Broken Fall: A D.I. Harland novella

by Fergus McNeill

  Harland glanced up at the mural, noting the eerie, psychedelic nature of the figures. Above him, a painted octopus held two giant pills marked Truth and Freedom.

  ‘Not my sort of place,’ he mused.

  They made their way along the alley, pushing between the milling onlookers, and the snatches of murmured speculation. A tall, uniformed officer stepped forward briskly to intercept them as Pope went to duck under the blue and white cordon tape, but relaxed as the shorter man flourished his warrant card.

  ‘DS Pope and DI Harland, CID.’ A little pompous, but Harland was too weary to make anything of it tonight.

  ‘Evening, sir.’ The officer nodded, lifting the tape for them.

  ‘All right, Johnson.’ Harland nodded as he stooped beneath it, then walked a few paces away from the ghouls. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Fine, thanks.’ Johnson had been welcome back-up during a difficult arrest on the Lawrence Weston estate last year. In the confines of the alleyway he seemed an imposing figure, with broad shoulders and a square jaw. ‘They got you working for Central now?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Harland maintained his deadpan expression. ‘We solved all the crime in Portishead so I’ve come to help you sort Bristol out.’

  As they talked, he let his gaze sweep the crowd of onlookers, noting the average age, the way people were dressed, looking for anything out of the ordinary … but it seemed to be just the usual bunch of misfits – faces painted pale, and eyes sunk in shadow from the street lamps. The only one who caught his attention was a wasted-looking man in his thirties who appeared to be blatantly skinning-up a joint, despite all the blue flashing lights.

  He sighed and turned back to Johnson.

  ‘Everyone inside?’

  ‘I think so, yes. DS Linwood was talking with the ambulance crew …’ Johnson turned and pointed towards the club’s main entrance – a vaulted archway lined with stencilled yellow teeth, and double doors painted like a lolling tongue. ‘Just through there.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Harland glanced over at Pope, then gestured towards the building. ‘Lead on.’

  The double doors opened on to a small foyer, wallpapered with posters. One showed a girl with a rapturous expression on her upturned face, and blood running out of her ears, except the blood was blue. Harland paused to look at the image.

  Not a quiet place, then.

  Ahead of them, a long black-walled corridor led into the club, with recessed spots in the low ceiling casting pools of illumination onto the chequered lino floor. At the far end of it, a knot of people stood in the light, talking quietly. One of them looked round, excused himself from the group, and hurried over to meet them. He was a wiry man, with short brown hair and a suit that looked as though he slept in it.

  ‘Evening sir, evening Russell.’ He smiled – a bundle of nervous energy and quick movements.

  ‘Evening,’ Harland acknowledged him. He’d got to know DS Jack Linwood quite well in the first few weeks following his transfer to Bristol CID and, while he’d found his new colleague’s relentless enthusiasm a little wearing, it was infinitely preferable to being teamed up with Pope. ‘Who was first in on this one?’

  ‘Ambulance crew beat us to it.’ Linwood jerked his head towards the green-and-yellow-clad paramedics he’d been talking to. ‘They were here a few minutes before PC Hopkins and Reed in the area car. Do you know them?’

  Pope shrugged and shook his head.

  ‘Not yet,’ Harland replied, ‘but I suppose we will before the night’s out.’

  Linwood smiled.

  ‘Well,’ he said, beckoning them to follow him, ‘I reckon everyone will want a look at this one.’

  ‘What are you on about?’ Harland frowned.

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘I know you’re starting to annoy me.’

  ‘All right, all right.’ Linwood held his hands up. ‘Just making conversation. Come on, you’re going to like this.’

  He led them down a wide set of steps that opened out on to the main dance-floor area – empty now, but still heavy with the smoky reek of dry ice and the sharp tang of sweat. Huge colourful shapes were suspended from the high ceiling, giant paper butterflies and vast canvas flowers twisting slowly in the gloom above. A brightly illuminated bar area ran along one wall, and several police officers were standing there, along with a couple of vacant-looking kids who, judging by the logos on their T-shirts, were members of staff.

  Linwood led them across to the far side of the room, where another officer was pulling off a set of blue paper overalls beside a scuffed metal door marked Men Only.

  ‘Suit up,’ he said brightly. ‘It’s in there.’

  The toilets smelled of bleach and liquid soap. A battered vending machine hung from the wall by the door, supplying the late night combo of breath mints and condoms, and glassy puddles meandered out across the tiled floor from beneath the urinals. A photographer, wearing white overalls, was crouched on one of several steel stepping-stone plates, training his lens into the farthest of the three graffiti-covered stalls. There was a soft click, and a glaring flash lit the walls.

