by Shaun Hutson
‘Look, I’ll call you, right?’
‘Ellen. You can’t do this to me. She’s my daughter. If I have to get the police I will. You won’t keep her from me. I’ll do-‘
‘Do what you fucking want,’ she snarled and slammed down the phone.
He sat at his desk, the receiver still pressed to his ear, the buzz of a dead line the only thing he heard.
Very slowly, he slipped the phone back onto its cradle.
Fucking bitch.
Reed waited a moment then snatched up the phone and dialled another number.
And waited.
Thirty-one
Sean Harvey thought how aptly named the restaurant in Hays Mews was.
The Greenhouse was more like a large, immaculately decorated, conservatory than an eatery. He sat glancing
around at the faces of the other diners, relatively few for a lunchtime, his gaze turning towards the restaurant’s main door every so often.
He glanced at his watch.
She was late.
Despite the fact that the windows near him were open, it was very warm inside the restaurant, as the sun hovering high in the sky overhead blazed down. The plants potted carefully all around the tables, obviously responded to the temperature and blossomed.
Harvey felt a bead of perspiration forming on his forehead.
He wasn’t sure how much of it was apprehension.
He looked at his watch again.
What if she didn’t turn up at all?
He looked at his menu, sipped his Perrier and attempted to look nonchalant.
The gesture failed miserably.
Harvey glanced towards the main entrance again and this time he saw her.
Thank Christ.
He stood up as she made her way towards his table, smiling at him, brushing her blonde hair away from her face.
Hailey Owen was dressed in a short, rust-coloured skirt and matching jacket.
She walked gracefully in a pair of high heels, the tips clicking on the tiled floor of the restaurant. Harvey couldn’t resist an appreciative glance, allowing his gaze to linger on her slender legs.
‘Sorry I’m late’ she said, sitting down opposite him.
‘You’re not, I was early,’ he told her. ‘Do you want a drink?’
She nodded as he called the waiter to him and ordered another Perrier for himself and a Baccardi and Coke for her.
‘I would have been here earlier,’ Hailey told him. ‘But I couldn’t get away.
Debbie wanted me to go for lunch with her -I had to make up an excuse about shopping. I said I was going to a wedding and had to get a dress. Then she wanted to come with me to help me pick it. I thought I was never going to get away.’
The waiter returned with the drinks.
He watched as Hailey took a sip of hers.
‘No one knew where you were going?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘What about you?’
‘I told my secretary I was meeting a client, I said I might be late back,’ he announced.
‘You don’t think anyone knows, do you, Sean?’
He shook his head.
‘We’ve been careful so far.’
‘We’ve been lucky so far,’ she reminded him.
‘We don’t even work on the same floor, Hailey, why should anybody suspect we’re …’
‘Having an affair?’
‘Three lunches and two dinners hardly constitute an affair, do they?’
‘Your wife might disagree if she found out. Where did you tell her you were the other night?’
‘She knows I work late, that I meet clients. She doesn’t suspect anything, trust me.’
‘You might be used to this, Sean, but I’ve never had an affair before. I just don’t want anything to spoil it.’
‘Stop worrying.’
He pushed a menu towards her.
‘Let’s order,’ he said, smiling.
Harvey watched her as she ran her gaze up and down the list of offerings, one hand pulling lazily at her long hair.
She noticed his attention and smiled. ‘What are you looking at?’
‘I’m just looking. You don’t blame me, do you?’ he said, quietly.
She shook her head and giggled.
‘You’re a real smoothie, aren’t you?’
Beneath the table he felt her foot brush against his calf.
Briefly. Tantalisingly.
She sipped her drink, wondering what the dark shadow was that had suddenly fallen across the table.
It was as if a cloud had passed before the sun.
But this was too small, too dark to be a cloud.
They both looked up.
Harvey opened his mouth.
Hailey didn’t even manage to give voice to the scream.
