The Beautiful Dead

by Belinda Bauer

  Rees had had no compunction whatsoever in using the man’s bloody thumbprint to unlock the phone before the corpse was zipped into a black bag. However, they had been unable to get it to a tech specialist before the timer ran out on the bomb that would have blown both houses sky high – if Eve Singer’s crazy old father hadn’t made it safe.

  Thank goodness for Health and Safety training, thought Huw Rees for the first time ever.

  He had come back to his office before exploring the phone any further, for the sake of privacy.

  Thank God he had.

  There were videos of all the victims.

  They were too gruelling to watch, but he had to watch them anyway – sometimes sick, sometimes angry, sometimes jaw-achingly sad at the terror, the heart-rending pleas, and the casual theft of life.

  They were all here, including the Tate footage of Eve Singer. He was appalled and impressed in equal measure.

  Then there were two more victims he did not recognize. A girl throttled by her own scarf in a dark place; a young man shivering in his underwear, knee-deep in show and ignorance. Neither was poor Siobhan Mackie, but still, that was two more cases they would be able to clear – two more families who would have closure. There was a grim satisfaction in that, but Rees was in no mood to celebrate.

  There were other videos. Not many. He ran through them in chronological order. Most were of the killer’s mother – dead in her bed, at various stages of decay. Others showed nothing but dusty curtains in sunlight, or the exploded washing machine on the cherry-wood floor.

  Hotpoint.

  It was five in the morning before Huw Rees opened the last few videos.

  They were all of Duncan Singer.

  Rees shifted uncomfortably, dreading what was to come. What cruelties? What torture?

  The first showed Duncan Singer walking slowly around the Hotpoint. Every now and then he would ask a question, or make an encouraging comment.

  ‘The motor is quite lovely, isn’t it?’

  ‘My goodness, it’s a crime to hide that drum away, don’t you think?’

  ‘They don’t make them like this any more.’

  And after every comment, an answer from the killer, close to the microphone. Too loud. Distorted.

  ‘It took ages to take it apart. I had to find all the right sockets.’

  ‘The drum’s my favourite bit too. It’s so shiny!’

  ‘They’re all plastic now.’

  Rees had never heard the killer’s voice, but here, he sounded … happy. Like a boy being praised by a favourite teacher, he fairly wriggled with pleasure every time Mr Singer made a positive comment.

  And that was all.

  Rees played the next one.

  The two of them sitting on the floor, cross-legged and opposite each other – the phone obviously propped somewhere nearby. Duncan was building something small and with wires.

  Their heads almost touched.

  It was harder to catch what they were saying this time, but again, the tones were of kindly master and humble pupil. Duncan using a screwdriver to point out something in his hand; Duncan asking for something; the killer going out of shot and coming back with a jar of nails—

  It was the nail bomb that would have killed the first man in the attic on the day of the raid.

  Duncan Singer had made it.

  And doubtless disabled it, marking it with his trademark sticker.

  Had he understood why? Had he known what he was doing – whom he was saving? Or did his safety-first instinct simply trump everything else?

  The final video featuring Duncan showed him wearing the Christmas Day bomb, and explaining to Vandenberg some aspect of its operation.

  Then Duncan climbed into a large cardboard box and the killer’s hand came into shot as he closed the thick flaps over his head.

  Then opened them again.

  ‘Helloo!’ said Duncan Singer, and waved, and the killer laughed the delighted laugh of a small boy who feels special.

  Huw Rees remembered that same feeling vividly, and discovered a well of tears so deep that he had to blow them out of his nose.

  ‘What’s so sad?’

  His heart nearly stopped.

  Veronica Creed.

  He hadn’t heard her open the door. Hadn’t heard her walk across the office. Didn’t know how long she’d been standing there, watching.

  And watching him watching.

  ‘I’ve got a cold,’ he said brusquely.

  Creed stared at him, unsmiling. Her jumper had a kitten on it, with a pom-pom of wool in high relief, like a purple tumour on her ribs.

  ‘Is this the Vandenberg material?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I look forward to seeing it,’ she said.

  That was exactly what Huw Rees was afraid of. He got up and took his jacket from the back of his chair. ‘Better be off,’ he said, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. ‘Got to get home for the great unwrapping.’

  ‘Unwrapping?’ she said, with her head on one side like a goblin.

  ‘Christmas gifts,’ he said.

  ‘Of course,’ she said.

  Rees put the phone in his pocket. He noticed that she watched it all the way from the desk to its destination.

  He reached the door and felt he ought to turn.

  ‘Happy Christmas then, Mrs Creed.’

  ‘It’s Ms,’ she said.

  Huw Rees walked out of New Scotland Yard and into a Christmas Day so white that the bookies might never recover.

  He looked at his watch. Seven a.m. Holly and Bronwyn would be up already, desperate to start on the gifts. Maureen would make them wait for him, so he’d better hurry up.

  He walked to his car and got in and put the key in the ignition – and then fell asleep so fast and so hard that he didn’t wake up until Christmas was over for another year.

  58

  THEY HAD JUST finished Christmas dinner. They would have had leftover lasagne if it had been in the gift of Eve’s freezer, but luckily Mr Elias insisted he had far too much food for one and, because the killer had emptied his freezer all over the kitchen floor, the turkey was even defrosted.

  So they cooked Mr Elias’s turkey and all his trimmings, and they pulled his crackers and drank his wine and ate his Christmas pudding. Eve felt a bit cheeky, but Mr Elias didn’t seem to mind at all.

