Logan stood, hands limp at his side, until Caffery had gone. Then he straightened his tie and looked over at Kryotos: "What the fuck's got into him?" he mouthed.
Kryotos shrugged and turned away.
"Here we go." It had taken almost five hours but at last Ben felt the wood crack between her hands. She scrabbled at it, her fingers bleeding now, and slowly enough of the board splintered for her to see into the space under the floor. She put her head down and peered in. The cavity was about ten inches deep, warm with incubated air. Pipes and wires zoomed in from the side of the house and snaked away from her into the darkness. It didn't smell musty or spidery, instead it smelt of new wood and mastic. She sat up and pulled away the remainder of the plank then pushed her face back into the hole.
Now what? Close to her eyes was a round electrical junction box screwed to a joist, tentacles of white cable exiting north, south, east, west, like a tiny octopus. One of the leads docked with the top of a black cylinder standing proud of the plasterboard. It took Ben a few moments to recognize that she was looking at the metal sheath of a light fitting the recessed lighting in the kitchen somewhat bigger than a beaker, inverted and pushed up through a circular hole.
My God this type of fitting, she was sure, was simply pushed up from below into the plasterboard, nothing holding it up, no screws or nails. She recalled Darren, Ayo's husband, pulling one out to work on it in their kitchen in Kennington she remembered seeing it dangling from its cord.
She lay on her belly and cupped her hand over the top of the lamp, pressing it down. It moved with a long, soft, sucking sound like jelly from a mould -and dropped out of sight, the wires catching the weight, daylight flooding into the space from below. Ben sucked in a breath. The light swung under the ceiling like a pendulum, the wires banging against the sides of the hole, and when nothing happened, when no one charged up the stairs and slammed into the door, she felt brave enough to get her face into the hole and see what was going on down there.
She lay down on her front, her arms out in front of her like an obedient schoolgirl in a diving lesson, fingers pressed together, children, and thought of Josh running out of the swimming-pool from his new lessons and jumping into the car: "Mum, what's a aqua dynamic?" The plasterboard ceiling cracked suddenly under her weight. She recoiled, horrified, pulling her head out, her hair catching on nails so that she came out backwards with a snarled crown. "Oh Jesus oh Jesus oh Jesus '
She crouched there for a moment, panting, expecting the ceiling to collapse. But when it didn't her heart slowed a little. She pushed her hair from her eyes and slowly, carefully, bent down again. This time she was more cautious. She spread her hands across the floor like a gecko, and slowly wormed her face into the airless space, stealthy as a hunting cat, until she could see into the circle vacated by the light fitting.
It was bright down there, bright and open. And ten feet below her, in the kitchen beneath, Hal lay on the floor. On his back, his face almost directly beneath the hole.
Oh my God
His feet were up, at an odd angle, both ankles individually cuffed to the big oven handle; his hands had been stretched above his head and fastened by electric flex to the squat feet of the washing-machine. His shorts had been removed and put back on with both legs forced into one leg opening, secured with the orange and blue bungee cords from the Daewoo roof-rack, and his mouth was covered with a piece of brown parcel tape. A large stain, a corona of his own filth, surrounded him. Now Ben realized she could hear him snoring, as if he had simply got bored with the whole thing. As if he'd eaten Christmas dinner and drifted off in front of The Wizard of Oz.
She manoeuvred her face so her mouth was at the opening and whispered softly: lHal?"
Parallel to Brixton Hill, along the route of the old river Effra, consigned to the underworld since the last century, ran Effra Road, a hill that linked the lower, fashionably self-conscious slopes of Brixton with the poor council estates at the Streatham end. On this, one of the hottest days of the year, DC Logan was climbing the hill with slow deliberation, cooking in his own sweat. The sun had heated up the earth until the paving stones lifted at odd angles. In front gardens cats slept under bushes, twitching their ears at the midday insects. Jesus, he thought, what I could do to a cold Red Stripe is criminal.
Up ahead on the left was the new housing development, Clock Tower Grove he could see the hoarding and the flags and beyond them a concrete joist swaying in the claws of a crane. There were some bigger houses at the back overlooking the park. He supposed he'd have to go and find out if any of the places were finished, if anyone had moved in yet. He wiped the sweat from his forehead. There were eighteen more addresses to make that day he wasn't going to hang around at any of them. If no one answered the door he was out of there.
Meanwhile, in number five, Clock Tower Walk, Hal opened his eyes and thought he was seeing an angel. A sweet geometry her face in a circular frame. At first the eyes, those eyes like mirrors, seemed to take up the whole of the room.
Benedicte?
"Hal," she whispered.
And then he thought, for the first time, that maybe they had a chance. He tried to jerk his head up in reply but he had been bound so he couldn't move. Tears slid from his eyes.
"Hal," she murmured, her voice faint and sick. "Josh? Is he…?"
He moved his eyes sideways, showing her the direction.
She pulled back from the hole and tried to reposition herself to get the angle right so she could see into the family room. She could feel the uneven temperature of the air, she could smell her own breath in the tiny space. As if all her tension and sickness had been converted to chemicals and breathed out through her lungs. She pushed her face into the hole until her flesh and eyeball bulged down into the room. Her eyes clicked open and closed. Rotated and froze.
Fastened to the radiator in the family room, curled up like a little fern, his knees pulled up under his chin, was Josh. Although he was grey and washed out his expression was calm, his eyes fixed, concentrating on trying to unpick the rope that bound him to the radiator. On the wrist he had already freed were deep furrows, shiny and red, and there was a rash on his mouth where a tape had been.
"Josh?" Softly at first, because she couldn't believe she wasn't seeing a mirage. Then: "JOSH!"
He didn't react immediately, just remained staring at the ropes. It took him a while to break his trance, then his eyes rolled towards her, blinking.
"Josh!"
"M-mummy?"
Her child had changed. His head was thin, his eyes huge. He looked like Hal like a tiny twenty-year-old Hal with veins standing up on his forehead and hands. Poor progeric child he reached a hand up to her, not saying anything, just reaching it out in the air, the palm towards her, as if he was trying to feel her face. Check it was real. Then he dropped his hand, turned away from her and started pulling on the rope.
"Josh!"
"Daddy's not well," he whispered, not looking up. "He can't talk."
"I know, darling. Have you had something to drink?"
He shook his head.
"No?"
"A little bit." He wouldn't look at her. He's already a little man, she thought, already being the big little man.
"Do you feel all right, baby? How's your tummy?"
"Feels funny. I'm thirsty, Mummy."
"That's OK, we'll get you something to drink."
"I never meant to, Mummy, I had to go wee-wee on myself, I'm sorry."
"Oh, sweetheart, that's OK. Don't worry." Upstairs, with her bleeding fingers and her exhausted mind, she wanted to cry. This little boy, whom she had thought would be the casualty, was sitting up and getting on with it. He had nearly undone the rope. Instead of sobbing and despairing, like she had, he had been determinedly and silently getting on with escaping. "The nasty man's gone now."