Death is the New Black

by Dominic Piper

  ‘Are you asking me out for dinner?’

  ‘I don’t know. What do you think?’

  ‘I think you might be.’

  ‘I hope you don’t think I’m being too presumptuous. I’ve always been a bit impulsive. It’s a weakness.’ She smiles sexily. ‘Back away in terror if you want. I won’t mind. I’ll be terribly hurt, that’s all. If you want that on your conscience that’s fine. Anyway, I’m sure I can find someone else if you’re not interested.’

  I have to laugh at this. She laughs, too.

  ‘There’s a bar called The Korova across the road from it,’ I say. ‘I’ll meet you in there at eight.’

  She looks like the cat that got the cream. ‘Good. I’ll book a table for eighty-thirty.’ She leans forward again, her hand on my knee. ‘I’ve really wanted to go. I’m a bit of a foodie.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ I say, smiling at her.

  ‘Me, too. Thank you.’

  Before I leave, I check in with Sara once more. She looks up when she hears me enter her office.

  ‘Did you get everything you needed from Isolda?’

  ‘I think so. Maybe a little more.’

  She grins like she knows what’s been happening. ‘Good. She’ll always be available for you if you need her.’

  ‘No comment. Just one small thing. You said you had a couple of spare keys in your office. Can I see them?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She drags a cane dining chair close to one of the bookshelves, stands on it and takes a book from one of the upper shelves. It’s a battered hardback copy of a book called The Makioka Sisters. She opens the back cover and hands it to me. There’s a shiny mortice lock key and a Yale key, both attached to the cover with a single strip of Sellotape. The tape is firmly attached, doesn’t look new, and hasn’t obviously been removed or tampered with. There’s a fair amount of dust on the top of the book. No one has touched this for quite a while. So much for that theory, then.

  ‘OK. I have to go now,’ I say. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow at eleven. And don’t worry. We’ll get to the bottom of this.’

  She smiles, but I can tell she’s not quite sure yet. I’ll have to make her sure. We shake hands and I get the lift down to the ground floor and walk out into the street.

  It’s raining a little more heavily, so I get a cab and tell the driver Seymour Street Police Station. I get inside and give DI Bream a brief warning call.

  4

  POLICE INTERVIEW

  Detective Inspector Olivia Bream is a useful contact for someone like me. I met her on a previous case when she was only a DS. I like to think that I was in some way responsible for her promotion, but I’m sure she’d have got there by herself in the end.

  Still, handing her the clean-up of a case that involved multiple manslaughter, attempted murder, torture, serious assault, unauthorised weaponry and grievous bodily harm must have tipped the scales in her favour a little.

  Of course, this would never mean that she’d give me access to police files, confidential information or anything like that. She’s as by-the-book as you can get, which is fine by me. It means she doesn’t have to create smokescreens which might push me in the wrong direction.

  She answers my call after two rings.

  ‘Well, well. Mr Beckett. To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?’

  She has an attractive, husky voice with a hint of Yorkshire.

  ‘So I’m on your mobile now,’ I say. ‘Things are looking up. Would you like a caller ID photograph? I can text you one when this call is over if you like.’

  ‘I think I’ll be OK. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Well, I’m in a cab on my way to see you. I’m probably about three minutes away. Are you free? It’ll only take a short while. I just need to pick your brains about something.’

  ‘Luckily for you I’m in my office.’

  ‘We can do it out in the street if you don’t want your colleagues to know what’s going on between us.’

  ‘No need for that. I have no shame.’

  She clicks off. I have a little bit of a problem with DI Bream. She’s a very attractive woman with a beautiful smile, amazing eyes and ravishingly shaped breasts and there’s certainly a suppressed mutual attraction between us. But she’s a police officer, and if I was her and I was seeing someone like me, even if it was just for a night, I’d want to know more about me and I’m not very comfortable with that.

