Die Twice

by Simon Kernick

  It was a measure of my exhaustion that I was asleep almost before my head hit the pillow.

  7

  Most nights my sleep is a blank space where nothing happens but that night was different. I dreamed of many vague things and woke up time and time again. Everything was a jumble, a messy kaleidoscope of images and thoughts and memories that for split seconds were ice cold in their clarity, but just as quickly faded like dying film heroes as I moved on to the next one.

  Only one dream stayed in the mind. It came in the grey time just before dawn. In this dream, I was in a television studio watching an edition of Family Fortunes. I was up in the audience, but the audience was just a blur. The studio was very dark but there was a light that shone on Les Dennis, so you could see him well enough, and I remember that he was wearing a pink suit with a lime green shirt. Les was introducing one of the families but I couldn’t make out their name because everything was too dark. He spoke to each of them in turn, and as he stopped in front of an individual player a light shone down on that person so you could see who was who.

  First there was the driver of the Cherokee, Paul Furlong. He only had one eye, the other was just a bloody mess where I’d shot him, but he looked happy enough, and he laughed when Les told a joke. Then there was the front-seat passenger, Bayden-Smith. He still looked morose and most of the top of his head was missing. When he spoke, his voice sounded slow and drawling like a record on the wrong speed, and it took me a couple of seconds to work out that this was because his jaw was hanging off his face at an odd angle. I remember thinking that I was glad he didn’t have kids. Then there was the back-seat passenger, but I couldn’t really see his face very well and he kept looking away. Les tried to put him at ease by saying that he’d heard he was a very good skateboarder and inviting him to elaborate. But still he wouldn’t look at us. Miriam Fox, who was standing next to him in a slinky black dress, her throat sliced from ear to ear, put a protective arm around his shoulders.

  ‘You’re Miriam,’ said Les.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Miriam in a pleasant voice.

  ‘And what brings you here, Miriam?’

  ‘I’m here with the dead.’

  ‘Here with the dead!’ laughed Les. ‘That sounds good!’ And he looked at the audience, and they all laughed too. ‘And who’s this?’ he added, looking towards the person on the other side of Miriam. I couldn’t see who it was because the light wouldn’t shine on her and she was silhouetted in the darkness, but I had a dread feeling of familiarity. She was small, smaller than Miriam, and I thought I could make out curly hair.

  ‘Is it your sister?’ asked Les, still smiling, and Miriam suddenly looked very sad, as if Les had touched upon some secret tragedy. She started to say something but the words didn’t come out or, if they did, I didn’t hear them.

  There was a long pause, and the audience fell silent.

  Then Les turned back towards us, and he too looked troubled.

  ‘These are the dead,’ he said.

  And then I woke up, sweating and frightened.

  Part Two

  HUNTING THE LIVING

  8

  ‘Miriam Ann Fox, aged eighteen, died from a single stab wound to the neck delivered from behind. The wound was almost two inches deep, suggesting that it was a) a very sharp bladed knife, and b) a very strong person delivering the fatal blow. From the angle of the wound we can surmise that the perpetrator was considerably taller than her. She was five feet three; he, and I think we can safely assume it was a he in this case, is almost certainly between five feet ten inches and six feet two. The victim either bled or choked to death as a result of this one wound. The pathologist thinks that the perpetrator held her up while she choked and died, then laid her out on the ground on her back, before stabbing her four times in the vaginal area.’

  ‘So he didn’t have sex with her then?’ asked one of the assembled group.

  It was 8.35 the following morning and Malik, me, and the fourteen other detectives assigned to the Miriam Fox murder hunt were sitting in the incident room while DCI Knox, the official head of the investigation, stood next to a whiteboard giving his summary of what we knew so far. Welland sat next to him, but was once again not looking himself. If someone had asked me for a diagnosis of his condition I would have said his batteries had gone flat, which seems to happen more and more to coppers of a certain age, and I wondered briefly how much longer he was going to last on the Force.

