STRANGE BODIES (a gripping crime thriller)

by Antonia Marlowe

  ‘These are the people we’re going to look closely at.’ He sent the images of Orlando Gray and Lara Nash to a split wall screen then waited, still standing, for the hubbub to die down.

  While they talked, he buzzed Mrs Halifax. ‘Can you track down Jacobsen for me, please. I think we may have found his murderer. Phone or in person. Thanks.’

  The commander said, ‘I’m sending their backgrounds to you. Have a read and see if you agree. DS Blanchard, if you want to get back to your computer work?’

  ‘Sir, I’d like to stay a while, if that’s okay with you. I’ve pretty much finished that work.’

  The commander considered him for a few seconds. ‘There is something you can do.’ He gestured him over to the side of the room and spoke in a low voice. ‘We still haven’t heard from InterCat or HOLMES. I want to find out about the trial and where the three they actually managed to keep hold of were sent. Whatever you can find on them. Possible?’

  ‘You mean … ?’ he raised both eyebrows.

  ‘Whatever you can get,’ said Adams firmly.

  ‘There’s one other thing, sir. Steiner kept a sort of diary, not every day, just highlights I guess, brief entries up till he did a runner. One of the last entries caught my eye. All it said was “Conrad’s gone too far this time, that wasn’t necessary.” I don’t know what that means but I’ll send it on to you. Now I’ll just get on with your little chore.’

  He wasn’t in the habit of authorising illegal hacking, which it probably was, Adams thought. But this was a vicious bastard and if the information was correct, he had already tortured and murdered seven InterPharm people. He added the so-called terrorist who attacked Verity to the count too.

  It was to be hoped that Ashton, Grantham and Hill were still safe in jail, though safe was a relative term in UK jails. Information on Ashton seemed to be strangely lacking, no aliases arranged, no bank accounts listed. Was he intended to be the fall-guy?

  Mrs Halifax buzzed. ‘DI Jacobsen was already on his way here. Said he’d just been talking to Dr Burne and she suggested he should contact you.’

  ‘Good, thanks for that. Send him straight in to the boardroom when he gets here.’

  ‘It’s almost nine-thirty, sir. Do you want to take Deputy Underhill’s call in your office?’

  ‘Bugger it, sorry. Office, please. They can keep going without me.’

  At nine-thirty he was in his office on the phone to the Deputy’s office, but to his surprise it was the Commissioner himself, Anthony Sherwood, who appeared on the wall screen with Underhill present in a three-way hook-up.

  ‘I want to keep this low key, Commander, that’s why I didn’t ask you to come to New Canberra. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch lately ... politics, I’m afraid, goes with the job. Sometimes I wish I’d stayed in the field.’

  Nicholas thought This isn’t at all what I was expecting. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, ‘I missed it too so I’ve taken steps to get my hands dirty again, for a while at least. You’ve had my reports?’

  ‘Yes, of course. As I said, politics have been my main concern and there’s been a lot of fallout from the Mostyn affair. I’m afraid it’ll mean another one of those witch-hunts the …’, he stopped for a second then went on blandly, ‘that we have from time to time. I know everyone hates Internal Investigations but a necessary evil, I’m sure you’ll agree, Nicholas.’

  Adams was surprised, the first time the Commissioner had addressed him by his first name. ‘Of course, sir. I understand Mostyn has dropped … er, implicated a number of other officers and civilians.’

  ‘Dropped them in the shit, quite right,’ said Underhill, almost cheerfully. ‘Got them all too, we think, though there may be a few more. We’re keeping alert.’

  Sherwood said, ‘Commander, I’ve cancelled your press conference, hope you don’t mind.’ He smiled then at Adams’ grin. ‘We got wind of certain members of the gutter press planning to hijack or disrupt it with allegations of corruption and cover-ups at the highest level. I don’t want you facing that crap in the middle of these murder investigations.’

  Underhill took over, said ruefully, ‘Your loss, my gain. The press conference is rescheduled for three o’clock. We’ll be taking only questions relating to the Mostyn affair, as they are calling it. However, I want you to prepare a press release regarding progress on these murders.’