  When I arrive at Seymour Street, I walk straight in and she’s waiting for me in the foyer. She still wears her customary blue jeans, but there’s something about her appearance to suggest she’s smartened herself up since getting promoted. Her hair is shorter, too, and she has on a touch of makeup where before there was none. Still looks good enough to eat, though, and the shorter hair suits her face. We shake hands. She smiles with her eyes and purses her lips in a humorous little moue.

  ‘D’you want to come in my office? I can only spare you a few minutes. I’ve a meeting to go to. It’s all I seem to be doing nowadays.’

  ‘That’ll be fine. It’s just that something’s come up and I’m a little unsure about the crime I’m dealing with. I’m also going to ask you to look something up on your computer which is to do with another officer’s case, just so you can say no, because I like the way you use that word.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to that. Saying no, I mean.’

  ‘The hairs on the back of my neck just stood on end.’

  I follow her down a cold corridor and we go into her office. It looks like no one uses it, but I think she’s just a tidy person. There’s a half-dead spider plant by the window, one pale grey filing cabinet and a desk with a computer screen and keyboard but no CPU. Presumably they use mainframe computers in the police.

  ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Please.’

  She fills a coffee maker up with water, spoons some grains into a paper filter and switches it on. While it starts to drizzle coffee into the jug, she sits down across from me and smiles, self-consciously running a hand through her brown hair.

  ‘So what’s it about?’

  ‘Have you heard of Sara Holt?’

  ‘The fashion designer? Yes. Her clothes are a little out of my price range, but I’ve seen photographs of them. Very colourful and sexy. She’s at Maccanti. Quite young for a chief designer or whatever it’s called.’

  ‘She’s got a stalker or stalkers. At least I think that’s what it is.’

  ‘Has she been to the police?’

  ‘Yes. But it’s all a bit nebulous. I can’t say for sure, but I would think that the police might think she’s making it all up. Maybe that’s someone’s intention, I don’t know yet. There’s no hard evidence and there have been no witnesses when people have hassled her in the street. They pick their moment. It’s possible that all of the events she’s described to me might be connected, but it’s equally possible that they may not.’

  As she pours two coffees into dark blue Metropolitan Police mugs, I run through all of the incidents that I can remember.

  ‘And what did the bloody useless police say about all of this?’

  Our eyes meet. She looks away.

  ‘Well, she had two detectives visit her flat twice. DS Marshall and DC Knowles, I think it was. Do you know them? It would be really handy if you could pull up their report on the computer.’

  ‘And tell you exactly what’s in it.’

  ‘Basically.’

  ‘I don’t know them, and I’m afraid I can’t look at their files. They’d be password protected. The only way I could access them would be if I knew the password or knew someone capable of hacking into the Met’s database.’

  I look straight into her eyes and raise my eyebrows innocently.

  ‘And, of course, I would not be acquainted with anyone capable of doing something like that. Or, at least, I hope I wouldn’t.’ She takes a sip from her coffee mug and peers at me inquisitively.

  ‘So what do you think?’ I say. ‘From what I’ve
told you so far.’

  ‘Well, strictly speaking, what you’ve been describing here is not stalking. Not really. There’s an element of stalking, sure, but it doesn’t quite tick all the boxes.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Stalking is usually the work of a single individual. They don’t ask for help from their mates, you know? And this seems like more than one person was involved, perhaps quite a few if we can believe what we’re being told.’

  She takes a sip from her coffee then stretches back in her seat, both of her hands clasped behind her neck, stretching the fabric of her blouse against her body, immediately drawing the eye to her breasts. I try to focus on what she’s saying.

  ‘Stalkers are not particularly well known for delegating their activities,’ she continues. ‘That’s not what it’s about. They get too much of a kick out of doing it themselves, and getting other people to help would mean taking those other people into their confidence, which would be too much of a risk on many levels. The stalker is usually a solitary.

