Shot Through the Heart: DI Grace Fisher 2

by Isabelle Grey

  She looked into his face, into his familiar, friendly, loving eyes, muddy green with tan-coloured flecks, and saw something she’d never seen before, a flash of something calculating and misleading as if there were another person hidden behind them. The sudden wave of vertigo that swept over her made no sense – her parents’ accounts of the police visit seemed both innocuous and entirely plausible – but it wasn’t about facts, it was something that struck far deeper than that.

  She reminded herself that she already knew he could be an actor when he needed to be. When she’d been out beating on a big shoot day with wealthy clients she’d seen how he’d act the part of the Downton Abbey family retainer. It was part of the job – to flatter men who expected to be flattered – but what if the secret element to that performance also gave him a kind of edge? What if knowing it was all an act, one they happily accepted at face value, stopped him feeling inferior about being in the service of these more powerful men? If that were true, then what other secrets lay behind the friendly and familiar mask?

  Robyn had no idea why, but at that moment she knew – just knew – that a certain kind of lying came naturally to him, that, far from being awkward or embarrassed about it, he did it fluently and without a second thought, that he did it all the time.

  A car drove past them, rattling the loose-fitting windows of the Land Rover. Time seemed to stop. Her world went backwards. She felt sick.

  ‘I think maybe I picked up a bug at school,’ she answered. ‘Can we just go home?’

  21

  Dr Samit Tripathi, the Home Office forensic pathologist, regarded Grace sympathetically over his rimless glasses, yet she still felt as if she were making excuses for herself as she explained why her team had not managed to locate Peter Burnley’s next of kin or medical records in time for the prearranged Monday morning autopsy.

  Peter’s passport, found in his flat, established his identity, and other ID in his possession confirmed what Lance already knew, that he was a consultant employed by a financial services company in London named Buckingham Gate Associates. Buckingham Gate had a stylish website with photos and potted biographies of its principals, but the shocked and helpful woman to whom Grace had spoken on Friday had been unable at that point to provide any further useful information. She had promised to email a copy of Peter’s CV, but Grace had not yet received it. Peter had given his employers as his referee for the rented flat in Colchester, and his phone and car – the silver Audi found in the yard where he was killed – were both registered to Buckingham Gate. Neither his phone nor laptop revealed any contact details or recent communications with family or, it would seem, any non-professional friends other than Lance.

  Grace wondered if perhaps Peter’s sexuality had encouraged him to be hyper-discreet, just as Lance himself was at work – so much so that, until Lance told her, she hadn’t previously guessed that he was gay, although of course it had then made complete sense. Even in this day and age, might that explain why Peter had apparently not been in touch with family or old friends? It was unusual for a life to be quite so tidy, and experience had taught her that extreme discretion all too often turned out to conceal the kind of secrets that were potential motives for murder.

  Still, maybe Peter was someone who simply preferred a tidy life. Her instincts about the man with whom she’d eaten lunch and played Scrabble on Christmas Day rang no alarm bells at all: she’d liked him, pure and simple. She couldn’t recall any moment when he’d appeared evasive or opaque, and the warmth of his affection for Lance had seemed entirely genuine. She hoped poor Lance wasn’t about to have his grieving heart crushed by whatever secrets the investigation might bring to light.

  ‘The body is that of an adult male, of slim build, height five foot eleven. He has been identified to me as Peter Burnley, thirty-four.’ Dr Tripathi began his post-mortem examination just as Colin slipped into the viewing gallery beside her. Grace was surprised to see her boss: he hadn’t mentioned that he would attend, and the presence of a detective superintendent wouldn’t normally be deemed necessary. She assumed he was here as a courtesy to Lance and, even if this were merely to do with appearances, she was grateful for his sake.