  No such concerns about Knox, who was a big charismatic guy with a deep, resonant voice that swept across the room. ‘There’s no evidence that she had sex either immediately prior to or immediately after her death,’ he continued. ‘According to the pathologist she died at some point between eight and ten on Sunday night. Now we’ve spoken to a number of the girls who work the area and she was seen by at least two of them at about eight p.m., which was when she generally started her shift. She spoke briefly to one of the girls, and the girl said that there was nothing untoward about her. She then moved down the street to her usual spot, which is the corner of Northdown and Collier Street, and from there she was picked up by a car – a dark blue saloon, we haven’t got the make yet – and driven away. Usually the girls try to get the number of the cars but, sod’s law, no-one did this time.’

  There was a resigned murmur from the assembled men, including me. You don’t expect to get too many lucky breaks in the course of your work, but on a case like this you need a few.

  Knox paused to take a sip from his tea. ‘They didn’t drive very far though, as we know. The victim was killed at the spot where she was found. As the crow flies that’s no more than a few hundred yards from where she was picked up. It’s important we trace this car. We’ve got a dozen uniforms who are going to be doing house-to-house in the vicinity to see if anyone can remember seeing a vehicle fitting the description near the scene. If we’re lucky’ – more groans –‘somebody might even have got a look at him. He would have been heavily bloodstained after the killing. We’re checking CCTV on every possible site from where she was picked up to where she was discovered, but so far nothing’s turned up.’

  ‘None of the Toms recognized the car, then?’ asked Capper, who was a DS, the same as me. I didn’t like Capper; never had. He had an unpleasant haircut and constant bad breath, but I wouldn’t have held those things against him particularly, not on their own. It was the way he sucked up to senior management I didn’t like.

  Knox shrugged. ‘They see a lot of dark-coloured saloons in their line of business so no-one remembers this one.’

  ‘You said that the Toms tended to make notes of punters’ registration plates.’ It was me speaking this time.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Do they ever keep records of them?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, it doesn’t appear so, not according to any of the girls who were spoken to last night. We still might get the number, though. We’ll be appealing for information on Crimestoppers and in the area itself. Boards’ll be going up round there this morning, so someone’s memory might get jogged. We need to find out if she had any punters who she went with on a regular basis. Most of them usually do. We’ve got two statements from girls testifying that she was picked up on more than one occasion by someone in a red TVR, although no-one ever saw his face. Apparently she had a friend, a girl by the name of Molly Hagger, who used to work the streets with her, I believe you’ve got a photo of her, Dennis, but she hasn’t been seen for several weeks.’

  I felt a brief stab of fear. So that was her name. Molly. And now she was missing. ‘There was a photograph of her with the victim at the victim’s flat,’ I said. ‘It looked recent, so I think it would be useful to talk to this Molly.’

  ‘If we can find her.’

  ‘Have we got an address for her?’ I asked.

  Knox nodded. ‘We think so. One of the girls said she thought she was staying at Coleman House. It’s a council-run children’s home over towards Camden. We haven’t contacted anyone d
own there yet so I want you and Malik to pay the place a visit and see if you can find out where she is, and if any of the other people there have any information on the victim.’

  I nodded. ‘Sure.’

  ‘We’ve also got to bring in the victim’s pimp, who we’ve now identified as Mark Wells. Dennis met him briefly yesterday.’ He looked across at me and winked, much to the amusement of everyone else. ‘Wells has a long record of violence, including attacks on women, and at the very least we can bring him in for taking out DS Milne.’

  Again there was more laughter. I managed a strained smile to show that I could take a joke, just like the next man, not that I felt much like laughing. My face still hurt and a darkening bruise had appeared under my right cheekbone overnight.