The man’s body plunged down towards them, slamming into the glass roof of the restaurant.
Glass exploded inwards, the strident eruption of splintering crystal mingling with a deafening crash as the body came hurtling through.
It struck the table where they sat, crushing glasses beneath it, overturning the table as more shards of glass rained down, exploding on the tiled floor.
And there was something hot and red splashing Hailey now.
Blood, jetting madly from a dozen wounds on the body, lacerated by the glass and the impact, spurted in all directions, some of it across her face and hair.
Finally, Hailey managed to scream.
The body flopped over onto its back, face shredded by the glass fragments, one long sliver embedded in the eye like a crystal spear.
Harvey fell away from the blood-spattered table, trying to control his churning stomach, aware that there was already a dark stain spreading across the front of his trousers.
Blood began to spill rapidly around the corpse which lay motionless amidst the shattered glass, broken crockery and scattered cutlery.
Other diners looked on in horror, one or two glancing up at the gaping hole in the glass roof left by the plummeting body. Pieces of broken glass were still dropping from the edges of the break.
Hailey felt a searing pain in her left hand and realised that the back of it had been sliced open by a piece of glass the size of a dinner plate.
But her own pain was all but forgotten as she stared down at the body, aware that the widening pool of blood around it was now lapping at the toes of her shoes.
Harvey saw that one piece of glass had torn away most of the flesh at the side of the dead man’s face. The skin had been sliced raggedly from the corner of his mouth to his cheekbone, exposing his teeth and gums.
It looked as if he was smiling.
Harvey lost his battle and vomited.
Hailey continued to scream.
Thirty-two
The air was heavy with cigarette smoke, and Detective Inspector James Talbot inhaled deeply as he walked back and forth, chewing on a handful of chocolate peanuts which he was taking from a wrinkled paper bag.
The other men in the room either watched him or sat glancing down at their notes.
Phillip Barclay opened a window close to him and tried to waft some of the smoke out.
Rafferty grinned and lit another cigarette.
Of the two other men present, one was also smoking, twisting his cigarette in his fingers, watching the ash drop into the plastic cup which had contained coffee. His companion, a younger man dressed in a black suit and white shirt which looked a size too small for him, was drawing circles on a piece of paper with his Biro.
Talbot finally stopped pacing and turned to the notice board behind him.
‘Craig Jeffrey,’ he began, tapping a black and white ten-by-eight of a smiling man. ‘Thirty-two years old, surveyor, engaged. Due to be married in three months’ time.’
‘Maybe that’s why he topped himself’ mumbled the man in the black suit.
The other men laughed.
Talbot smiled wanly.
‘They reckon it’s difficult to get a table at that bloody restaura
nt,’ the man next to Barclay offered. ‘Perhaps he was desperate.’
More laughter.
Detective Constable Colin Penhallow ground out his cigarette in the plastic cup.
‘Enough of the fucking cabaret’ Talbot said, chewing on another peanut. ‘Any ideas?’
‘Are we sure it was suicide?’ Rafferty asked.
Talbot looked at Barclay. ‘Phil’ he said and all eyes turned to the coroner.
Barclay cleared his throat. ‘The autopsy showed no trace of any substances, legal or illegal, in his blood. Further examination showed no reason to suspect that he was murdered. I think we can rule out foul play.’
Talbot shrugged.
‘What was he doing in that house in Hays Mews, anyway?’ Rafferty wanted to know.
‘He was doing a survey for a building society’ Talbot replied.
‘So, while he was inside, he decided to climb up onto the roof and chuck himself off’ Penhallow mused.
‘That’s what it looks like,’ Talbot added, chewing more peanuts.
‘No drink, no drugs. No reasons why he should have done it,’ Rafferty interjected. ‘Just like the other two.’
Talbot nodded.
‘Three suicides inside eight days’ he continued. ‘All professional men. A surveyor, an accountant and an architect. All with stable home lives, as far as we know, all well paid, settled. None of them had any reason that we know of for committing suicide. But they did.’
