Left You Dead

by James, Peter

  Tick.

  Wrapping the blood-stained knife in cling film, she put it, also, in her handbag, then went upstairs with the bag of her clothes, letting a couple of droplets of blood fall along the way, smearing each one with her right hand onto the wooden treads, and entered their en-suite bathroom. There she squeezed her finger, letting more blood fall on the tiles, once more smearing it in, so Niall wouldn’t notice.

  After quickly dabbing on some antiseptic and winding a plaster round her finger, she removed the T-shirt from the bag. Then she took out the screws from a small wall-mounted grille and placed the T-shirt in the cavity. She secured the grille but deliberately left one of the small screws on the floor, ready to be found, hopefully, by police forensic experts. She glanced anxiously at her watch. Still a safe fifteen minutes to go. She put her switched-off phone in a drawer under the bed, covering it with some underwear.

  Tick.

  She hurried over to the window and peered down at the street. No sign of the BMW or Niall.

  She looked at her checklist. All done.

  A plaintiff miaowwwww made her look up. Reggie was standing in the doorway.

  ‘What is it, darling, you want your dinner? I’d love to give it to you, but I can’t, because your daddy will know I’ve been here. He’ll be home soon – he’ll remember.’ She knelt, scooped him up into her arms and kissed his head. ‘I’m going to miss you,’ she whispered.

  Reggie’s answer was to purr contentedly.

  ‘You’re a nice cat, you know that?’

  He continued purring.

  ‘Thanks for being the one good thing in my life these past years.’ She kissed him again and set him down. He looked at her, then rolled onto his back. She knelt again and tickled his tummy briefly. Then she stood and glanced around their bedroom. She looked at the framed prints of Victorian Brighton on the wall, one of the Chain Pier and one of the Daddy Long Legs train that ran above the sea, which Niall had bought her for their first Christmas here. It would be the last time she would be in this room. And it was her last chance to take anything, but she couldn’t risk that, however tempted she was to take the one piece of jewellery Niall had bought her – in happier times – that she really liked – a Cartier tennis bracelet. Of course, he loved to tell anyone and everyone he’d bought it for her, like some sort of trophy that she had to be grateful for.

  But, hell, why take the risk of him noticing? And besides, all it would do is remind her of him.

  When she wanted to spend the rest of her new life forgetting him.

  She adjusted the hijab in the hall mirror, pulling it as low over her forehead as she could, and put her sunglasses back on. Then, clutching her handbag and Waitrose carrier bag in one hand and keys in the other, she let herself out of the front door and strode up the pavement towards her car, without once looking back.

  78

  Sunday 1 September

  Ten minutes later, Eden was driving along the A27 with Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ blasting through the car’s speakers. It was one of the songs that Niall hated. Just like most of the tracks on the playlist – her Freedom Playlist – that she’d secretly put together these past few weeks. Singing aloud to the track, she was heading north-east to Lewes, and then would take the Crowborough road towards Ashdown Forest.

  Finally, she slowed, approaching the turn-off into the same car park into which she had driven the BMW last Thursday night. It was after Niall had fallen deep asleep – with a little help from the sleeping pills she’d popped into the whisky she gave him after the barbecue. She was hopeful the police would find this turn-off from interrogating the BMW’s computer and his phone, which she had also taken with her, leaving hers behind.

  As she pulled in, onto the sandy surface, she was relieved that no other cars were here, no one to witness her. Pulling on rubber gloves and locking the car, checking around warily for any cyclists or dog walkers, she carried the plastic bag off into the woods. Who was it who said, If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans?

  Well, God wasn’t laughing today, but she was pretty sure he was smiling.

  Just as she smiled as she removed the spade – the one she’d bought at a garden centre a while back – from the thick gorse bush where she’d concealed it. Then she began to scrape out the soil of the shallow grave she had dug in the early hours of Friday morning. Next, she unwrapped the cling film from around the bloodstained kitchen knife, put the wrapping carefully into the bag and dropped the knife into the soil.