  ‘I had one ready but we’ve just had a breakthrough.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve got a suspect!’

  ‘Two, actually. Orlando Gray and Lara Nash.’

  ‘Orlando Gray, why do I know that name. Oh, my God, Sir Marcus Havington. He’s Sir Marcus’ Security chief!’

  Adams corrected him. ‘Systems and Security chief, actually, a vital difference. He’s our murderer and I don’t care who he works for,’ he said savagely. ‘He’s an electronics expert and we think he’s been hacking into the police computers, as someone was always one step ahead of us and no one here has leaked. As you may recall the house we suspected as the murder site for the Richardsons was destroyed before we could get to it. And there’ve been a number of other incidents.’

  ‘What about Dr Burne’s computers? Wasn’t there something … oh, yes. She was sent some photos of the murder victims, the Richardsons, and you couldn’t trace the source.’

  Nicholas thought back to that day in his office … the day he interrogated Verity.

  ‘She’s taken extra precautions and it hasn’t happened again. She, um, has come across relevant information about Gray and Nash, pointing to a motive. Incidentally, they are lovers.’

  ‘I’ll wrap this up now, let you get back to your investigation. Shoot your report through to Patrick later today. Pat, keep me in the loop. Goodbye.’

  His image winked out and Pat Underhill said, ‘Anything comes though from the UK during the day, let me know. Good work.’ He closed the transmission.

  Nicholas thought about taking a minute or two to contact Verity but decided it would be too distracting. He needed to get back to the conference room. And he needed coffee.

  Verity shooed her loving family out after an hour, pleading tiredness. After Amy’s ministrations she felt almost normal again, no pain in her shoulder and she could walk, carefully, on her strapped ankle. As a precaution she engaged full house security then went up to her shielded attic.

  From the Levinsky/Steiner files she knew four of the board members were murdered and when and where. Now that she knew what to look for, who to look at, it should be easy. First, travel patterns. She wondered just how far back she had to go. The last board meeting of InterPharm had been about ten years ago. She decided to make some assumptions at this point. It helped her think to talk to the computer. Merlin was nothing if not logical, but sometimes he surprised her by taking an unexpected lateral step. The Intelligence part of AI was sometimes alarmingly intelligent.

  ‘Good morning, Merlin.’

  ‘Good morning, Verity. I do hope you are recovering well from your injuries. In fact, you look very well this morning. I’d say the Commander had something to do with that.’

  Verity rolled her eyes. ‘You’re a blasted pervert, Merlin. Now, if you don’t mind, let’s find a murderer. Please retrieve and display travel records for Sir Marcus Havington for say, the last five years. Additional information … only those when Orlando Gray was with him. Also retrieve any information on individual travel by Gray, with or without Nash. Destinations and dates only will do.

  ‘Next task. Can you hack into InterCat and HOLMES?’

  ‘Does the Pope shit in the woods? It’s easy enough to get in; I assume you don’t want traces left so I’ll tippy-toe. What information do you need?’

  ‘You’ve got all that InterPharm data. I want to know what happened after they were arrested. Obviously some of them got away, but who went to trial and were they sent to jail? If so which jail and are they still there? As much of that information that’s retrievable. And your sense of humour is deplorable.’

  ‘I do
n’t actually have a sense of humour yet but I’m getting there. I just borrow phrases that you humans think are funny, but I’m starting to get a glimmering. Here’s the travel information … where do you want it?’

  ‘Desk screen one and also to my Tyle. Hold the transmission to Nick until I get it sorted and collated. Speaking of transmissions, any attempts to gain access here?’

  ‘No, no way. All my transmissions are now tightly re-coded with encryption to the nth level of difficulty. Someone’s had a few stabs at Jeannie but the new safeguards seem to be holding. Very clever, very sophisticated though. I suspect every ping is gathering info. I’m letting that happen … we can backtrack them eventually.

  ‘Here’s some of the information you wanted from HOLMES. On your Tyle again. Still nothing on InterCat but that system is down again.’

  ‘That’s rapid tiptoeing, Merlin. Thanks.’

