Find Them Dead

by Peter James

  Sounding much more friendly, she said, ‘Nice watch! My dad’s got one very similar. Can I have a look?’

  ‘Yes, please do!’ he said proudly, thinking that maybe this could be the icebreaker between them.

  She made a play of peering closely at it, through the plastic. ‘Am I right, it’s a Rolex Submariner?’

  Gready nodded eagerly. ‘Yes.’

  ‘A vintage one? Looks vintage to me.’

  Gready nodded again. ‘Yes, you are right. Circa 1955!’

  ‘Very nice, must be worth a few bob.’

  ‘It’s insured for £50,000.’

  ‘Very sensible,’ she replied. ‘I’d make sure it was well insured if it was mine.’ Then, seamlessly, before Terence Gready was even aware what she was doing, she dropped the watch into her briefcase. ‘I need to retain this.’

  ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘What are you doing? You can’t take it!’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll give you a receipt for it – I have one here. Your watch will be part of our investigation. If everything is fine, you’ll get it back. You will just need to prove to us that the money to purchase it came from a legitimate source – that it was honestly purchased.’

  ‘This is outrageous. I’m a solicitor, I bought it out of my earnings. You can’t take my watch, give it back to me, you bloody bitch!’

  She smiled at him, and at the ruffled face of his solicitor. In a calm voice she said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s fine. I’ve been called a lot worse.’

  17

  Saturday 1 December

  When the interview with the detective and the Financial Investigator terminated, Terence Gready, only too well aware of his rights, requested that he stay on in the interview room for a private conference with his solicitor.

  For many years, despite Gready’s own extensive knowledge of the law, he had always listened to Fox’s wise counsel. After the others had left, he looked up warily at the wide-angle CCTV camera. ‘Want to check that’s off, Nick?’ he said.

  Fox shook his head. ‘It’ll be off – and even if it wasn’t, you know anything we discuss now would be inadmissible evidence. We’re good.’

  ‘I don’t feel that good. My big worry is Mickey – he loves that brother of his. Fucking dotes on him. I’ve been worried ever since he was arrested that he might try to make a deal with the prosecution – and rat me up. What do you think? One of your colleagues is acting for him, has he said anything to you?’

  Gready was paying Fox’s firm to act for Mickey. But it wasn’t out of altruism, it was so he would know what Starr was thinking.

  ‘A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, Terry. Starr is your weak link. You’re smart to be concerned. He asked my colleague yesterday if he thought he’d get a lesser sentence by pleading guilty.’

  ‘Understandable. As long as he doesn’t grass me up, it’s OK.’

  Fox raised a calming hand. ‘He’s got the message not to go there.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He’s sore. He’s blaming his arrest on you.’

  ‘On me? If he hadn’t been so damned greedy and packed all the Ferrari’s tyres with coke – the fucking stupid idiot – we’d have been home free.’

  ‘That’s not what he thinks, Terry. From what he’s said, he reckons you knew your operation was under surveillance and you let him be the fall guy.’

  Gready shrugged. ‘Let him be the fall guy? Does he seriously think that if I had the remotest intention of doing that, I’d have lost six million quid’s worth of cocaine in the process? It doesn’t make any sense, Nick. Shit, if I had any inkling – any at all – I’d have halted everything until the heat had blown over. Tell him that.’

  ‘I’ll tell him, but you need to look at it from his perspective. He’s bang to rights. Caught red-handed trying to import six million quid’s worth of cocaine. Looking at the wrong end of fifteen years, at best. Whilst you might, just might – in his mind – wriggle away free.’

  ‘Well, if I did manage to get out of this shit, I’d be his best chance of getting him out, too.’

  ‘You really think that, Terry?’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Sure I do. But we’ve a PR job to do on Mickey.’

  ‘Nick, whether he pleads guilty or not, whatever happens, I need him in the witness box telling the jury he doesn’t know me, and we’ve never met. I need him backing me that this is all a stitch-up by rival drug dealers.’

