He missed the press of Vicky against him. A silent chuckle rumbled in his throat. Babs and his daughter, they were never there. The weekend and Hannah, Jools decided, was about building bricks: like they did in a nursery. Bricks were put together. Bottom of the pile was the protection officer, Mr Banks, the starting point. Hannah and his weekend would be built on the leverage he had on the armed detective, and confidences given. Big enough confidences. With such confidences having been turfed out at him, he couldn't see that a weekend liaison with Hannah would be too difficult to achieve…Jools felt good.
The brothers' barrister was obliterated from his mind — and why his protection officer had been out in the rain for a half-hour, had had a soaking and looked so damn mournful, and useless — and he was between Hannah's thighs and she squeezed on him, and…He was there.
The cottage lay empty abandoned. So clean. The beds were stripped of sheets and blankets, and had been loaded into black bin bags. Every surface was wiped down, had been scrubbed, and the smell of bleach, toxic and sweet, permeated each room. Carpets and rugs had been vacuum-cleaned three times, and the mess of dirt and hairs had been extracted and dumped in the bags with the bedding. Piping-hot water had been run from the kitchen and bathroom taps, and from the shower, to flush down the pipes leading to the cesspit. Gone from Oakdene Cottage were all traces of a 'family' gathering. Not just their fingerprints, but also the body hairs and body fluids that carried traces of the cell's individual deoxyribonucleic acids — the DNA samples that could have identified them. It had been done painstakingly and with rigour. Windows had been left open, not to allow rain to spatter inside the rooms but to let out the trapped air contaminated with explosives molecules. Quiet hung in the cottage, and its new-found cleanness.
Across two fields, an upstairs window opened.
On any morning, when it was not raining, the farmer's wife would have shaken her sheets from it, as her mother had.
The window was opened because the old mullioned glass, set in leaded diamond shapes, distorted decent vision.
The farmer's wife had at her eyes the binoculars most often used for following the flight of birds over their land.
She called down, stentorian, 'Just my imagination, I'm sure, but it's not right at Oakdene. The car's gone, the lights are off, but the windows are all open. Am I being silly?'
'Probably gone out for the day,' was the answering bellow. 'You fuss too much, love.'
'Maybe — but there are too many of them for one car.' She frowned, then lifted the binoculars again. 'There's a fire burning by the Wilsons' barn — you know, the one past our Twenty-Five-Acre.'
'Can't be, they're away. Aren't they on a cruise? Where is it, Madeira, Tenerife?'
'Come and see for yourself.'
She heard his grumble, then the tramp of his feet up the stairs. He stood beside her, took the binoculars from her.
'Haven't they hay in the barn?'
'I'll take a look at it,' he said. 'And I'll take a look at Oakdene as well — when I've had my lunch.'
The screams were past, long gone.
The prisoner whimpered without sound.
'I don't like it when they're so quiet.'
'Means we're not getting through to them.'
They'd made a hole for a hook in the concrete of the ceiling. The hook was big, heavy and had been given to them by McDonald in their second year at Ardchiavaig, because he was no longer permitted by regulations to slaughter his own stock and then to hang carcasses. It was Xavier Boniface who'd recognized that the hook might — one day — be of use, and it had done service for them in County Armagh and in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Donald Clydesdale had packed it in the Bergen with the galvanized bucket, the truncheons, the wires and all the other kit they carried when they went to work. Their prisoner was bound at the wrists, the binding looped over the hook, and suspended high enough for his toes just to touch the floor, but not his heels or soles. They'd started — as they always did — by allowing the prisoner to view the kit, and they'd explained graphically how they used it. Then Boniface had asked the first question on their sheet of paper. Their gentleman's head had tossed back, the loose hood had ridden up, his mouth had been exposed and he'd spat into Clydesdale's face. Not a good start, Boniface had said. Not being sensible, Clydesdale had said. Had hit him with the truncheons — in the small of the back, in the kidneys, and had let him scream. Had had his trainers off, and belted him on the soft soles of his feet. It was good when he screamed because their experience was that a screaming man was close to breaking. Then he'd gone all quiet, which was not so good. They'd done the beating. He'd coughed up blood — they'd seen it in the sputum dribbling down under the hood's hem. Then they had returned to that first question, and had not yet been answered.
'What about a brew-up first, before the bucket?'
'Good shout, Donald, my mouth's proper dry…Mr Hegner, would you like a mug of tea?'
They'd brought everything in the Bergen: the collapsible chair on which the American sat, a tiny camping stove that ran off a small gas canister; four plastic mugs and plates and, of course, the canvas bucket that was used most days for the grain they scattered for their fowls.
Hegner nodded; would appreciate a mug of tea. The American had a miniature tape-recorder on his knee, what a company executive might use for dictation, and his thumb had hovered on the depress switch when the prisoner had screamed, ready to hear him. But his thumb was off the switch now, as if he sensed they were still far away from breaking their man. They were both hot from the efforts put into the beating, maybe showing their age, sweating more than they ever had in the stinking, fly-blown heat at the gaol in Aden. The camping stove was lit, water was poured from a plastic bottle into an old and dented mess-tin that was then laid on the ring.
Clydesdale crouched beside the stove to watch the water rise and begin to bubble, then made ready the tea-bags, the mugs and the little carton of milk. Boniface stood behind the man and hit him some more in the kidneys but did not get a scream as a reward.
Clydesdale said, 'Won't be long, Mr Hegner.'
'Would that be answers to questions, my friend, or that cup of tea?' Boniface said, 'You're very droll, Mr Hegner…A sense of humour always helps with this work.'
They didn't take a mug outside to Mr Naylor, thought he'd probably have his own Thermos in the car.
'You got a moment, Banksy?'
'I was just about to bring them through from their room and on to the coach. Can it keep?'
'Don't think so, just a moment will be enough.'
Banks turned, faced the inspector. There had been nothing in the voice behind him that offered warning. He was led away from the jury-room door out into the corridor and was manoeuvred so that his back was to the wall. The inspector closed on him and the smile was gone.
'Just hear me out. I'm surprised that an officer of your experience is unaware that codes of honour, omertà, silence, are not strictly the preserve of the criminal class. You've been snitched on, Banksy, grassed up. I had a call this afternoon from your former guv'nor, who was anxious to put the knife in and twist it. To say that I'm disappointed in you is my personal understatement of the year. You may think that what we're doing is second-rate, beneath your bloody dignity. You may wish you were poncing about in London in a fat cat's detail. You may hope that you can be shot of us soonest. Well, Banksy, think and wish and hope again. You're staying with me…I understand from your man that, back where you came from, they don't reckon you're up for it, that you're short of the necessary dedication, haven't the bottle for it. So, get it into your head that you're not wanted. It may have escaped you, but ordinary people worry a damn sight more about coming face to face, which is terrifying, with organized-crime barons waving guns — they will use guns — than about the remote possibility of being alongside a kid with a rucksack on his back. Ordinary people, sometimes, have the guts to stand up and be counted. Like my witness. Like Mr Julian Wright in there. Especially like Mr Julian Wright. So, come down from the clouds, get fucking stuck in and walk alongside those people. Forget about your own bloody importance. Got me?'