Know Me Now

by CJ Carver

  Elena blinked several times.

  ‘Do you have a problem with that?’ he snapped, cold and authoritative.

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘For the record, of all the teenage boys I knew, my grandson was the least likely to kill himself. I want every test done. And I mean every test.’

  ‘Of course.’ Elena looked as though she might salute.

  He left the mortuary room without looking at either of them.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Dan studied the photographs Lucy had sent him of the listening device she’d found in Sam and Christopher’s car. He didn’t like it at all because it wasn’t a cheap, plasticky appliance a suspicious spouse would buy off eBay; it was a top-of-the-range professional bug that was specifically designed to be hidden away behind the dashboard and hard-wired into the vehicle electrics for long term deployment.

  The purpose of this particular device was to provide the ability to listen to what was happening inside the vehicle from anywhere in the world.

  What was it doing in his friend’s car? Was the target Christopher or Sam? Or was it both of them?

  Although his mind churned with questions, anxiety pressing, something in his soul came alive at being back in London. The constant muted roar of traffic, the whine of jet engines above, a police siren, a shop shutter rattling, the smell of coffee overlaid with diesel. He felt a million miles from his home in Wales and although he liked the huge skies there and the sharp, clean air, he missed London with a ferocity he never shared with Jenny.

  His phone rang as he turned to walk along Elystan Place towards Chelsea Green.

  ‘Daniel Forrester?’ a woman asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My name is Detective Superintendent Didrika Weber. I am investigating your father’s death . . .’ There was a small pause then she added, ‘please accept my condolences.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Didrika Weber was from the State Crime Desk in Braunschweig and was heading the murder squad that had been set up comprising local detectives and specialists, in order to find his father’s killer.

  ‘I know it’s a difficult time for you, Mr Forrester, but please may I ask you some questions?’

  He found himself adopting her formal approach. ‘Please, go ahead.’

  ‘First, I’d like to know why your father came to Germany. What you know about his visit. Who he saw, where he went.’

  Pausing outside a restaurant, he told her that his father had been visiting his friend Arne, and felt a surge of frustration that that was the extent of his knowledge.

  ‘Brussels Airlines confirm that your father landed in Hanover at ten twenty-five in the morning on Thursday the thirtieth of August.’

  She seemed to be waiting for some kind of response, so he said, ‘If you say so.’

  ‘He hired a car for the day. His mileage was 179 kilometres. He stayed with his friends, Arne and Anneke Kraus that night.’

  ‘I see.’

  He heard her sigh gust down the line. ‘So you don’t know who else your father might have visited? Where else he may have gone?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Hmmm. Would you have any idea why he might visit Isterberg Cemetery?’

  Dan straightened. ‘He was seen there?’

  ‘He visited a commemorative plaque.’

  ‘A memorial? What to?’

  ‘I’m not sure if it’s relevant.’

  ‘Please,’ he said.

  ‘It’s dedicated to the victims of World War II. Babies who died in an orphanage. They were born to Polish workers who were taken from their mothers.’

  Although he couldn’t think what his father would be doing there he murmured, ‘I’d be interested to see it.’

  ‘Of course.’ Her voice was dismissive. ‘But you are in England.’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  Something in his voice must have given away his frustration because she said, ‘If you are maybe thinking of coming over here, please let me know. You could tell me about your father. I find if I know the victim better I have more of a chance in finding out what happened.’

  After they’d hung up Dan didn’t go straight to the bench his father had told him about. Instead he switched right to walk around the miniature green, passing a smart-looking deli with a queue of well-heeled clientele waiting for their cappuccinos, and when he reached the next junction he stopped, pretending to check his watch. A woman with a small white dog gave an irritated explosion of breath as she swerved past him, but he wasn’t concerned about her. His attention was on another woman, who was buying what looked to be a lettuce from the open-fronted fish-cum-grocery on the north-east side of the green.

  Shoulder-length brown hair. An ordinary face. Oval, slightly pallid. Nothing outstanding, everything muted, unexceptional. Small, wiry body. He felt a cold rush of tension in his stomach.

