Tooth and Claw

by Nigel McCrery

  A flicker in the corner of one screen caught Lapslie’s eye. He adjusted the angle of the camera to cover the area. In the distance a train was rushing through the station; just a blur of motion on the monitor. No sound, no taste. No problem.

  Lapslie stopped the device at the yellow-and-black tape, reluctant to violate the area that it enclosed, as if it was a separate world, a discrete space in which the normal rules of commuter life didn’t apply. This kind of thing was not meant to happen to people, he reflected; not on a routine work day.

  Close up, the body was a faceless wreck, hardly human any more. For a disconcerting moment Lapslie was thrown back to Catherine Charnaud’s bedroom, where her body had been pristine, untouched except for the scouring of her arm. Here the damage was everywhere. The nameless commuter had obviously been facing the rubbish bin when the bomb inside exploded. Everything from the knees up was burned, blasted and blistered. The skin was crisped in places, and some of the body fat on the chest and arms had melted, slowed and then solidified again in yellow rivulets, like candle wax.

  The man’s shoes were, bizarrely, untouched. He had polished them recently, and they gleamed in the early morning light. His throat had been ripped from front to back by a sharp piece of metal debris. Inside, Lapslie could see the bruised wetness of the tissue, saliva still glistening against bubbles of blood.

  His hair was still wet from the shower.

  Lapslie used the controls to move the device round in a circle, angling the cameras up and down so that he could see the vicinity. He moved it closer to the platform edge and used the cameras to look over on to the track. The stones were black with diesel and dirt. Wads of greying tissue paper splattered across them showed where passengers had failed to heed the notice to wait until the train had left the station before flushing the toilet. Cigarette filters were scattered everywhere. It wouldn’t be long before they outnumbered the stones. Lapslie had a feeling they might last almost as long.

  He pulled back and looked around again: not at the station, but at the surrounding locality. From the place where the victim had stood there was no line of sight to anything except the tops of houses and the distant retail centre. ‘There are three possibilities,’ he murmured to himself, using the monologue to structure his thinking. ‘Either the bomb was on a timer, or it was triggered by a sensor of some kind, or the bomber triggered it remotely, using a control. If it was remote controlled then the bomber needed to be watching from somewhere that provided a good view. Even if it wasn’t remotely controlled then the bomber might well have wanted to watch what happened. And if I were them, I’d have watched from—’ he zoomed the camera in on the corner of a distant building until it filled the monitor ‘—the roof of that shopping centre …’

  He left the remote control device where it was and got out of the van. Emma was waiting outside for him. As the two of them moved off towards Lapslie’s car, the army moved in to recover their device and close the equipment down.

  ‘According to witnesses who knew him, his name is Alec Wildish,’ Emma said. ‘He lives about fifteen minutes’ walk away. I’ve dispatched a constable to the house.’

  ‘Witnesses?’

  Emma gestured towards the coffee bar. ‘Taking statements now, but so far nobody has told us anything useful. Apparently he was a regular commuter: used to smile and say “Good morning” to a few of the others, but nothing more social than that. He’d arrived a few moments before, and he was standing by himself near the edge of the platform. There was a sudden blast and a ball of flame, and he was thrown backwards. People thought it was a firework at first: apparently the kids around here sometimes throw bangers at the houses. He hit the ground hard. Some of the witnesses tried to help him, but he died within a few moments. Not a nice way to go.’

  ‘Did he say anything?’

  ‘Nothing anybody could understand. Apparently every time he opened his mouth he sprayed blood everywhere. I wouldn’t mind having shares in the dry-cleaning business around here: I’d clean up. As it were.’ Emma suddenly looked shocked. ‘Listen to us,’ she said. ‘Are we really talking about someone setting off bombs on a station platform? This isn’t Basra or Islamabad, this is Braintree!’