  As Samit ran through the circumstances of how and where the body had been found, and catalogued all the marks and injuries, old and new, Grace tried not to think too hard about the careful dissection and evisceration that was to follow, and to view the naked body on the stainless-steel mortuary table not as a previously warm and vivid human being but as physical evidence. Listening carefully as Samit described each of his findings, she focused on the specifics that would influence her investigation: no defensive wounds, no skin or other tissue under the fingernails, bruising to the backs of both knees and multiple blunt-force injuries to the head, the first blow to the head probably administered from behind as he went down following the strike to the legs, and three further blows inflicted while he was on the ground; the attack was likely to have happened where the body was found; the weapon had been smooth and rounded, possibly something like a police baton.

  The gory remainder of the autopsy, apart from the detailed examination of the skull and brain, did not add anything of significance, and Grace was relieved to be able to walk about and stretch her limbs once Samit had concluded his work and recorded the time. Leaving the pathologist to strip off his gloves and protective clothing and then go to get changed, Grace and Colin went downstairs to wait in his office.

  ‘Next of kin have been located,’ Colin told her quietly.

  ‘Oh good. Did that come from Buckingham Gate?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking.’ He paused, a slight smile revealing an odd frisson of excitement. ‘We’re to step back on this one. Do what we’re requested and no more.’

  Grace frowned. ‘I don’t understand. It’s early days. There’s still every chance that a witness will come forward, or that we’ll find new evidence to point to the identity of the perpetrator.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Colin. ‘But the Essex coroner has agreed to transfer the case to London.’

  ‘But why? That hardly ever happens.’

  ‘It does when there are special circumstances,’ said Colin. ‘There are other agencies involved. They’ll take over the inquiry.’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Peter Burnley was working undercover. But not a word of this to Lance,’ he warned. ‘Or to anyone. Just you and me. And Hilary, obviously.’

  Grace shook her head at why it had to be ‘obvious’ that the communications director should be informed when a team of experienced detectives couldn’t be trusted. Not that she cared about whose turf this was; for her the only priority was to catch the person who had beaten to death the considerate man who at Christmas had left an immaculate house for her to come home to after a long and traumatic day. But that thought gave her pause: who was the real Peter Burnley? Was that even his name?

  ‘So how much can you tell me?’ she asked. ‘What was he up to? What was he investigating?’

  Colin shook his head, clearly enjoying the secrecy. ‘There’s nothing I can say. Only that the spooks will take it from here.’

  Grace suspected that Colin himself had been told nothing more, but she didn’t push it: if he liked the supposed glamour, let him have it. ‘But what was Peter, or whoever he was, doing in Colchester?’ she asked. ‘Apart from the garrison, what on earth is there here to spy on?’

  ‘No idea,’ said Colin. ‘I genuinely don’t know. But it was impressed upon me that absolute discretion is required. The family will not be identified.’

  ‘So Burnley wasn’t his name?’

  ‘I assume not. As soon as the coroner releases the body, it will go to them. Up to you what story you choose to tell Lance. You know him better than me. But it had better be a good one. It’s got to stick.’

  Samit, now dressed in chinos and a fleece jacket, came to join them in the office, preventing Grace from asking Colin any further questions.

  ‘It all looks pretty str
aightforward,’ he said. ‘I’ll be giving cause of death as skull fracture and laceration of the brain consistent with blunt-force impacts to the head.’

  ‘Great, thanks. If you can send me a copy of your report as soon as it’s ready?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Grace was suddenly pleased that she had witnessed the post-mortem and seen for herself that Samit’s matter-of-factness was entirely genuine. For him this was a run-of-the-mill case with no mysteries or unexpected complications. Precisely why a man calling himself Peter Burnley had been murdered in a yard off a side street in rainy Colchester at one in the morning was not a question the pathologist was required to answer. Now it would seem that Grace would not be permitted to answer it either. Except that she owed it to Lance to do everything she bloody well could.

