Missing Lies (Reissue)

by Chris Collett

  MISSING LIES

  A gripping detective mystery full of twists and turns

  DI Tom Mariner Book 7

  CHRIS COLLETT

  Revised Edition 2018

  Joffe Books, London

  www.joffebooks.com

  FIRST PUBLISHED BY SEVERN HOUSE IN 2014 AS “DEAD OF NIGHT”

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The spelling used is British English except where fidelity to the author’s rendering of accent or dialect supersedes this.

  We hate typos too but sometimes they slip through. Please send any errors you find to corrections@joffebooks.com

  We’ll get them fixed ASAP. We’re very grateful to eagle-eyed readers who take the time to contact us.

  ©Chris Collett

  Please join our mailing list for free kindle crime thriller, detective, mystery, and romance books and new releases.

  http://www.joffebooks.com/contact/

  THERE IS A GLOSSARY OF ENGLISH SLANG IN THE BACK OF THIS BOOK FOR US READERS.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Epilogue

  DI MARINER SERIES

  FREE KINDLE BOOKS AND OFFERS

  Glossary of English Slang for US readers

  CHARACTER LIST

  CHARACTER LIST

  To my agent, Juliet Burton, for all the years of wise counsel.

  Chapter One

  Something is very wrong. She’s lying on her side on something cold and damp. Has she fallen over? Although she doesn’t remember having a drink, her head hurts and her brain is hangover muzzy — the kind of headache you get from sleeping in too long in the morning. She’s on a mattress, she decides, but not her bed at home. It’s not springy enough and it smells like the outdoors. Her hip and shoulder ache and her arms seem stuck where they are. When she tries to free them they refuse to move, tingling in that heavy pins-and-needles way they do when the circulation’s been cut off. Goosebumps crawl over her bare flesh and her mouth is so parched that her lips feel tight. She tries to wet them with her tongue, but it won’t push through and her breath whistles lightly through her partly blocked nose. Around her she can make out indistinct shapes in the semi-darkness, but the images tumbling through her head make it hard to ascertain if she is awake or only dreaming, the thoughts so fleeting she can’t grasp them for long enough to draw any meaning from them. From time to time, she hears the ebb and flow of sirens, sometimes quite nearby. A memory tickles at her mind, invoking thrill and anticipation. It had been an adventure at first, something that would make Mum and Dad sit up and take notice. But this wasn’t how it was meant to end.

  A light snaps on. Blinking back the glare, she fixates on the naked bulb dangling on its cord. Only then does she notice the face floating above hers, covered by one of those flu masks, the eyes roaming over her exposed body. Then they look directly into hers and she feels a click of recognition. Surely he can see she’s in trouble? Summoning all her effort she tries to alert him, but her groan is thin and weak, and to her horror his eyes crinkle into a smile. He knows! A hand looms towards her, the outstretched fingers sheathed in a surgical glove. Suddenly and brutally her remaining airway is blocked. As her vision turns red and starbursts of light explode behind her eyes, a tune plays round and round in her head — so familiar but just beyond reach — until after a slow succession of agonising heartbeats, the darkness spreads in and subsumes her.

  * * *

  The tension in the lobby of Symphony Hall was palpable, and DCI Tom Mariner could feel it in the prickle of perspiration on his back. He wondered fleetingly if this was how the performers felt, moments before they took to the stage. Holding around 2,000 people, the venue had been open for more than twenty-five years now, and the tradition of world-class orchestral conductors was evident all around them on the walls — covered with black-and-white images of intense concentration. Mariner had never quite understood the purpose of conductors. At the few classical concerts he’d been to it was obvious to him that the musicians knew pretty much what they were doing, while the man (it was usually a man) on the podium stood up front and took the glory. Much as Assistant Chief Constable Dawson was doing at this very moment, choreographing the media, with Mariner’s immediate boss, Superintendent Davina Sharp, at his elbow for support.

  Not that Dawson was entirely to blame. This was a delicate situation and he, like all of them, had been forced into the role, which right now meant keeping the press occupied while they all waited for the signal. Not for the first time, Mariner was struck by the comic potential of Sharp, close to six feet tall in her heels, towering over the ACC, who had puffed himself up to his squat and balding five-and-a-half feet. Still, he’d been doing a sterling job of talking about bugger all for the last ten minutes, and you had to admire the man’s ability for that. It was one of the reasons Mariner was never likely to rise above his newly appointed rank of DCI (Acting). Bullshit wasn’t his forte. But tonight, even the ACC was less than his usual composed self, and as he wittered on, Mariner could see him casting anxiously around the multilevel glass and granite atrium for any indication that the action might start soon, looking second by second, more rattled than Rattle.

  Mariner had his own reasons for wanting proceedings to get under way. Since he’d yet to master the art of being in two places at once, this was just the latest example of the frequent race against time the last few weeks of his life had become. He needed to get this over with and be gone. To control his growing impatience, he slipped along a side corridor away from the ACC’s circus and put in a call to his home, five miles away in Kingsmead. As the phone rang and rang, Mariner felt his pulse quicken, until at last the line clicked and a sleepy voice said, ‘Hello?’

