Relentless: A Novel

by Simon Kernick

  They rounded a corner and the path became a wider, flatter gully, and it was here that they came face to face with the body of the man himself. He was hanging from one of the lower branches of a gnarled beech tree on the left side of the path about ten yards away, his feet dangling a few inches from the ground, a leather belt around his neck. He was dressed in jeans, trainers and a white England rugby shirt, the front of which was flecked with spots of blood. It looked as if he’d received a facial injury but it was difficult to tell from the position of his head, which was leaning forward so that he was facing the ground. A thick fringe of dark blond hair hung forlornly down over it like a curtain.

  Five or six men and women, all in identical white suits, milled around the body, taking photographs and samples in the undignified, if necessary, manner that characterizes all major crime scenes. As Bolt and Mo approached, one of the men standing on the edge of the scene turned and came down towards them, an inquisitive expression on his face. He was a tall man in his fifties, with a well-kept moustache, a seriously receding hairline and a vaguely regal manner that suggested the possibility he was ex-military.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he asked, stopping in front of them. The question wasn’t delivered in an unfriendly manner, but he wasn’t smiling either.

  ‘I’m DI Mike Bolt, NCS. This is my colleague, DS Mo Khan.’ Mo nodded. ‘We were coming here to interview Jack Calley.’ Bolt looked over at the body. ‘I’m guessing we’re a little too late.’

  ‘You are. I’m DCI Keith Lambden, Ruislip CID, the SIO on this case.’ He put out a hand and they shook. ‘Can I ask exactly what you were going to speak to Mr Calley about?’

  Bolt gave him a brief rundown of their own case and Calley’s relationship with their supposed suicide victim. Lambden’s eyebrows rose when they mentioned the Lord Chief Justice’s name, but he didn’t speak.

  ‘Is there anything you’ve found so far that could link the two cases, Keith?’ asked Bolt, looking over again at the body.

  ‘Far too early to say,’ replied Lambden. ‘He was only discovered an hour ago by a woman walking her dog, which was lucky as this isn’t really a well-used path. We got here at half past four, and we’ve only just finished sealing everything off. The doctor’s given a preliminary time of death of between two thirty and three thirty, so he’s not been this way long.’

  ‘It looks from the prints like two people were chasing him,’ said Mo. ‘Those trainers slipped twice in the mud on the way up here.’

  ‘Three times actually, and you’re right, it does seem like it was two people. We’ve checked out the downstairs of Mr Calley’s house and the side door was wide open. There’s also a fresh partial footprint at the end of his garden by a gate that leads directly onto this path. The gate was also open. It looks like the suspects confronted him in his house and he managed to escape out of the side door through the conservatory, which goes out into the back garden. They chased him up this path and caught him here. There was some sort of struggle. He ended up with a bleeding nose and facial bruising, and you can see where his shirt’s been ripped.’ He pointed over at the body and they both saw that there was a large tear running underneath the arm of the rugby shirt where he’d obviously been grabbed. ‘My guess is that one of them held him while the other put the belt round his neck and either strangled him then and there and hung him up afterwards, or put him up there while he was still alive and let him die like that.’

  They all fell silent. Whichever way any of them cared to look at it, it was a particularly nasty way to go.

  ‘They were certainly determined to make sure they killed him,’ said Bolt. ‘But no-one saw anything?’

  ‘We’ll be making the usual appeals for witnesses but no-one called us until the dogwalker who found him.’

  ‘Poor bastard,’ said Mo, getting back to his feet. ‘I guess we can rule out robbery. They wouldn’t have bothered chasing him up this path if they just wanted to burgle his house.’

  ‘And nothing appears to be missing from it either,’ said Lambden. ‘My guess is that he knew his killers. There’s no sign of forced entry at the front of the house.’

  ‘A professional hit, then, boss?’ suggested Mo.

  ‘Well, it doesn’t appear as though there was anything random about it. What do you think, Keith?’

