Gideon cuts him off. ‘Listen, I know what you are part of. What you believe in. You think I want to expose you or stop you?’ He shakes his head. ‘The Craft is thousands of years old. I understand how important it is.’ He leans forward across the builder’s desk. ‘I want to be part of it. Talk to the Henge Master. Talk to those in the Inner Circle who have to be spoken to.’ He pushes the chair back and stands. ‘Then come back to me, Mr Smithsen. You have my numbers.’ He is halfway out the door when he stops and leans back inside. ‘By the way, the books have been moved. And I’ve arranged for couriers to deliver very detailed extracts and a personal letter to the police in twenty-four hours, unless they hear directly from me.’ He gives him a parting smile. ‘The clock is ticking. Be sure to contact me very soon.’
91
At six o’clock, Megan shuts down her computer and leaves to pick up Sammy. Adam is looking after their daughter and wants to buy them all dinner. Play happy families again. Despite instincts to the contrary, she finds herself giving in.
The Harvest Inn is not far from his house, so they walk over and sit outside. Adam brings a pint of lager, a large glass of white and an apple juice to the weathered wooden table and benches. He takes Sammy to the small swings while Megan orders their food. She sits looking at the evening sun dip behind the play area and for a moment things seem like they used to be.
Sammy runs from the swings to a sandpit. Adam makes sure she’s safe, then leaves her there to scrape up a mess and wanders back to the table. ‘She’s growing so quickly.’ He sits down and raises his drink. ‘Here’s to the great job you’re doing with her.’
‘And to you.’ She tilts her glass his way. ‘You’re a lousy husband but a good dad.’
‘I know. I realise that now.’ He looks towards Sammy, bent like a puppy scrabbling sand between her legs. ‘She is part of you and part of me. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her and …’ He seems to run out of courage, then adds, ‘… and nothing I wouldn’t do to have you back.’
‘Adam—’
‘No, please. Let me finish. I messed up. I’m sorry. Really sorry. Can’t we wipe the slate clean?’
Megan looks down at the table. ‘Things like adultery can’t just be wiped clean, Adam. It’s not spilt milk.’
The food comes and saves further embarrassment. By the time they’ve finished, Sammy is asleep on her father’s lap. They walk back to his house and Megan puts her to sleep in the spare room. Adam opens a bottle of brandy. The one they bought in France on their last holiday before Sammy was born. They end up talking. About work. About Sammy. About the reasons behind his affair. They talk until all the poison has seeped out and there’s no more cleansing and talking to be done.
Megan feels wrung dry. She kisses Sammy’s beautiful sleeping face and does what she knows she shouldn’t do. She goes to bed with her cheating ex. There’s no wild sex. No passionate bridge building. Just a truce, sealed by lying close together. Taking comfort in what they had. What they might be able to have again.
92
The morning sun spills through a split in Adam Stone’s cheap bedroom curtains and glints off an old mirror on the dresser opposite. Megan has been awake for hours, lying next to the father of her child, watching the warm daylight slip into the room and slowly climb the walls.
She’s about as confused as she can be. Her head full of regrets, hopes and warnings. Sammy comes running into the room and chases all her thoughts away. Her cheeks are red from sleep and her eyes are lit up like Christmas. She jumps on to the bed with a squeal and tries to scramble in with them.
Megan slows her down. ‘Shush, baby, don’t wake Daddy.’
Too late. Adam has been kneed into consciousness. He raises himself, bleary-eyed, into a sitting position, back against the padded headboard. ‘Come here, baby girl, give me a big love.’ She’s in his arms in a second and Megan is left even more churned up than she was ten minutes ago.
The three breakfast together in Adam’s small kitchen and he chats easily. Caringly. Just like he used to. ‘You got a busy day ahead?’
She pours coffee for them both. ‘Do they come any other way? Even off the Timberland murder I’m as busy as hell, and no doubt there’s going to be some cleaning up to be done after the solstice.’
He chews on buttered toast as he talks. ‘I checked last night with control. By that point, there’d been about ten public order arrests, half a dozen for possession and a couple for dealing drugs.’
Megan is relieved. ‘Thank you God for small acts of mercy. Did they say if there was anything new on the Lock case?’
‘The press are still feeding on the mother’s press conference.’ He licks butter from his fingers, hands her the TV remote and gestures to the small set tucked away across the room. ‘Try Sky, they usually know what’s happening before we do.’
She finds a news report on the film star’s presser. It’s made up of a soundbite from Josh Goran, a dull interview with a pale-looking Alan Hunt, several shots of men who could be FBI agents, a meaningless comment from someone at the Home Office, random shots of Paris and finally, footage of John Rowlands and Barney Gibson looking wiped out and pissed off as they leave police HQ in separate cars.
‘So,’ says Adam, finishing the coffee and looking for his jacket. ‘What are you doing tonight?’
‘Meaning?’
He smiles warmly. ‘Meaning, are you coming back here?’
She’s not sure. It seems too hard to simply forgive and forget. ‘Let me think about it. Right now, I have to go home and change. There’s something important that I have to do this morning. Can you drop Sammy at nursery for me?’
‘Sure.’ He tries his luck again. ‘And tonight?’
‘May-be.’ Her face softens. ‘Let’s just see how the day plays out.’
93
Jimmy Dockery steps into the road and flags down the camouflaged Range Rover. The driver, a sixty-year-old man dressed like a farmer, pulls to a stop in the deserted lay-by, gets out and briskly walks around the back. Jimmy follows him to the rear of the 4×4 with more than a little trepidation.
‘Morning, Detective,’ says the driver in an upper-class English accent. ‘Looks a nice day for it.’
Jimmy isn’t so sure. ‘Morning. Let’s hope so. How are the crazy monsters today?’ He peers through the glass of the tailgate at Tarquin de Wale’s two Turkey vultures caged in the back.
‘They’re fine,’ says de Wale. ‘Did I tell you last night when you came round that I raised them from chicks?’
‘You did.’
‘They’re of Canadian parentage, you know. Best you can get.’ He starts to slide the giant cage out of the vehicle. ‘Give me a hand.’
Jimmy has a moment of self-doubt. Maybe this is a crazy idea. The extra assistance that Megan told him to enlist from operational support hadn’t been forthcoming. Not a sniffer dog for miles around. And the ground radar team is booked up until Christmas. Tarquin’s vultures seemed an inspired way to search for dead flesh. Tommy Naylor’s dead flesh to be precise.
‘Can’t wait to see if the chaps can pull this off,’ says de Wale. Jimmy had read in the Police magazine about German detectives using buzzards to detect buried corpses and exotic animal breeder Tarquin de Wale had been quoted as saying he’d be willing to cooperate freely with any police force in England wanting to give it a try. Well, this is his chance.
According to reports, on every occasion the German birds had been tested they’d found the flesh. Buzzards are said to have an incredible sense of smell. From three hundred feet up, they can detect a tiny morsel of rotting meat. And unlike bloodhounds they don’t tire quickly.