Dead Tomorrow

by Peter James

  The captain reduced speed. Malcolm checked the engine revs and temperature gauges, then glanced at his watch. They would be back in phone range of the shore in about five hours. Five o’clock this evening. The phone call from Lynn had left him deeply disturbed. While he had always found Caitlin a difficult child, he was immensely fond of her and saw a lot of himself in her. On the days that he took her out, he was always amused by her complaints about her mother. They seemed to be exactly the same issues that he had had with Lynn too. In particular, her obsessive worrying – although, to be fair, Caitlin had given them both plenty to worry about over the years.

  But this time it had sounded even worse than anything before and he felt frustrated that the call had been cut short. And very worried.

  He pulled on his hard hat and high-visibility jacket, left the bridge and clambered down the steep metal steps to the gridded companionway, then down on to the main deck. He could feel the sharpness of the winter breeze rippling his clothes as he walked across to get into position to supervise the lowering of the dredge pipe into the sea.

  A couple of his former navy colleagues, whom he met up with from time to time for a drink, joked that dredgers were nothing more than floating vacuum cleaners. In a sense they were right. The Arco Dee was a 2,000-ton Hoover. Which meant 3,500 tons when the dust bag was full.

  Mounted along the starboard side of the ship was the dredge pipe itself, a 100-foot-long steel tube. For Malcolm, one of the highlights of each voyage was watching the dredge pipe sink out of sight into the murky depths. It was the moment when the ship truly seemed to come alive. The sudden clanking din of the pumping and chute machinery starting up, the sea all around them churning, and in a few moments water, sand and gravel would be thundering into the hold, turning the whole centre of the vessel, which was the cargo hold, into a ferocious cauldron of muddy water.

  Occasionally, something unexpected, like a cannonball or part of a Second World War aircraft or, on one nerve-racking occasion, an unexploded bomb, got sucked up and jammed in the drag head – the mouth of the pipe. Over the years, so many historical artefacts had been dredged up from the ocean floor that official procedures had been established for dealing with them. But no guideline existed for what the Arco Dee was about to haul up on this occasion.

  When the hold was full, all the water would drain off through openings in the spillways, leaving what was, effectively, a sand and pebble beach in the middle of the ship. Malcolm liked to walk along it as they headed back to harbour, crunching through some of the hundreds of shells that got scooped up, or occasionally coming across a hapless fish or crab. Some years ago he had found what was later identified as a human leg bone, a tibia. Even after all these years, the mysteries of the sea, especially what lay beneath it, filled him with a childish excitement.

  *

  In about twenty minutes or so it would be time to raise the dredge pipe. Malcolm, taking a quick break in the empty mess room, sat on a battered sofa, cradling a mug of tea and eating a tabnab – as scones were called in navy slang. The television was on, but the picture was too blurry to make anything out. His attention wandered distractedly to the evening meal menu, which was scrawled in red marker pen on a whiteboard: Cream of leek soup, Bread roll, Scotch egg, Chips, Fresh salad, Steamed sponge and custard. Once they returned to port, there were several hours of hard work unloading the cargo before dinner, and by then normally he would be ravenous. But at the moment, his thoughts on Caitlin, he lost interest in the scone after a couple of bites and dropped it in the bin. As he did so, he heard a voice behind him.

  ‘Mal . . .’

  He turned to see the second mate, a burly Scouser in overalls, hard hat and thick protective gloves.

  ‘We’ve got a blockage in the drag head, Chief. I think we need to raise the pipe.’

  Mal grabbed his hard hat, following the second mate out on to the deck. Looking upwards, he immediately saw only a trickle of water coming down the chute. Blockages were unusual because normally the heavy steel pincers of the drag head pushed obstacles clear of the nozzle, but just occasionally a fishing net was sucked up.

  Shouting out instructions to his crew of two, Mal waited till the suction pumps and the chute were switched off, then activated the winding gear to raise the pipe. He stood, peering over the side, watching the churning water as it slowly came into view. And when he saw the object that rose to the surface, firmly wedged between the massive steel claws, he felt a sudden tightening in his gullet.

