‘You told me he had an alibi,’ said Hey. ‘But, leaving that aside… No. What sociologists mean when they talk about familicide is a very specific crime, the crime we discussed at length when you came here, to Cambridge. Male family annihilators kill only their wives, children and, sometimes, themselves.’
‘Restrained of them,’ Simon murmured.
‘They don’t kill school friends, mothers of school friends.’ Hey sighed. ‘I don’t mean to put a spanner in your works, but none of the details fit. I mean, sometimes you get men who snap and go on a short, localised killing spree. They open fire in a shop, or restaurant-a public place. They kill strangers, and then they go back home and kill their families and themselves, but it all happens within a time frame of twenty-four hours, seventy-two at most. If the two bodies you found today have really been there over a year… I’m sorry, but that doesn’t fit with anything I know or have ever come across. Men who commit familicide don’t kill two strangers first, then wait a year, then kill their nearest and dearest. They just don’t.’
‘Yeah, yeah. Okay.’
‘Simon? Any opinion I give you, you’ve got to take with a barrelful of salt, right? I’m not a psychologist or a detective.’
‘Just tell me what you think. You’re an intelligent person-those are in short supply.’
‘Unless Mark Bretherick’s alibi turns out to be false, I don’t think he killed anybody,’ said Hey. ‘Whoever killed the first mother and daughter must have killed the second. If I were a police officer, and this were my case, I’d start from that assumption.’
Simon thanked him and promised to drop in next time he was in Cambridge. Hey spoke as if Simon was bound to find himself strolling past Whewell College at least once a week. Simon wondered if it was a version of what he thought of as London syndrome: the way people who lived in London always assumed you would go to them rather than them come to you. He had a mate from university who did it all the time. ‘We haven’t met up for ages,’ he’d say. ‘When are you next going to be in London?’ As if there were no trains out.
After saying goodbye to Hey, Simon went in search of Kombothekra. Tim Cook and his two assistants were busy attending to the bones. Simon stepped around the cordoned-off area, asking himself if it was safe to assume that, if Bretherick wasn’t the murderer, then he had to be of great interest to the murderer, perhaps the object of the murderer’s obsession. Why else would he kill Bretherick’s family and bury two people on his land?
Kombothekra was in the kitchen, sitting at a large, wooden table with his arms stretched out in front of him.
‘Are you okay?’ Simon asked.
‘I’ve been better. I thought I ought to tell Proust where we’re up to.’
‘What did he say?’
Kombothekra’s expression said it all. ‘It shouldn’t be as bad, but it’s worse,’ he said quietly.
‘What?’
‘Finding a child’s skeleton. It oughtn’t to be as hard as… well, say, Lucy Bretherick. I mean, that got to me, but this…’ He shook his head. ‘Seeing a skeleton, the inside of a person. It makes you focus on what should be there but isn’t. Skeletons look so… vulnerable.’
‘I know.’
‘Lucy Bretherick was dead, but she was still recognisable as a child.’
Simon nodded. ‘Sam…’
‘What?’
‘It could be two different killers. It could.’ Even an expert like Jonathan Hey could be wrong. ‘What if Mark Bretherick killed Amy and Encarna Oliva and that’s why Geraldine and Lucy were murdered-in retaliation?’
‘By Amy’s father?’ Kombothekra’s mouth twisted. ‘I wouldn’t let Proust hear you say that. Speculation’s out. Finding out for certain what happened before close of business today is in.’
‘That bad, was he?’
‘I’m not allowed even to think these bodies might be Amy Oliva and her mother. I’m not allowed to say it, obviously, but I’m not allowed to think it either. He says he’ll be able to tell from my face when he sees me if I’m still thinking it, and if I am I’ll “rue the day”.’ Kombothekra made quote marks in the air.
Simon grinned. ‘Dental records’ll tell us soon enough.’
‘I hope he finds cause of death.’ Kombothekra nodded towards the garden. ‘Grooves in the bone made by a big knife, or… some great big fuck-off mark from a clearly identifiable weapon. It’d be nice to know they were dead when the killer buried them.’ He looked up at Simon. ‘Don’t tell me it hasn’t occurred to you. That they might have been buried alive?’
It hadn’t and it didn’t now; Kombothekra’s words barely registered. Simon had had an idea. A mark from a clearly identifiable weapon… He went over it once more to check it was sound. In his mind, a tangle of incomprehension began to unravel. He saw a way in which the apparently impossible might make perfect sense-the only way.
He was out of the kitchen in seconds, pulling his phone out of his pocket.
11
Thursday, 9 August 2007
Nick is lying on the sofa, which is on the ceiling instead of the floor. He has tomato sauce all over his face. Zoe is sitting on his knee, kicking the lampshade with her foot. The news is on too loud, and the television is also upside down. The children’s toys are whirling in mid-air, in constant motion. Jake comes in, walks across the ceiling and asks Nick, ‘Where Mummy gone?’ His palms are flat, upturned-or rather downturned-and his face is set in a curious frown, a replica of the puzzled expressions he’s seen on grown-ups’ faces. ‘Gone a London, Daddy? Back soon?’
I jolt awake and the horror rushes to meet me. No gradual dawning of awareness-it hits me all at once. I’m still here, locked in the room. How could I have fallen asleep? I remember crying and begging to be released, falling to the floor eventually, hungry and exhausted…
He drugged me. He must have done. The bottle of water that was on the passenger seat of my car, not in the footwell where I expected to find it… the water he brought me when he first came into the room…
I run to the door. Still locked. I start to bang and scream. When my fists don’t make a loud enough noise, I hurl my whole body at the door, over and over. If it hurts, I’m unaware of the pain. My mind only has space for one thing: the need to get out of here.
My bag-it’s still there, by the window. I lunge and grab it, tip the contents out all over the floor. My phone has gone. So has my watch, I notice when I try to look at it. He’s been in here while I was asleep. I don’t know how long I slept for, but it must have been a while. I can tell from the light coming through the curtains that it’s daytime now.
The curtains. I yank them open. There’s a small, paved yard outside, dotted with plants in pots of different sizes and styles-too many. Enough to cause an obstruction to anyone who might want to walk from the house to the tall, thick hedge that encloses the yard on two sides, as sturdy-looking as a brick wall. There is no third side to the yard, so it must turn the corner, go round the side of the house. Among the plant-pots-at their centre-there is a small fountain, a silver elephant’s head on a tray. Water pours from the trunk, shows no sign of stopping. In one corner of the yard there’s a wooden gazebo that’s missing one or two planks from its seat. Next to this is a black-painted wooden gate, solid, the same height as the hedge. There’s a padlock on it.
Nothing to indicate where this house is. No chance of a passer-by seeing me, however long I stand by the window.
I run back to the door, grab the handle with both hands and use what little energy I have left to produce the loudest scream I can. No response. I listen. Is there only silence in the rest of the house, or can I hear something? Has he gone out or is he waiting on the other side of the door, listening to my anguish and ignoring it? I no longer feel hungry, only emptier than I have ever felt. The air seems to ripple slightly each time I turn my head, as if it’s some kind of thick, transparent liquid.