  Fox looked at him, dubiously. ‘Well, that’s going to depend, there might be a big difference in his attitude if he does plead guilty.’

  Gready narrowed his eyes at Fox. ‘Well, you tell him there’s another big difference, that it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop. Tell him if we’re both going down, I’ll be the one with the parachute.’

  Fox stood up and patted him affectionately on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll sort him.’ He grinned. ‘Trust me, I’m a lawyer.’

  Gready managed a weak smile back.

  FOUR MONTHS LATER

  18

  Wednesday 20 March

  A tailback, caused by a minor crash on the M25, delayed Meg Magellan’s journey home from the Tesco headquarters in Welwyn Garden City by nearly two hours. When she finally arrived back in Hove and pulled onto the driveway alongside Laura’s grimy old Kia, in front of what had once been the garage until she and Nick had converted it into an extension of the living room, she was exhausted and ravenous.

  And feeling lonely and heavy-hearted about again going into the empty house.

  She lugged her briefcase off the passenger seat and let herself in the front door. The day’s post was scattered across the floor – the usual assortment of bills, fast-food flyers and a couple of official-looking letters. Daphne sat in the midst of the mail.

  She knelt and stroked the cat. ‘Are you hungry? You must be – sorry I’m so late! I’ll get you food in a minute.’

  The hall and staircase walls were lined with black-and-white photographs in black frames. Nick had been a keen amateur photographer, and loved taking photos of his family and of Brighton scenes, especially the beach, beach huts and the piers. When he had died, she and Laura at least had a detailed photographic record of their family activities and, crucially for Meg, of Will and Laura growing up.

  What was Laura doing today, she wondered? Four months since she’d left with Cassie. And another five months before she would be back. The last communication she’d had was a WhatsApp photograph of her and Cassie inside a thatched mud hut, standing beside a toothless man in a felt trilby and traditional striped cape and a small, grinning boy in a grey hoodie, who was holding up a stack of brightly coloured friendship bracelets. All around them on the straw-covered floor were dozens and dozens of guinea pigs. It was captioned by Laura:

  This is a guinea-pig farm, can you believe it, Mum? Horace would not be impressed!!!

  Meg knelt and scooped up the bunch of letters, carried them through to the kitchen and plonked them on the table. Daphne meowed.

  ‘Dinner is coming!’ She tore open a packet of a new, supposedly highly nutritious cat food she was trying out, but which Daphne didn’t seem wild about, squeezed its stinky contents into the bowl and put it on the floor. The cat walked around it, peering at it warily, and then, dismissively, walked away.

  ‘Great! What do you want? Beluga caviar?’

  The cat reached the kitchen door, gave a disdainful miaowww, then jumped out through the flap.

  ‘Go find yourself a takeaway out in the garden!’ she said. ‘Chinese? Pizza? Thai? Maybe a Mexican?’

  The creature had always been Laura’s pet, sleeping with her on the bed. Ever since Laura had gone, it seemed to Meg that the cat held her responsible for her daughter’s absence, and kept its distance – apart from when it was hungry – despite all her efforts to befriend it.

  She switched on the oven, then went upstairs to Laura’s room, where the smell of sawdust greeted her. She opened the window to air the room, before checking o
n the precious creatures in their cages. Relieved as she was every day that none of them had died, she topped up their food and water then took a few photos to send to Laura – she demanded them every few days. Horace, his little face twitching, actually looked like he was posing for his close-up.

  Back downstairs, she opened the freezer and took a desultory look through the options. Like the cat, she wasn’t hungry, but she knew she needed to eat. She removed a vegan curry, which she’d bought as an experiment, read the instructions, removed the packaging, put it on a baking tray and bunged it in the oven. Then she sat down to tackle the post.

  The first envelope she opened, which was for Laura, had an Edinburgh postmark. It was from the Royal School of Veterinary Studies, giving Laura the dates of the autumn semester, starting 2 October. Meg was so proud her daughter had got in, against stiff competition. She immediately messaged her with the date.

