Mitchell, D. M.

by crime The King of Terrors (a psychological thriller combining mystery

  Gareth’s eyes widened. ‘That’s me!’ he said. ‘It’s a photo I use on my website.’

  ‘But that’s definitely not your name, is it?’

  ‘No, of course not. I’m not Daniel Burgess. What is this?’

  ‘And so this isn’t your birth certificate either?’ he said. The name appearing on that was Daniel Burgess too.

  ‘I’ve no idea what all this is about. Has someone been trying to steal my identity?’

  ‘Or someone’s been trying to create a new one. Interestingly the real Daniel Burgess has been dead twenty-five years. These were found in the flat where we discovered the murdered woman. And one last thing…’ he turned to Styles who up till this point hadn’t said a word.

  ‘You’re a photographer,’ DI Styles noted. His voice was crisper, more incisive. Like he was in a hurry to get to wherever he was going.

  ‘So I already said.’

  ‘We found two of your framed, limited edition prints in one of the rooms. Bought from Foster Specialist Art Galleries. Seems you have a real fan.’

  ‘This is getting weird,’ said Gareth.

  ‘Very. You knocked over a young woman in the lane not far from your cottage, is that right? A day or so before you discovered the symbol on the wall.’

  ‘Yes. I gave a statement to the police.’ An officer came from behind and placed a glass of water on the table. Gareth picked it up and drank the lukewarm contents, glad of the relief on his parched throat. ‘You think the two are connected?’

  ‘You’d never met her before?’ said Styles. He replied no. ‘Did she give you her name? I understand you visited her at the hospital.’

  ‘I wanted to check on her,’ he said. ‘I wanted to check she was OK. I was worried I’d done something terrible.’ He hesitated. ‘She never told me her name,’ he lied. He felt himself heat up because of it. What was he doing? Lying to the police!

  ‘Did she tell you anything about herself, anything at all?’

  ‘Do you think she has something to do with the murder in Manchester?’

  ‘Please answer the question,’ said Styles. ‘Did she tell you anything about herself?’

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘No not really, or simply no?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Describe her.’

  He did so, but remained deliberately vague about the description. ‘She looked scared though, as if she were on the run from someone. That was my first impression.’

  Styles glanced down at his notes. ‘It says in your statement that someone had been snooping around your car on the night of the accident. Did you see anyone?’

  He said no. ‘I thought I heard someone outside the car, thought I saw a shadow, footprints in the snow, but now I can’t be sure. Maybe I made them myself; I panicked, because I thought I’d done real damage to her.’ He took another swig and drained the glass. ‘Is she in some kind of trouble?’

  ‘We don’t know, Mr Davies,’ said Styles. He went on to ask where he was during a range of dates and times. Gareth managed with difficulty to provide an answer for the majority.

  ‘Am I a suspect?’ he asked.

  ‘There’s definitely something strange going on, Mr Davies,’ said Stafford. ‘But don’t worry you’re not being charged or anything.’ He smiled but Gareth wasn’t put at ease.

  Just when he thought the questioning was drawing to a close they went over the same things, framed differently each time but designed, he thought, to trip him up. Another hour later he was beginning to feel the stress, his head crackling with pain, his body telling him he needed sleep. It had turned into a very long day.

  It was during the final stage that Gareth inadvertently gave away the fact that he was in possession of Erica’s box of jewellery. As soon as he let it slip he cursed to himself.

  ‘You never mentioned this before,’ said Stafford, his eyes suddenly alight with the thrill of a new chase.

  ‘I didn’t think it important,’ he said lamely.

  ‘Where is this box now?’ he asked him. ‘And what did you intend doing with this jewellery, Mr Davies?’

  ‘I guess I was holding onto it in case she came back.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s back at the cottage.’

  ‘Holding onto it… I guess you were,’ he said. ‘You weren’t withholding information, of course.’