  ‘We’re applying for a search warrant for his house and a warrant for his arrest, both of which should be with us by mid-morning. We’re going to lean on him hard. He’s a cocky bastard by all accounts, but he’s going to have useful information about the victim, and it’s essential we extract it from him. He’s also a suspect. So far, our only evidence of sexual assault is the stab wounds around the vagina, so it’s quite possible that the killer’s attempting to make it look like a sexual assault when, in reality, it wasn’t his prime motivation. Now I don’t want to put too much stock on that theory, because at the moment it is just a theory, but we’ve got to bear it in mind. And that means taking a close look at Mark Wells.’

  He paused again, took another sip of his tea. ‘We also need the names of everyone in a three-mile radius of here who’s been picked up for soliciting at any time in the last two years, giving particular preference to anyone with convictions for violence or sex offences. And we’re going to need to interview them all.’ Several people groaned, and Knox managed an understanding smile. ‘Look, it’s not going to be easy – it never is – but we’ve got to explore every possible avenue, and that means talking to the sort of people who could have done this, i.e. men who are known to be violent to women. This murder hunt is twenty-four hours old, ladies and gentlemen. At the moment the body’s still warm but it’s going to cool down fast, so we’ve got a lot of work to do. One hell of a lot. I want this killer brought to justice and I know you’re the people to do it.’ He accompanied this last sentence by enthusiastically whacking one of the desks with the palm of his hand, which was a very Knox-like gesture. I’m sure sometimes he thought he was working on Wall Street.

  Brave words, too. Whether they’d be matched by deeds or not, though, remained to be seen.

  The remainder of the meeting was spent organizing who was going to be doing what, and took about ten minutes, including questions. Welland was going to be leading the raid on Mark Wells’s place as soon as the paperwork came through, which annoyed me a little bit. Since it had been me the bastard had hit, I wanted to be on the team which brought him in, but I suppose at the same time I also wanted to find out more about Molly, and it was going to be difficult to do both.

  It was 9.20 when Malik and I left to go round to the Coleman House care home. Times were hard in our division of the Metropolitan Police and budgets tight, so we decided to save the taxpayers some money by taking the bus. In the end, though, it would probably have been quicker to walk. An accident on the Holloway Road had snarled up the traffic and we were stuck in it, stopping and starting, for what seemed like hours.

  I told Malik about my dream as we sat there watching the world go by, or not as the case might be. It had genuinely rattled me. ‘You know, I know it sounds stupid, but it was almost like some sort of premonition.’

  He couldn’t resist a grin. ‘What? You think Les Dennis might be in danger?’

  ‘I’m serious, Asif. This wasn’t like any dream I’ve ever had. You know me. I’m not superstitious, and I’m not spiritual or anything like that. I’m not even a Christian. So it’s nothing to do with my state of mind. It was just it was so vivid that when I woke up I was absolutely positive this Molly girl was dead.’

  ‘Explain the dream to me again.’

  I went through it all with him, missing out the details of the dead customs men, and whispering so that none of the other passengers, a mixture of old grannies and foreign students, could hear what I was saying. I didn’t want them thinking I was some sort of nutter.

  By the time I’d finished, we’d travelled the sum total of about thirty yards.

  Malik shook his head and gave me the sort of look that suggested he thought it was grossly unfair that he should be taking orders from someone with such a tenuous grip on reality. ‘Look, Sarge, I wouldn’t worry about it. You know, a dream’s just a dream. The chances are this girl’s all right.’

  ‘I hope so. I didn’t like the sound of the fact that she hasn’t been seen for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘Only by the local streetwalkers. Maybe she’s changed. Maybe she’s realized that prostitution and drug addiction is no way to lead a life.’

  I laughed. ‘Do you really believe that?’

  ‘Well, it’s unlikely…’

  ‘Dead right it is.’

  ‘But it’s possible. And anyway, maybe she’s just plying her trade somewhere else. There’s got to be more chance of that than of her being dead in a ditch somewhere.’

  Malik said these last few words a bit too loudly and a couple of people turned round and gave us funny looks.

  ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ I said. ‘You’ve convinced me.’

  But he hadn’t.

