"No, no, no. Hang on." Caffery pushed his chair back. They had asked Bela Nersessian to leave for a moment and she was in the incident room with Kryotos; he could see her red hair bobbing up and down, as if she'd like to get a look through the window. He leaned closer to Souness and lowered his voice. "No, look. What are we saying? That he ran out the back when the shopkeeper knocked on the door? Climbed up that tree, dumped Rory, got back to the house and tied himself up all before the police could
His voice trailed away Souness was nodding. The shopkeeper had gone all the way back to his shop to raise the alarm and in that period Peach had had more than enough time. Quite enough to make it look as if he'd been attacked. Caffery and Souness had both heard of this sort of scene staging the manic writing on the wall, that was a popular one. And they had both seen enough to know that people can, if they put their minds to it, push themselves into unimaginable positions, inflict unimaginable injury on themselves. Caffery was thinking not only of auto erotic deaths -sad souls wrapped in tent bags, in rubber masks, faces obscured by used underwear, manacled on pulleys to the ceiling but of others which could have so easily been mistaken for murder: he had once seen a suicide who had pulled out his own intestines and snipped them into pieces with sewing scissors, another who had set fire to herself in the locked boot of a car. He knew too well how murder can masquerade as suicide and how suicide can masquerade as murder.
' "Do you like your daddy…?" he said quietly.
"Eh?"
"Champaluang Keoduangdy. That's what his attacker said. "Do you like your daddy?" '
"What?"
"That's right." He sat up, his blood stirring. Suddenly his day trip to Norfolk, the tangle he and Rebecca were in, it all began to sting a little less.
"Hang on." Souness pulled over the photos and peered at them, her mouth pressed in a little doubting bud. "He was half dead when they found him."
"But he snapped back, didn't he? Snapped right back." Caffery pushed his chair back. "Proper little Lazarus -the consultant was popping veins he was so surprised."
"He'd pissed and shat all over himself that's some good play-acting."
"Probably thinking of Gordon Wardell."
"What?"
"Don't you remember?" Caffery took his glasses off. "One of the things that tipped them off was that Wardell never pissed himself in all the time he was tied up. That's how they guessed he'd done his wife. If that wasn't all over the papers, Danni, from Brixton to Birmingham, I'll buy you dinner."
She sighed. Shook her head. "It's not in my nature to say this, Jack, but I think you're right." She stood and hitched up her jeans. "So what do we do?"
"I'd like some DNA. Wouldn't you?"
"How long is that going to take?"
"Fuck knows." Caffery got to his feet. "Anyway. We've got another way."
Souness stayed in the incident room to arrange an emergency briefing for the team and Caffery accompanied Bela back to Guernsey Grove. He was so wired and ready to see Alek Peach again, to reassess him in this new light, that when Souness stopped him on his way to the lift, dropping her head and turning slightly so that Bela couldn't hear, and murmured, "Ye were going to tell me something, Jack? Ye had something to say?" he shook his head. "No, that was that was nothing. Really. Nothing."
He was back in the saddle. He wanted to know if, after everything, Peach had been squatting complacent like a toad right under their noses. It took him out of himself, made him forget everything. He wasn't tired any more.
Explaining to Bela without giving the game away wasn't easy: "Our forensic team have discovered some toothmarks on some food in the Peaches' kitchen it's normal to get the victims to give us a cast of their own teeth, just in case they left the imprint."
"Well, I don't suppose he's here." She let him into her antiseptic house, her bracelets jangling, her face set. "He was off again this morning, crack of dawn."
"That's OK." He put his head around the living-room door. It was quiet, just the gold-plated carriage clock in the display cabinet starting up its chime. "If he's not here I'll wait."
"See if he's in the garden, darling." She hung her handbag behind the door. "And I'm going to bring you a little soorj – a little demitasse keep your spirits up."
"That's OK, Bela thanks, but I'll pass." He went into the kitchen. Strings of walnuts, steeped in sugar, hung like wood-carved mobiles above the sink. He unlocked the back door and stood on the little concrete patio, blinking in the sunlight. The garden was neat, the sunken fitting for the carousel clothes-dryer dead centre in the little square of grass. Annahid's pink Barbie bike was in position up against a newly creosoted tool shed, but otherwise the garden was empty. He closed the door, locked it again and went into the kitchen where Bela was boiling the kettle. "Thanks anyway."
"Are you sure?"
"Sure I'm sure. We're trying to beat the clock on this."
"You need fattening up. I know they'll all say you look fashionable, but fashionable doesn't mean healthy." Bela followed him up the stairs, breathing heavily behind him. When she realized he was going to the top floor she plucked at his sleeve. "You're not going to disturb Carmel, darling? I don't think you should, she doesn't need to be reminded. It's not my business, but really you should have more tact…"
But Caffery went ahead and opened the door. The room was filled with smoke and sunshine. Carmel lay on the bed, cigarettes and ashtray next to her, body facing the window, head rolled backwards over her shoulder to see who was at the door. Beyond her, staring out at the garden, a cigarette between the fingers that hung out of the opened window, was Alek Peach, dressed in a nylon Arsenal shirt and stone wash jeans.
Caffery hadn't known what to expect. Alek Peach must have anticipated what was coming, he must have heard him downstairs, but he appeared calm and took his time turning round. He took one last drag on the cigarette, crushed it in a pile of dog ends on the window-sill, and stood slowly. His big face was redder, more blood-infused than Caffery remembered, but his eyes hadn't lost that hollow, guarded look. If he was surprised to see Detective Inspector Caffery, standing in the door, slightly breathless as if excited, he didn't show it.
Smurf was limping in a confused circle, panting and whimpering, trying to get comfortable, the old claws making little fricative picks at the carpet. Her leg was oozing a clear sticky fluid and she had relieved herself twice in the corner of the room. Benedicte guessed now that she was searching for water. Me too, Smurf, me too. She lay on her back, letting the trains mark off the hours, running her sore swollen tongue along the inside of her mouth. She had licked her lips so often that now she could feel the tender raised outline of them. For a moment yesterday she'd believed they were safe some time in the morning the doorbell had rung.
YES! Her heart had leaped into her mouth. "I'm here, HERE!"
Keys in the lock.
Keys?
The front door opened and, with a horrible lurch of despair and panic, she understood her mistake. She heard his feet on the stairs, racing up then the furious pounding on the door. She curled back against the radiator, hands wrapped around her head. Surrendering.
And he'd done the same thing several times that day, coming and going, using the front door. Slamming it as he left and ringing the doorbell on his return to reassure himself the coast was clear, that no one had arrived to spoil the party. Benedicte knew he was using her keys she could hear him in the hallway fiddling with the key-ring: those irritating Space Invaders sound effects that Josh loved, starship bleeps, rapid fire echoing in the quiet. Every time the troll came back Benedicte curled into a silent, shivering ball. She wasn't going to let him know a thing -wasn't going to let him know if she was dead or alive. And every time he was out she rolled on to her stomach and yelled encouragement through the floor, praying they could hear.