by Steven Dunne
The house was quiet now. His aunt was in bed resting before her next shift and baby Bianca had finally fallen asleep after her lunch of chips and beans. Thankfully his aunt hadn’t returned until half an hour after Jason had waddled home, soiled and scarred by his ordeal. He’d had time to bung his fouled clothing into the washer and set it going before showering and retreating to his room in shame and terror, once more pulling the chest of drawers across his door for safety. He’d collapsed into bed and lost consciousness almost at once — to call it sleep would have implied rest — and had woken with a start some time later, a film of sweat covering every millimetre of his skin. He’d sobbed quietly for the rest of the afternoon before finally succumbing to something approaching sleep.
When he woke again, he was surprised to discover waking didn’t involve panting and clutching at his throat. He merely opened his eyes gently and looked towards the window. The sun was beginning to set and Jason’s tight belly had begun to growl. Footsteps approached his door, followed by a soft knocking.
‘Jason?’ his aunt asked. ‘You in there?’ She knocked again. Still no answer from Jason who continued to lay mute, eyes burning into the ceiling. Finally his aunt tried the door but the chest of drawers prevented entry. ‘What are you doing, Jason? You better not be taking drugs, you little shit!’ She rattled the door but couldn’t shift the chest. ‘Let me in.’
Jason sat up. Necessity required a response. ‘I’m not. Don’t worry, Auntie. I’m all right.’
‘You sure you’re not doing drugs?’
‘You’re doing my head in. I’m okay, I tell you. What is it?’
His aunt hesitated, then, no doubt mindful of the time, said, ‘I’m off to work. There’s a chicken pie in the microwave for you and I’ve put your washing on the radiators.’
‘Cheers.’
‘If Bianca wakes up, let her watch cartoons. But make sure you put her to bed before seven. Got that?’ No reply. ‘Got that?’ she repeated.
‘I’ve got it,’ Jason replied, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice.
‘You sure you’re all right, Jason?’
‘Oh my days, I’m all right.’ Jason’s aunt’s grunted and her footsteps receded along the landing. A moment later the stairs began to complain under the assault from her hefty frame. The front door slammed, her car coughed into life and Jason heaved a sigh of relief. He closed his eyes and a tear squeezed onto his cheek.
‘I’m all right,’ he muttered. ‘I’m all right.’
Hudson prepared a sly cigarette as Grant fired up the computer. Although she disapproved of him flouting the smoking ban so brazenly, she was disinclined to make an issue out of it.
There was a knock on the door and DCs Jimmy Crouch and Phil Rimmer came in without waiting for an answer. Hudson’s cigarette hand moved from behind his back and returned to his mouth when he saw it wasn’t the Chief Super. ‘Take a seat.’
Rimmer, a tall and well-muscled thirty-year-old with short blond hair and handsome features, and Crouch, a smaller and broader man with thickset features and wavy black hair, pulled up chairs. Both were holding large envelopes.
Hudson moved over to a board where a large close-up of the late Tony Harvey-Ellis, face slackened and eyes closed, was pinned.
‘Let’s get started.’ He pulled out his notebook from a pile of papers on the desk and flipped it open. ‘This is our victim. Tony Harvey-Ellis, wealthy local businessman and ladies’ man. As you know, Harvey-Ellis died in the early hours of Sunday morning sometime between 4 and 6 am, having left the Duchess Hotel to go for a run. His running shoes and kit were found on the beach, just past the West Pier. His body, however, was carried nearly a mile further down the seafront and was washed ashore just off Madeira Drive.
‘According to the pathologist he drowned after being drugged or, more accurately, poisoned, with a mixture of…’ Hudson broke off to peer at the preliminary forensic report pinned under Tony’s face ‘…scopolamine and morphine. The assailant injected Tony with the drugs, rendering him incapable of defending himself. He was completely docile within minutes and unable to resist when the killer helped him out of his clothes and into the sea where, suffering from muscular paralysis, he drowned. Laura.’
The two detective constables switched their gaze to DS Grant, who took up the reins. ‘As you know, his car was found in Preston Street NCP unlocked and with his luggage inside. It seems Tony had driven back to Brighton from London where he’d been at a conference and parked in Preston Street on Saturday around lunchtime…’
‘14.07,’ beamed Hudson.