  * * *

  We exited the bus on Junction Road when it became obvious that we weren’t getting anywhere and took the tube, which thankfully was still running pretty much as normal. It was 10.20 when we got out of Camden station. It was slowly turning into a sunny winter’s day, so we walked the rest of the way.

  Coleman House was a large redbrick Victorian building on a road just off the high street. One of the third-floor windows was boarded up, but other than that it looked quite well kept. A couple of kids, a boy and a girl, sat on the wall in front of the entrance, smoking and looking shifty. The girl was wearing a very short skirt and a huge pair of black platform-soled trainers that, set against her spindly legs, made her look mutated. They both looked at us as we approached and the boy sneered. ‘Are you coppers?’ he said.

  ‘That’s right,’ I told him, stopping in front of them. ‘We’re investigating a murder.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Whose, then?’ he asked, looking interested. Morbid little bastard.

  ‘Well, why don’t we start with you telling me your name?’

  ‘What’s it got to do with me? I haven’t done nothing.’

  ‘You can’t make him give you his name,’ said the girl confidently, looking me in the eye. I put her at about thirteen, and she would have been quite pretty except for the angry cluster of whiteheads around her mouth and the excessive use of cheap make-up. Thirteen, and she was already a barrack-room lawyer. I had a feeling they were all going to be like that in a place like this.

  ‘I’m not trying to,’ I told her. ‘I’m just interested in knowing who I’m talking to.’

  ‘If you want to talk to him, you need an appropriate adult present.’

  ‘So, when did you graduate from law school then, young lady?’

  She was about to come up with some other smart-alec answer but we were interrupted before she could get it out.

  ‘Can I help you, gentlemen?’

  The speaker was an attractive white female, early forties. Quite tall – about five feet nine – and, from the sound of her voice, someone in authority.

  I turned in her direction and smiled, opening fire with the charm. ‘I hope so. My name’s DS Milne and this is my colleague, DC Malik. We’re here as part of an ongoing inquiry.’

  She managed a weak smile. ‘Really, what now?’

  ‘It’s a murder investigation.’

  ‘Oh.’ She looked taken aback. ‘Was there any reason why you were talking to the children?’

  ‘I was just introducing myself.’

&nbs
p; ‘No you weren’t,’ said the girl. ‘He was trying to find out who we were.’

  ‘Well, I’ll take over from here, Anne. Aren’t you and John meant to be with Amelia?’

  ‘We’re just having a quick smoke,’ said the girl, not bothering to look up.

  ‘Perhaps you’d better come inside, gentlemen, and we’ll talk in there.’

  I nodded. ‘Of course. And you are?’

  ‘Carla Graham. I manage Coleman House.’

  ‘Well, then, please lead the way,’ I said, and we followed her through the double doors and into the building.

  The place had the unwelcoming feel of a hospital: high ceilings; linoleum floors; health-related posters on the walls warning against shared needles, unwanted pregnancy, and a whole host of other obstacles to a happy and fulfilling life. And there was a nasty reek of disinfectant in the air. Dr Barnardo’s this wasn’t.

  Carla Graham had a spacious office at the other end of the building. She ushered us in and we took seats facing her across her sizeable desk. There were more doom-mongering posters in here as well. One showed a huge photograph of a young child, no more than five, covered in bruises. The caption above it read: Stamp on Child Abuse. Below the photograph it added: Not on Children.

  ‘So, what’s happened?’ Carla asked. ‘I hope none of our clients are involved.’

  ‘Clients, meaning children?’ It was Malik asking the question.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘We don’t really know, which is why we’re here.’ I then told her about the discovery of the body the previous day.

  ‘I didn’t hear anything about that,’ she said. ‘Who was the poor girl?’

  ‘Her name was Miriam Fox.’ Carla’s expression didn’t hint at recognition, so I continued. ‘She was an eighteen-year-old prostitute, a runaway.’

  She shook her head and sighed. ‘What a waste. Not a shock, because the potential for this sort of thing to happen’s there all the time. But a terrible waste, all the same.’