Dead Like You

by Peter James

  He had heard people use that expression and he liked it. Otherwise engaged. It had a nice ring to it. He liked, sometimes, to say things that had a nice ring to them.

  ‘Why don’t you ever take the cab out on Sunday nights?’ the man who owned the taxi had asked him recently.

  ‘Because I’m otherwise engaged,’ Yac replied importantly.

  And he was. He had important business that filled his Sundays from the moment he got up until late into the night.

  It was late at night now.

  His first duty every Sunday morning was to check the houseboat for leaks, both from below the waterline and from the roof. Then he cleaned the houseboat. It was the cleanest floating home in all of Shoreham. Then he fastidiously cleaned himself. He was the cleanest, best-shaven taxi driver in the whole of Brighton and Hove.

  When the owners of Tom Newbound finally came back from living in India, Yac hoped they would be proud of him. Maybe they would continue to let him live here with them, if he agreed to clean the boat every Sunday morning.

  He so much hoped that. And he had nowhere else to go.

  One of his neighbours told Yac the boat was so clean he could eat off the deck, if he wanted to. Yac didn’t understand that. Why would he want to? If he put food on the deck, gulls would come and eat it. Then he’d have the mess of food and gulls on the deck, and he’d have to clean all that up as well. So he ignored that suggestion.

  He had learned over the years that it was wise to ignore suggestions. Most suggestions came from idiots. Intelligent people kept their thoughts to themselves.

  His next task, in between making his hourly cups of tea and eating his Sunday dinner – always the same meal, microwaved lasagne – was removing his childhood collection of high-flush toilet chains from their hiding place in the bilges. Tom Newbound, he had discovered, provided him with several good hiding places. His collection of shoes was in some of them.

  He liked to take his time laying the chains out on the floor of the saloon. First, he would count them to make sure that no one had been on the boat when he was out and stolen any of them. Then he would inspect them, to check there were no rust spots. Then he would clean them, lovingly rubbing each of the chain links with metal polish.

  After he had put the chains carefully away, Yac would go on the Internet. He would spend the rest of the afternoon on Google Earth, checking for changes from his maps. That was something he had realized. Maps changed, just like everything else. You couldn’t depend on them. You couldn’t depend on anything. The past was shifting sand. Stuff that you read and learned and stored away in your head could – and did – get changed. Just because you knew something once did not mean it was still true today. Like with maps. You couldn’t be a good taxi driver just from relying on maps. You had to keep up to date, up to the minute!

  It was the same with technology.

  Things you knew five or ten or fifteen years ago weren’t always any good today. Technology changed. He had a whole filing cabinet on the boat filled with wiring diagrams of burglar alarm systems. He liked to work them out. He liked to find the flaws in them. A long time ago he had figured out that if a human being designed something, there would be a flaw in it somewhere. He liked to store those flaws away in his head. Information was knowledge and knowledge was power!

  Power over all those people who thought he was no good. Who sneered or laughed at him. He could tell, sometimes, that people in his cab were laughing at him. He could see them in the mirror, sitting on the back seat smirking and whispering to each other about him. They thought he was a bit soft in the head. Potty. Doolally. Oh yes.

  Uh-huh.

  The way his mother did.

  She made the same mistake. She thought he was stupid. She did not know that some days, or nights, when she was home, he watched her. She was unaware that he had made a small hole in the ceiling of her bedroom. He used to lie silently in the loft above her, watching her hurting a man with her shoes. He would watch her screwing her stiletto heels into the naked men’s backs.

  Other times she would lock Yac in his bedroom with a tray of food and a bucket, leaving him alone in the house for the night. He would hear the thunk of the lock, then he would hear her footsteps, her heels clicking on the floorboards, getting fainter and fainter.

  She never knew that he understood locks. That he had read and memorized every specialist magazine and every instruction manual he could lay his hands on in the reference library. He knew just about everything there was to know about bored cylindrical locks, tumbler locks, lever locks. There wasn’t a lock or alarm system on the planet, Yac reckoned, that could defeat him. Not that he had tried all of them. He thought that would be hard work and would take too long.

