by Peter James
‘We’ve spoken to his lawyer. He told us that in his view she was just a gold-digger, and when he informed her about her late fiancé’s financial situation, she stormed out of his office. Sure, we’ll be looking out for her at the funeral – we don’t have a date yet. The family weren’t happy with the French police’s opinion that he had committed suicide and his children want an independent medical examination of their father.’
‘So either she went back into the city – by cab or bus or train – or she took a flight to England from another airport,’ Grace said.
‘Both are possible,’ Lanigan replied. ‘I’m waiting on a response from Homeland Security as to whether a Jodie Bentley has left the country – I’m hoping to hear later today.’
‘I know someone who may be able to help if she changed her physical appearance, perhaps in a cloakroom,’ Grace said. ‘Do you have CCTV coverage on domestic terminals for that day?’
‘I could get that for you.’
‘We work with a pioneering forensic gait analyst here in the UK, Haydn Kelly, who’s worked with a number of police forces here and abroad. Whatever her appearance, he could pick her out in a crowd.’
‘You serious? Forensic gait analyst?’
‘You don’t use this technology?’
‘I don’t know about it, Roy.’
‘If you could send me all the footage you have, I could get Haydn Kelly to check it over. However much she might have changed her appearance, he’d still be able to pick her out with his technology.’
‘I’ll get it to you in the next few hours. She may be innocent, but we’d like to talk to her as soon as possible.’
‘Ping it to me as fast as you can.’
‘You’ve got it.’
24
Tuesday 24 February
The couple facing each other across a table in the restaurant of the Grand Hotel in Brighton had eyes only for each other.
Through the window beyond them, beyond the lights of the promenade, stood the dark, rusting silhouette of the ruins of the West Pier, like some monster that had risen from the seabed, and the tall structure of the i360 tower under construction. But neither Jodie Bentley nor Rowley Carmichael looked at the view. For some moments they didn’t even see the waiter hovering with their digestifs – vintage Armagnac for him, Drambuie for her. Their eyes were locked. His smitten eyes.
Her dangerous eyes.
He reminded her of someone but she couldn’t think who.
Rowley Carmichael, a good three decades older, was elegant and suave, and smartly attired in a handmade suit and silk tie. His raffish hair was too long for any stranger to reckon him to be a banker or a lawyer, and certainly not an accountant – more likely someone from the media, or perhaps the art world, which he was.
He leaned across the table towards her, raising his glass, gazing hard through his horn-rimmed lenses at her blue eyes. They had an intensity about them that made any man she stared at feel he was the entire focus of her universe. He was feeling that now, and it was deeply stirring. ‘Cheers,’ he said. ‘It’s such an amazing coincidence that we both have homes in Brighton!’
Mirroring him, as she had been doing all evening, copying his exact movements, Jodie leaned across the table towards him. ‘Cheers,’ she said. ‘It is, an amazing coincidence. Sort of meant to be!’
‘You know,’ he said, ‘I feel so incredibly comfortable with you. Although these past months we’ve only communicated by email, I feel as if I’ve known you for years.’
‘That’s exactly how I feel about you, too, Rowley,’ she replied.
He leaned back a little.
She leaned back a little.
‘Call me Rollo!’ he said.
‘OK!’ She smiled seductively then added, ‘Rollo!’
‘Have you ever done this dating agency thing before?’ he asked, slightly embarrassed.
‘No, no, I’ve never dared. I’m really a very shy person.’
‘Well, yes, that’s me exactly. I’m immensely shy, too.’
She put her glass down, crossed her arms and leaned forward. Without realizing why, he did exactly the same.
She was leading now and he was following. That was the intention of mirroring. If she bided her time and did it right for long enough, it always worked.
‘I just got so lonely after my husband died,’ she said.
