by Peter James
Roy continued to stare at the wallpaper sample. It was rather elegant, he thought. ‘It’s fun,’ he said. ‘You don’t think it’s too busy?’
‘I’d like to put in a dado rail and have plain white above it – I think we can bring a lot of colour in with the curtains and—’ Cleo was interrupted by his work phone ringing.
Apologetically he retrieved it and brought it to his right ear. ‘Roy Grace,’ he said, in a formal tone.
It was the replacement Golf 99, Inspector Joseph Webbon. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘I know we’re due to meet soon, but things are not looking good on this misper, Logan Somerville. There has been no communication from her since the last update. We’ve checked with ANPR and their camera picked up Ball’s car in several locations consistent with the journey he claims to have made from his workplace in Croydon and south to Brighton.’
Grace thought hard for some moments, weighing the options. When people disappeared, they had often been abducted or harmed by someone they knew – frequently their partner. Or they had run away from an abusive relationship, gone off with a lover, had an accident or, in some cases, committed suicide. A huge amount of police time got wasted on missing persons, particularly youngsters, who turned out to be in the next-door neighbour’s house watching television with a friend. But it didn’t appear to be the case on this occasion.
Panicking Anakin had gone almost straight into abduction mode. It might turn out the inspector had made the right call, although Grace hoped not. Was there anything he was overlooking here that could point a finger at the woman’s fiancé? It did not seem so. ‘So we can eliminate Ball as a suspect, for now at any rate?’
Webbon sounded hesitant. ‘The officers attending reported some blood at the scene – a small amount, but reasonably fresh. When questioned about it, Ball said she had stumbled getting out of bed and gashed her toe on the bathroom door – and subsequently had to go to hospital to have it sorted. We’ve checked with the Royal Sussex County and they have no record of her having been seen in Accident and Emergency this morning.’
‘Domestic violence?’
‘Yes, CID here feel that’s a possibility, sir. But we have a development. We’ve been going to all the flats in the building asking if anyone was in the car park around the time she made a call. We’ve found one lady who was driving in and had to brake hard to avoid an estate car with darkened windows that came out at high speed, and drove off.’
‘Did she get the registration? Or see the driver’s face?’
‘Unfortunately not a good look. She says she was too startled and she thinks he was wearing a hat pulled down low over his face. All she can say is that he was white, middle-aged, clean shaven, with a round face and glasses. She’s not very good on car makes, but she says it was a medium-size car in a dark colour. Possibly an old Volvo, navy blue or charcoal.’
‘Have you given that to CCTV in the Control Room?’
‘Yes, sir, they’re on it.’
‘What’s the woman’s name?’
‘Sharon Pavoni.’
‘Doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but we should get a cognitive interview as soon as possible, to see what else she can remember.’ Cognitive Witness Interviews were a highly specialized field of their own, involving trained interviewers who could obtain recall from witnesses of things they had seen or heard that they were unaware they had remembered. He looked at his watch. Realistically it would be too late tonight by the time it could be set up. ‘We’ll arrange it for first thing in the morning – assuming Logan Somerville hasn’t turned up. Let me have the witness’s contact details, and the boyfriend – fiancé’s. I want them both interviewed.’
Webbon gave them to him, and Grace noted them down. Then Grace said, ‘Have the whole underground car park sealed off – nothing to go in or out, which I believe has already been put in place. I want Somerville’s Fiat removed for forensic examination, but first get a Police Search Advisor and team down there as fast as possible to do a fingertip search. I’m treating this as a crime in action.’
Trained members of the Specialist Search Unit would work on their hands and knees; if there was any evidence – such as a speck of blood or a discarded cigarette butt – they would find it.
As soon as he had ended the call, Roy Grace phoned both the force Gold and the Critical Incident Manager, before he made another call to his new boss, and former adversary, Assistant Chief Constable Cassian Pewe. It was protocol to notify the chiefs of any impending major enquiry, so they didn’t hear it first from a journalist and find themselves in the embarrassing situation of sounding uninformed.
Pewe answered almost immediately, his voice smarmily pleasant. ‘Roy, very good to hear from you. How are things?’ Grace could hear heavy opera music playing loudly in the background. A deep sonorous dirge.
A year and a half earlier, on a temporary posting from London’s Metropolitan Police, Pewe had made Roy Grace’s life hell for some weeks, when he had taken it upon himself to order the garden of the home Grace had shared with Sandy to be scanned and dug up in a search for her remains. It had started a bitter feud between the two senior detectives which had culminated first in Grace saving the man’s life – reluctantly – after a clifftop car chase, and then in Grace accusing him of tampering with evidence. Pewe, with his tail between his legs, had applied successfully for a transfer back to the Met.
What Roy Grace hadn’t known then – and still did not know – was that many years back, Cassian Pewe had had a brief affair with Sandy.
Now, to Grace’s utter horror and disgust, Pewe had returned to Sussex Police as the Assistant Chief Constable to whom he had to report. The soon-to-be retiring Chief Constable, Tom Martinson, had done his best to assure him that Pewe had no animosity towards him. And, to be fair, so far so good. But Grace felt that lurking behind the phoney bonhomie, Pewe was itching for revenge, and subtly biding his time. Grace had to make damned sure he did not screw up.