  Forty minutes later, when she had finished interring the clothes she had brought and covering them sparsely with earth, ensuring some were showing on the surface, scratching the ground to make it look like it had been disturbed by an animal, she returned to her car, placed the spade and the bag – the sole contents of which was now the cellophane in which the knife had been wrapped – in the boot and climbed into the driver’s seat.

  Before driving off, she keyed a text and sent it.

  ETA 25 mins XXXXXX

  Moments after starting the engine, a reply pinged back.

  Make it 24 mins, I can’t wait that long XXXXXXXX

  79

  The present: Friday 6 September

  Moments after Gummy announced that the subject was on the move, Mark Taylor and the team members in the room with him were watching on the live feed. The Fiesta hire car, followed by the old red van that had let it out, and a further stream of cars, headed north up Nevill Road and vanished from view. One car, three back, was a dull grey Nissan Micra – call sign Alpha One. A moment later the voice of the driver, Kim Howe, came over the radio.

  ‘Alpha Seven, I have eyeball on subject.’

  With all the team listening, Taylor replied, ‘Alpha One, stay with him for as long as you can.’

  ‘Stay with him, Alpha Seven, yes, yes,’ she replied.

  The image on the monitor switched to a road map, with Alpha One, now an avatar, a grey car-shaped symbol, moving steadily along the road around a long curve. She was heading towards the junction with King George VI Avenue. Two further vehicle avatars, one green, one blue, were spaced out behind her.

  ‘Subject waiting at the junction, indicating right,’ Howe said.

  ‘Alpha One, you have Alpha Four and Alpha Eight trailing you. If you end up directly behind subject, let one overtake you. Copy?’

  ‘Alpha Seven, yes, yes.’

  They watched the symbol now move north, heading uphill towards the roundabout at the top which would give four options – onto the A27 in either direction, north towards Devil’s Dyke, or south-east towards the city centre.

  ‘It’s the second left, left, left,’ Howe’s calm voice came through. ‘I’m now directly behind.’

  Taylor felt a thrum of excitement. From his earlier briefing with Grace and Branson, the car park at the Devil’s Dyke beauty spot was where Niall Paternoster had a previous suspected liaison. Was he headed there now?

  It was a fast, narrow road to the Dyke, which demanded maximum concentration from any driver. There were fields to the north, sloping down into a deep valley, and further on, the Dyke Golf Course. There were open farmland fields to the left, down across a panoramic vista to the urban conurbations of Southwick and Shoreham, with the harbour and sea beyond. A short distance on, to the south, was another golf course, the nine-hole Brighton and Hove Golf Club.

  Quite apart from being stunning scenery, this whole area, Mark Taylor well knew from his police experience, was the place that many young dating couples in Brighton and Hove, who had access to a vehicle, would sooner or later go for perhaps their first proper kiss – and likely more. It was also, occasionally and sadly, a favoured local deposition site for bodies.

  Taylor watched the blue avatar right behind the red one and spoke into the mic. ‘Alpha One, Alpha Four is tailing you in a blue Suzuki Vitara Jeep – let him pass. You’ll then have Alpha Eight in an old Mazda MX-5 behind. Let him pass and he’ll then pass subject.’

  All the team w
atched the manoeuvres. However vigilant Niall Paternoster might be, he would have struggled to figure out he was being followed.

  Three minutes later, Howe reported, ‘Alpha Seven, subject has entered car park and is heading to the far end, where I can see just one other car, a white-and-black Range Rover Evoque, index Golf November Seven Zero Charlie Papa November. We’re all parking up, and I’m keeping eyes on him.’ A moment later, she said, ‘Subject exiting the Fiesta holding a carrier bag that looks like it contains a bottle. Someone inside the Rangey has opened the passenger door for him. Alpha Eight has parked right opposite, may have a better view.’

  A different voice came on the radio. The chirpy voice of Nigel Hurst. ‘Alpha Seven, Alpha Eight here, boss. Subject having an embrace with a blonde lady in the Range Rover. Now he’s inside and closed the door. Possible Ugandan discussions,’ he quipped, quoting the euphemism coined by the satirical newspaper Private Eye for illicit copulation.

