The Shut Eye (26 page)

‘Took some doing,’ he said. ‘But the deal’s on the table.’

Proctor – whom Marvel noticed was now noticeably red in the face – said tightly, ‘My client has decided to decline your offer.’

‘What?’

Marvel looked at Latham. Unlike his lawyer, he looked pale and sick.

‘I don’t want to do it,’ he said.

The look that Marvel and Proctor exchanged was brief, but so transparent that they each knew in an instant what the other was thinking.

Nobody would turn down that offer but a fool or a guilty man.

Even Clyde got it.

‘Is he an idiot?’ he asked Marvel as they sat in his greasy mint office an hour later.

‘He’s
being
an idiot,’ said Marvel. ‘But no, sir, I don’t think he
is
one.’

‘Then he killed her,’ said Clyde firmly. ‘Or knows who did.’

Marvel nodded. ‘That’s my thinking too.’

‘But we have no evidence against him?’

‘Only his own claims that she is dead. Seen in psychic visions. And if he’s willing to take the drop for the dognapping thing rather than talk about it again, then where’s our leverage?’

Clyde sighed and shook his head with a pained expression on his face. ‘The CPS’ll never go for that. They’d laugh us out of court.
Shit!
What a bloody mess you’ve made of this, Marvel. You only wanted to get Latham for the dog thing because you couldn’t get him on this other case. And you do that even though I asked you not to and
even though
you throw me under the bloody bus.

‘And now, when you try to cut him loose and make everything better, he won’t
be
cut loose because either he really did kill the girl – which he’s
never
going to tell you – or because you’ve scared him so shitless that he thinks you’re trying to fit him up for murder! Now
he
’s screwed and
I
’m screwed and the only person who isn’t screwed is
you
!’

But Marvel felt screwed. Screwed by whoever really had stolen Edie Evans and really had killed her – whether by accident or design.

He had to try to salvage
something
from this mess.

‘I can go over Edie’s file again, sir—’

‘No,’ said Clyde.

Marvel adjusted his sights in an instant. ‘In my spare time. It’s still open. I could look at it right from the start with Latham at the middle. Alibis and witness statements—’

‘
I said no
.’

Marvel stopped talking and looked at Clyde’s face. It was oddly patient, despite his angry words. As if he knew what was coming, and it was worth waiting for.

And suddenly Marvel knew too. His heart dropped into the pit of his queasy guts as he realized what had happened. He’d spent so much of his life looking for weakness in others that he’d forgotten to disguise his own vulnerability. It was a mistake he would never make again, but he had made it now. He’d shown his hand – his chink – too easily, too often, and now his boss was going to punish him for it.

He understood the rules of the game.

He’d just never thought they applied to
him
.

‘Please …’ he started, and then stopped and finished the rest of the sentence in his head.
Please don’t do this to her.

If Superintendent Robert Clyde read those words in John Marvel’s eyes, he ignored them.

‘I’m closing the Edie Evans case.’

EDIE STARED AT
the door.

Her wonky Neil Armstrong stared back at her.

She had been sitting like this – not moving, cross-legged on her camp bed – for three hours, although she had no way of knowing that. Cross-legged in quivery stillness, her ears vibrating with the strain of listening for the man to return.

She also had no way of knowing that it was now eighteen hours since she had broken his hat, and he had stormed out and bolted the door behind him.

In her dry mouth, it felt like more.

Still he didn’t come.

Edie licked her lips, but her tongue was dry too.

And bigger. It felt bigger than before.

She got up slowly to check the jug again. Another dribble had collected in the bottom, but this time it was barely a few drops. The glass jug was heavy, but she held it tipped against her lips until her arms got tired.

Swallowing was difficult. It was like there was a lump of cotton wool in her throat. She had to gulp two or three times just to feel her swallow was still working.

Her legs ached. Even after she had stretched them, they ached.

She stretched them again anyway, and banged on the door. The sound was dead, like her shout had been that first time.

She shouted again anyway, but now her mouth was so dry that the sound that came out was shockingly small, even in this shockingly small room.

