Tony laughed. Its a miracle the species ever manages to reproduce, given how little teenagers have in common with the opposite sex.
I dont know who was more intent on counting the minutes till the bell at the end of the last period, them or me. I sometimes think this is no way for an intelligent adult to earn a living. You knock your pan in trying to open up the wonders of a foreign language to them, then someone translates coup de grâce as a lawnmower.
Youre making that up, he said, picking up half a mushroom and chewing it.
I wish I was. By the way, the phone rang just as I came in, but I had a couple of bags of shopping so I let the machine pick it up.
Ill see who it is. Whats for dinner? he added, as he walked towards his office, a tiny room at the front of the cottage.
Maiale con latte with roast vegetables, Frances called after him. Thats pork cooked in milk to you.
Sounds interesting, he shouted back, pressing the play button on the answering machine. There was a long bleep. Then he heard her voice.
Hi, Tony. A long moment of uncertainty. Two years of literal silence, their only communication irregular flurries of e-mail. But three short syllables were all it took to penetrate the shell that hed grown round his emotions.
Its Carol. Three more syllables, these ones entirely unnecessary. Hed know her voice through a sea of static. She must have heard the news about Vance.
I need to talk to you, she continued, sounding more confident. Professional, then, not personal after all. Ive got an assignment that I really need your help with. His stomach felt leaden. Why was she doing this to him? She knew the reasons hed drawn a line under profiling. She of all people should grant him more grace than this.
Its nothing to do with profiling, she added, the words falling over each other in her haste to correct the false assumption shed feared, the one hed so readily made.
Its for me. Its something Ive got to do and I dont know how to do it. And I thought you would be able to help me. Id have e-mailed, but it just seemed easier to talk. Can you call me, please? Thanks.
Tony stood motionless, staring out of the window at the blank faces of the houses that opened straight on to the pavement on the other side of the street. Hed never really believed Carol was consigned to his past.
Do you want a glass of wine? Francess voice from the kitchen cut across his reverie.
He walked back into the kitchen. Ill get them, he said, squeezing past her to get to the fridge.
Who was it? Frances asked casually, more polite than curious.
Someone I used to work with. Tony hid his face in the process of pulling the cork and pouring wine into a couple of glasses. He cleared his throat. Carol Jordan. A cop.
Frances frowned in concern. Isnt she the one ?
Shes the one I worked with on the two serial killer cases, yes. His tone told Frances it wasnt a subject for discussion. She knew the bare bones of his history, had always sensed there was something unspoken between him and his former colleague. Now at last this might be the chance to turn over the stone and see what crept out.
You were really close, werent you? she probed.
Working on cases like that always brings colleagues close together for the duration. Youve got a common purpose. Then afterwards you cant bear their company because it reminds you of things you want to wipe off the face of your memory. It was an answer that gave nothing away.
Was she calling about that bastard Vance? Frances asked, conscious that shed been headed off at the pass.
Tony placed her glass by the side of the chopping board. You heard about that?
It was on the news.
You didnt mention it.
Frances took a sip of the cool, crisp wine. Its your business, Tony. I thought youd get round to it in your own good time if you wanted to talk about it. If you didnt, you wouldnt.
His smile was wry. I think youre the only woman Ive ever known who didnt have the nosy gene.
Oh, I can be as nosy as the next person. But Ive learned the hard way that poking my nose in where its not wanted is a great recipe for screwing up a relationship. The allusion to her failed marriage was as oblique as Tonys occasional reference to his profiling experiences, but he picked it up loud and clear.
Ill give her a quick ring back while youre finishing off in here, he said.
Frances stopped what she was doing and watched him walk away. She had a feeling tonight would be one of those nights when she was wakened in the chill hours before dawn by Tony shouting in his sleep and thrashing around beneath the bedclothes. Shed never complained to him; shed read enough about serial killers to have an idea what terrors were lodged in his consciousness. She enjoyed what they shared, but that didnt mean she wanted to partake of his demons.
She couldnt have known how very different that made her from Carol Jordan.
