by Peter James
He was going to take this one in front of him home too, he knew. It was horrific, but he couldn’t stop looking, couldn’t stop thinking about the suffering during this man’s last moments. He hoped they were quick, but he had a feeling they probably weren’t.
The man was short and stocky, with a buzz cut and a triple chin, and tattoos on the backs of his hands. He was naked, with his clothes on the ground, as if he had taken them off to have a bath or a swim. His blue overalls, socks and a green polo shirt that was printed with the words ABERDEEN OCEAN FISHERIES sat, neatly folded, next to his heavy-duty boots. Patches of his skin were smoke-blackened and there were some tiny crystals of frost on his head and around his face and hands. He was hung from one of the heavy-duty hooks, the sharp point of which had been pushed up through the roof of his wide-open jaw and was protruding just below his left eye, like a foul-hooked fish.
It was the expression of shock on the man’s face – his bulging, terrified eyes – that was the worst thing of all.
The icy air continued to pump out. It carried the strong smell of smoked fish, but also those of urine and excrement. The poor man had both wet and crapped himself. Hardly surprising, Grace thought, continuing to stare at him, thinking through the first pieces of information he had been given. One of the smokehouses had been broken into as well. Had the poor sod been put in there first, and then in here to be finished off by the cold?
The mix of smells was making him feel dangerously close to retching. He began, as a pathologist had once advised him, to breathe only through his mouth.
‘You’re not going to like what I have to tell you, Roy,’ Tracy Stocker said breezily, seemingly totally unaffected.
‘I’m not actually liking what I’m looking at that much either. Do we know who he is?’
‘Yes, the boss here knows him. He’s a lorry driver. Makes a regular weekly delivery here from Aberdeen. Has done for years.’
Grace continued to stare back at the body, fixated. ‘Has he been certified?’
‘Not yet. A paramedic’s on the way.’
However dead a victim might appear, there was a legal requirement that a paramedic attend and actually make the formal certification. In the old days it would have been a police surgeon. Not that Grace had any doubt about the man’s condition at this moment. The only people who looked more dead than this, he thought cynically, were piles of ash in crematorium urns.
‘Have we got a pathologist coming?’
She nodded. ‘I’m not sure who.’
‘Nadiuska, with any luck.’ He looked back at the corpse. ‘Hope you’ll excuse me if I step out of the room when they remove the hook.’
‘I think I’ll be stepping out with you,’ she said.
He smiled grimly.
‘There’s something that could be very significant, Roy,’ she said.
‘What’s that?’
‘According to Mr Harris, the guv’nor here, this is the driver involved in our fatal in Portland Road. Stuart Ferguson.’
Grace looked at her. Before the ramifications of this had fully sunk in, the Crime Scene Manager was speaking again.
‘I think we ought to get a bit closer, Roy. There’s something you need to see.’
She took a few steps forward and Grace followed. Then she turned and pointed to the interior wall, a foot above the top of the door.
‘Does that look familiar?’
Grace stared at the cylindrical object with the shiny glass lens.
And now he knew for sure that his worst fears were confirmed.
It was another camera.
68
Carly greeted the woman who entered her office with a smile as she ushered her into a seat. The appointment was late, at 4.45, because her whole day was out of kilter. At least it was her last client, she thought with relief.
The woman’s name was Angelina Goldsmith. A mother of three teenagers, she had recently discovered that her architect husband had been leading a double life for twenty years and had a second family in Chichester, thirty miles away. He hadn’t actually married this woman, so he wasn’t legally a bigamist, but he sure as hell was morally. The poor woman was understandably devastated.
And she deserved a solicitor who was able to focus a damned sight better than Carly was capable of doing at the moment, Carly thought.
Angelina Goldsmith was one of those trusting, decent people who was shocked to the core when her husband dumped her and went off with another woman. The woman had a gentle nature, she was a nice-looking brunette with a good figure, and had given up her career as a geologist for her family. Her confidence was shattered and she needed advice urgently.
Carly gave her sympathy and discussed her options. She gave her advice that she hoped would enable her to see a future for herself and her children.
After the client had left, Carly dictated some notes to her secretary, Suzanne. Then she checked her voicemail, listening to a string of messages from clients, the final one from her friend, Clair May, who had driven Tyler to school and back home again. Clair said that Tyler had been crying all the way home, but would not tell her why.
At least her mother was there to look after him, until she got home. He liked his gran, so hopefully he’d cheer up. But his behaviour was really troubling her. She’d try and have a long chat with him as soon as she got home. She rang for a taxi, then left the office.
In the taxi on the way home, Carly sat immersed in her thoughts. The driver, a neatly dressed man in a suit, seemed a chatty fellow and he kept trying to make conversation, but she did not respond. She wasn’t in the mood for conversation.
Ken Acott had been right about the magistrate. She’d got a one-year ban and a £1,000 fine, which Ken Acott said afterwards was about as lenient as it could get. She’d also accepted the court’s offer for her to go on a driver-education course which would reduce her ban to nine months.
