‘Who was it that said expensive taste and some ambition in life are its only requirements? How is Mister Doyle shaping up in Margaret’s shoes?’
‘Not much difference in the great scheme of things. Slightly less of a stickler for the rules, slightly more of a bastard.’
‘I wouldn’t believe in great schemes, they rarely amount to much in the long term.’
They had reached the doors at the end of the dimly lit windowless corridor where Doyle’s tame pathologist was waiting for them. A tall, reedy-looking woman about Doyle’s age, her white coat pulled tight against more than the chill of the basement. She looked like she belonged here, below the narrow backstreets of Stratford, far away from the old Olympic facilities. A curator for the shells of the dead; prodding and probing those who had passed. She swung the doors open and pointed out a pile of paper sick bags on the side to both of them. ‘If you’re not comfortable around dead or naked bodies…’
‘More comfortable than I should be,’ smiled Agatha, weakly. Mine normally have clothes on.
‘I only have feelings for expensive luxuries,’ added Thorson. ‘Normally it’s a weakness. But in here…’
‘I was constantly throwing up for my first five months,’ said the doctor. She led them towards a steel table, lumpy outlines under cover, bright and harsh in the room’s arclights. ‘You’ll be amazed at how many different ways people come into the mortuary. So many different ways to die, each with their own signs.’
Agatha stopped in front of the slab. Yes, the body was definitely on it, covered over with white linen. ‘And how did Simon Werks enter here? In your opinion?’
‘I didn’t need Gary Doyle’s scene of crime statement to tell me the cause of death – that it’s strangulation is obvious. But you’re in luck. My husband works in the laboratory upstairs, and he’s just expedited the toxicology results for me. The victim was tranquillised by some kind of methoxyflurane compound. It’s hardly the normal stuff you see in a hospital, a synthetic variant probably. The regular kind leaves organ traces of dichloroacetic acid and inorganic fluoride, especially in the kidneys. This left hardly any residue. If Doyle hadn’t asked me to put this one through on the QT as a crash priority, the methoxyflurane would have completely dissipated by the time a regular autopsy was performed. No trace of foul play.’
‘Any signs of a needle mark, doctor?’ asked Thorson.
The doctor pulled back the sheets covering Simon Werk’s corpse, revealing his head and chest. There was a wide-eyed innocence to his face, framed by a dark mop of hair and high cheekbones that agreed with his family’s Irish ancestry in the lean files the office had dug up on the man.
‘No. He wasn’t injected. From how his eyes appeared when he first came in, I would say sprayed in the face with an aerosol. The osmolality of his residual urine suggests a concentrated dose. Enough to knock the victim out in seconds. Unconsciousness would last fifteen minutes at the most.’
‘Have you heard of anything like this being used before?’
‘Not like this. Some armies use the regular flavour of methoxyflurane for emergency battlefield amputations. But engineered in this way? None of the uses would be honourable ones. Take out a target for capture and interrogation. A spot of quick date rape. Put a security van driver out for long enough to cut the money box off his handcuffs, maybe.’
Agatha rocked slightly, leaning on her umbrella. ‘Roll the victim off a cliff without leaving signs of a struggle and make it look like suicide?’
‘Exactly that sort of mischief.’
‘Which armies use the basic compound the drug was derived from?’ asked Agatha.
‘Currently the French, Australian and New Zealand forces,’ said the doctor. ‘Only for very rough and ready amputations in extreme conditions. Others used it in the past, but it’s fallen out of favour.’
‘Yes, those damn marauding New Zealanders,’ said Thorson, sarcastically. ‘Always causing trouble out in the world.’