‘Me too, I’ve been very lonely since my wife passed away. We’d moved to Brighton for our retirement, but hardly knew anyone here, other than one close mate who sadly died unexpectedly. A friend of mine convinced me to give internet dating a go. But because of my shyness I couldn’t pluck up the courage to contact any of the people I looked at on the website. Until I saw you. You just looked so warm and friendly in your photo, so I thought, hey, what’s to lose by giving it a go, she can always say no!’
‘That’s exactly what happened with me! A friend convinced me to give it a go. I wasn’t at all sure – and, actually, I didn’t really like the look of anyone who contacted me – until your photo popped up. I thought exactly the same about you! You just looked like someone I could trust. In fact, more than that – I had the most strange feeling – when I looked at your picture I was thinking that you’re a man who would make me feel safe.’ Feigning nervousness, she twiddled with the chain of the silver heart-shaped locket she always wore round her neck.
‘I’m flattered!’
She slipped her hand forward across the table and touched his, gently. ‘I’m glad I plucked up the courage.’
‘So am I,’ he said. ‘I’m so glad. But you know, you wrote in your profile “of a certain age”. I think you’re doing yourself a disservice. I would take a certain age to mean someone in their sixties. You look decades younger than that!’
She grinned. ‘Maybe it’s because I changed my hair! But, hey, I’ve always been attracted to older men,’ she said, and squeezed his hand. ‘So tell me, how did your wife pass away?’
‘Alzheimer’s. She had a particularly brutal strain of it that killed her within five years.’
‘How dreadful.’
‘It was. How about your husband – how did he die?’
‘Cancer. I nursed him for two years. Then he had a bad fall.’
‘A fall. That can be a big setback for elderly or ill people. It can be the thing that precipitates death.’
‘That was exactly the case,’ she replied.
‘I’m so sorry to hear that.’ He shrugged and then gave her a smile that was full of hope. ‘Must have been hard for you. How old was he?’
‘Fifty-two. Started with colon cancer and then it spread everywhere.’
‘Fifty-two? That’s no age.’ He shook his head. ‘You know I’m a lot older than that?’
She smiled. ‘I don’t feel any age difference. And – as I said – there’s something about you, you make me feel secure.’
‘It’s so beautiful that connection I’ve felt through our emails, Jodie. It’s as if I’ve been given a second chance. And now I’ve found you, I would die happy.’
‘Don’t die too soon, please! We’ve only just met.’
‘I’m not planning to,’ he said. ‘I’m hoping to be around for a long time yet!’
She smiled again.
25
Tuesday 24 February
Result! Oh yes, definitely!
Seated in his beat-up Fiat Panda, looking around at his surroundings, at all the flash metal parked in the driveways, Shelby Stonor was suffering serious car envy. He stared longingly at a gleaming Ferrari 488; at a BMW i8; at a white Bentley Continental. His dad, whom he had known only briefly before the bastard had pulped his mother’s face and left home for good, when he was just four years old, had been a car nut. He had named Shelby after one of his idols, the American car designer and racing legend, Carroll Shelby.
Ironic, he thought, that he was now sitting in a vehicle his namesake would not have been seen dead in.
He was dressed in a black anorak and black trousers, over a skin-tight bod
ysuit and rubber balaclava – something he had learned from watching CSI – to avoid leaving any skin cells or hair that DNA could be obtained from – with black leather gloves and a black beanie. He was parked in the darkness in the street that wound past the secluded mansions of Roedean Crescent with their fine views – in daylight – out across the cliffs to the English Channel.
One of the houses on the most recent Argus Top-20 list was just up to his left. He’d eyed that mansion for over a month, but dismissed it as too difficult. A huge place, lit up by floodlights and protected by electric wrought-iron gates and cameras. A black Range Rover Sport and a matching black Porsche 911 Targa sat ostentatiously on the driveway as if in a further statement of their owners’ wealth. They shouted out, Steal me if you dare! In the hope of getting his five per cent commission, he dutifully texted his mate Dean Warren details of all the cars he had spotted on this prestigious road, including their registrations. Then he turned his focus back to his real reason for being here.
