The Aden Vanner Novels

by Jeff Gulvin

  In that moment he knew he could not get up and his bladder emptied. He felt it, warm and sticky against his thighs, soaking his pants in seconds. The killer pressed the muzzle of the gun into his hair. For a moment the barrel seemed to caress the base of his skull. Jennings’ eyes stalked. Then heat and pain and nothing.

  He gave no sound. Blood shot from the front of his head to spatter the whitened tiles of the hearth. Droplets sprayed the photograph of his mother like fine crimson splinters.

  The killer remained standing, arms loose, the gun weighty all at once in a still and rubbered hand. Listening, head high like a wolf: the sound of the TV, low, nothing more. Jennings lay very still against the hearth, his chin resting just in front of the television set.

  The killer sat down in the chair Jennings had recently vacated. The beer can still perched on the arm, the ashtray crowded with butts and dead, grey ash. On the TV screen the Terminator hunted.

  For fifteen minutes the killer sat in that chair holding the gun. Jennings lay on the floor. No movement. No sound. There had been a sound like somebody moving, perhaps in a bed, above and next door. Nothing more than that. At exactly twenty-five past two the killer stood up and moved over to Jennings. From the bag the killer lifted the camera and quietly wound on the film.

  Night air broke into the stillness, weight upon weight like somebody breathing. The killer opened the door a crack and pierced the night with eyes that sought only light and movement. Nothing. No sound. No light. A silent step and the killer was in the porch, melted in shadow. Bending, the killer placed the gun and the camera back into the canvas bag. Two minutes later a car engine fired and after that there was stillness.

  Morrison was back in Loughborough Street with Detective Constable Kennett, sitting on the other side of the table. He scratched his chin.

  ‘That was back in June. Last summer.’

  ‘June 5th,’ Sarah said.

  ‘You weren’t on duty that night.’

  She shook her head. ‘I came on in the morning. I remember I got in early.’

  ‘So you were there when the call came through.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘DCI Vanner wasn’t there.’

  ‘No, Sir. We met him later. At the house.’

  He nodded. ‘Go on, Constable. Tell me what happened.’

  Sarah bent over the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet and watched Joe Nicholls pretend to concentrate on his cup of coffee while he perused the backs of her legs. She looked round sharply at him and he nearly choked on his coffee. As if to save his embarrassment the phone shrilled out at his elbow and he yanked the receiver from its housing.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Nicholls.’

  Sarah saw his eyes widen and she closed the cabinet drawer with her foot.

  ‘We’ll be there.’ Nicholls put down the phone.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Get a car, Sarah. There’s been another shooting.’

  They got held up in traffic on Muswell Hill Broadway. Sarah yawned and put her hand across her mouth. Nicholls glanced at her. ‘Heavy night?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Late in bed uh?’ He winked at her and drove on.

  Two police cars blocked either end of Milton Crescent. A uniformed officer backed away the car at their end and Nicholls drove up the street.

  ‘What do we know, Sarge?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Not a lot. Gunshot.’

  ‘Did somebody hear something?’

  Nicholls pulled on the handbrake and shook his head. ‘Milkman discovered the body this morning.’

  A second uniformed officer came up to them from the gate. Sarah noticed the milkman sitting amongst the crates of his float and drawing heavily on a cigarette.

  ‘Hello, Malc,’ Nicholls spoke to the uniformed man. ‘SOCO?’

  ‘On their way, Sarge.’

  Nicholls glanced at the man on the milk float. ‘He find the body?’

  The constable nodded. ‘Mr Adeishan. It’s a bit of a mess in there. He’s pretty shaken up.’

  They went up to the milkman. Nicholls introduced them both and then left Sarah to take his statement. Adeishan stood up and threw away his cigarette. Sweat stood high on his forehead. His hands were shaking.

  ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘Never seen a dead man before.’

  ‘That’s okay. Take it easy. Can you tell me what happened?’

  He massaged his eyes with long fingers. ‘I was just delivering the milk,’ he said. ‘The door was open. Not much. Ajar you know. He’s late with his money. He always is when his mother’s away. Insolent. Got no time for anybody. Just expects to have his milk and not pay for it.’

