by Peter James
Just one thing stopped him.
All those damned blue boxes and green crates on the floor. He needed to have everything in order for the Cold Case Team on Monday, the first official working day of the New Year. Which meant several hours of work still ahead of him.
So instead he sent Cleo a text with a row of kisses.
For a time, this past year, he had managed to delegate all these cold cases to a colleague. But that hadn’t worked out and now he had inherited them all back. Five unsolved major crimes out of a total number of twenty-five to be reinvestigated. Where the hell did he begin?
The words of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland came into his head suddenly: ‘Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.’
So he began at the beginning. Just five minutes, he thought, then he would quit for the year and head home to Cleo. As if echoing his thoughts, his phone pinged with an incoming text. It was an even longer row of kisses.
Smiling, he opened the first file and looked at the activity report. Every six months the DNA labs they used would run checks on the DNA from their cold-case victims. You just never knew. And there had been several offenders who must have long thought they had got away with their crimes but who had successfully been brought to trial and were now in prison because of advances in DNA extraction and matching techniques.
The second file was a case that always touched Roy Grace deeply. Young Tommy Lytle. Twenty-seven years ago, at the age of eleven, Tommy had set out from school on a February afternoon to walk home. The one lead in the case was a Morris Minor van, spotted near the scene of the boy’s murder, which was later searched. From the files, it was obvious that the Senior Investigating Officer at the time was convinced the owner of the van was the offender, but they were unable to find that crucial forensic evidence that would have linked the boy to the van. The man, a weirdo loner with a history of sexual offences, was released – but, Grace knew, still very much alive.
He turned to the next file: Operation Houdini.
Shoe Man.
Names of operations were thrown up randomly by the CID computer system. Occasionally they were apt. This one was. Like a great escapologist, this particular offender had so far avoided the police net.
The Shoe Man had raped – or attempted to rape – at least five women in the Brighton area over a short period of time back in 1997, and in all likelihood had raped and killed a sixth victim whose body had never been found. And it could have been a lot more – many women are too embarrassed or traumatized to report an attack. Then suddenly the attacks appeared to have stopped. No DNA evidence had been recovered from any of the victims who had come forward at the time. But techniques for obtaining it were less effective then.
All they had to go on was the offender’s MO. Almost every criminal had a specific modus operandi. A way of doing things. His or her particular ‘signature’. And the Shoe Man had a very distinct one: he took his victim’s panties and one of her shoes. But only if they were classy shoes.
Grace hated rapists. He knew that everyone who became a victim of crime was left traumatized in some way. But most victims of burglaries and street crimes could eventually put it behind them and move on. Victims of sexual abuse or sexual assault, particularly child victims and rape victims, could never ever truly do that. Their lives were changed forever. They would spend the rest of their days living with the knowledge, struggling to cope, to hold down their revulsion, their anger and their fear.
It was a harsh fact that most people were raped by someone they knew. Rapes by total strangers were exceedingly rare, but they did happen. And it was not uncommon for these so-called ‘stranger rapists’ to take a souvenir – a trophy. Like the Shoe Man had.
Grace turned some of the pages of the thick file, glancing through comparisons with other rapes around the country. In particular, there was one case further north, from the same time period, that bore striking similarities. But that suspect had been eliminated, as evidence had established that it definitely could not have been the same person.
So, Shoe Man, Grace wondered, are you still alive? If so, where are you now?
4
Wednesday 31 December
Nicola Taylor was wondering when this night of hell would end, little knowing that the hell had not yet even begun.
‘Hell is other people’, Jean-Paul Sartre once wrote, and she was with him on that. And right now hell was the drunken man with the wonky bow tie on her right who was crushing every bone in her hand, and the even drunker man on her left, in a green tuxedo jacket, whose sweaty hand felt as slimy as pre-packed bacon.
And all the other 350 noisy, drunken people around her.
Both men were jerking her arms up and down, damned nearly pulling them out of their sockets as the band in the Metropole Hotel function room struck up ‘Auld Lang Syne’ on the stroke of midnight. The man on her right had a plastic Groucho Marx moustache clipped to the inside of his nostrils and the one on her left, whose slimy hand had spent much of the evening trying to work its way up her thigh, kept blowing a whistle that sounded like a duck farting.
She so totally did not want to be here. So wished to hell she had stuck to her guns and stayed home, in her comfort zone, with a bottle of wine and the television – the way she had most evenings this past year, since her husband had dumped her in favour of his twenty-four-year-old secretary.
But oh no, her friends Olivia and Becky and Deanne had all insisted there was no way they were going to allow her to get away with spending New Year’s Eve moping at home on her own. Nigel was not coming back, they assured her. The slapper was pregnant. Forget him, kiddo. There were plenty more fish in the sea. Time to get a life.
This was getting a life?
Both her arms were jerked up in the air at the same time. Then she was dragged forward in a huge surge, her feet almost falling out of her insanely expensive Marc Jacobs heels. Moments later she found herself being dragged, tripping, backwards.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot . . . the band played.
