The Death Messenger

by Mari Hannah

  ‘Lucky for her.’

  ‘I’m fairly sure she’s safe.’

  ‘Are you, Ryan. Really?’ Grace turned to glare at him. ‘What if it was your mother? Would you be so certain then? There may be no suggestion that she saw the offenders, but they’re not to know that, are they?’

  She had a point.

  Ryan switched his gaze to O’Neil. ‘Mrs Fraser didn’t go outside when James left the house, but if we’re right, the offenders know where she lives. Because of that and the fact that Grace is giving me such a hard time, I’ll organize a panic alarm immediately. The one thing we have is money. Let’s spend it.’

  ‘Fine,’ O’Neil said. ‘Give me a reminder in two weeks and we’ll review it. In the meantime, I have high-profile victims in three countries with seemingly no connection whatsoever, a male and a female with film-star looks yet to be identified, and no missing persons reports that match our timeline, such as it is. Oh, I forgot, we have no forensic evidence either. The national database isn’t much good unless you a) know what you’re looking for, b) have a clue when it occurred, or c) you have evidence to compare it with.’ They had zilch. ‘Now can we get this fucking briefing underway?’

  26

  They had less than five minutes to prepare, by which time Ryan had gone walkabout to take a phone call. Grace had a fresh sparkle in her eye, a notebook flipped open on her knee, a signal that she was ready to feed back to the team. O’Neil’s frustration was at boiling point. Using her hands as winders, she gestured for Ryan to end his conversation as soon as he could.

  He hung up, put the phone in his pocket.

  ‘Finally!’ she asked. ‘What have you got for me, Ryan?’

  ‘You said we might get a lead from the shoe at North Shields. Well, it seems we’re in luck. There are very few stockists of that particular brand.’

  ‘Action that please.’ O’Neil was talking to Grace.

  ‘Shall I shove a brush up my arse and sweep the floor while I’m at it?’

  ‘Thank your lucky stars you’re an overseer,’ O’Neil said. ‘Or you’d be doing everything yourself.’

  Winding her neck in, Grace scribbled a note, adding to the growing list of competing actions she intended to put out to the Northumbria incident room. ‘Seeing as we’re already on feet, let’s stick with that a moment. There’s an update on the bloody footprints from James Fraser’s flat: confirmation that two people were there at the time he was killed, shoe sizes six and ten.’

  ‘That’s not much help,’ O’Neil said. ‘Those are both pretty standard.’

  ‘Agreed. The impressions weren’t that great either. They’ve gone off to the UK National Footwear Database. Let’s hope we get a positive result on the tread patterns.’

  ‘Can we agree not to rule out anyone who isn’t a size six or ten?’ Ryan said. ‘I’ve known enquiries stall when detectives made assumptions they later found to be untrue.’ When he was a rookie, his boss had written a load of possible suspects out because they didn’t wear shoes of a particular size, only to find out the offender was wearing shoes two sizes too big.

  O’Neil agreed not to discount anyone because of it.

  Grace eyed the next item on her list. ‘The toxicology report on Trevathan is in. It showed Propranolol beta blocker in his system.’

  Ryan’s interest plummeted. ‘Is that all?’

  ‘You were expecting cocaine?’

  ‘I meant try harder. We’re not impressed so far.’

  ‘Show some patience,’ Grace bit back. ‘Did I say I was finished?’

  ‘Get on with it then.’

  ‘Our lads finally nailed James Fraser’s movements after he left work on Sunday morning.’ She beckoned them across to her computer, where she’d uploaded a local map with the jogging route already picked out. It had approximate start and finish times, pinpointing where he’d been seen by witnesses or captured on CCTV. ‘He left Rake Lane Hospital after his night shift ended at six a.m. He took the A192 Preston Road North, was seen running east into Tynemouth Road here, then south onto Stephenson Street, zigzagging through Saville Street, Bedford Street, eventually dropping down onto Liddell Street, Bell Street and Union Quay.’

  ‘AKA the Fish Quay,’ Ryan said.

  Grace nodded. ‘There are no fewer than six CCTV cameras and two receiver antennae along that stretch.’

