Worse Than Dead

by Stephen Puleston

  ‘Is there anything to report?’ Drake said.

  ‘Do you know how many places there might be to hide a laptop on a ship?’

  ‘It’s slow going then?’

  ‘Glacial would be a better word. Can you spare a hundred officers?’

  ‘Don’t be daft.’

  ‘We’ll do what we can.’

  Caren raised her eyebrows as though she expected Drake to tell her what Foulds had said, but his mind was distracted.

  ‘What did Mike Foulds have to say?’ Caren asked, standing by his door.

  ‘Nothing. I didn’t expect him to find anything; the laptop was probably taken off the ship in a car or one of the lorries.’

  ‘But we searched everything.’

  ‘We were under too much time pressure. It should never have been like that. We should have done a more thorough search of everything.’

  ‘It was as comprehensive as we could have made it, in the circumstances.’

  On the first floor Drake pushed open the door to the Incident Room where Winder and Howick were busy at their desks. A board had been assembled along one wall and a photograph of Frank Rosen had been pinned to the middle.

  Drake looked over at Howick who was scratching a day’s worth of stubble, his shirt cuffs flapping untidily. Gareth Winder had shaved his head the night before, Drake concluded from the light that was reflecting off the young officer’s skull.

  ‘What’s next, boss?’ Winder asked.

  Drake dragged a hand over his wrist and looked at his watch. ‘Caren and I are going to the post mortem this afternoon. Gareth, you get over to the port office. I want to find out everything about Rosen. There must be a personnel file – you know, appraisals and training. Everybody does training these days.’

  Winder nodded.

  Drake turned to Howick. A spasm of annoyance rippled through his mind as he watched Howick chewing gum. ‘Dave, I need you to go through all the crew and get a PNC check done for them all.’

  ‘Everyone?’

  Caren broke in. ‘Do you think it’s someone from the crew?’

  ‘Could be a passenger,’ Winder suggested.

  ‘Once you’ve done the crew, we’ll look at the passengers.’

  Howick made his first contribution. ‘Might have been a crew member and a passenger together. One kills him and the other takes the laptop.’ Howick scooped the gum out of his mouth and wrapped it in a shred of paper.

  Drake didn’t need reminding about the laptop and he narrowed his eyes at Howick. ‘Forensics haven’t finished the search of the ship yet. So they might still find the laptop.’

  Drake left the Incident Room and slumped into the chair in his office. It was exactly as he had left it two nights previously. The bin was in its correct place and he reassured himself that the papers on the small bookcase were in the same precise order. The photograph of Megan and Helen stood by the side of the computer and he gave it a reassuring nudge. The telephone handset was clean but the computer screen seemed smudged, so he took a handkerchief and gave it a gentle wipe before switching it on. As he waited for the machine to flicker into life he checked the Post-it notes that had been left in two neat and orderly columns on his desk. Not all of the notes had the same colour and the insertion of red ones had been a recent innovation that Drake hoped would help him prioritise better. In his inbox, he trawled through the emails, checking them individually before deleting those of little value.

  Then he started a sudoku from one of the books of puzzles in his desk and for the first time that morning felt properly in control.

  * * *

  ‘What’s he like?’

  Superintendent Wyndham Price stared at Simon Lance, wondering how he’d answer. The secondment had been finalised more quickly than he’d expected and tomorrow he would be facing a new challenge in the West Midlands. But in the meantime, he had Superintendent Lance sitting in his office asking about Drake.

  ‘You’ve not met him?’ Price avoided answering directly.

  Lance shook his head.

  ‘He’s a good officer. Difficult to get to know him and he can be prickly. He won a Chief Constable’s commendation medal a couple of years ago.’

  Lance raised his eyebrows.

  ‘But a case last year hit him hard.’

  ‘The murder of the two officers,’ Lance said, nodding now. ‘I remember the case, of course. Very high profile.’

  Price sat back in his chair and threw a biro onto the desk. Lance had a certain reserved personality, as though he didn’t want anyone to get to know him, rather like Drake, a little too buttoned up and formal.