Yes, they bloody well should. And current ones too!
Except she could not forget. Not all those midnights on New Year’s Eve when she had stared into Nigel’s eyes and told him she loved him, and he’d told her he loved her as well. Her heart was heavy, too damned heavy. She wasn’t ready for this. Not now, not yet.
The song finally ended and Mr Pre-packed Bacon now spat his whistle out, gripped both her cheeks and planted a slobbery, lingering kiss on her lips. ‘Happy New Year!’ he burbled.
Then balloons fell from the ceiling. Paper streamers rained down on her. Jolly smiling faces surrounded her. She was hugged, kissed, fondled from every direction she turned. It went on and on and on.
Nobody would notice, she thought, if she escaped now.
She struggled across the room, weaving through the sea of people, and slipped out into the corridor. She felt a cold draught of air and smelt sweet cigarette smoke. God, how she could do with a fag right now!
She headed along the corridor, which was almost deserted, turned right and walked along into the hotel foyer, then crossed over to the lifts. She pressed the button and, when the door opened, stepped in and pressed the button for the fifth floor.
Hopefully, they’d all be too drunk to notice her absence. Maybe she should have drunk more too and then she’d have been in a better party mood. She was feeling stone cold sober and could easily have driven home, but she’d paid for a room for the night and her stuff was in there. Perhaps she’d call up some champagne from room service, watch a movie and get quietly smashed on her own.
As she stepped out of the lift, she pulled her plastic room key-card out of her silver lamé Chanel evening bag – a copy she’d bought in Dubai on a trip there with Nigel two years ago – and made her way along the corridor.
She noticed a slender blonde woman – in her forties, she guessed – a short distance ahead. She was wearing a full-length, high-necked evening dress with
long sleeves and appeared to be struggling to open her door. As she drew level with her, the woman, who was extremely drunk, turned to her and slurred, ‘I can’t get this sodding thing in. Do you know how they work?’ She held out her key-card.
‘I think you have to slip it in and then out quite quickly,’ Nicola said.
‘I’ve tried that.’
‘Let me try for you.’
Nicola, helpfully, took the card and slipped it into the slot. As she pulled it out, she saw a green light and heard a click.
Almost instantaneously, she felt something damp pressed across her face. There was a sweet smell in her nostrils and her eyes felt as if they were burning. She felt a crashing blow on the back of her neck. Felt herself stumbling forward. Then the carpet slammed into her face.
1997
5
Thursday 25 December
Rachael Ryan heard the snap of the man’s belt buckle in the darkness. A clank. The rustle of clothes. The sound of his breathing – rapid, feral. She had a blinding pain in her head.
‘Please don’t hurt me,’ she begged. ‘Please don’t.’
The van was rocking in the frequent gusts of wind outside and occasionally a vehicle passed, bright white light strobing through the interior from its headlamps, as terror strobed through her. It was in those moments that she could see him most clearly. The black mask tight over his head, with tiny slits for his eyes, nostrils and mouth. The baggy jeans and the tracksuit top. The small, curved knife that he gripped in his left, gloved hand, the knife he said he would blind her with if she shouted out or tried to get away.
A musty odour, like old sacks, rose from whatever thin bedding she was lying on. It mingled with the faint smell of old plastic upholstery and the sharper reek of leaking diesel oil.
She saw his trousers come down. Stared at his white underpants, his lean, smooth legs. He pushed his pants down. Saw his small penis, thin and stumpy like the head of a snake. Saw him rummage in his pocket with his right hand and pull something out which glinted. A square foil packet. He sliced it open with his knife, breathing even harder and squeezed something out. A condom.
Her brain was racing with wild thoughts. A condom? Was he being considerate? If he was considerate enough to use a condom, would he really use his knife on her?
‘We’re going to get the rubber on,’ he panted. ‘They can get DNA now. They can get you from DNA. I’m not leaving you a present for the police. Make me hard.’
She shuddered with revulsion as the head of the snake moved closer to her lips and saw his face suddenly lit up brightly again as another car passed. There were people outside. She heard voices in the street. Laughter. If she could just make a noise – bang on the side of the van, scream – someone would come, someone would stop him.
She wondered for a moment whether she should just try to arouse him, to make him come, then maybe he would let her go and he would disappear. But she felt too much revulsion, too much anger – and too much doubt.
Now she could hear his breathing getting even deeper. Hear him grunting. See that he was touching himself. He was just a pervert, just a weirdo fucking pervert and this was not going to happen to her!
And suddenly, fuelled by the courage from the alcohol inside her, she grabbed his sweaty, hairless scrotum and crushed his balls in both hands as hard as she could. Then, as he recoiled, gasping in pain, she tore the hood off his head and jammed her fingers into his eyes, both eyes, trying to gouge them out with her nails, screaming as loudly as she could.
Except, in her terror, as if she were trying to scream in a nightmare, only a faint croak came out instead.
Then she felt a crashing blow on the side of her head.
‘You bitch!’