  ‘Did you go in?’ Sarah asked.

  He shifted his shoulders. ‘I called out first. I got no answer so I called a bit louder. If I don’t collect the money I get in a lot of trouble, you know, back at the depot. I called again but still he didn’t answer, so I just stuck my head round the door. Then I heard the television on so I think he’s fallen asleep in the front room.’ He sought another cigarette. Sarah lit it for him.

  ‘He owes me a month. I don’t want to wait till his mother gets home. She always picking up the mess he leaves behind. She’s a good lady. Nice lady. Well anyway, I wanted my money so I go inside, into the front room.’ His voice failed him then; a sob convulsed and withered in his throat. He pulled on the cigarette, drawing his cheeks all but together. ‘He’s lying on the floor and there is blood and mess all over the place. I rushed outside to be sick.’

  ‘Then you called us?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘That’s all.’

  Sarah patted his arm.

  Nicholls came outside looking pale. ‘Get the place taped off, Malc,’ he said to the constable. ‘Any sign of SOCO yet?’

  ‘No, Sarge.’

  ‘You’ve called the doc?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Nicholls took Sarah’s arm and moved her over to their car. He took a packet of cigarettes from the glove compartment and lit one.

  ‘I thought you were quitting.’

  He scowled, looking through her. ‘Many more sights like that and I’ll never quit!’

  ‘Bad is it?’

  He nodded. ‘You know who he is, don’t you?’

  Sarah shook her head.

  ‘Was, I should say. Alex Jennings. We nicked him a couple of years ago for killing two young girls with his car. Pissed as a fart. Jumped a set of lights and ploughed straight into them on a crossing. Rachel and Jenny Lind. Killed them both.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Family wiped out like that.’

  ‘I remember,’ Sarah said. ‘Didn’t stop, did he?’

  Nicholls shook his head.

  ‘How long did he get?’

  ‘Three years.’

  ‘And serve?’

  ‘Less than half.’

  Both of them were still: the summer air seemed to clog with Nicholls’ cigarette smoke. Sarah took a couple of paces away from him and hugged herself.

  ‘What time’s the Guvnor on?’ Nicholls asked her.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll give him a call.’

  In the newsroom of the Evening Post Paul Little unwrapped a piece of chewing gum and then rolled the silver paper between his forefinger and thumb before flicking it into the bin. Across the floor Harriet suddenly called out to him. Something in the tone of her voice made him get up and walk smartly over. She was opening the mail at her desk. He leaned beside her, head close to hers. ‘What is it?’

  She laid a sheet of paper and two photographs in front of him.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Hairs prickled the back of his neck. Harriet went to pick up the paper again.

  ‘Don’t.’ His voice was a snap. ‘Get a plastic sleeve. Then call the police.’

  Leaving her at her desk, he walked to the end of the newsroom and out through the swing doors to the corridor. Taking the stairs two at a time he came to the editorial floor and swept in past the secretaries.
‘Is Kevin in?’ he asked.

  One of them nodded and he went straight through to the editor’s office.

  Kevin Lloyd sat behind a desk casting his eye over a sheaf of morning nationals.

  ‘Kevin,’ Little said from the door. ‘Can you come down a minute?’

  The editor swung his feet off the desk. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Letter just came in. You know, “To the Editor”.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I think it’s from the Watchman.’

  Vanner drove into Milton Crescent and parked his car. He flashed his ID at the uniform standing by the blue and white tape and strode down the street. Nicholls and Sarah waited for him by their car. Vanner looked from one face to the other. As he got to them, two ambulancemen came out of the house with a body wrapped in plastic. Vanner glanced at it.

  ‘Alexander Jennings,’ Nicholls said. ‘Aged twenty-one. Convicted of Hit and Run. Killed two young sisters.’

  Vanner watched the ambulancemen load him into their van.

  ‘Served half his sentence, Sir,’ Sarah added quietly.

  The doctor came out of the house and stripped off his white surgical gloves. Then, taking a handkerchief from his top pocket, he mopped his brow. Vanner walked over to him. ‘Morning.’

  The doctor nodded.

  ‘DCI Vanner.’

