He spent the time ruminating darkly on Rouse, and his devious scheme for forcing Lapslie to proffer his resignation on medical grounds by giving him cases that required him to engage with noisy and chaotic humanity rather than staying in his own quiet world. One case wasn’t enough – or perhaps Lapslie was dealing with it too well – so Rouse had decided to throw another one on the pile. How long would it take before Lapslie wasn’t able to function any more? Perhaps Rouse and his senior colleagues were running a book on it.
In all, it took forty-five minutes from the time he left Chelmsford, and he arrived depressed and angry. By the time he pulled into the station car park the sky was a blue canvas decorated with white daubs of cloud. The air smelled fresh and slightly damp.
Lapslie felt an unaccustomed nervousness, a fluttering in his chest. He wasn’t used to being outside, in uncontrolled circumstances. Anything could happen here, and he wouldn’t be able to manage the noise.
The padded earphones that Emma had got for him were sitting on the passenger seat, and he debated for a moment whether to put them on or not, but while he could probably get away with it in an isolated environment where he didn’t have to talk to anyone, like the Charnaud crime scene, he would look like an idiot here, wandering around wearing them. And he was likely to have to talk to people as well, so he’d have to keep on whipping them off and on again, making them as useless as a chocolate teapot. Reluctantly, he decided to leave them where they were. They would come in useful another time.
He wondered morbidly what it was like, being caught in a bomb blast. A sudden flash of light? A deafening thunder in his ears? Intolerable heat washing across his face and chest? And what would a bomb actually taste like? Perhaps his last few moments would have been like drowning in Turkish Delight; suffocating in sweet, gooey roses, like the scent of Heaven. Or perhaps he would instead have died choking on stagnant, foul pond water riddled with decaying leaves. Thank God, he would probably never find out.
He took a breath and forced the nervousness down, imagining it as a ball of clay that was being squeezed smaller and smaller in his stomach until it was the size of a marble, safe and manageable. He could leave it there for a while, quiescent, while he got on with the investigation.
There was an obvious official presence. Several police patrol cars were drawn up in a defensive formation near the ticket office, regardless of the strictures of the parking bays, and two army EOD vans, painted in dull khaki, were parked off to one side. Lapslie noticed that the army explosive ordnance disposal sign on the van was fixed to the side, rather than painted on, and it appeared to be hinged, with the army part above the explosive ordnance disposal part. He wondered for a moment what the reason was, then realised with a flash of dark humour that it was probably so the army could close the sign up and drive the van around on public roads without anyone getting panicked about the possibility of a bomb in the vicinity.
Emma was standing with a couple of uniformed policemen who were chatting to some army personnel in camouflage. Ironically, the army camouflage stood out more starkly against the flat colour of the advertising hoardings than the dark blue police uniforms. They all appeared to have cups of coffee and bacon rolls. Nearby, a cluster of travellers in suits and smart clothes were standing rather forlornly in a group, like a welcoming committee who had chosen the wrong day.
A young man in a blue suit that looked more like a uniform than something he had chosen himself was standing alertly outside the station entrance. He had a name badge pinned to his breast pocket. He appeared to be looking for someone to berate, and latched onto Lapslie as soon as he saw the car.
‘Euan Murray,’ he said, extending his hand. ‘Station Manager.’ His voice was like ripe Stilton. Lapslie couldn’t help wincing. He wasn’t sure whether the sound of the man’s voice was provoking a cross-firing of his senses or he just had chronic halitosis. The ball of clay in his stomach spasmed momentarily.
Lapslie shook Murray’s hand, noticing as he did so that the man’s tie was patterned with small corporate logos of whichever network was running the trains in this part of the world. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Mark Lapslie.’
‘Are you in charge of this investigation?’
‘I am,’ Lapslie said.
‘I know you’re letting trains go through on the fast line without stopping,’ Murray said, ‘but I’ve got commuters stacking up here.’ He looked as if he was barely out of college. Did they offer degrees in Train Line Management these days? Lapslie wouldn’t have been surprised.
