Dead Like You

by Peter James

  Thank you!

  She removed her white blouse and her bra. Her breasts were smaller than he had imagined they might be, but that did not matter. They were OK. Quite firm, but with small nipples. It didn’t matter. Breasts were not his thing.

  Now her undies!

  She was a shaver! Bald and white, down to a thin strip of a Brazilian! Very hygienic.

  Thank you!

  He was so aroused he was dripping perspiration.

  Then she walked, naked, through into the bathroom. He listened to the hiss of the shower. This would be a good moment, he knew, but he didn’t want her all wet and slippery with soap. He liked the idea that she dried herself for him and perhaps put on some perfume for him.

  After a few minutes she came back out into the bedroom, swathed in a big towel, a smaller white towel wrapped around her head. Then suddenly, as if she was giving him a private performance, she let the towel drop from her body, opened a wardrobe door, and selected from the racks a pair of elegant, gleaming black shoes with long stiletto heels.

  Jimmy Choos!

  He could barely contain his excitement as she slipped them on, placed one foot, then the other on the small armchair beside the bed and tied the straps, four on each shoe! Then she paraded around the room eyeing herself, naked, pausing to pose from every angle in the large mirror on the wall.

  Oh yes, baby. Oh yes! Oh yes! Thank you!

  He stared at the trim narrow strip of black pubic hair beneath her flat stomach. He liked it trim. He liked women who looked after themselves, who took care of the details.

  Just for him!

  She was coming towards the wardrobe now, towel still around her head. She reached out a hand. Her face was inches from his own, through the curtained glass.

  He was prepared.

  She pulled open the door.

  His surgically gloved hand shot out, slamming the chloroform pad into her nose.

  Like a striking shark, he glided out through the hanging dresses, grabbing the back of her head with his free arm, keeping up the pressure against her nose for a few seconds until she went limp in his arms.

  1997

  29

  Tuesday 30 December

  Rachael Ryan lay motionless on the floor of the van. His fist hurt from where he had hit her on the head. It hurt so damned much he worried he had broken both his thumb and a finger. He could hardly move them.

  ‘Shit,’ he said, shaking it. ‘Shit, fuck, shit. Bitch!’

  He peeled off his glove so he could examine them, but it was hard to see anything in the feeble glow of the van’s interior light.

  Then he knelt beside her. Her head had gone back with a loud snap. He didn’t know if it was a bone breaking in his own hand or her jaw. She did not seem to be breathing.

  He laid his head against her chest anxiously. There was movement, but he wasn’t sure if it was his movement or hers.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asked, feeling a sudden surge of panic. ‘Rachael? Are you OK? Rachael?’

  He worked his glove back on, gripped her shoulders and shook her. ‘Rachael? Rachael? Rachael?’

  He pulled a small torch out of his pocket and shone it in her face. Her eyes were closed. He pulled one lid open and it closed again when he let go.

  His panic was increasing. ‘Don’t die on me, Rachael! Do not die on me, do you hear me? Do you fucking hear me?’

  Blood was trickling from her mouth.

  ‘Rachael? Do you want something to drink? Want me to get you something to eat? You want a McDonald’s? A Big Mac? A Cheeseburger? Or maybe a submarine? I could get you a submarine. Yeah? Tell me, tell me what filling you’d like in it. Spicy sausage? Something with melted cheese? They’re really good those. Tuna? Ham?’

  30

  Thursday 8 January

  Yac was hungry. The chicken-n-melted cheese submarine had been tantalizing him for over two hours. The bag rolled around on the passenger seat, along with his Thermos flask every time he braked or went around a corner.

  He’d been planning to pull over and eat it during his on-the-hour tea break, but there were too many people around. Too many fares. He’d had to drink his 11 p.m. cup while driving. Thursday nights were normally busy, but this was the first Thursday after the New Year. He had expected it to be quiet. However, some people had recovered and were out partying again. Taking taxis. Wearing nice shoes.

  Uh-huh.

