by Peter James
She sat, staring at them like an unexploded bomb. ‘You’re shitting, right?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ Pat said. ‘I’m very sorry. Do you have someone who could come round until your husband gets home? A neighbour? Friend?’
‘You’re shitting. Yeah? Tell me you’re shitting.’
The cigarette was burning down. She tapped some ash off into a large crystal ashtray.
‘I’m very sorry, Mrs Revere. I wish I was.’
Her pupils were dilating. ‘You’re shitting, aren’t you?’ she said after a long silence.
Pat saw her hands trembling. Saw her stab the cigarette into the ashtray as if she was knifing someone. Then she grabbed the ashtray and hurled it at the wall. It struck just below a painting, exploding into shards of glass.
‘No!’ she said, her breathing suddenly getting faster and faster. ‘Nooooooooooooooo.’
She picked up the table the ashtray had been on and smashed it down on the floor, breaking the legs.
‘Noooooooo!’ she screamed. ‘Noooooooo! It’s not true. Tell me it’s not true. Tell me!’
The two officers sat there in silence, watching as she jumped up and grabbed a painting off the wall. She then jerked it down hard over her knees, ripping through the face and body of a Madonna and child.
‘Not my Tony. My son. Noooooooooooo! Not him!’
She picked up a sculpture of a tall, thin man holding dumbbells. Neither officer had any idea who the sculptor was, or of its value. She smashed its head against the floor.
‘Get out!’ she screamed. ‘Get out, get out, get out!’
22
Tyler sat hunched over the pine kitchen table in his grey school trousers, with his white shirt unbuttoned at the neck and his red and grey uniform tie at half-mast. On the wall-mounted television he was watching one of his favourite episodes of Top Gear, the one in which the team wrecked a caravan. The sound was up loud.
His straight brown hair fell across his forehead, partially shading his eyes, and with his oval wire-framed glasses several people said he looked like a young Harry Potter. Tyler had no problem with that, it gave him some kudos, but he reminded Carly much more of her late husband, Kes. Tyler was like a miniature version and, as the microwave pinged, she fought back tears. God, how she could have done with Kes now. He’d have known what to do, how best to deal with this mess, how to make her feel a little less terrible than she did at this moment. She removed the plate.
‘Elbows off!’ she said.
Otis, their black Labrador-something cross, followed her across the tiled floor, ever hopeful. She set the plate down in front of her son, grabbed the remote and muted the sound.
‘Meatballs and pasta?’ Tyler said, screwing up his face.
‘One of your favourites, isn’t it?’ She put down a bowl of salad beside him.
‘I had this for lunch today at school.’
‘Lucky you.’
‘They make it better than you.’
‘Thanks a lot.’
‘You told me always to be truthful.’
‘I thought I also told you to be tactful.’
He shrugged. ‘Whatever.’ Then he prodded a meatball suspiciously. ‘So, how’m I going to get to school tomorrow?’
‘You could walk.’
‘Oh great, thanks a lot.’ Then he perked up. ‘Hey, I could bike!’
The idea sent a chill through her. ‘No way. You are so not biking to school. OK? I’ll sort out a taxi.’
Otis stared up at Tyler expectantly.
‘Otis!’ she warned. ‘No begging!’
Then she sat down next to her son. ‘Look, I’ve had a shit day, OK?’
‘Not as shit as that cyclist, right?’
‘What’s that meant to mean?’
Tyler suddenly stood up and ran towards the door, yelling, ‘I bet he didn’t have a drunk for a mother.’ He slammed the door behind him.
Carly stared at the door. She half rose from the chair, then sat back down. Moments later she heard the furious pounding of drums upstairs. Otis barked at her, two woof-woofs in quick succession. Waiting for a titbit.
‘Sorry, Otis, not feeling great, OK? I’ll take you for a walk later.’
The smell of the meatballs was making her feel sick. Even sicker than she already felt. She got up, walked over to the door and opened it, ready to shout up the stairs at Tyler, but then thought better of it. She sat back down at the table and lit a cigarette, blankly lip-reading the Top Gear characters as she smoked. She felt utterly numb.