  When she went out, leaving him alone, with the clack-clack-clack of her shoes fading into silence, he would pick the lock of his bedroom door and go into her room. He liked to lie naked on her bed, breathing in the heady, musky smells of her Shalimar perfume, and the air that still smelt of her cigarette smoke, holding one of her shoes in his left hand, safe from her, and then relieve himself with his right hand.

  It was the way he liked to end each of his Sunday evenings now.

  But tonight was better than ever! He had newspaper articles on the Shoe Man. He had read and re-read them, and not just the Argus, but other papers too. Sunday papers. The Shoe Man raped his victims and took their shoes.

  Uh-huh.

  He sprayed Shalimar around the interior of his room in the houseboat, short bursts into each corner, then a longer one towards the ceiling, directly above his head, so that tiny, invisible droplets of the fragrance would fall all around him.

  He then stood, aroused, starting to shake. In moments he became drenched in perspiration, breathing with his eyes closed, as the smell brought back so many memories. Then he lit a Dunhill International cigarette and inhaled the sweet smoke deeply, holding it in his lungs for some moments before jetting it out through his nostrils, the way his mother did.

  It was smelling like her room in here now. Yes.

  In between puffs, getting more and more deeply aroused, he began unbuttoning his trousers. Then, lying back on his bunk, he touched himself and whispered, Oh, Mummy! Oh, Mummy! Oh yes, Mummy, I’m such a bad boy!

  And all the time he was thinking of the really bad thing he had just done. Which aroused him even more.

  54

  Monday 12 January

  Roy Grace was in a sombre mood at 7.30 a.m. The New Year was not even a fortnight old and he now had three violent stranger rapes on his hands.

  He was seated in the office that always made him feel uncomfortable, even though its previous incumbent, the sometimes tyrannical Alison Vosper, was no longer there. Replacing her behind the large rosewood desk, which was now a lot more cluttered, was Assistant Chief Constable Peter Rigg, starting his second week here. And for the first time ever, Grace had actually been offered a drink in this office. He was now gratefully sipping strong coffee from an elegant china cup.

  The ACC was a dapper, rather distinguished-looking man, with a healthy complexion, fair hair neatly and conservatively cut, and a sharp, posh voice. Although several inches shorter than Grace, he had fine posture, giving him a military bearing which made him seem taller than his actual height. He was dressed in a navy suit with discreet pinstripes, an elegant white shirt and a loud tie. From a row of photographs on his desk, and new pictures now hanging on the walls, the man was evidently keen on motor racing, which pleased Grace because that was something they would have in common, although he’d not had a chance to bring this up yet.

  ‘I’ve had the new Chief Executive of the City Corporation on the phone,’ said Rigg – his manner pleasant but no-nonsense. ‘This was before the ghost train attack. Stranger rape is a very emotive subject. Brighton’s already lost the Labour Party Conference for many years to come – not that that’s connected to these rapes in any way – and he feels it would greatly help the future chances of this city to attract top-end conf
erence trade if we can show how safe it is to come here. Fear of crime seems to have become a major issue in the competitive conference business.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I appreciate that.’

  ‘Our New Year’s resolution should be to focus on the crimes that cause fear in the community – fear among ordinary decent people. That’s where I think we should be maximizing our resources. Our subliminal message should be that people are as safe anywhere in Brighton and Hove as they are in their own homes. What do you think?’

  Grace nodded his agreement, but privately he was concerned. The ACC’s intentions were right, but his timing was not great. Roxy Pearce had clearly not been safe in her own home. Also, what he had just said wasn’t new. He was merely reinforcing what, in Grace’s view, had always been the police force’s main role. Certainly, at any rate, his own main goal.

