"Rory?" He raised his eyebrows. "What are you talking about?"
"Rory off Donegal Crescent."
"What about him? What happened to Rory?"
Neither girl spoke. The little one, a smaller, darker-skinned girl in a green two-piece, put her finger in her mouth. "We saw the police."
"And did the police tell you what happened?"
The two girls looked at each other, then back at him.
"No? No one told you what happened?"
"No." The bigger girl shook her head. "But we know what happened anyway."
"You know what happened? Well, that's very clever of you, isn't it?" He put his hands on his knees and bent a little, his eyes narrowed. He was conscious of being monitored from the viewing gallery the parents were all sitting together with their wary, watchful expressions, little glittering eyes on him as if they suspected him of something. "Well? Come on, then, what happened?"
"It was the troll."
"Ah, yes." He had wondered when this would come up. He straightened, picked up a pile of frog floats, threw them into the pool and stopped for a minute to watch them bob off. He rubbed his hands on his T-shirt and turned back to the girls. "The troll."
The smaller girl looked down at her feet.
"Have you ever seen the troll?"
"No," said the taller girl.
"So how do you know all this? Have any of your friends seen the troll?"
She shrugged. She turned her toes inwards and tugged at the legs of her swimsuit, jiggling a little as if she wanted the toilet.
"Did you hear me? I said, have any of your friends ever seen the troll?"
She nodded, not meeting his eyes.
"Which friends have seen him?"
"Some of them," she said, looking away casually at the water, and he knew she was lying. "He lives in the trees in the park."
"Yes?"
"And he climbed up the drainpipe of that house. The drainpipe of Rory's house."
"I see."
"Climbed up the drainpipe and murdered them. Ate them in their beds."
At this the little girl in the green two-piece began to cry. Tears slipped over the lower lids and on to her knuckles.
"OK, OK." Fish straightened up, nervous now that there were tears. "I think we're jumping to conclusions a bit here. No one knows what happened." Anxious that the parents didn't see what was happening, he positioned himself so that the child was hidden from the gallery. "No one knows if it was the troll yet, do they? Do we? Eh? Do we?"
Eventually he got her to nod her agreement, but she didn't stop crying, her finger still stuck in her mouth. "Right." He turned and clapped his hands at the others. "Come on, nothing to get excited about. Let's have you in the pool. Take a float if you need one."
Later, walking home with his swimming kit in his battered red holdall, he passed four of the gates into the park and found that they were all closed, police notices propped in front of them. He continued on his way, unusually agitated, and when he got home he swallowed his pills immediately, washing them down with black coffee. Then he went to the window, his hands shaking.
A number of windows in Brixton had a view directly over the park. Some belonged to the twin towers at the north, some to the half-built houses on the Clock Tower Grove Estate, and some, like Gummer's, belonged to the council flats above the row of shops on Effra Road. He opened the window and put his head out tentatively. From here Donegal Crescent was almost a mile away and he couldn't see the police tape or the small gathering of journalists and onlookers at the Tulse Hill end of the park, but he did notice the quietness. On a summer's day like this the park was usually spotted with bright dresses and children, but today the great expanse of wood was silent, only the dull click-click of insects and the sound of a car radio coming from Effra Road. Beyond the treetops he got a glimpse, in the distance, of empty lawns stretching up to the top of the hill. He closed the window and drew the curtain.
It took Carmel a long time to stop crying. Caffery and the WPC had exchanged one embarrassed glance, then gone back to staring at separate patches of wallpaper until the Ativan began to work: something softer crept through Carmel 's veins and she stopped crying. She reached over and patted the bed, feeling around for the Superkings. Slowly, falteringly, she lit a cigarette, pulled the ashtray towards her, and began to speak. "Even though I told them all this already? In the ambulance?"
"I'd like to hear it again, in case there's something we missed."
But it amounted to little more than a rehashing of the statement she'd given the divisional CID officer. There were few new clues to hang on to. She recalled feeling unwell after eating dinner and that she had sent Rory downstairs to play on the Play Station with
Alek before going to the bedroom to lie down. She had been concerned because they were planning to drive to Margate the following day and she didn't want to be ill. That was all she remembered until she woke up in the airing cupboard. There had been no noises, no one suspicious in the neighbourhood and, apart from the illness, nothing unusual about the few hours that led up to the attack. "We was supposed to be going on holiday the next day. That's why no one come for us. They must've thought we was away."
"You told the CID officer you heard something that sounded like an animal?"
"Yes. Breathing. Sniffing. Outside of the cupboard."
"When was this?"
"The first day, I think."
"How often did this happen?"
"Just that once."
"Well, um, do you think there was an animal in the house? Do you think the intruder brought a dog with him?"
She shook her head. "I never heard nothing else, no barking or nothing, and it weren't no dog. Not unless it was standing up on its, you know…" She tapped the backs of her calves. "Standing up on its back legs."
"What do you think it was?"
"I don't know. I ain't never heard nothing like it."
"Did you hear Rory or Alek at all in that time?"
"Rory." She squeezed her eyes closed and nodded. "Crying. He was in the kitchen."
"When was this?"
"Just before you lot come." The words dragged a little jerk out of her as if the effort hurt her. She tamped out her cigarette, lit another from the carton and started to cough. It took her a long time to regain her composure. She wiped her eyes, then her mouth, pushed her hair out of her eyes and said:
"There was something I never told them last night."
Caffery looked up from his notes. "I'm sorry?" The WPC was looking at him in surprise, her eyebrows raised. "What did you say?"
"Something else."
"What was that?"
"I think he took photographs."
"Photographs?"
"I saw the flashbulb under the cupboard door. I could even hear it winding on. I'm sure that's what it was photographs."
"What do you think he was photographing?"
"I don't know. I don't want to know." She started to shake again, rubbing her arms convulsively. "It was so fucking horrible. I was soft so bleeding soft that I just sat there like a fucking frightened mouse for them three days. I never knew he was going to take Rory. If I'd of known what he was going to do…"
"You weren't a coward, Carmel. Just look what you did to your arms trying to get out. You tried as hard as anyone could have been expected Caffery stopped, suddenly self-conscious. Don't you'll only make things worse. Quickly he found his attache case on the floor. "Look, I know how difficult this is but we need you to sign something. It's not a statement, just a couple of release forms. We found a picture of Rory, a school picture, and we'd like your permission to reproduce it to show people. And I've taken some of Rory's clothes and his schoolbooks."