‘People kill themselves every day, Jim’ Penhallow offered. ‘What makes these three geezers so special?’
‘That’s what we need to find out’ Talbot told him.
‘Have the wives or girlfriends been any help?’ DC Stephen Longley asked, brushing at the sleeve of his black jacket.
Talbot shook his head.
‘They all gave statements: none of them reported noticing any changes in behaviour in any of the three men. They also weren’t aware that any of the men were under undue pressure. As far as they’re concerned, there’s no logical reason for the suicides.’
‘So what do we do now?’ Rafferty asked.
‘Guv, if you don’t mind me asking,’ said Penhallow, raising a hand. ‘Why are we investigating three suicides when we know that’s what they were? I mean, there isn’t a hint of foul play in any of them, is there?’ He looked at Barclay.
The coroner shook his head.
‘There’s something not quite right here’ Talbot said. ‘I want to know if there
were links, I want to know if they knew each other’
‘Parriam knew Hyde’ Rafferty offered. ‘I told you about that entry in his diary.’
‘And I told you that one entry didn’t make them close friends’ the DI reminded him. ‘But I agree with you, Bill, it’s a coincidence. It’s also a coincidence that all three were professional men. Men who may have moved in the same circles. Find out if they did.’
‘What’ll it prove, Jim?’ Penhallow enquired.
‘It might just tie up a few loose ends’ Talbot said.
‘What loose ends?’ Longley asked. ‘They topped themselves, no one knows why.
Sorry and all that, but tough. Where’s the investigation?’
‘Just check it out in your spare time, I’m not asking for a full-scale investigation. Indulge me, Steve,’ Talbot said. ‘I’m curious.’
He turned and looked at the photos of the three dead men.
‘What were you thinking?’ he murmured, his gaze travelling slowly over the three faces. The DI finally turned to face his men again. ‘OK, fellas, that’s it for now. I want reports in three days.’
The other men rose and headed for the door.
‘Phil, hang on a minute, will you?’ Talbot called to the coroner.
Barclay hesitated and closed the door as the last of the officers walked out.
‘You said the autopsies showed no trace of drugs, right?’ Talbot said.
Barclay nodded.
‘Could you have missed anything?’ the DI pondered.
‘If you’re questioning my abilities …’
The DI held up a hand.
‘I’m not questioning anything, Phil. I just wondered if there could be some kind of drug that might have been absorbed into the blood stream so fast that it didn’t show up on the autopsies.’
‘Taken voluntarily?’
Talbot didn’t answer.
‘You think someone might have made them commit suicide?’ Barclay offered.
‘Yeah, it’s crazy, I know. I think it’s called clutching at straws.’
The coroner leaned on the back of a chair and looked at Talbot.
‘If it wasn’t a drug, how about something else?
Hypnotism, something like that?’ Talbot persisted.
‘I doubt it, Jim, and, even if it was, even if someone did force them to kill themselves, you still have to find out why. What reason could there be for wanting those three men dead?’
The DI nodded slowly.
‘You’re right,’ he said, glancing at the black and white pictures again. ‘And if we find the why, we have to find the who. But just suppose it was possible.
Just suppose that someone wanted those three men dead.’ He pointed at the pictures. ‘It’s perfect. No suspect, no murder weapon. No clues.’
‘I thought you were supposed to be the cynical one.’
Talbot grinned.
‘Like I said, Phil, just clutching at straws.’ His grin faded slightly.
He continued gazing at the photos.
Thirty-three
Terence Nicholls ran a hand through his short, greying hair and turned over the next photo.
He considered each one carefully, studying every aspect of the image, like an art connoisseur.
