The Treatment (36 page)

“Jack—”

“—and if he's got someone else then how long do you think they'd survive? Four days? In this weather, without any injuries, five days if they were
very fucking lucky
.” He got up and put his hand on the door. “Now please,
please
speak to that arsehole at King's.”

Benedicte worked, sawing with the grip rod, growing sicker and shakier by the minute. She didn't care how much sound she made now that she knew the troll had gone. Hair-fine pieces of wood peeled away, then larger, curly pieces. Every few minutes she had to stop and get her breath back, sitting with her legs splayed on either side of the area she was working on. Then she'd topple onto her side and fasten her mouth to the radiator pipe, sucking as much water as she could into her parched mouth. She was getting weak, but she wasn't going to give up.

It took almost three hours for her to scour a line about half a centimeter deep. A fragment of wood had come away—it was only the size of a sugar cube, but it had left a two-finger hole in the plank. She dropped the tack strip and inched the bra wiring into the hole, pushing it so it poked back up through the knot hole and created a handle. She sat on the floor, her feet planted against the wall, giving her something to strain against, gripped both ends
of the wire and pulled. The blood vessels in her head ballooned with the effort: Can your veins pop? she thought. Can they just burst?

London was melting. The earth in Brockwell Park was cracking, long open sores in the ground, and in Brixton market, girls sashayed down the street dressed only in denim shorts and seersucker bikini tops, hair tied into bunches with pink ribbon. On the edge of the steaming swimming pool Fish Gummer was tired. Ever since he'd had the encounter with DI Caffery he'd been irritable.
That's the last time I'll ever speak to the police.
Today's class was the Otters, the eight-to-nine-year-olds. He stopped and narrowed his eyes at them, lined up on the water's edge, standing with arms at their sides like penguins in multicolored arm floats. “Well? Who's missing?”

The children all bent forward to look up and down the row.

“Josh.” One of the boys gave him a toothless grin.

Josh Church was new to the class. He'd come only twice, dropped at the door from a big yellow car. “Well? Have any of you seen him? Any of you live near him?”

The children all looked at each other and shrugged. Josh was so new that no one had got to know him that well. None of them cared whether he was there or not.

“All right.” He blew his whistle. “Get yourselves a float if you need it, and get into the water.”

DC Logan stood in the incident-room doorway, coffee cup in his hand, examining his tie as if he suspected he'd spilled something on it. When Caffery stopped next to him, he dropped it and looked up guiltily: “All right?”

“How many houses did you do on the house-to-house?”

“Uh—I—well, y'know, I tried to do them thoroughly.”

“Right.” Caffery put his hands in his pockets and stood a little closer, murmuring into Logan's ear. “I've just had your overtime sheets in, and checked them next to the number of statements you took this week and there's a problem.” He dropped his chin and raised his eyebrows.

Logan knew what he was saying. He lowered his eyes.

“It's OK, you can make up for it,” Caffery murmured. “I've got a little job for you.”

He checked over his shoulder. Danni had her feet on the desk and was speaking into the phone. “There's a Mapinfo sheet and instructions in my pigeonhole. You will knock on twenty doors before the sun goes down. Just so you know.”

Logan stood, hands limp at his side, until Caffery had gone. Then he straightened his tie and looked over at Kryotos: “What the
fuck
's got into him?” he mouthed. Kryotos shrugged and turned away.

“Here we go.” It had taken almost five hours but at last Ben felt the wood crack between her hands. She scrabbled at it, her fingers bleeding now, and, slowly, enough of the board splintered for her to see into the space under the floor. She put her head down and peered in. The cavity was about ten inches deep, warm with incubated air. Pipes and wires zoomed in from the side of the house and snaked away from her into the darkness. It didn't smell musty or spidery; instead, it smelled of new wood and mastic. She sat up and pulled away the remainder of the plank then pushed her face back into the hole.

Now what?
Close to her eyes was a round electrical junction box screwed to a joist, tentacles of white cable exiting north, south, east, west, like a tiny octopus. One of the leads docked with the top of a black cylinder standing proud of the plasterboard. It took Ben a few moments to recognize that she was looking at the metal sheath of a light fitting—the recessed lighting in the kitchen, somewhat bigger than a beaker, inverted and pushed up through a circular hole.

