Acid Lullaby (15 page)

Another issue had been troubling Underwood. Jack Harvey had appeared to be living well beyond his police salary. Underwood knew Rowena was from a wealthy farming family but the thought still niggled at him. Had Jack been moonlighting? Had it got him into trouble? He considered the notes that he had taken at Dexter’s meeting. Leach’s analysis had intrigued him. The victims had been injected with organic poisons, similar to those found in magic mushrooms.

Psychoactive
drugs
in
concentrated
doses.

Underwood felt as if he was fumbling for a torch in a
power cut. He was missing an obvious point. ‘Concentrated doses.’ Why had the killer taken such elaborate preparations to inject Stark and Harvey with these drugs? There were far more effective and straightforward ways of killing people. There were also more stimulating ways of making people suffer. If the motive behind the drugs wasn’t to inflict pain or death, then what was it? Underwood paused for a moment. His mind liked to flip problems over. It was like turning the lights on and off: in the dark, your other senses become more finely attuned.

What then if the drugs were designed to have the opposite effect? To bring pleasure not pain, life not death. He continued to play with the idea: light instead of dark, understanding instead of ignorance. Understanding of what?

He was tired but knew that he wouldn’t be able to sleep. The empty bed taunted him. Loneliness drove him on.

It was a night of bad dreams and fear.

Alison Dexter dreamed of the baby she had made and killed.

Mary Colson woke again from the dream of the dog-man in a cold and terrible sweat. The whispering kept her awake. At 4a.m. she went to the toilet. At 6a.m. she returned and poured water all over the seat and the bathroom floor for Doreen.

Mark Willis stared at the blue door of Alison Dexter’s flat imagining the horror that awaited him if he failed to deliver £100,000 by Saturday. After an hour, he headed back to the anonymous security of his hotel room on the outskirts of New Bolden.

For Max Fallon it was a night of frustration. He was exhausted but sleep eluded him. The structure of his memory
was crumpled. It had been an eventful day. He remembered taking Rowena Harvey and securing her to a bed that afternoon. He had marvelled at her beauty but decided to leave her at peace and expel his furies elsewhere.

He recalled a light omelette lunch followed by an unsatisfactory molestation of the spitting, writhing policewoman on the floor of the library. Her violence had irritated him. Decapitating her had been a blessed relief. Max had then driven to London to reacquaint himself with his old colleague Simon Crouch. There had been some sort of struggle. Max could remember an old lady, standing across the road with her shopping, watching them brawl in Crouch’s crappy little garden. A screwdriver into Crouch’s windpipe had eventually settled the dispute. The journey back had been even more stressful: roadworks on the M11 delayed Max’s return to Cambridgeshire until nearly three in the morning. Aching and hard eyed, Max sat in his library admiring his handiwork.

As he drifted in and out of consciousness, the dilapidated manor house became a confusing, creaking terror. His mind had unexpectedly thrown him back to his former life at Fogle & Moore. He was a child playing on a slag-heap of facts and terminology that he no longer understood.

‘A bond is a stream of cash flows,’ he told his empty library. ‘Price and yield have an inverted relationship.’ Frustrated at the silence that greeted his announcement Max grew angry. He hated silences in business. Silences meant ignorance. This was basic stuff. He squinted into the library to see who was listening to his seminar. There was Liz, some crouching monkey from Settlements, some faces he didn’t recognize.

Silence.

‘This is so basic,’ he screamed. ‘As price goes up yield goes down and vice fucking versa. This is easy stuff. You people couldn’t trade sausages, never mind bonds.’

There was a question from the floor. There was someone out there.

At
last,
a
question!

He tried to make sense of a shape that was neither an arm nor a lamp. ‘If eurobonds pay annually why do we price sterling bonds semi-annually?’ said a voice he thought for a second was his own before realizing that it couldn’t have been. He was stunned at the ignorance of the question.

‘Because of the fucking gilt market!’ he shouted. ‘Gilts pay semi-annually so you price sterling bonds on the same basis and then convert to an annual yield.’

He stared angrily out of the window expecting to see Canary Wharf’s sea of lights before him. All he could see was darkness.

‘The sterling interest rate curve,’ he said deliberately and slowly as if speaking to a difficult child, ‘is inverted. Rates are higher in the short maturities reflecting …’ he stopped, unable to remember what it reflected. He knew the sterling curve looked like a slide, though. He had played on a slide on the compound in India. His mother had waited at the bottom to stop him sliding off the sterling yield curve into her arms. He was dressed in a hat of plastic jewels and a belt of moonlight glitter. She had been so proud. He had won the prize.

