Walking Into the Ocean

by David Whellams

  Ron Hamm had blundered into the ultimate misinterpretation of the evidence. For a fortnight — had it been longer? — Peter had struggled to keep Lasker separate from the Task Force, if only for day-to-day efficiency, and to avoid crossing wires with the searchers along the Whittlesun Heights and with the Task Force analysts back in Devon. Peter, during the time he was assigned to the Lasker case, had served as a token member of the group. Hamm never had that luxury: he was formally appointed to both and had taken on substantial, perhaps clashing, duties. He was ripe for seduction. Ron Hamm had decided that Albrecht Zoren was the Rover, and he had been persuaded of this by the Rover himself. The convergence could be fatal.

  Hamm was new to the world of pathology. It had been a mistake for Peter to conceal Anna’s suicide from him. Ron couldn’t be blamed for concluding that Zoren had contributed somehow to her humiliation. While at the Regional Morgue that day, he examined Molly Jonas as well, her bloated, white body showing every bruise and desecration of her innocence. But Peter also suspected that Brenda Van Loss was important too. Ron had been early on the scene. He had described the tableau to Peter on the phone, noting the near-freezing conditions that night. The Rover had beaten Brenda about the face, in contrast to Daniella, and left angry abrasions on her arms and forehead. The resemblance to Anna was compelling. Later, the Rover had reinforced the link to Zoren. After all, Hamm had reasoned, Lasker himself had left England before the attacks on Daniella and Brenda. So Zoren was the Rover.

  All it had taken to get Ron to Lasker’s Garage was a call from the Rover himself.

  Followed doggedly by Willet, Peter approached the office, to find the door locked and the shade pulled all the way down. Taking off his coat, he wrapped it around his fist and punched in the window. No sound came from the office, or from the depths of the work bay area beyond. Reaching around the frame, Peter released the doorknob. Followed by the constable, he paused in the office to check the shelves on which Sally had ranged the binders of company invoices. The books were in their places; the intruder hadn’t been interested. Peter had a sense that the business had slowed considerably, and the condition of the work bays confirmed the fact. Only two sedans, neither less than a decade old, were waiting for attention, and the open bonnet of one indicated that only desultory repairs were being done.

  He needed to move swiftly, but with a high degree of caution. The interior of the garage afforded many hiding places; chasing down a suspect would entail dodging every kind of obstacle, and there were multiple egress points allowing a fugitive to get away. Basic police training for entering a building was the same everywhere. Willet drew his service pistol and fell into rhythm behind Peter as they shifted strategic positions from the doorway to the first parked vehicle, and then to the second. Peter made sure not to block the Constable’s line of fire, since the reaction of the first man would likely be to drop-and-shoot while the back-up would shoot to kill. Peter reasoned that an ambusher would place himself at the back of the work zone, although Peter had never been this far into the facility. Also, there was bound to be another door through which he could flee.

  But there was silence. It was the kind of silence that rings hollow and seems to expand, that birds feel before the advent of a storm; the sensation that someone has left a room a minute earlier.

  The two policemen moved efficiently to the rear exit of the garage and around the full interior perimeter, checking off each place of concealment. Willet finally lowered his weapon and looked towards Peter. He understood when the constable took out his mobile phone and punched in numbers. Peter wheeled a hundred and eighty degrees as a ring tone sounded behind and below. The two men followed the sound to the rim of the rectangular hole in the garage floor, and gazed into the oily pit. Ron Hamm lay on his back, his left arm contorted under his body.

  Peter scrambled down the short ladder into the pit, unmindful of the grease. Hamm had struggled; his coat was thoroughly soaked with oil and grime. Peter found no pulse and tried CPR, to no avail. On closer examination, he understood that Hamm had been unconscious, probably mortally injured, before he fell; the slash across his throat wouldn’t have been instantly fatal, but was enough to throw him off balance and make him give up resistance as he turned to his gushing wound. Arterial blood had flooded over the man’s shirt, down to the beltline, and sprayed ahead as he fell, coating the side of the work pit. He had bounced and twisted on the slippery cement, rotating onto his back, where he bled out entirely.