  ‘Drake is having counselling as well. Paid for by the WPS.’

  Lance raised his eyebrows again and kept them high, a little longer this time. ‘I didn’t realise—’

  ‘Don’t worry. You won’t be expected to discuss anything with Drake.’

  Lance looked relieved.

  There was a knock on the door and Drake came into the room.

  ‘Ian,’ Price began. ‘This is Superintendent Lance from Southern Division. He’s replacing me for three months while I’m on secondment to the West Midlands.’

  Lance stood up and leant forward to shake Drake’s outstretched hand. Both men gave each other a wary look. Drake’s brief smile created a fold on both cheeks that framed his mouth. There was sense of balance to Drake’s face – eyebrows, nose and mouth perfectly proportioned. Normally his clear blue eyes had directness, but this morning Price could sense the hesitation. Price looked from one man to the other guessing that Lance at six feet tall was the same height as Drake. When Price motioned to a chair, Drake sat down.

  ‘I thought you could bring us both up to speed with the latest on the Rosen case.’

  ‘I’ve just come back from the post mortem. He was killed with a knife wound to the heart.’

  ‘Any forensics?’

  ‘Nothing yet. We’ll have the results of the clothing quite quickly.’

  ‘Anything from the search of the ship?’

  ‘It will take some time.’

  Drake’s mobile hummed into life and he smiled as he read the message.

  Lance butted in. ‘What’s missing, Inspector?’

  ‘A laptop. At least it was.’?

  Chapter 6

  The following morning Drake parked near Caren’s battered estate car and glanced inside, noticing the shopping bags and piles of old clothes. He couldn’t imagine how someone could live with such untidiness. To reassure himself he stepped back towards his car and looked inside: all neat and tidy. Reception was already busy and he skirted around a stationery delivery and wound his way through the building to the CSI department.

  Mike Foulds sat by a long table, in front of him a mug that had KEEP CALM BECOME A CSI printed on it. Caren leant against another desk. She was drinking tea that she sloshed around her mouth noisily, a habit that annoyed Drake, but he never had the courage to suggest she change. She’d discarded the smart clothes from the day of the seminar and was back to looking like a farmer. Her unruly hair looked like it had seen an attempt at brushing, but there were still knots that she’d missed, and under her coat Drake could see her blouse needed ironing.

  ‘Good morning, Ian,’ Foulds said.

  ‘Mike,’ Drake said.

  ‘Help yourself to some coffee,’ he said, nodding towards the electric kettle on the bench behind Caren.

  Drake spotted the cheap instant brand, turned up his nose and declined. Foulds clicked the mouse, and the screen on the laptop in front of him came to life. Drake and Caren stepped over towards him.

  ‘Anything on it that’s going to help us?’ Drake said.

  ‘There are no fingerprints. The memory is empty. Nothing – no files or films or music.’

  ‘Someone must have deleted them.’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘How long would it take?’

  ‘Not long. Depends.’

  Caren asked, ‘Where did you find it?’

  ‘I
t had been pushed into a store cupboard, full of cleaning materials. It was just lucky that we’d started the search nearby. Otherwise we’d still be there.’

  Immediately Drake considered what Mortlake would be making of his ship still being out of action. He looked down at the laptop humming silently on the desk; he had to make sense of who might have moved it. ‘Can you tell when the laptop was last booted up?’

  Foulds took another sip of his tea and wiped a hand across his lips.

  ‘Should be able to. Let me…’ He started clicking the mouse and staring intently as various screens came to life.

  ‘Any sign of the iPhone?’ Caren asked.

  ‘You’re joking.’ Foulds was still staring at the screen. ‘I’ve still got three CSIs trawling through the crew quarters.’

  ‘Did you see Mortlake?’

  Foulds lifted his head and fixed Drake with a narrow glare. ‘Kept floating around. He’s your number one fan…’

  Before Foulds could finish Flanagan came into the room, an excited look on his face like a child at Christmas.

  ‘Something you need to see,’ he said.