‘I sympathise,’ he said firmly, ‘but I have a dead body and an explosion. That trumps your commuters. We’re going to be a few more hours, I’m afraid. We’ll need to search the line for evidence. There might be fragments of the bomb.’
‘Or the victim,’ Emma added helpfully.
Murray’s face fell. He turned away, talking almost to himself. ‘I’ll have to arrange buses,’ he muttered. ‘I need to make some calls.’
‘All right,’ Lapslie said to Emma, ‘I’m going to need coffee and breakfast. I’m guessing that since this is a station, and I can see the local plod standing around stuffing their faces, there’s a snack bar around somewhere?’
‘There is, according to the local team.’ The grapefruit of her voice sluiced across his taste-buds, washing the mouldy cheese away. ‘Does a roaring trade of a morning, by all accounts, although it usually closes down once the rush has died away.’ She gestured to a nearby constable. While she gave him instructions, Lapslie looked around. The station looked new, as did the approach roads and the car park. He wouldn’t be surprised if it had only been recently added to the line, servicing the growing community as well as the retail centre whose bland, sandy exterior he could see rising above the nearby houses like anonymous, artificial cliffs.
‘Okay,’ he said eventually. ‘Who’s been keeping this thing warm for us?’
‘Detective Inspector Morritt,’ Emma replied. ‘A bit of a prat. I’ve worked with him before. He’s with the witnesses now.’
‘Is he going to object to me taking over?’
‘Big time. He’s a process-Nazi, from what I’ve heard. He’s memorised all the books and the lectures on how to deal with crime scenes of this magnitude, and he’s keen to put it all into practice. Ambitious.’
‘Great,’ Lapslie said with feeling. ‘Nothing like having a poodle yapping at your heels while you’re trying to get some work done. Okay – while he’s busy, let’s take a look at the body.’
As they crossed the station forecourt Lapslie noticed a van drawn up to one side. A teenage lad who looked like he was half asleep was shuffling tied-up bundles of newspapers onto the kerb. Lapslie guessed that whoever ran the newsagent’s concession that was almost certain to be inside would come out and untie them, ready for the commuter flow that they probably weren’t going to get that morning.
As they drew closer, Lapslie caught sight of the screaming headline plastered across the front of one of the tabloids: BIG BROTHER HOUSE OF HORROR. In slightly smaller type underneath it added; Kids’ Presenter Tortured to Death.
‘Big Brother?’ he asked Emma, picking up the top copy and waving it at her.
‘Catherine Charnaud. She got down to the last five in Celebrity Big Brother earlier in the year.’
‘I know I’m going to regret this, but Big Brother?’
She looked at him strangely. ‘Sometimes I think you’re like something from the nineteenth century. Are you really telling me you haven’t heard of Big Brother?’
‘Not only that: I’m proud of the fact.’
‘A group of mismatched and dysfunctional people are put into a specially constructed house and have to live together for six weeks or so.’
‘And?’
‘And people watch them. The whole house is rigged with cameras. Well, except for the toilets, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Lapslie said drily. ‘That would be intrusive. What happens then?’
‘Every week someone gets v
oted off, based on their behaviour during the previous seven days. Oh, and they’re set tasks, as well.’
‘And she was on this thing?’
‘Yeah. Did pretty well.’ Emma caught herself. ‘By all accounts.’
‘Okay.’ Lapslie sighed. ‘Get someone out to the TV company – see if there were any stalkers, anything strange during the show’s run. I doubt if it’s relevant, but we have to be sure.’ He waved the newspaper. ‘Because we’re being watched as well.’
Emma led the way into the station concourse. The ticket barriers had been left open to facilitate the toing and froing of the police, but Lapslie still felt a momentary twinge of guilt as he walked through them and onto the station platform without a ticket.
He could smell coffee and pastry. He hoped he’d be able to get breakfast before he left.