  Taylor radioed the Range Rover’s registration number through to a controller, requesting an ident on the owner. The information came back in less than a minute.

  80

  Friday 6 September

  Just as he was about to enter the conference room for the evening briefing, Roy Grace’s phone rang. It was Mark Taylor.

  ‘Sir,’ the DS said. ‘You told me in our briefing you suspected Niall Paternoster was having an affair. We currently have eyes on a Range Rover Evoque parked up at Devil’s Dyke, where he appears to be having a liaison with a lady. The index of her car gives her as Rebecca Watkins of 17 Barrowfield Drive, Hove.’

  ‘Nice area,’ Grace said, memorizing the name and address. ‘Quite posh. Paternoster’s trading up, is he?’

  ‘Very much so,’ Taylor replied. ‘A dream house – fat chance on my pay!’

  Grace ignored the comment, thinking hard, visualizing Devil’s Dyke. ‘You should have enough vehicles to cover any of the possible routes Paternoster takes from there.’

  ‘Yes, sir. There’s only one road out of the Devil’s Dyke car park. Soon after, there’s one junction, with an option to go straight on or turn left, up past the Dyke Golf Club. We can cover that easily.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Something else, sir,’ Taylor said. ‘Subject has parked out of direct sight of the Range Rover, including its mirrors. The area’s fairly quiet and we think we have a chance to put a tracker on subject’s car, while he’s otherwise preoccupied. I already have authority.’

  ‘Don’t take any risk of anyone being seen,’ Grace cautioned.

  ‘That is my job, sir.’

  Grace felt the reproachful tone of the DS’s voice like a rebuke. He should have known better, he realized, than try to give advice to a man of Taylor’s calibre.

  ‘Of course, Mark. I understand.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Grace took his place next to Glenn Branson at the table in the conference room, thinking to himself how the receiver of the text message from Sunday night was almost certainly Rebecca Watkins. As the team filed in, he rapidly familiarized himself with the notes he had prepared for the briefing. Over many years, he had imbued the importance of punctuality in all his team members. On one occasion, when a particularly arrogant young detective had sauntered in ten minutes after the decreed starting time, Grace had given him a withering look and said to the DC, whom he had never used again, ‘You know what being late tells me? It says that your time is more important than mine and everyone else’s gathered here.’

  On the dot of 5.30 p.m. on the wall clock, with everyone present, Grace said, ‘This is the seventh briefing of Operation Lagoon, the investigation into the disappearance and suspected death of Eden Paternoster.’

  A phone rang. Lorna Dennison-Wilkins glanced at the mobile on her desk then raised an apologetic hand. ‘I need to take this, sir.’

  He nodded to her.

  She answered, hurriedly stepping out of the room and closing the door behind her.

  Continuing, Grace said, ‘We’ve had confirmation from Lucy Sibun, a short while ago, that the bone found in the grave of the deposition site in Ashdown Forest isn’t human, as her colleague suspected – it’s the tibia of a roe.’

  ‘Oh deer!’ Norman Potting said, looking around, but there was no response. Undeterred, he quipped again, referencing an enquiry many of them had been involved with some time back. ‘Stag night gone wrong, was it?’

  ‘Not today, Norman, OK?’ Grace turned as Dennison-Wilkins came back into the room, looking like she had news. ‘Sir,’ she said to Grace, but addressing everyone. ‘That was PC Bennion-Jones, who’s working with the team at the garage examining the Paternosters’ BMW. He called right away because he thought it might be significant to our enquiries. They’ve found a magnetic GPS tracker concealed under the rear of the car.’

  81

  Friday 6 September

  For some moments no one in the conference room spoke. The silence was briefly broken by the sound of Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’ bursting out of a phone and being rapidly shut off. Roy Grace looked at a red-faced Jack Alexander.

  ‘Sorry, boss – Kaitlynn put it on my phone as a joke. Thought I’d got rid of it.’

  The silence resumed, to be broken again by Grace exclaiming, ‘A tracker under the Paternosters’ BMW, which must have been there before we seized the vehicle? What is that about?’

  ‘Bennion-Jones told me it was a TKSTAR – a good brand, waterproof, with a three-month battery life,’ Lorna Dennison-Wilkins informed him.

