Dead if You Don't

by Peter James

  A moment later, he cried out in pain as the tape across his eyes was ripped off, and he lay blinking against the bright light of a torch. He cried out again as the tape over his mouth was also ripped off, forcefully.

  ‘Aleksander!’ he shouted. ‘Where is Aleksander?’

  There was no response.

  ‘I’m desperate for a pee! Please! I have to pee!’

  Again, no response.

  ‘I’m going to piss my pants. Please.’

  ‘So, piss in them,’ a voice said in heavily accented English.

  A bottle of water was jammed between his lips.

  He took a sip and spluttered as he choked. One of the men helped him sit up a little. The bottle was replaced by a chocolate bar and crammed into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed. As soon as he had finished he was pushed, roughly, back down, a hand pinning him by the neck.

  He shook in fear. Were they going to kill him? But they wouldn’t have given him a drink and food if they were going to do that, would they?

  Was this Aleksander’s idea of a joke?

  Fresh tape was pressed in place over his mouth and pulled tight against his cheeks. He saw the glint of a knife blade. Something tugged hard on his right ear and he let out a muffled scream as he felt a sudden searing pain in it. He saw a bandage raised in the air, then felt it taped over his burning ear. He felt something warm trickle down his neck.

  Then he was lifted up again. Each of his captors taking an arm, he was carried down steps and into water that came up to his waist. The two men cursed as they splashed through it and down into what seemed like an underground chamber. Ahead was an ancient, partly submerged cannon, water slopping over its wooden plinth. They carried on, continuing through the water for some yards, towards it, the roar of the sea growing louder. Then he was hoisted up, his legs were grabbed and pushed backwards, and as he was lowered again his feet touched something solid and rested on it.

  ‘Look up,’ a voice said, shining the torch beam.

  Mungo looked. And saw a metal hoop in the arched brick ceiling, high above him. From it was suspended a length of wire, ending in a noose.

  ‘Now look down,’ he was commanded.

  He did what he was told, his terror increasing as he realized what was happening. His feet were on a block of concrete about two feet high and a little over one foot wide, that was under water. Then his arms, already bound with cord behind his back, were tugged further backwards, as he heard the clanking of a chain.

  ‘You be OK,’ one man said. ‘Tide going out. Is good. When tide come back in, is not so good.’ He laughed and so did his companion.

  Strong hands on Mungo’s shoulders suddenly forced him down, and he sat on the narrow plinth of the cannon, water lapping over his waist. Then, despite his feeble attempt to resist, the noose was pulled down over his head and tightened round his neck. As he moved his head, he felt it sharp against his skin.

  ‘Like razor wire. You move, you die,’ one of the men said.

  The other held up a phone and took a flash photograph. Then they began walking, splashing, away.

  ‘Don’t leave me, please don’t leave me,’ Mungo tried pleading. But it just came out as a series of muffled grunts. ‘I can’t move my arms. Please.’

  He heard more laughter.

  Footsteps receding, the bobbing beam of the torch fading away.

  Mungo realized if he slipped off the plinth he would either hang or garrotte himself.

  He sobbed in terror. He wanted his mother. His father. Aleksander.

  Please help me.

  63

  Sunday 13 August

  08.00–09.00

  At a few minutes before 8.30 a.m., Roy Grace stood in the shower adjoining the Intel suite, then shaved and put on the fresh boxers and shirt he always kept in the office for such situations, swallowed a tepid coffee and grabbed a muffin from a tray someone had brought in.

  He ate it while he strode across the Police HQ campus, in a strong, warm breeze. After a long night and just two hours of sleep he was feeling fractious and in a combative mood, ready for whatever crap Cassian Pewe might throw at him.

  As he walked down the steep hill, towards the rear of the Queen Anne house where the brass had their offices, he saw a van emblazoned with the name VALETPRO. A man was busy polishing an immaculate, old-model convertible Jaguar XJS.

  ‘Nice shine!’ Grace said.