The phone rang. Sarah Ellis. Married to a solicitor, Justin, Sarah was not just her closest friend, she was the most sensible person Carly knew. And at this moment, on the day her world had turned into a nightmare – the worst since the day she’d been told that her husband was dead – she badly needed sensible.
‘How are you, Gorgeous?’
‘Not feeling very gorgeous,’ Carly replied grimly.
‘You were on television – we just saw you on the local news. The accident. The police are looking for a white van. Did they tell you?’
‘They didn’t tell me much.’
‘We’re on our way over with a bottle of champagne to cheer you up,’ Sarah said. ‘We’ll be with you as soon as we can.’
‘Thanks, I could do with the company – but the last thing I need is a bloody drink.’
23
Cleo was asleep in the hospital bed. The sleeve of her blue hospital gown had slipped up over her elbow and Grace, who had been sitting beside her for the past hour, stared at her face, then at the downy fair hairs of her slender arm, thinking how lovely she looked when she was asleep. Then his eyes fell on the grey plastic tag around her wrist and another coil of fear rose inside him.
Wires taped to her abdomen were feeding a constant flow of information into a computer at the end of the bed, but he did not know what the stuff on the screen meant. All he could hope was that everything was OK. In the weak, stark light and flickering glow of the television she looked so pale and vulnerable, he thought.
He was scared. Sick with fear for her.
He listened to her steady breathing. Then the mournful sound of a siren cut the air as an ambulance approached somewhere below. Cleo was so strong and healthy. She looked after herself, ate the right stuff, worked out and kept fit. Sure, before she had become pregnant she liked a drink in the evening, but the moment she knew she was expecting, she had reduced it right down to just the occasional glass, and during the past few weeks she’d dutifully cut even that out completely.
One of the things he so loved about her was her positive attitude, the way she always saw the good side of people, looked for the best aspects of any situation. He believed she would be a wonderful mother. The possibility that they might lose their baby struck him harder each time he thought about it.
Even worse was the unthinkable idea that, as the consultant had warned, Cleo might die.
On his lap lay a document listing all the files needed for the prosecution case against the snuff-movie creep Carl Venner. For the past hour he’d been trying to concentrate on it – he had to read through it tonight, to check nothing had been omitted, before a meeting with Emily Curtis, a financial investigator, in the morning, to finalize the confiscation documentation – but his mind was all over the place. He reminded himself that he must ask Emily about her dog, Bobby. Besotted with him, she was always talking about Bobby and showing Grace pictures of him.
It was 9.10 p.m. A new crime show was on television, with the volume turned right down. Like most police officers, Grace rarely watched cop shows because the inaccuracies he invariably found drove him to distraction, and he’d given up on the first episode of this one last week, after just fifteen minutes, when the central character, supposedly an experienced detective, trampled all over a murder scene in his ordinary clothes.
His mind returned to the fatal accident this morning. He’d heard summaries of the first accounts from eyewitnesses. The cyclist was on the wrong side of the road, but that was
not unusual – idiots did often ride on the wrong side. If it was a planned hit, then the cyclist had given the van the perfect opportunity. But how would the van have known that he was going to be on the wrong side of the road? That theory didn’t fit together at all and he wasn’t happy with it, even though the van had gone through a red light.
But the New York crime family connection bothered him, for reasons he could not define. He just had a really bad feeling about that.
Plenty of people said that the Italian Mafia, as portrayed in movies like The Godfather, was today a busted flush. But Grace knew otherwise. Six years ago he had done a short course at the FBI training centre at Quantico, in Virginia, and become friendly with one particular Brooklyn-based detective whose field of expertise was the Mafia.