  ‘Until we’ve got a better explanation, that’s the one we work on.’ He paused. ‘The question we have to answer, of course, is: was he a specific target, or was he chosen randomly?’ He was partly talking to Emma, but partly also talking to himself. ‘A search of his house will help establish that. Evidence of a stalker, connections to organised crime, anything to do with animal research that may have attracted the attention of the Animal Liberation Front … We need to check with SOCA that he’s not on their radar as well. Check his bank account for suspicious payments going out or coming in … Need to find out where he worked, as well, just in case there’s a connection. If he was in a position of financial responsibility in a bank or a financial organisation of some kind then there might be some connection to extortion or a theft of some kind. Perhaps he was facilitating some kind of white-collar crime and fell foul of the gang he was working with …’

  ‘Grasping at straws, aren’t we, boss?’

  He smiled. ‘Well it’s not going to be a fight over a parking space at the local sports centre, is it?’

  ‘According to the stuff in his rucksack, he was apparently the manager at an electronics retailer in Oxford Street. I can’t see a connection coming out of that.’

  ‘Neither can I. That probably puts paid to the Animal Liberation Front theory.’

  A disturbance near the entrance made him glance in that direction. A small group of people dressed in papery white coveralls was approaching. They all held bags or toolkits of various kinds. The man in the lead was small, in his fifties, with a quiff of hair that stuck straight up above his head.

  ‘DCI Lapslie,’ he called, his voice like some musty fruit wine in Lapslie’s mouth. ‘A pleasure to see you again. Busy few days, isn’t it? Got an interesting one here, I understand. It’ll make a change from the late night bottle fights outside nightclubs.’

  ‘Mr Burrows.’ Lapslie gestured to the station. ‘Not quite up to the peculiar standards set by the Catherine Charnaud murder, but you might find some elements of interest. There’s a potential crime scene elsewhere as well, but we’re trying to pin it down now. I’d offer breakfast, but there’s a coffee bar just over there. Get whatever you need to keep yourselves going and submit an invoice later.’

  Burrows nodded. ‘Talking of the Charnaud murder,’ he said, ‘the knife that was used came from the kitchen. It’s an Usuba bocho: a Japanese vegetable knife – carbon steel blade. And the ties that were used to secure her and cut off the blood supply to her arm were taken from the kitchen as well. There was a pile of them in a drawer. The report’s on your desk.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Lapslie said. While Burrows’s people knelt around the taped-off area and started to unpack their kit, the lead CSI himself stood back and took in the whole scene.

  ‘You want breakfast?’ Emma asked Lapslie. ‘They were running short of bacon the last time I looked. Surprising how much a group of coppers can get through, given half a chance.’

  ‘Why do you think they call us Pigs? No, I don’t think I fancy it now. Thanks anyway. I think I’ll head off. This place – I don’t think I can stand it much longer. I’m not sure I can stand anything much longer.’

  As Sean Burrows and his team were entering the station, a tall man with dark hair brushed straight back off his forehead appeared. He was wearing a suit that looked better than Lapslie’s. Seeing Lapslie, he crossed the forecourt towards him.

  ‘DI Morritt,’ he said. His voice, strangely, had no taste to it. None at all. ‘And you are?’

  ‘DCI Lapslie,’ Lapslie said quietly.

  ‘Ah. I heard you were taken ill. Not used to seeing dead bodies at your rank?’

  Lapslie refused to rise to the bait. ‘You’ve met my sergeant?’

  Morritt nodded. ‘She apprised me of the situation ear
lier. I’ve got to say that I don’t think we need any help on this one.’

  Lapslie shrugged. ‘We can dance around like this all night. It doesn’t get us anywhere. Chief Superintendent Rouse assigned me to this case. You can get on with the process; I’ll get on with the investigation. That way we’ll both be happy.’

  Dismissing an indignant Morritt from his thoughts, Lapslie gazed along the side of the station to where the platform projected out, protected by a wire. Some of Burrows’s Crime Scene Investigators were still clustered around the body, but two of them had crossed to the other platform via the footbridge and were crouched on the blackened stones, examining the area between the platform and the tracks, beneath where travellers would normally stand. One of them turned, waving to Burrows.