  ‘A tracker under the Paternosters’ car,’ Grace repeated, more calmly now. ‘So who put it there? Niall Paternoster? Eden? Someone external – not the police, so far as we know – but we need to check that.’ He turned to Potting. ‘Norman, I’ll give you the action of eliminating the police from putting it there.’

  ‘Yes, chief.’

  Grace was pensive again, then said, ‘Whoever put it there wanted to see where the car was going. This was a vehicle that both husband and wife shared. Did one of them place it there and, if so, which one? And why? Or could it have been someone else altogether?’

  He looked around a sea of faces deep in thought. ‘Lorna, did JBJ give you any sense of whether this is a rare or common tracker?’

  ‘He said it was one of a number widely available, sir. This particular one costs around thirty pounds – it’s sold in a lot of shops and on Amazon.’

  ‘Do we know if it was active or dormant?’ Grace asked. ‘Could it have been there for years perhaps, from a previous owner of the vehicle?’

  She shook her head. ‘He said it’s a recently upgraded version that’s only been on the market for a couple of months.’

  ‘OK, well that might help us find out where it was bought from and by who.’

  Martyn Stratford called out, ‘Sir.’

  ‘Yes, Martyn?’

  ‘I’ve just looked up this product,’ he said, nodding at his laptop screen. ‘There seem to be a very large number of retailers – including Amazon, as Lorna just mentioned.’

  Grace made a note. They needed to check the Paternosters’ laptops for Amazon purchase history. ‘Let’s hypothesize for now that it’s either Niall or Eden Paternoster who has put this there. For what reason?’

  Norman Potting raised his arm and caught Grace’s eye. ‘There’s normally only one, chief. Suspected cheating.’

  ‘So speaks the expert!’ said Kevin Hall. His remark was greeted with laughter, which momentarily broke the unusually sombre mood of the team.

  Potting raised his arms and took a bow by twirling his hands.

  ‘So, taking your point, Norman,’ Grace said. ‘Who has suspected who here? Husband or wife? What—’

  Grace’s phone rang. Glancing at the display, he saw it was Mark Taylor again. ‘This might be important,’ Grace apologized, answering it.

  It was.

  ‘Sir,’ Mark Taylor said. ‘Just to give you a heads-up. The lady got out of her Range Rover to kiss lover boy goodbye. We’ve got
some good photographs of her, I’m pinging them through to you now.’

  As he spoke, Grace felt his phone vibrate, signalling an incoming email. ‘Nice work, Mark.’

  ‘Lover boy’s walking back to his car. He’s looking pretty happy with himself, if you get my drift, sir?’

  ‘Like he’s had a happy ending?’

  ‘Well – exactly.’

  It took a few moments for the photographs to finish downloading. When they had, Roy Grace was staring at a woman in her mid-to-late thirties, with short, stylish fair hair that was looking a bit ruffled. She reminded him a little of the actress Sienna Miller – she had a certain beauty, but a hard edge to her face. He handed the phone to Branson, telling him to pass it round. ‘We believe this lady may be called Rebecca Watkins,’ Grace said. ‘Niall Paternoster’s girlfriend. I’d like you all to take a look at her. Rebecca Watkins. Anyone recognize her?’

  Everyone in turn studied it carefully, each of the team shaking their heads, until it got to Polly. She stared at it rigidly for several seconds. Then she looked directly at Roy Grace. ‘I thought I recognized the name, sir. Now, seeing her face, I’m even more sure. I interviewed her along with a bunch of other people at Eden Paternoster’s employers, Mutual Occidental Insurance. If I’m right, Rebecca Watkins is Eden Paternoster’s line manager – her boss.’

  ‘You’re sure, are you, Polly?’ Roy Grace asked.

  She hastily looked at her notebook.

  There was a short silence. Just the sound of Martyn Stratford tapping his keyboard, who then looked up. ‘I can confirm that Rebecca Watkins works for Mutual Occidental.’ He held up his laptop, showing a photograph of the woman, looking even more severe in a dark business suit and white ruff collar.