  ‘What the fuck’s that?’ the Scouser said.

  For a moment, they all fell silent.

  10

  Roy Grace felt increasingly that his life was a constant challenge against the clock. As if he was a contestant in a game show that did not actually offer any prize for winning, because it had no end. For every email he succeeded in answering, another fifty came in. For every file on his desk that he managed to clear, another ten were brought in by his Management Support Assistant, Eleanor Hodgson, or by someone else – most recently by Emily Gaylor, from the Criminal Justice Department, who was there to assist him in preparing his cases for trial, but who seemed to take a malevolent delight in dumping more and more bundles of documents on his desk.

  This week he was the duty Senior Investigating Officer, which meant that if any major crime happened in the Sussex area, he would have to take charge. He silently prayed to whichever god protected police officers that it would be a quiet week.

  But that particular god was having a day off.

  His phone rang. It was an operator called Ron King he knew from the Force Control Department. ‘Roy,’ he said. ‘I’ve just had a call from the coastguard. A dredger out of Shoreham has pulled up a body, ten miles out in the Channel.’

  Oh great! Grace thought. All I bloody need. Being a coastal city, Brighton received a quantity of dead bodies from the sea every year. Some were floaters, usually suicide victims or unfortunate yacht crew who had gone overboard. Some were people who had been buried at sea, hooked in nets by fishermen who hadn’t read their charts and had trawled over one of the areas marked out for funerals. Mostly, they could be dealt with by a uniformed PC, but the fact that he was being called indicated something was not right.

  ‘What information do you have about it?’ he asked dutifully, making a mental note not to say anything to King about his cats. Last time the controller had gone on about them for ten minutes.

  ‘Male, looks young, early to mid-teens. Not been down long. Preserved in plastic sheeting and weighted.’

  ‘Not a burial at sea?’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like it. Not the usual kind of floater either. The coastguard said the captain is concerned it looks like it might be some kind of ritual killing – apparently. There is a strange incision on the body. Do you want me to ask the coastguard to send a boat out to bring it in?’

  Grace sat still for a moment, his brain churning, switching his thoughts into investigation mode. Everything on his desk and in his computer was now going to have to wait, at least until he had seen the body.

  ‘Is it on the deck or in the cargo hold?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s wedged in the drag head. Beyond slitting open the plastic sheeting to see what it was, they haven’t moved it.’

  ‘They’re operating out of Shoreham?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Grace had been on a dredger which had hauled up a severely decomposed body some years ago and remembered a little about the machinery.

  ‘I don’t want the body moved, Ron,’ he said. There could be key forensic evidence lodged around the body or in the nozzle of the dredge pipe. ‘Tell them to secure and preserve it as best they can, and get them to make an exact note on the chart where the body came up.’

  As soon as he had terminated his call with Ron, he made a further series of calls, assembling the immediate team he needed. One was to the Coroner, informing her of the incident and requesting a Home Office pathologist to attend. Most bodies taken or washed up from the sea would be
collected by the mortuary team straight away, after a cursory examination by a police surgeon or paramedic at the scene to certify death, no matter how obvious it was that the person was dead, and then assessed back at the mortuary for a suspicious or natural death. But here, Grace felt from the sound it, there was little doubt this was suspicious.

  Thirty minutes later he was at the wheel of a pool Hyundai, heading towards the harbour, with Detective Inspector Lizzie Mantle, with whom he had worked on a number of previous inquiries, beside him. She was a highly competent detective, and the fact that she was nice to look at was another bonus. She had shoulder-length fair hair, a pretty face, and was dressed, as she always seemed to be, in a man’s style of suit, today in a blue chalk-stripe over a crisp white blouse. On some women it would have looked quite butch, but on her it was businesslike while still feminine.

  They drove around the end of the harbour, passing the private driveway leading to the cul-de-sac where Heather Mills’s house was.