  Mouse Woman.

  Today she was wearing a black skirt and white shirt, a pair of low-heeled black shoes.

  She’d followed him from his father’s flat on Tuesday. Was she following him now? Or was she the person he was supposed to meet?

  Not wanting to flush her out or get too close and unnerve her into doing something she hadn’t planned – he was pretty sure she didn’t know he’d pinged her the first-time round – he kept walking up Elystan Street, eyes clicking around the area, looking for the woman’s partner, the man who’d tracked him in Weston-super-Mare, but although he couldn’t see him he knew any of the suits in the area could be on point.

  9.55 a.m.

  Dan walked back to Chelsea Green. Nobody sat on the benches. His watcher appeared to have vanished, but he knew she’d be around, maybe lurking in the pharmacy or one of the real estate agencies.

  At the precise moment he moved to stand next to one of the benches, yesterday’s The Times in one hand, a woman moved into view from Jubilee Place. She was smiling, her face filled with warmth.

  He felt his jaw soften in surprise.

  The last time he’d seen her had been a decade ago, at her wedding. The old gang had all been there – Christopher, Gustav, Dan – and Sophie. They’d all drunk far too much and behaved like the kids they used to be, culminating in Christopher and Dan having a mock-fight some time after midnight and both of them ending up, black ties and all, in the swimming pool.

  Back then she’d worn a shimmering medieval dress with layers of lace and embroidered with pearls. The gown had a deep open back, her smooth skin tantalisingly naked all the way to her sinuous waist, and Dan had had great fun watching not just Gustav but every male in the room trying not to salivate. He was as affected as the next man, he supposed, but he could never shake the picture of her as a little girl, grubby from playing in the orchard, knees always scraped, hair a tangled mess, clutching a worm, a bird’s nest, something she’d found and wanted to show off.

  ‘Sophie?’ He couldn’t help it. His voice showed his incredulity.

  ‘Dan.’ Amusement shone in her eyes.

  He looked beyond her and around the green. Then back at her. ‘What’s going on?’

  She came and stood next to him. She wore a navy-blue, tailored single breasted jacket above a simple A-line skirt. How she managed to exude sexuality wearing something so business-like was impressive.

  ‘Are you alone?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’ He wasn’t going to mention Mouse Woman.

  ‘How have you been?’

  ‘Mixed blessings.’

  ‘I heard Bill died.’ Sophie touched his arm, as light as a moth. ‘He was a great guy. I’m really sorry.’

  ‘Who told you?’

  A tiny frown marred her brow. ‘Dad.’ Her tone implied, who else?

  Dan decided not to mention the fact that his father had been murdered. Not until he knew more about what was going on.

  ‘And you?’ he asked politely. ‘How’s Nick?’

  ‘Perfect, thank you. He works from home, leaving me to roam the city streets as much as I like.’
/>   Home, if Dan recalled correctly, was a pretty little cottage on the seafront in Bosham, near Chichester.

  ‘You still sail?’ he asked.

  ‘Very much,’ she replied. ‘You?’

  ‘Not really.’ Jenny hated sailing – the wet, the spray, the cramped conditions. She much preferred a brisk country walk followed by a pub lunch somewhere warm and dry.

  ‘Shame. I seem to remember you were rather good.’

  ‘We do other things.’

  She put her head on one side, encouraging him to explicate, but instead he said, ‘So,’ and raised the newspaper. He wasn’t interested in small talk no matter how many childhood memories they shared.

  She got the message.

  ‘So,’ she repeated. ‘It actually shouldn’t be me here. It should be Dad.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘He’s really ill, which is why he sent me. He couldn’t come himself, much as he wanted to.’

  He raised his eyebrows into a question she immediately understood.

  ‘He’s had me check The Times every day for that particular message. He used to do it himself until last weekend, but he’s taken a turn for the worse. He can’t do much of anything anymore.’ Her face lengthened in sorrow.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  She looked away. ‘He makes a terrible patient as you can imagine.’

  ‘My father would have been the same.’

