Kill and Cure

by Andy Ashdown Design

  He was tired, running a fever and his nose, now completely blocked, dripped onto his tie.

  ‘Damn.’

  He took out a hankie and blew, ruing not having taken the flu jab, then thrust his hand into his pocket and searched for the cough sweets his wife had given him that morning.

  It had been an eventful night: a murder in London, a hunch, and now, two more people dead, including a police officer, and one person critical and unlikely to survive. If the call hadn’t come in requesting information on Susan Harrison, he would still be back in London, no doubt asleep in bed, instead of waiting here in Bristol for a man named Willis.

  He glanced at the rearview and saw the dark Mondeo saloon pulling up. Varcy blew his nose again and got out to meet the man who was now stepping out of the other car.

  ‘Thanks for seeing me so quickly,’ Varcy said.

  ‘No problem. How was the journey?’

  ‘Fine, just fine.’

  ‘How you feeling? You sounded pretty rough when we spoke.’

  ‘I’ll live. Shall we go in?’

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  Inside they headed along a corridor. Even with a cold, Varcy could smell the bleach and institutionalised food. God, he hated hospitals. He felt a sneeze coming on but headed it off by clamping his nostrils shut.

  ‘So, let me get this straight,’ he said, wiping his nose, ‘you got called to this hospital earlier tonight because they had admitted a man who had a gunshot wound in his leg. Is that right?’

  ‘Found in woodland, apparently. I came in, fired off a lot of questions and he gave me a story about how his fiancée had just been murdered and that the murderer tried to kill him too.’

  ‘And what happened?’

  ‘When we got to the address he gave –

  Lansdowne Farm – it was clean.’

  ‘No traces at all?’

  ‘None. So I decided to find his girlfriend – the woman he claimed was murdered. We ran the usual checks but nothing came up. We had her London address of course, so I asked your boys to go check it out and they drew a blank. That’s when you called and told me about the London murder. Here’s the photo of her you requested.’

  Varcy inserted it into the back of a notebook, and then used the last dry patch on his hankie to pat his forehead. He was starting to perspire.

  They arrived at a lift.

  ‘So my question is,’ Willis went on, pressing the call button, ‘why are you interested? What’s a murder in London got to do with what’s happened out here in Keynsham?’

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  ‘That is a very good question,’ said Varcy stepping in. ‘In the early hours of the morning, a security guard working for a big pharmaceutical company sees a murder take place on a monitor. But she doesn’t report it to anyone. Not the police, not to her boss – no one.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Willis.

  ‘Now go forward a few hours. Someone else has reported the murder and the police have arrived. A quick look around the scene reveals a security camera pointing in the general direction of where the murder must have taken place. Questioning the security guard reveals an interesting story. She reports that around the time of the murder there was some sort of power surge, which interfered with the signals being received from the cameras. Frightened the discs that record the images from the cameras might have become corrupted, she decides to change them all. Trouble is, when we look for the exchanged disc containing images from the camera in question, it appears to be missing.’

  The lift came to a stop and the two men got out.

  The smell of boiled cabbage was overpowering.

  ‘Go on,’ Willis said.

  Varcy sniffed loudly. ‘So, I put myself in her shoes and wondered what I would do if I had seen a murder that I didn’t want to report.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The phone on the desk would mean dialling an outside line that might be traced later. A personal mobile is out for the same reason. Then I remembered there was a pay phone in the lobby.’

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  Varcy fished around in his pocket for another cough sweet, popped it in his mouth and sucked noisily. ‘I pressed redial on the lobby pay phone. The last call was made at 3.27 AM. The initial medical assessment estimated the death to be about about twenty minutes before then.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It connected to a mobile phone registered to a Miss Susan Harrison. Like you, we checked her out and everything came back fine. Still, I planned to have Harrison watched for a few days. See if anything turned up. Then you made your request.’

  Willis raised his eyebrows. ‘Now Harrison is either missing or dead and her boyfriend has gone berserk.’

