I remained frozen on the bed, listening as hard as I'd ever listened in my life before. Nothing. There was a phone on my bedside cabinet and I was pretty certain the police, Dana at least, would come straight over. But what, exactly, was I going to report? A smell? A door not properly closed?
I made myself climb out of bed as I tried to remember what we are supposed to do in these situations. Make a noise or be silent? Pick up the phone and loudly pretend to be calling the police? I walked to the door and eased it open. The corridor was empty. Four more doors led off it, three to spare bedrooms, one to the main bathroom. Downstairs something scraped along a wooden floorboard.
I ran back into the bedroom, pulled open the wardrobe door and reached up to the top shelf. My fingers touched what I was searching for and I pulled it down. I checked the bolt was set and held it out in front of me, the way I'd seen people do on television. Then I crossed the room, stepped out along the corridor and paused at the top of the stairs. I was carrying a humane horse-killer, fifty years old if it was a day, a crude, inefficient weapon of iron and copper. It had belonged to my grandfather and had been designed to put down injured or very old horses by firing a four-inch iron bolt directly into their brains. Duncan had begged me many times to get rid of it. I'd always resisted and now I was glad I had. It was completely ineffective unless the target was close enough to touch, but most people probably wouldn't know that. Having a weapon, even this one, gave me the courage to walk down the stairs.
Our front door was at the bottom. I checked quickly: still closed and locked. I pushed open the door to the dining room and looked round. Nothing that I could see. Our sitting room, on the other side of the hall, was a much bigger room; three large sofas for people to hide behind. I took a step inside. And another.
Down the hall came the sound of something breaking, footsteps running, a door being pulled open. I ran from the room and into the kitchen, fumbling for the light-switch as I went. A large glass vase, which I'd left too close to the edge of the worktop, had smashed into a thousand pieces on the slate floor. The back door was open and the cold night air was pushing its way into the room. I ran across, slammed it shut, turned the key and pulled both bolts into place.
As I turned to the phone I noticed the door to the cellar was open and the light on. Three paces took me to the top of the steps.
I had no intention whatsoever of going into the cellar. The area beneath our house is spooky enough at the best of times. But something lay at the bottom of the steps; something that most definitely should not be there.
It was a piece of fabric wrapped around an object the size of a grapefruit. I was still some distance away and the light in the cellar wasn't good. I was pretty certain, though, that the fabric was linen, ivory in colour – except where its contents were staining it a bright scarlet.
My brain was telling me to call the police; they'd deal with it, whatever it was. But first one foot and then the other took me down. There were only eight steps and I was soon at the bottom, close enough to touch. I crouched down beside it.
The stain was still wet. Red liquid was oozing out, seeping on to the stone floor of the cellar. I reached out, expecting to feel warmth beneath my hand. The package was cold and smelled of something that was… a total surprise. I picked it up. Pulled the linen apart. Some of the contents spilled over on to the floor. The rest lay in my hands.
I was looking at strawberries.
Not wild – it wasn't the season for them – just common or garden strawberries, found in supermarkets and greengrocers the length and breadth of the land. Most of them had been crushed, hence the red liquid seeping through the linen and the sweet summery smell. As I knelt in the poor light of the cellar, I found that I was mad as holy hell that I'd been scared so much for this. Not remotely frightened any more, but seething with rage, I scooped up the berries that had fallen and climbed the steps to the kitchen, the horse gun tucked under one arm. I reached the top, shut the door behind me and was about to head for the phone.
I stopped moving, even stopped breathing. The kitchen started to go dark around me but I absolutely could not take my eyes off what lay in front of me. For a second or two I even thought I'd lost my mind. What I was looking at was impossible. I'd been in this room not two minutes earlier and there was no way I could have missed seeing… that… on the kitchen table.
The strawberries fell to the floor and the gun nearly did likewise but I managed to catch it. I turned, almost fell over and grabbed the phone. Then I ran, out of the kitchen, across the hall and into the downstairs lavatory. I slammed the door behind me, pulled the ridiculously inadequate bolt and sank to the floor. I pushed my back up against the door and wedged my feet against the opposite wall. Fighting back nausea, I phoned the police.
12
FOR THE TWENTY MINUTES IT TOOK THEM TO ARRIVE, I barely moved. I grew cold, but didn't think that was the only reason I couldn't stop shaking. Every few minutes nausea reared up but thankfully always stopped short of making me chuck. I phoned Duncan's mobile but he'd switched it off. I didn't leave a message. What the hell would I say?
I wanted, more than anything, to call my dad. To tell him what had happened, to hear him tell me it was going to be OK. Four times, I think, I dialled my parents' number but couldn't bring myself to press the last digit. What on earth could he do, my poor dad? He was hundreds of miles away.
Eventually I heard the cars pulling into the yard and made myself get up to answer the door. Andy Dunn took one look at me and ordered me into the sitting room with a WPC. A blanket materialized and I sat, shivering, trying to answer the questions that she and a detective constable put to me. From the kitchen I heard Dunn's sharp intake of breath, the blasphemous exclamation of the sergeant accompanying him. There was no sign of Dana. Then I heard Dunn on the radio:
'Yeah, we've got a break-in. Some sort of organ left on the kitchen table. Looks like a heart… yeah, looks human…'
I pushed myself up, ignored the protests of the two officers and walked into the kitchen. The heart hadn't been touched. It lay, glistening, in a pool of blood. The smell, strong, metallic, sickening, was flooding the kitchen now. I tried not to breathe too deeply.
'I don't think it's human,' I said.
Dunn stopped talking into the radio, muttered something about getting back and switched it off.
'You don't?' he said. I thought he looked paler than normal, but it could just have been the result of being dragged out of bed in the small hours.
I shook my head. 'I thought it was, at first. But I've had time to think about it…' The truth was, I still wasn't sure. Looking at it again, I couldn't have placed a bet either way.
Another officer entered the room. 'There's no sign of a break-in, Andy. Nothing forced or broken.'
Dunn looked at him and nodded. Then turned back to me. 'So what is it?' he said. 'What is it from? Some sort of animal?'
I swallowed hard. 'Can I weigh it?' I asked.
Dunn shot a glance at his sergeant. 'I'm not sure…' he began.
'You'll need a doctor to confirm it one way or another. Might as well be me.'
Dunn said nothing. I crossed the room to where I'd left my work bag and fumbled inside until I found a packet of surgical gloves. Then I carried my kitchen scales over to the table.
'Mammalian hearts are all very similar in structure,' I said, trying to sound professional, knowing I was failing miserably. 'They have five major pipes, called the great vessels, coming out of them: the superior and the inferior vena cava, two pulmonary trunks and the aorta.' I touched the heart, turned it round. Blood, already starting to clot, poured from it and splattered the table. The WPC gave a faint gasp. I clenched my teeth together and took a deep breath. 'They also have two chambers, the left and right ventricle, both with thick, muscular walls, the left substantially bigger than the right. Also a right and left atrium. They're all here.'