There were still four of the Bakewell tarts left, but although she was hungry again, she was wary of eating one. They cried out for a cup of tea.

Tea.

Her mother made good tea.

Her mother made good everything.

Edie’s face tingled with approaching tears, and when they rose on her lower lids, she collected them on her finger and swallowed them greedily, painfully.

But they brought no relief – only the faint taste of salt.

She returned to the big glass jug and ran a finger around the inside walls.

It came away shiny with moisture and Edie licked it off, again and again and again.

How could she have forgotten the water on the sides of the jug? How could she have wasted it? All this time those few precious drops had been evaporating.

She winced at a sudden cramp in her stomach. It went on and on, and left her breathless.

She lowered herself on to her bed and lay on her side with her knees drawn up.

She waited it out.

She waited for everything. For the door to open; for the man to return. For more water. For more water. More water.

She waited so long that she fell asleep, and dreamed of ice cubes clinking softly in a glass.

The first sip was heaven.

The liquid gushed over long-dry lips like a flash flood across a cracked and dusty riverbed.

The tongue fizzed in gratitude.

The palate swelled in relief.

The throat opened to welcome it home like the prodigal son.

Before the mouth was even full, the rest of the body was tingling and alert to the onrushing paradise.

Heaven on Earth.

Marvel put down the pint of bitter and felt that he had found his way home.

ANNA WAS PUTTING
the baby to bed when somebody knocked. At first she didn’t even know where the sound came from. They rarely had visitors, and never bought anything that required delivery.

She frowned and went into the kitchen.

The knock came again and she went warily down the stairs to the front door.

It was DCI Marvel. The shoulders of his coat were damp, even though it was no longer raining. It made her wonder how long he’d been out, or how far he had walked.

‘Mrs Buck,’ he said, ‘I need to speak to you.’

He was drunk. Not
rolling
drunk, but she could tell.

Anna stared at him. He looked unwell. His face was pale and his eyes were red and tired, although that might have been from the cigarette smoke that curled up into them on this damp, windless night.

But there was something else in his eyes that told her that refusing him entry was not going to work.

‘James will be home soon,’ she said cautiously.

‘That’s OK.’ He shrugged and stepped forward, so she stepped backwards, and all of a sudden he was in the house.

‘I won’t be long,’ he said, and looked up the stairs as if to remind her where they were supposed to be going.

‘Can you take your shoes off, please?’

‘Really?’ he said. ‘I’m on official police business.’

‘Really?’ she said, and he took off his shoes.

She gestured for him to go first. On the way up the stairs she noticed that his right sock had a hole in one heel.

‘In here?’ he said at the kitchen.

‘If you like,’ she said.

He sat at the table and she put down a saucer for his ash.

‘You’ve cleaned up the paint.’

‘Yes,’ said Anna. ‘It took a while.’

He looked around and said nothing. Anna knew she should offer him a cup of tea, but she didn’t want to encourage him.

‘So,’ she said bluntly, ‘what do you want?’

He sat for a moment, silent, eyes narrowed by smoke.

‘Earlier today, Richard Latham told me Edie Evans has been dead from the start.’ He turned up his palms. ‘I mean, I don’t believe any of this psychic bullshit. Never have, never will. But …’

He stopped.

Anna didn’t know what he wanted her to say, so she said, ‘I’m sorry.’

He nodded slowly, and said thank you, and Anna realized with surprise that he felt he deserved that sympathy.

Which somehow made him deserving
of
it.

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she asked.

‘Please.’

She put the kettle on and the little kitchen with the black windows was suffused with the subliminal thrum of water.

They didn’t speak again until she put two mugs on the table and sat down opposite Marvel.

‘What made you think she
wasn’t
dead?’

Marvel shook his head. He flushed. He was embarrassed, she could see.

‘Just hope,’ he said. ‘But it felt more …
substantial
than that. More rational.’ He sipped his tea and cupped his hands loosely around the mug. ‘Now it just seems a bit stupid.’