  Jesus. He breathed out again. Why did she do this, and why did he fall for it every time? He pictured her sprawled on his sofa in front of the new flat-screen TV, bag of Doritos on her lap. ‘Hi, Mercy. It’s me. How’s everything?’ he asked.

  ‘Hey, Tom.’ She made it sound as if he’d rung for a spontaneous social chat. ‘Everything’s fine here.’ Although born and raised a Brummie as far as Mariner was aware, she had inherited that West Indian lilt to her voice that perfectly characterised her relaxed approach to everything.

  ‘What are you up to?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, you know, had our dinner and watchin’ a bit of TV.’

  ‘And Jamie’s OK?’

  ‘He’s doin’ fine.’ Mariner didn’t like to ask exactly what that meant. He was afraid he might not like the answer. But presumably it indicated that Jamie was safe, which was the most important thing and it was h
ardly as if he was in a position to quibble over the finer details. ‘Are you all right to stay on a little longer?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, you know me. I’m good. You take as long as you need.’

  ‘Thanks, I’ll get back as soon as I can.’ He ended the call and tried to ignore the guilt gnawing at him.

  Considering what a big part of his life Mercy had become, Mariner knew ridiculously little about her own personal arrangements — only that, to his great relief, she seemed to have almost limitless time and inclination to mind Jamie. Mariner, through necessity, exploited this quite ruthlessly, while at the same time hating the unfamiliar feeling of obligation. To ease his conscience he paid her what he felt confident was a generous remuneration, and so far the arrangement seemed to suit them both. Everyone a winner — except possibly Jamie. No complaints from him for obvious reasons, but spending his hours cooped up in front of the TV with only a middle-aged woman for company was far from ideal for the thirty-eight-year-old, autistic or not.

  Mariner was unsettled, too, by a recent, vague intimation that Mercy might be considering moving back to Grenada to be closer to her extended family. It seemed improbable, but then he didn’t even know her exact age — only that she was divorced, or possibly widowed, and that, for the moment at least, she seemed to find Mariner’s house, with its brand-new entertainment system (replacing the one that had been stolen) and well-stocked fridge, preferable to her own. How had it come to this? Through Mariner’s own stupidity, mainly, and now he was stuck with the situation, like it or not. But it wasn’t a problem he was going to solve tonight, so having successfully parried his anxiety, he forced his attention back to the task at hand, slipping easily back into professional mode.

  At Granville Lane the response from Detective Constable Charlie Glover was instant and alert, the verbal equivalent of standing to attention. Mariner could picture Glover in his customary sports jacket and tie, the latter firmly knotted and his hair neatly combed.

  ‘Ready when you are, boss,’ he said, his flat Midlands accent always stronger at times like this. ‘We’ve got five lines manned and standing by.’

  ‘Same here,’ said Mariner. ‘We’re on the starting blocks, waiting for the signal.’

  Mariner half expected Charlie to offer up some biblical quote about patience and virtue, but for once he held back. ‘Do you think it’s going to help, all this?’ he asked instead.

  It was a question and a half. Mariner had been involved in only a handful of reconstructions in his whole career and popular belief had it that whenever one came, it signalled a sticking point; the time in an investigation when all the initial leads had been exhausted and even the press were beginning to lose interest. Tonight he was ambivalent about the strategy, coming as it did only two weeks after Grace Clifton, the eighteen-year-old daughter of Councillor and Mrs Clifton, apparently vanished off the face of the earth, somewhere between leaving her job as a steward at Symphony Hall and meeting her friends for a late-night drink across the city in Hurst Street. It was a distance of about a mile, over territory alive with activity — theatre- and concert-goers on their way home and youngsters out in the bars and clubs of the city — but as yet not a single witness had come forward.

  That Grace was missing was an indisputable fact, but any certainty ended there. The nature of her disappearance, and the appropriate police response to it, were open to wider interpretation. There was no doubt that Councillor Bob Clifton enjoyed the kind of money and power that would make him a target for potential kidnappers and Grace was an attractive young woman. But it was also too early to rule out the more mundane explanations: that Grace herself had chosen to disappear, or that someone closer to home knew where she was. While there was undoubtedly some value in using a reconstruction to turn up the heat on whoever lay behind the disappearance, be it Grace herself or persons unknown, Mariner and his team were well aware that it was also a political exercise, undertaken to ‘reassure’ Grace’s father that her disappearance was being taken seriously. As the current Council Leader, Clifton would have substantial influence over police budgets for the next twelve months, at a time when ‘public spending’ had become a dirty phrase. And this was a man with an established record of criticism of the police.

  In terms of generating leads, the enterprise was far from ideal for a number of reasons. In reality, the audience for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra was unlikely to be made up of the same crowd who had been in attendance two weeks ago, and the proportion of people repeating their experience on Broad Street would also be low. Back in the day, Saturday night meant clubbing in the city, but for many young people now it was a luxury. Unable to afford the inflated prices every week, they confined their outings to special occasions. The weather wasn’t helping either. This evening was dry with a clear, starry sky, but the Saturday when Grace had vanished had been wet, the steady drizzle punctuated with heavier downpours. In other words, the kind of night when people kept their heads down, intent on getting from one place to another as quickly as they could, without noticing much of what was going on around them.