  * * *

  Ron Flanagan didn’t do eye contact. He kept alternating his gaze between a point just above Drake’s left ear and his right elbow and Drake could feel himself following the man’s darting glances. Drake pondered whether a black shirt and a multi-coloured sleeveless sweater really was in keeping with the WPS dress code. He could imagine Flanagan listening to folk music in a small bar, drinking real ale from a straight glass.

  Flanagan sat down by his computer. ‘Mr Rosen must have planned this very carefully.’

  ‘Get on with it, Ron, just give us the details.’ Foulds folded his arms.

  Drake stood immediately behind Flanagan in the room he shared with two other civilian technicians, with Caren and Foulds on either side of him.

  ‘Mr Rosen had created a lot of folders protected by passwords. At the start I thought it was a bit of a challenge.’

  ‘But?’ Drake said, realising that Flanagan was one who enjoyed suspense.

  ‘When I first started with the two main folders you can see on the screen now,’ Flanagan said, not distracted by Drake for a second, ‘I tried all the usual sorts of passwords – date of birth, first name, last name, name of wife, house name. Some people even have a file with their passwords in them. Eventually I was able to get into these two folders. Just so.’ Drake peered at the screen as Flanagan clicked through the various images.

  ‘And of course within each of those two folders there are more files, each passworded in turn. So I had to start again.’

  ‘I can guess,’ interrupted Drake. ‘Eventually you got through.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Drake ignored the hurt expression in Flanagan’s voice.

  ‘Inside each folder there is a file with a number. In fact, everything about Frank Rosen is about numbers. He’s probably a really compulsive character.’

  Drake sensed Caren, Winder and Howick staring at the back of his neck. Although he’d been able to conquer the compulsions and rituals recently, and things had got better, even at home – his wife, Sian, had reassured him of that – still he sensed the nervous, embarrassed stares. Glancing around, however, he saw them staring only at the screen, oblivious of him, waiting for Flanagan to finish.

  ‘Once I got through all the passwords I could open the fifteen individual files. And they’ve all got various lines of numbers and letters. It’s obviously a code of some sort.’

  Flanagan double-clicked the mouse until the screen was dominated by the numbers contained in one of the files.

  06

  10

  8

  G

  N

  G

  LK

  WX

  D

  1589

  3985

  15146

  0630

  0524

  0218

  351

  1652

  2568

  Then he clicked through it to each in turn. Each list was different in its order, but similar in content.

  ‘What do these mean?’ Drake said.

  Howick was the first to make a contribution. ‘Maybe Rosen was in a betting syndicate.’

  ‘We’ll probably find something in his personal possessions,’ Drake said. ‘We’ll need copies of everything that you’ve been able to open’.

  ‘Already done,’ Flanagan said, adding as an afterthought, ‘sir.’

  * * *

  ‘So what do we know so far?’ Drake played with his cufflinks, pulling at the light-blue, quality fabric of his shirt, as he stood by the board in the Incident Room. Occasionally the links glistened as they caught the artificial light.

  He had a pained expression that Caren had seen earlier that morning when Foulds had mentioned Mortlake. She had seen the same troubled look when she spotted Drake in the canteen at lunchtime, obviously uncomfortable with the two road traffic officers who had sat down at his table.

  Caren sensed that it was better not to interrupt him. Winder still hadn’t returned from his trip to the ferry company’s offices at Holyhead and she guessed he was extending his lunch hour. Howick sat by her side, a surly, uninterested look on his face. She had been tempted more than once to speak to him, but decided it was down to Drake.

  ‘We’ll need to dismantle Rosen’s life,’ Drake continued, folding his arms. ‘There must be something about these codes: the numbers must link to something in his life.’

  ‘Do you want us to look at Janet Rosen?’ Caren asked.

  ‘But you can’t think she was responsible? It would have meant somebody else being on the ship,’ Howick said, still slumped in his chair.

  Drake ignored him. ‘Caren, we look at Janet in detail. And Dave, we need to build a clear picture about Rosen. Get all his mobile phone records, we’ll need to find his bank statements, go through everything. I’m going to see the flying club later.’