  That was fine by him. Everyone had their own way of partying. He was happy for them all. Just so long as they paid what was on the meter and didn’t try to do a runner, as someone did every now and then. Even better when they tipped him! All tips helped. Helped towards his savings. Helped towards building up his collection.

  That was growing steadily. Very nicely. Oh yeah!

  A siren wailed.

  He felt a sudden prick of alarm. Held his breath.

  Flashing blue lights filled his mirrors, then a police car shot past. Then another police car moments later, as if following in its wake. Interesting, he thought. He was out all night most nights and it wasn’t often he saw two police cars together. Must be something bad.

  He was approaching his regular spot on Brighton seafront, where he liked to pull over every hour, on the hour, during the night and drink his tea, and now, also, to read his paper. Since the rape in the Metropole Hotel last Thursday he had started to read the paper every night. The story excited him. The woman’s clothes had been taken. But what excited him most of all was reading that her shoes had been taken.

  Uh-huh!

  He brought the taxi to a halt, switched off the engine and picked up the carrier bag with the submarine inside, but then he put it down again. It did not smell good any more. The smell made him feel sick.

  His hunger was gone.

  He wondered where those police cars were headed.

  Then he thought about the pair of shoes in the boot of his taxi and he felt good again.

  Really good!

  He tossed the submarine out of the window.

  Litter lout! he chided himself. You bad litter lout!

  31

  Friday 9 January

  One good thing, or rather, one of the many good things about Cleo being pregnant, Grace thought, was that he was drinking a lot less. Apart from the occasional glass of cold white wine, Cleo had been dutifully abstemious, so he had cut down too. The bad thing was her damned craving for curries! He wasn’t quite sure how many more of those his system could take. The whole house was starting to smell like an Indian fast-food joint.

  He longed for something plain. Humphrey was unimpressed too. After just one lick, the puppy had decided that curries were not going to provide him with any tasty leftover scraps in his bowl that he would want to eat.

  Roy endured them because he felt duty-bound to keep Cleo company. Besides, in one of the pregnancy-for-men books Glenn Branson had given him, there was a whole passage about indulging and sharing your partner’s cravings. It would make your partner feel happy. And if your partner felt happy, then the vibes would be picked up by your unborn child, and it would be born happy and not grow up to become a serial killer.

  Normally, he liked to drink lager with curry, Grolsch preferably or his favourite German beer, Biltberger, or the weissbier he’d developed a taste for through his acquaintance with a German police officer, Marcel Kullen, and from his visits last year to Munich. But this week it was his rota turn to be the Major Crime Branch’s duty Senior Investigating Officer, which meant he was on call 24/7, so he was reduced to soft drinks.

  Which explained why he felt bright as a button, sitting in his office at 9.20 a.m. this Friday, sipping his second coffee, switching his focus from the serials to the emails that poured in as if they were coming out of a tap that had been left running, then to the paper mountain on his desk.

  Just two and a bit more days to go until midnight Sunday, then another detective superintendent or detective chief inspector on the rota would take over the mantle of Senior Investigating Officer and it
would be another six weeks before his turn came round again. He had so much work to get through, preparing cases for trial, as well as supervising the new Cold Case Team, that he really did not need any new cases to consume his time.

  But he was out of luck.

  His phone rang and as soon as he answered he instantly recognized the blunt, to-the-point voice of DI David Alcorn from Brighton CID.

  ‘Sorry, Roy. Looks like we’ve got another stranger rape on our hands.’

  Up until now, Brighton CID had been handling the Metropole Hotel rape, although keeping Roy informed. But now it sounded as if the Major Crime Branch was going to have to take over. Which meant him.

  And it was a sodding Friday. Why on Fridays? What was it about Fridays?

  ‘What do you have, David?’

  Alcorn summed up briefly and succinctly: ‘The victim is deeply traumatized. From what Uniform, who attended, have been able to glean, she arrived home alone last night – her husband is away on a business trip – and was attacked in her house. She rang a friend, who went around this morning, and she was the one who called the police. The victim was seen by an ambulance crew but did not need medical attention. She’s been taken up to the rape centre at Crawley accompanied by a SOLO and a CID constable.’