  Sophie leaned back a little. Rearranged her handbag on her shoulder. ‘What are you doing for the rest of the day?’

  ‘Seeing your father?’ he suggested.

  ‘Perfect.’ She smiled. ‘Shall we go?’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Sophie drove fast and efficiently and, unusually for Dan, he sat back and relaxed because it was obvious she’d had some advance training. When he asked after her job, she gave a beautifully bland response that had his antenna quivering.

  ‘Nothing terribly exciting, I’m afraid,’ she told him. ‘I’m a drone in the Home Office.’

  The Sophie he knew as a kid would never settle for something mundane. She had a quick and enquiring mind, and an adventurous spirit, but it was more than that. She needed to be challenged and continually stimulated or she’d become irked and irritable.

  ‘How come I don’t believe you?’ he said.

  She sent him a quick look.

  ‘An office drone?’ He gave a snort. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘OK, OK.’ She flung up a hand in mock-surrender. ‘You got me. I’m part of a performance, analysis and research team for HMIC.’

  Now, that was more like it. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary. Not so dull after all, monitoring, inspecting and reporting on police forces in England and Wales, as well as other national law enforcement agencies. She expanded a little and he realised that her job, despite its dreary title, sounded like it suited her very well.

  ‘I don’t normally tell people,’ she admitted, ‘because they invariably get it wrong and think I’m a cop and when I try and correct them, they still don’t get it and start to moan about their speeding ticket.’

  Thanks to light traffic, it took them just over two hours to get to Salisbury. Sophie’s father used to live in a handsome Victorian townhouse, within a stone’s throw of the cathedral, but now he was in a hospice on the outskirts of the city. Climbing out of the car, Dan scanned the area for watchers but didn’t see anyone to concern him. During the journey he’d dropped his visor and flicked the mirror cover aside to check the vehicles behind them, but even using the wing mirror on his side of the car it was difficult to check whether they were being followed or not. He had to assume they were, and his mind continued to gnaw on who it might be and who would have planted a listening device in Christopher’s car.

  Inside, they scribbled their names and arrival time in the reception book before walking past a little shop selling fresh flowers and cakes and down a broad corridor. Dan had never been in a hospice before and it was nothing like he had imagined. No doctors or nurses rushing around, no beeping machines or smells of disinfectant. There were squashy sofas and armchairs, tables with lamps and neat piles of magazines, views of gardens. It felt more like a hotel than a place where you came to die.

  Sophie paused outside a half-open door. A rattling, wheezing sound reached them.

  ‘Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD. You remember he smoked?’

  Dan didn’t think he’d ever seen Rafe without a cigarette.

  ‘He was on forty a day, sometimes sixty. He stopped five years ago but it was too late. His lungs are a mess.’

  Her face contracted and for a moment he saw she was battling to contain her emotion.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said gently.

  Her smile wobbled. ‘Thanks.’

  She pushed open the door. Soft grey carpet, easy chairs, a TV on the wall and a vista of bird tables. The only concession to Rafe Kennedy’s terminal illness was the electrical medical bed.

  ‘Hi, Dad.’ Sophie went and greeted her father. ‘I brought Dan with me.’

  A hacking cough erupted from the bed, wet with phlegm.

  ‘Let’s get you up,’ she said. The coughing worsened and Dan stepped forward wanting to help, but Sophie motioned him away.

  Using a handset, she adjusted the bed. Intellectually, Dan knew Rafe wouldn’t be looking too good if he was so close to death, but emotionally it still came as a shock. Gone was the tall, strong and ebullient man who spoke four languages and was a well-known fell runner, and in his place was a scrawny creature with skin the colour and texture of dry cement. His eyes were clouded, rheumy, and his lips pale and dry.

  ‘Rafe,’ Dan said. He was glad his tone was even and didn’t betray his dismay.

  ‘Daniel.’ The word came out on an exhale that preceded another bout of coughing.

  Sophie walked to the window and opened it a little, scaring off a couple of sparrows that had been on a feeder.

  ‘Thanks . . . for . . . coming,’ Rafe managed.