  ‘Thanks, black’s a difficult one.’ The man fished out a card and a product sampler. ‘If you need your car doing anytime, mate, we’re in the area.’

  ‘Whose car is this, by the way?’

  ‘Mr Pewe’s.’

  ‘Ah, right. That figures.’ He went into the building.

  The Assistant Chief Constable’s assistant showed him in to the almost absurdly grand office, with its magnificent view out across Lewes and the South Downs. The one thing that put a smile on Grace’s face was the knowledge that with space on the HQ campus getting tighter and tighter, partly thanks to the rehousing of the East Sussex Fire and Rescue team here, soon Pewe might be having to share this with the other top brass.

  As usual, the ACC sat behind his huge, neat desk in his crisp white shirt bearing the epaulettes with the gold ACC crescent, his fair hair, like the rest of him, immaculate. Without rising, he said in his voice that sounded snide even on the rare occasions when he was being pleasant, ‘Good morning, Roy, tea or coffee?’

  ‘Coffee, please, as strong as possible.’

  Pewe barked a command into his intercom, then looked at him, leaving him standing. ‘Long night?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘You are the Head of Major Crime for this county, Roy. In the last twenty-four hours, we’ve had a bomb threat at the Amex – which you responded to like a total madman, breaking every police regulation we have for dealing with such situations. A teenager kidnapped. Dismembered human remains found at Shoreham Harbour – which are still in the process of being recovered – and now the sudden death in hospital of the digger operator who found them. And on top of that a young woman dead at Gatwick Airport. What on earth is happening? Has the Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team totally lost the plot?’

  ‘Hang on a minute, you can hardly hold me and my team personally responsible for all these incidents.’ Grace continued, facetiously, ‘I haven’t killed or dismembered anyone, to the best of my knowledge,’ although he thought at this very moment he would like to. More calmly than he felt, and still uninvited to sit, he gave an account of all that he was aware of.

  Pewe listened pensively, making the occasional note with a fountain pen. When he had finished, the ACC looked down at his notes, then back up at him.

  ‘You are aware, are you not, of the current delicate situation with the Albanian community in our city? Of all the hard work that Inspector Boniface and PC Denero are putting in, trying to build bridges with them?’

  ‘Very aware, sir.’

  ‘The optics aren’t good. So, who’s driving the bus?’

  ‘Bus, sir?’

  Pewe shook his head, looking angry. ‘What you need to understand, Roy, is that we need to integrate multiple initiatives into a systems-level approach, OK?’

  Grace stared at him blankly. He had no idea what his boss was talking about. The ACC had recently attended a management course at the police training college. He seemed to have taken away from it a load of gobbledygook, in Grace’s view, and not much else. With each recent meeting with him, Pewe seemed to be growing increasingly incoherent.

  ‘Have you considered a thought shower, Roy?’

  ‘A thought shower?’

  Pewe banged his fist on his desk. ‘Do I need to spell everything out? Are you in the twenty-first century or the Middle Ages? A thought shower. Getting your whole team together and inviting their blue-sky views.’

  ‘I do that at every briefing, actually, and always have. I just don’t call it that name.’

  ‘Oh, so what do you call it?’

  ‘Just a briefing
, sir,’ Grace replied, calmly.

  ‘Just a briefing?’ Pewe echoed. ‘Are you sure it’s not all getting lost in the shuffle? I’m worried that you’re not using your resources to the full, that you’re trying to solve all this on your own. You do understand the aggregation of marginal gains, don’t you, Roy?’

  Pewe’s PA brought in his coffee. Grace took the cup, gratefully, blew on it and sipped. ‘I’m not entirely sure I do.’

  ‘It’s simple, Roy. There is no “I” in the word “team”.’

  But there is one in obnoxious bastard, thought Grace, privately.

  ‘You think I’m a bit of a shit, don’t you, Roy?’

  Grace stayed silent.

  ‘I just like to know where you and I stand. You see, a friend will always ultimately betray you, but an enemy stays the same.’

  ‘Meaning exactly what, sir?’

