Time of Death

by James Craig

  ‘Interesting,’ said Carlyle, impressed.

  ‘Wikipedia is a great thing.’ Joe shrugged. ‘We’ve always been tight with the Chileans, apparently. They’ve even had people fighting in Iraq.’

  ‘Jesus!’ Carlyle shook his head. ‘What’s it to them?’

  ‘Dunno. Anyway, William became a Catholic priest in Valparaíso, a coastal town north of Santiago. He disappeared during the 1973 military coup, when the army overthrew the government.’

  ‘That’s what usually happens in a military coup,’ Carlyle deadpanned.

  Joe did not rise to the bait. ‘The family,’ he continued, ‘were eventually told that William Pettigrew was dead, but no body has ever been found.’

  ‘Again, not that uncommon.’

  ‘Agatha Mills, however, spent the last thirty-five years going back and forth between London and Chile, trying to find out what precisely happened to her brother and who killed him. She never lost hope of bringing her brother’s killers to justice.’

  Carlyle sighed. ‘Good luck on that one.’

  ‘Well,’ said Joe, ‘you have to give the old girl some credit. She kept at it for decades, despite a history of threats from military types.’

  ‘Death threats?’ Carlyle perked up slightly.

  ‘Yeah . . . at least, according to some of the press reports. Mainly low-level stuff, like having her laptop nicked or her car tyres slashed. But I read one story about her getting an envelope in the post with a couple of bullets in it.’

  ‘The press are hardly reliable,’ Carlyle snorted. ‘I’m not going to start chasing my tail on the basis of a few clippings.’

  ‘No,’ Joe said, ‘but still.’

  The inspector grunted.

  ‘You were the one who told me to check it out.’

  ‘Okay,’ Carlyle sniffed, ‘so she pissed off some Chileans pining for the good old days under that general.’ He groped for the name. ‘Maggie Thatcher’s mate.’

  ‘Pinochet.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Carlyle nodded, ‘General Pinochet.’

  ‘I think he was arrested in London a few years ago,’ Joe said, ‘while enjoying our Great British hospitality.’

  Carlyle raised an eyebrow. ‘And?’

  ‘And nothing. Storm in a teacup and then he went home.’

  ‘Got away with it all,’ Carlyle mused.

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘They always do.’

  ‘To the victors the spoils.’

  ‘Yes, indeed, Joseph.’ Carlyle spent a moment contemplating life’s endless unfairness. ‘Isn’t he dead now?’

  ‘Pinochet?’ Joe made a face. ‘No idea.’

  ‘Either way,’ Carlyle mused, maybe just a little more interested now, ‘it’s all a long, long time ago. Why would anyone – apart from Agatha Mills, the loyal sister – still care about all this stuff now?’

  ‘Because Chile has got a new President,’ said Joe. ‘A socialist – and a woman.’

  ‘Interesting combination,’ said Carlyle, still not seeing the relevance.

  ‘She was a torture victim herself,’ Joe explained. ‘She ordered a fresh investigation into cases like William Pettigrew’s.’

  ‘Okay . . .’

  ‘The Pettigrew case review was completed last year. It concluded that he was almost certainly tortured and then shot dead aboard a navy ship called,’ he flicked through the papers again, ‘the White Lady.’

  ‘What did they do to him?’

  ‘The usual stuff, I suppose,’ said Joe. ‘Electric shocks to the gonads, that sort of thing.’

  ‘We could do with some of that downstairs,’ Carlyle grinned.

  ‘Different world back then.’

  ‘Which you would know all about, I suppose,’ Carlyle teased, ‘having been what, about one year old at the time.’

  ‘I bet you remember it well, though,’ Joe said cheekily.

  ‘Fuck off!’ Carlyle laughed. ‘I’m not that old.’

  ‘You just look it.’

  ‘That’s a consequence of working with you, sunshine.’ He thought back to 1973 – what did he remember? Not a lot. Certainly not what had been going on in a small country on the other side of the world.

  ‘Anyway,’ Joe continued, ‘the investigating judge ordered the arrest of a couple of navy officers last year.’

  ‘Names?’