  ‘Having said all of that, there are definitely stalker-type events going on here, from what you’ve said. The vandalism with the car, for a start; that would be the sort of thing a stalker might do. But stalkers tend to communicate directly with their victim. They’ll threaten them, they’ll physically attack them, though the physical attacks are intended to frighten rather than hurt or injure.

  ‘They might use the telephone, or at least leave sinister messages on an answering service. They may even communicate through social media, but that’s cyber stalking, which doesn’t seem to be happening here.’

  ‘So this isn’t some deranged individual who’s obsessed with her, as far as your intuition can tell,’ I say.

  ‘It doesn’t sound like it. Technically, stalking is, and I quote, “A constellation of behaviours which an individual inflicts upon another with repeated unwanted intrusions and communications”.’

  I let that sink in and rub a hand across my mouth. ‘Hm. I see what you mean. That doesn’t really fit this.’

  ‘But it would certainly come under The Violence Against Women Act of 2005.’

  ‘You’ll have to refresh my memory, officer.’

  ‘Conduct that would make a woman fear for her safety and inflict demonstrable emotional distress. Something like that, anyway.’

  ‘Well, she’s got the emotional distress. She’s taking diazepam, she’s twitchy, stressed and is often close to tears. So what’s going on?’

  ‘Off the top of my head? I think she’s the target of a campaign of psychological harassment. I think all the things that she’s described are connected, if only because they happened in the same short space of time.’

  ‘Could this be to do with the stuff she’s working on? She said that no one in the fashion business would do anything like that to her, but at the moment, it seems the most likely scenario.’

  She finishes her coffee. ‘It certainly looks that way, doesn’t it? The thing about psychological harassment is that it’s specifically designed to leave no evidence other than the complaints of the victim. That seems to fit this situation to a T.

  ‘She’s being tormented with the possible intention of lowering her self-esteem and, in this case, her focus. I mean, she’s a designer. Presumably, she has to have nothing else on her mind while she’s creating. And those guys who were getting in her way and calling her a bitch and all the rest of it – that can be classified as engineered intimidation. Just one of those incidents would be enough to prey on a woman’s mind for weeks afterwards; even months.’

  ‘This has been great. Thanks.’

  ‘All you have to do is find out whether it’s all really been happening or not. I don’t know anything about her mental state, obviously, but if none of it is true, it might be something she’s created to excuse herself from possible failure at what she’s trying to do. In a way, hiring you would make the whole thing more real for her, if it was all in her head. She may be giving herself permission to fail. That’s just my cod psychology interpretation. No extra charge.’

  ‘And the fact that your colleagues found no sign of forced entry into her flat…’

  ‘They’re not my colleagues. I don’t know them. Well, yes. You can make of that what you will. I can fully understand why their attitude seemed lacklustre. Not professional and very sloppy, but still understandable.

  ‘There’s a phrase: ‘likelihood of solvability’. In cases like this, that likelihood seems pretty low. But you don’t let the victim know that. You always give the victim hope and the impression that you’ll be doing your best. You don’t snigger and exchange amused glances in front of the victim. That pisses me off. Marshall and Knowles, you said. I’ll find out who their boss is and have a word when I’ve got some time. Leave a little stain on their records. Bastards.’

  ‘OK.’ I stand to leave. ‘I must pay you back for this. I’ll take you out to dinner sometime soon. If you’re free that is.’

  ‘I’m free tonight.’

  ‘I’m not. Got a date. Sorry.’

  ‘Oh, really? What’s she like?’

  I look upwards and to my left, pondering my reply. ‘Tall, beautiful, impossibly glamorous, full-figured, obscenely busty, hair down to her coccyx – bit of a plain Jane, really. I just hope we can find something to talk about so the evening’s not a total waste of time for me.’

  This makes her laugh. She’s beautiful when she laughs. I laugh too. She escorts me down the corridor to the exit.

  ‘Well maybe another time, then. Enjoy your evening,’ she says archly.

  I laugh at her implied bitchiness. She’s funny.

