by Peter James
Mimicking 1950s sex idol Betty Page, Gaia had her hair died black, with a fringe, and was wearing a see-through black negligee. Bondage tape was wound across her mouth. There was Japanese writing on the front, below her face, and it was signed by Gaia. The poster came from her second Japanese tour and was one of only four in existence. Anna had paid £2,600 for it five years ago.
‘We build you up, and we can smash you down just as easily. See? See what a worthless bit of cardboard you’ve now become, bitch?’
She put the knife down, raised her hand making their special sign. ‘Secret fox!’
60
Glenn was still thinking about Norman Potting and Bella Moy at 6.45 the next morning, as he made the now familiar left turn at the West Sussex Piscatorial Society sign and crossed the cattle grid. Ominous clouds were thickening overhead and he didn’t need the weather forecast on the radio to tell him a deluge was on its way. Rain was not good news for an outdoor crime scene.
In the city, the uniform division called it ‘Policeman Rain’. The streets were always much quieter when it was raining, there were fewer street fights, fewer muggings and bag snatches, fewer break-ins, and fewer drug dealers lurking on corners. Villains did not like getting wet any more than anyone else. But for crime scenes, heavy rain was the worst news, because crucial evidence, such as tyre marks, footprints, clothing fibres and hairs could get washed away very rapidly.
He was excited by Roy’s news last night that a head had been found. There was no guarantee it would turn out to be ‘Unknown Berwick Male’s’, but if his clothes were here, and it matched the limbs, then it was highly likely. And if they had the head, they might be able to get a visual identification of the victim, and failing that, identification through dental records. Quite apart from anything else, the swifter this investigation moved forward under his stewardship, the better it would reflect on him.
It was strange, he thought. On all previous murder investigations he had been on, he – and every member of the enquiry team – developed empathy with the victims, and it became personal, a determination to bring the perpetrator to justice. But at the moment, although a man was dead, without knowing his identity he felt distanced from him.
As he drove through the abandoned farmyard development, he was a little surprised not to see the big yellow SSU truck in situ – if they had found the head last night, he would have thought they would have been out in force here from first light today, doing a fingertip search of the area around it. But it was possible they had been called out to an emergency operation somewhere else. The only vehicles here were a marked police car, its windows drenched in dew, belonging to the hapless officer on the last shift of overnight crime scene guard duty, standing forlornly in front of the tape, and a small blue Vauxhall Nova. It might be the Home Office patholo-gist’s, he speculated, but he would have thought that covering the mileage he did, and carting around his equipment, he would have had a more substantial vehicle.
He pulled alongside it and, before switching off the ignition, checked the overnight serials on the car’s computer, to see if there had been any incidents logged that might have required the SSU’s attendance. But it had been a quiet night, just run-of-the-mill stuff. A car theft, two RTCs, a robbery at the Clock Tower, a smashed window at Waitrose, a boat set on fire at the Marina, two domestic fights. He climbed out and peered through the Vauxhall’s window, but the interior of the car looked as pristine and impersonal as a newly collected rental.
He opened the boot of his car and struggled into a protective suit, then pulled on the gum boots he had brought, not making the same mistake as yesterday of ruining his shoes in the mire. Then he clumped his way carefully through the slippery mud of the track and up to the very young woman police officer, and held up his warrant card. Her name badge read PC Sophie Gorringe.
‘I’m the deputy SIO – everything all right?’
She nodded and gave him a stoic smile. She looked in her late teens, and could have barely left college, he thought.
‘Long vigil?’
‘Two hours to go, still,’ she said. ‘Nicer since it got light – it was quite spooky when it was dark – kept hearing an owl.’
‘Whose is that car?’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
Sophie Gorringe was about to speak, when he heard a familiar chirpy voice behind him.
‘Mine, Detective Sergeant Branson!’
Glenn recognized the voice instantly. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be on honeymoon?’ he said in dismay, as he turned.