  ‘Dunno. But they are due to face trial for the murder of William Pettigrew in the autumn.’

  ‘After all this time?’

  ‘There are a couple of witnesses who say that they’re now prepared to testify.’

  ‘Okay, the family is finally going to have its day in court, so why bother bumping off Agatha Mills? It’s not like she was there as a witness,’ he looked at Joe, ‘was she?’

  ‘No, not as far as I know.’

  ‘So she can’t really testify. At least not to anything important.’

  ‘She has been one of the driving forces behind this case getting to court, though.’ Joe shrugged. ‘Maybe the people who did it are still out there. Maybe they want to stop her; maybe they want to intimidate the other witnesses. Could be various things.’

  They. Whenever you were dealing with them, you knew you were in trouble.

  ‘Maybe.’ Carlyle leaned back in his chair, placing his hands on his head. ‘Maybe, maybe, maybe. An octogenarian fascist plot? It’s all very thin.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So ultimately where does this little history lesson get us? Mrs Mills née Pettigrew had an interesting backstory.’

  Joe nodded.

  ‘A person or persons unknown, of a right-wing Chilean persuasion have a – what? Let’s say a possible—’

  ‘Theoretical,’ the sergeant interjected.

  ‘A theoretical motive for bumping her off. But do we have any evidence that anyone other than her old man was inside that flat of theirs the night she died?’

  ‘No,’ Joe replied.

  ‘Do we have anyone reporting the sight of any foreign-looking gents acting suspiciously? Maybe mumbling a few words of Spanish? Doing the goose-step and clasping a photo of El General to their bosom?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Anything on the CCTV?’

  ‘No. The cameras at Ridgemount Mansions were there just for show,’ Joe informed him. ‘They aren’t actually hooked up to any recording equipment. That would have added too much to the service charge, apparently.’

  ‘What about cameras in the street itself? Thousands of bloody tourists walk along that street every day. Some of them must get mugged. And someone must film it.’

  Joe shrugged. ‘No one’s looked at those, as far as I know. Do you want us to get on it?’

  Carlyle thought about it for a moment then said, ‘Nah. It would take too long. Got anything else?’

  ‘No.’ Joe stuck the documents back in the folder and placed it carefully on Carlyle’s desk.

  ‘Right, then,’ said Carlyle, ‘let’s remember rule number one of this job. In the first instance, always stick with the blindingly obvious.’ Sitting up straight, he turned towards his desk, getting ready to do battle with the Met’s appalling IT system.

  It was time to type up his report.

  ‘Henry Mills has been charged. Justice will now take its course. In the meantime, my little Sancho Panza, we move on to the next thing.’

  A look of bemusement passed across Joe’s face. ‘Eh?’

  In the event, Carlyle managed only a couple of paragraphs of the report before he got bored and turned his attention to the latest football gossip on the BBC’s web pages. After that, he decided that the paperwork could wait for twenty-four hours, whereas the gym could not. Intending to come in early to get it done, he promised himself that the necessary documentation would be on Commander Carole Simpson’s desk before lunchtime.

  On his way out of the station, he spied the colleague in charge of the Jake Hagger investigation. Detective Inspector Oliver Cutler was a twelve-year veteran on the Force who had been stationed at C
haring Cross since the beginning of the year. Jacket on, heading towards the lift with a determined stride, he looked as if he was also leaving for the night. Carlyle quickened his step and caught up with him. ‘Cutler!’

  Cutler half-turned, but didn’t stop walking. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Carlyle.’

  ‘I know.’

  Carlyle finally caught up with his man. Cutler pressed the lift button, saying nothing further.

  ‘It’s about Jake Hagger.’

  ‘What’s it to you, then?’ Cutler asked defensively, keeping his eyes on the lift doors.

  Carlyle had never really given Cutler the once-over before. A small bloke, he looked tired and distracted: a man who in the short term was being kept from the pint of London Pride that was waiting for him on the bar round the corner in the Sherlock Holmes pub and in the long term was winding down towards the earliest possible retirement on the best possible pension. Not the kind of guy you’d want if you needed to get a result, Carlyle thought sourly.