  Verity scrolled through the details of the trials of the three InterPharm board members who were not quick enough or not smart enough to get away in time.

  Peter Ashton, the chief accountant, was murdered in jail in his first few weeks there. Blake Grantham and Walter Hill were still in jail. Merlin had gone a step further and had somehow tracked Ernest Yarrow to Ireland, still alive, at the moment. But the photo of Ashton … there was something about the eyes, the shape of the jaw.

  ‘Merlin, split screen three. Put up images of Peter Ashton and Orlando Gray, points of similarity. Any connection, blood connection?’

  ‘Didn’t I say, oh, sorry. Gray is Peter Ashton’s son. Mother Cordelia Gray. Married when she was three months pregnant with the boy. After Ashton was murdered she reverted to her maiden name, took the boy, young man I should say, and went into seclusion … let’s see … in Scotland. He was seventeen, brilliant according to his scholastic records.’

  ‘Gray’s father was murdered in prison?’

  ‘Yes, this is what I’ve found.’

  Ten years earlier - Prison island, North Sea, UK.

  He lay face down in the showers, the cold salt water showers that never left you feeling really clean. The thin gritty soap that was supposed to neutralise the salt but didn’t, lay close to an outstretched hand. That hand was no longer part of the body and neither was the other one that lay in its clasp. When they finally found him and turned him over, even the most hardened reeled back in shock and horror. It was a particularly brutal and savage murder, the guts spilling out and writhing like a nest of snakes on the cracked tiles.

  He had been strangled with a twisted strip of sheeting. A gaping wound in his groin showed where his penis had been severed and stuffed into his mouth after the tongue was removed. It was hard to tell what had been done to the prisoner while he was still alive; the still dripping shower had washed away most of the blood by now but small circular burn marks around the groin and beside the eyes suggested he had been tortured. He had been sodomised with a piece of broom handle. There was no sign of his tongue.

  Was he tortured to reveal some knowledge? Did he have something someone wanted? Was it a warning? There were some desperate men on this island, though no convicted murderers. Mostly white collar crime, petty theft, black marketeers; there were forgers, fraudsters, a couple of blackmailers—not really hard men, only desperate because their previous lives had often been ones of comfort and privilege. They would do almost anything to gain even the smallest sliver of that former life … extra rations, another blanket, books. Luxuries like that were jealously guarded, even fought over, but until now no one had been killed for them, well, not as obviously as this though some sudden deaths were borderline.

  The puzzle was that Prisoner Ashton, Peter, ID No. SI2-7610-Q20897, had nothing like that, nothing that would trigger his hideous torture and death. It was clear that death was always intended, the type of injuries made that obvious. He and the two other board members, Grantham and Hill, had only been at the prison farm for a month, not long enough, surely, to have attracted such enmity. The prison boss wasn’t going to like this one little bit.

  Verity paled while reading this grim story. ‘Motive, there’s the motive, his father. Someone ordered this death, but why. Who could have done it? Just look at that pair, Grantham and Hill. They’re weedy types. Merlin, your thoughts?’

  ‘The only logical answer is one of the guards. Money, or threats perhaps. Looking, looking. Ah, yes. A senior prison officer, John Rushton, resigned a month later, he and his wife moved to Canada, transferred a large sum of money too, well hidden I might add, travelled around then disappeared. Searching, searching. Aha, connections. He is Robyn Turner-James’ cousin.’

  ‘You think he, they, are dead too?’

  ‘No idea. And there’s this. In the Levinsky files there’s a brief notation … he kept a sort of diary, just points, no details. One of the notes, written just after the murder of Ashton said, “Conrad’s gone too far this time, that wasn’t necessary. A warning, that’s all I suggested.” And here’s another thing … that young c-tec, Jet Blanchard, was trying to get into HOLMES. He was almost there but would have been detected so I gave him a little nudge.’ A chuckle emanated from the speaker. ‘He was surprised at how easy it was.’

  ‘I’m guessing someone suggested a beating; either Turner-James extended that to murder, or we have a very sadistic guard. That’s what ties Gray to the murders, revenge for his father’s death.’