My God
—this type of fitting, she was
sure,
was simply pushed up from below into the plasterboard, nothing holding it up, no screws or nails. She recalled Darren, Ayo's husband, pulling one out to work on it in their kitchen in Kennington—she remembered seeing it dangling from its cord.

She lay on her belly and cupped her hand over the top of the lamp, pressing it down. It moved with a long, soft, sucking sound—like jelly from a mold—and dropped out of sight, the wires catching the weight, daylight flooding into the space from below. Ben sucked in a breath. The light swung under the ceiling like a pendulum, the wires banging against the sides of the hole, and when nothing happened, when no one charged up the stairs and slammed into the door, she felt brave enough to get her face into the hole and see what was going on down there.

She inched farther into the space, her arms out in front of her like an obedient schoolgirl in a diving lesson,
fingers pressed together, children,
and thought of Josh running out of the swimming pool from his new lessons and jumping into the car: “Mum, what's an aquadynamic?” The plasterboard ceiling cracked suddenly under her weight. She recoiled, horrified, pulling her head out, her hair catching on nails so that she came out backward with a snarled crown. “Oh Jesus oh Jesus oh Jesus—”

She crouched there for a moment, panting, expecting the ceiling to collapse. But when it didn't her heart slowed a little. She pushed her hair from her eyes and slowly, carefully, bent down again. This time she was more cautious. She spread her hands across the floor like a gecko, and slowly wormed her face into the airless space, stealthy as a hunting cat, until she could see into the circle vacated by the light fitting.

It was bright down here, bright and open. And ten feet below her, in the kitchen beneath, Hal lay on the floor. On his back, his face almost directly beneath the hole.

Oh my God, Hal—

His feet were up, at an odd angle, both ankles individually cuffed to the big oven handle; his hands had been stretched above his head and fastened by electric flex to the squat feet of the washing machine. His mouth was covered with a piece of brown parcel tape and now Ben realized she could hear him snoring, as if he had simply got bored with the whole thing. As if he'd eaten Christmas dinner and drifted off in front of
The Wizard of Oz.

She maneuvered her face so her mouth was at the opening and whispered softly:

“
Hal?
”

Parallel to Brixton Hill, along the route of the old river Effra, consigned to the underworld since the last century, ran Effra Road, a hill that linked the lower, fashionably selfconscious slopes of Brixton with the poor council estates at the Streatham end. On this, one of the hottest days of the year, DC Logan was climbing the hill with slow deliberation, cooking in his own sweat. The sun had heated up the earth until the paving stones lifted at odd angles. In front gardens cats slept under bushes, twitching their ears at the midday insects.
Jesus
, he thought,
what I could do to a cold Red Stripe is criminal
.

Up ahead on the left was the new housing development, Clock Tower Grove—he could see the hoarding and the flags—and beyond them a concrete joist swaying in the claws of a crane. There were some bigger houses at the back overlooking the park. He supposed he'd have to go and find out if any of them were finished, if anyone had moved in yet. He wiped the sweat from his forehead. There were eighteen more addresses to make that day—he wasn't going to hang around at any of them. If no one answered the door he was out of there.

Meanwhile, in number five, Clock Tower Walk, Hal opened his eyes and thought he was seeing an angel. A sweet geometry—her face in a circular frame. At first the eyes, those eyes like mirrors, seemed to take up the whole of the room. Benedicte?

“
Hal,
” she whispered.

And then he thought, for the first time, that maybe they had a chance. He tried to jerk his head up in reply but he had been bound so he couldn't move. Tears slid from his eyes.

“Hal,” she murmured, her voice faint and sick. “
Josh?
Is he …?”

He moved his eyes sideways, showing her the direction.

She pulled back from the hole and tried to reposition herself to get the angle right so she could see into the family
room. She could feel the uneven temperature of the air, she could smell her own breath in the tiny space. As if all her tension and sickness had been converted to chemicals and breathed out through her lungs. She pushed her face into the hole until her flesh and eyeball bulged down into the room. Her eyes clicked open and closed. Rotated and froze.