  Willet dialled 999 and requested both ambulance and police. The responding dispatcher, a woman, was initially confused, but he patiently led her through the basic information she needed to do her job. He explained that a local police officer had been killed, that he too was a Whittlesun officer and was wearing black pants and a leather jacket, and the arriving officers should refrain from shooting him. He gave the address of Lasker’s Garage and stated that the door to the small shack, set back from the street, was unlocked.

  “We’re in one of the work pits with the body of the victim. Once you send Ambulance Services, please call Inspector Maris at Whittlesun Police HQ, top priority.”

  “Are you sure the officer is dead?” she said, her voice now as cold as his. There was a special code for Officer Down.

  “Definitely. CPR has been applied.”

  “Is anyone there with you?”

  “I am with another policeman.”

  “Whittlesun Force?”

  Willet rolled his eyes in exasperation. “No, New Scotland Yard.”

  “Do you know the identity of the deceased person?”

  “Yes. He was a good policeman.”

  The ambulance arrived in seven minutes flat. Police vehicles began to pour in two minutes later, and Willet met them at the door to the office. The paramedics and police investigators trailed into the work bays and relieved Peter, who was down in the bloody pit cradling Hamm in his arms. His arms cramping, woozy from the damp and the blood smell in the hole, Peter was grateful to climb up top. He followed the instructions of the first detective to arrive, a tall man in his fifties named Perlmutter, and waited outside on the asphalt apron in front of the office shack. Witnesses, even if both were police officers, were to be separated, and Peter respected the rule. He was alone for a moment as the pedestrian traffic spun around him. He knew that Maris would be only seconds behind. Peter’s mobile battery was almost exhausted but he tried, with success, to get a clear line to Tommy Verden at home in London. He provided a brief status report on Hamm’s killing and asked Tommy to rendezvous at the Sunset Arms as soon as he could drive down to the coast. Peter went over next steps, the agenda for the night, and instructed him to prepare for an intensive search along the cliffs, and to bring along a fresh coat and gloves for Peter himself.

  “It’s a bastard of a storm moving in, Tommy,” he said.

  “And weapons?”

  Peter answered with only one word, but Verden understood. “Kershaw,” he said, invoking the bloody shootout with the sixth man Peter had killed.

  Peter ended the call just as Maris, bundled in a trenchcoat and leather gloves, was disgorged from a panda car. He asserted immediate ownership of the scene. He came right up to Peter, who was leaning against the door jamb, trying to avoid the broken glass on one side of the doorway while dodging the medical and police personnel trundling in and out.

  “Cammon,” he said, “how did my man die?”

  Peter was in for a long night, and he didn’t have the time. He had never expected that he could “start from the beginning.” Resignedly, he decided to respond in a direct and literal manner to all of Maris’s questions. Maybe he could get out of here in two hours or so. The tough part would be keeping his own evasions straight.

  “Do you have anyone to take notes?” Peter said, not unkindly. He was signalling that he wouldn’t try to upstage or finesse Maris in any way. He knew perfectly well that Maris was on the firing line when it came to explaining this cock-up to the press. He had been the one to suspend Ron f
or — what would Stan Bracher call it? — straying off the reservation.

  “Start with the basics, Cammon. Full statement at the station.”

  A young female constable stepped forward. She sensed the need to get Peter’s statement, and his professional characterization of events, down on paper quickly the first time. “I can do it, Inspector.”

  For all Maris’s chronic annoyance, the loss of young Ronald Hamm had affected him, and he tempered his reaction to the woman officer. “All right. Constable, you sit at the desk in there. Chief Inspector, over here.”

  They moved inside. The officer, Maris, Perlmutter and Cammon. Peter made it clear that he would stand. It was an awkward venue in which to take a formal statement. The chatter of a dozen men and women intruded from the garage, while rotating cherry lights flashed across the sightlines of the four in the office. Perlmutter realized the problem. “I’m not needed for this at the moment. Let me finish up with our man.” He left for the crime scene inside.