  The doctor looked at him. ‘Ah, you’re Vanner are you. Well I think you have another one.’

  ‘Have I?’ Vanner looked beyond him into the darkened hallway. Two men in white overalls were busy with dusting equipment.

  ‘Bullet in the back of the head,’ the doctor stated flatly. ‘Can’t tell you any more than that right now—but I can tell you that much.’

  Vanner looked at him. ‘Obvious, was it?’

  The doctor flickered his eyebrows. ‘You could say.’ He wiped his face again. ‘Time of death I would estimate about two—two-thirty this morning. I can confirm later. Right now I need some breakfast.’

  Vanner watched him go and then went into the house. He worked his way around the officers who were busy with their forensic equipment. Something told him that they would not find anything. He looked at the hall; narrow, with a strip of runner-style carpet that scattered the length of it. He stepped into the front room. He saw a sitting room, a traditional white-tiled Victorian fireplace against the far wall with a picture on the mantelpiece; a woman in her fifties. From where he stood, it looked as though the picture had been spattered with blood. Heavy velvet curtains draped the windows and the only light came from the open front door behind him.

  Nicholls appeared at his elbow. ‘Like this?’ Vanner said to him.

  ‘As you see it.’

  ‘Family?’

  ‘Mother. She’s away. We haven’t traced her yet. A neighbour said Wigan or somewhere. A sister.’

  Vanner stepped over to the fireplace, past the neat if ageing armchairs with a heavy bureau-style cabinet housed between them. One of the chairs looked slightly out of place; not much, just a bunching of the carpet about the roller. Vanner looked down at the carpet. It was rumpled and heavily stained by the fireplace. The wall beyond it as well as the tiles were spattered brown and yellow. The air had a pungent quality to it.

  ‘Where was he?’

  ‘There.’ Nicholls pointed to the fireplace.

  Vanner looked hard at the spot, then at the marks on the walls.

  ‘Kneeling,’ he said. ‘The height of the spray.’

  Nicholls nodded grimly. ‘Our man.’ ‘Looks like it.’

  Morrison let Sarah go after she had told him about it all and sat awhile on his own. He was aware of the looks coming his way through the glass of Vanner’s office, and he wondered how long it would be before word drifted up to McCague that he was looking around. Sergeant Nicholls came down the stairs and Morrison beckoned him over.

  ‘Back in the summer, Sergeant. June 5th when Alexander Jennings was killed—DCI Vanner wasn’t on duty?’

  ‘No, Sir.’

  Morrison nodded. ‘You were on duty?’

  ‘Yes, sir. With Berry. We were just finishing. DC Kennett was there.’

  ‘I’ve spoken to her.’ Morrison tapped his lip with a finger. ‘You arrested Jennings for the Hit and Run didn’t you?’

  Nicholls nodded.

  ‘So you knew him.’

  ‘After a fashion, Sir. Yes.’

  Morrison motioned for him to sit down. ‘Tell me about that morning. Vanner arrived later you say.’

  ‘Is this official, Sir?—I mean CIB?’

  ‘Just trying to establish a few facts, Sergeant. Your DCI’s assault charge. I’m just trying to find out what led him up to it. The sequence of events. The pressure of an ongoing investigation like Watchman. We’re assuming it had something to do with it. The years take their toll you know, even on someone like Vanner.’

  After Vanner had looked one more time at the front room of the house in Muswell Hill, he and Nicholls went back outside. Sarah was there, still talking to the milkman. Vanner glanced at her, hesitated and then spoke to Nicholls. ‘We’ve got to get down to the offices of the Evening Post.’

  Nicholls squinted at him. ‘Letter to the Editor?’

  Vanner nodded. ‘This morning. I got a call from a reporter named Little before I drove up here. He’s expecting us.’

  They climbed the short flight of stairs from the newsroom to the editorial suite. Vanner introduced them to the secretary behind the chevron desk on the landing and she showed them straight into the editor’s office. Two men were there, one seated behind the desk, one squatting on the edge of it with his hands in his lap.

  ‘Kevin Lloyd, Editor.’ The tall, blond-haired man rose from behind the desk and shook hands with Vanner. ‘This is Paul Little. He found the letter.’