  Was this enactment going to be of any help at all? ‘It won’t do any harm,’ said Mariner diplomatically to Charlie.

  ‘Well, good luck with it anyway,’ Glover replied, before ringing off.

  Finally Mariner contacted DS Vicky Jesson. The line was poor, the interference symptomatic of Jesson’s location out on the street in the Arcadian area of the city, where she’d be surrounded on all sides by people enjoying a night out. ‘Sounds lively there,’ he said.

  ‘Saturday night in Brum, what do you expect?’ came Jesson’s cheerful response. Mariner envied her equanimity. No hint from her that she felt pulled in different directions. On the team for a matter of weeks only, as an outcome of the extensive service reorganisation, Vicky was quickly establishing herself as a reliable successor to DC Millie Khatoon. A single mum to her three kids, she had assured Mariner at interview that her domestic arrangements — not that he’d been allowed to enquire about those — would not be an issue. So far she’d been true to her word, though Mariner couldn’t help wondering how she’d managed to square things at this time on a Saturday night.

  ‘I’ll keep in touch,’ Mariner said. He ended the call with a feeling not entirely new to him — that there was something missing . . . at least, not something, but someone. DS Tony Knox, normally his right-hand man, had been recently seconded to Operation Athena, tasked with clamping down on the circulation of illegal firearms in the city. The initiative had begun a year ago, in direct response to a series of gang-related shootings that had culminated in the ambush of two police officers, one of whom had been shot dead. Over time, personnel had been drafted in from every operational district to work on the city-wide initiative, and Mariner and Sharp between them had managed to convince Knox that it would be a good career-building opportunity. But there were few days when Mariner didn’t slightly, selfishly regret that strategy.

  Pocketing his phone, Mariner heard a slight stir out on the main concourse and crept along the corridor to see Gary Moore, Symphony Hall’s stage manager waddling towards the box office, walkie-talkie in hand. A big man in his forties, Mariner scrutinised Moore’s shiny, round face for any hint of a salacious thrill. Though he didn’t know it, Moore was one of the people Mariner’s team were keeping a special eye on, having been amongst the last to see Grace Clifton before she left Symphony Hall on the night she was alleged to have disappeared. But Moore’s face was neutral enough as, at that moment, he saw Mariner and changed his course, bypassing the press and the ACC, and headed towards the side door of the locker room. ‘It’s finished,’ he said. ‘They’re just taking the curtain calls, so any time now the audience will be starting to leave.’

  As if in response, on the far side of the atrium a door swung open and a middle-aged couple hurried out, whispering and pulling on coats before they scurried off towards the exit to catch the last train, or to beat an expiring car park ticket.

 
Chapter Two

  Mariner opened the door immediately behind him, marked ‘Staff Only,’ and he and Moore went in. As they did, Mariner caught the full-on reflection of Pippa Talbot as she frowned with studied concentration into the mirror, adjusting her clothing and inspecting her hair and make-up one last time. Younger by far than anyone else in the room, it was on her narrow shoulders that the real responsibility rested tonight. For her this was a kind of performance; a benefit show for her best friend, complete with a media audience all waiting outside to see if it would be the hoped-for triumph. But it wasn’t the kind of show that even the most confident of performers would choose to be part of, and Mariner could see the girl’s ill-concealed nervousness in the way that she checked and re-checked her lipstick, pouting at her reflection.

  Under a jacket similar to the one Grace had been wearing, she wore the uniform of the theatre staff: black skirt and waistcoat, and a grey blouse, with a name badge pinned above the breast pocket — except that it didn’t bear Pippa’s name. That had been touch and go. Taking her friend’s name, as well as her identity, had clearly felt that bit too uncomfortable, like stepping over a line. They’d had enough trouble persuading the theatre to produce a duplicate badge. Apparently that in itself contravened normal procedure. Mariner had been forced to point out, with great restraint, that there was little that was ‘normal’ about any of this. In the end the FLO had managed to smooth the way. ‘It’s just the kind of detail that can make all the difference,’ she’d said encouragingly. And when Symphony Hall capitulated, Pippa had followed suit, showing the kind of mature attitude that in a few short days they had come to expect from her.

  So this was it.

  ‘All ready, Pippa?’ Mariner asked gently, suppressing his own ripple of anticipation.

  The eighteen-year-old pulled her face into something resembling a smile and nodded her head. The FLO squeezed her arm in a gesture of solidarity, then Pippa was on her own, smoothing down her skirt before standing up straight, shoulders back. Mariner pushed open the door and they emerged into the glare of TV lighting. But for once there was no clamorous surge of reporters. In its place was an unnerving, respectful silence, broken only by the whispering ricochet of camera shutters, whose operators maintained their distance. It gave Mariner the creeps. Beyond the journalists the hum of conversation grew louder, as the swell of punters began spilling out from the auditorium. Some turned and others stopped to look at what the fuss was in this corner of the atrium. ‘Right,’ Mariner prompted. ‘Let’s go.’ And Pippa stepped out into the mêlée, like a royal princess leading her bizarre entourage.