  ‘We’ve got fragments,’ he shouted.

  ‘Bag ‘em and tag ‘em,’ Burrows called back. ‘We’ll identify them later. And keep looking. I want to be able to recreate that bin and everything in and around it.’

  Everything save Alec Wildish, Lapslie mused.

  He turned back to Emma. ‘If Burrows is right, and all the equipment used to torture and murder Catherine Charnaud was present at the scene, that tells us something about the killer. It implies that they came unprepared, that they just made use of whatever was at hand. I need that criminal profiler on board as soon as possible. Any joy on that?’

  Emma nodded. ‘I spoke to the preferred profiler in this area yesterday evening. She’s happy to help. Former lecturer in criminology at Essex University, and she’s written a handful of books on the subject. Very competent, apparently, although a bit prickly to work with. I’m trying to set up a meeting with her.’

  ‘What’s her name?’ Lapslie asked, half his attention on Sean Burrows’s team.

  Emma consulted her notebook. ‘Whittley,’ she said. ‘Eleanor Whittley.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  There was someone following him.

  Carl Whittley was driving along a dual carriageway on the way back from Braintree and his successful explosion. Everything had gone perfectly, and he had felt warm and proud and aroused. He had deliberately chosen a route that took him in a wide curve, via several small towns and villages, in order to avoid being too direct about his final destination.

  But now someone was following him. He knew it, for sure. It wasn’t as if he could see anyone who was taking more than a cursory amount of interest in him, but someone was out there. He was certain.

  The police? He supposed it could be, but surely if they suspected what he had done then they would pull him over straight away and arrest him. They wouldn’t let him keep on going, would they? Perhaps it was someone else, but who?

  His hands tightened on the wheel of his car, but he was careful not to let his foot press too heavily on the accelerator pedal. He didn’t want an unexpected change in speed to give away to his pursuer that they had been spotted.

  He checked in his rear-view mirror, cautious not to move his head while he did so, just flicking his gaze upwards for a few seconds, scanning the road behind him.

  There were five cars visible in his mirror. Quickly he memorised their key features; one was a black cab with its radiator grille partially blocked by a piece of white card, another had a squarish bumper and an emblem that stuck up above the bonnet; a third had one wing mirror missing. It was unlikely that any pursuer would drive anything so noticeable, but at least he could factor those vehicles out of his calculations and concentrate on the remaining two, which had no distinguishing features and were new enough and painted that anonymous silver that usually meant they were hire cars.

  Paradoxically, it would be easier at night to spot being followed. He’d noticed that many cars had headlights that were slightly offset or operated at different levels of brilliance. Taking away all the confusing factors of size, shape and colour, and just concentrating on the distinctive way the lights varied, it should be possible to pin down whether a particular car was spending too long behind you.

  Carl’s hands were damp inside the gloves, the skin hot and itchy. He could feel a fluttering sensation in his stomach, and a flat, bitter taste in his mouth. The fight or flight response was kicking in; adrenalin was pumping around his system, making him jumpy.

  He jerked his attention back to the road. There was a town coming up and he decided to take some evasive action, just to see whether anyone followed, or even gave themselves away by a momentary jerk of the wheel before they caught themselves and continued on their way. The road was heading for a roundabout, and the two lanes of the dual carriageway were marked separately; one for turning left only, one for continuing straight on or turning right.

  There were no other cars near him; just the five that occupied his rear-view mirror. Gradually, Carl let his car drift so that it was straddling the white line marking the boundary between the lanes. The roundabout was getting closer and he looked in his mirror again. Two of the cars – the taxi and the one with the square bumper – were moving into the outside lane. The car with the wing mirror missing and one of the two anonymous silver ones were drifting left, into the inside lane.

  The fifth car, the other silver one, couldn’t make its mind up. Like Carl, it was straddling the white line. Perhaps its driver didn’t know which way to go at the roundabout. Or perhaps they were leaving their options open, waiting to see what he did.

