"What did he just do, Danni?"
"You saw what I did, Danni."
"Aye. I saw a piece of low-life shite – a child-killer actually I saw him resisting arrest. And ye know something funny, I double-checked with the TSG officers, asked them if that's what they saw, and you know what? I was right I wasn't imagining it. It's exactly what they saw too."
Caffery shook his head. "No, Danni."
"Sometimes it happens when someone resists arrest they're bound to get a few fucks thrown into them. It happens especially to the lowlifes like that."
He looked at her steadily in the mirror above the sink. "You really think you can defend me?"
"I think so."
"You said you wouldn't."
"Aye Paulina'll tell you all about me and my promises. It's a wee luxury I allow myself for all my hard graft."
"Right." He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth. He needed to show her he wanted to explain how much this case had pushed him, in visible and invisible ways. He wanted her to understand just how far his obsession could take him. "Wait there."
He clattered down the stairs, swinging into the hallway, and pulling away all the things in the cupboard under the stairs until he found the taped-up box at the back. It was all going to come out now. He was going to crash into it, face first, get it all over. He raced back up the stairs.
In the bathroom Rebecca was silent. Souness had put the lid down on the toilet and was sitting astride it, her feet pushed back as if she was in the saddle, drumming on the seat between her legs with her knuckles, drumming out the beat of a rock song in her head. He set the box on the floor, felt in his pocket for his Swiss Army knife, flicked it open and slit the tape.
"What's this?" Souness stopped drumming. "What have we got here?"
He didn't answer. In the corner he saw Rebecca cross her arms and frown. He opened the top flaps of the box and up-ended it. Penderecki's child-porn collection tumbled out on to the floor, rolling out and tiding up against the edge of the bath. One magazine fell at Rebecca's feet, open to the black-and-white image of a prepubescent girl. She was holding a vibrator to her cheek as if it was a teddy or a flower. Rebecca looked at the photograph silently for a moment, and then, not looking up or speaking, she used her toe to close the magazine and sat down on the edge of the bath, her face in her hands.
"This." Caffery straightened up and looked at Souness. "This '
No one spoke. Rebecca massaged her scalp compulsively, staring at her bare knees. Souness crossed one boxy leg over the other, drew her jacket closed and crossed her arms.
"See? See all this?" He kicked the pile of magazines and videos. "That's why Paulina's been so interested in me. I kept it all to myself. It's Penderecki's. I should have surrendered it to the unit but I kept it to myself because I thought it might tell me something about Ewan '
"Jack," Souness interrupted.
"What?"
"I know."
"What?
"I said I know. I know all about Tracey Lamb. I've known since yesterday."
"Then why didn't you He broke off. "Paulina did tell you. You do know the paedo unit's on to me."
"Ahh no. That's where you're wrong. Paulina's on to you. But not the unit." She sighed and crossed her arms. "She gave the unit Lamb's name but she never said where she got it from told her DCI she got it as a tip-off on the hotline. She's a good girl, Paulina. She knows how I feel about ye. And she knows what ye went through with that piece of shite Penderecki." Souness stood and leaned over to the small window above the toilet. She opened it and let a flash of dripping green light into the bathroom. "One of those, was it?" She nodded to the railway. "One of those over there?"
He sighed. "Yes."
"And that," Souness rested her pillowy breasts on the sill and leaned out a little further, seeing it all for the first time, 'that's the railway line. The last place wee Ewan was seen?"
"Yes." He leaned past her and closed the window. "Danni."
"What?"
He looked at her closely. "Let me off the case."
"Oh, for Christ's sake…" She dropped her chin and rubbed her scalp with the palm of both hands. She did it rapidly, harshly. When she lowered her hands and looked up there were bright red patches on her scalp and face. "Right OK, OK. Let's leave it for tonight. Give us all some time to calm down. I can handle Klare." She put a hand on his arm. "Have some leave, OK? When you've cooled off come in and we'll go through your arrest statement and get that squared. I don't want the funny firm looking at you they look at you and pretty soon they're looking at the whole unit. And this' she kicked the pile of magazines on the floor 'this, I don't want to hear any more about this. I know you'll do the right thing." She sighed and hitched up her trouser waistband. "Now, that drink, Becky, hen…"
Rebecca took her hands from her face and looked up. "Changed your mind?"
"What do you think?"
Souness didn't speak much while she drank the Scotch and Coke from Caffery's best crystal tumbler, standing in the living room at the french windows. She looked like a squire surveying his land, one hand in her trouser pocket, tipping her weight up on to her toes from time to time, looking out past the dripping garden to Penderecki's house. "Thank you, Becky." She handed back the glass when she'd finished. "Thank you."
Afterwards, when she was alone, Rebecca poured a glass of wine, and took it to stand in the same place, standing and staring at the garden, at the beech tree where the tree-house had been. The rain pattered down outside; the fresh smells of earth and the green juice of the garden came in through the windows. Her stomach was tight. He's got to do something he can't go on like this.
"Becky?" He was standing in the doorway, looking more exhausted than she'd ever seen him. So exhausted that the skin around his eyes almost seemed inflamed as if he was holding back an enormous pressure. "Are you all right?"
She didn't answer. Just keep quiet you don't have to say anything.
"Becky?"
She bit her lip and turned away. She was aching now. She went into the hallway and pressed the answer phone button. Caffery came to stand behind her and Tracey Lamb's voice filled the little house:
"It's me, Tracey, right? Uh with what we was talking about, yeah? I'm getting bailed on Monday, so if you want to know some more about, y'know I'll be back at my place at one o'clock you know where it is."
Rebecca turned back and saw Jack's face was white. White. A little flicker in his eyes. Before she could stop him Jack had stepped past her and in one movement swept the answer phone on to the floor. It lay cracked and tangled in wires, blinking and frantically winding itself back and forward. He kicked it once against the skirting-board, turned and went into the kitchen, threw open the fridge, filled a tumbler with wine and sat down at the table.
She hurried after him, sitting down opposite and trying to cover his hand with hers but he shrugged her away. He looked God, he looks terrible. "You were right," he said. "You were right about me. About Bliss."
She sat back a little, shocked. "OK," she said cautiously, trying to stay calm. "You mean what I think happened, happened?"
He drank his wine down in one swallow, refilled his glass and looked out of the window at the dripping garden. He seemed to forget she was there for a moment. His hands, she noticed, were trembling.
"Jack? Did you hear what I '
"Yes."
"Yes what? Yes, you heard me? Or yes, what I thought happened, happened?"
"Yes, I killed him. And you're right I'll probably do it again. And yes, it's because of Ewan." He stared at his thumb. The black thumbnail. His stigmata. His blood stuck in the place it got stuck in twenty-five years ago and refused to flow. "You're right."