The Reckoning on Cane Hill: A Novel (17 page)

‘She’s right to do so.’ I sat up in bed. ‘What has she remembered?’

‘Something from the van, she says. From when the man was talking to her. Does that make sense?’

‘Yes.’

He wanted me to ask you for mercy
.

‘Her memory is clearer now,’ Fredericks said. ‘And she tells me that she got it wrong before. Not
mercy
. That’s what she says now.’

I closed my eyes, somehow hearing it in my head before Fredericks could say it out loud.

‘The man told her to ask for
Mercer
.’

Groves

The phone call

Groves took the phone home with him, wondering about the encounter the whole way. The more he thought about it, the stranger it seemed. There was nothing unusual about most of what had happened, but put together, it felt more and more deliberate. Orchestrated, even.

And yet how could that be possible?

If the homeless boy had been intending to give him the phone, he could easily have just done it. Instead, he’d been harassing the woman, and if Groves hadn’t intervened, they would never even have spoken. And why demand change? It felt to Groves as though, if he hadn’t given him the money, the man wouldn’t have dropped the mobile. But what kind of exchange was that meant to be? The phone was old and battered but presumably still worth more than he had effectively paid for it.

The more he thought about it, the less sense it made.

He didn’t recognise the model of phone, but it was a long way from state-of-the-art; the kind of thing they probably didn’t even sell any more. It had a pale blue rubber casing, a small numerical keypad and a thin green display that would incorporate two lines of text at most. If you’d wanted to check the internet on it, you’d have been sorely disappointed.

Groves turned it on. The battery was only half full. Given
the age of the thing, he’d have to be careful about that, because it seemed unlikely he was going to locate a charger for it any time soon. But he wasn’t going to find answers if he didn’t look.

The menu system was archaic, and it took a few tries to work out how to scroll down through the options on the tiny screen. He had to prod the bottom of one key carefully, moving through the numbered options one line at a time, then click OK to access that function.

By the time the train was approaching his stop, Groves had managed to ascertain that there were no messages or contacts stored in the phone, and that the call history was completely blank. He used it to call his own mobile, but as it rang, the display simply showed
Caller Unknown
. So that was no use. He put his mobile away, then turned the homeless boy’s phone off and used a key to prise away the back. Inside, he found a battery and SIM card. He expected the SIM to have the number written on it, and it had done once. Someone had carefully obliterated the numbers there with black scribbles.

A mystery, then.

He walked home from the station. It was only ten minutes, and the night was still warm. Above him the stars prickled gently, and the trees along the country lane rustled beside him in the slight breeze. Beyond them, the fields were dark, the long grass swaying gently in the shadows. The world was mostly silent, but he had the strange feeling that he was being watched. There was no reason for it – nobody else had got off at his stop, and whenever he glanced around, he was totally alone – but the feeling remained, all the way up the short path to his front door.

Groves turned around. The country lane was illuminated by a street light, which also touched the leaves of the tree at the end of the path. On the other side of the lane there was a dry-stone wall, which separated the road from the sloping field beyond and the black silhouettes of the trees in the far distance. Someone was standing out there.

It wasn’t obviously a figure, just a portion of the field that
was darker than the rest. A pitch-black space in the shape of a person.

He took a step back towards the road, but even as he did, the illusion disappeared. The breeze moved the grass, and the figure dissolved into what it had been all along: fragments of split shadow that had come together to form a person, then separated again.

He listened. Nothing but the breeze. In the dark, and as nervous as he suddenly felt, it sounded like holding a seashell up to his ear.

Once inside, he locked the door. Then, feeling faintly ridiculous, he checked the whole house. There was no rhyme or reason to it, but he did it anyway. Nobody was there, of course. He noticed that Caroline had made the bed and washed up before she left.

Finally, relaxing somewhat, he turned his attention back to the phone. There was one more thing he could think of doing. Sitting down in the front room with a glass of wine, he turned it on again and called the number for his home phone. He let it ring twice before cancelling it, then walked across the room and picked up the receiver, checking for details of the last incoming call.

‘The caller did not leave their number. Please hang up.’

He did.

And then the mobile rang.

Groves stared down at it for a second. The display showed no incoming number. It was the ringtone that threw him.

It was a nursery rhyme: ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’. The notes tinkled in the front room, bringing with them a flood of mixed memories, happy at first, and then sad. There had been a small toy bunny strapped to the side of Jamie’s cot, carrying a suitcase. When you pulled on it, the cable slowly contorted back in again, playing that tune the whole time.

No, no, no
.

It was how he often used to wake up in the mornings. He would drift awake to the sound of the tune, and Jamie giggling
in the cot beside their bed. The house would fall silent, and then there’d be a gentle crunching sound as Jamie pulled on the bunny’s suitcase and the music began again.

He stared at the phone for a moment longer, then pressed the green key to accept the call. The music died and he held it to his ear.

‘Hello?’

There was some problem with the reception. Even though nobody was obviously on the other end, there was a sheen of static over the silence: buzzes and rushes and clicks.

Then words started to come through.

‘ ... whatever happens to them on the way ...’

It sounded like an old radio announcement. The voice was grandiose, like a broadcaster reading from a news script during the war. The crackles and pips reminded Groves of music played on a gramophone.

There was a sudden burst of child’s laughter. Full and delirious, and then immediately gone again.

‘ ... in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest ...’

‘Who is this?
’ Groves said.

‘ ... a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.’

It was only then – as the sound cut dead – that he realised it had been a recording. The line was silent now. But still holding the phone to his ear, he thought he could hear someone breathing softly at the other end of the connection.

‘Who is this?’ Groves said again.

‘God will be with you,’ a man’s voice said.

And then the line went dead.