  ‘As far as I know it was a box belonging to a young woman, that’s all. Now she’s a young woman involved in something dodgy, according to you.’

  ‘Perhaps she is. We don’t know yet, Mr Davies. But we’d like to see this box.’

  ‘You weren’t planning to use the jewellery for your own ends by any chance?’ asked Styles.

  ‘Of course not!’ Gareth burst. ‘What are you suggesting? I’d have probably handed it over to the police eventually!’

  ‘Probably,’ echoed Styles.

  ‘Had I known there might be a connection with this Manchester thing then I wouldn’t have hesitated.’

  ‘Well it could be stolen,’ said Stafford. ‘A boxful of jewellery is rather suspicious. And you must contact us immediately if this woman turns up again.’

  Gareth nodded dumbly. ‘One more thing which might not be important and I don’t want to sound paranoid. There’s this man; I think he’s been following me,’ he said. ‘An American or Canadian, don’t know which. He was asking about the woman at the hospital and apparently he turned up in my village looking for me.’

  Styles cocked his head. ‘Can you describe him?’

  He did so, as much as he could remember. ‘Seems you can recall him better than the young woman,’ noticed Stafford.

  ‘One of those things, I guess,’ said Gareth tiredly. ‘He was quite distinctive.’

  Then it was all over. They reminded him to contact them if the woman or this man turned up again. They’d be round soon to collect the box of jewellery and run some forensic tests on the symbol. He was driven home, totally hollowed out and exhausted.

  Things couldn’t get any worse, he thought.

  * * * *

  22

  What Harm Can It Do?

  The trail went cold.

  Weeks passed. She never came back. Not that there ever was a trail. Erica disappeared as readily as she’d entered his life. He had nothing to go on. A first name. He didn’t even have a surname. And there was a chance even Erica might be false. He refused to believe it, of course. He hung onto the notion that he had a sister like a dying man hangs onto his last breath. The forensics team descended, scraped off slivers of black paint from his wall, took fibres from the carpet, dusted for prints, and looked a little displeased he’d attempted to paint over the symbol. They made a mess of the wall by the time they’d chipped away at it. They shook their heads when he told them he’d cleaned the carpet of muddy footprints ages ago.

  Clive Foster contacted him the day after he’d been hauled in by the police. ‘I say, you’re not in trouble are you?’ he asked. ‘Only I had the law around here asking about your prints, who bought them, that kind of thing.’

  ‘So who bought them?’ said Gareth, intrigued.

  ‘I checked the edition numbers and it turns out those were the ones sold on the night of the exhibition to the woman claiming to be your sister. You remember, the rather attractive one I told you about? Didn’t take an address or anything for the receipt.’

  ‘Did you tell the police that she claimed to be my sister?’

  ‘I told them she seemed to act a little strange and left it at that. Not a fan of the police, old man; bad for business having them sniff around. This isn’t going to get to be a habit is it? Only I have my business to think about. You know how it is. Some of my wealthier clients, let’s say they’re particularly edgy when the law gets involved.’

  ‘Clive, I haven’t had so much as a speeding ticket before now. I hardly think you and your wallet need worry over this.’

  ‘A relief, old man. Strange, though, I had this Canadian guy in the gallery asking about the same set of prints a while bef
ore the police. He was interested in knowing all about you.’

  Gareth frowned. ‘Canadian, you say?’

  ‘That’s what he said.’

  ‘Middle-aged, grey hair, nice teeth?’

  ‘You know him?

  ‘I’m getting to know him better than I’d like,’ he replied. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Never thought anything about it. People are generally interested in the artists or photographers. Gave him your card with your number to call. He pushed for an address but as you know I don’t give out those kinds of details. Told him Pembrokeshire, that’s all. He didn’t buy anything though.’

  And that was it. Beyond that last phone call his search for Erica came to a crashing dead end. Weeks passed and he got his life back on track after what he assumed was to be an extremely unsettling but short-lived period. It began to feel like it had all never happened. Then DI Styles turned up out of the blue at his door.