Yes, it was a different organization from in its heyday. During Prohibition, the crime families of the US Mafia grew from strength to strength. By the mid-1930s, with command structures modelled on Roman legions, their influence touched almost everyone in America in some way. Many major unions were under their control. They were involved with the garment industry, the construction industry, all rolling stock, the New York docks, cigarettes, gambling, nightclubs, prostitution, extortion through protection rackets of thousands of businesses and premises, and loan-sharking.
Today the traditional established crime families were less visible, but no less wealthy, despite some competition from the growing so-called Russian Mafia. A major portion of their income now came from narcotics, once a taboo area for them, fake designer goods and pirated films, while large inroads had been made into online piracy.
Before leaving the office this evening he had Googled Sal Giordino and what he found did not make comfortable reading. Although Sal Giordino was languishing in jail, his extensive crew were highly active. They seemed to be above the law and as ruthless as any crime families before them in eliminating their rivals.
Could their tentacles have reached Brighton?
Drugs were a major factor in this city. For nine years running, Brighton had held the unwelcome title of Injecting Drug Death Capital of the UK. It was big business supplying the local addicts, but recreational drugs like cocaine were an even bigger business. The current police initiative in this sphere, Operation Reduction, had been extremely effective in busting several major rings, but no matter how many people were arrested, there were always new players waiting in the wings to step into their shoes. The Force Intelligence Bureau had not to date established links to any US crime families, but could that be about to change?
Suddenly his phone rang.
He stepped out of the room as he answered, not wanting to risk waking Cleo. The consultant had told him she needed all the rest she could get at this moment.
It was Norman Potting, still diligently at work in the Incident Room. Grace knew the sad reason, which was that Potting had such a terrible home life, he preferred to stay late at his desk, in an environment where at least he was wanted.
‘Boss, I’ve just had a phone call from Interpol in New York. The parents of the deceased young cyclist, Tony Revere, are on their way over in a private jet. They are due into Gatwick at 6 a.m. Thought you should know. They’ve booked a room at the Metropole in Brighton. Road Policing have arranged a Family Liaison Officer to take them to the mortuary a bit later in the morning, but I thought you might want to send someone from Major Crime as well.’
‘Smart thinking, Norman,’ Grace said, and thanked him.
After he had hung up, he thought hard. He would have liked to meet and assess the parents himself. But he did not want to alert them to any possible police suspicions at this stage and they might just think it odd that an officer of his rank turned up. It wasn’t worth the risk, he decided. If there was anything to be gained from meeting the parents, it would be best achieved by keeping things low key. So it would be better to send a more junior policeman – that way it would simply appear to be respect.
He dialled a number and moments later Glenn Branson answered. In the background, Grace could hear a theme tune he recognized from an old Clint Eastwood movie, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Branson’s passion was old movies.
He could picture his friend lounging on the sofa in his – Grace’s – house, where he had been lodging for months now since his wife had thrown him out. But not for much longer, as Grace had recently put the place on the market.
‘Yo, old-timer!’ Branson said, sounding as if he had been drinking.
He’d never been much of a drinker before the collapse of his marriage, but these days Branson was drinking enough to make Grace worry about him.
‘How was the post-mortem?’
‘It hasn’t revealed anything unexpected so far. There was white paint on the boy’s anorak on the right shoulder, consistent with abrasions on his skin – probably where the Transit van struck him. Death from multiple internal injuries. Blood and other fluid samples have been sent off for drug testing.’
‘All the witness statements say he was on the wrong side of road.’
‘He was American. Early morning. Might have been tired and confused. Or just a typical mad cyclist. There’s no CCTV of the actual impact.’
Changing the subject, Grace asked, ‘Did you remember to feed Marlon?’ He had to remind Branson daily to feed his goldfish.
‘Yeah, took him to Jamie Oliver’s. He had three courses, including dessert.’
Grace grinned.
Then Branson said, ‘He looks sad, you know. He needs a mate.’
So do you, badly, Grace thought, before explaining, ‘I’ve tried, but he always bloody eats every mate.’
‘Sounds like Ari.’
Ignoring Branson’s barb about his wife, he said, ‘Hope you weren’t planning a lie-in tomorrow?’