The twenty-five-year-old reporter from the Argus smiled smugly. He was thin faced, with short, gelled-back hair, wearing a dark grey suit with a white shirt and a narrow tie, and chewing gum, as ever. His face was nut brown, except the tip of his ferret-like nose which was pink, from having peeled. ‘Seems like I came back just at the right time.’ He was clutching his notepad.
Glenn heard a car, and a moment later Roy Grace came into view, driving his unmarked silver Ford Focus estate.
Spinella’s phone rang, and he turned away from Branson to answer it. It sounded like he was being given instructions for another job after he had finished here. Just as he ended the call Roy Grace strode up to them, in gum boots but not in a protective suit.
‘Nice honeymoon?’ he asked the reporter.
‘Beautiful – ever been to the Maldives?’ Spinella asked.
‘No, I’m on a copper’s salary not a bent reporter’s.’
‘Haha,’ Spinella said. But his laughter was uneasy. There was a tenseness in Grace’s demeanour that Glenn could sense, as, clearly, could the reporter.
‘So, what exactly brings you here, Kevin?’ Grace asked him.
Spinella grinned. ‘You know me and my contacts.’
‘So you got tipped off that we’ve found a head – possibly belonging to the missing torso?’
‘Yes – so – I thought I’d better get straight down here and see what – er – what you’d like me to put in the paper.’
‘You did, did you?’
Branson frowned. He knew Grace did not care for this reporter, but his attitude was considerably more hostile than normal. The reporter shuffled from foot to foot.
‘Yeah, you know,’ Spinella said. ‘To help you with your enquiry – that’s how we like to work with each other, isn’t it, Detective Superintendent?’ His eyes went shiftily from Grace to Branson and back to Grace.
‘Who told you about the head?’ Grace asked.
‘I’m sorry, Detective Superintendent, I can’t reveal my sources.’
‘Perhaps that’s because you don’t have any,’ Grace retorted.
‘How – how do – I mean – I can’t reveal them.’ Spinella looked distinctly uneasy.
Suddenly, surprising Glenn Branson and Spinella, Grace lunged forward and snatched the reporter’s phone from his hand. ‘Kevin Spinella, I believe a criminal offence may have been committed. I’m arresting you on suspicion of illegal telephone hacking. You do not have to say anything; but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something that you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
Spinella’s eyes widened in shock. ‘You – you can’t – you can’t do this to me – you – you . . .’ He stared at the handcuffs Grace had suddenly produced.
‘Can’t I?’
Roy Grace rarely handcuffed people himself these days. But one technique he had never forgotten was how to speed cuff a villain. He snapped one, in one sharp, continuous movement, on Spinella’s right wrist, jerked his left arm behind his back and snapped the handcuff on that, too.
‘What’s this all about?’ Spinella demanded sullenly, but already the tone of his voice had changed and he was sounding anxious rather than insolent.
‘There is no head that’s been found,’ Grace said. ‘I made that up. You swallowed it, hook, line and sinker.’
Glenn Branson grinned. ‘That’s quite appropriate, chief, for this location.’
Grace
smiled back grimly.
61
‘Who’s your fat friend?’
They all looked at the guide in astonishment. She was standing in the hall of the Royal Pavilion beneath a portrait of the corpulent figure of King George IV.
A knot of nineteen of the twenty visitors to the Royal Pavilion were gathered tightly around her, hanging on every word. Just one person, standing right at the back, had his attention somewhere else altogether.
‘Oh my God!’ an elderly American woman wearing a plastic rain hood exclaimed. ‘He said that? To the king?’