He smashed his fist into her again. The mask of pain and fury that was his face, all blurred, was inches from her own. She felt the fist again, then again.
Everything swam around her.
And suddenly she felt her panties being pulled off, and then he was entering her. She tried to move back, to push away, but he had her pinned.
This is not me. This is not my body.
She felt totally detached from herself. For an instant she wondered if this was a nightmare from which she could not wake. Lights flashed inside her skull. Then fused.
6
Thursday 1 January
Today was New Year’s Day. And the tide was in!
Yac liked it best when the tide was in. He knew the tide was in because he could feel his home moving, rising, gently rocking. Home was a Humber keel coaler called Tom Newbound, painted blue and white. He did not know why the boat had been given that name, but it was owned by a woman called Jo, who was a district nurse, and her husband, Howard, who was a carpenter. Yac had driven them home one night in his taxi and they had been kind to him. Subsequently they’d become his best friends. He adored the boat, loved to hang about on it and to help Joe with painting, or varnishing, or generally cleaning her up.
Then one day they told him they were going to live in Goa in India for a while, they did not know how long. Yac was upset at losing his friends and his visits to the boat. But they told him they wanted someone to look after their houseboat, and their cat, for them.
Yac had been here for two years now. Just before Christmas he’d had a phone call from them, telling him they were going to stay for another year at least.
Which meant he could stay here for another year at least, which made him very happy. And he had a prize from last night, a new pair of shoes, which also made him very happy . . .
Red leather shoes. Beautifully curved with six straps and a buckle and six-inch stilettos.
They lay on the floor beside his bunk. He had learned nautical terms. It was a bed, really, but on a ship it was called a bunk. Just like the way the toilet wasn’t called a toilet, but the heads.
He could navigate from here to any port in the UK – he had memorized all the Admiralty charts. Except the boat had no engine. One day he would like to have a boat of his own, with an engine, and then he would sail to all those places that he had stored inside his head. Uh-huh.
Bosun nuzzled his hand, which was hanging over the side of his bunk. Bosun, the big, slinky ginger tom, was the boss here. The true master of this boat. Yac knew that the cat regarded him as its servant. Yac didn’t mind. The cat had never thrown up in his taxi, like some people had.
The smell of expensive new shoe leather filled Yac’s nostrils. Oh yes. Paradise! To wake up with a new pair of shoes.
On a rising tide!
That was the best thing of all about living on the water. You never heard footsteps. Yac had tried to live in the city, but it had not worked for him. He could not stand the tantalizing sound of all those shoes clacking all around him when he was trying to sleep. There were no shoes here, out on the moorings on the River Adur at Shoreham Beach. Just the slap of water, or the silence of the mudflats. The cry of gulls. Sometimes the cry of the eight-month-old baby on the boat next door.
One day, hopefully, the infant would fall into the mud and drown.
But for now, Yac looked forward to the day ahead. To getting out of bed. To examining his new shoes. Then to cataloguing them. Then perhaps to looking through his collection, which he stored in the secret places he had found and made his own on the boat. It was where he kept, among other things, his collection of electrical wiring diagrams. Then he would go into his little office up in the bow and spend time on his laptop computer, online.
What better way could there be to start a New Year?
But first he had to remember to feed the cat.
But before doing that he had to brush his teeth.
And before that he had to use the heads.
Then he would have to run through all the checks on the boat, ticking them off from the list the owners had given him. First on the list was to check his fishing lines. Then he had to check for leaks. Leaks were not good. Then he needed to check the mooring ropes. It was a long list and working through it made him
feel good. It was good to be needed.
He was needed by Mr Raj Dibdoon, who owned the taxi.
He was needed by the nurse and the carpenter, who owned his home.
He was needed by the cat.
And this morning he had a new pair of shoes!
This was a good start to a New Year.
Uh-huh.
7
Thursday 1 January
Carlo Diomei was tired. And when he was tired he felt low, as he did right now. He did not like these long, damp English winters. He missed the crisp, dry cold of his native Courmayeur, high up in the Italian Alps. He missed the winter snow and the summer sunshine. He missed putting on his skis on his days off and spending a few precious hours alone, away from the holidaying crowds on the busy pistes, making his own silent tracks down parts of the mountains that only he and a few local guides knew.
He had just one more year of his contract to run and then, he hoped, he would return to the mountains and, with luck, to a job managing a hotel there, back among his friends.
But for now the money was good here and the experience in this famous hotel would give him a great step up his career ladder. But, shit, what a lousy start to the New Year this was!
Normally as Duty Manager of the Brighton Metropole Hotel he worked a day shift, which enabled him to spend his precious evenings at home in his rented sea-view apartment with his wife and children, a two-year-old son and a four-year-old daughter. But the Night Manager had picked yesterday, New Year’s Eve of all nights, to go down with flu. So he’d had to come back and take over, with just a two-hour break in which to dash home, put his kids to bed, toast his wife a Happy New Year with mineral water, instead of the champagne night at home they had planned, and hurry back to work to supervise all the New Year celebrations the hotel had been hosting.