  ‘It would seem that way.’

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  19

  Clive’s street was typical of many on the edges of London. There were lines of beech trees and cars competing for space at the edge of the pavement.

  Georgian terrace houses, many of which had been divided into flats, stood like soldiers behind deep privet bushes. The street was deserted except for a lone jogger.

  ‘Which one?’ Stich asked as Vicky looked for a place to park.

  ‘Back there,’ she said, yanking up the handbrake.

  They got out and the cold air hit Stich. He shivered and hunched his shoulders. Vicky led the way back up the street and stopped.

  ‘Okay, here it is.’

  She pushed open a wooden gate and he followed her up a pathway. There were two doors. ‘This one, I think,’ she said, rapping the knocker.

  ‘How many times have you been here?’ Stich whispered.

  ‘Once.’

  They waited and exchanged glances. She knocked again.

  Nothing.

  ‘Still in bed,’ Vicky said.

  ‘Or out. Try again.’

  96

  She knocked hard three more times. They waited.

  Vicky elbowed Stich as the curtains next door to Clive’s began to twitch. They waited a few moments more until a chain rattled and some bolts disengaged. The door next to Clive’s inched open and a plump, flushed face peered out at them. The woman’s eyes were puffy from sleep.

  ‘Morning,’ Vicky said.

  She eyed them for a moment. ‘Who you after?’

  ‘Clive,’ Vicky said.

  She looked from Vicky to Stich and back again.

  ‘We both work with him,’ Vicky added by way of explanation.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘6.30,’ Vicky said.

  ‘6.30? Oh my, I must have overslept.’

  ‘We urgently need to talk to him,’ said Stich, pushing the flap on Clive’s letterbox and peeping through.

  She unhitched a door chain. ‘He’s definitely in,’

  she said, leaning right out. ‘I heard his keys rattle in the door last night.’

  Stich wrapped the knocker again.

  She shook her head. ‘I’d know if he’d gone out.

  I’m a light sleeper.’

  Stich was sure she made it her business to know.

  ‘Do you know what time he got in last night?’ he asked.

  ‘8.00 in the evening,’ she said with a nod. ‘I’d just got back from spending the day with my daughter.’

  ‘Was he with anyone?’

  ‘He must have been,’ she said. ‘A couple of his 97

  friends left about an hour afterwards.’

  ‘Is there any way we can get in?’ Stich asked.

  She looked furtive. ‘Why? You think he’s in trouble?’

  Vicky nodded. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Wait here,’ she said before disappearing.

  Stich looked at Vicky. ‘Police?’

  Vicky put her ear nearer the door. ‘Don’t think so.’

  Soon the woman shuffled back down the passageway holding a key. She stepped onto the porch in a flowered robe and pulled her front door closed. Vicky and Stich waited as she went over to Clive’s door and inserted the key. ‘He gave me this for when he’s on holiday.’ She pushed open the do
or and they followed behind. ‘I feed his cat when he’s away, you see.’ The flat was quiet. She called upstairs. ‘Clive! Are you awake? It’s Audrey from next door!’

  Vicky climbed the stairs.

  Stich walked along the hall towards a door at the end. What was that smell? Shit? Could he smell shit?

  He pushed open the door and peered in. There was a blur and a loud squeal. He lurched backwards and a cat darted past his legs.

  Stich watched it scurry down the hallway and out through the front door.

  Inside was the kitchen – neat, tiled in aqua blue and in the centre of the room was a wooden breakfast table. A stack of papers was piled in the middle, and on top of the pile was a yellow post-it pad. On the floor by the fridge was a cat litter tray 98

  placed on two sheets of newspaper. Stich leaned towards it and sniffed. The smell was less pungent in here. His eyes returned to the breakfast table and the post-it pad.

  Then he heard a scream.

  He dashed back down the hallway and in through a door that led to the sitting-room. Audrey was backing into him clutching her chest. ‘Oh my, oh my.’ Beyond her, Vicky was crouched down over Clive who was flat on his back staring upwards, a hypodermic needle embedded in his arm. There was fluid on the carpet and a foul stench. It got worse as Stich approached. Clive’s bowels had given out. He squatted next to Vicky. ‘You okay?’

