The Dead House: Fiona Griffiths Crime Thriller (Book 5) (Fiona Griffiths Crime Thriller Series)

by Harry Bingham

  13

  The next day.

  In the darkness of pre-dawn: matins. Only a faint pewter cast on the horizon even hints that night might be ending. A hint so tossed about by the rise of the intervening mountains that you have to look twice to be sure it’s there.

  After matins, breakfast. Brother Thomas reads from the Bible as we eat. Crusty bread. Fresh butter. Eggs. Jam in big jars that will, I’m sure, have been made in the kitchen behind us. Cesca, I notice, chooses the softer, risen wheat bread, not the heavy barley alternative.

  Then chapel again. Lauds. A hymn. A psalm. A canticle. A psalm. A reading. The Benedictus. Some prayers – intercessions, are they called? – then the Lord’s Prayer. Then one more prayer, just for the heck of it. A blessing. A dismissal. Then that thing with the icons.

  We go outside.

  A couple of monks go round the church to a low stone lean-to, running the length of the little building’s south side. A wood store, or something like it. They come back with two barrow-loads of logs, their breath frosting in the cold air.

  I say to Cesca, ‘How are you doing?’

  I don’t say it, but I’m feeling pretty prayered up. Thickly buttered enough that any passing angels would see the glow.

  Cesca says, ‘Maybe spend the day here? Go back this evening?’

  That takes me aback. Really? Inside this pretty, rich art student there is a spiritual seeker, a pious quester after truth?

  I think I do a double-take, but say, ‘Yes, great. A girl can’t have too many canticles, right?’

  And we do it. The whole damn thing.

  Every service. Every meal.

  Between services, we work on the farm, mostly in the company of Brother Gregory and Brother Anselm. Gregory has a slightly detached quality. The air of a man who is already half in heaven. We help him mix lime mortar for a repair job on one of the outhouse walls, but leave the stone-work to him

  Anselm is better. He’s got that smiley, crinkly-eyed, welcome-welcome monky thing all right. But there’s humour too. Good, ordinary, earthy humour. When we muck out the pigs, he scratches their backs and asks them how they are. When we give them their food – food which includes a three-quarter loaf of that heavy, dark barley-bread – he buries the loaf under some potato peelings and says, ‘Don’t want Brother Nicholas to get upset. He thinks we all love this stuff.’ And when, as we’re shovelling dirty straw into a barrow, he encounters a particularly loose piece of pig muck, he smears it out with the blade of his shovel and shows me that the thing is rich in barley seeds, polished by the gastric tract just the way that Carlotta’s seed had been. I laugh, and he starts laughing, and Cesca, not quite sure why we’re laughing, joins in, until the three of us are leaning on our spades and laughing till our sides hurt.

  Anselm tells us that the monastery is mostly vegetarian. ‘Bread and herbs during Lent. At other times, we really only eat meat on major feast-days. These pigs have it easy.’

  He says that, and scratches their backs again.

  Later, in the apple store with Cesca, checking the late-autumn harvest on their slatted racks, discarding any fruits that are turning bad, I show her pictures of Carlotta.

  ‘This is her? The dead girl?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She looks at a few of them. Comments, ‘She’s nice-looking.’

  ‘Yes. She had a nose job. Also cheek implants and lip-fillers.’

  ‘Really?’ Cesca raises her eyebrows and looks intently again at the pictures. Does a half-shrug. ‘Well, she looks nice. Not overdone. Not all plasticky.’ Then nods, dismissing the subject, I think, but also giving her approval.

  I realise Cesca is somehow treating the dead woman as one of her own. Her class, her wealth.

  That’s not, per se, because of the surgery. There are any number of Welsh girls who get their orange sunbed tans, pumped-up boob jobs and fish-pout lips. These days, money doesn’t define who has access to surgery, but Cesca’s reaction tells me that there are more subtle indicators at work. Things that separate the right sort of surgery from the wrong sort and she clearly thinks Carlotta had the right sort. The sort you get if you have enough cash.

  Pryce, the pathologist, had indeed got a consultant plastic surgeon to look at Carlotta, but the guy was strictly reconstructive only: fixing up burns and crash victims. On the aesthetic stuff, he was out of his depth and never pretended otherwise.

