Cages by David Mark (acx book reading TXT) 📕

‘Are you back home in North Yorkshire?’ asks Ruth, sounding more businesslike. ‘Only, there are a few things I’d love to chat about if you had the time and as soon as I’m back down the M62 I could pop over and see you. Maybe take a photograph. “Heroic author saves dying guard”. Works, doesn’t it? Better than the alternatives.’

Rufus doesn’t respond to the veiled threat that there could be far worse headlines in his future. He creases his brows, running her words back. ‘Back down the M62? Are you at the prison?’

‘No, not much point in that,’ she says, testily. ‘Hussain the governor has no interest in talking to me and I don’t want to make things difficult for my source. No, I’m over in the land of the Yellow-Bellies. Half a shandy in the Marrowbone then I’ll be over the bridge and home …’

‘Kirmington?’ he mutters, recognizing the name of the pub. What had she said about searching for human remains? His head is spinning. He doesn’t know if he’s the dog or the cat – just that somehow he’s caught in a chase.

‘Yeah, nice enough little place. Getting together some reactions from the locals about the police trampling all over the field by the airport looking for poor Bronwen. That’s the story I was on – trying to get some info on the interview with Griffin Cox. Heard from a source about the fracas involving “a famous author”, and wondered if there might be a yarn worth selling while I’m covering the Bronwen dig. Busy-busy, and all that. It’s the freelance world – one minute you’re twiddling your thumbs, next you’re too swamped to breathe—’

‘I won’t be back, as it happens,’ says Rufus, cutting her off. ‘Staying with a friend tonight. I’m not really sure if there’s a story here for you, if I’m honest. I mean, mention me if you wish, but I’m not famous, and if I’m honest I’d rather just leave the whole thing alone. I mean, I don’t want to pretend I’m a hero. I just reacted – did what anybody would have done.’

‘That’s a perfect quote,’ says Ruth, smiling. ‘Just to check, you have two children, yes? And your wife, Shonagh, she’s into art, apparently.’

Rufus doesn’t want to talk about himself, or his home life, any longer. He wants to sit quietly in the half-light, and make sense of what is happening. He suddenly feels ludicrous. Preposterous. Silly. What the hell had got him trundling down this strange track? Why’s he even here? He brought Annabeth the snow globe that somebody had hidden in his bag. She had named Cox as the likely suspect, and quickly degenerated into a frightened, manic wreck. He’d found a stack of articles in her cupboard while she slept. Read one and needed to know more. He can’t seem to make sense of what he’s learned, but he senses a connection. He wants to come right out and ask her – do you know a lady called Annabeth Harris? Do you have any idea why she has a load of articles about paedophiles and victims; missing teens and human remains? Do you know what hold Griffin Cox might have over her …?

‘What’s he like?’ asks Ruth, lancing into his thoughts. ‘Cox, I mean. What’s he like, really? You know they say he’s in the frame for God knows how many, don’t you? I mean, maybe creative writing isn’t what he needs – not unless it was some ruse to get him to open up and talk about where he put the bodies. That would explain why the coppers chose midway through your session to come and speak to him …’

Rufus forces a laugh. He can hear her journalistic wheels whirring. ‘I think I should be off now, Ruth. If you could perhaps rustle up that number for Louisa Defreitas, that would be a help, and obviously whatever else I can say to help you I’d be glad to—’

He hears a door opening at her end of the line. The patter of rain. She’s about to say goodbye.

‘Just one other thing,’ says Rufus, as a name pops into his head. ‘Weird synergies, and all that jazz, but the story I read about the Defreitas family suggested he was no angel, even thinly veiled, and you said the coppers weren’t bending over backwards to find him. Go on – I’m intrigued. What was the deal?’

There’s a pause for a moment, as she considers the currency of information. ‘I’ll use that quote, if you don’t mind. Doing what anybody would do …’

He sighs. ‘If you must,’ he mutters.

‘Belting, thanks. But my copper friend with Cumbria Police, well, he’s told me plenty. They had their eye on Defreitas for a while before he disappeared. Dodgy sod. Into young girls, or so they suspect. At the crime scene they found prints belonging to another dodgy bastard by the name of Mark Fellowes. They quizzed him but he was never a real suspect and by 2009 he was doing time for snatching a little girl from her garden. He’s in HMP Wakefield or Frankland, can’t remember which. But my source reckoned the pair of them were thick as thieves.’

‘Fellowes,’ muses Rufus, turning suddenly as the light changes behind him. He sees a shape through the frosted glass of the back door. Looks into the face of Annabeth’s son, soaked to the skin and frowning accusingly at the man loitering in the garden. Wherever he’s been, he doesn’t look happy to have returned home to this.

Unaware of the interruption, Ruth continues to chat, warming to her theme. ‘There was evidence that he’d had a girl staying in the crummy flat where his body was found. Somebody had done a clean-up job but there was blood staining the floorboards. Shards of glass that matched the wound to his throat. They wouldn’t give it to us on the record but there was glitter in the trachea. You probably saw