  ‘Maybe he was blackmailing somebody? Perhaps he knew somebody’s guilty secret,’ Howick said.

  ‘Whatever the reason for his death, somebody had a good motive. And that somebody is on one of the lists that we have. We know who the killer is, just remember that.’

  Caren sensed Drake’s mood lifting as he continued. ‘There’s a list of passengers and the crew members. All we have to do is find out who it was. Simple.’

  Caren wasn’t certain what sort of response Drake expected. She glanced quickly at Howick who had a Drake-like pained expression on his face, so she decided against saying anything.

  Chapter 7

  Drake played the entirety of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon on the journey from headquarters to RAF Mona. He only ever played it in full when he was driving and usually it gave him the opportunity to think clearly. The final bars of the last song faded as he parked next to a sign that said Anglesey Flying Club – Guests. Apart from a securely locked control tower, the only evidence of its use by the Royal Air Force was the gleaming new tarmac of the runway.

  He locked the car and walked over towards a ramshackle building. Drake imagined the fighters that would have filled the airspace over the island when it was used as a major training base during the Second World War. Now all that remained was the old structure, badly in need of redecoration, new doors and windows. Behind it was a hangar where Drake guessed the planes of the flying club would be stored.

  In the distance, towards the mainland, Drake saw the late afternoon sun catching the mountain peaks and, looking over towards Caernarfon, he thought about his father, knowing that he wouldn’t be in the fields, mending fences or tending to sheep.

  Screwed to the wall near a door was a simple weather-beaten sign – ‘AFC – Entrance’. Drake entered the narrow hallway and shouted a hello; he half expected the secretary and chairman of the club to have been waiting outside for him in leather bomber jackets and long white scarves.

  From somewhere in the building he heard voices that became louder when the door to the o
ffice was opened. A man stepped out into the corridor and called over at Drake who recognised the deep, laid-back tones of Wing Commander Ellis-Pugh’s voice from his telephone conversation.

  ‘How do you do?’ Ellis-Pugh was dressed in a one-piece green suit and his well-groomed moustache seemed strangely out of place below a balding head and a narrow nose. Drake shook his hand and exchanged pleasantries; he guessed that Ellis-Pugh was in his early fifties, but he could have been older. The other man standing by a desk was nearer sixty.

  ‘This is Tim Loosemore,’ Ellis-Pugh said. ‘The club secretary.’

  ‘Good morning, Inspector,’ Loosemore said.

  Drake shook the secretary’s offered hand and sat down.

  ‘Absolutely dreadful business,’ Ellis-Pugh began. ‘Dreadful. Rosen was an awfully decent chap, you know, very popular. Can’t understand why anyone would want to kill him.’

  ‘I appreciate your help. I need a list of the members and then some information about the club,’ Drake said.

  ‘I’ve prepared a list of all the members, Inspector,’ Loosemore said, passing an envelope to Drake. ‘What other information do you need?’

  ‘Coffee?’ Ellis-Pugh said, more as an order than a question.

  ‘Black, no sugar,’ Drake replied. ‘Who were Rosen’s friends?’

  Ellis-Pugh was fumbling with the electric kettle until eventually it started a gurgling sound.

  ‘Can’t really say much about his friends,’ Loosemore said.

  ‘What was he like as a pilot?’

  ‘Frank Rosen was a natural pilot. Great intuition, good responses and patient with younger pilots. It was a hobby he could have turned into a profession had he chosen to do so. He had been a member of the club for many years, certainly over ten years,’ Ellis-Pugh replied, pulling three old mugs from the bowels of the cupboard. He gave them a cursory glance, presumably to check for life and then thrust a spoon into the coffee jar and quickly tipped granules into the mugs.

  ‘How long have you been secretary of the club?’ Drake asked Loosemore.

  ‘Just over two years. After I retired actually. I’d sold my company in Marlow and I had a holiday home here so I came up to live here permanently. Before that I had been a member and I knew him vaguely.’