There were several other less swanky but seriously posh houses in this same street. And one in particular was his target for tonight. No. 191. It was set down, below the street, at the end of a short, steep driveway. Mock Tudor, like many of the houses in this city, with leaded-light windows.
He’d been watching its occupant’s movements for some days. She appeared to be a single, rather attractive-looking lady in her mid-thirties, with a nice, almost new dark-blue Mercedes SL500 convertible. He’d texted the registration and address of that car to Dean, also.
The woman hadn’t taken the Merc tonight. She’d left a while ago, looking smart, in a Brighton and Hove Streamline taxi. A nice Skoda Superb. One like he’d be driving soon, if all went to plan! He didn’t know how long she would be gone – but a few hours at least, he presumed.
His years in prison hadn’t all been wasted. He’d picked up a lot of tips and skills from fellow cons. One very valuable bit of information was about the budget cuts to the police service. A decade or so back, response times to burglar alarms could be just a matter of minutes. There was a Languard alarm box prominently on view on the front wall, just below the eaves. These days alarms no longer went through to the police, but instead to call centres which in turn rang keyholders or private security companies rather than the police. Unless you were very unlucky, you could have a good ten to twenty minutes before anyone turned up, and then it was unlikely to be the law – just a security guard. You just had to hold your nerve while the alarm beeped.
But the best tips he’d learned from a fellow con, an old hand at burglary, were to first see what you could learn by sniffing through the letter box, to find an exit route as soon as you were in, and to leave a rear window or door open.
He walked round to the rear of the house, noting the bin store, a side door, then the back garden where there was a patio door opening on to a terrace, with a hot tub beyond that. As he approached the porch at the front he was relieved that no lights came on. He pushed o pen the letter box in the oak door and peered into the hall, its lights left on. It had a modern, clinical feel, somewhat lifeless. He pressed his nose into the aperture. No scent of a dog, but there was a strong smell of perfume – presumably from the lady who had just gone off in the taxi. Dressed smart and all heavily perfumed; indicated she’d be gone for a while
‘Woof!’ he shouted, then ‘Grrrrrr!’ He had a piece of doped shin of beef in a plastic bag in his pocket. But there was no reaction. He waited some moments, glanced over his shoulder, then repeated the sounds, more loudly.
Silence.
You could gain extra time by choosing your entry point carefully. Usually not every room would be alarmed. Pick a small upstairs spare bedroom, and get access through that. Immediately plan the exit route. Then find the master bedroom where the jewellery and expensive watches were likely to be kept and you would have a good five minutes at least – more than enough time for a thorough search – then you’d be out and away long before anyone arrived on the scene.
Shelby had always been good at climbing. But tonight he was really lucky. There was now a builder’s sign outside this lady’s house and scaffolding had been erected on the right-hand side. Two of the windows on the upper floor had lights on. But the third was in darkness.
Keeping his head down in case there was a hidden camera, he began to climb the metal structure. The first window he could see in through looked like a spare room, but he noticed the telltale red light of an alarm monitor on the ceiling – though that was no proof the alarm had been set. He moved along and looked in the next window, which was lined with bookshelves and had a computer on a desk. Another red light glowing just above the door. He sidled further along and peered through the window into the room that was almost in darkness, with a faint green glow behind the blind. He stared hard but could see no red light.
Perfect!
He pulled a glass cutter from his pocket and made a small, square incision in one of the bottom panes of the leaded-light window. Then he pressed a suction cup against it, and pulled. But instead of coming neatly away, the glass splintered and he felt a stab in his right arm as it pierced his anorak sleeve.
‘Shit!’ he cried out in pain, then pressed his lips against his arm and tasted the metallic tang of blood. He stood still, holding the scaffold pole with his left arm, and sucked again, scared of leaving any drops, knowing the police had his DNA on record. He looked all around and behind him. But the street was silent, empty.
He remained still for a few minutes, waiting for the cut to clot. When he was satisfied his arm had stopped bleeding he reached inside through the slats of the blind, found the window latch, which had no lock on it, freed it and pulled the whole window open.