  ‘Again, too early,’ answered Lambden, with a hint of reproach as if they were enthusiastic young rookies running ahead of themselves. ‘All we can be certain of is that the people who did this were physically strong, and very nasty indeed. Not the sort you’d want to meet on a dark night.’

  Bolt moved closer to the body. He waited while the police photographer took some close-up photos of Calley’s corpse, then inspected it from a couple of feet away, ignoring the pungent odour that clung to it.

  Calley looked young, maybe early thirties. He was good-looking too, with clean-cut, middle-class features and a big build. A man who should have been, and probably had been, a success story. Not the sort you’d associate with being a victim of crime. The dead man’s features were slack, the mouth turned down a little at each corner in a mildly doleful expression, the eyes gazing blankly in Bolt’s general direction.

  Death, like the onset of age, terrified Bolt. He wasn’t a Christian, having become convinced that the world’s secrets could be better explained by science than spiritualism while still in his preteenage years. He believed then, as he did now, that when a person died, that was it for them. The end of their journey, the big sleep. It was this lack of faith in something beyond which made him fear it so much. Sometimes he truly wished he could embrace religion, as many do when age takes them closer to the end, but he knew that it wouldn’t work. His own beliefs were too deeply ingrained. Standing here, viewing sudden, unexpected death at first hand, brought the fear right back to the forefront of his mind. A few hours ago, Jack Calley had been a wealthy young man with everything to live for. Now he was simply a sack of deteriorating meat without soul or function.

  Something caught Bolt’s eye, and he leaned down, squinting.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Mo from a few feet away.

  ‘Do you mind if I move the body, Keith?’ he asked DCI Lambden.

  Lambden asked the photographer if he was finished, and the other man replied that he was. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘but be careful. I don’t want anything contaminated.’

  Bolt ignored Lambden’s irritable manner. He was used to the territorial instinct of provincial detectives whenever they dealt with him and his colleagues, as if they thought the arrival of the National Crime Squad at a crime scene was some sort of official slight on their reputation. Slowly, he used both gloved hands to prise apart the upper portion of Calley’s thighs. The other two men had come closer, and they noticed it immediately.

  ‘What on earth’s that?’ exclaimed Lambden in a voice that was an octave higher than it needed to be. Mo just exhaled. He’d worked organized crime for several years now and was well used to seeing signs of torture on both the living and the dead.

  The crotch of Calley’s jeans was badly blackened and charred where a number of separate burns, each approximately the size of a two-pence piece, had been made. Someone, it seemed, had slowly and deliberately held a naked flame to his groin, and not just once either. Four, possibly five times, the marks merging together.

  For a while no-one said anything. The other SOCO officers and the photographer came over and looked at this discovery, and the photographer took a couple of pictures. Bolt picked up one of Calley’s arms and inspected the wrist. There was a faint but noticeable line of reddish skin about half an inch thick running round the wrist like a bracelet. He checked the other wrist. There was the same colouring. Ligature marks.

  ‘He must have had some real enemies,’ said one of the SOCOs.

  ‘Either that,’ said Bolt with a sigh, ‘or he had something someone wanted very badly.’

  7

  When I was seventeen, Jack ’n’ me and two other friends got arrested on suspicion o
f stealing a car. We hadn’t stolen it. It was a crappy old white Ford Escort van and it belonged to Jack. Having been the first to pass his driving test, he’d bought it fourth or fifth hand for about a hundred quid, and on most of the summer nights of that year he’d come and pick up the rest of us in it. Whoever he picked up first – almost always me, even though he’d moved more than a mile away by that point – got the front seat, while the other two had to make do with sitting on a mangy old rug in the back among the rusty tools, bits of car and all the other crap that had accumulated there over the months. We called ourselves ‘The Van Gang’, and our nights consisted of driving round looking for something to do, which could involve a visit to one of the few country pubs that would serve us, or a girl’s house, or just a detour off somewhere isolated so we could do our bit for teenage rebellion by puffing away on a couple of joints and while away the time giggling inanely. They were good days, all in all, more innocent than they sounded, and though my involvement with drugs was pretty brief, I don’t recall it ever giving me any ill effects.