  Cutler pushed the button again, hoping that the lift would save him from this conversation.

  ‘I know the mother,’ Carlyle said.

  A knowing look washed over Cutler’s face. ‘Giving her one, then?’

  ‘The father claimed he was going to sell the kid,’ Carlyle said evenly, ignoring the jibe.

  Cutler shrugged. ‘Empty words.’

  Carlyle took a position by the lift doors. ‘I don’t think so. Hagger wouldn’t have kept Jake for this long. He couldn’t look after a kid for ten minutes.’

  ‘Maybe they left the country.’

  ‘Neither of them had a passport.’

  ‘It can still be done.’

  ‘Hagger’s just a local scumbag, not an international jet-setting scumbag. Camden High Street is about as far as he usually travels.’

  Cutler scratched his nose absent-mindedly. ‘Well, if he did sell him, then it’s game over. I doubt it though – I don’t suppose that he knows many couples who are desperate to adopt.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then some pervert will probably already have had their fun with the poor little bastard,’ Cutler said without any obvious feeling. ‘In that case, the most likely scenario is that the body’s lying at the bottom of the West Reservoir.’

  Carlyle nodded. More than once over the years he had fished bits of victims out of the decommissioned reservoir. A couple of miles away, in Stoke Newington, the reservoir was now used as a water sports centre. Carlyle had never seen its attraction; apart from anything else, the ‘tranquil’ setting attracted criminals and weirdos of various persuasions. It was widely assumed that there would be plenty more bodies and body parts discovered if the place was ever drained.

  ‘There are so many of these cases,’ Cutler continued, ‘that people don’t care any more. And even if they did, the public – as you know only too well – is no fucking use whatsoever. No one ever pays any attention to what’s going on around them.’

  ‘So, case closed?’ Carlyle asked.

  Cutler gazed at a spot beyond Carlyle’s left shoulder. ‘No, but it’s as good as – unless you have anything for me?’

  ‘No, but I told Sam Laidlaw that I’d ask around. If anything comes up, I’ll let you know.’

  ‘I knew it,’ Cutler smiled. Finally, the lift arrived and he stepped inside. ‘Give her one for me.’ Rocking back on his heels, the inspector waited for the doors to close. Then, letting out a deep breath, he headed for the stairs.

  THIRTEEN

  Handcuffed, but still wearing his own clothes, Henry Mills moved into the courtyard in the middle of Charing Cross police station, flanked by two security guards. Behind him came two other prisoners, a nineteen-year-old glue-sniffing mugger and a fifty-two-year-old petty thief. The trio were being transported across London to Wormwood Scrubs, the Victorian prison, where they would await their respective trials at Her Majesty’s Pleasure.

  It was barely eight in the morning and a sharp chill lingered in the shade of the courtyard. Mills shivered, but breathed in deeply. It was the first time in almost two days that he’d enjoyed some fresh air, and he appreciated it. His night in the cells below his feet had been extremely unpleasant, the liberally applied disinfectant failing to cover the smell of innumerable bodily evacuations. He had spent the last twelve hours breathing through his mouth and failing to get any sleep. Equally, he hadn’t been able to wash or shave in the last couple of days. Worst of all, he hadn’t been able to brush his teeth, and his mouth felt as if a small animal had died in it.

  Edging slowly forward with dainty baby steps, he tried to focus on nothing other than the small patch of tarmac immediately in front of his feet.

  ‘Hold it!’ One of the guards, an emaciated skinhead called Jeremy, with a tattoo of an angel on the back of his neck, held up a hand.

  The other guard stepped out from behind the prisoners and gazed sullenly at the assembled police vehicles in front of them. ‘Where’s the van?’ He turned to a mechanic who was working under the hood of a Toyota Prius hybrid. ‘Mate,’ he asked, nodding at his trio of prisoners, ‘where’s the transport for our friends here?’

  The mechanic stood up and twiddled a spanner aimlessly. ‘Huh?’

  ‘The van for the Scrubs?’

  ‘Oh yeah, it’s outside.’ The mechanic pointed with his spanner at the closed metal gates covering the entrance. ‘They couldn’t get it in. Some genius parked in front of the doors. We’re waiting for them to get towed.’