‘Why’s that?’
‘I need you back on parade at the mortuary.’
24
At 7.15 a.m., just twelve hours after he had left the place, Glenn Branson parked the unmarked silver Hyundai Getz in the deserted visitors’ parking area at the rear of the Brighton and Hove City Mortuary. He switched off the engine, then dug his fingers hard into his temples, trying to relieve the searing pain across the front of his head. His mouth was dry and his throat felt parched, despite having drunk a couple of pints of water, and the two paracetamols he’d taken an hour ago, when he’d woken up, had not yet kicked in. He wasn’t feeling confident that they were going to kick in at all.
His hangovers were getting worse. Probably, he reasoned, because his drinking was getting heavier. This time he had a bottle of a special-offer red wine he’d bought in ASDA to thank. He’d only intended to have one glass with his microwaved chicken casserole, in front of the telly, last night, but somehow he’d drained it.
Drowning his anger.
Trying to numb that terrible hurt inside his heart. The constant yearning for his kids, the sharp twist in his guts each time he thought about the new man who was living with his wife, playing with his kids, bathing them, God damn it. Some smarmy personal trainer he was extremely close to killing. And on top of that, all her lies in the divorce papers. They lay beside him, inside the white envelope on the passenger seat.
He had a meeting with his solicitor scheduled for this afternoon to deal with the divorce papers, and to take further advice about the financial repercussions and his contact with the children.
Everything seemed so unfair. While the police busted a gut and risked their lives to prevent crime and to lock up villains, all the moral codes had been thrown out of the window. Your wife didn’t have to be faithful. She could go off and shag whoever she wanted, throw you out of the house and move her lover in.
He climbed out despondently into the light drizzle and popped open his umbrella. His clothes weren’t helping his mood. He was attired in a navy raincoat over his dark suit, an unusually sombre tie and the plainest pair of black shoes he possessed, polished, like all his footwear, to a mirror shine. One of the few sartorial tips that he had ever been given by
Roy Grace, that he actually took notice of, was how to dress respectfully on occasions like this.
With the fresh air reviving him a little, he stared uncomfortably at the closed door of the receiving bay. This place gave him the heebie-jeebies each time he came here, and it was even worse with a hangover.
The building looked greyer, darker. From the front it resembled a long suburban bungalow, with pebbledash walls and opaque windows. At the rear it looked more like a warehouse, with drive-through doors at each end, for the delivery and collection of corpses away from public view. It was situated off the busy Lewes Road gyratory system in the centre of Brighton, shielded from a row of houses next door by a high wall, and had the leafy silence of Woodvale Cemetery rising up the steep hill behind it.
He waited as he heard a car approaching. Moments later Bella Moy drove around the corner in her purple Nissan Micra and parked beside him. She was here at Roy Grace’s suggestion because, in addition to being a detective with the Major Crime Branch, she was also a trained and experienced Family Liaison Officer.
Politely, Glenn opened her door and held the umbrella over her as she climbed out.
She thanked him, then gave him a wan smile. ‘You OK?’
He grimaced and nodded. ‘Thanks, yep. Bearing up.’
He was conscious of her blue eyes looking searchingly at his and wondered if she was noticing they were bloodshot. He was out of shape, that was for sure. It had been a couple of months since he had been to the gym and for the first time in his life his six-pack had been replaced by the slight hint of a belly. Wondering if she could smell alcohol on his breath, he dug his hands into his pocket and pulled out a packet of peppermint gum. He offered it to her, but she shook her head politely. Then he popped a piece in his mouth and began to chew.
He felt sad for his colleague. Bella was a fine detective but a total fashion disaster. She had a nice face, but it was framed by shapeless hair, and she was dressed as messily as usual today, in a bulky red puffa over an old-fashioned bottle-green two-piece and clumsy black ankle boots. Everything about her lacked style, from her dull Swatch with its worn webbing strap down to her choice of wheels – a real old person’s car, in his view.