  Verity didn’t bother to ask how Merlin had accessed the files from Levinsky’s computer. They were on her Tyle and so would be automatically linked to the AI. Come to think of it, also on Nicholas’s too. She’d send him a message anyway.

  Adams nearly ignored the insistent pulsing of his personal phone. Impatiently he pulled it out and when he saw it was from Verity, read the message. Sending evidence to your Tyle. Look under file named Merlin. Love Verity.

  He opened the file and quickly skimmed the contents. And there it all was … laid out on a platter, the all important motive they’d been trying to find. Not a disgruntled shareholder, not the remaining board member, Ernest Yarrow, but a son’s vengeance for his murdered father, a man whose only crime it appeared was to have been an innocent member of the InterPharm board.

  And there was the travel pattern too, neatly laid out and documented. It fitted, it fitted every location where the dead ex-board members had been found.

  Verity thought there was not much more she could do now that the motive and murderers were known. Well, they had fallen off the map but surely that was temporary. She thought for a minute or two then spoke. ‘Please track the ATV Gray and Nash are travelling in, or were in. My guess is they would have ditched it. Everything since they left, please.’

  ‘Anything else while I’m at it … back rub, manicure, three-course dinner. By the way you seem pretty sharp today … comes of having a sex life, I’d guess.’

  Verity blushed bright red. ‘Christ, is nothing secret around here! You aren’t supposed to snoop in my bedroom.’

  ‘Verity, as you said, you made me, you and Marcus set the parameters. And one of the imperatives was to guard you from all harm, you and Adelaide, and by extension, anyone close to you. I can’t do that if I’m locked out of anywhere in and around this house. Your implants are just tracking devices. I can’t actually read your mind, but I always know where you are. Incidentally, are you going to arrange one for the Commander?’

  ‘We’ll see. But, hell, I’d forgotten just how all pervasive you are.’

  ‘Verity, I’m a machine, a very clever one but I am asexual so I don’t really care what you get up to in the bedroom. Now as far as this latest attack goes I was temporarily blinded by a very clever … in your terms … masking device. It took me a few nanosecs to realise what was going on. I apologise for my lapse. I’ve taken steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again. He’s a clever man, your murderer. As clever as you, but twisted. A shame, to have wasted a first class brain.’

  ‘Yes, a near genius with electronics. So we’re in agreement as to who we are afte
r.’

  ‘Of course. It should be obvious to everyone by now.’

  ‘So what can I do now? I’ve sent everything I’ve found so far to Nick, sorry, you’ve found,’ she corrected at a remarkably human sounding ahem from the AI.

  Chapter 38

  Verity sat bolt upright in bed, suddenly awake. After last night with Nick she hadn’t expected to wake until late. For a few seconds she savoured the thought of what they had done and tingles ran through her. Then she realised something was wrong and heard a faint buzzing sound. She reached a hand out for her watch on the side table and could feel it pulsing, a danger signal. She looked across to Nicholas who was sleeping peacefully but she had to wake him … now.

  ‘Nick, Nick, wake up,’ she shook him roughly, no time for gentle rousing. ‘Nicholas, please, wake up.’

  He looked at her and smiled sleepily, ‘What is it? Is it …’

  She interrupted him. ‘Quick, get up, get dressed. There’s an intruder in the house. Hurry.’

  She tried to engage her bedside unit but it seemed to be dead, not responding to her input. She picked up her clothes which had been rapidly discarded the night before, grabbed her bag and remotes and said ‘Come on, we have to move.’

  ‘But aren’t we safe in here?’

  She said, ‘I don’t know, probably, but I don’t know for how long and I’ve got no eyes here. It’s been jammed. Something’s jamming us here.’

  Nicholas had struggled into his pants by then, grabbed his watch and phone and still half asleep, followed Verity into the bathroom. She took a tiny remote from her bag, one he hadn’t seen before and touched it to a section of the wall. It slid up revealing a tube like the one they’d used before.

  ‘Where are we going? Up or down?’ She didn’t bother replying just grasped him and the t-bar firmly.