David Raker 04 - Never Coming Back

by Weaver, Tim

  Grabbing my phone, I went to the browser and straight to the Bellagio site. There was no number listed for the security team on the contact page, just a general information line. I noted it down, backed out, and headed to Google, putting in a search for ‘Bellagio Director of Security’. There was no picture – but there was a name: Carlos Soto.

  I punched in the general enquiries line just as traffic started moving again.

  ‘Good evening. This is the Bellagio. How can I help?’

  Through the mobile, and across five thousand miles, it sounded like I was talking to someone on the moon. ‘I was hoping to speak to Carlos Soto in security, please.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  The line went silent. A couple of clicks.

  Then it started ringing again.

  I glanced at the clock. Seven-fifty. That meant it was just before midnight there. Security staff worked all sorts of hours, so there was a good chance Soto was there.

  I just hoped I’d get lucky.

  But I didn’t.

  Click. ‘Hi, this is Carlos Soto, Director of Security at the Bellagio. I’m afraid I can’t take your call at the moment, but if you leave your name and number, I will get back to you as soon as I can. Alternatively, one of my colleagues will be happy to help.’ He went on to list a few names and their direct lines, but the signal began to wane as I moved closer to the coastline’s black spot. If the high-rollers group were bringing in the sort of money Lee had suggested, the hotel weren’t going to palm Cornell off on to a glorified mall cop – they were going to give him their top man.

  That meant it was Soto or no one.

  I listened to the rest of his message, then left one of my own, hoping the signal would hold up. ‘Hi, Mr Soto, my name’s David Raker. I’m an investigator based in the UK. I was hoping I could talk to you about a man named Cornell.’

  I figured that would be enough – so I left my number and ended the call. Almost immediately my phone started ringing again.

  Carter Graham.

  I picked up. ‘Carter – is everything all right?’

  ‘David,’ he said. He was whispering. Immediately I could sense the alarm in his voice. ‘He’s here. I think he’s shot one of my security guards. I’m so scared.’

  ‘Okay, calm down. Who are you talking about?’

  ‘Katie says she saw a man with a gun coming from the barn.’ He sniffed. It sounded like he was crying. ‘Help me. Please.’

  Katie says …

  ‘Listen, Carter. You can’t trust Katie.’

  He was crying.

  ‘Carter. Are you listening to me?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said you can’t trust–’

  Suddenly, there was a massive noise in the background.

  ‘Oh fuck!’ he screamed. ‘Oh shit!’

  ‘What the hell was that?’

  ‘That’s him firing a fucking gun!’

  I pulled the phone from the cradle. ‘Okay. Listen: did you call the police?’

  ‘Oh, please,’ he said, words deformed by tears.

  ‘Carter?’

  ‘Please,’ he said again, ‘please don’t kill m–’

  And then a second gunshot.

  The line went dead.

  48

  When I got to Farnmoor, the gates were wide open and I’d become lucid enough to see how fast I’d been drawn in, how unprepared I was. Whoever this man was, he was armed and he was a killer. I wasn’t either of those things. I’d left Prouse’s Glock back at the Ley – and now I had nothing to fight back with.

  I drove past the gates, on about an eighth of a mile to where I knew there was a lay-by. Leaving the car there, I backtracked along the lane until I saw a space in the hedge that traced the perimeter of the grounds. From this distance, everything seemed normal. No movement. Nothing out of place. The rain had eased off, leaving the lane awash, but this close to the coast the drizzle was massaged by a cold sea breeze that made it difficult to hear anything but the gurgle of water and the whine of the wind. I headed further down the lane, towards the gates, and then watched the house again, this time from the bottom of the driveway. No sign of the police, or of Rocastle, even though it had been the first thing I’d told Graham to do when I’d woken him up. Instead there was a stillness to the house, a pallid hush, that it had never had before.

  I’m too late.