Fastened to the radiator in the family room, curled up like a little fern, his knees pulled up under his chin, was Josh. Although he was gray and washed out his expression was calm, his eyes fixed, concentrating on trying to unpick the rope that bound him to the radiator. On the wrist he had already freed were deep furrows, shiny and red, and there was a rash on his mouth where a tape had been.

“
Josh?
” Softly at first, because she couldn't believe she wasn't seeing a mirage. Then: “JOSH!”

He didn't react immediately, just remained staring at the ropes. It took him a while to break his trance, then his eyes rolled toward her, blinking.

“Josh!”

“M-mummy?”

Her child had changed. His head was thin, his eyes huge. He looked like Hal—like a tiny twenty-year-old Hal with veins standing up on his forehead and hands. Poor progeric child—he reached a hand up to her, not saying anything, just reaching it out in the air, the palm toward her, as if he was trying to feel her face. Check it was real. Then he dropped his hand, turned away from her and started pulling on the rope.

“
Josh!
”

“Daddy's not well,” he whispered, not looking up. “He can't talk.”

“I know, darling. Have you had something to drink?”

He shook his head.

“No?”

“A little bit.” He wouldn't look at her. He's already a little man, she thought, already being the big little man.

“Do you feel all right, baby? How's your tummy?”

“Feels funny. I'm thirsty, Mummy.”

“That's OK, we'll get you something to drink.”

“I never meant to, Mummy, I had to go wee-wee on myself. I'm sorry.”

“Oh, sweetheart, that's OK. Don't worry.” Upstairs, with her bleeding fingers and her exhausted mind, she wanted to cry. This little boy, whom she had thought would be the casualty, was sitting up and getting on with it. He had nearly undone the rope. Instead of sobbing and despairing, like she had, he had been determinedly and silently getting on with escaping. “Its OK. The nasty man's gone now.”

Josh nodded. “He's gone. He's been horrid and the police are going to beat him up and put him in prison and kill him.”

“Did you hear Mummy calling?”

“Yes—I couldn't say nothing because I had a thing on my mouth.”

“Don't worry about that, sweetheart. I love you.”

“Me too.”

“What are you doing down there?”

“Getting out of the rope. I'll come and I'll get you.” He was quiet for a moment.

Then without looking at her. “Mummy?”

“Yes?”

“Maybe he killed Smurfy.” His chin trembled. “ 'Cause I—'cause I don't know where Smurf is.”

“Oh, Josh—” Benedicte's throat was tight. “You are such a—such a good, such a clever …
brave
, brave little boy. Don't worry about Smurf, peanut, she's with me. She's feeling a little bit poorly but she's up here and she can't wait to see you. She sends you her love and a big lick on the face.” She paused because now she could see that his fingers were bleeding. “Josh, I love you, darling, Mummy loves you so, so—”

In the hallway the doorbell rang. Josh's head snapped up. Ben froze.
No
! She couldn't believe it.

“Josh,” she hissed. “Quick now. Come on now, baby, move it now.” Beneath her Hal jerked frantically and noiselessly on the floor. Ben's voice rose hysterically:
“
Come on, Josh, for Christ's sake, MOVE IT
. Just MOVE!!”

He pulled frantically at the rope, tugging and pulling, biting it, the blood from his fingers staining his mouth. His teeth were strong but the rope was embedded. “
Quickly!
”

He pulled harder, eyes on the door, preparing for the menace to hurtle down the hallway. Then Benedicte saw her little boy make a decision.

“
No!
” she screamed. Another crack ricocheted along the plasterboard. “
No! Josh, RUN, Josh, please RUN
.”

But he couldn't have freed himself in time. He took the brown parcel tape from the floor and pressed it to his mouth, smoothing it down with the flat of his palms, swiveling his little body round, pressing the rope behind him and turning so he sat with his back to the radiator. Ben's heart squirmed. “God, no.” She began to weep, long silver threads falling out of the ceiling and landing next to Hal's face. “No!”

And then the doorbell rang again.

Everyone froze. Ben stopped crying and Hal stopped thrashing on the floor. Josh's eyes flew to his mother. The troll never rang more than once. For a long time no one dared to breathe. The bell rang yet again and in the hallway the letter box clanged.