  ‘No pretence between us. You and I are both in the same war against criminals. I don’t like you and you don’t like me. I’m fine with that, it cuts out the bullshit and saves time. Two years ago, you got me transferred, and I’ve never forgotten that. You did something incredibly stupid yesterday, with that bomb. You broke all the rules about procedure and you know it. I’m considering having you suspended for risking your life, needlessly, and endangering the lives of others.’

  ‘I took a calculated risk, sir, and I’d be happy to go through my reasons. At least on this occasion I did have valid reasons.’

  ‘And there are other occasions when you didn’t?’ Pewe asked.

  ‘Perhaps you’ve forgotten, sir, eighteen months ago you were in a car that went over the edge of Beachy Head, with a sheer 500-foot drop beneath you. The car was hanging by a thread. I put my life in danger by climbing over the edge and helping to pull you out. If I hadn’t, you would be dead. So, it was OK to put my life on the line to save you, but not OK to put it on the line to save, potentially, hundreds of lives in the Amex? Is that going to look good – sir?’

  For once, Pewe had no response.

  64

  Sunday 13 August

  08.00–09.00

  Kipp Brown had no response, either. He sat at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, in a loose shirt, jeans and loafers, unshaven, cradling a mug of coffee and staring at the wall. Stacey was still in her dressing gown, her face pale, with no make-up.

  ‘You are not serious?’ Stacey said.

  He shrugged, set down the mug and dug, gloomily and with no appetite, into a bowl of muesli, aware he needed to eat something to keep up his strength after a near-sleepless night.

  ‘Kipp, you are not, seriously, going to play hardball with whoever’s taken him, over our son’s life? Please don’t say you are going to do that – you’re not, are you?’ Her eyes were red from crying.

  He stood up and put an arm tenderly round her. She didn’t shrug it off. ‘I’m not playing hardball, Stace, honestly. I will do anything I can to get Mungo back safely, but I just don’t have that kind of money – not at the moment – I don’t have it.’

  ‘What do you mean? It’s all gone on the gaming tables and horses?’

  ‘I’m just in a bad cash-flow situation – temporarily – negative equity.’

  ‘Negative equity – what’s that in plain English? What do you mean, negative equity?’

  He took a deep breath. ‘I’m flat broke, Stace. Skint. I’ve barely enough money to cover next month’s mortgage on this house. And Mungo’s school fees. I haven’t got the sort of money they’re asking for.’

  ‘You are not serious?’

  ‘I wish to hell I wasn’t, but I am.’

  ‘But you’ve got millions in your discretionary client account, you always have, you told me you keep a percentage of all your clients’ portfolios liquid, waiting for investment opportunities.’

  ‘I can’t touch that money.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s not mine, it belongs to my clients.’

  ‘How much do you have there?’

  ‘Around fifteen million at the moment.’

  ‘Fifteen million?’

  ‘About that.’

  ‘Bloody hell! Kipp, two and a half million is peanuts, they wouldn’t notice it missing. You just tell them you invested it and the market moved the wrong way, or whatever bullshit speak you use.’

  ‘Sure, Stace. You’ll come and visit me in prison, will you?’

  ‘You know how to move money around, for God’s sake, you do it all the time for your clients!’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t steal it.’

  ‘It’s not stealing, it would just be borrowing, surely?’

  ‘Stace, I cannot take money from my client account. You want me to risk being banged away for a decade for embezzlement and my career over?’

  ‘So, you’d rather Mungo died?’

  He stared at the wall again. At the antique Welsh dresser. At the framed picture of Mungo with his sister. Mungo was seven then, wearing a red school cap, a neat grey blazer and shorts, pulling an impish face at the camera.

  Stacey said, tenderly, ‘Darling, do you remember soon after he was born? You came to the ward and held him in your arms, and looked down at him, and you said how much you loved him. That you would take a bullet for him?’

  He nodded, bleakly.

  ‘But not any more? You wouldn’t take a bullet now? What’s changed?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You love him as much as you did that day?’

  ‘More.’

