"Come here." Caffery went into the hallway and stood at the bottom of the stairs. Rory Peach's water-gun, covered in fingerprint dust, lay on the first step. "Right. This is where Alek Peach says he was attacked so what do we think?" They both looked back down the hallway at the kitchen, then Souness turned to the living room.
"Here. Probably came from in here." '
"I think so too so let's say he's come from in there, from the living room, and attacked Peach from behind. No blood, but that might not be important -he might not have started bleeding straight off."
"What're ye getting at?"
"I don't know just bear with me." He stood with his arms out at ninety degrees, one hand pointing down the hall to the kitchen, one pointing into the living room. "Now, before he attacked Alek, he had broken in through the back door and then he must have overpowered Carmel must have done that first, and taken her all the way up here." He took the stairs two at a time, coins jangling in his pocket. Outside the airing cupboard he stopped. "Hospital says she was dragged up the stairs so he did that and somehow or other got her tied up in here '
"Christ smells even worse up here."
" and then he went back downstairs like this." They both went back down, Souness with her fingers under her nose. "And waited we're guessing here." He stood in the doorway of the living room and raised his eyebrows at Souness. "Right?"
"Aye, I'll go along with that."
Caffery raised his eyebrows. "Well?"
"Well what?"
"He did all of this in total silence?"
"Uh." Souness shook her head. "I'm not with you."
"OK, listen. Carmel 's no help, right? She has no idea where she was attacked; the last thing she remembers is making supper. But as for Alek…" He went to the closed door next to the kitchen and rested his hand on it. The basement. "Now Alek remembers." He opened the door and went down two or three steps. "Alek was here with Rory. They were playing on the Play Station that's when he wondered where Carmel was." Souness followed him down the stairs, peering at the room. The walls were decorated with Deep South memorabilia, crossed pistols, longhorn belt buckles, a framed picture of Elvis. The carpet was deep pile, white, and in one corner was a mirrored bar, a photograph of a young Alek Peach next to a Las Vegas-style fruit machine, wearing a cowboy hat, smiling at the camera. Caffery went down the last few stairs and beckoned to Souness. "Come down I want to try something. Here." He switched on the TV and the Play Station and handed Souness the controls. "Quake any good to you?"
"You'd be surprised. I'm an expert."
"I'm not surprised. Put it on loud as you want turn up the volume."
She sat down with the controller, shuffling to get comfortable in the velour chair. "And where are you away to, then?"
"Just keep at it."
He went upstairs, into the kitchen, the rumbling sound of the Play Station with him all the way. He stood outside on the doorstep and did what he'd been planning to do all afternoon. Within seconds Souness appeared at the top of the stairs. "Ye all right?"
"Yeah."
"What happened?"
"Broke a bottle. Out here on the patio. The door was closed."
"I heard it."
"Exactly." He could feel a little pulse of excitement flicking at the side of his mouth. "So why didn't Peach hear this back door being broken into?"
"You're saying he's lying}'
"No I believe him. I believe him one hundred per cent when he says he didn't hear that glass breaking on Friday night. Because…" He laid the crime-scene photos out on the work top '… because I think the glass broke on Monday."
"Duh sorry, Jack, I'm not with ye."
"OK, OK." He handed her the photos and went to the back door. "Now the glass fell inwards onto the floor when the door was closed see on the photos?"
"Aye."
"Which is why we all even Quinny assumed the offender did it breaking in. He smashed the glass, put his hand through and unlocked it. The door opens…" He pushed it open to demonstrate. "It opens outwards '
"So the glass on the ground wouldn't have been disturbed."
"Exactly."
"But?"
He nodded. "But if that's what happened then Alek would have heard it even from downstairs."
"So you think '
"So I think it happened on Monday when the offender was leaving. Maybe it fell out when he slammed the door, or maybe Rory kicked it out in the struggle. It's the sound the shopkeeper's dog heard. Look," he tapped the first photo, 'this is how the kitchen looked when we got here. Glass on the floor."
"Aye."
"There was a rainstorm on Monday morning a cloudburst. If the window had already been smashed those curtains should've been damp, but they weren't. And that glass on the floor from the break-in it hasn't been moved around, right?"
"Uh…" She squinted at it. "No that's just fallen straight out. Just sat there, hasn't it?"
"So all the time he was moving around in here it didn't get moved? Not once?"
"Could he not have just avoided it? Walked round it?"
"Then how did he get his prints under the glass?"
Souness was silent. She rubbed her head until the skin under the colourless hair became pink. "Uh…"
"Look at this photo." He handed her the photo taken after the glass had been removed and the ninhydrin developed. He carefully counted the cross-hatched trellises on the lino. "There." He stood with his feet on either side of two faint brown stains just next to the door the ninhydrin glove prints. This part of the floor had been under glass when the police arrived. "His prints were there before that window smashed." He leaned forward, tapping the photo to make the point. "He didn't come in through that back door."
"Then how? Everything else was battened down, Peach says all the doors were locked the TSG had to use the sodding Enforcer to get in."
"Exactly." He took the photos from her and dropped them into his briefcase. "You know what I think?"
"What?"
"I think Peach let him in." He took his glasses off and looked at her. "I think Alek Peach knows exactly who did this to them."
The snuffling stopped as abruptly as it had started. Benedicte held her breath Think, Ben, think What the? Out of the hissing silence came the sound of water being poured on to the door. She rocketed back against the radiator.
Petrol it's petrol
The noise stopped and then she heard the long release of gas, or air. He was spraying something. Hairspray? Something to start the fire? Smurf growled softly, her fur pumped straight up along her spine and around her neck like a lizard ruff. Then in the hallway the thing, the troll, huge oh, Jesus, he sounds too heavy to be human turned and lumbered away, banging against the walls like a cornered sow, slithering and bumping down the stairs.
Then, quite suddenly, silence.
"Hal? JOSH!" That breathing sounded like an animal. Not a human being… "Josh!" She bawled so loudly that Smurf lifted her old, deaf head and howled along with her. "JOSH!!!"
When she couldn't scream any longer, and when there was no noise from downstairs, no exploding whump of fire, she dropped exhausted on to the floor, shaking uncontrollably. She rolled on to her side and pulled her fingernails along the marbled, transparent flesh on her inner arm, scratching and gouging, and trying not to think about what might happen to Josh.
Caffery stopped outside the Blacka Dread music shop on Coldharbour Lane to let Souness trot back down the road and pick them up some food from a take away He smoked a cigarette while he waited, and watched the local pond-life a white guy in a leather deerstalker hat was dealing on the corner next to the Joy clothes shop, and from the Ritzy came a trio of trendy young black guys in sharp fawn leather jackets, with bleached blond hair and goatees. They saw the dealer and subtly crossed away from him to the other side of the street. A girl on a cranky bike, her mirrored Indian skirt caught in the mudguard, shouted something to the dealer as she cycled by.