Anna suddenly felt very close to DCI Marvel.

He went on, slow and measured, ‘Latham said she died a month or so after being taken. That means that all the time I’ve spent looking for her and thinking about her and wondering where she is and how she is – fifteen months! – has been a waste of time. Because she’s fucking
dead
!’ He threw up a hand and jolted tea out of his mug on to the table. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

Anna got a cloth and wiped up the spill. ‘Your time wasn’t wasted,’ she said.

‘You don’t think so?’

She looked into her tea. ‘I think about Daniel all the time. I wonder how he is, what he’s doing, whether he’s thinking about me, how he’s changing, how tall he is now, whether his clothes still fit him or whether someone has bought him new ones …’

She caught her voice before it could break and gave a tremulous smile at the bittersweet pleasure of her own imagination.

‘Thinking about him keeps him alive for me,’ she said. ‘Thinking about him gives me hope, and hope keeps
me
alive for
him
.’

Marvel stared at her. He lit another cigarette. He used matches, not a lighter, and the delicious, dangerous smell of sulphur hung over them for a moment, before the dull and dirty smoke took over.

He clamped the cigarette between his lips and leaned sideways so he could take something from the inside pocket of his coat.

Anna averted her eyes. She knew what it would be. ‘Please don’t ask me to look at her picture,’ she said in a rush.

‘Why not?’

‘It hurts.’

‘How can it hurt?’

‘I don’t know, but it does.
Here
.’ She cupped her belly.

‘Latham wouldn’t look at it either,’ said Marvel. ‘Even after I offered him a deal.’

‘But if you’ll never believe in psychic powers, what was the point of asking him to look at it?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Marvel irritably. ‘
I don’t know!
Shit!’

He sighed and leaned back in his chair, which creaked precariously. Then, after a moment, he said, ‘I
do
know. Latham’s a lying son of a bitch, but he said something that stuck in my head. He said
Everybody gets there in the end
.’

‘Gets where?’ said Anna.

‘I think he was talking about God.’

‘What does it mean?’

‘I suppose it means that people want to believe in
something
– God or Santa Claus or some bloody thing – just before they die, even if it’s just because they’re scared and desperate.’

Marvel deliberately put the photo of the dog show down on the table in front of Anna. He half laughed, but there was no pleasure in it. ‘Well, now I’m desperate,’ he said. ‘I can’t go another day not knowing what happened to Edie Evans, and if
you
don’t understand that, then nobody can.’

Anna looked at him with fierce calm. ‘You
can
go another day, Mr Marvel, and you
will
. Whether I help you or not. Whether
anybody
helps you or not. For as long as you live, you will go on. Because the only alternative is
not
to.’

The night on Bickley Bridge hung between them.

Then Marvel said, ‘Let me tell you something about this photo before you say no.’

She nodded. ‘OK.’

‘This photo was taken last September. Eight months
after
Edie went missing.’

Anna frowned, then looked suddenly hopeful. ‘But that’s
good
! That means Edie might be—’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ said Marvel. ‘Because you see this here?’

He pointed and Anna glanced down obliquely. ‘This is Edie’s BMX bicycle. Which we found at the crime scene, and which has been in the basement of Lewisham police station since January last year.’

Anna frowned. ‘But that’s impossible.’

Marvel shrugged. ‘No, that’s just improbable. You haven’t heard the impossible bit yet.’ He took a breath. ‘Before I came here tonight, I went to see Sandra Clyde. I wanted to pick up the negative or digital file or whatever, so we could enlarge the photo in the lab. Get the best image to work with. Maybe identify other people in the picture. Something to go on, you know?’

Anna nodded.

Marvel leaned forward. Then he stopped and sat up straight again, and looked around the room as if he’d forgotten what he was going to say.

Anna watched him closely. He looked more than drunk; he looked old. He looked confused.

He looked scared.

She felt fear trickle down her own spine.

‘What?’ she said. ‘What is it?’

Marvel looked at her and slowly shook his head. ‘Edie’s not
in
the original photograph.’