  ‘But not enough to take a bullet for him now?’

  He stared down at his fingers. At his nails, which he normally kept immaculate, noticing several of them were bitten down to the quick. ‘Shit, Stace. Oh shit. Yes. Yes, of course I would.’

  She kissed him. ‘I love you.’

  It was the first time in a very long time he had heard those words.

  ‘I love you, too,’ he replied.

  And meant it.

  65

  Sunday 13 August

  09.00–10.00

  Ordinarily on a Sunday, the Brighton and Hove City Mortuary would be as silent as – the grave, Cleo Morey thought. But at 9.30 a.m. today it was a hive of activity. Since its expansion, the postmortem room consisted of two separate spaces divided by an arch, with a separate isolation room, where Florentina Shima had lain overnight.

  Inside the isolation room now, Cleo stood with her assistant, Darren Wallace, dressed like everyone present in white boots, green scrubs, gloves, a surgical cloth hat and gauze mask. Crime Scene Photographer James Gartrell was in the room as well, meticulously videoing every stage of the postmortem being carried out by the Home Office pathologist. Outside the door stood Coroner’s Officer Michelle Websdale and DI Nigel ‘Joey’ Roissetter, from Surrey, who had been appointed the SIO on this suspicious death.

  When this PM was finished, another Home Office postmortem, on the human remains recovered from the crusher site, would be carried out. But at the moment, Cleo had been told, a search was continuing there for further body parts, especially for the head and other limbs which were currently absent.

  On a metal tray above Florentina Shima’s body, Theobald was carefully dissecting her brain. Her sternum had been removed and placed across her pubis. Her breasts and stomach, either side of the incision down her midriff, were clamped back, exposing her ribcage and intestines coiled beneath. On the wall in front was a chart for listing the weights of the brain, lungs, heart, liver, kidneys and spleen of each cadaver examined here.

  Over the course of the next hour her brain was weighed, then placed in a white plastic bag, ready to be put inside her ribcage when Theobald was finished, so that when her body was finally released to an undertaker, she would be buried or cremated with all her organs.

  Some while later, after dissecting her heart, lungs, liver and kidneys, occasionally bagging tiny samples for laboratory analysis, and taking blood, urine and vitreous samples for toxicology testing, he moved on to her intestines. After the first incision, Th
eobald made a rare comment.

  ‘Oh dear!’

  Cleo moved closer, and watched him pull out, to her horror, something with the size and appearance of a chipolata sausage. He made a wider incision, which revealed more of the same. One was split open, spilling out a white powder, much of which had evidently been absorbed into the dead young woman’s body.

  Condoms. Each containing a package of a drug. By the time Theobald had finished, Cleo had counted forty-nine. The Exhibits Officer present logged and secured them.

  It appeared the initial suspicions had been correct, and that poor Florentina Shima was a drugs mule. Duped by someone totally unscrupulous into swallowing what was probably hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth, street value, of a drug – heroin or some variety of cocaine, Cleo judged from the colour. The one that had burst had, it would appear, given her a massive and fatal overdose.

  Cleo had seen a similar thing, a couple of times before. Doing this job, she saw so much. She had to comfort so many people whose loved ones had been brought in here. Husbands, mothers, fathers, son, daughters, partners who had gone out to work in the morning and died in a car crash. Or had suddenly dropped dead from an aneurism. Or who had been stabbed to death in a pub fight. The last time a body had affected her so much was the Christmas before last. A sixteen-year-old had gone out on his moped to get a pizza for himself and his girlfriend, four days before Christmas. A van had made a sudden U-turn in front of him. She kept looking at him and thinking about what a terrible time this Christmas would be for his girlfriend and family. How crap death so often was for people.

  She felt that now, staring down at this beautiful teenager who just the day before had had her whole life in front of her. The victim of some unscrupulous shitbag who had somehow conned her into this, with assurances of a large reward, perhaps a new life.

  Who are you? What made you do this? How desperate were you to take this risk? What is your story?

  She turned away and hurried back to her office to get a tissue.