6
In every way there is, murder is chaos. Our job is simple, when you get down to it: we stand against that, for order.
I remember this country back when I was growing up. We went to church, we ate family suppers around the table, and it would never even have crossed a kid’s mind to tell an adult to fuck off. There was plenty of bad there, I don’t forget that, but we all knew exactly where we stood and we didn’t break the rules lightly. If that sounds like small stuff to you, if it sounds boring or old-fashioned or uncool, think about this: people smiled at strangers, people said hello to neighbors, people left their doors unlocked and helped old women with their shopping bags, and the murder rate was scraping zero.
Sometime since then, we started turning feral. Wild got into the air like a virus, and it’s spreading. Watch the packs of kids roaming inner-city estates, mindless and brakeless as baboons, looking for something or someone to wreck. Watch the businessmen shoving past pregnant women for a seat on the train, using their 4x4s to force smaller cars out of their way, purple-faced and outraged when the world dares to contradict them. Watch the teenagers throw screaming stamping tantrums when, for once, they can’t have it the second they want it. Everything that stops us being animals is eroding, washing away like sand, going and gone.
The final step into feral is murder. We stand between that and you. We say, when no one else will, There are rules here. There are limits. There are boundaries that don’t move.
I’m the least fanciful guy around, but on nights when I wonder whether there was any point to my day, I think about this: the first thing we ever did, when we started turning into humans, was draw a line across the cave door and say: Wild stays out. What I do is what the first men did. They built walls to keep back the sea. They fought the wolves for the hearth fire.
I got everyone together in the Spains’ sitting room—it was much too small, but there was no way we were having this chat in the fishbowl kitchen. The floaters clustered up shoulder to shoulder, trying not to stand on the rug or brush against the telly, like the Spains still needed their guests to have good manners. I told them what was behind the garden wall. One of the techs whistled, a long soft sound.
“Here, Scorcher,” Larry said. He had settled himself comfortably on the sofa. “Now I’m not doubting you, we both know better than that, but is there no chance this is just some homeless guy who found himself a nice cozy place to doss down for a while?”
“With binoculars and an expensive sleeping bag, and bugger-all else? Not a chance, Lar. That nest was set up for one reason: so someone could spy on the Spains.”
“And he’s not homeless,” Richie said. “Or if he is, he’s got somewhere he can have a wash, himself and the sleeping bag. No smell.”
I said to the nearest floater, “Get onto the Dog Unit and have them send a general purpose dog out here ASAP. Tell them we’re after a murder suspect and we need the best trailing dog they’ve got.” He nodded and backed into the hall, already pulling out his phone. “Until that dog gets a chance at the scent, no one else goes into that house. All of you”—I nodded to the floaters—“can pick up the search for the weapon, but this time keep well away from that hide—head out the front, around to both sides, and cut down to the beach. When the dog handler arrives, I’ll text you all, and you’ll come back here at a run. I’m going to need chaos outside the front of this place: people running, shouting, driving up on full lights and sirens, crowding around to look at something—give it as much drama as you can. Then pick a saint, or whatever you’re into, and say a prayer that if our man’s watching, the chaos lures him round to the front to see what’s going on.”
Richie was leaning against a wall with his hands in his pockets. He said, “At least he’s after leaving his binoculars behind. If he wants to see what’s up, he can’t just stay somewhere out the back and check it out long-distance; he’ll have to come around the front, get in close.”
“There’s no guarantee he hasn’t got a second pair, but we’ll hope. If he comes close enough, we might even get our hands on him, although that’s probably too much to ask; this whole estate is a warren, he’s got enough hiding places to keep him going for months. Meanwhile, the dog goes around to that nest, scents off the sleeping bag—the handler can bring the bag down to the ground, if he can’t get the dog up there—and gets to work. One tech heads up there with them, inconspicuously, takes video and fingerprints, and leaves. Everything else can wait.”
“Gerry,” Larry said, pointing at a gangly young guy, who nodded. “Fastest print tape in the West.”
“Good man, Gerry. If you get prints, you head straight back to the lab and do what you do. The rest of us will keep up the action out front for as long as you need it, and then we’ll go back to what we were doing. We’ve got until six o’clock sharp. Then we clear the area. Anyone who’s still working inside the house can keep going, but the outside needs to look like we’ve packed up and gone home for the night. I want the coast clear—literally—for our man.”
Larry’s eyebrows were practically in his bald patch. It was a gamble, staking the whole evening’s work on this one chance—witnesses’ memories can change even overnight, rain showers can wash away blood and scent, tides can pull dumped weapons or bloody clothes out to sea forever—and gambling isn’t like me, but this case wasn’t like most cases. “Once it gets dark,” I said, “we re-deploy.”