The doctor pulled the sheets all the way back and Agatha tugged on a pair of transparent Nitrile gloves to examine the naked body. For someone who worked behind a desk and had started out as the programming breed, Simon Werks appeared fit enough. A little pale, perhaps. Not toned enough to be considered vain. Efficient, Agatha thought. Tending the engine of the flesh and always making sure it had the right fuel. A good diet from a personal chef, with the company gym at ControlWerks’ London office at his disposal at any hour of the day. So who did you annoy, Simon? Whose skin did you get under for you to end up like this, laid out all pale and white and sad? The state of the body didn’t tell her anything new. A death card stuffed in the mouth would have been nice, the Jack of Clubs with the assassin’s signature on it. But nobody did anything with a Mafia flourish these days, not even the old crime families. It was an odd thing, but ghosts rarely appeared to her in the presence of a corpse. Were they put off? It seemed a strangely squeamish trait among their own, if so. She had been hoping that Simon Werks’ spectre might even surface, but that, on reflection, was far too much to hope for. So annoyingly obtuse. It’s as if they enjoy teasing me.
‘What do you think, Mrs W?’ Thorson asked Agatha.
‘It doesn’t feel right, Helen. Anyone savage enough to kill a man for business normally requires their actions to be recognised by the world at large. If the South Americans had undertaken this job, for instance, Mister Werks would have been found in pieces in a public place with a very explicit note explaining his crimes. Framing his death as a suicide invalidates all life insurance he might have had, so we can remove that as a motive. It’s the silence of this act that bothers me most. To snatch a life so quietly. If we were hunting a single suspect, I might propose a serial killer with celebrity tastes, but this was very much a hit, from the deployment of the exotic aerosol sedative right down to the professional kill team. Just like the old days.’
‘But these aren’t the old days.’
‘No,’ said Agatha. ‘That they certainly are not.’ She felt a wellspring of sympathy rising within her for this departed soul. Imagined Simon Werks as he would have been when he was a young child, playing on his game consoles and reading the computer manuals that had brought him here, to this slab, to this unanticipated end. Not much different from her two boys, Harry and Carl. Had they looked as pale and as dead as this, floating in the dark waters of the Atlantic? Bobbing amidst the wreckage of the jetliner that hadn’t yet been claimed. The sea took everything. Everything but Agatha Witchley and the cold knot of anger eating, eroding and biting into the pit of her desiccated womb. She who the waters had washed up, bitter and distrustful, leaving only justice and vengeance and the hope she might one day understand the difference between the two. Simon Werks was cold. So cold. She could feel his pain, his pain that had passed, gathering inside her, like the company of ghosts. She looked up and noticed the doctor holding a paper bag out to her, holding only air.
‘Are you alright?’
Agatha shook her head. ‘I believe I’m completely empty.’
‘It takes you that way, sometimes. I’m holding this one in cold storage as a John Doe, rotating the paperwork until you want me to declare,’ said the doctor. ‘Any idea how long that’s going to be?’
‘Until Simon Werks’ absence is noted or the news is leaked – either by someone at his company, or ourselves in a more controlled manner, I suspect,’ said Agatha. ‘If our hand is forced early, we’ll go with suicide on the death certificate, thank you. Wouldn’t do to tip off his killers that we’re onto their trail. Hopefully we’ll discover who slipped the noose around his neck before that comes to pass.’
‘You know, if Gary Doyle keeps on asking this kind of favour from me in the name of queen and country, I’m going to ask to be put on retainer with you people.’
‘I wouldn’t bother,’ said Thorson. ‘Our kind of money won’t change your life.’
Agatha looked at Simon Werks. But his had. And like most money, not for the better.
CHAPT
ER FIVE – THE MIRROR MAN
‘Who are the bullet catchers?’ asked Agatha. Their car had drawn up outside the imposing walls of a country estate. There was a gaggle of tall young men and a woman outside the wrought iron gates, the greens of Hunter boots and Barbour jackets to indicate that they were only estate staff. Layers of tweed to cover the bulges where their concealed guns were carefully strapped away. An hour away from the motorway exit, this was the kind of isolation that money could buy when you were rich enough. Every view, every secluded Surrey field and furrow on the way in belonging to Werks.
‘They’re with MI5,’ said Doyle, his fingers tapping the wheel of the steering wheel as he waited. ‘The Home Office didn’t want to take any chances with the last of the dynamic duo. As long as Curtis Werks stays in the country, he’s going to have more bodies on him than the Italian PM in a swinger’s club for his birthday.’
