No Lovelier Death

by Hurley, Graham

  She picked up the conversation again but her heart wasn’t in it. From Vanuatu, she said, they’d headed south on a course that would finally take them to New Zealand. There’d been flying fish and schools of dolphins. They’d been tracked by an albatross for an entire day and caught a faraway glimpse of a spouting whale. The weather had begun to get colder. They’d even discussed using sleeping bags at night. Then the phone had rung and it was suddenly time to go home. Home was another word she clearly found painful.

  She fumbled for a tissue. Blew her nose.

  ‘How has your husband taken it?’ A woman’s question. Jessie’s.

  ‘Badly. As you’d expect. Rachel meant everything to him. I don’t know whether you’re aware of this but she’s not his daughter at all. She’s mine, from my previous marriage. But it was Peter who was always there for her, Peter who was the real daddy in her life, Peter who pushed her in the swimming days, Peter who dreamed about Oxbridge. All that’s gone now, just…’ she was looking blankly at the wall, the tissue balled in her fist ‘… gone. No wonder the poor man’s got pains in his chest. Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t anyone?’

  The question, unanswerable, hung in the air. At length Jessie suggested they rearrange the furniture, push two armchairs together, face to face, create a makeshift bed. She’d find a blanket, let Belle sleep a bit. She must be exhausted. Belle nodded. It had been a long flight.

  Faraday got to his feet and went to look for the staff nurse. She found him a blanket and said that Peter Ault should be through by midday. The tests so far had revealed nothing. Faraday glanced at his watch. 09.56. Heading back to the family room, he became aware of vibrations from his phone. Jerry, he thought.

  He was wrong. It was Suttle.

  ‘Boss? Is that you? We’ve got another body. Division phoned it in ten minutes ago. I’m going out there now.’

  ‘Where? Who?’ Faraday was lost.

  ‘A guy called Danny Cooper, boss. As advertised.’

  It was Proctor who took Suttle out to Salcombe Avenue. A Scenes of Crime team was already driving down from Cosham and he needed to brief them before they started on the house.

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Apparently this guy’s got a girlfriend. She doesn’t kip there every night but she turned up first thing because they were going to Liverpool for a couple of days.’

  The girl, he said, had a key to the house. She’d let herself in and made tea before taking a cup upstairs. When she got to the bedroom, she thought something was wrong because the door was open and she could see a pillow on the floor. The pillow was covered in blood.

  ‘And?’

  ‘She found him half in bed, half out. Multiple stab wounds. Blood up the walls, all over the sheets, everywhere. His throat was cut as well. Very Gothic.’

  She’d freaked out, he said, and run over the road to a neighbour. The woman had come back to the house to check for herself then phoned 999. A traffic car got there first, sealed off the road, did the business. The call came to Major Crime just after nine o’clock.

  ‘How do we know it’s Danny Cooper?’

  ‘Driver ID in his wallet. Plus there’s mail downstairs that suggests the house belongs to him. His cards have gone and there’s no money around so we can tick the robbery box. You’re asking for a lot of grief, though, just for a couple of quid.’

  Suttle agreed. He was already thinking about Jax Bonner. ‘Means of entry? Anyone found a knife?’

  ‘Too early to say. The only people to have gone up there are the two women and the P/C. Jenny Cutler’s still duty callout so we’re expecting her in a couple of hours. My lads will be in there once they’re suited up.’

  Jenny Cutler was the forensic pathologist who’d attended the scene at Sandown Road. One strike for continuity, thought Suttle.

  He wound down the window. The turn into Salcombe Avenue was barred by blue and white No Entry tape. A wave of his warrant card took them past the outer cordon.

  Proctor found a space for his Volvo. A Scenes of Crime van was parked at the other end of the road. The rear doors were open and a couple of Crime Scene Investigators were stacking walking plates against the wall of the end house. For the next day or so, with the exception of the pathologist, the house would be exclusively theirs.