  I laugh at myself silently, reminding myself once again that sometimes the most important clues lie right under your nose. Or, to be more precise, in the all-but-invisible white scar line under Carlotta’s columella. Those things you don’t always know how to interpret unless you find the right kind of expert guide.

  ‘Thanks, Cesca,’ I tell her. ‘Thank you.’

  Before compline that evening, we tell Father Cyril that we’ll be leaving afterwards.

  Cesca says, ‘It’s been amazing, Father.’ Starts asking him about whether they ‘do retreats’. Cyril laughs and says they are a retreat. Invites her to come any time. The two of them start discussing whether a week is enough or if two would be better. Whether a full-on silent fortnight would be too much, too fast. (Cyril says yes.)

  We say goodbye to the other monks, who give us that two-handed clerical shake and more crinkle-eyed smiles. We blast through our last psalms and canticles and, on this occasion, I kyrie my eleisons with the very best of them.

  Weirdly, I do feel more peaceful, I realise. Something about the repetitions of the day, the tolling bell, the simple, arduous farm-work. I don’t really get on with all that praising the Lord business and even my mother, a committed chapel-goer, would, I think, be taken aback by quite how much psalming is involved in this monastic life, yet there’s undeniably something in the recipe which works. Which breeds peace.

  We drive back to Cardiff, in silence at first, but once we’re back on the A470, I glance over at Cesca and say, ‘Well?’

  She smiles. ‘That was fab.’

  ‘Are you religious? I somehow didn’t imagine—’

  ‘Not really. No. But I’ve been thinking I should meditate more. I mean, I’m a creative person . . .’

  She starts telling me about how she thinks her art and fashion work would be ‘more authentic’ if she was ‘more centred. Mindful, you know.’ She makes it sound like a splash of monasticism would be a good career move. A little shimmy round the back, a cunning dodge on the fast-track to success.

  And it’s a helpful insight actually. There was something glossy about Carlotta, something well-groomed. The perfect hair, the careful surgery. I couldn’t quite get my head round her being there, in that monastery. The place seemed too remote, too rustic for a girl like her.

  But maybe that was wrong. The more privileged a young woman’s life, the harder it becomes to find those real highs. Any Cardiff girl of my acquaintance in childhood would have been thrilled at the idea that, one day, she might backpack round Thailand for two weeks, could fund a trip to Australia with temporary bar jobs. But what of the Cescas and – perhaps – the Carlottas? The girls for whom Thailand lies just a first-class flight and a luxury hotel away? For whom those things are already stale? The monastery at Llanglydwen offers something that a platinum bank card can’t buy: a place that even Condé Nast has yet to find.

  As we get closer to town, she puts the overhead light on. Re-ties her hair. Uses a small nail file to pick any pig-muck from her fingernails, smooth off any rough edges.

  Back at Cardiff, I offer her a bed for the night, but she doesn’t want it. Wants to drive on to her mother’s house outside Llantwit. Resume her Condé Nast life.

  We say goodbye. I do so almost tentatively. I still don’t really know what our relationship is. But there’s nothing tentative in her hug, her double-cheek kiss.

  ‘That was fab, Ess. You’re the best.’

  Ess: meaning S, meaning Strange. An odd sort of compliment, but I’ll take whatever’s going.

  She drives off telling me that she hopes ‘you catch your bad gu
y’.

  I go inside.

  Drop my bag. Open the fridge door. Commune with the contents, but eat nothing. Put the kettle on. Try turning the living-room lights on, but that doesn’t suit my mood, so I turn them off again.

  Peppermint tea.

  iPad.

  Call up pictures of Carlotta’s nose. As many angles as I can find.

  Read a Daily Mail piece on noses which tells me that an American actress called Scarlett Johansson boasts the world’s most-perfect specimen. Either her or someone called Kate Beckinsale. I look at images of those people’s noses, then compare them with Carlotta’s and, because I’m being thorough, mine.

  Go nose-blind. Go to bed.

  14

  Monday morning. The Operation April suite.

  I’m not pixieing today, but I’m still the first person in. A pale-lemon light struggles in from the east, but we’re on the dark side of this brooding cliff, and a deep trough of shadow divides us from the sunlight fidgeting in Bute Park.