Serenely professional, the agent who came to the car’s window walked away with Doyle’s passport, discreetly checking the chip inside the booklet against his admittance list with an RFID reader he pulled out from the back of a quad bike. While he was doing that, a woman strolled over and casually examined the underside of their car with a mirror on the end of a long steel rod, one of her colleagues running a wand-sized scanner in his hand across the chassis of the car as if he were airport security. Agatha suspected that Doyle was disappointed the agents weren’t showing more interest in his hoodlum Chevy Nova’s supersport’s package. What was the point of tooling around in a boy’s toy if it wasn’t admired? They’re all young enough to have never driven anything other than hybrid cars. The first man returned and delivered the passport back through the open window, passing no comment as the large gates opened automatically on rollers.
‘We’re on the list. We’re coming in,’ growled Doyle. He nudged the car over a cattle grid, jouncing briefly, before all four tires bit into the gravel of a wide drive and they crunched their way down a private lane bounded on both sides by thick woodland, vegetation sitting damp and green under the dull sunless sky. Agatha passed no comment as small red targeting dots winked on and off the car as they wound their way towards the mansion. Even the marksmen of the Special Air Service grew bored when they were out camping.
Agatha tapped the car’s dashboard. ‘The real problem with classic cars like your Chevy, apart from the additional pollution, is it lacks the basic modern security features needed to deter car thieves and other ne’er do wells.’
Doyle pulled at the edge of his jacket with his left hand, revealing a pistol in its shoulder holster. ‘It’s got the best security feature of all, love. If anyone steals the Nova, I’m going to fucking kill them.’
‘Well, there always is that. You do realise the officers on the gate might as well pack up and go home,’ said Agatha. ‘There’s not going to be an assassination attempt on Curtis Werks’ life.’
‘Who told you that one, love, Julius Caesar?’
‘Common sense, Mister Doyle. I have been checking the twins’ itinerary. They spent enough time together that there were ample opportunities to kill both of them and make it look like an accident. Two for the price of one. A car crash. A plane crash. Food poisoning. A kidnapping attempt gone awry.’
‘Maybe the plan was to kill the twins separately, leave some time between each murder?’
‘Difficult to arrange. Harder yet to make two murders arranged separately appear as serendipity. The surviving twin is forewarned, now. Even without the service officers here, Curtis Werks has ample private security on hand to protect him.’
‘If the motivation was business, Saucy Simon’s murder might have been a shot across the bows for his brother. A warning. Withdraw from a key market, sell out to us or else. We can get you anywhere you go. We can even make it look like an accident.’
‘That’s quite an imagination you have.’
‘Said the woman who thinks that she’s the bleeding ghost whisperer. We’ll see. We need to find out if our Curtis received a tip-off Saucy Simon was for the chop, either before or after the hit.’
‘You’re not a believer in the afterlife, then, Mister Doyle?’
‘No I’m bloody not. Here’s the thing, Gypsy Jen. You and all the other nut-jobs who claim to be channelling Elvis and Martin Luther King, why’s it only ever the celebs? There are billions of people who’ve croaked. Why’s it always James Dean on your private party line to the next world, eh? Why’s it never Jane Smith the bog cleaner who shuffled off this mortal coil in total obscurity back in 1826, Jane Smith who nobody’s ever heard of?’
‘I’ll tell you my theory on that,’ said Agatha. ‘Ghosts are mostly memory. The pattern of a soul imprinted on the consciousness of the world. In the old days, people would know of the Napoleons and Queen Victorias, and such personages were the spectres most frequently conjured up during séances. The weight of memory, to use your own example, does not favour Jane Smith, honoured only by her own family and friends. Today, with broadcast media, the burden of the local universe favours James Dean and Marilyn Monroe. Those are the figures lodged in humanity’s group consciousness.’
Doyle shook his head. ‘Shit.’
‘But that’s only my conjecture. Maybe heaven does exist and God’s an Elvis fan.’