Part Three

And She told Them that true evil also shied from the light. A Man may be evil at heart, but that is not sufficient, for many wish evil upon others without action, and how can a Man be evil without performing evil deeds? And yet true evil also endeavours to draw no attention to itself. And She told Them that the Devil therefore seeks out evil that wishes not to be sought, and rewards it by forcing it into the light
.

Extract from the Cane Hill bible

Mark

John Mercer

The walls of our incident room were now covered with material relating to the case. There was a list of hospitals and phone numbers, a third of them already struck through; photographs and schematics from the accident two years ago; contact details for the acquaintances of Charlie Matheson and Paul Carlisle, and the scant information gathered from them so far; general notes and queries and scribbles. On the plasma screen, the double image of Charlie Matheson’s face, the past and the present, seemed to be staring down at the three of us as we waited anxiously for our guests to arrive.

Greg was leaning against one of the desks, his arms folded and his chin tucked down against his chest; occasionally he sighed loudly to himself. He looked like a man in a hospital waiting dutifully for bad news about a relative he didn’t particularly care for. Simon, meanwhile, was perhaps as animated as I’d ever seen him. He kept pacing back and forth, stopping at the window from time to time and lifting a slat in the blinds to peer at the sunny morning outside. Each time he did, it clicked when he let it go, causing Greg to look over in irritation.

‘You’ll break that.’

‘I broke it weeks ago.’

I was sitting at another of the desks, elbows on the surface,
hands clasped in front of my mouth. Just waiting. Pete was downstairs. The desk had called up five minutes ago, at which point he’d headed down to welcome our guests and escort them up here. Guests: plural. Given how protective she’d been yesterday morning, it didn’t remotely surprise me that Eileen Mercer had insisted upon escorting her husband to the department.

‘Taking their time, aren’t they?’ Greg said.

Simon clicked the blind again.

‘Patience,’ he said.

But I could tell from his voice that, if not quite as jittery as Greg, Simon was still nervous about seeing our old boss. I’d called the hospital again first thing, and Fredericks had told me that Charlie had reiterated what she’d said last night: the man in the ambulance had told her to ask us for Mercer. If anything, she had been even more strident about it. Was there a policeman here by that name? There wasn’t, of course – not any more – but Fredericks said that she was insistent. It was imperative that she speak to Mercer.

The word she’d used in the first interview kept coming back to me.
Need
. I looked up at those images of her now.

Why do you
need
to talk to Mercer, Charlie?

Whatever the reason, Pete had reluctantly made the call first thing this morning. After the reception I’d received from Eileen, I hadn’t been convinced that Mercer would agree to come at all, but Pete had returned to the incident room only a couple of minutes later. Former Detective John Mercer would be here within the hour. Forty minutes later, he’d arrived downstairs, with Eileen at his side.

‘Has anyone actually seen him since?’ Greg said.

Simon and I didn’t answer. It was obvious what he meant by
since
. I knew Greg himself wouldn’t have seen Mercer, not after his betrayal on that December day. Out of concern for our former boss’s disintegrating mental health, Greg had attempted to have him removed from the case. I had no reason to keep in touch with him, of course: although it was Mercer’s reputation that had drawn me to the city, I barely knew the man himself.
And I couldn’t imagine Simon paying a social call, although to be fair, even after a year and a half here, his private life remained a mystery to me.

‘Maybe Pete has,’ I suggested. ‘They were close, weren’t they?’

Simon shook his head. ‘I don’t think any of us were exactly close to him. Pete was his second, and they worked together for years, but I’m not sure they ever socialised outside of work. Not to my knowledge, anyway. John was in charge, but he was never as relaxed and friendly as Pete is. Of course, that doesn’t mean we weren’t intensely loyal to him.’

‘Because we were,’ Greg said.

‘Yes.’ Simon nodded. ‘All of us.’

Under other circumstances, he might have twisted that into something more teasing, more knowing, but right now he sounded sincere. Whatever Greg had done, he’d done it for the right reasons. And with the man himself on the way, it was clear that even Simon felt it wasn’t the time for needling.

Greg was about to say something else, but just then the office door opened, and he bit down on whatever it was.

Pete came in first. He looked more nervous than any of us, but was clearly trying to hide it, wearing a smile that was far too casual for the circumstances. He held the door open for Eileen and Mercer, who followed silently behind him.

I’d seen Eileen yesterday, and the only real change in her now was how much more serious she looked. She did not want to be here, and it clearly troubled her deeply that she was. The reason for that was equally clear when I saw Mercer moving into the room beside her.

I don’t know if it’s healthy
, she’d told me.
But he’s fine right now
...
he’s happy
.

If that were the case, it was difficult to imagine how he’d look if things were worse. Mercer was so diminished from the man I remembered that I wondered for a moment whether this could really be the same person.

When I’d started here, I’d been surprised by how fragile John
Mercer seemed in comparison to the legendary figure in my head, but I’d understood that he was still recovering from the effects of an earlier nervous breakdown. He had looked like a solid, sturdy man who was beginning to feel the inexorable effects of encroaching old age, yet remained active and capable. In the last year and a half, though, those effects had accelerated. Mercer looked elderly and frail – easily ten or fifteen years older than Eileen beside him. His hair was gone, and his face was wrinkled and drawn, skeleton-dark around the eyes. He also seemed much shorter than I remembered, and had lost so much weight that he reminded me of a patient you might see in a hospice. Even his gait was slow and awkward, as though he would be far more comfortable with a cane in his hand. I wasn’t sure whether Eileen was keeping so close to his side as an emotional guard, or if she was concerned he might stumble.

He looked around the room, giving us all the same cursory smile, one that went nowhere near his eyes.

‘Good morning, everyone.’

‘John.’

‘Hello again, John. Good to see you.’