  Anyway, the indicators on Jack’s van didn’t work, and one night near the end of summer when we were driving around aimlessly, he made a right turn, naturally without signalling, in front of a police car parked in a layby. The cops came after us and pulled Jack over. They were an officious-looking pair and the lead guy looked more like an accountant than a defender of law and order. But I remember being scared, even though I had no dope or anything else illicit on me. It was just the thought of being on the receiving end of the attention of the police, as if they could somehow find out about all my other youthful indiscretions and bring me to account for them.

  The first question the accountant copper asked was whether the vehicle belonged to Jack.

  ‘Yes,’ he’d replied.

  ‘Can you give me the keys, please?’

  ‘Well, the thing is, officer, I lost them a while back and I’ve been using this.’ He removed a pocket-sized screwdriver from the ignition and showed it to the officer.

  Incredibly, this version of events was absolutely true (Jack’s van really was a heap of shit), but no police officer in his right mind was going to let us go having seen that, and because the police computers were a lot slower in those days and it took a lot longer to access the registration database, we were promptly arrested, even though Jack made a manful and genuine attempt to explain his innocence. I could tell at the time that the police were quite pleased with their collar. Four arrests in one go would look good on their record, and the paperwork meant that they could go back to the station for a while. I could also tell that they were inclined to believe Jack’s story, mainly because of his pleas and the fact that, when it came down to it, we looked and sounded like students rather than car thieves.

  We were held for a total of four hours, which was the time it took to process the paperwork, followed by a forty-five-minute wait while the necessary checks were made. During that time, as it became obvious that they were only really interested in us as a statistic rather than for any crime we’d committed, I found myself relaxing. They didn’t bother putting us in the cells but let us sit together in one of the interview rooms, where we passed the time playing a cramped game of charades until it was time to go. With the vehicle impounded, however, for being unroadworthy, there was no way home, and after drawing lots we were forced to call my dad for a lift at 4.30 that morning. He collected us but he was none too pleased about it, and he hadn’t spoken to Jack for months after that.

  I thought back to that time now as I sat in the interview room of a different police station, alone this time, and with the charge of murder hanging over my head. It was, as you can imagine, a very lonely place to be. The police officers who’d brought me here were most definitely not inclined to believe my story, and nor was the custody sergeant who’d booked me in. They’d done everything professionally, but with the cool, distant air of men who were never going to be convinced by the pained, unimaginative pleas of their suspects. I’d demanded my one phone call and had been taken to a phone in one of the corridors, where the black officer waited while once again I tried Kathy’s mobile, and once again it went to message. I’d left another, explaining my predicament and begging her to get in touch as soon as possible.

  I’d also demanded a lawyer. Politely but firmly. I was beginning to get angry now. I was still scared, of course, both for myself and Kathy. But I was also extremely pissed off that I was being held against my will for something I hadn’t done, and with no-one showing the slightest sign of listening to my story, or of letting me know anything concerning the fate of my wife.

  ‘Do you have one, or would you like us to call someone?’ the custody sergeant had asked wearily.

  Had he asked me that question at any time in the last twelve years up to three hours earlier, I would have said Jack Calley, and I would have been sure that he’d sort things out for me. Jack was like that. He inspired confidence. For the first time in a long time I needed him, and I was too late.

  ‘I haven’t got anyone. I need you to call a lawyer.’

  The custody sergeant had nodded and said he’d make the necessary arrangements.

  In the meantime I was taken by my two arresting officers down to one of the interview rooms, and here I was now – half an hour, an hour later, it was impossible to tell for sure – waiting and wondering whether my wife, the mother of my children, was still alive, or whether I was to be accused of her murder. Wondering too why Jack Calley had phoned me, and why he’d been attacked and probably murdered before the call was completed. And why a man in a balaclava had attacked me with a bloodstained knife in the politics department of the university where my wife worked.