‘14.07,’ echoed Grant, with barely a glance at him. ‘At this point he was alone so it’s reasonable to assume that the girl he was meeting is from the local area, although it’s possible he might have already dropped her off at the hotel in nearby Waterloo Street. Either way he’s booked a double room…’
‘I thought he lived locally,’ said Rimmer.
‘He lives locally with his wife, Phil,’ interjected Hudson. ‘Out near Falmer. But Tony is what we used to call a shagger.’
The two DCs smiled and nodded; Grant shook her head in mock disapproval. ‘Or a “ladies’ man” to anyone under sixty, although his taste seems to run to young girls,’ she continued, addressing Rimmer and Crouch. ‘Not very young,’ she added, ‘but borderline legal.’
Rimmer took this as his cue. ‘Theresa Brook goes to Roedean. She’s in sixth form now studying English and Media Studies — very bright apparently. The school won’t give us a picture though. Not without written authority from the Chief Super. They’re afraid of paedos.’
‘We may not need it, guv,’ interrupted Crouch. He pulled a black and white A4 photocopy from his envelope. It was divided into four smaller squares each containing a distinct image. ‘This is from the NCP on Sunday morning. The girl in this picture carried a case identical to the one we found in the car.’ He passed it round. ‘See, she’s even got a suit wrapped in plastic over her arm. Now we haven’t got her putting the case and suit in the car, but Forensics have lifted two sets of prints from the car and the case. One set belongs to the victim. Likely the other belongs to her.’
Hudson gazed at the picture of Terri Brook struggling under the weight of the luggage and nodded at Grant. ‘You were right, Laura.’
‘Is this our killer, guv?’ asked Crouch eagerly. ‘Not yet,’ replied Hudson. ‘For now she’s just someone with something to hide.’
‘Like what, guv?’ asked Rimmer.
‘This is Terri Brook, the victim’s stepdaughter,’ said Grant. The two DCs nodded with the gravity of it all but still risked a ribald glance at one another. ‘We can now surmise that Harvey-Ellis spent the night with his seventeen-year-old stepdaughter. Jimmy, show this picture to the landlord at the Duchess, a Mr Sowerby, to confirm.’ Crouch made a note.
Hudson crushed his lit cigarette between his yellowed fingers, sending sparks to the floor, then placed the tab in a drawer and strolled over to the window. ‘Terri Brook was probably the last person to see the victim alive and now, seen cleaning up after the fact, she has to be a viable suspect.’ Hudson’s voice trailed off and he put his hand to his chin and tapped it with his fingers, a mannerism Grant recognised as a sign that he was perplexed by something.
‘Guv?’
Hudson roused himself and turned to face Rimmer and Crouch. ‘What else have you got, fellas?’
‘Forensics are looking at the victim’s running gear from the beach,’ said Rimmer. ‘They found traces of fresh semen on his tracksuit so it looks like the victim had sex before he went for his run. It’s possible his partner’s DNA will be present. They’re following it up asap.’
‘Jimmy?’
‘Preliminary findings on the victim’s room at The Duchess aren’t good. The room was cleaned and another couple had already stayed there. The techs aren’t hopeful. Anything they find is likely to be compromised.’
‘All right. This is what I want. Continue chasing up appropriate CCTV if th
ere is any. Concentrate on where Tony’s clothes were found. That’s where he was attacked. That’s the one place we know his killer was. On that basis, organise as much uniform as you can and go door to door around that area. I want witnesses, whether they saw or just heard something. Why aren’t you writing this down?’ Rimmer hastily started scribbling.
‘Anything else, guv?’ he asked a moment later.
‘Yeah. Parking tickets. You can’t stand still in roller skates without getting one on the sea front so check details for the week before within a half-mile radius of the Duchess. Our killer seems to know his way about.’
‘He?’ asked Grant with a raised eyebrow.
‘Figure of speech,’ answered Hudson, not looking at her.
‘Should I follow up on the school picture, guv?’ ventured Rimmer.