  When he had first been promoted to the rank of detective superintendent, his immediate boss, the then head of CID, Gary Weston, had explained his philosophy to him very succinctly: ‘Roy, I try as a boss to think what it is the public expect from me and would like me to do. What does my wife want? My elderly mum? They want to feel safe, they want to go about their lawful business unhindered, and they want me to lock up all the bad guys.’

  Grace had used that as a mantra ever since.

  Rigg held up a typewritten document, six sheets of paper clipped together, and Grace knew immediately what it was.

  ‘This is the twenty-four-hour review from the Crime Policy and Review Branch on Operation Swordfish,’ the ACC said. ‘I had it dropped round last night.’ He gave the Detective Superintendent a slightly worried smile. ‘It’s positive. You’ve ticked all the boxes – something I would have expected, from all the good things I’ve heard about you, Roy.’

  ‘Thank you, sir!’ Grace said, pleasantly surprised. Clearly the man hadn’t spoken too much to the now departed Alison Vosper, his big fan – not.

  ‘I think the political ride’s going to get a lot rougher when the news on this third rape gets out. And, of course, we don’t know how many more our offender might commit before we lock him up.’

  ‘Or before he disappears again,’ Grace replied.

  The ACC looked as if he had just bitten a red-hot chilli.

  55

  Monday 12 January

  Sussex Security Systems and Sussex Remote Monitoring Services were housed in a large 1980s building on an industrial estate in Lewes, seven miles from Brighton.

  As the business which Garry Starling had started in a small shop in Hove fifteen years earlier expanded into two separate fields, he knew he would have to move into bigger premises. The perfect opportunity presented itself when the building in Lewes became vacant following a bankruptcy, with the receiver keen to do a deal.

  But what attracted him even more than the favourable terms was the location itself, less than a quarter of a mile from Malling House, the headquarters of Sussex Police. He’d already secured two contracts with them, installing and maintaining alarms in a couple of small-town police stations that were closed at night, and he was sure that being so close to the hub of the whole force could do no harm.

  He had been right. A combination of knocking on doors, schmoozing on the golf course and some very competitive pricing had brought a lot more work his way, and when, just over a decade ago, the CID moved into their new headquarters, Sussex House, it had been SSS that had secured the contract for the internal security system.

  Despite his success, Garry Starling was not into flash, expensive cars. He never drove them because in his view all you did was draw attention to yourself – and the flashier your wheels, the more your customers would think you were overcharging. Success to him meant freedom. The ability to hire people to do the stuff you didn’t want to be stuck in the office doing. The freedom to be out on the golf course when you wanted. And to do other things you wanted too. He left it to Denise to be the spender. She could spend for England.

  When they’d first met she’d been sex on legs. She liked everything that turned him on and she was randy as hell, with few limits. Now she just sat on her fat arse, letting it get fatter by the hour, and she didn’t want to know about sex – at least, not any of the things that he enjoyed.

  He drove his small grey Volvo along the industrial estate, passing a Land Rover dealer, the entrance to Tesco and then Homebase. He made a right, then a left and ahead, at the end of the cul-de-sac, he saw his twin single-storey building and a row of nine white vans, each bearing the company logo, outside.

  Ever mindful about costs, the vans were plain white and the company name was on magnetic panels stuck to their sides. It meant he didn’t have to pay sign-writing costs each time he purchased a new van; he could simply pull the panels off and use them again.

  It was 9 a.m. and he wasn’t happy to see so many vans still parked up. They should have been out doing installations or making service calls on customers. That was thanks to the recession.

  Not many things made him happy these days.

  *

  Dunstan Christmas’s butt was itching, but he did not dare scratch it. If he took his weight off this chair for more than two seconds during his shift, without first properly logging off, the alarm would sound and his supervisor would come running in.

  You had to hand it to the guy who had thought of this, Christmas grudgingly admitted to himself, it was a damned good system. Foolproof, just about.

  Which of course it needed to be, because that was what the customers of Sussex Remote Monitoring Services paid for: trained CCTV operators like himself to sit, in a uniform, and watch the images of their homes and business premises, in real time, around the clock. Christmas was thirty-six years old and weighed twenty stones. Sitting on his butt suited him well.