Occasionally he would sit back in his chair, particularly intrigued by an image. When he did sit back he made a conscious effort to pull in his sagging stomach muscles. The buttons of his shirt were straining just a little uncomfortably against his belly. But it was the only part of his body that carried any excess fat. The rest of his frame was lean. His face most notably was thin, almost gaunt, his grey-flecked hair giving him the appearance of being older than his thirty-nine years. His fingernails, despite being immaculately manicured, were dirty. Grimy with newsprint and ink. Like
the pads of his fingers which he wiped every now and then on the corner of a handkerchief protruding from his trouser pocket.
His desk was unnaturally tidy for a newspaper editor. No stray pieces of paper left lying wantonly on the wooden top. No scattered paper clips or pens.
Everything was in its place. The only thing incongruous amidst this neatness was his coffee mug, which was so darkly stained inside, even the strongest detergent couldn’t restore the original colour of the china. In fact, he’d given up washing it weeks ago. The stains were as much a part of the design as the logo: shit happens and you’re living proof. Behind him, bookshelves were laden so heavily with hundreds of different-sized volumes, it seemed they would collapse at any moment. Blu-tacked to one shelf was a crayon drawing with DADDY scrawled beneath a multi-coloured figure. A gift from his three-year old son.
‘Jesus,’ said Nicholls finally, pushing the pile of photos back across his desk towards Catherine Reed. ‘Did you take all of those?’
Cath nodded.
‘This has been going on for the last three months, Terry’ she said. ‘Graves dug up, headstones smashed, graffiti on tombs.’
‘And the police know about it?’ he enquired.
‘They say it’s vandalism.’
‘Maybe it is, but it’s a bit different to smashing car windows or writing “bollocks” on somebody’s front door, isn’t it? What does the priest there make of it?’
‘He seems to think it’s vandals as well, but it’s upset him.’
‘Have you spoken to any of the relatives of those whose graves were dug up?’
‘Not yet.’
‘And they’ve always been kids, you say?’
Cath nodded.
‘There’s a story here, Terry. Something big, I reckon.’
‘What’s your angle?’
‘How far vandals will go these days. What sort of people would do this.’ She prodded one of the photos. ‘How much worse can it get? Is there a purpose to it? That kind of thing.’
He nodded and pulled half a dozen of the pictures back towards him. ‘I remember this sort of shit happening at Highgate Cemetery a few years ago.
Graves were dug up. Some coffins even had the bodies removed. There was some bloke who claimed there was a vampire loose in there.’ Nicholls chuckled. ‘I was assistant editor at the Highgate Herald then. We had front pages of the stuff for about a week. A few people reckoned they’d seen this vampire.’
He turned over the pictures again.
‘Have you thought about the witchcraft angle?’ he said, quietly, his gaze riveted to a shot of the giant pentagram on the wall of the crypt.
‘Witchcraft?’ said Cath, sounding surprised.
‘Desecrated graves, pentagrams, the Lord’s Prayer written backwards. It’s worth investigating,’ he continued.
‘The punters usually go for that kind of thing. Find out if there’ve been any animals sacrificed there, too. Check with the local police to see if anyone’s reported their cat or dog missing - somebody might have used it in some sort of ritual.’
‘Are you serious?’ she said, grinning.
‘Of course I’m serious,’ Nicholls told her. ‘Talk to the local RSPCA, too.’
‘You don’t honestly believe that this is about witchcraft, do you, Terry?’
‘A bunch of fucking druggies out of their heads on something, dancing around in cloaks and having an orgy. As far as I’m concerned that’s close enough to witchcraft to make it interesting for your average reader.’
‘Do you believe in it?’
‘Do I fuck! But some of the dickheads who do might just be stupid enough to dig up a few graves, smash a few headstones and paint signs on a church crypt wall. It’s not the devil they want, it’s a quick shag. They’re playing at it, Cath, but it makes good copy. It sells papers.’
‘Perhaps I should do some research about black magic too,’ she chuckled.
‘Whatever you want. Find as many angles as you can. Milk it. I agree with you, it could be big.’