‘Okay, we’ll here’s another one for you, then. Why you? Why Agatha Witchley? What makes you so special? How come when my poor old bladder wakes me up for my midnight promenade to the bathroom, I don’t find Heath Ledger having a ghostly shave and dropping me a few tips on who murdered Simon Werks? Why you and not me?’
‘There is a reason for that,’ said Agatha. ‘But I am afraid I can’t tell you. It’s simply not allowed.’
‘Shit, of course, that would be too easy. We’re not talking Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense here are we? I see dead people. You’re dead, I’m dead. This is the afterlife and all that bollocks.’
‘I’m very much alive and on this mortal coil, Mister Doyle. So are you. Sadly for Simon Werks, that’s a joy that someone has stolen from him.’
‘It’s all in the mind, love. Your subconscious makes the connections and joins the dots together, but if you want to believe that it’s Dean Martin appearing and singing the answers to you, well, fuck it if I can’t take a joke. Right now, I’ll take all the help I can get.’
‘Then we have an understanding, Mister Doyle. Just like the one that existed between Margaret and myself.’
‘Yeah, well she’s well out of it.’ Doyle turned his Chevy into a crescent drive, pulling up in front of a three storey-high Georgian pile, acres of white stone on the mansion’s frontage, a sweep of stairs leading up to a marble column-lined entrance that wouldn’t have looked out of place if Cinderella had been hopping down the treads on a single slipper. Doyle parked next to three identical government Range Rovers, the green of their chassis so dark they might as well have been black. Agatha got out. Behind her was a manicured lawn on a slope leading down to a river, elaborate topiary with Greek statues on either side.
‘Why do I feel like I’m on the set of Pride and Prejudice?’ said Doyle.
‘I believe the current owner of this house is good for considerably more than four or five thousand a year, Mister Doyle.’
‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a copper in possession of a good murder case will be in want of Saucy Simon’s twin spilling his rotten guts out to me,’ said Doyle.
‘Curtis Werks has just lost his brother, and twins are often very close,’ chided Agatha.
‘I’ll be the soul of tact and sensitivity… you might even think I’ve passed a sociology degree.’
The imposing front doors were opened before Agatha had a chance to reach for the bell pull, not by a liveried butler, but by a tall shaven-headed man in a blue suit conservative enough for him to have run as a politician. Tight, tailored and trim. He wrinkled a nose that only a rugby player could love and touched his earphone as he motioned them inside. There was a low indecipherable buzz from a voice at the other end.
‘They’re in. Two for two. Car is stationary. Confirm no driver.’ The guard indicated a guest book on a stone-topped table. The book seemed an antiquated ritual in an age of biometric security. Agatha rummaged in her handbag for a pen and signed them both in.
Doyle tutted in disapproval at her plump little Mont Blanc pen as she placed it back into her handbag. ‘More money than sense. What’s wrong with a forty pence Biro?’
‘You can’t put a price on quality, Mister Doyle.’
Rugby man gave them the most trifling tilt of his head, then left, muttering into his earpiece and not bothering to check his charges were walking behind him. Follow the bullet-catcher, they did. Werks’ country pile loomed around them, as imposing inside as out. Their footsteps resounded loud across a large hall that could have been leased by the Natural History Museum to host a Diplodocus display, open doorways giving onto rooms with tall sash windows, period green plasterwork, polished floors and antique furniture. Shadows moved in doorways as they passed, and Agatha realized they weren’t nearly as alone as the echoing emptiness of the grand spaces suggested. Another man joined them as they progressed down the house’s main corridor along the ground floor, the newcomer sporting a grey three-piece suit, his hair running to silver around his cropped temples, a whippet to Rugby man’s bulldog. He boorishly didn’t bother to introduce himself, either.
‘I’ll need you not to take more than half an hour with Curtis Werks. We have other visitors due to arrive, and your presence cannot possibly overlap.’
Doyle grunted. ‘And I’ll need you to take your spook nose, stick it in this pile’s antique shitter, and hold it here until I’ve taken as long as I need to get the answers I want. This is a murder investigation. My murder investigation.’
‘The next round of visitors—’
In the Company of Ghosts Page 6
