Kiss Me When I'm Dead

by Dominic Piper

  I should have known better, of course. It was just a little too easy for me to get in here and snoop around the place. I felt something wasn’t right when I noticed that the security cameras were switched off, but didn’t think it was significant enough to exercise any caution.

  I can hear Raleigh’s voice now. It’s distant and muffled, as if he’s talking on the telephone in another room. He and Fisher must have been in the house all along, listening and watching; seeing what I would do; and what better moment to get the drop on me than while I was in a predictable state of shock upon discovering Rosabel and Viola.

  I try to imagine what must have happened when Eleanor’s narrative ended. Raleigh and Fisher were left with a corpse on their hands. Eleanor had run away, but that could be dealt with later. They had to somehow get Viola’s body out of the hotel room and back here without anyone in the hotel noticing.

  It couldn’t have been easy. I try and put myself in their position and ponder what I would have done under the same circumstances. If it was me, I’d have left her there; too much risk and hassle with security cameras, staff and other guests. But Raleigh wasn’t me. This was his daughter and he had other plans for her. Was he thinking about embalming her as soon as he realised he’d killed her? Would that have been the first thought that entered his head?

  I have no knowledge about the legal ramifications about embalming in the UK at all, but I’m sure a death certificate would be involved somewhere along the line; probably a doctor, too. But in Viola’s case, if no one knew she was dead in the first place, and she was registered as missing, you could probably bypass all those inconveniences if you were careful enough and clever enough.

  In fact, the name Viola Raleigh only appeared on the radar when Sakura reported her as a missing person three days after her death, and the police attitude to that was predictable. This was a woman who’d already been reported missing once and she was obviously working as a prostitute, so the possibility of her being dead would not have been seriously considered.

  Could the same thing be true of Rosabel? Could she also have died without anyone knowing about it? When I first met Raleigh, he spoke about her as if she was alive. When I was talking to Anjukka about Rosabel’s portrait, she said that she’d never met Raleigh’s wife, as if she fully expected to one day.

  Is Raleigh such a control freak that no one is allowed to leave his personal orbit without his permission? Not even if they die? I’m almost looking forward to hearing his excuses for all of this. I’m sure he’s rationalised it all to the nth degree and would be delighted to bludgeon you over the head with his reasoning.

  But things can’t have been airtight; not with a loose cannon like Viola around. Taylor Conway knew that Rosabel was dead. Someone told him. A friend of Viola’s called Antonia. She said that Rosabel had shot herself. Was it some big family secret that Rosabel had died? Was no one meant to know? Did Viola let the cat out of the bag to Antonia one night when she was totally hammered on something?

  I try and imagine a scenario where Raleigh comes home and finds Rosabel lying on the floor dead with a gun in her hand. Could someone as rich and powerful as Raleigh cover something like that up? Of course he could. Fisher may not have been around to help him then, but there were probably other Fishers who would do anything for their amiable, powerful, obscenely wealthy boss.

  I mull all of this around in my head for a few moments. Is Raleigh mad? No. He’s just an unusual variety of perverted tyrant who’s always been allowed to do as he wished because of his money. I’m sure he has a million ways of justifying it all to himself and to others. I’m sure he thinks that us normal folk are just too stupid and unworldly to understand the mysterious ways of the exceedingly powerful.

  At least I hope that’s the case. Any alternative is much too unsettling to contemplate.

  ‘So is our private dick back in the land of the living?’

  It’s Raleigh. His voice comes as a shock. I can hear him walking towards me and then he’s standing behind me and has placed his hands on my shoulders. I can feel my skin beginning to crawl.

  ‘He should be,’ replies Fisher. ‘I didn’t give him the full treatment. Maybe he’s faking.’

  Fisher grabs a handful of my hair, jerks my head up and slaps me hard across the face. Twice. More like an open-handed punch, really. I quell the anger I’m feeling, open my eyes and give him a resigned look. He looks pleased that he’s seen through my façade. He slapped me on the side of my face where Eleanor scratched me and it feels like it’s on fire.