  Proctor set off down the road. Suttle was about to follow when another figure emerged from a nearby Audi. DCI Parsons was dressed for one of her more important meetings and Suttle found himself wondering who’d merit the beautifully cut two-piece business suit ‘Boss?’ He stepped across.

  Parsons was gazing at the activity at the end of the road. She told Suttle she’d been en route to a seminar at Bramshill when she got the call from Willard. He wanted a steer on whether or not this was linked to Mandolin.

  ‘You want me to action that, boss?’

  Parsons nodded. She’d been looking forward to Bramshill for weeks. She’d been booked in for lunch with a prominent American criminologist and she’d even read the bloody man’s newly published autobiography. Now this.

  Bramshill was the nation’s police college, a honeypot for officers with Parsons’ scale of ambition.

  ‘ASAP means by lunchtime,’ she told Suttle. ‘You’re handling intel. Talk to Faraday. Talk to any one you bloody like but get it done. Balance of probability will do. Send me an email.’

  She got back in the Audi. Seconds later she was on the phone. Suttle set off to join Proctor and the CSIs beside the van but then realised there was no point. Jerry was right. Until they’d been through the house, no one would be any the wiser.

  He stood in the road for a moment or two, debating whether to wait for a lift back to Kingston Crescent or to call for a taxi. Then one of the uniforms strolled across. Suttle had met him a couple of times before. His name was Roly. He played half-decent football, guesting for the CID team.

  ‘There’s a woman lives opposite.’ He nodded down the road. ‘She thinks someone should be talking to her husband.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Apparently there was a bloke round last night, trying to knock the lad up.’

  ‘The lad?’

  ‘Cooper. She says he made a hell of a noise, pissed off her husband rotten. He went out, had a word with the guy, got a good look at him.’

  ‘So where is he? The husband?’

  ‘At work. He’s a plasterer. Knock on her door. She’s got a number for him.’

  It was nearly five to eleven by the time Faraday left Hillingdon Hospital. Peter Ault had emerged earlier than expected from the battery of tests. His ECG trace had been normal, his pulse and blood pressure had been only marginally above average, and on the promise that he’d contact his GP for a more thorough check-up, the A & E registrar had been happy to discharge him.

  Faraday had introduced himself. Ault was even taller than he’d anticipated. His height gave him a slightly forbidding air of command and it was easy to imagine him in court or at the helm of an ocean-going yacht. Like his wife, he was deeply tanned. He was wearing deck shoes, and the blazer carried a cheerful stripe, but there was a vagueness in his eyes that Faraday had seen in the aftermath of serious traffic accidents. Tragedy, he thought, is all the more cruel for being so unexpected.

  They’d taken the motorway south, the Aults in the back of Faraday’s Mondeo. So far Ault had spent most of his time staring out of the side window, his head turned away from his wife. Her hand lay in his lap and occasionally she gave him a little pat but he didn’t respond. After Guildford she went to sleep, her head tucked against his shoulder.

  Ault had indicated at the hospital that he was happy to be briefed on exactly what had happened at Sandown Road but it was a while before the flurry of calls to Major Crime gave Faraday the chance. On the face of it, the killing in Salcombe Avenue appeared to be linked to Mandolin. Suttle was busy testing the intel and Parsons was talking to Willard about possible changes in the command structure. A double murder had already stretched the current arrangements. A third might require a new
SIO.

  ‘Exactly how did my daughter die, Detective Inspector?’

  They were stationary in traffic at the lights in Hindhead. Faraday caught Ault’s eyes in the rear view mirror. It was a lawyer’s question: precise, emotionless.

  ‘She was stabbed to death, Mr Ault. You’re welcome to see the pathologist’s report.’

  ‘Thank you. Mackenzie was good enough to put in a couple of phone calls. I understand she was found beside his pool.’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘So there was no question of drowning?’

  ‘None. She never went in the water.’

  ‘That’s a pity.’

  The traffic began to move. Faraday forced his eyes back onto the road.

  ‘Why is it a pity?’ he said at last. ‘Do you mind me asking?’