  I make tea.

  Peppermint.

  Green steam, fragrant and hot.

  Stand at the window, searching through my bundle of emails. Find the one I’m looking for:

  Dear Essylt,

  No, this patient isn’t one of mine, I’m so sorry to tell you. That rhinoplasty is absolutely spot on, a really fine job, I must say. The cheek implants are also outstanding. My congratulations to the surgeon when you find him!

  With kindest wishes,

  Anil Aggarwal

  I check him out. The guy’s a leading plastic surgeon at a big London teaching hospital, but spends two days a week on Harley Street earning crazy money for purely elective cosmetic work.

  I call his office. His PA tells me he’s consulting this evening from six to nine. I ask if I can have half an hour with him immediately afterwards. She needs to check, but calls back, says yes.

  Good. That’s good. But what next?

  At the far end of the room, we have photos of our Operation April targets. Our A-list:

  IDRIS PROTHERO.

  DAVID MARR-PHILIPS.

  OWAIN OWEN.

  NICK DAVISON.

  GALTON EVANS – in jail.

  BRENDAN RATTIGAN – dead.

  We have a B-list too. Ben Rossiter, Trevor Yergin, a half-dozen others. And it’s a B-list only because we have less data on them, less focus. The truth is, all fourteen men could be part of our conspiracy.

  Standing at twenty-feet distance, I plant my feet a shoulder’s-width apart, left foot a little forward. Right hand in the shape of a gun. Left hand supporting my wrist.

  Fire off six imaginary bullets at Owain Owen. Six each for the other A-listers too.

  Thirty-six bullets, thirty-six confirmed hits.

  That end of the room is awash with imaginary blood and the groans of the dying. It’s also suddenly full of DI Rhiannon Watkins who watches me complete my silent massacre.

  ‘All done?’ she asks as I drop my hands.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ I waggle my still-gunlike right hand at her. ‘Magazine’s empty.’

  She doesn’t smile exactly – smiles are anatomically difficult for her – but she does twist up her mouth in a way that causes the corners of her lips to rise and widen. Then asks about my weekend. I can’t tell her about the monastery, so I tell her about Aggarwal instead. The meeting I’ve arranged for this evening.

  She narrows her eyes, but I jump in before she can come over all budget-restrictiony with me.

  ‘My time, ma’am. My petrol. I know it’s a long shot.’

  ‘OK. OK, Fiona, good.’ She attempts her version of a smile again and again escapes without injury.

  ‘And look, we’ve heard from the BKA. It’s a no. I’m so sorry.’

  I shake my head. I don’t want her sorry. Even knowing that this was coming, it feels like a body blow.

  ‘We’ll be making an announcement later this week.’

  I nod.

  She inspects me a moment longer. Doesn’t tell me what she finds. Just gives me, from her desk, a bulldog-clipped bunch of paper.

  ‘Take a look at this. You might find it interesting.’

  It’s an intelligence briefing on the Bethan Williams inquiry. The senior investigating officer’s private not-for-wider-circulation conclusions.

  ‘They’re sure it was this guy, Len Roberts,’ she tells me. ‘A straightforward sex crime. But no corpse, no evidence, no prosecution.’

  ‘It would be nice to speak to him, though, ma’am. Maybe if I can find a free afternoon this week to go up there . . .?’

  Watkins opens her mouth. She’s about to say something about my other commitments. My Actions not completed, my tasks not done. But she drops it. Says, ‘Fine. Just tell Burnett. Keep him in the loop. And . . . just . . .’

  ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘If we’re packing up, let’s pack it tidy.’

  I nod. Do as she wants. Spend all that day putting our files into proper order. Writing summaries where work has been completed. Where things are still in progress, I write the kind of guidance notes that will make it easier to re-activate things down the line.

  It’s work I hate doing – burial work, grave-digging – but I do it all the same. Mess nothing up. Piss no one off. Say ‘ma’am’ or ‘sir’ at the appropriate times. Don’t swear. Commit no more invisible massacres.

  All that till five-thirty, then home.

  Eat some tinned fish. A carrot. An apple.