He informed Pewe of the missing woman and what they knew so far, and the actions they were taking and, separately, told him about the body at the Lagoon.
As he hung up, he heard Noah crying upstairs. Cleo signalled for him to carry on, and hurried across the room.
He stood still, thinking for a moment. Two totally different cases slung his way in the space of a few hours. The skeletal remains at Hove Lagoon, and this potential abduction. He could not deal with them both, he needed to delegate one to another detective. The remains had been there since before the path had been laid, some twenty years ago, so there was less urgency. Right now the absolute priority was to find Logan Somerville.
His next call was to DI Glenn Branson, updating him and appointing him Senior Investigating Officer for the remains at the lagoon. The police computerized operations naming system, working through famous paintings, had allocated the case the name Operation Mona Lisa. Branson would ensure the remains were recovered by the forensic archaeologist to the mortuary tomorrow. Then he made a call to DS Guy Batchelor, asking him to assemble a Major Enquiry Team for the newly named Operation Haywain, the investigation into the disappearance of Logan Somerville.
Not an entirely stupid name. Looking for a missing person was akin to searching for a needle in a haystack, with one proviso. First you had to find your haystack.
14
Thursday 11 December
Plock . . . plock . . . plock . . . The steady drip of water, from somewhere near. Where was she? Was it raining outside and was water leaking in?
Plock . . . plock . . . plock . . . Each drip echoing as loudly as if the ground it struck was a drum skin. For something to do, something to concentrate on, Logan counted in her head the gaps between each drip, shivering constantly from cold and terror. One hundred and one . . . one hundred and two . . . one hundred and three . . .
Plock.
Fifteen seconds.
She was parched, desperate for water, and she felt clammy and jittery, the deep, destabilizing sense of unease that always spread out throu
gh her stomach and up through her body when she was low on sugar. She was very low now. And she was still very badly in need of a pee.
Her eyes felt swollen and all she could see was a green haze. It was as if she was wearing someone else’s glasses, someone who had very poor vision; but she wasn’t wearing any glasses, so far as she could tell. Her nose was itching like hell, and she was desperate to scratch it, but her hands were pinned either side of her, there was nothing she could do. She was close to passing out, she knew. It was her anger that was keeping her going.
Her anger and her terrible fear.
‘Hello?’ she called out.
Her voice sounded deadened, as if absorbed straight into cotton wool. ‘Hello?’ she called again, louder. She must be asleep. Having a nightmare, a lucid dream? Yes, a lucid dream. She’d read stuff about lucid dreaming. Where you could become aware, in a dream, that you were dreaming.
She willed herself to wake up.
But nothing changed.
Then suddenly the light brightened. The green flared into brilliant white, hurting, burning, as searing as a blowtorch. ‘Hello?’ she said. ‘Jamie? Is that you, Jamie? Please let’s talk this through. Please. I know you’re upset with me for breaking it off – but please, this is enough. Please. Please.’
There was a long silence. She heard a sliding sound. Felt cold air on her face.
Someone was standing over her. Her skin was pricked with goosebumps.
‘Jamie?’ she cried out. ‘What do you want? What the hell are you doing? Let me go! For God’s sake get me some sugar, chocolate, I’m going into a hypo. Jamie. Jamie. Jamie. Is it you, Jamie? You know what happens if I get too low. Get me some sugar, urgently, please. Please! Jamiiiieeeeeeeeeee!’
The sliding sound again. The cool breeze stopped.
Could it possibly be Jamie? Angry at her for calling off the wedding? Had she missed something in his character? Had he set this up?
The bright light moved away, accompanied by the faint shuffle of footsteps. She heard a door close. Then a click nearby. Moments later she heard the sudden, tortured cry of a female voice.
‘Help me!’
A slick of terror slid through every cell in Logan’s body.
‘Help me!’ she heard again. Then an even deeper cry of anguish. ‘No! No, please noooo! Noooooooo!’
It was followed by the most pitiful scream.
And suddenly she could not contain her need to pee any longer. Embarrassed, she let go, fully expecting to feel the warm stream between her legs. But as she emptied her bladder, something seemed to be absorbing the urine.
Now she knew for sure this wasn’t a dream.
15
Thursday 11 December
At twenty past ten, Jamie Ball’s entryphone buzzer rang. He ran over to the front door, realizing he was a little drunk, and saw on the fuzzy black and white screen a man’s face above a turned-up collar.
‘Hello?’ he said.
‘Mr Ball?’
‘Yes,’ he blurted, anxiously.
‘Detective Superintendent Grace. May I have a word with you?’
‘Please come up. Ninth floor.’
Two minutes later Jamie opened the front door to see a pleasant-looking man of about forty, with a rugged face beneath short, gelled fair hair, a nose that looked like it had been busted, possibly more than once, and sharp, alert, blue eyes. He held up a police warrant card.
‘Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team. Have you heard from your fiancée?’
‘No – not – not anything, not a word. Please come in – thank you for coming. Can I offer you a glass of wine?’