She’d felt an idiot, hobbling up to the dock on her uneven shoes and out again. Then, just when she was looking forward to lunch with Sarah Ellis, to cheer her up, Sarah had phoned with the news that her elderly father, who lived alone, had had a fall, and a suspected broken wrist, and she was on her way to hospital with him.
So Carly had thought, sod it, and instead of going to find a shoe repair place, she stumbled along to a store in Duke’s Lane for a spot of retail therapy. She was wearing the result now, a pair of reassuringly expensive and absurdly high-heeled Christian Louboutins in black patent leather with twin ankle straps and red soles. They were the only thing today that had made her feel good.
She looked out of the window. They were moving steadily in the heavy rush-hour traffic along the Old Shoreham Road. She texted Tyler to say she’d be home in ten minutes and signed it with a smile and a row of kisses.
‘You’re towards the Goldstone Crescent end, aren’t you, with your number?’
‘Yes. Well done.’
‘Uh-huh.’
The driver’s radio briefly burst into life, then was silent. After a few moments he said, ‘Do you have a low-flush or high-flush toilet in your house?’
‘A high-flush or low-flush toilet, did you say?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘I’ve no idea,’ she replied.
She got a text back from Tyler: U haven’t got Mapper on
She replied: Sorry. Horrible day. Love you XXXX
‘High flush, you’d have a chain. Low flush, a handle.’
‘We have handles. So low flush, I guess.’
‘Why?’
The man’s voice was chirpy and intrusive. If he didn’t shut up about toilets he wasn’t going to get a damned tip.
Mercifully he remained silent until they had halted outside her house. The meter showed £9. She gave him £10 and told him to keep the change. Then, as she stepped out on to the pavement, he called out, ‘Nice shoes! Christian Louboutin? Size six? Uh-huh?’
‘Good guess,’ she said, smiling despite herself.
He didn’t smile back. He just nodded and unsc
rewed the cap of a Thermos flask.
Creepy guy. She was minded to tell the taxi company that she didn’t want that driver again. But maybe she was being mean; he was just trying to be friendly.
As she climbed up the steps to her front door, she did not look back. She entered the porch and fumbled in her bag for her key.
On the other side of the road, Tooth, in his dark grey rental Toyota that was in need of a wash, made a note on his electronic pad: Boy 4.45 p.m. home. Mother 6 p.m. home.
Then he yawned. It had been a very long day. He started the car and pulled out into the street. As he drove off, he saw a police car heading down slowly, in the opposite direction. He tugged his baseball cap lower over his face as they crossed, then he watched in his rear-view mirror. He saw its brake lights come on.
69
Carly could hear the clatter of dishes in the kitchen, which sounded like her mother clearing up Tyler’s supper. There was a smell of cooked food. Lasagne. Sunlight was streaking in through the window. Summer was coming, Carly thought, entering the house with a heavy heart. Normally her spirits lifted this time of year, after the clocks had gone forward and the days were noticeably longer. She liked the early-morning light, and the dawn chorus, too. In those first terrible years after Kes died, the winters had been the worst. Somehow, coping with her grief had been a little easier in the summer.
But what the hell was normally any more?
Normally Tyler would come running out of the school gates to greet her. Normally he would come rushing to the front door to hug her if she had been out. But now she stood alone in the hallway, staring at the Victorian coat stand that still had Kes’s panama hat slung on a hook, and the fedora he’d once bought on a whim, and his silver duck-handled umbrella in its rack. He’d liked cartoons and there was a big framed Edwardian one of people skating on the old Brighton rink in West Street hanging on the wall, next to a print of the long-gone Brighton chain pier.
The realization was hitting her that everything was going to be a hassle this summer with no driving licence. But, sod it, she thought. She was determined to think positively. She owed it to Tyler – and herself – not to let this get her down. After her father died, four years ago, her mother told her, in the usual philosophical way she had of coping with everything, that life was like a series of chapters in a book and now she was embarking on a new chapter in her life.
So that’s what this was, she decided. The Carly Has No Licence chapter. She would just have to get to grips with bus and train timetables, like thousands of other people. And as one bonus, how green would that be? She was going to use her holidays to give Tyler exactly the same kind of summer he always had. Days on the beach.
Treat days to zoos and amusement parks like Thorpe Park and to the museums in London, particularly the Natural History Museum, which he loved best of all. Maybe she’d get to like travelling that way so much she wouldn’t bother with a car again.
Maybe the skies would be filled with flying pigs.
As she walked into the kitchen, her mother, wearing an apron printed with the words TRUST ME, I’M A LAWYER over a black roll-neck and jeans, came up and gave her a hug and a kiss.
‘You poor darling, what an ordeal.’
Her mother had been there for her throughout her life. In her mid-sixties, with short, auburn hair, she was a handsome, if slightly sad-looking woman. She had been a midwife, then a district nurse, and these days kept herself busy with a number of charities, including working part-time at the local Brighton hospice, the Martlets.
‘At least the worst part’s over,’ Carly replied. Then she saw the Argus lying on the kitchen table. It looked well thumbed through. She hadn’t bought a copy because she hadn’t had the courage to open it. ‘Am I in it?’
‘Just a small mention. Page five.’
