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  Annie stared at the second hand as it did what a second hand does, at the precise speed a second hand does it. And she was sure, she was sure she hadn’t replaced the battery in that clock. However much she’d drunk, however many minutes or hours ago she’d drunk it, she was sure that clock shouldn’t be running. And she was sure, without daring to drag her eyes to her watch, that as much as it shouldn’t have been showing the correct time, it very much was.

  But there had to be an explanation, right? After all, she couldn’t remember everything she did after a drink or six. Most of the time she flat-out didn’t want to, but in this case she was willing to make an exception. So she stared at the clock and chewed her nail and racked her fuzzy brain and conceded that she had been under a lot of stress lately. That was why she’d been drinking so much, wasn’t it? The stress? It wasn’t a need, an addiction, even a habit. It was just stress. And stress can do all kinds of things to a person’s brain, her perception, her memory. And, even to Annie, that made a damn sight more sense than someone—than anyone—than that man—coming into her home and changing the battery in her clock. Didn’t it?

  “Twat,” she said, out loud, to herself, because however she may or may not try to convince herself otherwise, she knew that there was nobody else in the house, and nor had there been. Whatever odd thing she was feeling, it definitely wasn’t that. And the sound of her own voice echoing around the room calmed Annie, and momentarily she dropped her arms and tore her eyes from the second hand of the clock and thought about making a cup of tea. And so she went to the narrow little kitchen that led off the lounge, and she filled the kettle and switched it on. And then she saw the mug upside down on the draining board, the one with the chip in the rim that had cut her knuckle the last time she’d washed it. The one her mother used to use when she’d come to stay for the weekend. The one she couldn’t throw away. The one she’d put back in the cupboard and never, ever used again. Upside down, on the draining board, a dozen tiny spots of water tracing a drying path to the sink.

  Annie took a breath and waited for her heart to start beating. And when it finally did, she slumped to the floor in the corner of the kitchen, and shuffled back into the crook of the wall, and drew her knees up to her chest, and listened to the kettle boil, and cried and cried and cried.

  Episode 2

  Chapter 7

  “Michelin Agilis,” Kevin said.

  “Who?”

  “Adj-i-lis. Ad-jeel-is.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a van tire. Two-one-five mil. Standard fit on a Transit.” Which was the answer I was both hoping for and dreading. And so it was that I drained my fifth coffee of the afternoon, and tried in vain to rub some of the pain from my temples, and left the finger-thin file open on my desk and walked quietly with Kevin over to the impound garage.

  It was chilly inside, and harshly lit by fluorescent strips that were like daggers to my eyes, so I put my sunglasses on and tolerated the CSI jokes between Kevin and the pale but craggily handsome chap who signed us in, whose name I’m going to say was Paul, though I might be wrong.

  Paul directed us to a bay more or less in the center of the warehouse, so I ducked out of the line of mirth and set off at a purposeful stride, leaving Kevin halfway through a joke about me auditioning for a Hangover sequel. That he assumed I was still hungover at five in the afternoon, I mused to myself, was the reason he was still a constable.

  The place was laid out with a certain kind of haphazard logic. The vehicles that came in under their own power—the uninsured and ill-gotten ones—were lined up on the far shore of a sea of jagged wrecks, crushed and burned and prized apart. In time, Fairey’s Mondeo would be slotted among them by an indifferent forklift driver, just another tombstone, all in a day’s work. But for now, there was only one thing in here that bothered me.

  There was no dramatic reveal; the Transit was the largest thing in the warehouse, looming above and beyond its devastated neighbors, and I could see it soon as I walked in. It was parked with its back to me, the tall white double doors ajar, like an invitation. I’d accepted once before, and noted with indifference the ratchet straps, the ceiling hooks, the hose-down floor liner, the white vinyl covering the walls. It had looked to me, back then, like any other van, albeit a sparkling clean one. Now, it looked like such a glaring cliché that I wondered if I hadn’t simply subconsciously dismissed it for being too ludicrously obvious.

  Or maybe it was all about context. Here, in this place, under these lights, knowing what I knew now, every step I took toward it made me shiver a little bit harder.

  It was certainly no longer sparkling. It was caked up to its door handles in dried-on mud, some of which had cracked and fallen away to form a dusty brown ring on the garage floor. The mirrors were missing, the front tires flat and the length of each side was streaked with dirt and crushed weeds and metal-deep scratches ingrained with splinters and bark. And at the front, it was no longer a van so much as it was the mold for a tree trunk.

  It had hit just left of center, the front fascia punched inward in a ragged semicircle to the base of the shattered windscreen, the door on that side creased and limp on its hinges, the buckled wheel jammed back into its arch. The bonnet was folded in half and pitched in the middle, the white paint cracked away, exposing glistening sharp edges like knife blades. I stared them down for a moment, trying to feel some—any—kind of emotion, but none stirred in me. It was just metal.

  Inside was different. The driver’s door still worked; I unlatched it and it swung stiffly back on its hinges until it caught against the displaced front wing. And here the carnage continued: the dashboard shunted back on the passenger side, pinning the seat against the bulkhead.