The guide, a woman in her early fifties, had the authority of a school headmistress about her. ‘He did indeed,’ she said firmly. ‘You see, Beau Brummell was a very well-known figure – a real Regency dandy. Tall, quite statuesque, always immaculately dressed and coiffed, whereas poor George just got fatter and fatter as he got older and looked less and less distinguished. Well, they had a bit of a falling out. Beau Brummell, Lord Alvanley, Henry Mildmay and Henry Pierrepoint were considered the prime movers of what Lord Byron styled the Dandy Club. The four of them hosted a ball in July 1813 at which George, still then the Prince Regent, greeted Alvanley and Pierrepoint but cut Beau Brummell dead. Getting his own back, Brummell turned to Alvanley and said, very disdainfully, “Alvanley, who’s your fat friend?” ’
Drayton Wheeler was grateful for the pelting rain, because it enabled him to wear a baggy mackintosh with the collar turned up, and a wide-brimmed hat low down over his face. This was his third visit here in three days, and he was concerned not to be noticed by any of the staff, especially the security guards, so on each occasion he had worn different clothing. As the guide continued talking about the rift between George and Beau Brummell, he stared nervously at the closed, ochre-painted half-gate at the top of a stone staircase that led down into the basement of the building.
He checked the inside pocket of his jacket, and felt the reassuring lump of folded papers – the set of plans for each floor of this building he’d purchased from the Planning Office yesterday. He’d spent much of the night studying and memorizing them. He looked over the gate and down the staircase again.
‘Poor Prinny’s obesity became a very big issue for him,’ the guide droned on. ‘There is an underground passage running from here to what was once the royal stables. Prinny had it built because he was so ashamed of how gross he looked that he didn’t want the public to see him. He went up to twenty stone in weight. So he could come and go in private!’
Wheeler looked furtively around. There was no guard standing in the hallway. The people in front of him blocked the guide’s view of him. This could be his best chance. He stepped back a few paces, peered over the top of the gate, and saw it was secured shut by a small brass bolt. He looked back at the crowd. No one was looking his way. He lowered his hand over the top, felt the bolt and tested it. It made a scraping sound as he slid it open. He froze, looked down the staircase, then at the crowd on the guided tour, then along the hallway in both directions.
Then he pushed the gate open, stepped on to the staircase, rapidly closing the gate behind him, then crouched, for a second, listening, his heart hammering, his ears pounding. Then he hurried down the steps, still crouching, and turned right at the bottom, entering a long, narrow corridor with a brick floor that, in contrast to the immaculately maintained and presented public areas, was dusty and shabby and poorly lit. He walked past a decrepit green door, sagging on its hinges, with a yellow and black DANGER – HIGH VOLTAGE sign on it. A cobweb across the top left corner of the door showed it had not been opened in a while.
Perfect.
He pulled it open. The hinges shrieked and the bottom of the door scraped on the bricks. He looked around nervously, but there was no sign of anyone. He peered inside and saw a whole wall of fuses and electrical switchgear, and some pipework that looked like it was lagged in asbestos. But crucially, there was enough floor space for him to be able to sit down.
He entered and pulled the door shut again, with some difficulty. It smelled fusty and there was a faint humming sound, as well as a steady, rhythmic ticking. It felt as warm as an airing cupboard. He took out the torch he had brought along, and his Kindle from the bag of provisions he had concealed beneath the mackintosh, which he folded to use as a cushion, then squatted down on the floor for the long wait until this evening, when the whole place would be locked and deserted.
He fired up his Kindle, then at the same time pulled his wallet out of his coat pocket, and flipped it open. A small boy in a grubby T-shirt, with messy hair either side of his LA Lakers baseball cap, grinned cheekily back at him. Six years old, standing in the back yard of their old home in Pasadena, in front of a row of sunflowers, taller than he was. Taller than he would ever be.
His only son. Wearing his thick glove, holding a ball he was pretending to be about to pitch.
Two days after that photo was taken, Ferdy was mauled to death by the neighbour’s Rottweiler, when he’d climbed over the fence to retrieve that ball.
62
There were two levels of post-mortem carried out in the Brighton and Hove City Mortuary, as in all other mortuaries throughout the country. The standard one was for victims of accidents, sudden deaths, or when people had died more than fourteen days since they had last seen their doctor and cause of death was uncertain.
