gang bosses might live. Money is a hidden power too. And everything’s within reasonable reach of Losley’s known addresses. Correlation does not necessarily equal causation.’