  ‘It’s been a while.’ Dan moved a high-backed armchair closer to the bed and sat on it leaning forward, his hands between his knees.

  ‘Sophie’s . . . wedding.’

  ‘Best party I’ve ever been to.’ Dan smiled. ‘Shame you didn’t have another daughter so I could have ruined another set of shoes.’

  The skin around the old man’s mouth stretched as he smiled, showing a set of strong ivory teeth. No dentures for Rafe. If he hadn’t smoked, Dan guessed he would have been as fit as Gordon and Arne.

  ‘One is quite . . . enough.’ He swivelled his eyes to look at Sophie who rolled her own at him. ‘Darling daughter. . . would you mind . . .’

  ‘Leaving you two alone? Of course not. I’ll wait outside.’

  Dan looked at Rafe. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Bloody fags.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Wish I’d died . . . years ago.’ Anger poured from him. ‘I’m wearing . . . a fucking . . . nappy. Can you . . . believe it?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Dan said again.

  ‘Fucking . . . old age. Demeaning. Humiliating. The nurses call me . . . “lovey” and talk to me as though I’m . . . two fucking . . . years old.’ His eyes suddenly focussed on Dan, turning razor sharp. ‘Wouldn’t you rather fucking . . . drop dead like your father . . . fit as a flea at, say, sixty, rather than . . . suffer an interminable, undignified . . . demise?’

  Rafe fixed him with a glare. ‘Well?’ he demanded.

  Before he spoke, Dan considered his father’s letter, the precautions in contacting his old friend via an advertisement in The Times, and knew he had to be honest.

  ‘Dad didn’t drop dead as you think,’ Dan said evenly. ‘He was murdered.’

  The rattling and wheezing stopped. Rafe’s eyes widened and for a moment Dan thought the old man was having a heart attack. He sprang up but Rafe took a gasping breath.

  ‘Who?’ he croaked.


  ‘I’m trying to find out.’

  ‘Christ.’

  Dan sank back into the chair. ‘He left me a letter with instructions to place the advertisement. I had no idea it was to contact you.’

  ‘That’s the fucking . . . point. No . . . names.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Your father was worried . . . that he might disturb a hornet’s nest. He wanted to . . . protect us both until he knew there was no danger. We set it up after he came to see me . . . last week.’

  ‘A friend of his told me he saw something in the newspaper that frightened him.’

  Rafe continued to look at Dan but he didn’t say anything. Finally, he took a slow breath.

  ‘Did Bill ever . . . tell you where I worked?’ he rasped.

  ‘You all got a medical science degree. I know that much.’ Dan frowned as he thought further. ‘Dad was the only one who didn’t use his.’

  ‘Joined the fucking . . .’ Rafe’s words disintegrated into more coughs but he managed to eject, ‘marines.’

  A childhood memory inched into his mind, of Rafe giving Bill a hard time over wasting his degree and Bill’s energetic response: I’d rather hump a fifty-pound pack through a bog than spend my life locked up in a lab. Rafe had told Dan he’d tried to get Bill to change his mind about joining up, saying he could have got his fix of the outdoors training and running fell races like he did, but Bill defended himself with a sly look in the eye, We have the same employer, doesn’t that count for anything?

  ‘I worked on . . .’ Rafe made an effort to speak, eyes watering, chest heaving.

  Dan waited.

  ‘Pro—’ Rafe shuddered as made a massive effort to get the rest of the word out ‘—ject.’

  ‘Project,’ Dan repeated.

  Eyes streaming, bony fingers clawed on the sheets, Rafe fixed his gaze on Dan. Urgency and desperation twisted between them as Rafe struggled to inhale. Dan began to rise, to go and find a nurse, but Rafe shook his head violently. Skin springing with anxious sweat, Dan sank back. ‘Are you sure?’

  Rafe shook his head again. Ghastly sucking noises bubbled from his chest. He was fighting to speak and as Dan watched he found himself holding his breath in sympathy. He thought: I’ll give him another five seconds, and then I’m going to go and find a nurse, a doctor—