"That's OK, I've done it."
"Good, good."
"Well," Ndizeye leaned back slightly, clutching the X-rays to his round stomach, 'it's not going too well for you I suppose."
"You can say that again."
"Is there anyone else you're interested in? Anyone else you'd like me to have a look at."
"Maybe if something comes up on another case, then yes, but we've got the corroborative evidence with the DNA. I mean, I'm sure prosecution will be wanting to see you in court, of course, but that won't be for some time."
Ndizeye frowned and leaned up against the coffee machine. "Corroborative evidence?"
"DNA. We got DNA proving that Peach was the motherfucker who did his own son sorry if that's offensive."
"Mr. PeachV Ndizeye blinked behind his thick spectacles. "Then who on earth bit him?"
"I'm sorry?"
"I said who on earth bit Rory? It was the same person who bit that young lad in the park, but it wasn't Alek Peach."
"What?"
"I'm sorry, I thought that's what you meant. His cast. Doesn't match the bite."
"His cast? But I thought
"Oh it's not perfect, he moved too soon. But I got enough. Oh yes. Whoever it was bit Rory it certainly wasn't Alek Peach."
It was an odd sunset as if the earth was tilting sideways, or the solar wind had lost track and was mixing pink light from another galaxy. Caffery cruised slowly round Brixton, as conscientious as a kerb-crawler, looking at the lights in the houses, wondering, just wondering. He parked on Dulwich Road and walked across the park, listening to the wind howl and chase things through the trees.
Number thirty had been released as a crime scene and technically he should get Carmel Peach's permission to enter, but she was still at the Nersessians' and, anyway, he'd kept a copy of the padlock key. Donegal Crescent was quiet no cars passed. The only sounds were a TV in a lit-up living room next door and a dog barking in one of the back gardens. He carried the torch in his pocket. He liked its heaviness.
Inside, the hallway was dark, the air bitter and salty, sealed up, heated and reheated. He reached for the light and even as he did he remembered Shit. The electricity key: Souness had removed it when they left and placed it on top of the meter. He switched on the torch, followed the beam quickly to the kitchen, and pushed the key back in. The lights came on, the fridge started up noisily. He stood for a moment, blinking in the light, his senses quivering. The walk down the hallway the silent living room on his right, the door to the basement had set the hair on his neck straight up. Not like you not like you It took a moment for his heart to stop racing.
He flipped open the fridge it was covered in DS Quinn's fingerprint dust and a black and grey crust of microbes. The smell was of riverbeds and mushroom fields, but there was another smell in the house. The smell that Souness had been troubled by the last time they were here. This time it was stronger, still faint but distinctive. He switched off the fridge at the plug, anxious to preserve whatever electricity was left, and went back to the kitchen doorway, finding the light switch for the hallway. It was just as he'd remembered it the framed prints on the wall, the plastic runner to protect the carpet, Rory's turbo water-gun on the stairs. And the smell. Stronger now.
He sniffed, trying to imagine the receptor that very particular smell stroked. It was almost, almost but not quite, the sweetly familiar smell in Penderecki's house. Almost the smell of death. 7s it something the science unit missed? Something else in the house no one's seen?
Something else in the house. Yes. Someone else had been in the house with the Peaches. He was sure.
He put the torch in his trouser pocket and went to the bottom of the stairs. The last thing Peach said he remembered was standing here, looking up the staircase. Caffery hung his jacket on the newel post and went slowly up the stairs. The higher he got, the stronger the smell. He stood on the landing, resting his hands on the cupboard door. The message was still there, smudged and scraped where DS Fiona Quinn had cut samples from the paint. Female Hazard. This little cupboard had been Carmel Peach's home for more than three days. Here she had lain, crunched up and in pain, listening to her son crying below, her wrists bleeding.
If she was to be believed.
Come on, then.
He pushed open the door. There was a lagged tank at the back of the cupboard and slatted shelves above. On the top shelf, a stack of towels. Caffery sniffed. He crouched down, sniffing the carpet. Here, even outside the cupboard, it had been soaked in Carmel's urine and the sharp alleyway smell of it came up to him now, almost making him cover his nose. But that isn't the smell you're after it's something else… He straightened and turned, looking up and down the landing.
The master bedroom was at the front of the house, the bathroom facing it. The boards creaked as he walked to the end of the landing, flicking on the lights and looking in both rooms. Silence. The street-light shone orange on the bedroom curtains. A copy of Hello! magazine lay on the dressing-table, Carmel's cosmetics stood in a silent little line, a cardigan and a pair of socks were on the floor. In the bathroom Rory's bath toys were piled in a plastic laundry basket under the sink. Caffery turned off the lights and went back on to the landing. He watches them he watches them, in bed. Past the cupboard, Carmel's cupboard, down to the back of the house. This was Rory's room. He pushed open the door and stood for a moment.
It was a neat square stuck on the house over the kitchen, with a big casement window. DS Quinn had pulled the curtains to stop curious eyes, but there was enough of a gap to see the trees in the park moving in the wind. The smell was stronger in here.
Caffery had the sudden sensation that something was standing in the hallway behind him. He turned quickly. The corridor was silent, just the street-lights glowing from the bedroom. You're imagining things now. Making things up… He moved quietly into the room, bending to pick up toys, turn things over, trying to imagine someone in the park looking through the window and watching Rory play. Wolverine stared silently down at him from an X-men poster next to the bed, Gundam and WWF models lay scattered on the floor try to imagine Rory crouched here playing with his toys and being watched. He turned. In the little sliver of window-pane between the curtains the bare bulb glared back. He snapped the light off and opened the curtains. The trees on the other side of the broken fence were less than fifty yards away.
He said he liked watching me in bed…
It was one of those odd cloudless nights in which the wind keeps the stars clean and the sky never seems to get properly black. In the park the trees moved as one, shivering where the wind licked at them. Caffery stood quite still, letting his attention move around the room behind him, up the walls, around the doorway then up, across the ceiling, over his head and out through the window, touching the sides of the house, down the garden path, over the fence and out, out into the night into the woods. Could someone sitting in one of those trees see into this room? Someone who liked climbing?
He went to Rory's bed and lay down, taking the torch out of his pocket and resting it on his stomach, conscious of the cold, bare window on his right. He put his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling, wondering if he was expecting something to happen something to hurtle through the window and land on him on the bed. Secret places. There is always somewhere to hide things. Not the place you expect. His movement in the room had set up a small rotation of the lightbulb above the bed. He watched it dreamily, circling circling, thinking of Ewan does everything circle back? Rory's South Park duvet smelt of fabric softener and faintly of leaves, and Caffery half closed his eyes, enjoying that smell, remembering the tree-house. Tracey Lamb… was she really lying… did she know?
He sat up, the torch rolling off and banging loudly on the floor. A fly had crawled out of the plastic rose at the base of the light fitting.