  Gareth let him in. He asked to see where the symbol was.

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve painted over it some more and you can’t see it. Do you have any more information on all this? Why it appeared here?’

  Styles touched the wall where the symbol was, and gave a vague answer that neither confirmed nor denied. ‘Have you heard anything more from the young woman?’ he asked.

  ‘Not a thing.’

  ‘Remember, you must contact me if you hear anything about her,’ he said firmly. ‘There’s evidence that the murdered woman wasn’t living alone. There might have been someone else living there in the flat with her.’

  ‘You think it’s the same woman I knocked over?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said.

  ‘What did you find out about the jewellery?’

  Styles had unexpectedly wandered off, walking around the small room, his body appearing relaxed with his hands behind his back, but his eyes were like that of a raptor seeking prey. ‘Generally quite old, mostly Victorian, a few Georgian pieces, all good quality according to our experts, so someone with an eye for good stuff. We’ve estimated it as being around £90,000 in value. The provenance has yet to be determined, but it’s most likely stolen and the young woman probably had a hand in its disappearance. A fence, maybe.’

  Gareth felt the sting of disappointment that Erica might prove to be nothing more than a common thief. ‘But there’s no proof of that, is there, that she stole it? I mean, she could have come about it quite legitimately.’

  Styles looked at him like he was dealing with a child that could not, or would not, understand. ‘Innocent until proven guilty and all that,’ he said. ‘But my advice is to not take her at face value, or believe a word she told you; she’s probably conducting some kind of scam. At the very least she’s involved in something extremely suspicious, maybe even dangerous. So, as I said, your first port of call is me if you see anything of her or hear from her again,’ he reiterated, this time with more of an edge to it. ‘Do you remember a certain sapphire and diamond brooch amongst the jewellery?’

  Gareth nodded. ‘Vaguely,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know if the stones were real or not.’

  ‘Oh yes, very real indeed. Turns out it’s by Cartier, hallmark for 1938, a commission piece. This brooch alone has a value of £60,000. Also turns out that this particular brooch was reported stolen over seventy years ago.’

  ‘You’re telling me it’s been lost seventy years and only just turned up?’

  ‘Reported missing in January 1940. It was one item from a significant number of others stolen at the time from a family mansion. At today’s value the hoard amounts to over one million pounds, maybe far more, given that amongst it there were two rare paintings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Back then they weren’t worth much, but today they fetch huge sums. The son of the man who owned the stolen property never gave up searching for it. He’s had photographs and information on it circulating ever since; there’s even a webpage devoted to the missing stuff. It’s paid off because the brooch has now found its rightful owner. Bit of a time lag, admitted, but he’s pleased as punch; at least one family heirloom returned and all that.’

  ‘How come she had it?’ he asked, feeling deflated.

  ‘All manner of things could have happened to the brooch and the other pieces since 1940, passed through all kinds of dirty hands, a section of it finally ending up in her little collection. She’s been nicknamed the Magpie down at the station.’ He gave a wry chuckle. ‘We’d very much like to have her in for questioning,’ he said, all humour instantly gone. ‘The brooch is still being held as possible evidence in a murder investigation, so we can’t release it yet. But, more to the point, the gentleman to whom the brooch now belongs has offered a not insubstantial reward for its return and any evidence of the other missing pieces. You, sir, are to be the recipient of that reward. Aren’t you a lucky man?’

  ‘I couldn’t take it,’ he said.

  ‘That’s up to you, sir. All the same, I’ve been told to give you this.’ He handed Gareth a piece of paper. ‘He’s desperate to meet the man who found his father’s property. Sentimental value, you see. Wouldn’t hurt to meet him; he’s an old guy and you know how they can be. You might also be interested to know who the man is.’

  ‘I might?’

  ‘He’s not exactly your ordinary man on the street, this one. He’s Sir David Lambert-Chide.’