With only a few seconds’ warning, a train suddenly shwooshed through the station on the fast line, dragging grit and bits of paper along in its wake. Carriage wheels clattered on the rails in syncopated jazz rhythm. Lapslie’s mouth suddenly overflowed with tinned peaches covered with sea salt. He could feel the grittiness of the salt in the smoothness of the syrup; the noise was that loud and that unexpected. The sensation overtook him; there was nothing else in the world; no sight, no sound and no feeling, just the overwhelming taste filling his mouth, making him cough, making him gag. He fell to his knees, hand clamped to his face. His salivary glands felt as if someone was sticking needles into them. Sweat broke out across his forehead and down his back; big, greasy droplets that became a torrent down his skin the way the saliva was a torrent down his throat. He spat, but the expectoration turned into a burp and then into vomiting as the contents of his stomach unexpectedly spilled from his mouth and nose in a brown, curdled stream. He leant forward, hands on knees, tears filling his eyes. Somewhere in the lost distance he could feel Emma’s hand on his shoulder, but his only reality was the tropical heat of his skin and the burning vomit in the back of his throat still overlaid by the terrible sweetness and saltiness of the train receding in the distance. The combination of those tastes made him vomit again, his stomach twisting and sending thin brown mucus up into his mouth and onto the station platform.
‘Boss? What’s the matter?’ The voice was far away, and the grapefruit in it only added another layer to his torment. He threw up again, bringing up nothing this time but air.
‘Got to … get out of here,’ he coughed, wiping a hand across his lips. He pulled himself upright and staggered out of the station, towards his car. Through the blurriness of the tears he was aware of people watching him go, but he didn’t care. He just wanted to get into his car, his quiet car, and safety.
He leaned back in the Saab’s driving seat, still feeling the burning in his nasal passages and the cold sweat on his forehead. Gradually his breathing eased.
While he was getting himself under control, Lapslie distracted himself by scanning the lead article in the tabloid newspaper that he had picked up. The piece occupied most of the front page and pages five and six as well. To his immense relief there was nothing more in the article than any diligent journalist could have found out with a couple of phone calls and a bit of doorstepping; there had obviously been a statement from the TV cable company that Catherine Charnaud had worked for, as well as from her agent, and someone had managed to get a quote from a neighbour, but there were no crime scene photographs or anonymous quotes from members of the investigating team. It looked like security was holding – for the moment.
The boyfriend had sold his story to the tabloid. Lapslie hoped he’d got a good rate for it. His story was pretty much the same as the one he’d told Emma during the interview, spiced up with a gratuitous description of the terrible scene in the bedroom. Statistically he was the most likely suspect, but Lapslie was still unsure. Why the mutilation? Why the careful posing of the body?
The article was illustrated with various photographs of Catherine Charnaud. Some were obviously publicity shots, whilst others were paparazzi images of her falling out of various nightclubs or rubbing suntan cream into her shoulders on a beach somewhere. The boyfriend was present in some of the shots; a muscular figure with close-cropped blond hair and a permanent sulky frown.
Lapslie found himself staring at Catherine Charnaud’s left arm in a photo that showed her lying on a beach towel, arms stretched out to either side. It was just like the pose her body had been in when he saw her in her bedroom, but his mind insisted on overlaying the image of her bloodied radius and ulna bones, scraped free of flesh.
He felt something clogging up his throat again, and he had to shut his eyes and put the newspaper away before he could breathe properly. So young. Whatever she had done in her life, whoever she had managed to hurt on the way, she hadn’t deserved even a fraction of what had been done to her.
After a while he looked out of the driver’s side window; Emma Bradbury was standing outside the car, looking back at him.
He wound the window down. ‘Hey—’ he started.
‘Synaesthesia,’ she said, wincing slightly at his breath. ‘I’m sorry – it should have occurred to me that the trains going through would have caused a problem. It was thoughtless of me.’
