"It doesn't matter." He turned away, starting towards the kitchen. He knew that if he told her it would start an argument what Rebecca wanted to hear was that he was doing something in return for her gesture, that he was giving up Ewan. She certainly didn't want to know the sort of bait he was still taking. "She's no one."
"Jack, tell me." She came down two more steps. "Jack-'
"No you don't want to hear."
"Please."
"What?" He turned back to face her. "I've just said you don't want to know, so leave it at that."
She didn't flinch. "Just tell me who she is."
"Someone who's got me here." He grabbed his balls. "If you really want to know she's someone who's got me here and's enjoying jerking me around."
"Why?"
He took a breath to reply, but changed his mind. "No, leave it it's all about Ewan."
"Oh." She was silent. She tucked her bottom lip under her teeth and dug a little hole in the wooden banister with her thumbnail. He turned to go but she stopped him. "Jack."
"What?"
"It's OK, you know."
"What?"
"About Ewan it's OK. You can't change your life just because your dumb, neurotic girlfriend wants you to."
He was humbled. They sat at the kitchen table and talked and he was honest with her: he told her about finding the videos "They've been in the hall cupboard all along' about going to see Tracey, about the arrest, about the way he'd gone to the Soho bank with the cash, paid it in and promised himself to forget it all. She sat opposite him, smoking thoughtfully, occasionally stopping him to ask a question. From time to time he had to remind himself that this was really happening, that they were sitting talking about it, and Rebecca wasn't just dismissing it, or sliding in cutting comments here and there.
"Jack," she said, looking at the tip of her cigarillo, 'you know, it's true, it all really winds me up." She wiped her face and pressed the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger. "But," she dropped her hand and looked up, 'it's only because I get scared. Only because I get scared of how tense you get. I get scared you'll hurt someone or yourself."
"Me too." He sighed, shaking his head. "I get scared too." He covered her hand with his. "Rebecca…"
"What?"
"We'll have to talk about it later."
She held up her hands. "That's OK that's fine, really."
"I've got to get on I'm in the middle of something."
"Yes." She put out the cigarillo and started to get up. "Don't let me stop you."
"I think you should go out."
"Why?"
"Trust me I think you should go out."
Roland Klare took the camera from the tin, bundled everything into a bag and left the flat, fumbling with his keys and nearly dropping them. He was anxious, he was sweating, but he had made up his mind. It was time.
The lift took him all the way to the ground floor without stopping once. He walked calmly out of Arkaig Tower, pausing in the street, his mouth moving, uncertain which was the best way. One or two passers-by looked at him suspiciously, but he was used to these odd stares and he just flapped his tongue out at them leave me alone, I am doing the right thing, doing what ought to be done -and turned right, away from them, clasping the bundle to his chest, heading off down Dulwich Road. The passers-by paused to look at the eccentric figure in ill-fitting, dirty clothes, hurrying in the direction of central Brixton. But they soon continued on their way and didn't think much more about it. That was the thing about Brixton always expect the unexpected.
It was 5 p.m. when he found it. As soon as Rebecca had gone to the bottom of the garden, with a cup of tea and a magazine and a promise to knock on the french windows if she wanted to come in, he got the videotapes from the cupboard and found the notes he'd made. Somewhere in his tearful, dreadful rambling, Peach had said something that had stuck and wouldn't go away. "He kept saying that everything smelt of milk. He went around sniffing everything and complaining about it. Everything smelt of milk." Caffery knew it had been among the tapes somewhere, but he couldn't automatically link that snatched piece of vocabulary to a specific scene. He consulted the notes he'd scribbled in the incident room and eliminated most of the tapes several had no soundtrack, or only a solitary, directorial voice whispering instructions to a small child blinking at the camera. That's really beautiful, that is… But three of the videos had muffled conversations off-camera, and these were the ones that Caffery sat and watched. It was a snippet, a tiny, inconsequential sliver of conversation he was looking for and when he found it his heart sank.
It would be in this one.
He disliked this video in particular because the child in question a boy who seemed to be about nine -was so patently trying to be brave, so patently trying to please the camera and, worst of all, was so clearly ashamed of his body. He was overweight for his age and it wasn't the abuse he seemed most unhappy about: he seemed more afraid that he wouldn't be good enough, that he might be too fat to please.
The video was set in a bathroom it was a surprisingly clean room. In fact, it was a typical suburban bathroom from some time in the eighties. The walls were a pale, rag washed pink, and there was a pink and grey floral border around the door, fluffy pink and white towels on the rail. The sink was in the shape of a shell, and the taps were gold-coloured. It might have been shot in winter because at times the child appeared to be shivering with cold. The other people in the video, two adult men, wore rubber masks.
"What an oinker," someone whispered off-screen. Then something Caffery couldn't understand which ended clearly with the word 'flabby'.
"Squeal like a pig," someone else giggled. "Ah sayed squayeel lahk ah payig."
"What do you think, Rollo?" Another male voice.
Caffery inched forward a little on the sofa.
"He smells." It was a dull and uninterested voice. "He smells like milk." A shuffling sound and something off-screen fell over. The tape was paused, and when the picture came back the bath was full and the boy was lying on his back in the water, propping himself up so that his immature genitals were exposed above the water-line.
"OK, that looks good now let's have you just touch yourself…"
Caffery stopped the tape and rewound a few frames, started the tape again.
' What an oinker ******* flabby:
"Squeal like a pig, I said, squeal like a pig:
"What do you think, Rollo…"
"He smells. He smells like milk." "OK, that looks good He rewound again.
' pig."
"What do you think, Rollo?"
"He smells. He smells like milk."
"OK, that '
Rewind. Play.
"He smells. He smells like milk."
"OK '
Rewind. Play.
He smells, he smells like… smells like milk… smells, smells like milk, smells… Rollo? He smells. He smells like milk. OK, that looks good… What do you think, Rollo? He smells, smells like milk, what do you think, Rollo, Rollo, Rollo.
Caffery groped in his jacket pocket for his mobile. He just had time to register his visit and drive through the traffic to North London before Holloway visiting hours started.
He registered under Essex's name, Mr. Paul Essex, and used Essex's driving licence as ID. He didn't want anyone seeing the name Jack Caffery on the roster of visitors, and he didn't want anyone knowing he was job. He switched off his mobile and put it with his other belongings in the glass-fronted locker in the visitors' centre and let the officer stamp him an invisible visitor's pass tattooed on the back of his hand -like a teenager going to a nightclub.
He'd been here dozens of times before, but something odd happened on this visit. He realized it as he walked along the line of tape that led visitors through the system, passing them under the cold, programmed attention of the screws, past the drugs amnesty boxes, past the mouth search "Lift your tongue, please, sir, and now just turn your head, this way, good, and now this way." He realized that this afternoon he was seeing it with new eyes because you're on the other side now, like it or not you are on the other side. This was what it was like to be on the outside, to see clearly the towering, bureaucratic engine, to feel its threat. The female officer didn't meet his eye as she ran her hand around the waistband and shook the front of his trousers. "Thank you, sir." She held out a hand to show him the way through.