  ‘He’s with us now, Mr Raleigh,’ he says with a smirk. ‘You don’t look very well, Mr Beckett. A bit under the weather, are we?’

  I don’t reply. I look over to my left and see Anjukka. She’s about six feet away, tied to a chair in much the same way I am, and has been positioned so she’s facing me. She looks pale and frightened. There’s a wide strip of silver gaffer tape across her mouth and there are tears streaming from her eyes.

  She’s wearing a glamorous dress with a mottled pattern of dark red and black, but the front has been ripped down and her bra cut through and pulled to the sides to reveal her breasts. The fact that her arms are tied behind her back makes them jut out in a way that impudently attacks the senses.

  As I look at her, I’m reminded of Rosabel’s portrait and wonder whether this is a coincidence or not; one of Raleigh’s things. It hardly matters. In one way or another, both Raleigh and Fisher are going to pay dearly for this.

  ‘We thought we’d invite your girlfriend to the proceedings, Mr Beckett. Or should I say one of your girlfriends,’ says Fisher, with a sneer in his voice. ‘You’re a very busy man, aren’t you.’

  Despite his cockiness, he looks angry and I can tell he hates me just on principle. That’s fine with me. I take pride in being hated by people like Fisher.

  For a couple of seconds, I’m not sure precisely where I am, then I realise that I’m facing the door that I came in through before encountering Raleigh’s cadaverous harem. I look up and get dazzled by the halogen lights that had previously illuminated Rosabel and Viola, who have been wheeled over to the left-hand side of the door, presumably out of harm’s way. Rosabel is looking straight ahead, but Viola’s wheelchair is angled a little to her left, so that she seems to be looking straight at me. It would be true to say that I’ve never been in a position quite like this before. The next time it happens I’ll be ready for it.

  Raleigh places a fake Regency chair about three feet away from me, sits down and smiles. It’s as if I’ve come for a job interview, not that I’d know what that was like. He nods towards Anjukka.

  ‘Not my idea, Daniel. The dishabille, I mean. Fisher here’s always had his eye on her so I allowed him this little treat. I must say, though, she has magnificent breasts. I always thought that would be the case. It’s interesting, isn’t it? Usually, a woman’s breasts are never quite the shape you thought they would be when you were imagining them naked, but in the lovely Anjukka’s case they are exactly as I imagined, and believe me, I have been imagining them a lot. What about you, Fisher?’

  Fisher nods his head, pleased to be asked his opinion by his boss, whom he so clearly loves and respects. ‘Yes, sir. I think they’re pretty close to how I imagined them. Perhaps a bit bigger.’ He looks straight at Anjukka, licks his lips and blows a kiss at her.

  ‘What about you, Beckett? Were they as you imagined?’ says Raleigh.

  ‘What happened to Viola, Nathan?’ I say, ignoring him. ‘She looks a bit damaged on one side. You really must take better care of your embalmed women.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Most deplorable. I take it you know what happened in the hotel by now. As you can imagine, we had a little problem when it came to removing Viola from her room. Luckily…’

  ‘The cleaner’s supply room. You dropped her out of the window.’

  ‘How did you know that?’ He looks a little angry. Perhaps he thought he’d been clever and no one would work it out.

  ‘I tried to t
hink what I would have done under the same circumstances if I was you. I’ve got a dead girl on my hands, I can’t leave her in the hotel room, I can’t call the police, I can’t get her past reception, so I have to think of another way of getting her out of the hotel without anyone noticing. I see a lot of security cameras by the fire exits, so those would be out of the question.

  ‘Then I try that little door and go in that little room. Who discovered it? You? Fisher? It’s a store room with nobody in it and no cameras. It’s got a window that opens. It’s a bit of a drop, but beggars can’t be choosers. There’s an alleyway beneath the window. I could back a car up into it and shove her in the boot after I’d pushed her out. There’s a chance I’d be discovered, but if I’m very quick I might just get away with it. I take it the phrase respect for the dead doesn’t mean that much to you. You prick.’