  Vanner glanced at Little, shorter than Lloyd, darker, more slightly built. He half-smiled at Vanner but his eyes were hard.

  ‘You have it?’ Vanner asked.

  Lloyd took a transparent plastic sleeve from his top drawer and slid it across the desk.

  Vanner took it and shook out the page and the twin photographs that were with it. One of them was a black and white cutting from a newspaper, the smiling faces of Rachel and Jenny Lind. The other was a polaroid of Jennings with the back of his head missing. He looked at the single line of typescript.

  ‘All my pretty ones? Did you say all?’

  It was signed with the initials JH, and dated June 4th 1994.

  Vanner looked across at the editor. ‘Who knows about this?’

  ‘Just myself, Paul here and Harriet Brooks, a girl in the newsroom. She opens the post.’

  ‘Who’s touched it?’

  ‘Just Harriet,’ Little said. ‘We put the sleeve on after that.’

  Vanner looked at Lloyd. ‘You’ve got copies?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You’ll print them?’

  ‘It’s news.’

  ‘Of course.’ Vanner passed the letter to Nicholls. He looked back at Lloyd. ‘If we need to talk to this Harriet?’

  ‘Fine. No problem.’

  Vanner nodded.

  At the door Little said, ‘How about an interview, Inspector?’

  Vanner glanced back. ‘I hold press conferences, Mr Little. You know that.’

  Little nodded. ‘That’s four now isn’t it? Four in almost four years. Scotland, Highbury, Brighton and now Muswell Hill.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Little slid off the desk. ‘You have no leads. There’s never any evidence. Isn’t that the case?’

  ‘That’s about right, yes.’ Vanner spoke in clipped, deliberate tones.

  Little smiled. ‘Maybe you’re looking in the wrong place.’

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind, Mr Little.’

  Morrison raised his eyebrows. ‘Little said that?’

  ‘Words to that effect.’ Nicholls looked through the glass towards his desk. ‘I have work, Sir. Excuse me.’

  Morrison walked out of the bac
k door to fetch his car and Vanner walked in. They stood looking at one another for a moment, wary like cats.

  ‘Vanner. Back amongst us?’

  Vanner just looked at him.

  ‘Don’t run away again.’

  ‘Would you like my passport?’

  Morrison smiled. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ McCague growled across the desk at him.

  ‘You know where I’ve been. You sent Sarah to find me.’

  ‘How is Sarah?’

  Vanner squinted. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning—aren’t you in enough trouble?’

  Vanner did not say anything.

  ‘You shouldn’t have disappeared like that. Morrison has enough ammunition without you adding to it.’

  ‘You told me I was suspended,’ Vanner said. ‘You said nothing about being confined to quarters.’

  McCague sighed. ‘D’you fancy a drink?’

  Vanner glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘Bit early isn’t it?’

  McCague followed his gaze. ‘It’s five o’clock. Pubs are open aren’t they?’

  McCague drove. ‘We’re working on Daniels’ brief.’

  Vanner looked at him. ‘Come again?’

  ‘We’re trying to do a deal.’

  ‘What kind of a deal?’

  ‘Get Daniels to drop his allegation against you.’

  Vanner frowned. ‘Why would he want to do that?’

  ‘It’s in his interest.’

  ‘With the judge you mean?’

  McCague shrugged. ‘Remorse. Taking some punishment for his crime. That sort of thing.’

  ‘You’re making no promises?’

  ‘We can’t, can we? We’re just trying to enlighten him a little.’

  ‘Get Morrison off my back.’

  ‘Something like that. You’re bound to be disciplined. But it might stop it going to the CPS.’

  ‘Good of you,’ Vanner said.

  They drank, sitting together in a velveteen booth in a pub near Islington tube station. Vanner drank chilled lager with Irish whiskey chasers.

  McCague motioned with his glass. ‘Get a taste for that in Belfast did you?’

  Vanner nodded. ‘Smoother than Scotch.’

  ‘That’s a matter of whose malt you’re drinking.’

  McCague rubbed his glass between his palms. ‘What was it like—Belfast?’