The main story on the front page was about a serial killer called Lee Coherney, who had once lived in Brighton. The police were digging up the gardens of two of his former residences. The story was on the news on the small flat-screen TV mounted on the wall above the kitchen table. A good-looking police officer was giving a statement about their progress. The caption at the bottom of the screen gave his name as Detective Chief Inspector Nick Sloan of Sussex CID.
She riffled through the pages until she found her tiny mention and felt momentarily grateful to this monster, Coherney, for burying her own story.
‘How’s Tyler?’ she asked.
‘He’s fine. Upstairs, playing with that lovely little friend of his, Harrison, who just came over.’
‘I’ll go and say hi. Do you need to get off ?’
‘I’ll stay and make you some supper. What do you feel like? There is some lasagne and salad left.’
‘I feel like a sodding big glass of wine!’
‘I’ll join you!’
The doorbell rang.
Carly looked at her mother quizzically, then glanced at her watch. It was 6.15 p.m.
‘Tyler said another friend might be joining them. They’re playing some computer battle game tonight.’
Carly walked into the hall and across to the front door. She looked at the safety chain dangling loose, but it was early evening and she didn’t feel the need to engage it. She opened the door and saw a tall, bald black man in his mid-thirties, dressed in a sharp suit and snazzy tie, accompanied by a staid-looking woman of a similar age. She had a tangle of hennaed brown hair that fell short of her shoulders and wore a grey trouser suit over a blouse with the top button done up, giving her a slightly prim air.
The man held up a small black wallet with a document inside it bearing the Sussex Police coat of arms and his photograph.
‘Mrs Carly Chase?’
‘Yes,’ she answered, a tad hesitantly, thinking she really did not want to have to answer a whole load more questions about the accident tonight.
His manner was friendly but he seemed uneasy. ‘Detective Sergeant Branson and this is Detective Sergeant Moy from Sussex CID. May we come in? We need to speak to you urgently.’
He threw a wary glance over his shoulder. His colleague was looking up and down the street.
Carly stepped back and ushered them in, unsettled by something she could not put a finger on. She saw her mother peering anxiously out of the kitchen door.
‘We need to speak to you in private, please,’ DS Branson said.
Carly led them into the living room, signalling to her mother that all was fine. She followed them in and pointed to one of the two sofas, then shut the door, casting an embarrassed glance at the spreading brown stain on the wallpaper, which now covered almost entirely one wall. Then she sat down on the sofa opposite them, staring at them defiantly, wondering what they were going to throw at her now.
‘How can I help you?’ she asked eventually.
‘Mrs Chase, we have reason to believe your life may be in immediate danger,’ Glenn Branson said.
Carly blinked hard. ‘Pardon?’
Then she noticed for the first time that he had a large brown envelope in his hand. He was holding it in a strangely delicate way for such a big man, the way he might have held a fragile vase.
‘It’s concerning the road traffic collision two weeks ago today, which resulted in the death of a young student at Brighton University, Tony Revere,’ he said.
‘What do you mean exactly by immediate danger?’
‘There were two other vehicles involved, Mrs Chase – a Ford Transit van and a Volvo refrigerated lorry.’
‘They were the ones that actually struck the poor cyclist, yes.’ She caught the eye of the female DS, who smiled at her in a sympathetic way that irritated her.
‘Are you aware of who the cyclist was?’ he asked.
‘I’ve read the papers. Yes, I am. It’s very sad – and very distressing to have been involved.’
‘You’re aware that his mother is the daughter of a man purported to be the head of the New York Mafia?’
‘I’ve read that. And the reward she offered. I didn’t eve
n know they existed any more. I thought that the Mafia was something from the past, sort of out of The Godfather.’
The DS exchanged a glance with his colleague, who then spoke. ‘Mrs Chase, I’m a Family Liaison Officer. I think as a solicitor you may be familiar with this term?’
‘I don’t do criminal law, but yes.’
‘I’m here to help you through the next steps you choose. You know the Ford Transit van that was just mentioned?’
‘The one that was right behind me?’
‘Yes. You need to know that the driver of this van is dead. His body was found in the van on Friday, in Shoreham Harbour.’
‘I read in the Argus that a body had been found in a van in the harbour.’
‘Yes,’ Bella Moy said. ‘What you won’t have read is that he was the driver we believe was involved in the collision. You also won’t have read that he was murdered.’
Carly frowned. ‘Murdered?’
‘Yes. I can’t give you details, but please trust us, he was. The reason we are here is that just a few hours ago the driver of the Volvo lorry involved in the death of Tony Revere was also found murdered.’
Carly felt a cold ripple of fear. The room seemed to be swaying and there was a sudden, terrible, intense silence. Then it seemed as if she wasn’t really inside her body any more, that she had left it behind and was drifting in a black, freezing, muted void. She tried to speak but nothing came out. The two officers drifted in and out of focus. Then her forehead was burning. The floor seemed to be rising beneath her, then sinking away, as if she was on a ship. She put her right hand on the arm of the sofa, to hold on.
‘I—’ she began. ‘I – I – I thought the reward that – that the mother – that the mother had put up – was for the identification of the van driver.’