The Treatment by Mo Hayder Page A

The
devil.
”
    “Becky,” he could feel irritation rising, “can we just get something to eat and head home—” He broke off. A Japanese woman in zipped PVC platform boots and a white vinyl raincoat had appeared from inside the crowded gallery bar and was staring at Rebecca. Caffery was used to the shamanic appeal she had for strangers, but he didn't like it. He turned to the woman. “What?”
    In reply she gave him a long, cold look, lifted a camera and before he realized what was happening had fired off two flashes. “Hey!” She slid back into the gallery bar and he caught Rebecca by the arm. “Right, come on—time to go.” He took the drink from between her fingers and put it on the pavement outside the gallery. “Let's get some food.”
    She trotted along beside him, smiling and chattering about all the journalists she'd met. He walked fast, not listening to the details. Where had she got this hard gaiety of hers? The change in her had started like a sudden fever a month after the inquest. In the first few weeks, while she was back and forward from the hospital and he had beenbusy with tying up the case, there had been a strange, lulled silence, a dreamy fermata in which Bliss's name wasn't mentioned. Then suddenly, overnight it seemed, Rebecca began talking. But not to him—to the press. To him she still wouldn't mention it directly.
    “
Are you ever going to talk to
me
about it
?”
    “
I already have. I gave you a statement, didn't I?
”
    And off she went to bury herself in her mad art. Plaster casts of other women's genitals. It was as absurd as it was dispiriting. Sometimes he believed she could make her heart move in the opposite direction to her body, in a way his unsophisticated heart couldn't.
    “You could have been a bit nicer,” she said, as they walked around Tesco's. “You don't know who she was— she might have been with one of the papers.”
    “Or she might have been a ghoul.”
    “You don't understand.” She lingered a little behind him, idly looking at the shelves, swinging her arms like a bored schoolgirl. “I have to be on display at these things— it's part of the game.”
    “Well, I'm not up for it.” He walked ahead, not waiting for her, trying to get this over and done with, wanting to be out of Brixton as soon as possible, subconsciously scanning the other shoppers, wondering if Rory Peach's abductor might walk past him. He half expected someone to come up to him, point a finger, and say, “Why aren't you looking for him? What do you think you're
doing
, hanging around in the pasta section of Tesco's when Rory's still missing?” He threw some rice into the basket and continued up the aisle, Rebecca trailing behind. “I'm not up for another night of watching you talk to every dickhead with a mike and a pen.”
    “Ooooo-
wooh
,” she trilled behind him. “Where's
this
coming from?”
    He didn't answer. He walked a bit faster.
    “Is it coming from the case we're working on?” she whispered, closing on him. “Does it all
remind
us of something we'd rather forget? Is that what the mood is?”
    “Shall we change the subject?”
    “Oh, Jack! I was
joking
.” She got ahead of him,stopped to pull a bottle of red wine off the shelf and turned to him. “You should learn to lighten up a bit. You take everything so
seriously
.”
    “I mean it, Becky. Don't push it.” He walked past her. “Unless you're after something, unless you
really
want to talk,
really
want to take the gloves off—and I don't think you do.”
    “Oooh!” She caught up and grinned up at him. “I
wonder
what you're talking about.”
    “It's not funny.”
    “I think I can decide what's funny and what isn't. After all—” She suddenly leaned back and lobbed the bottle into the air, her head back, watching the swish-swish-swish of light on the glass above her. The bottle twisted back down and she caught it, turned to him and smiled nicely. “—it was my assault.”
    “Jesus.” He started to