  22

  This had been billed as the Old Bailey trial with a story to die for – a woman accused of murdering her husband by way of a poisoned microwave curry. Rumour had it she’d also done away with two previous partners in a similar manner. But today the lawyers – all on whacking great fees – had spent hours arguing over some tedious legal point. No wonder the judge looked fit to nod off; Ivo was close to narcolepsy himself. And it wasn’t even as if the dowdy middle-aged woman in the dock was your archetypal black widow. In fact she looked almost as bored as he was. Ivo had a horrible feeling that, through sheer tedium, the defence counsel would at any moment bludgeon the prosecution into abandoning the case. Unless Ivo chose to fritter away his newspaper’s resources on the queen of the ready meal’s personal story – not a very beguiling option, in his view – an acquittal would leave him with no fucking story and a completely wasted two days.

  It had been his editor’s idea for him to attend the trial. Not that he minded the odd few days hanging around the Central Criminal Court. Back in the day the basement press room had always been as useful as El Vino’s for picking up gossip, and this week had been no exception. Besides, the atmosphere at one of the more notorious murder trials could often be as buzzy and testosterone-charged as finals day at Twickenham. Not that the outcome was generally much in question, but the spectacle of wide-awake judges, strutting QCs, eager solicitors and the parade of expert witnesses was like being backstage at a Tudor joust, all the highly paid nabobs there to perform for one another. To be fair, it wasn’t much different down in the press room, waiting to see who’d win the sweepstake on how long the jury would be out and, in the good old days, racing for a landline to dictate the story to the copy-takers back at the ranch. A good trial raised everyone’s game.

  But the trial of this mousy widow was not one of them. Which was probably how she’d got away with it more than once. It was Friday afternoon, and Ivo was tempted to leave, but he had a sense that, where his editor was concerned, he ought to mind his P’s and Q’s for a while yet. He didn’t blame the man. He’d been leaned on from above, that was plain enough; and not only his editor either but the newspaper’s lawyers too. What Ivo wasn’t sure about, and would give a lot to learn, was how the Police Federation had been informed that he’d been sniffing around Dunholt trying to flesh out Martin Leyburn’s portrait of PC Mark Kirkby, fallen hero, thug and controlling bastard.

  Truth was, it had probably been Ivo’s own blundering that had tipped them off. Once DI Fisher had explained about the drink-drive arrest that had provoked Russell Fewell to complain to Martin Leyburn about how he’d been fitted up, it hadn’t been difficult to put together enough of the rest of the story and to believe that Mark Kirkby – along with his chum Curtis Mullins – could add ‘corrupt cop’ to his list of honorary titles.

  However, if the pressure on his editor had come from the Police Federation, their efforts to silence Ivo had achieved the contrary effect, and he’d been keeping his nose stubbornly to the ground for any titbits of information on what had become of young Davey and his family since the New Year. After a cleverly managed midnight flit from the town, Donna Fewell appeared to have gone totally off the radar, at least until yesterday, when Ivo had been rewarded by some idle chat in the Old Bailey press room. One of the agency guys had heard from a stringer that Mark Kirkby’s father, himself a retired copper, had fixed it through the Police Federation for Donna Fewell and her kids to move into one of the numerous picturesque holiday homes owned and maintained by various local Federation branches, though it wasn’t known exactly where.

  Ivo had got onto that straight away and, after calling in a couple of favours he’d been keeping in his back pocket for a rainy day, discovered that Donna, Davey and Ella presently occupied an apartment in a new luxury development in Weymouth, where Davey, under a new name, was now attending the local primary school. According to the Federation website, the apartment (heavily discounted for the benefit of members and entirely free to any officer in need of a welfare break) had stunning views and was fitted with every conceivable amenity, from a widescreen TV with surround sound to an American-style fridge-freezer.

  Not that Ivo begrudged Davey and his family a bit of comfort and security – God knows, back in his drinking days he’d been more than happy to get bladdered at the Federation’s expense when the opportunity presented itself – but he couldn’t help wondering if John Kirkby had really gone to such trouble for the family of his son’s murderer purely out of the goodness of his heart. Call him a cynic, but Ivo would rather put his money on Kirkby senior having both a guilty conscience and something to hide. And he wouldn’t object to finding out exactly what that was.