  ‘Not at all. Water meant everything to her. Drowning would have been …’ he shrugged ‘… appropriate, I suppose.’

  Faraday nodded. It was a strange thought but he imagined it might offer some shred of comfort. He began to explain about the party, wondering exactly how much detail Ault had picked up from Mackenzie. It might be a kindness to prepare them both for what they’d walk into at Sandown Road. Scenes of Crime would have left the house exactly as they’d found it.

  ‘So I’m afraid the place will be a bit of a mess,’ Faraday warned him.

  ‘So I gather.’ Ault was staring out of the window again. ‘What else did the pathologist find?’

  Faraday hesitated. Was this the time to start discussing body fluids?

  ‘Semen,’ he said at last.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In her vagina. And in her throat.’

  Ault nodded. His face was quite expressionless.

  ‘And was she drunk?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How drunk?’

  ‘It’s difficult to say. We don’t get the tox results for a couple of days yet.’

  ‘You’ll have witness statements, though. Probably a wealth of witness statements.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So what do they tell you? About her state of inebriation?’

  Faraday was conscious of the big head coming round, of Ault’s eyes in the mirror again. This was like being cross-questioned in court.

  ‘She’d been drinking heavily.’

  ‘She was incapable?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘And Hughes? This new beau of hers? Was he in the same state?’

  ‘He’d been drinking, certainly.’

  ‘And was he stabbed too?’

  ‘No. He had a head injury. The pathology’s not complete yet.’

  Ault nodded as if this line of questioning had confirmed some previous suspicion. He’s looking to blame someone, Faraday thought. And he didn’t much like Gareth Hughes.

  ‘Berriman was at the party too,’ Faraday said.

  ‘I know. He had the grace to put a call through to the yacht. He told us how sorry he was. About Rachel.’

  ‘You liked him?’

  ‘Very much. We both did.’

  ‘And Rachel?’

  ‘She was head over heels. For years. In a sense I suspect they grew up together. My wife thinks they were like brother and sister but she was wrong: it was much, much more than that. I loved seeing them together. They were so close, so physically close. Believe me, Detective Inspector, it was a major disappointment when they went their separate ways.’

  ‘To Rachel?’

  ‘To me.’ A brief wistful smile.

  They drove on in silence, Ault meditative, his head tipped back, his wife still asleep beside him. Finally Ault asked whether there’d been drugs at the party.

  ‘Yes.’ Faraday nodded. ‘There were.’

  ‘What kind of drugs?’

  ‘Cannabis and cocaine.’

  ‘In quantity?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘From witness statements, Mr Ault.’

  ‘And what do they tell you, these witness statements?’

  Faraday caught himself frowning. While he had immense sympathy for the Aults, he was beginning to resent this drumbeat of questions.

  ‘It was cheap,’ he said at last. ‘In fact remarkably cheap.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘The cocaine.’

  ‘How cheap?’

  ‘We think twenty-five pounds a gram.’

  ‘That’s very cheap indeed. As I understand it, that’s less than half price. And the source?’

  ‘We’re still developing the intelligence.’

  ‘I see.’ He removed his glasses for a moment and rubbed his eyes.

  ‘And do we know why this cocaine was so cheap?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Pity.’ Ault’s fingers found the rocker switch for the electric window. The roar of road noise filled the car and he put his head back, letting the draught lift the greying thatch of hair.

  Minutes later Faraday mentioned Scott Giles.

  ‘I understand you sat at his trial, Mr Ault.’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘Was there any … ah … reaction afterwards?’

  ‘In what sense?’

  Faraday hunted for the right word. Feedback was too limp. Jax Bonner didn’t do feedback.

  ‘Did you have any contact with his immediate family? Might there have been threats?’

  ‘To whom?’

  ‘To you.’

  ‘On what grounds?’ Ault was engaged now. ‘You’re suggesting the jury were mistaken? You think they got their verdict wrong?’