  Darting in through the gates, I arced right, following the boundary hedge to where an orchard sat, perched on a gentle slope. Beyond it was the side of the house, where I could see the window into the library, its glass dark and indistinct. Further around, the swathe of green that encircled Farnmoor dropped away towards the sea, running left to the cliff’s edge, and right to a series of fields on which I could see the empty barn.

  The one Prouse had killed Paul and Carrie in.

  Hunched behind a knot of apple trees, I waited to see if there was any reaction to my movement. Any eyes on me. Any sign I’d been spotted. In the windows of the house all I could see was a reflection of the grounds and the growing blackness of the sky. As I moved further around, right to the edge of the orchard, I saw three cars at the back. One I assumed was Katie Francis’s, a Lexus I’d seen parked in exactly the same place both times I’d been before. Further down were a series of five garages, four closed, one open: inside the open one was a red Porsche Cayman. It must have been part of Graham’s collection. The other one was a black Audi A4 with SECURITEAM stencilled on to its side.

  Graham’s security detail.

  He said he had seven men here.

  Where the hell are the rest of their cars?

  The remnants of the previous night’s gala were evident: the marquee was still up at the rear of the house, ribbon was attached to the doors and windows, and behind one pane of glass I could vaguely make out a balloon. Along the gravel path, running between the orchard and the house, I could see plastic beer glasses and discarded cigarette butts, in doorways, on windowsills. Briefly, I wondered why there was no clean-up staff here.

  Then I realized.

  It’s Sunday.

  Graham must have given them the day off.

  A sudden rush of wind carved in off the sea, ghosting through me, and I shivered there, alone, in the orchard. It was cold now, freezing cold, the rain getting harder, leaves falling from the branches above me, cascading past my face like fallen wings. My eyes fell on the rear door, one I assumed would lead through to the kitchen and then on into the belly of the house. It was my quickest route inside, but it was also dangerous: I’d be approaching from a different direction, entering hallways I hadn’t used, passing rooms I wasn’t familiar with. But going in through the front door meant going around the house.

  And that was an even bigger risk.

  I’d be passing windows.

  I’d be exposed.

  I grabbed my phone from my coat and checked it. A single bar. I dialled 999 and listened to it ring, the reception drifting in and out. Then the line died. I tried again, got as far as asking for the police, and then I lost the signal for a second time. I’ll have to call from the landline. Pocketing the phone, I watched the house for a few minutes more.

  Then I broke cover.

  Sprinting across the open ground between the orchard and the house, I moved in a diagonal, across to the rear door, and – as I got closer – realized it was already ajar. I hit it hard, pushing through into the kitchen and stopping the door dead before it hit the wall.

  Silence inside.

  Ahead of me, the kitchen – all chrome and brushed steel – split in an L-shape: one branch led into a cove that doubled up as a larder; the other opened out into a bigger, brighter space, with a granite-topped island sitting under a slanted roof full of skylights.

  Beyond it was the door.

  I headed around the worktops, grabbed a knife from a rack, then padded through to the hallway. The stairs up were about a third of the way along. The other times I’d been, I’d approached from the opposite direction and there h
ad been people working. This time there was no sound anywhere and the whole place was empty. I felt my heart shift, instinctively knowing this wasn’t right, and then a sense of dread started to wash over me: ten minutes before, Graham had called me in desperation, in tears, in fear of his life.

  A gunshot had drowned out his plea to be spared.

  Now there was only stillness and quiet.

  I passed vacant rooms, frozen in party mode: balloons and decorations, glasses on tables and mantelpieces, the smell of spilt booze and cigarette smoke. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I looked up, saw nothing, and headed straight past, all the way to the vast front room that had been the central focus of the gala. There was no one inside, but – as I backed out – I noticed the front door was fully open. Outside, it was still raining.

  Returning to the stairs, I paused and looked up.