  ‘The pharmaceutical guy?’ said Gareth.

  ‘The one and the same,’ said Styles. ‘His father founded the company. As a billionaire he’s not short of a bob or two, so if it were me I wouldn’t be too hasty in refusing his generosity. Could be worth your while,’ he said, glancing around his Spartan living room. ‘And it’s not as if you don’t deserve it, being recognised for doing your civic duty.’ His voice barely hid the sarcasm. ‘Like I say, sir, up to you what you decide to do. Naturally, we didn’t give your name out to him.’

  The meeting concluded and Gareth walked the officer to the door. ‘You really think she’s a thief?’ he asked.

  ‘I think she’s not what she seems,’ he returned.

  He reminded him yet again to contact him if he should ever see her again, but Gareth thought that highly unlikely now. But he could not scrub away the thought that she was a petty thief. He could not budge the notion that she just might be the sister he never knew he had. The two thoughts bumped up angrily against each other like stags in rut.

  He eventually decided he wanted nothing to do with any reward for the brooch, until very late one evening the phone rang insistently. He tried his best to ignore it, but as it could be business and he was in desperate need of that he gave in.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. The line remained silent. He could hear, faintly, someone breathing – a light, rapid panting. ‘Hello,’ he said again. ‘Look, if this is some kind of prank…’ Still there was silence but for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to hang up. He held the phone close to his mouth and spoke softly: ‘Erica, is that you?’

  The line went dead.

  He hadn’t thrown away the scrap of paper with the contact details on it. Why, as he’d decided not to claim the reward, he didn’t know. Instead he’d stuffed it into a drawer from where he now retrieved it. He couldn’t be certain, but he knew it had been Erica at the other end of the line. By rights he should have contacted the police immediately. Again, his screaming emotions drowned out whispering logic. He needed to find her. She might be in trouble with the police but he didn’t care. He was desperate. The brooch was the only link to Erica, and David Lambert-Chide was the only link to the brooch. Maybe there was the slightest chance he could join the two up. And he needed to know about the brooch’s disappearance, perhaps even find proof that Erica wasn’t the last in a long line of dirty hands, as Styles had intimated. It was a slim hope, but any hope was welcome.

  Gareth sat down at his laptop and carried out a search on Sir David Lambert-Chide. There was a surprising amount of biographical information available, a lot of it authorised.

  He was born in London in 1921 to S
imon and Elizabeth Lambert-Chide. He’d not only been born with a silver spoon in his mouth; he’d had an entire canteen. The Lambert-Chides were extremely wealthy people even back then, growing rich on the back of a successful chemical and pharmaceutical business.

  David was an only son, had the usual privileged education at Oxford, fought as a young pilot in the Second World War with distinction and inherited the family business and estates when his father died of a heart attack in 1949. At the age of 27 he set about adding to their already large business portfolio, expanding rapidly through acquisition, merger and a raft of innovative and lucrative advances in the pharmaceutical side of affairs. They become a leading player in the industry, abandoning the chemical arm by the mid-1970s. The company still operated from its original base on the Golden Mile in Brentford, in a purpose-built building in the Art Deco style, which his father had specially commissioned back in the late 1920’s. The photograph of the Lambert-Chide building showed an impressive edifice to industry and power – a grand Art Deco entrance flanked by huge oblong pillars, a tier of stone steps leading up to immense double doors, and to top it all off a clock tower looked down on everything like a huge one-eyed Cyclops.

  The name, following another merger, had since changed to Fraser-Biochem in 1986. The main focus of attention for the company these days was research into the prevention of diseases of old age like Alzheimer’s and dementia, an expanding market the world over with people living longer and diseases associated with old age becoming more prevalent. Though some research was still carried out at the original Brentford building the centre of its massive global operations was based in the United States, where it first set up business in the Research Triangle Park, Durham County in North Carolina in 1963.

  Gareth looked at the name and number on the piece of paper. What the hell, he thought. What harm can it do?