‘No. Forget it.’ Hudson inclined his head. Crouch and Rimmer took the hint, stood up and left.
After a suitable pause spent watching Hudson pace the room, Grant returned her attention to the computer, keying in her ID when prompted. While she waited for recognition she looked up.
‘Guv?’
‘It’s all wrong, Laura.’
‘What is?’
‘We’ve got two halves of a crime that don’t fit together. This girl Terri…’
‘Are we bringing her in?’
Hudson turned to her. ‘Tell me why we should.’
‘We have it from Sowerby and the CCTV. She cleared out the room she and Tony were staying in. Guilty conscience right there.’
‘She’s having an affair with her stepfather, maybe since she was fifteen. Anything else?’
‘There isn’t anything else, guv. That’s why we should bring her in.’
Hudson paused, seeking the right words. His face cleared when he found them. ‘Did she kill her stepfather?’
Now it was Grant’s turn to think. ‘Poisoning is a woman’s crime,’ she said. Hudson waited. ‘There may be a motive we don’t know about,’ she ploughed on. ‘She may have found out there were other girls.’ Hudson said nothing. ‘Okay, guv. Honestly, I can’t see her as the killer.’
‘Why not?’
‘She’d need sophisticated medical or pharmaceutical knowledge for a start.’
Hudson smiled at her. ‘As opposed to English and Media Studies.’
‘But she’s a bright girl, guv. She may have made the effort. There’s always the internet.’
‘It’s just the way Harvey-Ellis was killed, Laura. It was so cold and…’
‘And professional?’ Grant ventured.
‘Exactly. I’ve seen a lot of domestics, I’m sure you have. And I saw Terri and her mother. They were in pieces. If either of them had killed Tony, it would have been a crime of passion. If someone had shot him six times in bed, I’d be looking at them. If someone had taken a baseball bat to him while he slept, I’d be looking at them. If someone had chopped off his knackers…’
‘All right, guv, I get it.’
‘And if Terri had done any of those things I could accept that in the heat of the moment she might get her prints all over the evidence and her mugshot on camera. But someone managed to get the better of Harvey-Ellis while he was pumped up with adrenaline — a fit rugby-playing forty-three-year-old. Someone was waiting for him. And when they got the chance there was no hesitation. This was planned and executed by somebody far more ruthless than a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl.’
‘So what now?’ asked Grant, breaking off to answer a prompt from the computer. She hit the return key, typed in the words ‘scopolamine’ and ‘morphine’ from her notebook and returned her attention to Hudson.
‘We speak to her to sign off on the details, but we treat her as a witness. Maybe she saw something; maybe she knows who might have wanted Tony dead. Unlikely, I know. Also, if we’re treating the murder as professional then first we go to his profession…’
‘Oh Jesus!’ exclaimed Grant, staring intently at the monitor.
‘What?’
Grant flipped the monitor round. ‘The MO, guv. It’s The Reaper.’
Laura Grant drove up the shady, tree-lined drive to a large whitewashed house. She parked outside what looked like the main entrance and killed the engine.
Chief Inspector Hudson got out of the passenger seat, coolly taking in the surroundings. Mature trees, outbuildings, manicured paths leading off in all directions. There was an old-fashioned Victorian greenhouse to the rear of the property and he could see a large conservatory on the back of the house.
Grant, being half Hudson’s age and never in touch with a time when houses could be bought for a few hundred pounds, was unmoved by such a show of wealth. She glanced over at Hudson, who seemed to be minutely shaking his head.
‘Christ!’ he said. ‘No wonder this country’s in the shit when people who produce nothing but hot air can afford a house like this. Public relations, my arse. Did you know, when my mum and dad got married, they bought a terraced house in Balham for?800?’
Grant smiled. ‘Yes, guv. I did know that.’
Hudson finally broke away from his surveillance and caught her eye. Then, with an exaggerated cockney accent, he added, ‘In my day…’
Grant nodded towards the entrance as Terri Brook walked towards them. She looked stunning, though her eyes still betrayed the telltale residue of tears. She appeared much older than her seventeen years, dressed in figure-hugging black trousers and a ribbed polo neck. Her make-up was discreet, her mid-length brown hair lightly tinted and swept back and delicate pieces of gold adorned her ears.