  As the steps spiralled right to meet the landing, I noticed something on the wall. A smear. Blood. I felt compelled to look behind me again, in both directions, the size of the house suddenly intimidating, its ceaseless, deathly silence sending a cool finger down the centre of my spine. Then my eyes fell on the blood again, and I saw more beyond it: on the carpet at the top of the stairs, on the walls around it, on the door frames.

  Slowly, I started the ascent.

  49

  About halfway up, something made a noise – a dull thud – and I paused there. Five seconds. Ten. Fifteen. After twenty, I began moving again and, at the top step, re-established my grip on the knife. It was big and weighty, and would be fine up close. But the assailant had a gun. Unless I could surprise them, I might as well have had nothing.

  I stood there and listened.

  The only noise now was the rain at the windows.

  Along the hallway, at the end, was the library. To my right were two function rooms, mostly empty of furniture. Further down on the opposite side were the same doors that had been closed the day before. Graham’s bedroom. Maybe his study. I started down towards them, flicking a look towards the library, my mind racing. Why wasn’t there any sound? Because the killer’s waiting for you, drawing you in.

  Or everyone’s already dead.

  I’d gone about twenty paces when I saw more blood on the walls. I could make out finger smears, as if someone had reached out for support and then toppled to the ground. There was a trail of it in the carpet, from the point the finger smears ended, all the way along the hallway, to the first closed door.

  I headed for it.

  And then stopped again.

  Immediately to my left now was Katie Francis’s office, the edge of her desk visible and part of the window behind it. There was blood on the door, around the door handle, a handprint on one of the panels. Something mechanical moved in me, a thick, desperate sense of inevitability, and then, gripping the knife, I pushed at the door with my sleeve.

  It inched back.

  Katie Francis sat upright in her chair, but the chair had drifted out from under the desk on its wheels. Her arms looked like they were reaching down for the floor, fingers grasping at the floorboards; her body was tilted slightly to the left, her head angled in the same direction, but resting against her shoulder. One of her shoes had spun off and away.

  Her killer had put a single bullet through the centre of her forehead. Her blood was all over the wall behind, her life painted there in one grotesque arc, but her eyes were the worst part. They were wide open, looking right at me, and even while the light had gone, you could still see the echoes of her last moments: all the fear, all the desperation.

  I quickly backed out, immediately zeroing in on the closed door along the hall. The blood trail leading to Graham’s bedroom had begun in Francis’s office. My heart pounded against the inside of my ribs like a ball of rock, even though I already knew what I’d find. Graham. Dead. I knew as well, intuitively, that the killer was gone.

  This hell was their aftermath.

  At the door, I hesitated, sleeved fingers wrapped around the handle, wondering if I even had the stomach for what was on the other side. Memories flashed in my head like a strobe: the evil I’d faced down before, the devils and executioners, the innocent people they’d tried to bury and the carnage they’d left in their wake.

  I stepped closer and opened the door.

  Graham’s bedroom was long and simple. Against the far wall was a king-sized bed, three standalone wardrobes to its right and a wall-mounted TV. Closer to me, at the other end, was a desk with a laptop on it and a lamp.

  There was so much blood it was difficult to imagine what the room might once have looked like. It was on the walls, on the windows and across the laptop. On the floor, sprawled between the desk and the bed – black T-shirt, shaved hair – was one of Graham’s security detail. I recognized him from being at the house the day before. He’d been shot through the back of the head. Blood washed out from under him, suggesting he’d taken one in the stomach too, but it was hard to tell for sure.

  Because next to him was another corpse, awash in blood.

  This one was Carter Graham.

  50

  His face was pressed right into the skirting board, as if he’d been smashed into it – pushed there by the power of his attacker – and there was a horrible contortion to his body, neck angled one way, body the other. He lay stomach down, knees to the floor, and a pool of blood was clawing its way out from under him, slipping into the gaps between floorboards and running across the room towards me. He’d been shot in the chest. I took an involuntary step forward, drawn to him, drawn to help him, then stopped and looked down: my feet were in his blood, in the blood of his security guard, and reality kicked in. What had I touched with my hands since I’d been here? What had I left my prints on?