  “Cammon, do you know who did this?” Maris said.

  “I think so.”

  “Well, then, who?”

  Peter paused and gathered his thoughts. He took a recharging breath, which Maris interpreted as the prelude to more dissembling. “Can we take it back an hour or two?” Peter said.

  “Cammon, if you know the killer, you must agree that time’s of the essence. The garage has been closed for two days. The interim manager is a strange fellow named Albrecht Zoren. Willet confirms that Detective Hamm interviewed him early in the course of the Lasker investigation. Was that before or after the incident with Symington?”

  “Before.”

  Maris was growing exasperated with his grudging responses, Peter could tell. He was trying to be forthcoming (he really was, he told himself); it was just that so much had to be concealed from Maris.

  “When was it, then?”

  “What?” Peter had been distracted while Maris was talking. He heard a change of tone from the interior, a raising of voices. He tried to work through the Rover’s risky move in killing Hamm.

  “When did Hamm interview Zoren?”

  Peter didn’t respond.

  The medics removed Hamm’s body bag through the garage to the ambulance waiting on the street. Perlmutter came into the office a moment later. He looked worn through.

  “News. We’ve found another body.”

  Peter had a good idea who it was, but he didn’t dare say it in Maris’s presence. The Inspector turned pale. “My God, who?”

  “A mechanic. Big man. Willet says it’s Albrecht Zoren. Works here.”

  Maris looked over at Peter, as if the coincidence were amazing. Peter knew that no coincidence had occurred at all. He wasn’t surprised at the news. Perlmutter was watching Peter and couldn’t help himself.

  “You met him, Mr. Cammon?” Perlmutter said.

  “Once.”

  Maris leaned forward. “Did Zoren kill Hamm?”

  “No sir,” Perlmutter interjected. “The mechanic’s been dead twenty-four hours, though it’s hard to pin down.”

  But Peter was surprised at how calm Maris had become, despite his impatience. He watched the Whittlesun chief preside over the chaos — paramedics, detectives and uniformed officers streaming in and out of the garage, several stopping to seek instructions — with an even, authoritative demeanour. Nonetheless, Peter did not benefit from this new-found forbearance.

  “So, Cammon, did Hamm kill the mechanic?”

  “No.” Peter thought it unfortunate that the inspector at that moment came across like Lestrade in a Sherlock mystery. Of course, perhaps Peter himself seemed to Maris to be posturing as an English Poirot.

  “No,” Maris agreed. “Why would Hamm return to the scene of his crime the next day? Perlmutter, are you sure about time of death?”

  Perlmutter leaned against the back wall of the small office. “I did my time with the Drug Squad, Inspector. It looks like cocaine overdose to me. Now, cocaine intoxication, as they call it, is difficult to assess, but there is inflammation around the mechanic’s nostrils and evidence of a heart attack. It’s still hard to be sure, but cocaine in large doses often causes the shivers and shakes, and sends the addict into spasms, which elevates the pulse rate to extremes. The drug high starts to fight against the hallucinogenic high and heart attack may occur. We found Zoren half wrapped in a canvas tarp sitting next to the heat vent for the garage.”

  Maris’s gaze swivelled towards Peter. The young policewoman stopped writing on her pad.

  “When did you meet Zoren?”

  “Just after the bookkeeper, Sally, died. He was depressed, blamed himself.”

  “Hamm came here to see Zoren after that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s be clear. Why?”

  This was the crux of it. If Peter was going to head down the road of the full truth, there was one right answer. If he was going to lie, he might as well lie big.

  “Because someone advised him to.”

  Maris leaned in closer. “Would that be André Lasker?”

  “No,” Peter responded truthfully. “It was the Rover.”