With the bodies prepared in advance by Cleo and her assistants, the actual post-mortem itself, carried out by one of a rota of local pathologists, took about half an hour, with further analysis of fluids carried out later in the labs. But for suspicious deaths, a specialist Home Office pathologist would be called in, and the post-mortem would last many hours.
Brighton and Hove City Mortuary processed an average of 850 bodies a year, the vast majority being standard post-mortems. These were carried out in the mornings, and by mid-afternoon, most days, work was finished for the mortuary staff – unless they were called out to recover a body.
A few weeks ago, Cleo had collapsed at work, suffering internal bleeding and had been rushed into hospital. The consultant gynaecologist had kept her in for several days, and then released her with strict instructions that she was to do no heavy lifting and to take a rest at some point during every working day. Grace knew she was ignoring both of these edicts and he was increasingly worried. When she had collapsed previously, she had been lucky that her assistant, Darren, had been there to drive her straight to hospital. But she was often alone in the mortuary and he worried what might happen if she collapsed again when she was the only person there. So he made a point of phoning her around 3.30 p.m. every afternoon to check she was okay, and again just before the evening briefing, to check she was fine at home.
He was truly terrified of losing her. Perhaps, he reflected, it was because after Sandy had gone he had believed he would never be happy again. And always Sandy’s shadow was present. Some days he was convinced that she was dead. But more often, he believed she was still alive. What would happen, he sometimes pondered, if she were to turn up again now? If she had some completely rational explanation for her disappearance? One scenario he played over often was that she had been kidnapped for this past decade and finally escaped. How would she feel to find him married with a child?
How would he feel, if he saw her?
He tried not to dwell on that, to push it from his mind. Sandy was in the past. Ten years ago, in almost another life. He would be forty years old very soon. He had to move on. All the legal processes for having Sandy declared legally dead were under way, with advertisements placed here and in Germany, where there had been a reported but unsubstantiated sighting by a police officer friend, who had been on holiday in Munich. As soon as the ink was dry on the formalities, he and Cleo would marry. He longed for that day.
Cleo sounded tired this afternoon, and he put the phone down at the end of the call, worried. God, there seemed to be so much that could go wrong with pregnancy – and they never told you that at the outset. His joy and excitement that s
he was carrying their child was tempered by his fears of what might happen to Cleo, and the awesome burden of responsibility of bringing a human being into this world.
What the hell do I know about the world and about life? Am I a fit and wise enough person to teach a child anything?
Every villain he had ever locked up had been a baby once. Any human life could take so many twists and turns. Like the face staring at him now from the photograph in the court file he was working on. A grossly overweight American, in his early sixties, with little piggy eyes and a ponytail, who made big money from selling videos of people being murdered to order – and who had shot Glenn Branson with a handgun while resisting arrest. He despised this man with all his heart and soul, which was why he was putting so much work into the trial documents, to make sure there was absolutely no chance the creep got off on any technical flaws that a brief could find in the prosecution’s case.
What kind of a baby had Carl Venner been? What kind of upbringing? Did he have parents who loved and nurtured him and had high hopes for him? How did you stop a child turning rotten? Maybe you couldn’t, but at least you could try. Giving a child a stable upbringing had to be the starting point. So many of the villains in this city came from broken homes, lone parents who either could not cope, or had long since given up caring. Or parents who sexually abused them. But he knew that wasn’t always the answer. There was always going to be an element of lottery about it, too.
And an enormity. Sometimes the sense of responsibility rose up and almost overwhelmed him. There were so many books to read on pregnancy, on the baby’s first months, those vital early years. And always the fear that the baby might have something seriously wrong. You never knew. Tests gave you some reassurance, but they couldn’t tell you everything. He just hoped their child would be healthy. They would do their very best to be good parents.