  I backed up, the pool of blood following, and then kept going all the way to the door. Walls, door frames, handles, I couldn’t remember any more. I’d been on edge – and I’d been sloppy. I hadn’t been thinking. In my pocket, I felt my phone start to buzz. I didn’t answer it, my attention drifting back to Graham: eyes closed, nose pressed to the wall, mouth open, body twisted horribly. Something isn’t right. My phone continued to vibrate, a series of gentle purrs in the silence. Something isn’t right about the way he died.

  He’d said he’d had seven men in his security team.

  But there was only one here.

  After lingering on Graham for a moment more, I headed out into the hall and along to the other closed door. It wasn’t a bathroom or a study, it was a room full of filing cabinets, stuffed with paperwork. I checked the other rooms, rooms whose open doors I’d passed in the days before – but there were no other bodies. There was no more death.

  So, where the hell are the rest of the security?

  For a second I stood there, frozen, my head full of noise. Then I became aware of the phone again, buzzing. I took it out and looked at the display. Caller unknown.

  I answered, the signal drifting. ‘David Raker.’

  ‘Let me tell you how the past twenty-four hours has been for me, shall I?’ Rocastle. He came straight out of the traps. No greeting, no introduction. The reception was terrible, but marginally better than outside. ‘Late last night I have to sit and listen to your bullshit about not being involved in my case. I’ll give you your dues, Raker, you spin a convincing tale, even for a suspicious old man like me. You told me Prouse took off across the hills. Do you remember that?’

  ‘That’s where I saw hi–’

  ‘Right. That’s where you “saw” him. So, tell me: if he headed out across the hills, why the fuck was I standing next to his cold, hard corpse at the Ley this morning?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, keeping my voice even.

  ‘You don’t know. Right. Are you even remotely familiar with the geography in this part of the world? Are you? Because the hills you talked of are in completely the opposite direction to the Ley.’ His voice had taken on a different tone now: he’d dropped to a hushed, caged fury. ‘Which must have meant he double-backed
on himself. But that can’t be right because my search area was two fucking miles across! If he came back to the village, we would have got him. Instead, some couple find him down by the lake!’

  ‘I don’t know what to say. I thought I saw–’

  ‘I don’t give a shit what you saw. In fact, I don’t give a shit about a single thing that comes out of your mouth.’ He paused. I could hear him breathing, almost wheezing, as if he couldn’t get on top of his anger. I’d slowly moved back along the hall and paused outside the bedroom, looking in at the bodies. It was such a mess, so much blood between Graham and me, it was hard to tell exactly what his injuries were – not without getting close, without turning him on to his back and leaving myself all over the crime scene. I’d thought chest, but it could have been gut. He’d bled a lot, and it was still coming.

  ‘Now I’ve got this bullshit at Farnmoor to deal with.’

  That brought me back into focus. ‘What?’

  ‘Carter Graham called me an hour ago.’

  So he had called Rocastle, just as I’d told him to. I looked into the bedroom again. What did I say? That I was here, standing over Carter Graham’s body? That I’d walked all over a crime scene without even thinking about it? I was already in deep shit with Rocastle. If I told him what had happened, I’d be signing my own death warrant.

  ‘What did Carter say?’ I asked.

  ‘Carter? Carter said he thought “they” were coming for him.’

  I looked at the body. ‘He’s right. There’s–’

  ‘Oh, I see. This is another one of your fantasies.’

  ‘Listen–’

  ‘No, you listen, you lying bastard. I just had to leave a murder scene for this pile of shit because you know what my super will say if we don’t drop our drawers for Carter Graham? Do you? “You’ve got to get down there, Colin, because this guy pays fifty grand a year into our police community fund.” Sod the stiff lying on the shores of the lake with half his brain slopping out the back of his head. Who cares about him? He’s just a fisherman. Much better that I go to the house and babysit millionaire Carter Graham.’