DEAD AIR (Henry & Sparrow Book 2)

by A D FOX

  ‘Ah,’ said Rob. ‘I see you found your own way.’

  ‘We need a few minutes of your time,’ said the woman who - Gemma was suddenly quite certain - was a police officer.

  ‘It’s fine - I’m gone!’ she said, walking past the woman and the younger guy who smelled of heavy hair wax usage.

  ‘Sorry Gemma,’ Rob called after her. ‘We’ll catch up tomorrow.’

  She got into the corridor and leant against the wall, suddenly exhausted. She wasn’t the kind to listen at doors. Rob’s door, though, had a dodgy catch and it had once again not quite closed. She could hear what was being said and somehow, her ears sharpened by high adrenaline, she could not drag herself away.

  ‘It’s about Dave Perry,’ the woman said.

  ‘Have you found him?’ asked Rob.

  ‘We have,’ said the woman. ‘But it’s not good news. Dave Perry is dead.’

  Gemma knees gave way and she sank to the floor.

  6

  The transistor radio was old but once he’d put some fresh batteries into it and found a high point in the kitchen to perch it on, the aerial picked up the strong frequency of BBC Radio Wessex’s drivetime show.

  Listening to someone called Mike Tierney, Lucas heated himself some soup on the electric stove he’d had delivered a couple of weeks ago. While it was still pretty bare, the kitchen of his late aunt’s bungalow… now his bungalow, he reminded himself… was slowly shaping up to something usable. He’d got a proper fridge and a microwave too. A washing machine was to be delivered the following week. He had Mariam, his friend and mentor, to thank for all these luxuries. The owner of the Henge Gallery in Salisbury city centre, she had run an exhibition for him recently and - thanks to some unplanned publicity around that murder case he had blundered into and helped to solve - there’d been a lot of interest. As touched upon by Louella Green, he’d become a person of some considerable interest to first the police, then the public and then, more profitably, some art collectors.

  All his paintings had been snapped up within his two week exhibition slot - and at several times the prices he and Mariam had first discussed. This meant he could finally get the electricity back on and then some white goods into the dilapidated bungalow, along with a sofa and an armchair in the front room and a decent mattress for Aunty Janine’s old bedstead. He’d considered something new from IKEA but the old wrought iron rather spoke to him these days. Dark and twisted. Yep.

  Mike, on drivetime, had been discussing bike lanes and tree-planting and even done the weather, but he so far hadn’t mentioned that his breakfast show counterpart had been crucified on a transmitter mast. In fact Mike had just run a trailer for the breakfast show featuring The Voice of Wessex along with a series of clips of people saying how fabulous The Voice was and why they never missed a show, concluding with the man himself and his irritatingly smug catchphrase: ‘OK… let’s talk!’ This all suggested that nobody yet knew about the gaffer-taped effigy on the Shrewton mast. Maybe nobody at Salisbury nick had even bothered to check that CrimeStoppers tape.

  The thought made him a little queasy as he poured Scotch broth into a bowl and sawed off a large hunk of granary loaf to butter. Should he actually have called Kate?

  FUCK NO! yelled his reason. JEEEEZUZ!

  And of course, his reason was right. After getting haplessly caught up in not one but two murder investigations in his life, Lucas really didn’t want to make it a hat trick. Three hours earlier he had walked away from the crime scene, climbed back on his bike, and got the hell out of Dodge. But he’d stopped in another small village on the way home. It was the kind where nice upper middle class locals kept their old phone box in a state of loving restoration. The glass panes were shiny, the paint gleaming scarlet, and there was a little shelf for a book exchange, featuring everything from Danielle Steele to Christopher Brookmyre. Amazingly the telephone was still there and it actually worked - with coins too. More amazingly, he couldn't see any security cameras trained on it.

  So he’d done a quick search on his mobile to find the CrimeStoppers number and then punched the digits in on the retro metal keypad. Should he try an accent? A growl? Maybe impersonate his mother..? In the end he didn’t; he just pulled his soft jersey biker’s buff up over his mouth and delivered his intelligence in a muffled way.

  ‘There’s a body. I just saw it on the Shrewton mast,’ he said. ‘You need to get down there.’ Then he hung up and got out of there fast, as if the Wiltshire Constabulary could reach through the receiver and grab his collar there and then.