  She didn’t reply but reached over and felt Clive’s neck. ‘No pulse,’ she said. ‘He’s stone cold.’

  She bent down and sniffed the syringe still sticking out of Clive’s arm. ‘Smells of acid.’

  ‘He’s injected it?’

  ‘Or someone did it for him.’

  Stich stood up. The smell was getting worse.

  ‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ said Vicky.

  Stich followed her out to the hall. Audrey was crouched at the foot of the stairs, her head hanging between her knees. Vicky rushed past her to the bathroom.

  ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ Audrey said, looking up.

  Stich nodded.

  Her head dropped back down.

  ‘Are you okay to call the police?’ he asked.

  He heard Vicky throwing up in the bathroom.

  Stich returned to the sitting-room. There was 99

  nothing obviously out of place or damaged except a glass shade from an up light in the corner of the room. It had been smashed and the shards were scattered on the carpet. A large fragment lay on a plate-sized shadow and was flecked with spots of red. Stich switched on the up light’s now naked bulb. More fragments were stained and the shadow

  – a deep port – was still tacky. Stich turned to Clive’s body and noticed for the first time his splayed nose.

  A dolly-mixture of colour with a crusty lava frozen against his upper lip. He reached out to touch Clive’s leg. It felt set, as if made of stone.

  ‘Rigor mortis.’ Vicky had a tissue up at her face.

  She rested her hands on her hips. Stich knew the look. He pulled her in close. ‘It’s okay.’ She wiped her face on her sleeve.

  ‘They’re on their way.’ Audrey poked her head around the door.

  ‘We’d better go, Stich.’

  He looked around at the scene, his eyes passing over a dresser on which half a dozen framed photographs were arranged in an arc.

  ‘Vicky.’

  He let go of her and grabbed at one of the pictures. ‘Susan’s in this photograph.’

  The scene was a drinks party. About eight people; young, student types, laughing and raising glasses to the camera. Susan was in the middle of the group, her head thrown back in a flurry of giggles. Clive was on the end, joining in the fun. The shock of seeing Susan so free, so alive, gripped him. He wanted to touch her, to caress her skin, to tell her 100

  everything would be all right.

  Except it wouldn’t. Not any more.

  Vicky put her hand on his shoulder. The life he and Susan had begun building together had been crushed. Snuffed out as easily as candlelight.

  ‘I loved her,’ he said softly.

  ‘I know,’ she whispered.

  He’d heard others talk about grief. How it was the simple, everyday things that hurt the most.

  ‘Stich. Come on, we have to go.’

  His mind went straight to the funny notes she’d leave for him on the breakfast table every morning; just silly in-jokes that no one else would get. God, he would miss those. He gently replaced the photograph. Susan’s handwriting was unmistakable. Big looping strokes and large circles that formed dots.

  He froze.

  ‘Stich, are you okay?’

  He’d seen it in this house.

  ‘Stich?’

  ‘The post-it pad.’

  ‘What?’

  He dashed across the sitting-room.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘In the kitchen,’ he said. ‘There’s a pad with Susan’s writing on it.’

  Vicky had followed him through. The note was at the top of the letter pile and scribbled in red ink.

  11.30 AM. Clive, where can I get a 3f7 probe? I’ll be in Joey’s in an hour.

  He reread it and then turned it over to see if there 101

  was anything on the back.

  ‘That’s it,’ he said.

  ‘Joey’s is a coffee shop near Immteck – we go there lunchtimes.’

  ‘And 3f7?’

  ‘A vector.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later. We need to get out of here first.

  Come on, let’s go.’

  Audrey was hugging herself by the front step, a wet tissue scrunched up in her hand.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

  ‘His family,’ Stich lied. ‘The police will be here soon. We want to prepare them for what’s to come.