  It was the undamaged driver’s seat that held my stare, though—the seat from which Erica Shaw had fled the scene of the van’s demise in the woods and somehow spirited herself away from the marksmen, the dog handler, the damn helicopter for heaven’s sake—the seat in which That Man had presumably stalked and watched and waited to himself spirit away Kerry, and Samantha, and God only knew who else.

  For a split second I thought that I could smell him in there, beneath the oil and the mud, but I knew it was just an illusion. He had no smell, to my mind. Just the smell of that house—of frying meat, and citrusy bleach, and the blood in my nostrils.

  “She was lucky.”

  I jumped half out of my skin at Kevin’s words. I hadn’t heard him sneak up on me; in fact, I might even have forgotten he was there. “Stop fucking doing that,” I snapped.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to,” which I knew was a lie.

  I let him squeeze into my personal space to get a look inside the van. I didn’t care about his elbow digging into my ribs; I was too preoccupied with the thought of That Man’s sweat soaked into the seat, my brain like a black light in one of those germ commercials, luminescing the oil from his fingers on the steering wheel, the gear lever, the stalks and the switches, the sun visor and the door handle, the parking brake and th—

  “I just meant,” he said, “she could have been badly hurt.”

  I snapped back into myself. Shook the shudder from my spine. “We don’t know that she wasn’t,” I said, and then let the moment’s silence between us fill in the rest.

  “We’d know, though, right? If she’d been treated anywhere?”

  I shrugged at his optimism. He knew as well as I did that it was a lottery, that whatever name she gave at a casualty desk would only lead us on a wild-goose chase.

  I couldn’t know what Kevin was thinking, of course, but in my mind, his words had triggered a vision, or perhaps a memory; I wasn’t sure which. I saw Erica, a gun in her hand—not a replica, not an air gun or a starter pistol, but a functioning firearm, which I’d seen her discharge, seen the spray of blood from That Man’s arm, seen her turn it on me, the barrel a black, hungry tunnel, all-consuming, with no light at
its end. I saw her above me as I lay on the ground, my hand around her throat, hers clawed and desperate, nails breaking the skin of my cheek. I saw That Man pull her away, and I saw her look down at me and aim the gun again, not at my face this time but a little away, somewhere to the side of me, her eyes frightened and hurt and filled with a knowledge she was too young, too naive, too human to have to bear. She spoke, though I couldn’t make sense of the words. They were just a jumble—too many for an apology, too few for an explanation. I couldn’t remember, and it hurt to try.

  And then I saw her climb into the van and turn the key and drive away, over the field and into the forest, although I may have been imagining that part, just as I was imagining her now, falling from this smoking, gushing wreck, clutching herself tightly, her legs folding beneath her. I saw her force herself to her feet, clawing at the van for a hold to pull herself up, a sheen of blood sliding like a visor down over her forehead, over her eyes. I heard her cry out, saw her swipe at her face with her sleeve. I saw her double over and sway and throw up between her feet. And then the sound of engines, and the bark of a dog, and the rattle and hum of rotor blades, and I saw her running, hunched and unsteady, willing her legs to work. I saw her plunge into the river, sobbing in lungfuls of air, thrashing her way through the water until she could crawl, thigh-deep in mud, onto the opposite bank. I felt the adrenaline coursing through her, the urgent noise of her pursuers filling her ears, and I shouted at her to Run, Erica, as fast as you can, just run, sweetheart, and don’t look back!

  “Ali? You alright mate?”

  I realized my leg was shaking and my eyes stung like hell, and then I saw the worried look on Kevin’s face and away they went, spilling fat tears down my cheeks before I could stop them. I pretended not to notice. “I’m fine,” I said. “Why, what’s up?”

  I could see he didn’t know what to say. His hands fidgeted awkwardly at his sides and his mouth flapped open and shut, and for a moment I thought he was going to try to hug me again. If I’m honest, and a little bit cruel, I quite enjoyed watching him flounder, though had he actually tried to hug me, I probably would have let him. But he didn’t, which was equally fine, and so I forced a bemused expression and said, “Are you alright?”

  “I...”

  Come on, McManus, you can do it.

  “Yeah,” he shrugged. “Just...” He glanced over his shoulder, pointedly. “You know, that was a bit loud.” He nodded backward in the direction of the office door and, beyond it, Paul.

  My heart sank, though I made the best attempt I could at keeping the horror from my face. How much had I said out loud? And why did I not know the answer to that?

  As frustrating as the holes in my memory were, my brain noted that moment as the first in which I was truly afraid of it. And now it was my turn to not know what to say, although however freaked out and confused I was all of a sudden, I was damned if I was going to show it, or stand there and say nothing at all, so I shook my head and brazened it out and said, “I didn’t hear anything.”

  “You were shouting ab—”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” I repeated, fixing him with an unblinking stare that probably made me look like a fucking lunatic, on top of sounding like one. “You’re mistaken.”