  Then she opened the buff envelope addressed to herself. And felt a strange frisson as she read the contents.

  It was a very formally worded letter on pink paper summoning her for jury service at Lewes Crown Court – in seven weeks’ time. Within the letter were options to delay, should there be a reasonable cause.

  In exactly six weeks’ time she was taking voluntary redundancy from her employer, Kempson Pharmaceuticals, due to their move further north. The timing was almost perfect. She could do it, although it might interfere with interviews for a couple of other positions she’d applied for.

  But it might be interesting, she thought. Perhaps a distraction from how much she missed Laura.

  As she read the letter and conditions more carefully, a reply beeped in from Laura with another photograph, this time a close-up of a seriously ugly reptile.

  Can I bring him home, Mum?

  Grinning, Meg tapped out,

  So long as you are not inside his belly! Remember the song?

  She sailed away on a sunny summer day, on the back of a crocodile . . .

  At the end of the ride, the lady was inside, and the smile was on the crocodile!

  The reply came back,

  I’m serious, Mum! I soooo want one!

  Meg responded,

  Go for it!

  Then added,

  Are iguanas allowed in Edinburgh?

  Laura replied,

  You need to come here, Mum. It is A-MAZ-INGGG!

  Meg smiled. Pleased that Laura sounded so well and happy, enjoying her trip of a lifetime. Then she returned to the jury service letter, studying it carefully.

  It might make a really great transition between Kempsons and wherever she moved to next. And, hey, it would be a civic duty done!

  She signed her name and placed the reply slip in the postage-paid envelope that came with the letter.

  19

  Thursday 28 March

  Lewes Crown Court was an imposing presence on the town’s High Street. Its classically handsome colonnaded facade of Portland stone gave it an air both of timelessness and of gravitas, but once you were inside, past the security counter and metal detector, it wasn’t so timeless any more, Terence Gready thought.

  The furnishings and decor of its common parts and rooms were dated, as was the layout of the building and its courts, some more than others, but especially Court 3, which he would be going up to soon. Modern courts were designed with the benefit of hindsight and experience. Witnesses, the accused, their family and friends, and jurors entered and left via separate entrances and were segregated throughout. And in modern courts the jurors were out of the line of sight of the public gallery. But not here. Everyone came in and left through the same entrance and mingled, however reluctantly and unpleasantly, in the lobby.

  Terence Gready knew the building inside out. He’d appeared here countless times with clients and had always liked the faded grandeur and sense of history and importance of the place. But now, to his humiliation, for the first time ever he had not entered through the front entrance. Instead, handcuffed and accompanied by two security guards, he had been driven round to the back in a prison van and unceremoniously marched straight down to the holding cells.

  He now sat on a thin blue cushion on the hard bunk, staring around at the windowless room, his thoughts as stark as his surroundings. To add to his despondency, his wife had bought him a brand-new white shirt, which she had delivered along with his blue suit to Highdown Prison last night. Why, he cursed, hadn’t she checked the shirt first? The collar had been creased, carelessly, in the wrong place, so no matter how he had arranged his tie, the starched collar rode up the back of his neck. And the shirt itched.

  Mickey Starr was in another of the cells, close by, but Gready didn’t know which one. He glanced at his watch – the shitty one that no one would steal, replacing his Rolex that bitch Financial Investigator had seized. It was approaching 10 a.m. They would be going up soon for the Plea and Trial Preparation Hearing.

  God, after all he’d done for Mickey over the years, the man owed it to him to stick by him now, so they had a chance of getting through this crisis. If Mickey did anything other than plead guilty, and failed to stick to the script Nick Fox had given him, Gready knew his entire defence could be scuppered.

  His last meeting with Fox, two days ago at Highdown, had not left him feeling confident. Quite the reverse – he’d had the sense that Fox was being evasive when he’d asked him about Starr.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of his cell door opening, and the voice of a uniformed female dock officer. ‘You’re on parade, sunshine.’