  If Ivo had been desperate for a story, then Donna Fewell and her grieving kids could easily qualify as THE MOST HATED FAMILY IN BRITAIN, at least for a day or so. The great tabloid-reading public loved nothing better than to point the finger and create enough distance to disengage themselves from a reality that veered uncomfortably close to home. Easier to demonize and tie enough garlic around the door to keep the devil at bay. Ivo had always reckoned he usefully combined the roles of witchfinder general, exorcist and whatever the job title was of the guy who supervised the village stocks. He probably ought to be doorstepping Donna and her kids right now except they were on Police Federation property and he didn’t much fancy stirring up a hornets’ nest, not given the many and glorious ways in which his life would subsequently be made difficult.

  Besides, if he were honest, uppermost in his reluctance to approach the luxury development was the thought of ten-year-old Davey, not only starting out at a strange school in an unfamiliar town, having to remember his new name and strictly forbidden to mention his father, but also having to be grateful to John Kirkby for his worldly blessings. That last thing rankled somewhere deep inside him.

  It wasn’t that Ivo’s own father had been a bully, merely introverted and unimaginative, but Ivo had been at boarding school with enough little boys who’d been terrorized at home and, as soon as the trunks were unpacked, had become bullies in turn. He had little doubt that Mark Kirkby had learned his winning ways at his father’s knee, and the idea of Kirkby senior now playing a benevolent Scrooge to Davey’s oblivious Tiny Tim made Ivo’s guts squirm. The kid had quite enough suffering to face from his real dad’s heinous legacy; he didn’t need Kirkby moulding and deforming him like the biblical vessel marred in the hands of the potter.

  Ivo hardly saw himself as the guardian angel type, yet he was sorely tempted to get himself down to the Dorset seaside and keep a weather eye on young Davey, if only for the hell of it. And if this poisoning trial didn’t perk up and there was no other mayhem to distract him this week, maybe that’s what he’d do.

  23

  Grace kept half an eye on the main office door all the time Duncan was talking to her. Although Lance had been given compassionate leave, he had called yesterday evening to insist he’d rather come back to work, and she was dreading the moment when she would have to lie to him.

  ‘The range warden guy at STANTA was as helpful as could be,’ Duncan was telling her. ‘Probably because that’s the only way he’s going to hang on to his job now he
’s been caught skimming off the shell casings. But he couldn’t provide any leads. Or, rather, too many. Most people’s licences only allow them two hundred and fifty rifle rounds at a time, so the guy had a lot of customers to whom he sold small bags of brass casings every so often. He either had no idea who they were – just people in the local pub – or they were regulars, members of local Thetford Forest clubs or licensed gun dealers like Leonard Ingold – the guy that put us on to him in the first place. And they all check out.’

  ‘No local villains, no names you recognize?’ asked Grace.

  Duncan shook his head. ‘Nope. Short of gathering up as many rifle rounds from as many different sources as possible and sending them all off to ballistics, it’s a dead end.’

  ‘I bet the SIO tasked with matching Cinderella to the glass slipper never had to worry about how much it cost,’ said Grace.

  ‘No.’ Duncan smiled. ‘And even if we got a lead on our man’s workshop, it’s unlikely to be enough to get a search warrant, which we’d need if we want to examine his repriming tool for whether it leaves the telltale marks.’

  ‘Well, thanks anyway. Let’s leave the file open, and keep putting the word out for information.’

  ‘Will do.’

  Duncan had already turned to go when she called him back. ‘Just a thought, but I wonder if the Christmas Day massacre wasn’t enough to shock your honest, decent armed robber into sharing a bit of intel? What do you think? Worth chatting to the post-sentencing interviews officer to see if anyone might tell us where they’d go to buy unregistered ammo?’

  Duncan looked dubious. ‘Happy to give it a whirl, boss. But if he’s smart, our man will be using a firewall of fixers and couriers and middlemen. The end user may genuinely have no idea where the gear comes from.’