  ‘Fraser was clocked,’ Ryan whispered under his breath. ‘He ran past our crime scene?’

  ‘Looks like it. Unfortunately, none of the cameras are trained on the lock-up, so we have some homework still to do. At around ten past eleven, he left his mother’s house, ran up Pier Road past Tynemouth Priory, seen here and here by joggers he knew.’ She was using her forefinger to indicate specific points on the map. ‘Along Sea Banks and on past King Edwards Bay. A webcam caught him on Longsands Beach on his way home to High Spencer Street in Whitley Bay.’

  ‘Good job!’ O’Neil patted her on the shoulder.

  ‘Not my doing,’ she said.

  ‘Well, pass on my thanks to the incident room,’ O’Neil said. ‘And after the briefing, get yourself away. You need a break. You’re no use to me burnt out.’

  Ryan eyed O’Neil as they retook their seats. A class act, she always gave credit where it was due and always valued her staff. She was no pushover when it came to sharing bad news either, dealing with the bereaved with sensitivity and patience. She never backed down if she thought she was right and yet was the first to admit when she was wrong. You knew where you were with her. Integrity, discretion and fair-mindedness were characteristics he valued above all else, traits she shared with his former boss Jack Fenwick.

  ‘I’m not finished yet,’ Grace said. ‘The incident team are cross-referencing CCTV footage to see if we can identify a vehicle that was on the Fish Quay in the early hours and in Whitley Bay between eleven ten and midday, which is the Home Office pathologist’s best guess on time of death. Now for the really good news.’

  ‘She always saves the best ’til last,’ Ryan said.

  O’Neil waited with bated breath.

  ‘I got an email from a probationer whose beat is the Fish Quay,’ Grace continued. ‘He happens to share his duty patch with a young lass called Gloria. She was in a bit of a state and on the batter.’ She looked at O’Neil. ‘In case you are in any doubt – you being a posh girl – that doesn’t mean she works in a fish shop, Eloise. It means she’s on the game.’

  ‘You should do stand-up.’ O’Neil was enjoying the camaraderie.

  ‘So,’ Grace said, ‘when the probationer enquired further, she told him she was picked up in the small hours of Sunday morning by a guy called Stevie – sorry, that’s all I’ve got. Well not quite, I’m coming to that. Anyway, she was taken to a doss-house and dropped back at the Fish Quay around six-thirtyish.’

  Grace paused deliberately, allowing the information to sink in. She could see her colleagues’ minds working. It didn’t take long for them to make the jump.

  ‘She couldn’t be more specific on timing?’ There was hope in O’Neil’s question.

  ‘’Fraid not. She was pretty tanked up.’

  ‘Damn. She might’ve seen Fraser. He’d be arriving about then.’

  ‘My thoughts exactly, but she did see something?’ Grace raised a smile. ‘After she got out of the car, Gloria went for a wander to beg a smoke from one of the other working girls. When she returned seconds later, she noticed that Stevie’s vehicle was still parked where she got out. Suddenly he came tearing out of a lock-up across the road like he’d seen a ghost. He got in his vehicle and drove off at speed. The tosser almost ran her down.’

  ‘He saw the body.’ Ryan wasn’t asking, he was telling. ‘That explains the scuff marks the CSIs found near the entrance.’

  ‘There is another scenario,’ Grace suggested. ‘He walked in on the murder taking place.’

  O’Neil was shaking her head. ‘He wouldn’t be alive to tell the tale.’

  ‘We don’t know that he is.’ Ryan
eyeballed her. ‘They would hardly kill Fraser and let Gloria’s punter go—’

  ‘Unless they couldn’t catch him,’ Grace said in support of O’Neil.

  ‘If they came out after him, Gloria would surely have seen them. They wouldn’t think twice about offing a prostitute, would they?’ Ryan said. ‘Especially if she’d had a skinful.’

  ‘Which suggests her punter saw the body rather than the offence taking place.’

  ‘What do we know about this guy?’