  The door to the interview room opened and a pleasant-looking fat man of about fifty with shoulder-length grey hair that was so thick it could have contained buried treasure came into the room. He was wearing horn-rimmed glasses, a navy-blue pinstripe suit, complete with a waistcoat that stretched and strained over his ample belly, and a smile that was the first I’d seen in a while. His features were soft, his face curiously owl-like, and in one dainty hand that had clearly never been sullied by manual work, he carried a battered leather briefcase which looked as if a pack of dogs had been at it. He banged it down on the table and thrust out a hand.

  ‘Mr Meron,’ he said in a lilting Scottish baritone that could have used a bigger audience, peering at me over his glasses. ‘I’m Douglas McFee, the duty solicitor. I understand you requested my help.’

  I stood up and took the proffered hand, surprised that the palm was lined with sweat. ‘Thank you for coming. I think I’m going to need it.’

  Douglas McFee smiled again and sat down opposite me. He put the briefcase on the floor and placed his elbows on the table and his hands together, as if in prayer, the tips of his fingers stroking his bottom lip. His expression was surprisingly intense, yet at the same time it remained amiable.

  ‘Now,’ he continued, ‘why don’t you tell me how you came to be arrested running down the street very close to a murder scene, distressed and bleeding from several cuts?’

  ‘Before I tell you anything, can you tell me if my wife’s OK? If she’s the person I’m meant to have murdered . . .’ I trailed off, not sure what else to say.

  He gave me a sympathetic smile. The sight of it made me want to weep. Did someone at last believe me? ‘I think I can put your mind at rest there,’ he said.

  I felt a rush of relief. ‘Really? It’s not her?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, the woman the police suspect you murdered is not your wife. Her name is, or more accurately was, Vanessa Blake.’

  Relief was now mixed with shock. ‘Vanessa?’

  ‘You know her?’

  ‘Yes, I do. She’s a politics lecturer at the university. Like Kathy, my wife. She’s been there for years.’

  I’d never liked Vanessa. She was a couple of years younger than Kathy, attractive in a very severe way, and unequivocally gay. She didn’t like men and
made no secret of the fact, and I’d often thought she’d tried to turn my wife against me. In fact, I think she’d had a thing for Kathy. And now she was dead. But I didn’t really have time to think about her passing. I was too relieved for that.

  McFee inclined his head solemnly as he delivered the bad news, recounting it like a particularly enjoyable ghost story. ‘Her body was discovered by a student in an adjoining room to the library where you encountered the masked man who attacked you with the knife. She’d been stabbed repeatedly. The student was naturally very shocked, but she was able to call the police. This must have been only minutes after you left the building because it was officers responding to that initial emergency call who arrested you.’

  I put my head in my hands and took several deep breaths before re-emerging. The wound on my jawline suddenly started throbbing. ‘Thank God Kathy’s all right. It’s terrible about Vanessa, she was a good person, but I’m glad it was her and not Kathy. I know that sounds terrible, but you know what I mean? Are you married, Mr McFee?’

  ‘I have a long-term partner so, yes, I understand what you’re saying.’

  ‘Jesus, I’ve been so scared.’

  ‘That’s the good news,’ said McFee, who had a habit of speaking very slowly, ‘if good news it can be called.’

  I stiffened. ‘There’s bad news?’

  ‘Unfortunately, there is. The murder weapon, a filleting knife with a six-inch blade, was recovered at the scene.’

  I was finding it difficult to breathe. ‘And?’

  ‘And I’ve just been informed that your wife’s fingerprints were recovered from the handle.’

  8

  Bolt knew that neither he nor Mo was welcome at the Jack Calley crime scene. DCI Lambden made an effort to be polite – after all, there were some tenuous links between the NCS case and his own, so he had to at least accept the presence of two men from that investigation – but it was obvious to all concerned that it was, indeed, an effort. Lambden didn’t see where the torture angle fitted in either and was initially dismissive of it as a factor in the murder of Jack Calley. ‘We don’t know that it’s got anything to do with anything,’ he said carefully. ‘It might be that he burned himself by mistake. It’s too early to jump to any conclusions.’