‘No, thank you, I’m fine.’ Grace could smell alcohol on the man’s breath and he looked a little unsteady. He was a burly, bearded man with a rugby player’s build, and with a stacked-up modern hairstyle, dressed in jeans and a V-neck cardigan over a white T-shirt, shoeless in red socks.
He led the detective through into a living room, with a kitchen area partitioned off by a bar, on which stood a beer glass and several empty cans of lager. He ushered him to one of two small sofas either side of a glass coffee table, where copies of Sussex Life and Latest magazine lay.
Susi Holliday, on the other sofa, stood up and greeted Grace with a respectful, ‘Good evening, sir.’
Roy Grace removed his coat, folded it and laid it beside him. Then he studied the man carefully. ‘Can you give me your full name, Mr Ball?’
‘Yes, Jamie Gordon Ball.’
Still watching the man intently, he asked, ‘When did you last see Logan?’
‘This morning, about seven o’clock. She tripped getting out of bed and gashed her toe open on the bathroom door. I would have driven her to the hospital on any other day, but I had a very important early meeting at work.’
Grace noted his reply but made no comment. ‘She gave you no indication that she was going anywhere tonight?’
‘No, none. We’d made plans to have a Chinese tonight – there’s a place nearby that delivers – we have it regularly – and we were going to watch a couple of episodes of Breaking Bad – we’re working our way through it.’
‘Great show,’ Grace said.
‘It is, we’re totally hooked.’
‘Where does Logan work?’
‘In Hove, she’s a chiropractor – she works in a clinic on Portland Road.’
So far, the man’s body language indicated he was telling the truth. ‘How would you describe your relationship?’
Ball was quiet for a moment, then he said, ‘We love each other.’
For the first time the man’s demeanour indicated that he might be lying.
‘Have you set a date for your wedding?’ Grace pressed.
He looked even more uncomfortable now. ‘Yes – well, not exactly.’
‘Not exactly?’
‘We’re sort of – discussing it.’
‘Sort of?’
‘Yes.’ He shrugged, awkwardly.
Grace looked at him even more intently. ‘Has Logan ever done this before – not come home?’
‘Never. Look – I heard her scream. I don’t know if you’ve been down there, but the car park here is really creepy. There’s been a raft of car break-ins and thefts. The management of this place don’t give a toss. She phoned me to say she had seen someone as she drove in. Then she screamed. Then I – ’
He covered his face with his hands.
Grace watched him. His distress seemed genuine. Yet at the same time, he was uncomfortable about the way Ball was describing his relationship with his fiancée – something was not ringing true.
‘Something’s happened to her, Detective – Superintendent – something’s happened to her. This is just not like her. Something’s happened. She’s a strong person, I’ve never heard her sound afraid before. The fear – the fear in her voice.’
‘Tell me what you think has happened to her?’
Jamie Ball shook his head, wildly. ‘I don’t know. But I think she’s been abducted. Kidnapped. Taken.’
‘You’re watching Breaking Bad?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you watch a lot of cop programmes? Crime series?’
‘Quite a lot, yes.’
‘Are you sure you are not being influenced here? Are you one hundred per cent convinced that Logan has been abducted – and not gone somewhere of her own free will?’
‘Yes.’ He fixed his eyes on Roy Grace’s.
Roy Grace left, ten minutes later, unsure about everything except for one certainty. Logan Somerville was missing.
The ANPR evidence seemed to eliminate Jamie Ball. But his body language made him appear guilty. Of something.
What was he lying about?
As Grace drove away he made a mental note that he needed to appoint a Family Liaison Officer first thing in the morning, someone who might be able to shed more light on the relationship.
16
Thursday 11 December
I keep my projects i
n their own private cubicles in what I like to call my correction chamber. Tanks all plumbed in, my projects kitted out with adult disposable nappies. Cleanliness is so important for morale. I keep them healthy, plenty of vitamins, nutrients, electrolytes. I want them to live as long as possible. So that I can make the choices about when to say goodbye. It’s all about power. Power is hugely exciting.
I don’t like to call them my victims. I prefer the term projects.
I’m not a violent person, really I’m not. Once, when I was a kid, I hit a sparrow with a pebble I fired from my catapult. I can still remember that bird spinning round and round like a helicopter, plummeting to the ground. I’d never really expected to hit it – I’d just fired at it for fun. I picked it up, its feathers all soft and its body so warm, and I was crying, trying to breathe life back into it through its little beak.
I dug a grave for it, laid it in the bottom, apologized, covered it with earth and said a prayer.
I felt like shit for days after. But at the same time it wakened something inside me. Every time I looked at a bird, for the rest of my childhood, I would think to myself about the power I had.
The power of death.
Killing things makes me feel strong. Some people will say that’s evil.
Here’s the thing: does evil exist? Surely only if you believe in God. Otherwise you believe in the survival of the fittest. Which means I survive and others I choose to kill don’t.
Today I’ve chosen to kill. I’ve been looking forward to this moment for days – well, actually, for weeks!
But, of course, you are not capable of ever knowing the pleasure this is going to give me.