  It was the right call. Literally. He’d done what needed to be done - informed the authorities - and he had not complicated their case by involving himself in it. If he was identified as the caller the first question would be ‘Why did you suddenly visit the base of a remote mast in the middle of nowhere?’

  ‘Because my little glass bottle stopper told me to,’ was never going to be a helpful reply. Some of them would understand what he meant but others, who weren’t yet privy to the full details of the Runner Grabber case, would merely assume he needed arresting and/or sectioning.

  Also, the ones who knew about his talent really didn’t love him for it. He and Sid had massively helped to end their last big investigation but he’d seriously pissed them off along the way; not least for leaving them stranded in a bog at one stage, while he did a runner. It was safe to say there weren’t many Lucas Henry fans at Salisbury Central Police Station. They’d tasered him twice and he reckoned they’d be quite happy to do it a third time just for the hell of it.

  He was all needles and pins now - jangly from that afternoon’s encounter, not just with a dead guy but also, fleetingly, with Kate. What were the odds, eh? Sid seemed to give a little thud against his chest and Lucas sighed, put down his spoon and pulled the chain over his head. ‘You,’ he said, letting the stopper dangle in front of his face, ‘are just messing with my mind.’ He got up and took the pendulum and chain into the bedroom, where he found an old woollen sock and shoved them both deep inside it, balling it up and burying it deep in his well-travelled rucksack. Then he chucked the rucksack out of sight under the bed.

  Back in the kitchen he finished his soup and bread and butter and then switched off the radio before opening a bottle of red wine. He took it, and a glass, to the front room and the new sofa. If he got himself agreeably sloshed he might drown out the insistent pulse of interference from Sid. And thoughts of Kate too, if he was really in luck.

  7

  Larkhill held his head in his hands, staring at his desk and taking long, slow breaths. ‘I can’t believe it,’ he said. ‘I just can’t believe it. You’re… you're sure it’s him?’

  ‘Well, obviously the body will need to be formally identified, but he looks like the publicity photo, the car registration checks out as his… and…’ Kate exchanged a glance with Michaels. ‘…the material in his mouth and up his nose appears to be… the foam sock off a microphone.’

  ‘Jesus,’ murmured Larkhill, looking pale and sweaty.

  ‘We’d like to know what kind of microphone socks you use here at the station,’ said Michaels. ‘And if there are any missing.’

  Larkhill was mopping his brow with the back of his sleeve. ‘I’m pretty sure they’re all Neumann mic socks in the studios, but I’d need to check with our chief engineer. All presenters carry their own mic socks these days, for hygiene reasons. They have them in small vinyl cases and keep them in their bags or pigeonholes, usually. Then they put them on the microphone when they arrive in a studio. Of course, they leave them behind sometimes… I’m always telling them off for that. Jesus…’ His face flushed and then paled again. ‘With his mic sock..?’

  ‘Would you like a colleague here with you?’ asked Kate. She didn’t want to have to call in a first aider if the guy started hyperventilating. Sometimes having another person present was stabilising.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and then pressed his intercom and summoned Donna Wilson.

  The PA dropped
by in her trench coat, carrying a bag. ‘I was just heading home, Rob,’ she said, and then stopped when she spotted his visitors. ‘Oh. What’s up?’

  ‘Come in - close the door,’ said Rob. ‘You’d better take a seat.’

  She sat on the edge of a low bookcase and took the news with more composure than her boss but she was still shaken. ‘Bloody hell,’ she said. ‘Who would do something like that?’

  ‘That’s what we’d like to know,’ said Kate. ‘Can you think of anyone who might want to do that to him?’

  Larkhill shook his head. ‘Well… who can guess? He was a big personality, you know? And people didn’t always like what he said.’

  ‘Aren’t BBC presenters meant to be impartial?’ asked Michaels.

  Larkhill gave him a pitying look. ‘Well, yes, if they’re presenting the news - or Any Questions - but local radio presenters are personalities. I mean, yes, of course he had to toe the line up to a point, especially around politics, and always give both sides equal airtime, but Dave Perry was a stirrer - a catalyst for conversation and debate. That’s what he was best at.’