  ‘What details do you have?’

  ‘Very sketchy, Roy. As I said, I understand she’s deeply traumatized. It sounds like a shoe was involved again.’

  Grace frowned. ‘What do you have on that?’

  ‘She was violated with one of her shoes.’

  Shit, Grace thought, scrabbling through the mess of papers on his desk for a pen and his notepad. ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Roxanna – or Roxy – Pearce.’ Alcorn spelled the surname out in full. ‘Address 76 The Droveway, Hove. She has a PR agency in Brighton and her husband’s in IT. That’s all I really know at this stage. I’ve been in contact with Scenes of Crime and I’m going to the house now. Want me to pick you up on the way?’

  His office was hardly on the way to the address for someone at Brighton nick, Roy thought, but he didn’t argue. He could use the time in the car to get any more information on the Metropole rape that might have surfaced and to discuss the transfer of all information to the Major Crime Branch.

  ‘Sure, thanks.’

  When he terminated the call, he sat still for a moment, collecting his thoughts.

  In particular, his mind went back to the Shoe Man. All this week, the Cold Case Team had been focusing on him as a priority to see what links, if any, they could establish in the MOs between the known cases, back in 1997, and the assault on Nicola Taylor at the Metropole on New Year’s Eve.

  Her shoes had been taken. That was the first possible link. Although back in 1997 the Shoe Man took just one shoe and the woman’s panties. Both Nicola Taylor’s shoes had been taken, along with all her clothes.

  Somewhere beneath his paper mountain was the massively thick folder containing the offender profile, or rather, as these were now known, the Behavioural Investigator Report. It had been written by a distinctly oddball forensic psychologist, Dr Julius Proudfoot.

  Grace had been sceptical of the man when he first encountered him back in 1997 on his investigations into Rachael Ryan’s disappearance, but had consulted him on a number of cases since.

  He became so absorbed in the report that he did not notice the click of his door opening and the footfalls across the carpet.

  ‘Yo, old-timer!’

  Grace looked up with a start to see Glenn Branson standing in front of his desk and said, ‘What’s your problem?’

  ‘Life. I’m planning to end it all.’

  ‘Good idea. Just don’t do it here. I’ve got enough shit to deal with.’

  Branson walked around his desk and peered over his shoulder, reading for some moments before saying, ‘You know that Julius Proudfoot’s seriously off his trolley, don’t you? His reputation, right?’

  ‘So what’s new? You have to be seriously off your trolley to join the police force.’

  ‘And to get married.’

  ‘That too.’ Grace grinned. ‘What other great pearls of wisdom do you have for me?’

  Branson shrugged. ‘Just trying to be helpful.’

  What would be really helpful, Grace thought, but did not say, would be if you were about a thousand miles from here right now. If you stopped trashing my house. If you stopped trashing my CD and vinyl collections. That’s what would be really helpful.

  Instead, he looked up at the man he loved more than any man he had ever met before and said, ‘Do you want to fuck off, or do you want to really help me?’

  ‘Sweetly put – how could I resist?’

  ‘Good.’ Grace handed him Dr Julius Proudfoot’s file on the Shoe Man. ‘I’d like you to summarize that for me for this evening’s briefing meeting, into about two hundred and fifty words, in a form that our new ACC can absorb.’

  Branson lifted the file up, then flipped through the pages.

  ‘Shit, two hundred and eighty-two pages. Man, that’s a fucker.’

  ‘Couldn’t have put it better myself.’

  32

  Friday 9 January

  Roy Grace’s father had been a true copper’s copper. Jack Grace told his son that to be a police officer meant that you looked at the world differently from everyone else. You were part of a healthy culture of suspicion, he’d called it.

  Roy had never forgotten that. It was how he looked at the world, always. It was how he looked, at this moment, at the posh houses of Shirley Drive on this fine, crisp, sunny January morning. The street was one of hilly Brighton and Hove’s backbones. Running almost into the open countryside at the edge of the city, it was lined with smart detached houses way beyond the pocket of most police officers. Wealthy people lived here: dentists, bankers, car dealers, lawyers, local and London business people, and of course, as with all the smartest addresses, a smattering of successful criminals. It was one of the city’s aspirational addresses. If you lived in Shirley Drive – or one of its tributaries – you were a somebody.