5
Carol leaned back on the sofa, one hand clutching the phone, the other kneading the fur of her black cat, Nelson. Youre sure you dont mind? she asked, knowing it was a formality. Tony never offered anything he didnt mean.
If you want my help, Ill need to see whatever brief they give you. It makes much more sense for you to bring it with you so we can go through it together, Tony said, sounding matter of fact.
I really appreciate this.
Its not a problem. Compared to what weve worked through in the past, itll be a pleasure.
Carol shuddered. Someone walking across her grave. You heard about Vances appeal?
It was on the radio news, he said.
Hes not going to succeed, you know, she said, more confidently than she felt. Hes just another guest of Her Majesty, thanks to us. He tried every trick in the book and a few others besides at the trial, and we still managed to convince a jury that was predisposed to love him. Hes not going to get past three law lords. Nelson protested as her fingers dug too deeply into his flesh.
Id like to think so. But Ive always had a bad feeling about Vance.
Enough of that. Ill head straight out to the airport tomorrow as soon as the brief arrives and get a flight to Edinburgh. I can pick up a hire car there. Ill call you when I have a better idea of my ETA.
OK. Youre youre welcome to stay at my place, he said. Over the phone, it was hard to sift diffidence from reluctance.
Much as she wanted to see where two years apart would have brought them, Carol knew it made sense to leave herself a back door. Thanks, but Im putting you to enough trouble. Book me in at a local hotel, or a bed and breakfast place. Whatevers most convenient.
There was a short pause. Then he said, Ive heard good reports of a couple of places. Ill sort it out in the morning. But if you change your mind
Ill let you know. It was an empty promise; the impetus would have to come from him.
Im really looking forward to seeing you, Carol.
Ill let you know. It was an empty promise; the impetus would have to come from him.
Im really looking forward to seeing you, Carol.
Me too. Its been too long.
She heard a soft chuckle. Probably not. Its probably been just about right. Till tomorrow, then.
Good night, Tony. And thanks.
Least I can do. Bye, Carol.
She heard the click of the line going dead and cut off her own handset, letting it fall to the rug. Scooping Nelson up in her arms, she walked across to the wall of windows that looked out across the old stone church, incongruously preserved in the heart of the modern concrete complex that had become home. Only this morning, shed looked across the piazza with a sense of elegiac farewell, imagining herself packing up and moving to Den Haag to take up her post as a brand-new ELO. It had all seemed very clear, a visualization that held the power to bring itself into being. Now, it was hard to picture what her future would hold beyond sleep and breakfast.
The Wilhelmina Rosen had passed Arnhem and moored for the night. The wharf he always used when they tied up on the Nederrijn was popular with the two crewmen he employed; there was a village with an excellent bar and restaurant less than five minutes walk away. Theyd done their chores in record time and left him alone on the big barge within half an hour of tying up. They hadnt bothered asking if he wanted to accompany them; in all the years theyd been working together, hed only once joined them on a nights drinking, when Manfreds wife had given birth. The engineer had insisted that their captain should wet the babys head with him and Gunther. He remembered it with loathing. Theyd been down near Regensburg, drinking in a series of bars that were familiar with the needs of boatmen. Too much beer, too much schnapps, too much noise, too many sluts taunting him with their bodies.
Much better to stay on board, where he could savour his secrets without fear of interruption. Besides, there was always work to be done, maintaining the old Rhineship in peak condition. He had to keep the brasswork gleaming, the paint smart and unblistered. The old mahogany of the wheelhouse and his cabin shone with the lustre of years of polishing, his hands following a tradition passed down the generations. Hed inherited the boat from his grandfather, the one good thing the bastard had done for him.
Hed never forget the liberation of the old mans accident. None of them had even known about it till morning. His grandfather had gone ashore to spend the evening in a bar, as he did from time to time. He never drank with the crew, always preferring to take himself off to a quiet corner in some bier keller far away from the other bargees. He acted as if he was too good for the rest of them, though his grandson thought it was probably more likely that hed pissed off every other skipper on the river with his bloodyminded self-righteousness.