  ‘So… are you saying someone might have taken issue with something he said on air?’ asked Kate, feeling her energy sag. The station had around 400,000 listeners according to the last RAJAR report; that was one hell of a suspect pool.

  ‘What about colleagues?’ asked Michaels. ‘Anyone he didn’t get on with?’

  ‘Mike got along fine with everyone,’ said Larkhill, glancing at Donna as if seeking back up.

  ‘Radio stations - they’re like families,’ said Donna. ‘We have our ups and downs of course, but everyone’s very supportive.’

  Kate sensed she wasn’t going to get far with these two and their managerspeak. She and Michaels were going to have to interview everyone in the building, alone, to get the real picture. And get them all to present their microphone socks too, although she suspected this wouldn’t help much. A mic sock was probably quite easy to misplace around here.

  ‘Couldn’t it be, you know, random?’ asked Larkhill, mopping his shiny face with a crushed cotton handkerchief. ‘Maybe he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time?’

  ‘So… you think he might have been ambushed by chance?’ said Kate. ‘By someone who wanted to gaffer tape a stranger to a transmitter mast and stuff shredded mic sock into their airways?’

  ‘Yes, I grant you, it does seem quite… specific.’

  ‘We’re going to need to talk to all your staff,’ said Kate. ‘Who’s in now?’

  ‘Um… not many of them,’ said Larkhill, glancing at the clock. ‘Just Mike and his producer Lewis, I imagine. The rest will have headed home by now.’

  ‘What about - er - “Showtunes Shep”?’ asked Michaels, consulting the schedule print out from the BBC Radio Wessex website.

  ‘That’s not local,’ said Larkhill. ‘It goes out on the English regions opt… Shep doesn’t come here, he’s the same presenter for most of the stations around the south of England but he’s based in Oxford. Cost-cutting,’ he added, with a sigh. ‘Some of the smaller stations come off air after drivetime and stay off until 6am the next day, but we’ve still got Josh, our overnight presenter, on between ten and one in the morning.’

  ‘So - the next one in will be Josh?’ asked Kate.

  ‘He’ll be in around nine,’ said Larkhill. ‘To prepare for getting on air at ten.’

  ‘And his producer?’

  ‘Josh is self-op,’ said Larkhill. ‘Um… I mean he doesn’t have a producer. He gets himself on air and handles all the calls from his studio. Again… cost-cutting.’ He shrugged.

  Kate sighed. This could be a very long night. ‘We’ll wait for your drivetime team to come off air and talk to them right away,’ she said. ‘And can you call Josh and ask him to get in half an hour early? Then we can talk to him around eight-thirty.’

  ‘I - um - is it fair to talk to him about Dave before he goes on air?’ asked Donna. ‘I mean… it’s going to seriously freak him out. I wouldn’t fancy having to be here alone, chatting through the small hours to all the old ladies of Wessex, after learning my colleague’s been murdered. Especially after…’ she paused and glanced at Larkhill.

  ‘After what?’ asked Kate.

  Larkhill rolled his eyes. ‘We had a little… erm… situation a few weeks back.’

  ‘Really?’ Kate sat up, pen on notepad.

  ‘It’s nothing serious,’ said Larkhill. ‘It’s just one of the fans who doesn’t always get the boundaries. He’s harmless. But he started coming down to talk to Josh, waiting by the car park exit. Josh got a little freaked out.’

  ‘Who’s this fan?’

  ‘He’s probably fine,’ said Larkhill. ‘He’s just a fan. His name’s Finley Warner. I have his contact details; he’s always coming along to station tours and outside broadcasts; a bit of a radio geek, you know?’

  ‘Right,’ said Kate. ‘Yes, his contact details will be useful. And yes,’ she glanced over at Donna. ‘I get your point about talking to Josh just before he goes on air. When can we get him during the day?’

  ‘I’ll get him to come in tomorrow afternoon,’ said Larkhill. ‘Of course, the news will probably have reached him by then- oh god!’ He winced and shook his head at Donna. ‘We’re going to have to put this out, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yes,’ said his PA, looking sick. ‘It’ll be going out on Dave’s show. Unless…’ She looked at Kate. ‘Are we meant to keep quiet about this?’