  As the roundabout loomed ahead, filling his windscreen, he turned the steering wheel left, letting his car slide across the road into the inside lane just as he hit the parallel yellow lines that marked the last few metres. He didn’t signal. Let them think he might still be going straight ahead, just from the wrong lane.

  Behind him, the silver car did the same.

  There was a red car entering the roundabout from his right, signalling to go right. He turned the wheel hard left, hearing his tyres screech as his car shot onto the roundabout in front of the approaching car. A horn blared behind him but he was concentrating on making sure that his own car came out straight on the left hand exit from the roundabout.

  He risked a glance at his rear-view mirror. The driver of the red car was making a gesture at him. More importantly, the silver car had slotted in behind it and was signalling left.

  The left hand exit from the roundabout led onto a single carriageway road. A hundred yards further on, a side road was signposted for a superstore. He turned late, without signalling, into the superstore’s car park, aware that the silver car was behind him again. It signalled late to peel off into the car park, after him.

  The car park was about two thirds full. Carl drove slowly but steadily past rows of cars, past the wider parking slots for families with toddlers and for disabled drivers, right up to the pick-up point in front of the store, and then past it, turning right to head out of the car park again, past the inevitable petrol station, dividing his gaze equally between the view through the windscreen and the reflection in his rear-view mirror. If the silver car followed him all the way out of the car park then he would know that it was following him.

  It slowed, and darted in to the pick-up point. A woman standing in front of the store with a trolley full of shopping started forward, signalling to the driver.

  Carl felt the itch on the back of his neck fade away to a tickle, and then to just a memory. Perhaps the car had been following him and its driver had quickly arranged a fall-back story to reassure him when they realised that he had seen them. Or, more likely, it had all just been a misapprehension on his part.

  He was getting jumpier and jumpier recently. Little things were setting him off – people looking away when he glanced towards them, curtains that twitched as he walked past houses, conversations that suddenly went quiet or obviously switched topic when he walked into shops. Part of his mind knew that he was being spooked by nothing, that he was building innocent events into an edifice of fantasy, but another part, an older, more primal part, kept jumping at every shadow and flickering flame.

  He drove cautiously out of the sup
erstore car park, still peripherally aware of the cars around him. He headed back to the dual carriageway. Time to go back to the house. He felt safer there than he did anywhere else. And once there, he could start planning the next operation; the next death. Not an explosion this time, but something else. Something different.

  The drive back to Creeksea took him along increasingly isolated roads and through scattered villages consisting of a few houses and the occasional shop. The roads were raised on banks a foot or so above the level of the surrounding fields, and every so often they turned in the middle of nowhere where the car diverted around the corner of something that had existed, years before, but had been lost to nature. Some of the fields lining the roads were overgrown, some were barren, and some had big, rectangular bales of hay piled up at their edges in blocks the size of houses. And always, as he drove, there was a quality of light in the sky indicating that somewhere just out of sight was the relentless expanse of the North Sea.

  He knew he was getting close to Creeksea when the road began to parallel the single rail track that led from Colchester towards the coast and the ferry port. Just before the slip road leading off to the estate was a side road that led to a chain-link fence. Behind the fence was an area of ground that had been bought for a planned expansion by the company who built the estate, but never used. Carl parked out of sight of the road, just in front of the chain-link fence. Retrieving his own licence plates from where he had left them, wrapped in plastic bags beneath a pile of bricks, he took a screwdriver from the boot of his car, removed the fake number plates that he had been using and substituted his own. Rumour had it that there were digital number-plate recognition systems being installed on all major roads that could identify passing cars, checking them against a database of suspect vehicles, and could count the number of times a particular car passed the same point in a short period of time and send a warning out that someone might be conducting a reconnaissance for a planned terrorist atrocity. With a bomb planted in a Braintree station the police would probably consult all the records they could get to, looking for cars acting suspiciously. If they found his car on a frame of video, Carl didn’t want them tracing it back to him.