  ‘Do I detect a hint of jealousy, DI Bream?’

  ‘On the contrary, Mr Beckett. I rather like the idea of you spending the night with a sexy, beautiful woman, it’s…I can’t think of the right word.’

  ‘Amusing?’

  ‘Exciting. Have a nice evening.’

  She turns on her heel and walks back to her office. As I walk down the steps into Seymour Street, I can feel the small hairs on the back of my neck standing up, for real this time.

  5

  FEMME FATALE

  I get my cab to drop me off outside the McDonalds in St Martin’s Lane, which is currently like an obstacle course of road works, on the pavements as well as in the actual road. It’s noisy with drills and hammering and the smell of exhaust fumes seems to be worse than usual, so much so that I can taste the acidity on my tongue.

  I live in Exeter Street in Covent Garden, three floors above Joe Allen’s restaurant, but never take a cab directly there. I prefer to walk back from maybe half a dozen streets away, maybe more, using the most convoluted route I can manage and using reflections from shop windows and vehicles to make sure no one’s following me. I repeatedly tell myself that I’m just keeping my hand in for old times’ sake.

  After a few yards I have to cross over the road and negotiate a big throng of tourists hanging around outside the Nöel Coward Theatre. I like it when it’s crowded like this and I like crowds. By time I reach the National Portrait Gallery I cross over to the side of the street I started on and head past The Chandos pub and down William IV Street.

  I noticed the Vietnamese restaurant that Isolda mentioned about two weeks ago and made a mental note to check it out the next time I was taking a woman out for a meal. From the outside, at least, it’s an amazing looking place and stands out from the other restaurants in the street.

  It has an impressive grey slate front with two gigantic pots of black bamboo parked either side of the wrought iron doors and the name, The Perfume River, in black stone letters above the lintel. You can’t see inside, but I’ll bet anything the bill will be a killer.

  I glance across the road to make sure The Korova bar is still there and head back home.

  As I’m walking down Charing Cross Road, I feel like I’ve got eyes on me again. I do a couple of checks in the reflections of shop windows, but I don’t notice anyone. There’s a group of
nine tourists about ten feet to my left; Korean, as that’s the language their tour guide is speaking.

  There are two local female workers walking and eating directly behind me. One of them has just torn a French bread sandwich apart and handed the smaller bit to her friend. A besuited guy of about forty barges past a couple of Asian teenagers, who are too busy texting to notice. Three middle-aged French women are pointing at the display outside one of the theatres. Shoppers, tourists, office workers; there’s no one standing out, at least not yet.

  I cross over the road as if I’m going to the National Portrait Gallery. This gives me a chance to get a good look to my left and right. I almost get winged by a fluorescent cyclist, but that’s OK as it gives me an excuse to do a quick, worried-looking scan in all directions and still look like I’m behaving naturally. Still nothing. If there is someone keeping a tail on me, then they’re hard to spot, but that’s because they’ve got the advantage of the crowds and the traffic.

  I walk down into Trafalgar Square and sit next to one of the fountains, pretending to look at my texts, but actually keeping an eye on the whole area. I notice one guy in particular. He’s tall, smartly dressed, in his fifties and is loitering just across the way from the National Gallery. He looks at his watch, then he looks left and right as if he’s waiting for someone who’s late, but I think he’s faking.

  I keep him in my peripheral vision for a couple of minutes and then smile as he insinuates himself through a group of dozen American tourists, lifts a purse and a wallet and continues on his way. Very smooth technique and obviously a pro.

  To my right, a cab is emptying its occupants. I wait until they’ve paid, then quickly get inside and tell the driver to take me to the Novella Theatre in Catherine Street. If I am being tailed, they’ll almost certainly be on foot, and if I notice another cab in pursuit, I’ll bribe the driver to take evasive action. They always enjoy doing that, especially when there’s money involved.

  After five minutes, whether the threat was real or not, I know that I’m clean, and head back to my flat.