‘Hello, you found it then?’
Hudson nodded. ‘Eventually. It’s not often we get out to Falmer.’
‘Really? What about the university?’
‘Not so many murders and armed robberies on campus these days, miss.’
‘Yes, sorry. Stolen bikes and soft drugs not your thing, I suppose. I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your names?’
‘I’m DCI Hudson, Miss Harvey-Ellis, this is DS Grant. Nice place you’ve got here.’
‘It keeps the rain off. And I’m Theresa Brook, okay, but I prefer Terri.’
‘Brook. Of course,’ said Hudson, exchanging a glance with Grant.
Terri escorted them through the entrance portico into an enormous modern kitchen and through into an even bigger conservatory, furnished with sturdy cream sofas. She gestured for them to sit, then at a coffee pot and poured for both officers when they nodded.
‘Where’s your mother, Miss Brook?’ asked Grant.
She looked a little sheepish and raised melancholy eyes to Hudson. ‘Call me Terri. I’m afraid I owe you an apology, Chief Inspector. Mum’s asleep. She’s still not up to it. She’s been sedated. I’m sorry. Perhaps if you came back later…’
Hudson paused for a few moments, then smiled in sympathy. ‘Please don’t apologise, Terri. We quite understand.’ Grant raised an eyebrow at her superior. He wasn’t usually so understanding when suspects tried to mess him around.
A pause from Terri. Then, ‘I’m sorry you’ve had a wasted journey.’
‘Terri, do you think I could have a glass of water?’ asked Hudson.
‘Of course.’ She left to fetch the water after a brief pause.
‘Guv?’ said Grant once Terri was out of earshot.
‘I think we should take a run at Terri while she’s on her own.’
‘She’s only seventeen; she should have a parent with her.’
‘How much less awkward would it be without her mother present? Christ, we’re talking about an affair between Terri and her mum’s husband.’
‘I know but I’d feel a lot…’
Terri returned with a glass of water and handed it to Hudson, who took a token sip before placing it on the table.
‘Terri. Perhaps you can help us with some things,’ said Hudson in an easy manner.
‘I … I don’t know what I can tell you.’
‘We just need some background, really,’ said Grant.
‘For instanc
e, can you tell us about any enemies your father might have had?’ asked Hudson.
‘Enemies? What’s that got to do with him drowning?’ Grant and Hudson said nothing. ‘Are you implying Tony was murdered?’
‘We’re not implying anything, Terri…’
‘You are, aren’t you?’ Terri was incredulous, disbelieving. She seemed to be shaking. Hudson and Grant studied her carefully and couldn’t detect any artifice.
‘At the moment we’re looking at all angles,’ said Grant.
‘Then you’re making a mistake. Tony was a popular guy. Everybody liked him. Everybody. I can’t believe anyone would want to murder him.’ She stared into the distance and Grant fancied a sliver of doubt deformed her features for a second.
‘Nobody had a grudge or wished to harm him in any way? Think back. We could be talking about a couple of years ago.’
Terri shook her head, now unable to meet their gaze. ‘No one, I’m telling you.’
‘We’ll come back to that one,’ said Hudson quietly. ‘Do you know where your stepfather was staying in Brighton the night before he died?’ Again Terri shook her head. Hudson hunched down over his notebook as if checking a detail. ‘It was in a hotel in Waterloo Street. The Duchess. Bit of a pigsty actually. Not really your stepfather’s sort of place I would’ve said. Do you know it?’
He looked back up at her as she shook her head. Her colour was darkening slightly, but otherwise she retained her composure.
‘Any idea why he might check into that hotel under a false name?’ asked Grant. ‘Gordon Hall.’ She continued to look at Terri. ‘Actually the register says Mr and Mrs Gordon Hall. Did you know your stepfather had a lady friend?’
Terri’s lips were becoming tighter and tighter and the ability to speak had deserted her. She shook her head again.
Hudson had some sympathy but he also knew that the more he tightened the screw, the more detailed the confession when it came. ‘You see what he did there. That’s a play on the name of his company, you know. Hall Gordon Public Relations,’ he pointed out helpfully.