  Then they opened the gifts they’d bought each other. Mr Elias gave Eve a little pot of white hyacinths that smelled of spring, while Joe gave her a hedge-trimmer.

  ‘I don’t know how to use it,’ she said archly.

  ‘I do,’ he said.

  Eve had got all her gifts from the one-stop shop at the station, which was open even on Christmas Day, thank goodness. It was surprising what you could find there, if you looked with the right eyes.

  For Mr Elias, a calendar called Your Gardening Year; for Joe, a snow-globe bauble with a yeti inside it. She’d even found gobstoppers that looked like eyeballs, and had slipped one into her father’s Christmas cracker.

  ‘It’s exactly what I wanted!’ he shouted as it rolled across the tablecloth.

  When it got late, Joe helped Eve to make up the bed in the box room for Mr Elias. Tomorrow she and Joe would go round and help him start clearing up the mess that the killer had left behind.

  She thought she might owe him a piano.

  And it hit her.

  All of it.

  Eve sat on the spare bed and cried and cried and cried.

  Mr Elias made a tactful withdrawal to the bathroom, while Joe rocked Eve gently, until she was empty of tears.

  ‘I really didn’t expect to be alive today,’ she said on a final shuddering sigh.

  ‘I’m really glad you are though,’ he said, pushing the damp, tear-stained hair out of her eyes.

  ‘Me too,’ nodded Eve.

  ‘And your dad, too.’

  ‘Me too,’ she nodded again. ‘I mean, I know he’s not going to get any better … I know it’ll be hard, and he’s going to
die some time, but losing him now …’ she tailed off.

  Joe nodded sombrely. Then he said, ‘Nobody dies who leaves beauty behind.’

  Eve blushed, and smiled at her hands in her lap. ‘That’s lovely,’ she said. ‘Who said that?’

  ‘I did,’ he grinned. ‘Just now.’ And he kissed her lightly on the lips.

  ‘You’re too young for me,’ she said, without conviction.

  ‘No I’m not,’ he told her, and kissed her again. ‘See?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she nodded. ‘My mistake.’

  They said goodnight to Mr Elias and went back downstairs, where Duncan was still watching TV.

  They sat on the sofa, touching all the way down from their shoulders to their knees, and with their hands newly intertwined.

  There was no respite from How It’s Made. In an anti-Christmas spectacular it was doing drinking straws, clogs and bicycle tyres.

  ‘Have you seen this, Dad?’ said Eve.

  Duncan frowned. ‘Of course I have!’ he said. ‘About fifty times!’

  Red wine seemed to have resurrected his former self and made him more jovial, more grounded. Parts of his mind had gone on ahead, for sure, but there was so much of her father that was still here, and could be held and touched and cared for.

  And Eve was grateful. She watched him watch TV – the gobstopper scrunched between his eyebrow and his cheekbone, which amused the hell out of him. Every now and then, he took it out and looked at it.

  And it looked at him.

  Then he licked it and put it back.

  ‘Don’t do that, Dad.’

  ‘Who’s Dad?’

  Eve rolled her eyes at Joe. ‘If he were immortal, I’d kill him!’

  Finally Duncan began to snore.

  Another episode of How It’s Made began.

  ‘Jaws is on BBC1,’ whispered Joe.

  ‘Perfect Christmas film,’ Eve whispered back.

  The remote control was still in Duncan’s slack hand and Eve reached for it carefully, not wanting to wake him. He stirred and the sticky eyeball popped out and rolled down his jumper.

  Joe giggled and Eve froze.

  But then Duncan snored again, and she removed the remote with a surgical flourish. She pressed a button but nothing happened. She held the remote at a different angle but still nothing happened. She opened the battery compartment but the batteries were gone – in their place was a sticker that said Buy One Get One Free!

  ‘Oh, what the hell!’ laughed Eve. ‘Let’s go to bed!’

  And they did.

  But first they had to push Duncan Singer up the stairs.

  It was a lot easier with two of them.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Heartfelt gratitude to my agent Jane Gregory and editors, Frankie Gray, Sarah Adams, Stephanie Glencross and Amy Hundley for their patience, skill and good humour.

  Thanks also to heart-transplant survivor and marathon man John Fisher at ttab.co.uk for his generous insight into the psychology and symptoms post-op and beyond. Keep on running …

  Huw Rees won the right to be a named character in this book by means of a generous bid in an auction run by the charity Clic Sargent, who care for children affected by cancer and their families. Many thanks to him and to the underbidders who pushed the price up!

  About the Author

  Belinda Bauer grew up in England and South Africa, and now lives in Wales. She worked as a journalist and screenwriter before finally writing a book to appease her nagging mother.

  For her debut, Blacklands, Belinda was awarded the CWA Gold Dagger of the Year. She went on to win the CWA Dagger in the Library for her body of work in 2013. Her fourth novel, Rubbernecker, was voted 2014 Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. Her books have been translated into twenty-one languages.

  Connect with Belinda on Facebook at www.facebook.com/BelindaBauerBooks.

  Also by Belinda Bauer

  Blacklands

  Darkside

  Finders Keepers

  Rubbernecker

  The Facts of Life and Death

  The Shut Eye

  TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS

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  Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

  First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Bantam Press

  an imprint of Transworld Publishers

  Copyright © Belinda Bauer 2016

  Cover images © Getty Images.

  Belinda Bauer has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781473526068

  ISBNs 9780593075517 (hb)

  9780593075524 (tpb)

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