  As he stepped out, he saw Mickey, dressed in a suit for the first time in all the years he had known him, and looking distinctly awkward in it. It seemed at the same time to be both too big and too small for him, with his shirt collar all rucked up and his dark tie stopping halfway down his chest.

  With a stern dock officer behind him, he followed the first one up the steps and emerged into the glassed-in booth that was the dock of the wood-panelled Court 3. Countless of his clients had stood here previously, but it was his very first time and he felt like a caged animal in a zoo. Both defendants sat down, separated by a dock officer and with another officer also remaining. Mickey was staring resolutely ahead.

  They were at the same level as the wigged judge, His Honour Richard Jupp, with the rest of the court benches below, the empty jury box to his left, the press box, half full, over to his right. He recognized some of the journalists, one in particular – the smart, attractive senior Argus crime reporter, Siobhan Sheldrake, who had doorstepped him during a number of previous trials. He could see her looking at him now, as if somewhat bemused to see him in his reversed role.

  A handful of people sat up in the public gallery, among them his wife, son and one of his daughters. He caught Barbara’s reassuring smile and returned it with a discreet nod. Down below in the well of the court sat his barrister, Primrose Brown QC, gowned and wigged, and a short distance along the same row was another wigged brief, representing Mickey Starr.

  Seated at the far end of the same row, in the sparsely attended hearing, was a Crown Prosecution Service barrister, a woman he’d not seen before. Some greenhorn cutting her teeth on the easy part of a trial.

  Behind Primrose Brown sat his trusted Nick Fox, and next to him was Anu Vasanth, the solicitor from the same firm looking after the interests of Mickey Starr. The mere sight of Fox instilled confidence and optimism in Gready. During the coming difficult months, Gready knew there wasn’t a better man to handle the situation. Fox was a force of nature. So long as they could keep Mickey Starr in his box they would, almost certainly, be OK.

  The black-gowned clerk of the court stood, holding a sheaf of papers. ‘Terence Arthur Gready, please rise.’

  Gready obeyed.

  Reading from the papers, she asked, ‘You are Terence Arthur Gready of Onslow Road, Hove, Sussex?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Terence Arthur Gready, you stand charged on this indictment containing six counts. Count One is being knowing
ly concerned in the fraudulent evasion of a prohibition on the importation of goods, contrary to section 170(2)(b) of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979. The particulars of the offence are that you, between the 1st day of January 2018 and the 26th day of November 2018, in relation to a Class-A controlled drug, namely 160 kilos of cocaine, were knowingly concerned in the fraudulent evasion of the prohibition on importation imposed by section 3(1) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. How do you plead?’

  Gready spoke loudly and clearly: ‘Not guilty.’

  The clerk read out to Gready four further counts of importing cocaine, covering four similar significant incidents between 3 February 2013 and 26 November 2018. To each of them he again stated, ‘Not guilty.’

  Finally, the clerk finished with: ‘Count Six statement of offence: conspiracy to supply a controlled drug to another contrary to section 4(3)(a) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The particulars of that offence are that you, between the 10th day of January 2003 and the 26th day of November 2018 conspired together with others unknown, to unlawfully supply a controlled drug of Class A, namely cocaine, to another, in contravention of section 4(1) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. How do you plead?’

  ‘Not guilty,’ he said without hesitation. He glanced down at Nick Fox and caught his nod of reassurance, and wink.

  ‘Please sit down, Mr Gready,’ the judge commanded.

  As he complied, the clerk said, ‘Michael Rodney Starr, please stand.’

  Starr stood, looking even more gawky, his collar seemingly bursting out of the top of his jacket. The clerk read out an identical first charge to the one she had for Gready.

  ‘How do you plead?’

  ‘Guilty.’

  Mickey Starr then pleaded guilty to the further five counts that had been put to his co-defendant.

  He also pleaded guilty to counts of assaults on two Border Force officers, two police officers, a member of the public and, in addition, a number of driving offences. Starr sat down.