  ‘We’re not officially naming the deceased until his body has been formally identified,’ said Kate. ‘I can’t tell you when that will be. It’s not my job to advise you on what to put out on air - that’ll have to be your call. Of course, your competitors may well get the story whether or not you do, so…’

  ‘They might already have it,’ said Michaels. ‘Word spreads pretty fast and the site was close to a small village… our presence caused a bit of a stir and there were at least a couple of sight-seers. Something is probably already getting out on social media.’

  ‘All we ask,’ said Kate, ‘is that you do not mention any of the details to anyone else outside this room. Nothing about the gaffer tape, nothing about the mic sock. You can be vague about the location too. It’s important that certain details are on a need-to-know basis in a case like this.’

  ‘You won’t tell the staff when you interview them?’ asked Larkhill.

  ‘We’ll be asking questions; not running a briefing,’ said Kate. ‘Please get a memo to everyone and organise their time tomorrow so we can speak to them all. Can we use your office?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’ll get that memo out.’

  ‘No details,’ said Kate. ‘Just the request - the time and the place. Now,’ she looked at her watch. ‘Where can we wait until Mike Tierney and his producer are free? You can let them know their colleague is dead… but nothing else, OK?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Larkhill, shaking his head. ‘Fine.’

  Donna moved across and squeezed his shoulder and he patted her hand appreciatively.

  The PA took them back to reception, where Moira had packed up and gone, leaving the revolving door stationary and locked and dimmer lighting over the desk and sofas.

  ‘I need to head off - are you OK here?’ Donna said.

  Kate nodded. ‘You seem to be handling this all very calmly,’ she said.

  Donna gave a gentle snort. ‘I’ve worked here a long time. You wouldn’t believe the dramas I’ve seen. Radio presenters… it’s like a kindergarten! Mind you… none of them got themselves murdered before.’ She shook her head.

  When the PA had departed Michaels collected all the presenter postcards, including some weekenders - Rebecca on the gardening show, Judy on traffic and Tim on the Sunday god slot - who weren’t featured on the big posters up on the walls.

  At ten minutes past seven Larkhill brought the drivetime team out to meet them. Tierney and his producer arrived, looking shellshocked. Tierney appeared older and more thick-set t
han his promotional photo, with receding grey hair and a single gold ear stud hinting at wilder days in commercial broadcasting. His producer, Lewis Jones, was a thin, black, bespectacled guy in a crew neck sweater and jeans, carrying a vinyl manbag and a cake tin. Larkhill agreed to leave them to talk in the deserted reception area. The interview didn’t take long.

  ‘I don’t - I mean, I didn’t - really know the guy that well,’ said Tierney, blowing out his lips and staring into middle distance as he processed the news. ‘I mean, yeah, we’re on the same station, but we’re opposite ends of the day. How did he die?’

  ‘Asphyxiation,’ said Kate, not elaborating. ‘So, you didn’t spend any time with Dave?’

  ‘Well, only the occasional station event,’ said Tierney. ‘You know, he’s breakfast, I’m drivetime - never the twain shall meet.’

  ‘What did you think of him?’

  ‘Well,’ said Tierney, casting a glance up at the Dave Perry poster. ‘He was a bit of a legend, wasn’t he? I had a lot of respect for him.’

  ‘Did you like him?’ asked Kate.

  Tierney blinked. ‘Um… I didn’t dislike him,’ he said. ‘I mean, like I told you, we didn’t see much of each other. He was… a bit of a player; liked the ladies. Two ex-wives, three kids… all grown up now, though, I think. He was, you know… colourful.’

  ‘And can you think of any reason why anyone would want to harm him?’

  ‘Sick of his face on their morning commute?’ he quipped weakly, glancing towards the hoarding outside. His expression clouded. ‘Sorry. Not funny.’

  ‘Can we see your mic sock?’ asked Michaels.

  The presenter blinked and then, shrugging, pulled a palm-sized black case from a pocket in his army surplus coat. He opened the zip and presented an oval of dense grey foam. ‘Full of my DNA,’ said Tierney. ‘I should put it through the wash. Do you want to..?’ He held out the sock and Michaels waved it away.