  Seeing Grace turn his head, as if perhaps to get a glimpse of the Beatle’s former wife, she asked, ‘Did you ever meet Paul McCartney?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re quite into music, aren’t you?’

  He nodded. ‘Some.’

  ‘Would you have liked to be a rock star? You know, like one of the Beatles?’

  Grace thought about it for a moment. It was not something he had ever considered. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because,’ he said. Then he hesitated, slowing down, looking out for the right part of the quay. ‘Because I have a crap voice!’

  She grinned.

  ‘But even if I was able to sing, I always wanted to do something that would make a difference.’ He shrugged. ‘You know? A difference to the world. That’s why I joined the police force. It may sound clichéd – but it’s why I do what I do.’

  ‘You think a police officer can make more difference than a rock megastar?’

  He smiled. ‘I think we corrupt fewer people.’

  ‘But do we make a difference?’

  They were passing a lumber yard. Then Grace saw the dark green van bearing the gold crest of the city of Brighton and Hove Coroner, parked close to the edge of the quay, and pulled up a short distance from it. None of the rest of the team had arrived so far.

  ‘I thought the ship was supposed to be here already,’ he said a little irritably, mindful of the time, and of the retirement party he had to be at tonight. Several of the top brass of the Sussex Police Force would be there, which meant it would be a good opportunity to do a spot of brown-nosing, so he had been anxious to be there punctually. But there was no chance now.

  ‘Probably delayed in the lock.’

  Grace nodded, and climbed out of the car, walking to the very edge, still limping and tender from rolling his beloved Alfa Romeo during a pursuit a while back. He stood beside an iron bollard, the wind feeling icy on his face. The light was fading fast, and if it wasn’t such a cloudless sky, it would already be almost dark. A mile or so in the distance he could see the closed lock gates and an orange superstructure, probably that of the dredger, beyond. He pulled his overcoat tightly around himself, shivering against the cold, dug his hands into his pockets and pulled on his leather gloves. Then he glanced at his watch.

  Ten to five. Jim Wilkinson’s retirement party started at seven, over on the far side of Worthing. He had planned to go home and change, then collect Cleo. Now, by the time he finished here, depending on what he found, and on how much examination the pathologist would want to do in situ, he would be lucky to make the party at all. The one blessing was that they had been allocated Nadiuska De Sancha, the quicker – and more fun – of the two specialist Home Office pathologists they worked with most regularly.

  On the far side of the harbour he saw a large fishing boat, its navigation lights on, chug away from its berth. The water was almost black.

  He heard doors open and slam behind him, then a chirpy voice said, ‘Cor, you’re going to cop it from the missus if you’re late. Wouldn’t want to be in your shoes, Roy!’

  He turned to see Walter Hordern, a tall, dapper man, who was always smartly and discreetly attired in a dark suit, white shirt and black tie. His official role was Chief of Brighton and Hove Cemeteries, but his duties also included spending a part of his time helping in the process of collecting bodies from the scene of their death and dealing with the considerable paperwork that was required for each one. Despite the gravitas of his job, Walter had a mischievous sense of humour and loved nothing better than to wind Roy up.

  ‘Why’s that, Walter?’

  ‘She’s gone and spent a bleedin’ fortune at the hairdresser’s today – for the party tonight. She’ll be well miffed if you blow it out.’

  ‘I’m not blowing it out.’

  Walter pointedly looked at his own watch. Then raised his eyes dubiously.

  ‘If necessary I’ll put you in charge of the sodding investigation, Walter.’

  The man shook his head. ‘Na, I only like dealing with stiffs. You never get any lip from a stiff. Good as gold, they are.’

  Grace grinned. ‘Darren here?’

  Darren was Cleo’s assistant in the mortuary.

  Walter jerked a thumb at the van. ‘He’s in there, on the dog-and-bone, having a barney with his girlfriend.’ He shrugged, then rolled his eyes. ‘That’s wimmin for you.’