“You’re assuming the dog won’t get him,” Larry pointed out. “You think this fella knows what he’s at?”
I saw the floaters shift as the thought sent a ripple of alertness through them. “That’s what we’re aiming to find out,” I said. “Probably not, or he’d have cleaned up after himself, but I’m not taking any chances. Sunset’s around half past seven, maybe a little later. About eight or half past, as soon as we can’t be seen, Detective Curran and I will head up to that nest, where we’ll spend the night.” I caught Richie’s eye; he nodded. “Meanwhile, two detectives will be patrolling the estate—again, inconspicuously—keeping an eye out for any action, in particular any action heading this way. Any takers?”
All of the floaters’ hands shot up. I picked Marlboro Man—he had earned it—and a kid who looked young enough that one night with no sleep wouldn’t wipe him out for the rest of the week. “Keep in mind that he could come from outside the estate or from inside—he could be hiding out in a derelict house, or he could live here and that’s how he targeted the Spains. If you spot anything interesting, ring me straightaway. Still no radios: we have to assume that this guy is into his surveillance gear, deep enough that he owns a scanner. If someone looks promising, tail him if you can, but your top priority is making sure he doesn’t spot you. If you get even the faintest sense that he’s onto you, back right off and report to me. Got it?”
They nodded. I said, “I’ll also need a pair of techs to spend the night in here.”
“Not me,” Larry said. “You know I love you, Scorcher, but I’ve got a previous engagement and I’m too old for the all-night carry-on, no double entendre intended.”
“No problem. I’m sure someone could do with the overtime, am I right?” Larry mimed his jaw hitting his chest—I have a rep for not authorizing overtime. A few of the techs nodded. “You can bring sleeping bags and take turns getting some kip in the sitting room, if you want to; I just need some kind of ongoing visible activity. Bring things back and forth from your car, swab things in the kitchen, take a laptop out there and pull up a graph that looks professional . . . Your job is to get our man interested enough that he can’t resist the temptation to go up to his nest, get his binoculars and check out what you’re doing.”
“Bait,” said Gerry the print tech.
“Exactly. We’ve got bait, trackers, hunters, and we’ll just have to hope our man walks into the trap. We’ll have a couple of hours off between six o’clock and nightfall; get something to eat, head back to the office if you need to check in, pick up anything you’ll want for the stakeout. For now, I’ll let you get back to what you’re doing. Thanks, lads and ladies.”
They moved off—two of the techs were flipping a coin for the overtime, a couple of floaters were trying to impress me or each other by taking notes. The scaffolding had stamped smears of rust onto the sleeve of my overcoat. I found a tissue in my pocket and headed out to the kitchen to dampen it.
Richie followed me. I said, “If you need something to eat, you can take the car and find that petrol station the Gogan woman talked about.”
He shook his head. “I’m grand.”
“Good. And you’re OK for tonight?”
“Yeah. No probs.”
“At six we’ll head back to HQ, brief the Super, pick up anything we need, then meet up again and come back here.” If Richie and I could make it into town fast enough, and if the briefing didn’t take too long, there was just a chance I would have time to get hold of Dina and put her in a taxi to Geri’s. “You’re welcome to put in for overtime if you want. I’m not planning to.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t believe in overtime.” Larry’s boys had cut the water and taken out the sink trap, in case our boy had washed up, but a leftover trickle came out of the tap. I caught it on the tissue and scrubbed at my sleeve.
“I heard that, all right. How come?”
“I’m not a babysitter, or a waiter. I don’t charge by the hour. And I’m not some politician looking for ways to get paid three times over for every tap of work I do. I get paid my salary to do my job, whatever that happens to mean.”
Richie didn’t comment. He said, “You’re pretty definite that this guy’s watching us, aren’t you?”
“On the contrary: he’s probably miles away, at work, if he’s got a job to go to and if he had the cool to go in today. But, like I said to Larry, I’m not taking any chances.”
In the corner of my eye something white flicked. I was facing the windows, braced ready to lunge at the back door, before I knew I had moved. One of the techs was out in the garden, squatting on a paving stone, swabbing.
Richie let that speak for itself while I straightened up and stashed the tissue in my briefcase. Then he said, “So maybe ‘definite’ isn’t the right word. But you think he is.”
The great Rorschach blot on the floor where the Spains had lain was darkening, crusting at the edges. Above it, the windows ricocheted gray afternoon light back and forth, throwing off dislocated, off-kilter reflections: swirling leaves, a slice of wall, the heart-stopping nosedive of a bird against cloud. “Yeah,” I said. “I do. I think he’s watching.”