  ‘He’s a regular, a nasty piece of work, up one minute, down the next.’ Grace lifted a hand. ‘No pun intended. Gloria never knows what mood he’ll turn up in but, he normally pays well, especially if he wants extras.’ She grimaced. ‘Don’t ask, Ryan. Eloise won’t want to hear it any more than I did. Anyway, Gloria was skint, so she took a chance and went with him, daft cow, even though a couple of weeks ago he broke her nose.’ Grace took a breath. ‘This is where it gets interesting. In return for her trouble, Gloria nicked his watch. That’s what Saturday night was all about. He wanted his property back. After screwing her brains out, he searched her bag. Fortunately, she didn’t have the watch on her. Unfortunately, he gave her another clout. The bastard says he’ll be there every week until she returns the watch or repays the debt in other ways.’

  ‘Then we’ll be around Saturday night to lock him up,’ Ryan said. ‘Assuming we haven’t already found him.’

  ‘It gets better.’ The detectives exchanged an excited look as Grace peered at the email on her computer screen. ‘The watch has the initials SFW engraved on the rear of the casing with the inscription: 40 Today! One very clever probationer has retained it in evidence, get this, “in case it comes in useful”.’

  ‘Ha! CID training coming up,’ Ryan said. ‘I assume there’s an action out to trace Stevie boy?’

  ‘What did Gloria do after that?’ O’Neil interrupted. ‘Sorry, Ryan, this is important.’

  ‘She sat down on the pavement for a smoke.’ Grace shifted her gaze from O’Neil to Ryan. ‘And yes there’s an action out.’

  O’Neil wanted more. ‘So no one came out of the lock-up after Stevie?’

  ‘No, and we all know why, don’t we?’ Ryan said. ‘The killers had more important things to do in Tynemouth. They had already gone to kill Fraser.’

  His words hung in the air.

  And still he wasn’t done theorizing. ‘They wait outside his mum’s house until he leaves to go home. They kill him, but don’t risk going back to the lock-up to move their first victim in daylight. The place is crawling with folks on a Sunday. People love walking along the Fish Quay, eating chips or calling in for a cuppa at the Old Low Light Café. I do it myself on a regular basis. They’d have to wait for a more appropriate time to get rid of the body. They dump it in the river, make their video and away they go.’

  O’Neil cut him off. ‘They wouldn’t risk making the video at night, Ryan. Their lights would be visible from outside.’

  ‘OK, maybe my timing is out.’ Ryan thought for a moment. ‘The counter on the North Shields DVD was running at 15:45 when I noticed it. What time was sunset on Sunday, fourish?’

  Grace brought up the information. ‘Nine minutes to, to be precise.’

  ‘Guv, even on a good day most people would be away home by then. At this time of year it’s bloody cold down on the Fish Quay when the sun goes down. I reckon they sneaked in unseen, made their video around the time recorded on the DVD, and dumped the victim soon after dark. Do we know if this Stevie character is local?’

  Grace grinned. ‘We even know what type of vehicle he drives. The incident team are doing a PNC trawl of that make and model. It won’t take us long to trace this bloke.’ Ryan and Grace high-fived. It was the best news they’d heard all day.

  27

  For once Grace did as she was asked without a fight and left straight after the briefing to go back to her hotel. It was getting on for eight thirty when Ryan let her out and watched her exit the lift on the ground floor. He felt guilty for having intruded on her first months of married life and suspected that O’Neil did too. She wouldn’t have asked had she not been under pressure to prove her worth. She was desperate to engage the right calibre of help. Grace and Newman happened to fit the bill. The spook still hadn’t surfaced. Ryan took that as a positive sign.

  ‘She’s good, isn’t she,’ O’Neil said when he walked into the room.

  ‘The best there is.’

  ‘You rate her. That’s nice.’

  ‘Not nice, she earned it. There’s nothing she doesn’t know about running a major incident room. She might be argumentative from time to time, but she’s the salt of the earth. Grace would do anything – and I do mean anything – to protect those she cares about.’ He sat down under O’Neil’s scrutiny. There was a shot of whisky on the arm of his chair and one already half-empty in her hand, a half-bottle on the desk behind her. Lifting his glass, he sniffed the amber liquid. ‘You’ll be a friend for life for taking her on. It’ll give her purpose.’

  ‘She’s newly married! Isn’t that purpose enough?’