  Peter endured three more hours at the Whittlesun station before Maris saw fit to release him. As Peter explicated his theory that Hamm had been shocked into vengeful action by the sight of the dead women, Anna Lasker included, it occurred to him that he might be wrong, that Hamm had been after André Lasker himself, and that the threads connected to Lasker through Symington and Zoren were logical, and presented a completely self-contained scenario. Yet if Peter had presented this storyline to Maris, he would have been in the interview room in the old insurance company edifice forever, looking foolish, running either/or theories all night.

  Ultimately, Peter discounted his own alternate story and stuck to the Rover angle. In fact, relieved of the need for equivocation, he became a forceful advocate for a massive hunt for the Rover along the coastline. He needed Maris, in both his capacities — as Whittlesun chief and interim chair of the Task Force — to mobilize the dragnet. The idea that the Rover was moving east wasn’t new, and Maris was susceptible to it in any event. Hamm’s murder had happened within the County of Dorset. The threat had changed. The whys and the where-nexts could be reasoned out later; there was a chance of catching the killer tonight.

  There was another reason for urgent mobilization, Peter felt: the Rover had something special planned for the first winter storm of the year.

  CHAPTER 35

  Tommy’s Glock 17 and Peter’s sturdy Smith & Wesson, its bullets unchambered, lay on the mattress. Two separate boxes of ammunition accompanied the guns. Tommy hadn’t bothered with shotguns. He had brought three knives, of different types; one was for Peter, a feather-light SOG folding blade, painted flat black. Two walkie-talkies, smaller than the pair Peter had used that fateful day on the cliffs, would provide the best means of communicating during their expedition. Waterproof torches were likely to prove the most useful items in the entire arsenal; it was all too easy to stumble into a crevasse or sprain an ankle on the rudimentary trails.

  “Skipped the high-voltage Taser,” Verden said, looking sanguinely at the equipment. “Would have liked to, but it’s soaking out there. Start sparking like Guy Fawkes Day.”

  Peter had no affection for the Taser. For one thing, its maximum range was a hundred feet; if they managed to get that close to the Rover, guns would already figure in the mix, they could be sure.

  He unfolded a map and placed it on top of the weapons on the bed. Blotchy red circles marked regular distances on the wide zone between Abbotsbury and Exmouth.

  “Here’s what I persuaded Maris to do. He wasn’t reluctant to call out the constabulary for Devon and for Dorset and, to his credit, he isn’t deterred by the storm. He promised to enlist other forces tomorrow, if this thing goes on that long.”

  “I’m having a devil of a time reading this coastal weather,” Tommy declared.

  “Join the club. The rain, maybe some snow, will play
hell with lines of sight. You and I will have to stay close. The teams will be confined to the main access routes, significant roads, landmarks. Searches will proceed in twos. Manpower for tonight, despite Maris’s promises, will be limited. It leaves about six kilometres per team.”

  “With all respect to our colleagues,” Tommy said, “the temptation to move from one warm hearth to the next may be irresistible. And Peter, you know I have to ask this: what are we looking for, exactly?”

  “A man.”

  “Okay.”

  “A man who shouldn’t be there. He doesn’t belong on the cliffs. But I think he has a specific target in mind.”

  Unsubstantiated or not, his fear was that Guinevere Ransell was to be the Rover’s next victim. Worse, the Ransells had toyed with him, were playing too many cute games.

  Tommy proceeded with the greatest efficiency. He folded up the map, and began to assemble a cache of gear by the bed, along with a rain jacket. A knock on the hotel room door caused Verden to toss the comforter over the arsenal on the bed. Peter cast an expectant look at him.

  “Should be all right,” Verden whispered, while keeping one hand under the comforter. “I called Jerry Plaskow.”

  “What?”

  “He has the equipment I wanted.”

  Peter opened the door and simply gaped at what he saw. Mr. Smith stood there, carrying an ordinary shopping sack in one beefy hand. It was the most natural thing in the world, it appeared. Of all the questions that might have crossed Peter’s mind, his thought was: How come Mr. Smith is bone dry? It’s raining out there.