  Grace nodded, texting his:

  Ship not here yet. Going to be late. Better meet u there. XXX

  Just as he stuck his phone back in his pocket, it beeped twice sharply. He pulled it back out and looked at the display. It was a reply from Cleo:

  Don’t be 2 late. I have something to tell you.

  He frowned, unsettled by the tone of the message, and by the fact that there was no ‘X’ on the end. Stepping out of earshot of Walter and DI Mantle, who had just climbed out of the car, he called Cleo’s number. She answered immediately.

  ‘Can’t talk,’ she said curtly. ‘Got a family just arrived for an identification.’

  ‘What is it you have to tell me?’ he said, aware his voice sounded anxious.

  ‘I want to tell you face to face, not over the phone. Later, OK?’ She hung up.

  Shit. He stared at the phone for a moment, even more worried now, then put it back in his pocket.

  He did not like the way she had sounded at all.

  11

  Simona learned to inhale Aurolac vapour from a plastic bag. A small bottle of the metallic paint, which she was able to steal easily from any paint store, would last for several days. It was Romeo who had taught her how to steal, and how to blow into the bag to get the paint to mix with air, then suck it in, blow it back into the bag again and inhale it again.

  When she inhaled, the hunger pangs went.

  When she inhaled, life in her home became tolerable. The home she had lived in for as far back as she could, or rather wanted to remember. The home she entered by scrambling through a gap in the broken concrete pavement and clambering down a metal ladder beneath the busy, unmade road, into the underground cavity that had been bored out for inspection and maintenance of the steam pipe. The pipe, thirteen feet in diameter, was part of the communal central-heating network that fed most of the buildings in the city. It made the space down here snug and dry in winter, but intolerably hot during the spring months until it was turned off.

  And in a tiny part of this space, a tight recess between the pipe and the wall, she had made her home. It was marked out by an old duvet she had found, discarded, on a rubbish tip, and Gogu, who had been with her as far back as she could remember. Gogu was a beige, shapeless, mangy strip of fake fur that she slept with, pressed to her face, every night. Beyond the clothes she wore and Gogu, she had no possessions at all.

  There were five of them, six including the baby, who lived here permanently. From time to time others came and stayed for a while, then moved on. The place was lit with candles, and music pla
yed throughout the days and nights when they had batteries. Western pop music that sometimes brought Simona joy and sometimes demented her, because it was always loud and rarely stopped. They argued about it constantly, but always it played. Beyoncé was singing at the moment and she liked Beyoncé. Liked the way she looked. One day, she dreamed, she would look like Beyoncé, sing like Beyoncé. One day she would live in a house.

  Romeo told her she was beautiful, that one day she would be rich and famous.

  The baby was crying again and there was a faint stink of shit. Valeria’s eight-month-old son, Antonio. Valeria, with all their help, had managed to keep him hidden from the authorities, who would have taken him from her.

  Valeria, who was much older than the rest of them, had been pretty once, but her face at twenty-eight, haggard and heavily lined from this life, was now the face of an old woman. She had long, straight brown hair and eyes that had once been sultry but were now dead, and was dressed brightly, an emerald puffa over a ragged, turquoise, yellow and pink jogging suit, and red plastic sandals – scavenged, like most of their clothes, from bins in the better parts of the city, or accepted eagerly from hand-out centres.

  She rocked her baby, who was wrapped up in an old, fur-lined suede coat, in her arms. The damn child’s crying was worse than the constant music. Simona knew that the baby cried because he was hungry. They were all hungry, almost all of the time. They ate what they stole, or what they bought with the money they begged, or got from the old newspapers they occasionally sold, or from the wallets and purses they sometimes pickpocketed from tourists, or from selling the mobile phones and cameras they just grabbed from them.

  Romeo, with his big blue eyes like saucers, his cute, innocent face, his short black hair brushed forward and his withered hand, was a fast runner. Fast as hell! He did not know how old he was. Maybe fourteen, he thought. Or perhaps thirteen. Simona did not know how old she was either. The stuff had not started to happen yet, the stuff that Valeria told her about. So Simona reckoned she was twelve or thirteen.