  ‘You tell me, I’ve never been married.’

  ‘Me either.’

  There it was again, that same flash of sadness Ryan had seen on O’Neil’s face yesterday. There were occasions when she looked like a torn soul. She hid it well, but now and again he caught a glimpse of the edge of an emotion he couldn’t easily identify.

  Ford wasn’t the only one keeping secrets.

  Ryan suspected that Eloise had been deeply hurt in the not too distant past. He’d been there too. He hadn’t noticed her pain at first but, since he’d got to know her better, he’d recognized the signs. Whatever the story behind it – and there would be one – it was making her very unhappy.

  ‘Ever considered what you might do after you’ve done your time?’ he asked.

  ‘You make it sound like a life sentence.’

  He chuckled. ‘Feels like it sometimes.’

  ‘No, I’ve not given it a thought.’

  ‘Well give it some now,’ he encouraged her. ‘What’ll it be: sun, sea and sangria, or will you stick around in the cold, windy north? Personally, I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than live abroad.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Right now I could handle the Bahamas for a month or two.’ Kicking off her heels, O’Neil lifted her right leg and wiggled her toes, a dreamy expression on her face. ‘I love the feeling of sand beneath my feet, the sun on my back, the sound of crashing waves. Sailing would be good. Grace and Frank appear healthy on it, don’t they? Is small talk now your specialist subject?’

  Ryan bridled, taken aback by the question. ‘Just making conversation, guv.’

  She apologized, an awkward moment.

  He stood up, walked to the window and stood by the Christmas tree. He could never tire of the view from their base: the iconic bridges, the Sage, the River Tyne shimmering in the moonlight, like a rippling silver ribbon snaking its way to the North Sea. More often than not, the sight would calm him. This time, it didn’t help.

  What in God’s name had made her act that way?

  Ryan knew very little about her, only where she lived, though he’d never been invited round. Fair enough. Lots of coppers defended their personal space. In that respect, they were no different, except she’d turned up uninvited at his tiny cottage on the coast when he went into meltdown after Jack’s death. She adored the sea view almost as much as he did.

  He downed his whisky in one slug.

  When he turned to face her, she stared at him. Inscrutable. Intense. As if a chasm had opened up between them. A minute ago they were having a perfectly amiable conversation. Now it was as if a switch had been flicked, all the warmth had gone out of her. If he had to put a word to it, he’d have described her as numb. He was tempted to ask her what had changed. They had built a rapport and had some fun. Had she backed off because they were now formally linked whereas before they were not? It was the only plausible explanation. Maybe she couldn�
��t be his guv’nor and a close friend and confidante.

  That must be it . . .

  Shame.

  ‘Am I boring you?’ she said.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘You’re someplace else, DS Ryan. I’m not used to being ignored when I’m sharing a bottle of expensive Scotch. I thought we were off duty—’

  ‘I thought we were on first-name terms.’ He hadn’t meant to sound so pissed off.

  ‘Only when the others are here and we’re pretending to like each other.’

  He couldn’t work out if she was being serious or having a laugh. ‘And when they’re not?’

  ‘You can call me whatever you like.’ She was teasing him, trying to backpedal on her cutting remark. It had altered the dynamic between them and she knew it. Lifting her glass, she threw him a wide smile. ‘Join me in a top-up?’

  ‘I’m good, thanks.’

  She poured herself another and left the room.

  Newman hadn’t been waiting long when Tomkinson arrived – same drill, different park bench. The brief he’d been given hadn’t taken long to process. Both men sat for a while without speaking.

  ‘Are you concerned with the missing briefcase?’ Newman asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You have it?’

  ‘Five have it.’ It was getting late. Tomkinson blew on his hands and rubbed them together, telling Newman that he’d started the alarms on all grey Mercedes at Thames House to see who turned up to switch them off.

  ‘Good plan.’

  ‘Works every time. Who wants a flat battery?’

  ‘Who wants to know they’ve been made by a geriatric?’

  ‘The simple methods are the best.’

  Newman almost chuckled. ‘Name?’

  ‘Hill, Judith.’ Tomkinson knew the name alone wouldn’t cut it.