  The guards looked at each other.

  Mills looked at the guards. His heart sank at the prospect of being sent back inside.

  One of the other prisoners, the glue-sniffer, farted loudly and at length, eliciting a peal of hoarse laughter from the thief.

  ‘I’ll take them out one at a time,’ Jeremy decided, after a while. ‘You wait here with the others.’

  ‘Okay,’ the other guard nodded. ‘My shift finishes at half-nine, so let’s get on with it.’

  Jeremy put a gentle hand on Mills’s shoulder. ‘Come on, sunshine,’ he said, gesturing towards a side door, right next to the main gates. ‘Over there.’

  Less than a minute later, Henry Mills was out on the street and, fleetingly, back in the real world that he’d imagined he’d left behind for good. Feeling the sun on his face, he squinted as he got his bearings. A couple of people walking by, on their way to work, stepped around him without a second glance. A taxi roared past. Life outside was going on as normal.

  Towering over the other cars parked on Chandos Place, the Dennis high-security prison van was about ten yards down the road. After aiming a half-hearted kick at the Skoda Yeti illegally parked in front of the police garage, Jeremy walked Mills towards the back of the prison van, nodding at the driver as he passed. Mills waited patiently on the pavement while the guard stepped up on to the footplate to open the back door.

  The door would not budge.

  ‘Christ!’ Jumping back down from the footplate, Jeremy pushed past his prisoner and jogged back to the front of the van. ‘It’s locked,’ he shouted at the driver. ‘Open it up!’

  Engine revving, a blue flower-delivery van turned into the street, heading towards them. Mills watched the driver talking animatedly into his mobile phone while steering with one hand. Isn’t there a law against that? he wondered. Either way, the driver was going far too fast. As he accelerated down the street, a woman pedestrian scuttled for cover. Ignoring the screeching of brakes and the blaring horn, Henry Mills smiled. He looked up at the clear blue sky and felt himself floating away. Blinking away his tears, he heard a second van racing down the street towards him. He knew that this was his moment. ‘I’m coming, Agatha,’ he mumbled to himself, as he stepped into the middle of the road and closed his eyes.

  FOURTEEN

  September 1973

  During the first few days on board the White Lady, William Pettigrew’s captors operated a rigorous sleep-deprivation programme. He was kept awake with regular soakings from the water jets a
nd random beatings. A head-count was taken every hour. In case anyone ever took a chance to doze off in their hammock, a sailor known as the ‘Bird of Torture’ would bang on the metal doors to further keep sleep away. They were fed once a day – water and a thin porridge. A few shovelled it in, most picked disinterestedly; there was always plenty left over for the seagulls.

  Every so often, a group of sailors would appear and three or four people would be taken away for interrogation in the cabins which had been turned into torture chambers on the decks below. It was impossible to tune out the yelling and screaming that came up through the floor as the electric shocks were applied. The sessions could last twenty minutes or they could last ten hours. Afterwards, some of the victims came back, others didn’t.

  The first time he was tortured, Pettigrew shat himself almost before the cattle prod tickled his balls. His interrogators laughed and then made him eat it. They laughed even more when he immediately vomited the shit back up. They told him to eat it again. He tried, but this time he could not even manage to get it into his mouth. After some curses and some punches, they hosed him down.

  More electric shocks, this time to the anus. He started shitting blood, bright crimson splashes on the floor rapidly darkening in the heat. That caused more hilarity. They hosed him down again. By now he welcomed the water jet. If nothing else, he could be clean.

  The questioning was random and perfunctory. This was not sophisticated intelligence-gathering, and they were not interested in any answers. They had a lot of people to get through and could only waste so much time on each individual. No one cared about anything he had to say. No one recorded anything. No one took any notes. He was like a fly having its wings pulled off by a bunch of sadistic schoolboys.

  It was all a charade. Emotionally, Pettigrew had closed down. He could feel the pain, but he didn’t have any thoughts about it. There was nothing he could say that could make him useful to these people, nothing to hang on to that could fire a determination inside him to live. It wasn’t a question of trying to survive. It was just a question of seeing it through.