  It’s best coming from his friends. We’ll be back as soon as we can.’

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  20

  The two policemen approached the hospital room that David Stichell had occupied.

  ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘As I ever can be,’ said Varcy, sucking harder on his cough sweet.

  Katz, a detective constable working with Willis, had been on the scene for an hour. He guided the two men around the room. The bed sheets were a dried burgundy. Reed’s powder white face was turned towards the window to another time and place. Varcy examined a trail of blood that went from the corridor outside to the bed where the police officer now lay.

  ‘Where’s the nurse who discovered all this?’

  asked Willis.

  ‘Along the corridor – they’ve sedated her, I think,’ said Katz.

  ‘Nothing’s been touched?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘I’ve seen enough,’ said Willis. He looked over at Varcy who agreed. ‘Okay, let the team in.’

  ‘Want to see the other one?’ Katz enquired.

  ‘Where is he?’ Willis sighed.

  ‘Second floor. Intensive care unit.’

  ‘Lead on.’

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  They went back out to the corridor, and into the lift. Varcy’s mind raced. He hadn’t anticipated anything like this. It felt as if he was picking at a thread that kept unravelling.

  The lift opened and the three men filed out. Katz led them to a long suite of rooms, each with its own viewing area. He halted and Varcy stared through the glass at monitors, drip feeds and tubes leading in and out of a male patient lying motionless on a solitary bed.

  ‘Who is he?’ asked Willis.

  ‘Unidentified,’ said Katz.

  ‘Knocked down?’

  ‘In the car park outside a few hours ago.’

  ‘Must have been some impact.’

  ‘It was. Shattered pelvis, ruptured spleen, broken neck, brain injuries.’

  ‘Any witnesses?’

  ‘One who said the car came to a halt just afterwards and a man got in.’

  ‘Description?’

  ‘Sketchy but not inconsistent with
David Stichell.’

  ‘What about the driver?’

  Katz shook his head. ‘I’ve got nothing.’

  ‘What’re his chances?’ asked Willis.

  ‘Slim.’

  * * *

  ‘Where to?’ Vicky wanted to know as they pulled out of Clive’s road.

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  ‘Somewhere safe,’ he said. ‘Definitely not my place.’

  ‘Mine?’ she asked.

  He shook his head. ‘Nowhere obvious.’

  They drove around for an hour trying to decide.

  Stich wanted a place to think and work out his next move. In the end, they chose a hotel. He knew it slightly – far enough out of London to feel safe but close enough to the centre should they want to get in. He’d stayed there one night with Susan a couple of years back when they’d come in to see Les Miserables.

  They checked in to a standard room under a false name. It was vintage 1980s: ivy green wallpaper, floor to ceiling drapes at the window and a chintzy flowered duvet. There was a print that wouldn’t have been out of place at Alice’s nursery.

  Stich sat on the bed reading the note Susan had left for Clive. He could hear the sound of water as Vicky took a shower. Next to him on the bed they had laid out clothes bought from a department store across the street from the hotel. Stich put his head against the headboard and gazed at Susan’s handwriting. He thought about the last day he had seen her alive. Nothing made sense. She had been crying in his office, her face gripped with anxiety.

  She had said it was because they had got engaged but it didn’t ring true. And then there was her reaction to Trinny seeing her in the Moorcroft building.

  This last thought bothered him. It suggested 105

  something he didn’t want to consider. He tried to reason it through … Susan, Maxi, the killer, Clive …

  something didn’t fit.

  ‘You okay?’ Vicky emerged wrapped in towels.

  She sat down beside him and began drying her hair on another. Stich rubbed his eyes.

  ‘I’m trying to see a pattern.’

  ‘To all this?’

  ‘Yeah, and I’m getting nowhere.’

  Vicky stopped towelling her hair. ‘I think I know where Clive was when he left that message on Sue’s phone,’ she said. ‘There’s a faint noise in the background. I knew it was familiar but I couldn’t place it until just now in the shower. I’m sure it’s a centrifuge.’