Immediately he smelled something rank and sour. He lifted up the blind, switched on his phone torch and shone the beam around the room. There was a glass door on the far side, with, rather strangely, a solid wall right behind it. The walls were lined with glass containers, illuminated with very weak green light, and there were two free-standing racks, tiered with rectangular glass showcases, each about three feet long by about two feet high. All of them contained creatures; snakes, spiders, frogs, and what looked like a scorpion in one.
He stared at them for some moments in revulsion. Then, as he jumped down into the room, his right foot caught the edge of the sill and he sprawled forward with a yelp of pain, straight into a rack of containers which tumbled over, taking the second tier over with them. One shattered, shards of glass glinting across the floor, and the lid came off. His mobile phone skittered across the floor.
‘Shit, fuck,’ he cursed, lunging for the phone and grabbing it. As he did so, the flash went off. Eyes all around seemed to be staring at him. He heard scuttling. Squeaking. A tiny pair of eyes gleamed at him in the torch beam. It was a small, strange-looking frog, gold with black eyes. It hopped straight towards him, jumping up onto his face.
‘Yrrrrgrrroffff!’ he yelled, grabbing it with his gloved hand. It slipped free and hopped onto his arm. As he shook it away, hurling it across the room, he heard a sound like rustling paper. Then he saw a coiled snake, beige with brown and black markings, slithering across the floor towards him, propelling itself by coiling and uncoiling, its tongue forking out.
‘No, shit, getttawwwaayyyy.’ He pushed himself back with one hand, brandishing the phone in the other like a weapon, until he was right up against the wall beneath the window. The snake was still spinning across the floor towards him.
‘Nooooooo!’ he screamed, scrambling to his feet. He kicked out at it, saw its tongue leap out between its fangs and felt a sharp prick on his right ankle, like a nettle sting.
His heart pounding with terror, he propelled himself backwards through the window, ducked under the blind, hauled himself out and back on to the scaffolding, slamming the window shut to stop the creatures pursuing him, then clambered back down to the ground and ran, without looking behind him, to his car.
Shit, he thought. Shit, shit, shit.
> He started the car and drove off, fast, his brain too jumbled to think clearly. He needed to stop somewhere and check the bite, which was tingling. He headed up Wilson Avenue, turned into the deserted Brighton Racecourse car park and pulled up as far from the road as he could get.
He reached down, rolled up his trouser leg, pushed down his sock, then rolled up the bodysuit legging and shone his beam on the front of his ankle. Just two tiny red dots, no bigger than pinpricks.
Shelby didn’t know anything about snakes. But his trouser leg and thick woollen sock and bodysuit must have protected him from a worse bite, he figured. There were three more houses on his list to target tonight, but he was too shaken up to think about another job. What if the thing that had bitten him was poisonous? He wondered if he ought to go to A&E and get the bite checked out. But what could he say? That he was bitten by something in a warehouse? Or while walking his dog across a park? There would be questions he couldn’t answer.
He removed his glove and rubbed his finger over the bite marks. No blood smear. That was good, Angi would never notice them. He could tell her he’d gashed his arm on a strip of loose metal on a crate. That would work. He looked at the car clock. He couldn’t go home now, because he’d told her he was working a late shift. And besides, he badly needed a drink to calm his nerves. He’d drive to the Royal Albion pub and maybe Dean would be there. Have a couple of pints with him, then, to explain the booze on his breath, tell Angi it was one of the lads’ birthdays and he’d brought in a crate of beers to celebrate at the end of the shift.
Yeah. That was a plan.
He’d check the bite again in an hour or so and see if there was any swelling.
But, Jesus, who the hell kept all those horrible creatures in their home?
He started the car and headed over to Hove, and the enticing prospect of a couple of pints of Harveys, followed by the even more enticing prospect of a night in bed with Angi.
26
Wednesday 25 February