  ‘I’m suggesting nothing, Mr Ault. In these situations we look for motive. That’s our job. One of the uninvited guests at that party was Giles’s sister. She has a record for violence. She appears to be unstable. There might be grounds for thinking she was upset.’

  ‘With me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because of some miscarriage of justice?’

  ‘As she may have seen it …’ Faraday slowed for a roundabout

  ‘… yes.’

  ‘So she killed my daughter? Some primitive act of revenge? Is that what you’re suggesting?’

  Faraday nodded. Ault was clearly upset. Next he’d be blaming himself for Rachel’s death.

  He brooded for a while. Then he shook his head. ‘I’ve had no communication whatsoever from the family. This girl’s name, Detective Inspector?’

  ‘Jax Bonner.’

  ‘Jax.’ The smile was icy. ‘Very colourful. You’ve talked to her?’

  ‘She’s disappeared.’

  ‘I see.’

  Faraday was wondering whether now was the moment to describe the state of Ault’s portrait. Jax Bonner had slashed it to shreds. The evidence was beyond dispute. Later, he thought. Once he’s had a little time to reflect.

  ‘I’m afraid there may be an issue with robbery as well,’ he said instead. ‘We haven’t been able to compile any kind of list as far as your house is concerned but one or two items are clearly missing.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Rachel’s laptop for one thing. Evidentially it’s obviously of interest to us but it seems to have disappeared. In time we may be able to recover it but I’m afraid there’s no guarantee.’

  ‘You shouldn’t bother.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’ve got it. It’s in the luggage. She lent it to me for the cruise. And I must say it was immensely useful.’

  His wife began to stir beside him. Ault spared her a glance, no more. Then he tipped his head back again and closed his eyes.

  ‘Can you hazard a guess about the last few days? Since we got the news? Can you imagine what people like us do in a situation like that?’

  ‘I can’t, Mr Ault. It must be awful.’ It was Jessie.

  ‘Awful, I’m afraid, doesn’t quite do it justice. Unreal is closer. You get a call like that, a voice you’ve never heard in your life, and you want to pretend it’s some kind of nightmare. You want to tell yourself
it hasn’t happened. But then you log on to one of the news sites, BBC, Sky, and there it is - your house, your front door - and you realise that it must be true. Your daughter really is dead. Not unreal at all. Surreal.’

  He hadn’t slept at all on the voyage back to Vanuatu, he said. He’d stood two watches back to back, and then gone below when the skipper insisted he try and rest.

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Of course not. You think. You reflect. You dwell. You dig down through the years. She used that laptop like a diary, like a best friend. I could hear her voice. I could share her thoughts. I could practically touch her. So close. Yet gone. Just like that. Gone forever.’

  Gone, Faraday thought. His wife had used exactly the same word. So simple. So final. Gone.

  They were approaching Petersfield now. Very soon they’d have to make a decision about Sandown Road.

  Faraday found Ault’s eyes in the mirror. They were moist behind the big horn-rimmed glasses.

  ‘We can carry on down to Southsea if you want to, Mr Ault. I have the Crime Scene Coordinator standing by. He’s the one to talk to about your house.’

  Ault thought about the proposition for a moment. Then he shook his head. ‘Not yet,’ he said, ‘if you don’t mind.’

  Chapter eighteen

  THURSDAY, 16 AUGUST 2007. 11.52

  D/C Jimmy Suttle found Winter in a deckchair on the nudist beach, tucked away in the shadow of a disused MoD facility on the long stretch of shingle that curved towards the mouth of Langstone Harbour. Park up where you see the other motors, Winter had told him. I’m the fat bastard in the red deckchair.

  To Suttle’s relief Winter was fully clothed. It was a beautiful day, barely a wisp of cloud in the sky, and Suttle could feel the heat rising from the pebbles beneath his feet. An elderly couple nearby were sharing a picnic on a square of plaid blanket. The woman poured tea from a Thermos and then passed a sandwich to her partner. They had skin the colour of old leather.