  He couldn’t much see the point of the uniform, as he never left the room, but the Big Cheese, Mr Starling, had everyone on the premises, even the receptionists, wear uniform. It gave people a sense of pride and purpose, Mr Starling said, and it impressed visitors. Everyone did what Mr Starling said.

  Alongside the camera selection button on the panel in front of him was a microphone. Even though some of the houses and business premises on the twenty screens in front of him were many miles away, one click of the microphone button and he could scare the shit out of any intruder by talking straight to them. He liked that part of the job. Didn’t happen too often, but when it did, boy, was it fun to see them jump! That was a perk.

  Christmas worked an eight-hour shift, alternating between day, evening and night, and he was happy enough with the pay he got, but the job itself, Jesus, sometimes, particularly during the night, it could be mind-numbingly boring. Twenty different programmes on television and nothing happening on any of them! Just a picture of a factory gate on one. A domestic driveway on another. The rear of a big Dyke Road Avenue mansion on another. Occasionally a cat would slink across, or an urban fox, or a badger, or a scurrying rodent.

  Screen no. 17 was one he had a bit of an emotional connection with. It showed images of the old Shoreham cement works that had been shut down for the past nineteen years. Twenty-six CCTV cameras were sited around the vast premises, one for the front entrance, the rest covering all key internal access points. At the moment the image was of the front, a high steel fence topped with razor wire, and chained gates.

  His dad used to work there, as a cement tanker driver, and sometimes Dunstan would ride up front in the cab when his dad was making a collection. He loved the place. He always thought it was like being on the set of a Bond film, with its huge cement clinker kilns, grinding mills and storage silos, the bulldozers, dumptrucks and diggers, and activity around the clock.

  The cement works sat in a huge quarried bowl in isolated countryside, a few miles inland and just to the north-west of Shoreham. The site covered several hundred acres and was now full of vast, derelict buildings. Rumour had it there were plans to reactivate it all, but since the last lorry had driven out of there, nearly two decades ago, it had lain
derelict, a grey ghost village of mostly windowless structures, rusting components, old vehicles and weed-strewn tracks. The only visitors were the occasional vandals and thieves who had systematically stolen some of the electric motors, cables and lead piping, which was why the elaborate security system had been put in place.

  But this particular Monday morning was more interesting than usual. Certainly on one particular screen, no. 11.

  Each of the screens had feeds to ten different properties. Motion-sensor software would instantly bring a property up if there was any movement, such as a vehicle arriving or leaving, someone walking, or even a fox or large dog prowling. There had been constant activity on screen no. 11 since he had come on shift at 7 a.m. That was the front view of the Pearce house. He could see the crime scene tape, a Police Community Support Officer scene guard. A POLSA and three Police Search Officers in protective blue oversuits and rubber gloves, on their hands and knees, were searching inch by inch for any clues left behind by the intruder who had assaulted Mrs Pearce inside the house last Thursday night, and sticking small numbered markers here and there in the ground.

  He dug his hand into the large packet of Kettle crisps beside the control panel on his workstation, shovelled the crisps into his mouth, then washed them down with a swig of Coke. He needed to pee, but decided to hang on for a while. He could log off the system to take a comfort break, as they were called, but it would be noted. An hour and a half was too soon after starting his shift; he needed to give it a bit longer, as he wanted to impress his boss.

  The voice right behind him startled him.

  ‘I’m glad to see the feed to The Droveway has been fixed.’

  Dunstan Christmas turned to see his boss, Garry Starling, the owner of this company, looking over his shoulder.

  Starling had a habit of doing this. He was always snooping on his employees. Creeping silently up behind them, sometimes in working clothes of a white shirt, jeans and trainers, sometimes in a neat business suit. But always stealthily, silently, on rubber-soled shoes like some weirdo stalker. His big, owl-like eyes were peering at the bank of screens.