  Raleigh nods at Fisher, who, with all his strength, punches me on the side of the face. I can taste blood in my mouth after that one and feel dizzy. I poke one of my molars with my tongue. It feels slightly loose and there’s a tiny blast of pain, so I don’t do it again. Just for the sake of it, I try to stretch my wrists apart against the plastic tie, but there’s still no give. And there was I hoping that it might have magically slackened so that I could make a spectacular and heroic escape.

  Something makes me look at the silver trolley I’d noticed earlier. There’s a long, thick plastic thing about nine inches long with a green flashing light on it. Looks like the same model as the one that Blue Tie was waving around. I wonder if they have plans to use it as a torture device.

  Well, this is all extremely interesting. I don’t think these circumstances can be explained away by viewing Raleigh as an avaricious control freak with several unpleasant personality disorders. I’m beginning to think he has to be just plain mad. And I’m tied to a chair in his Chamber of Insanity.

  I make eye contact with Anjukka for a couple of seconds. I attempt to transmit to her the idea that everything will be alright, nothing will happen to you and I will get us out of this. I don’t know if it worked, as she still looks terrified, but I thought it was worth a try. Quite apart from her alarming situation, there’s the added trauma of the cadavers. She’ll probably need therapy for six months just to stop the bad dreams.

  ‘I have to say, Beckett,’ says Raleigh, with a sincere, avuncular tone that I find both reassuring and creepy, ‘that you’ve done a pretty good job under the circumstances. We didn’t give you much; just the name of that idiot Conway and the police bitch, and we knew you’d get nowhere there. We couldn’t give you that much or you’d have got suspicious.

  ‘Of course we knew where Mrs Bianchi was located, obviously, but we had to keep that to ourselves. We knew you’d find her eventually. We had faith in you. We needed an outsider to track the girl down. Someone good; someone who we were certain would lead us to her. But I was concerned that you may not want to share your discoveries with us when you found out the truth. That’s why I’ve been using a security company to track you the whole time. You probably thought I was being stupid.

  ‘Their operatives were very impressed with you, particularly as you had no reason to suppose you were being tailed. Not at first, in any case.’ He laughs mirthlessly. ‘They described you as a slippery customer. Attaching that little device to you was a last resort. They were confused by your movements and had no idea what you’d do next.

  ‘My company developed that bug, if it’s of any interest to you. It’s able to pinpoint an individual within a radius of ten feet. I was very impressed with it. I’m sorry you destroyed it. It was a prototype.’

  ‘You can deduct the cost from my fee.’

  ‘After you visited Miss Gastrell, we thought you might lead us straight to Celia Valentine. The security operatives were surprised when instead, you just went to keep a bloody lunch date with a woman who seemed to be unconnected to the whole affair. Too old to be Celia, apparently, and with an Australian accent, they said.’

  ‘What – do you think I don’t eat all day or have a social life?’ For a moment, I don’t remember who Celia is, then I remember that Celia Valentine is Eleanor’s work name. Working in the sex industry must be exhausting; I don’t think I’d have the memory skills for it.

  ‘When you finally arrived at the house in Stockwell, we knew that it had to be Celia Valentine’s. By that time there could be no doubt about it as far as we were concerned. She was one of Gastrell’s girls. It was the next logical step after you’d seen Gastrell, your lunch break notwithstanding. We had a feeling you’d take either Bianchi or Gastrell with you and we were right. Bianchi is a real beauty, I am told.’

  ‘Not your type. She’s still breathing.’

  ‘We expected that Miss Valentine would be extremely paranoid, and with good reason. She was never going to open the door to a solitary unknown male like you. We retired the security team and my men took over. Once that bug was placed on you, your goose was cooked, so to speak.

  ‘That’s lovely, Nathan, but won’t this security company be a loose end for you? Aren’t you going to have to get them all down here and drown them in the bath or something?’

  ‘They had no idea what the job really was. Their only contact was with Mr Fisher here, who has been invaluable throughout the whole proceedings. He told them that you were his son-in-law and that he suspected you of philandering. Your behaviour over the last few days made that seem very convincing indeed. I must admit, Mr Beckett, I’m quite in awe of your womanising skills. You succeeded expeditiously with young Anjukka here where so many before you had failed. I hope her fiancé will not be too upset.’