  At least, you were to anyone driving by who did not have a copper’s jaundiced eye.

  Roy Grace did not have a jaundiced eye. But he had a good, almost photographic memory. As David Alcorn, in a smart grey suit, drove the small Ford up past the recreational ground, Grace clocked the houses one by one. It was routine for him. The London protection racketeer’s Brighton home was along here. So was the Brighton brothel king’s. And the crack cocaine king’s was just one street away.

  In his late forties, short, with cropped brown hair and smelling permanently of cigarette smoke, David Alcorn looked outwardly hard and officious, but inside he was a gentle man.

  Turning right into The Droveway he said, ‘This is the street the missus would like to live in.’

  ‘So,’ Grace said, ‘move here.’

  ‘I’m just a couple of hundred grand short of being a couple of hundred grand short of the down payment,’ he replied. ‘And then some.’ He hesitated briefly. ‘You know what I reckon?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  Grace watched each of the detached houses slide by. On his right, they passed a Tesco convenience store. On his left, a dairy with an ancient cobbled wall.

  ‘Your Cleo would like it here. Suit a classy lady like her, this area would.’

  They were slowing now. Then Alcorn braked sharply. ‘That’s it there on the right.’

  Grace looked for any signs of a CCTV camera as they drove down the short, laurel-lined driveway, but saw none. He clocked the security lights.

  ‘All right, isn’t it?’ David Alcorn said.

  It was more than sodding all right, it was totally stunning. If he had the money to design and build his dream house, Grace decided, this might be one he’d copy.

  It was like a piece of brilliant white sculpture. A mixture of crisp, straight lines and soft curves, some played off against each other in daring geometric angles. The place seemed to be built on split levels
, the windows were vast and solar panels rose from the roof. Even the plants strategically placed around the walls looked as if they had been genetically modified just for this property. It wasn’t a huge house; it was on a liveable scale. It must be an amazing place to come home to every night, he thought.

  Then he focused on what he wanted to get from this crime scene, running through a mental checklist as they pulled up behind a small marked police car. A uniformed constable, a solid man in his forties, stood beside it. Behind him, a chequered blue-and-white crime scene tape closed off the rest of the driveway, which led up to a large integral garage.

  They climbed out and the Constable, a respectful old-school officer, briefed them pedantically on what he had found earlier this morning when he had attended, and informed them that SOCO was on its way. He was not able to add much more to the details Alcorn had already given Grace, other than the fact that the woman had arrived home and apparently had deactivated the burglar alarm when she entered.

  While they were talking, a small white van pulled up and a senior SOCO, a Crime Scene Manager called Joe Tindall with whom Grace had worked many times and found more than a tad tetchy, climbed out.

  ‘Friday,’ the Crime Scene Manager muttered by way of a greeting. ‘What’s with you and sodding weekends, Roy?’ He gave Grace a smile that was incubating a leer.

  ‘I keep asking offenders to stick to Mondays, but they’re not an obliging lot.’

  ‘I’ve got tickets to Stevie Wonder at the O2 Centre tonight. If I miss that my relationship is kaput.’

  ‘Every time I see you, you’ve got tickets to something, Joe.’

  ‘Yeah. I like to think I have a life outside of this job, unlike half my colleagues.’

  He gave the Detective Superintendent a pointed stare, then produced a clutch of white paper suits and blue overshoes from the rear of the van and handed them out.

  Roy Grace sat on the rear sill of the van and slowly levered himself into the one-piece. Every time he did this, he cursed the designer as he wriggled to get his feet down through the trousers without tearing them, then worked himself into the arms. He was glad not to be in a public place, because the suit was almost impossible to put on without making a spectacle of yourself. Finally, grunting, he stooped down and pulled on the protective overshoes. Then he snapped on some latex gloves.