In the morning, there had been no sign of the old man on board. That in itself was remarkable, for his regularity of habit was unshakeable. No illness had ever been permitted to fell him, no self-indulgence to keep him in his berth a minute after six. Winter and summer, the old man was washed, shaved and dressed by six twenty, the cover of the engines open as he inspected them suspiciously to make sure nothing evil had befallen them in the night. But that morning, silence hung ominous over the barge.
Hed kept his head down, busying himself in the bilges, stripping down a pump. It occupied his hands, avoiding any possibility of showing nervousness that might be remarked on later if anyone had become suspicious. But all the while, hed been lit up by the inner glow that came from having taken his future into his own hands. At last, he was going to be the master of his own destiny. Millions of people wanted to liberate themselves as he had done, but only a handful ever had the courage to do anything about it. He was, he realized with a rare burst of pride, more special than anyone had ever given him credit for, especially the old man.
Gunther, busy cooking breakfast in the galley, had noticed nothing amiss. His routine was, perforce, as regular as his skippers. It had been Manfred, the engineer, who had raised the alarm. Concerned at the old mans silence, hed dared to crack open the door to his cabin. The bed was empty, the covers so tightly tucked in that a five-mark piece would have trampolined to the ceiling off them. Anxiously, hed made his way out on deck and begun to search. The hold was empty, awaiting that mornings load of roadstone. Manfred rolled back a corner of the tarpaulin and climbed down the ladder to check it from stem to stern, worried that the old man might have decided to make one of his periodic late-night tours of the barge and either fallen or been taken ill. But the hold was empty.
Manfred had started to have a very bad feeling. Back up on deck, he edged his way round the perimeter, staring down into the water. Up near the bows, he saw what he was afraid of. Jammed between the hull and the pilings of the wharf, the old man floated face down.
The inference was obvious. The old man had had too much to drink and tripped over one of the hawsers that held the barge fast against the wharf. According to the postmortem, hed banged his head on the way down, probably knocking himself unconscious in the process. Even if hed only been stunned, the combination of alcohol and concussion had combined to make drowning a foregone conclusion. The official finding had been accidental death. Nobody doubted it for a minute.
Just as hed planned it. Hed sweated it till the verdict was in, but it had all turned out the way hed dreamed it. Hed been bewildered to discover what joy felt like.
It was his first taste of power, and it felt as luxurious as silk against his skin, as warming as brandy in the throat. Hed finally found a tiny flicker of strength that his grandfathers constant and brutal humiliations had failed to extinguish, and hed fed it the kindling of fantasy, then more of the hot-burning fuel of hatred and self-loathing until it flared bright enough to fire him into action. Hed finally shown the sadistic old bastard who the real man was.
Hed felt no remorse, neither in the immediate aftermath nor later, when attention had turned away from his grandfathers death to the latest gossip of the rivermen. Thinking about what hed done filled him with a lightness hed never known before. The craving for more of it burned fierce inside him, but he had no idea how to satisfy it.
Improbably, the answer had come at the funeral, a gratifyingly small gathering. The old man had been a bargee all his adult life, but he had never had any talent for friendship. Nobody cared enough to give up a cargo to pay their last respects at the crematorium service. The new master of the Wilhelmina Rosen recognized most of the mourners as retired deckhands and skippers who had nothing better to do with their days.
But as they filed out at the end of the impersonal service, an elderly man hed never seen before plucked at his sleeve. I knew your grandfather, he said. Id like to buy you a drink.
He didnt know what people said to get out of social obligations they didnt want. Hed so seldom been invited anywhere, hed never had to learn. All right, hed said, and followed the man from the austere funeral suite.
Do you have a car? the elderly man said. I came in a taxi.
He nodded, and led the way to his grandfathers old Ford. That was something he planned to change, just as soon as the lawyers gave him the go-ahead to start spending the old mans money. In the car, his passenger directed him away from the city and out into the countryside. They ended up at an inn that sat at a crossroads. The elderly man bought a couple of beers and pointed him to the beer garden.