  He was blank for a moment, silent, but sure enough it sunk in eventually. He furrowed his brow and nodded down at his feet, bald crown flashing in the harsh light, and then he said, “Right then,” and looked at me and nodded again, to himself, I figured, and turned neatly on his heels and added, “Well, if you’re sure you’re okay, we should probably be getting on.”

  With his back to me, I felt my confidence return, displacing the trembling in my hands and the jiggling of my right knee, so I pressed the point home. “I’m fine,” I said. “I hope we’re agreed on that.”

  “Roger that,” he replied, “all received,” and started walking.

  “Oh, and Kevin?”

  I could see that he tried not to stop, his leg swinging forward and dangling there midstep, trying to decide of its own accord whether to stay or go before retracting to the vertical and giving him back his balance. He looked back at me, his face suddenly lined with sadness and fatigue. “Sarge?”

  “The tires match.”

  Chapter 8

  I knew I’d hurt Kevin by shutting him down. I should have talked to him there and then—I knew that, too. He’d been there that day, huddled into a ball, bleeding, when I fought Erica and lost, and when I dropped the ball with That Man and nearly paid for it with my life. I knew he felt responsible, blamed himself for his incapacitation, his inability to “protect” me. I’d heard him at my bedside while I pretended to sleep, confessing all to Lowry and being told not to be so bloody stupid. I’d heard my sister telling him she was certain he’d done everything he could. I’d even heard him being comforted by Eva Diaz. In fact, when I thought about it, I couldn’t say with any degree of certainty that he’d ever left my side.

  It wasn’t his fault, of course; it was our fault. We simply didn’t know what we were blundering into. We just charged in, thinking we were oh-so-clever, and found out the hard way that we weren’t. Not clever, not infallible, not invincible. Just a couple of—

  “Clueless twats.” Kevin threw his phone at his desk, and then made a desperate lunge to catch it before it connected, which resulted in him spilling his coffee and kicking the bin over as he juggled it to safety.

  “No joy?” I spun my swivel chair again, lifting my feet and watching the office whirl around me: desk Kevin clock door desks cooler window Peter door mug Kevin clock thing man window poster door Kevin thing for clipping papers together. I like spinning. It didn’t make me feel any more or less dizzy. My head still hurt.

  “Is anyone’s network working?” Jenny Riley at her office door, a frazzled look on her face, the hair on one side of her head ruffled and twisted and standing on end.

  A male voice choir from four corners of the room: “No.”

  “Has anyone called IT?”

  “They’re running an update.” Kevin waved his phone at her, as if to cite his source. “Said it should have been on the briefing list.”

  “For fuck’s sake,” she sighed, and shrank back into her office. Then she reappeared and said, “Did you get anywhere with those tires?”

  “Well, they match the van,” I said.

  She beckoned the two of us into her office and sat down behind the landfill site that was her desk, gesturing for us to do the same. “But?”

  “But nothing. We were about to try to figure out possible routes from the house to the crime scene, and see if there’s any ANPR that might have picked it up.” In case you don’t know, that stands for Automatic Number Plate Recognition. They read the registration numbers of passing vehicles, and if we’re looking for you for any reason they’ll flag you up in real time. We have them in our patrol cars, but they’re also fixed in strategic locations around the county. Get me drunk and I’ll tell you a couple of good places to avoid.

  Just kidding, I’d never do that.

  “Can’t hurt to try,” Jenny said after a moment’s thought. “Although I know we ran a countywide search for John’s car as soon as we knew he was missing, and we didn’t get a single hit. Are either of you trained on ViPER?”

  I can’t remember what that stands for, but she was talking about the software we use to access the ANPR database. I shook my head.

  “Ali is,” Kevin said, helpfully.

  “I’m really not,” I assured him. “I mean, I did the course, but it was one day, like, five years ago or someth—”

  “That’s fine,” Jenny said, waving away my excuse, “someone can do it in the morning. I think we can safely assume it’s the same van until then, so don’t get too hung up on it. What else have you got?”

  “Well.” I picked up a sheaf of paper that Kevin had just kicked off the edge of the desk as he c
rossed his legs. “I’m thinking the same applies for petrol stations. As in, it’s a safe bet that the fire was started with a lot of petrol or diesel, but none of the reports list any kind of storage tank on the man’s property and we didn’t see any evidence of it any time we visited, so it stands to reason he had to buy it somewhere. Probably after he killed them, because whatever went down, and whatever they were all doing on that airfield, it doesn’t seem to have been planned before that afternoon.”

  “Unless he had a store somewhere else,” she pointed out. “We don’t know about any other properties, remember, and nor do we have any other bodies. Who’s to say he didn’t burn all of them?”

  I let that roll around for a moment, just as I had when the thought had occurred to me ten minutes earlier. “I don’t know,” I said, honestly. “I’m not sure he did, and I don’t know why...just a hunch, which—I know what you’re going to say, but I think this was something different. He had two coppers and a police car to get rid of, and...” There was a memory trying to push through. A knife? Like the sharp edges of the wrecked van, lethal, glimmering. And that smell, ever present, in his house—the smell of frying meat.