The Torment of Others. Val McDermid

he had no idea how he could achieve that.

      Day Two. And still no trace of Tim Golding. In his heavy heart, Merrick knew they were no longer searching for a living child. He’d visited Alastair and Shelley Golding that morning, cut to the bone by the momentary flash of optimism that lit their eyes when he walked into their neat Victorian terraced cottage. As soon as they’d comprehended that he had nothing to offer them, their eyes had glazed over. Fear had gnawed at them till there was nothing left inside but barren hope.

      Merrick had left the house feeling bleak and empty. He glanced down the street, thinking ironically that Tim Golding had, in a way, been a victim of gentri-fication. Harriestown, where the Goldings lived, had been a working-class enclave until enterprising young couples in search of affordable housing had begun buying up decaying properties and restoring them, creating a trendy new suburb. What had been lost was a sense of community. The avid followers of Changing Rooms and Home Front were interested in their own lives, not those of their neighbours. Ten years before, Tim Golding would have known most of the people on his street and they would have known him. On a summer evening, people would have been out and about, walking to allotments or from the pub, standing in their doorways chatting as they soaked up the last rays of the sun. Their very presence would have protected the boy. And they would have noticed a stranger, would have clocked his passage and kept an eye on his destination. But these days, those residents of Harriestown not whipping up some exotic recipe from a TV chef in their exquisitely designed new kitchens would have been in their back yards, cut off from neighbours by high walls, designing their Mediterranean courtyard gardens or arranging the Greek urns that held their fresh herbs. Merrick had scowled at the blank doors and windows of the street and longed for a simpler time. He’d headed back to the incident room, feeling ill at ease and jaded.

      His team had worked through the night, interviewing the known paedophiles on their patch. Not a single pointer had emerged to move the inquiry forward. A couple of punters had phoned in, reporting a white Transit van cruising slowly round the narrow streets at about the time Tim had disappeared. By chance, one of them had remembered enough of the index number to make it worth checking out on the Police National Computer. They’d identified half a dozen possibles in the local area, which had given the incident room a fresh surge of energy.

      But that lead had died on its knees within a matter of hours. The third van on the list belonged to a company who made home deliveries of organic vegetables. The driver had been going slowly because he was new to the round and wasn’t sure of the layout of the local streets. That alone wouldn’t have been enough to get him off the hook. But the clincher was that he’d been accompanied by his fifteen-year-old daughter, augmenting her pocket money by helping him out.

      Back to square one. Merrick shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and glared at the pinboard in the incident room. It was pitifully bare. Usually by this stage in a missing-child inquiry, information was pouring in. It certainly had in the Guy Lefevre case, although it had all proved fruitless in the long run. But for some reason all they were getting was a pathetic trickle. Of course there were the time-wasters, calling to say they’d seen Tim on the Eurostar train with an Asian woman; in a McDonald’s in Taunton with a grey-haired man; or shopping for computer games in Inverness. Merrick knew these so-called sightings were worthless. Whoever had taken Tim certainly wouldn’t be parading him round the streets for everyone to see.

      Merrick sighed. The images in his head now were not of a small boy playing with his friends. What he saw when he closed his eyes was a shallow woodland grave. A flash of yellow football shirt in the long grass of a field margin. A tangle of limbs in a drainage ditch. Christ, but he felt inadequate to the task.

      He racked his brains for some other avenue of approach, summoning up the images of previous bosses, wondering how they would have handled things differently. Popeye Cross would have been convinced their abductor was someone they already had on the books. He’d be sweating the nonces, determined to get a confession out of someone. Merrick was confident he’d covered that already, even though his team knew better than to exert the kind of pressure Popeye had been famous for. These days, you leaned too heavily at your peril. Courts had no patience with police officers who bullied vulnerable suspects.

      He thought of Carol Jordan and reached for his cigarettes. She’d have come up with some tangential line of attack, he had no doubt of that. Her mind worked in ways he’d never managed to fathom. His brain was wired differently from hers, and he’d never in a million years arrive at one of her inspired angles. But there was one thing Carol would have done that he could pursue.

      Merrick inhaled and reached for the phone. ‘Is the boss in?’ he asked the woman who answered. ‘I’d like to talk to him about Tony Hill.’

      John Brandon climbed the steps up from the Barbican station. The dirty yellow bricks seemed to sweat and even the concrete underfoot felt hot and sticky. The air was stuffy with the thick, mingled smells of humanity. It wasn’t the best preparation for what he suspected was going to be a difficult conversation.

      No matter how much he’d tried to prepare himself for his meeting with Carol Jordan, he knew he didn’t really have a clue what he’d find. He was certain of only two things: he had no idea how she felt about what had happened to her; and work would be her salvation.

      He’d been appalled when he’d heard about the botched undercover mission that had ended with the violent assault on Carol. His informant had tried to stress the significance of what her operation had achieved, as if that were somehow a counterbalance to what had been done to her. But Brandon had cut impatiently across the rationale. He understood the demands of command. He’d given his adult life to the police service and he’d reached the top of the tree with most of his principles intact. One of those was that no officer should ever be exposed to unnecessary risk. Of course danger was part of the job, particularly these days, with guns as much a fashion accessory in some social groups as iPods were in others. But there was acceptable risk and unacceptable risk. And in Brandon’s view, Carol Jordan had been placed in a position of intolerable, improper risk. He simply did not believe there was any end that could have justified such means.

      But it was pointless to rage against what had happened. Those responsible were too well insulated for even a Chief Constable to make much of a dent in their lives. The only thing John Brandon could do now for Carol was to offer her a lifeline back into the profession she loved. She’d been probably the best detective he’d ever had under his command, and all his instincts told him she needed to be back in harness.

      He’d discussed it with his wife Maggie, laying out his plans before her. ‘What do you think?’ he asked. ‘You know Carol. Do you think she’ll go for it?’

      Maggie had frowned, stirring her coffee thoughtfully. ‘It’s not me you should be asking, it’s Tony Hill. He’s the psychologist.’

      Brandon shook his head. Tony is the last person I’d ask about Carol. Besides, he’s a man, he can’t understand the implications of rape the way a woman can.’

      Maggie’s mouth twisted in acknowledgement. ‘The old Carol Jordan would have bitten your hand off. But it’s hard to imagine what being raped will have done to her. Some women fall to pieces. For some, it becomes the defining moment of their lives. Others lock it away and pretend it never happened. It sits there like a time bomb waiting to blow a hole in their lives. And some find a way to deal with it and move forward. If I had to guess, I’d say Carol would either bury it or else work through it. If she’s burying it, she’ll probably be gung ho to get back to serious work, to prove to herself and the rest of the world that she’s sorted. But she’ll be a loose cannon if that’s what she’s trying to do, and that’s not what you need in this job. However…’ she paused, ‘if she’s looking for a way through, you might be able to persuade her.’

      ‘Do you think she’d be up to the job?’ Brandon’s bloodhound eyes looked troubled.

      ‘It’s like what they say about politicians, isn’t it? The very people who volunteer for the job are the last ones who should be doing it. I don’t know, John. You’re going to have to make your mind up when you see her.’

      It wasn’t a comforting thought.