His parents had always disappointed him. His mother had died and deserted him: his father had stayed alive and encumbered him. The old man’s first visit to his new country house three months previously had been particularly disappointing.

Robin
Fallon
had
sat
in
a
wooden
chair,
shocked
by
the
disintegration
of
his
son.
Max
was
laying
stretched,
pale
and
exhausted
across
a
sofa.
Books
and
strange
sketches
lay
strewn
across
the
floor.
Robin
had
picked
up
a
couple
of
the
drawings
and
tried
to
decipher
some
logic
through
the
scrawled
obscenities,
the
souvenirs
of
his
son’s
terrible
jour
neys
into
the
back
of
his
own
head.
Robin
screwed
some
of
them
up
and
then
vainly
looked
around
Max’s
dilapidated
drawing
room
for
a
waste
paper
bin.

‘This
has
gone
far
enough,
Max,’
he
observed
sternly.

Max
was
fiddling
with
a
Rubik’s
Cube,
marvelling
at
its
strange
colours
and
intricate
possibilities.

‘What
is
all
this
stuff?’
Robin
gestured
at
the
mess
that
sprawled
across
the
ancient
carpet.

Max
giggled
to
himself
but
didn’t
look
up.
‘Try
to
imagine
the
bible
before
it
was
copy-edited.
’

Robin
Fallon
had
looked
at
the
rotting
wood
panelling
on
the
walls
of
the
drawing
room,
the
broken
bookshelves,
the
smashed
electricity
sockets
and
the
fireplace
stuffed
with
papers
and
rubbish.

‘I
want
you
to
listen
to
me,
Max,’
he
said
angrily,
‘this
has
to
stop.
Whatever
it
is
you
are
doing
to
yourself
–
these
drugs
–
it
must
stop
now.
If
you
aren’t
strong
enough
to
stop
by
yourself,
I
will
get
someone
professional
to
help
you.
You
promised
me
after
you
left
your
job
in
London
that
you’d
see
someone.
I
insist
that
you
see
a
psychiatrist.’

‘You
can’t
possibly
understand
what
I
am
about
to
become,’
muttered
Max
as
he
rotated
the
squares
on
his
cube.
He
toyed
with
the
idea
of
showing
his
father
his
research
on
the
Soma;
his
identification
and
locating
of
the
divine
Soma
plant
itself.
The
moment
died
as
two
lines
of
red
squares
clicked
together
on
his
Rubik’s
Cube.

‘No.
I
don’t
understand.
You
had
a
fantastic
job
and
you
managed
to
get
sacked.
You
spent
a
fortune
on
a
listed
building
that
frankly
should
be
condemned.
As
far
as
I
can
see,
all
you
are
becoming
is
a
tramp.’

‘Typical!’
Max
had
fumed
at
the
Rubik’s
Cube.
He
had
completed
four
sides
of
the
conundrum
but
still
had
a
single
blue
square
and
a
single
red
square
in
the
wrong
locations.
‘Fuck
it.
That
happens
every
fucking
time.’

Robin
Fallon
sat
in
a
filthy
armchair.
‘Would
you
like
me
to
speak
to
Richard
Moore?
Perhaps
I
could
get
your
job
back.
He
owes
me
some
favours.’

‘You
speak
to
that
puffed
up
arsehole
and
I’ll
never
forgive
you,’
Max
hissed
with
rage.

Robin
felt
a
cold
wave
of
despair
crash
down
upon
him
as
Max
hurled
the
incomplete
Rubik’s
Cube
into
the
fire
place.

‘Someone
keeps
changing
the
stickers
around,’
Max
grumbled.
‘It’s
the
only
explanation.’

‘What
are
you
talking
about?
Who?’

‘Someone
comes
in
here
and
switches
the
coloured
stickers
around.
The
thing
is
fucked
now.
It’s
like
a
lobotomy.’

‘A
lobotomy?’

‘Yes,’
said
Max
warming
to
his
theme.
‘Like
someone
cuts
a
cube
out
of
your
brain
then
puts
it
back
in
the
wrong
way.
It
looks
like
it
should
work
but
all
the
connections
get
mixed
up.’
Max
stared
through
the
lights
at
his
father.
The
old
man’s
head
had
become
a
swirling
mass
of
blues
and
greens
that
had
erupted
from
nowhere.
Like
clouds
rotating
around
a
planet.
It
reminded
Max
of
something,
a
scrap
he
had
read.
It
was
a
provenance.
A
revelation.
The
cube
of
brain
had
been
slotted
back
correctly.
Suddenly,
beautifully,
everything
made
sense.
He
decided
to
keep
his
epiphany
to
himself.