  In the violet darkness of my bedroom, in front of the mirror, I shoot another cluster of bullets at my own forehead. Six rounds, all on target.

  That bulldog-clipped pile that Watkins gave me. It all rings true but all rings hollow too. It sounded like a truthful record of what the SIO had been thinking, of the intelligence and suspicions that can never be quite tidied up the way evidence can. But there was, somehow, a phoney quality to it. Phoney the way people are if you point a video camera at them and tell them to behave naturally.

  And one other thing. Something that niggles.

  It turns out that Burnett was one of the officers working on that inquiry. No surprise there: every detective in Carmarthen would have been involved. But why didn’t he mention the case? The monastery is just three miles from Neil Williams’s farmhouse. A mile and a bit from Len Roberts’s place. Any normal copper would have commented on those coincidences, but Burnett didn’t. Why not?

  I fire six more rounds into the darkening mirror.

  Squeeze the trigger, don’t pull it.

  Left foot slightly forward.

  Soft hands.

  Six more rounds, six more kills.

  Then get in my car.

  The M4 a grey highway through the dark. Then London. A city gathering itself in slowly intensifying rings. A beast imagining itself into being.

  Northolt. Perivale. Uxbridge.

  White City. Marylebone.

  Arrive at Harley Street, glossy with high-end German cars. Park behind the discreet silver curves of an Aston Martin.

  I find Aggarwal’s office and give my name to a mouse-voiced receptionist, who sends me to sit in a high-ceilinged waiting room. Pale-green walls. Architectural prints.

  I wait like a good girl. Shoot no one, break nothing.

  At nine-forty, Aggarwal is ready for me.

  He’s tired, but affable. Says, ‘So. Our beautiful rhinoplasty.’

  I show him photographs. Hard copy, but also on my iPad. Give him the hard copy of the report we got from the plastic surgeon in Cardiff, but say, ‘This guy’s fairly old school. He doesn’t do any aesthetic work.’

  Aggarwal flips the report. Skimming it, not reading it. Says, ‘This gentleman is probably a very fine reconstructive surgeon . . .’

  I finish his sentence. ‘But he knows bugger all about aesthetic rhinoplasty.’

  Aggarwal laughs like I’ve said something funny. ‘You can say that,’ he tells me, wagging a finger. ‘I can only say that his experience lies in a different field.’

 
; He continues to chuckle, but gets a plastic face from a shelf behind him. Pinky-brown plastic, the colour of a child’s doll.

  ‘OK, rhinoplasty for beginners, right?’ He starts to talk me through the art and science of the nose job. He says, ‘We look at the patient’s face and try to calculate what is looking right for this face. What we can do within surgical limits. So, our modern approach is very patient-centred, very personalised, yes?, but we also have in mind our ideals of beauty. And these ideals, we can be measuring them very precisely.’

  Using his plastic face to elaborate, he starts giving me a mass of data.

  The ideal nasolabial angle. The perfect nasofacial angle. Length of the nose to height of face. Nasal width divided by facial width. Nasal tip to nasal length projections. All this and more. The desired ‘profile view of the columella’, what a good dorsum should and should not be getting up to.

  These things, he tells me, are backed by data. Science, not art.

  He tells me that most of Carlotta’s angles and ratios are near to perfect and, where they aren’t, why they work better for the rest of her face.

  ‘For example, you have this problem that her face is a little wide maybe. A little round, a little full. She is a pretty lady, most definitely, but not perfect. So whoever designed this surgery made the nose just a little stronger, just a little fuller, than what is most ideally perfect, so it looks spot on for this face.’ He tells me that the cheek implants would have been inserted, maybe at the same time as the rhinoplasty itself, in order to add structure to a slightly under-structured face. Talks about some specific technical challenges to this operation.

  Concludes: ‘This surgery is absolute A-grade. Top class, really.’

  I say, ‘It wasn’t done in Britain.’

  ‘No? I thought maybe one of my dear colleagues . . .’ Aggarwal waves an arm in a way that encompasses Harley Street, the little cluster of doctored-up streets around it.

  ‘Not unless they’re actively lying to a police inquiry.’

  ‘I don’t think so. Me, I would be putting my hand up. Look here, this is my rhinoplasty.’