"I do understand," he said suddenly. "I saw Alek Peach. In the park."
"Jesus." Benedicte rubbed her face and sat down on the sofa, blinking. "When?"
"When me and Josh walked Smurf this evening. I didn't tell you I didn't want to upset you."
"What does he look like?"
"Terrible. I've seen him up there before, when I was walking Smurf." As if she'd heard her name, Smurf, who had been asleep in the TV room, got up and came through, yawning, her claws clicking on the tiles, and Hal bent down to stroke her and rub her old, deaf ears. "Haven't we, Smurfy, we've seen him before, haven't we? I just didn't recognize him from the newspapers."
"What was he doing?"
"I don't know. Wandering around where He straightened and drank half of his beer, an odd look on his face. "He was wandering around where his little boy was."
"I've seen it," she murmured, slightly embarrassed that she'd actually gone up there to look. Walking through the forest, it had been a shock suddenly to come upon a carpet of dying flowers. Purple paper, ribbons, cellophane, cards, teddy bears saturated with dew. Rory had been nearly nine, she remembered thinking, he'd have been horrified by the teddies. "I don't know what they'll do with all those flowers."
"There are families out there, can you believe it? Making it into a day trip kids wearing Kill the Paedos T-shirts."
"I know. I know." She shook her head. "Did Alek Peach see them?"
"Yeah saw it all. He was just standing back, among the bushes, watching. You should have seen him staring at Josh as if he was seeing a ghost."
"Poor bastard." She got up, came into the kitchen and put the torch in a drawer. "I can't wait to go to Cornwall, Hal, I can't wait to get out of Brixton for a few days." She kissed the side of his face. "Don't stay up all night."
At 4.30 a.m. the sky over the houses in Brockley became baby-eye blue and only Venus was still shining. At the back window where Penderecki had stood so many times to watch Ewan and Jack playing in the tree-house across the railway track, Caffery sat on a chair half stiff with shock. Flies had come to sip his sweat and he hadn't stopped them.
For years he had wondered how he'd feel if Penderecki died and this was it, the end of the possibility that one day he'd discover what had happened to Ewan. Here he was, living out his fear, and it felt like having the life squeezed from him.
When the first morning goods train rattled through the cutting at 5 a.m. at last Caffery moved. He batted at the flies, and stood, letting the blood come slowly back into his legs, and went downstairs into the kitchen, his eyes smarting. He ran the tap, scooped some water on to his face, and set to work.
Somewhere in this house was the answer to his question. He went into the bathroom. The boom of noise and smell when he opened the door almost made him retch. Penderecki was rotted through. Underneath his feet a pool of matter had collected -crunchy with fly coating. He had to stand very still until the gag reflex worked itself out of his throat.
Penderecki had run the noose through a hole smashed in the plaster ceiling and over a joist the small garden mallet he'd used lay on the floor, and the plaster in the bath showed that he hadn't taken much time in doing this. He had come in here with the tools he needed, bashed a hole in the ceiling, slung the rope up there and done the deed. The small bathroom stool was not kicked over.
Dropped in the toilet was a copy of Derek Humphry's Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying. Sweatshirt over his mouth, Caffery leaned over and read. One paragraph had been scored through with a pencil angrily: "If you consider God the master of your fate, then read no further. Seek the best pain management and arrange for hospice care." But he was familiar with the book's instructions and recognized that Penderecki had, at the last moment, abandoned his quasi faith in God and turned instead to Humphry: "Ice will stop the air in the polythene bag becoming hot and stuffy…"
On the floor was an empty ice tray, over Penderecki's head a plastic bag. In death his face had swollen to fill the bag, pressing moist against the polythene. A bottle of vodka lay next to the door and a plate of something that looked like chocolate Angel Delight: "Powder your chosen drugs and put them in your favourite pudding…"
There were no flies on the pudding. They were enjoying dabbling and squelching in Penderecki too much. Caffery checked he had left no footprints then closed the door and went to search the rest of the house.
Penderecki had come to England in the forties "Probably something to do with the Yalta conference," Rebecca said sagely. She seemed to understand the demographic waves that had brought Penderecki to the plot of land on the other side of the railway tracks to the Cafferys. Penderecki had never married and seemed to have become fanatical about a religion to which he had been unable to cling at the end. His body had hung here for what? Three, maybe four days, without anyone noticing. Perhaps there was someone still in Poland framed paper cuttings hung on the wall, the sort of folk art distant relatives might send, but apart from this Ivan Penderecki had almost no personal possessions. Nearly seventy and the only children in his life had belonged to other people.
Caffery was prepared to pull the walls down if he thought that he'd find the smallest hint of Ewan, but the house gave up nothing. He got into the loft where the air was warm and circled with dust, but apart from an abandoned wasps' nest hanging from the rafters there was nothing. In one of the bedrooms there was a pile of Hennes children's clothing catalogues innocuous enough. Penderecki wasn't stupid he'd known that with his police record a search warrant would be granted on the slimmest grounds. But apart from that small haul, Caffery found nothing.
In the hallway he pressed redial on the phone. The answer phone at the Lewisham Hospital Oncology Unit picked up. He dialled the number on the last caller ID digital display. Also the Oncology Unit. Someone at the hospital had rung three days ago. Since then no one had tried to contact Ivan Penderecki. And that was all.
Wherever Penderecki had hidden the little scrap of flesh and bone that had been Ewan, it wasn't in this house. The catalogues were only the tip Caffery knew that. There was more. Somewhere. But then, of course, this was part of Penderecki's genius his ability to hide things. Hide magazines and videos and photos and the body of a small boy.
Thirteen.
(22 July)
At home he took off his clothes and put them straight in the washing-machine. He knew a lot about getting the smell of death out of clothes. Rebecca was still asleep. When she woke up she knew immediately that something was wrong. "Jack? What is it? Where've you been?"
He didn't answer. He sat on the bed in his boxer shorts and lit a roll-up. The sun was filtering through the curtains, making shapes on the ceiling.
"Oh, God." Rebecca rolled over on to her back and dropped her hands on her forehead. Overnight her eye makeup had smeared into panda rings. "It's about last night? Isn't it?"
He didn't answer. He didn't know what to say.
"Jack?" She sat up and put her hand on his arm. "I'm sorry I can explain, I just…"
He smiled at her and cupped her face in a way that he knew must seem ridiculous. He didn't care. He was tired. "He's dead."
"Who's dead?"
"Penderecki."
"Dead?"
"He killed himself. He had cancer, I think. Hanged himself in the bathroom."
"Is that where you were all night?"
"Yes."
"Shit!" She dropped back against the pillow, blinking. For a moment his spirits rose for a moment he thought she was as shocked as he was, he even wondered if she understood. But then she put her hand on her forehead, rolled her eyes down to meet his, and said: "So you've nothing to stay here for. You could just walk away from it all. Couldn't you?"
"No." He shook his head, understanding immediately that he was wrong, that he was still on his own. "I couldn't do that. I've got He looked out of the window. "I've got everything."