  He thinks he knows everything, but he doesn’t. I’d like to ask a couple of questions about all of this, but I’m in so much pain and discomfort at present that I can’t think straight. Apart from that, this thing has become so complex that I wouldn’t know where to start. There’s only one thing that has been puzzling me since I found out about Raleigh and Fisher visiting the hotel.

  ‘How did you manage to track down Viola in the first place? The chances of you finding her on the internet must have been millions to one. She may have even worked for someone who didn’t have a website.’

  ‘Well,’ says Raleigh, beaming. ‘It was pure luck. Well, that’s not strictly true. It was very fortunate, all the same. As I’m sure you can imagine, I deal with people who like to be entertained on a grand scale. Mr Fisher deals with that side of things.’

  ‘Grand scale meaning prostitutes like your daughter. You obviously deal with the world’s crème-de-la-crème, Nathan. Well done. I’m insanely jealous of you.’

  Raleigh nods at Fisher who punches me in the face again. It’s on the same side as last time, which is a little annoying. That tooth is looser now. I’ll have to visit the dentist if I survive all of this. I spit the blood out of my mouth and it goes all over Fisher’s trouser leg. He looks pissed, but doesn’t do anything. I take it he has to have Raleigh’s permission to hit me.

  ‘I should be careful how you speak to me, Mr Beckett. You are in no position to be so conceited.’

  ‘Of course, sir. Sorry, sir.’

  He glares at me and nods his head in an enjoy yourself while you can manner. I’m glad I’m annoying him. It’s all I’ve got at the moment, so I’m savouring it.

  ‘Mr Fisher was arranging the entertainment for my current business dealings with Oman. While he was busy with his research, he came across a link to Mrs Bianchi’s site. Her speciality was not what we were looking for, but Mr Fisher was curious and investigated further.’

  ‘You mean he wanted to look at sexy photographs of lesbian prostitutes. Is he allowed to do that during office hours? Should you not be docking him some pay?’

  He ignores this. I can’t blame him, it wasn’t that funny. I’ll do better next time.

  ‘How is the business with Oman doing, by the way? They’re not going to be very pleased with all this, are they? I’ve heard they’re none too keen on dealing with mentally
ill cockroaches who abuse, kill and then embalm their own daughters.’

  He ignores this, too. My days as a salon wit are plainly over.

  ‘Mr Fisher had never met Viola,’ continues Raleigh, ‘but he had seen photographs of her. Despite the fact that she was displayed under the name of Natasha, he immediately knew it was her. He came and told me. I have to tell you, Mr Beckett, I was quite shocked when I discovered what type of site it was. I had no idea that such things existed. And to think of my Viola offering her services in that manner; it was shocking to me. I suppose I should have expected it. I should have expected anything. She was out of control.’

  ‘Out of your control, you mean.’

  I can feel some blood drip out of my mouth as I speak. I hope my appearance isn’t alarming Anjukka too much. It’s ridiculous, but I don’t like her seeing me like this. Part of me is afraid she might not be interested anymore.

  ‘Yes, Mr Beckett. Out of my control. It may seem strange to someone like you, but I loved my wife and I loved my daughter. When Rosabel took her own life, it almost killed me. I couldn’t bear to be without her.’

  ‘So you embalmed her. Great.’

  ‘Not me, Mr Beckett. It took a lot of work, but I was able to find a gentleman from Austria that was able to perform the task and keep his mouth shut. But I assisted him. In fact, he let me do most of the work under his strict supervision. He was very pleased with me, particularly the care with which I embalmed Rosabel’s arteries. He even made a joke about me going to work for him in Vienna, if I ever needed another job.’

  ‘Well, it’s never too late to acquire new skills.’

  ‘My darling Rosabel shot herself in the head with one of my guns. Luckily it was a small calibre bullet. It entered her head through the temple and came out of the top of her skull. Minimal exit wound, so my gentleman was able to repair the damage with very little effort.’