‘Not your fault,’ he said, smiling weakly. ‘It’s never been this bad before. I thought it was stable, but …’
She nodded. ‘We’ll have to think this through. If the chief really wants you to work these cases, and if you don’t want to play the sick leave card again, then we’ll have to find another way to do this. There must be something …’
Behind her, four army personnel were steering a large device of some kind back along the platform. It was about the size of an armchair, and moved on six balloon tyres. A huge arm with multiple joints sat on top, next to a mast bearing a set of video cameras. The arm was so large that it seemed in perpetual danger of overbalancing the entire thing.
‘What about that?’ Lapslie asked.
One of the army personnel, a young, fresh-faced major, caught sight of them looking and broke off what he was doing. He approached the car, glancing from Lapslie to Emma and back, seemingly unsure which one was in charge and whether or not he should salute.
‘Major McGhee,’ he snapped. ‘Eleven EOD Regiment.’
‘Detective Chief Inspector Lapslie; Essex Constabulary. What’s the story?’
‘One improvised explosive device, already detonated before we arrived. Basic explosive, no chemical or biological components. We’ve checked the area, and we’re declaring it safe. No other devices. Our job is finished now – over to you.’
‘What can you tell us about the bomb?’ Emma asked.
The Major shrugged. ‘It was small and it was hidden in a rubbish bin. We found fragments of what appeared to be a mobile phone. That was probably what triggered it. We’ve left everything as close to the way we found it as we could. Forensics should still be intact.’
Emma was watching the device trundling along the platform. ‘What’s that?’ she asked bluntly. ‘Some kind of robot?’
‘It’s called a CUTLASS,’ Major McGhee replied. ‘It’s a remote control manipulator, rather than a robot. No inherent intelligence, you see? It allows us to get close to a suspected device, look at it and potentially do something about it with the manipulator arm without risking a man’s life. Replaced the old tracked Wheelbarrow systems that we used to have.’
‘CUTLASS?’ Emma frowned. ‘Is that meant to stand for something?’
The Major smiled condescendingly. ‘It’s a codename,’ he said. ‘All military projects have a codename of some kind. Okay if we peel away now? You have OpCon.’
‘OpCon?’ Lapslie asked blankly.
‘Operational Control,’ the Major smiled. ‘Sorry – army slang.’
‘Actually,’ Lapslie said, ‘hang around for a while. I want to borrow your robot.’
It only took a few minutes before he was alone inside one of the army vans, seated in front of a bank of monitors and holding a joystick
in his hands. The van was air conditioned and soundproofed, which was just what Lapslie needed. The Major had explained the principles of guiding the robot around – although he kept insisting that it wasn’t a robot, it was a remote control device. As long as Lapslie didn’t want to move the arm, or deploy a device for a controlled explosion, it was just like a Nintendo Wii game.
The Major had offered to have one of his corporals help Lapslie out, but Lapslie had refused. He didn’t want anyone else near him at the moment. He could still taste the bitter vomit in his mouth.
On the monitors, relaying colour pictures from the remote control device, the station platform was long, and mostly deserted. To Lapslie’s left a footbridge led across the tracks to the north bound platform, which was also empty. A swing door leading to what Lapslie assumed was the coffee bar was located a few feet away.
About two thirds of the way along a body lay sprawled face up on the tarmac surface. ‘Face up’ was a bit of a misnomer. The front of the head was, as far as he could judge through the device’s cameras, a raw mask of burned and bloody flesh draped across an expanse of singed bone. What had once been a suit was now a mass of shredded cloth.
Lapslie trundled the device along the platform towards the body. It was lying in front of a pillar which had previously been providing support to the platform roof, but was now twisted and blistered. The remains of what had probably been a waste bin looked like a large metal sunflower, the metal of its construction frozen into crystallised, razor-edged petals. An attempt had been made to separate the scene off with yellow bollards and yellow-and-black striped tape. They lent a curiously carnival air to the situation, set against the pedestrian mundanity of the station itself and the burned and tattered body.
Tooth and Claw Page 8
