The Calling by Neil Cross Read Free Book Online

Malcolm?’
    ‘What baby?’
    ‘Do you have any idea what prison will be like for you?’ Luther says. ‘Being a weirdo’s one thing. Hurting kids is another. They’re a sentimental lot in Wandsworth. They’ll do to you what you did to Mr Lambert.’
    ‘Wait. What did I do? What are we talking about?’
    ‘Where’s the baby?’
    ‘What baby?’
    ‘Where is it?’
    ‘He’s lying about the baby. It wasn’t a baby.’
    There is a moment.
    ‘What wasn’t a baby?’
    ‘He’s not supposed to fucking tell you this stuff. He’s not. He’s a fucking hypocrite.’
    Luther doesn’t move. Neither does Howie.
    At great length, Luther says, ‘Malcolm, what wasn’t a baby?’
    ‘I’d never touch a baby. If he told you I did, then he’s a fucking liar. I like girls. Women.’
    Outside the interview room, Howie makes a disgusted face, shakes her hands as if she’s touched something contaminated.
    Luther claps her on the back, tells her well done.
    Then he approaches Detective Sergeant Mary Lally: thirty, curly hair kept short and practical.
    Lally’s a methodical and insightful detective, creative in interrogations. But she’s also gifted with a particular, scornful look. Sometimes Luther applies her as a secret weapon, just to sit there and employ that peerlessly judgemental stare.
    They call her Scary Mary.
    She looks up from her computer, sets down her phone. Gives Luther a look, like she knows what’s coming.
    Luther says, ‘How d’you feel about getting out into the fresh air?’
    ‘Scary’ Mary Lally meets the Dog Section van outside the squat at Hill Park Crescent. She greets Jan Kulozik, a uniformed patrol handler.
    A stately German Shepherd waits at the leash. Kulozik encourages Lally to kneel and greet the dog.
    Then Lally pulls all personnel out of the squat, leaves them hunched and carping in the drizzle.
    She follows Kulozik and the dog inside, Kulozik droning words of encouragement. The animal’s obvious joy makes Lally smile despite herself.
    In the farthest, dark corner of the farthest, darkest flat, the dog becomes agitated. It scrabbles and paws at the floor under Malcolm Perry’s grey mattress.
    Kulozik pulls the dog back and murmurs low encouragement, pats it, as Lally kicks the skinny mattress aside.
    Her foot finds a loose floorboard. And then another. Lally scowls, then kneels and pulls aside the loose boards, exposing a small cavity.
    In the cavity is a black bin liner.
    She removes the bin liner.
    In the bin liner is a grey woollen blanket.
    Wrapped in the grey woollen blanket is a woman’s head.

 

CHAPTER 7
    Henry is surprised by how well the baby slept on the way home.
    She is in the back seat of the car, wrapped in the soft blanket with satinette lining. The street lights pulse above her as Henry’s son, Patrick, drives fastidiously under the limit.
    Every now and again Henry glances at her over his shoulder and feels a warm surge of fulfilment. A tired, happy grin spreads across his chops.
    Patrick pulls over near the park; he wants to pick up some rabbits. So Henry slides over and gets behind the wheel.
    Soon, he is chasing the headlamps through the electric gates at the end of the long gravel drive.
    The house is very large. It overlooks the park. It’s worth somewhere in the region of two and a half million pounds, but Henry has far too many secrets buried in the garden to consider selling it.
    He’s lived here for twelve years. Elaine, his elderly landlady, has been five feet down in the garden for eleven and a half of them. He catches himself talking to her sometimes. Doesn’t really know why.
    The neighbour to his left is a banker with a young family; they moved in two years after Elaine died. As far as they’re concerned, Henry is Elaine’s son. That’s fine by Henry.
    Elaine’s real son is another of the secrets buried in the garden.
    The neighbours to the right are foreign, Arabs probably; he sees them rarely and has never spoken to them.
    Henry parks, gets