  Harland blinked and lowered his eyes, his own overalls rustling as he stepped carefully from one steel platform to the next. His shoes were wrapped in protective plastic coverings, but in here he was glad of any excuse to keep his feet from touching the floor.

  The photographer studied the screen on the back of his camera, then glanced up.

  ‘Want me to …?’ He gestured towards the door.

  ‘No, it’s fine.’ Harland shook his head. ‘You carry on.’

  He took another step towards the photographer, and another, then paused as the scene inside the toilet cubicle came into view.

  It was the body of a man, slumped down in the corner at the side of the porcelain bowl, like a puppet with its strings cut – legs splayed wide, bald head slumped forward. The arms were stretched out horizontally – one along the back wall, one along the inside of the stall – palms outward as though in surrender.

  Another click and the camera flash glared back from an ugly wet stain on the crotch of the dead man’s jeans. His skin looked sallow, but he didn’t appear to be that old. Brilliant white trainers, a slim red zipper top – expensive clothes that passed for stylish among the younger generation – and the dark shadow on his scalp suggested he was bald by choice rather than age.

  Harland crouched down, wanting to see the victim’s face, frowning as he leaned forward to—

  Flash.

  ‘Shit!’ He stumbled back, putting a hand on the floor to steady himself, as he glared up at the photographer. ‘Just … just give me a second, OK?’

  Wiping his fingers on the leg of the overalls, he realised that his pulse was racing.

  Breathe.

  Turning back, he leaned in closer, trying to discern something in the alien expression on the dead man’s face. It looked almost foetal – eyes squeezed shut, lips pressed together …

  ‘Superglue.’ Linwood’s voice came from behind him. ‘Or some other sort of fast-bonding stuff. Someone sealed his eyes, nose and mouth. Even his ears.’

  Harland recoiled slightly, as the awful expression before him suddenly made sense. Slowly, he turned to look at the man’s outstretched arms.

  ‘And glued his hands to the walls,’ he murmured. ‘Like posing the corpse for us.’

  He started to get to his feet, glancing down to make sure he didn’t misjudge his position on the stepping stones.

  ‘Was this done to him post-mortem?’ He hoped it had been, tried to stop his imagination careering into the claustrophobic horror of what it might have felt like to be conscious, aware.

  ‘No,’ Linwood said quietly. ‘He was alive.’

  And now, Harland noticed the small peels of bloody skin, an angry blemish on the tiled white wall behind the body.

  ‘For fuck’s sake.’ He averted his eyes, staring up towards the merciless glare of the ceiling lights – anything to burn the image out of his mind �
�� forcing himself to breathe steadily.

  Breathe.

  This poor bastard had been so desperate to breathe that he’d torn the skin off the back of his head, trying to thrash himself free himself before he suffocated.

  ‘Sir?’

  Get a grip. Don’t try and empathise with the victim.

  Turning away from the body, he waved for the photographer to continue, then picked his way stiffly back towards the door, where Linwood was watching him.

  ‘Told you,’ the younger man said.

  Harland shook his head, composing himself. He couldn’t let the Bristol team think he was squeamish.

  ‘Do we know who he is?’

  ‘That’s the good news,’ Linwood said. ‘One of the bar staff knew him. Ever heard of the French Connection?’

  ‘The film?’ Harland asked, puzzled.

  ‘No, a nasty piece of work called Arnaud Durand.’ Linwood nodded towards the toilet cubicle. ‘He’s better known to his friends as the French Connection.’

  ‘Let me guess … because he’s French?’

  ‘I suppose there’s that too,’ Linwood conceded, ‘but mostly because he’s your friendly local dealer.’

  Harland pictured the miserable toilet cubicles, their doors covered in scrawled obscenities, imagining dull-eyed junkies slipping inside to score.

  ‘Makes sense,’ he said. ‘What about the paramedics? Did they disturb anything?’

  ‘I’ve spoken to both of them,’ Linwood replied. ‘He’d already been dead for some time when they got here – they went to check his airways, saw what had been done to him, and stepped back. They know the drill.’

  Another flash lit the room. Harland turned to look back at the row of stalls. From here, the body was hidden, but he could still see the man’s face in his mind, yearning for air.

  Breathe.

  ‘Must have been subdued,’ he scowled. ‘You don’t let that sort of thing happen to you.’

  Linwood tapped his chin thoughtfully.

  ‘The paramedics said there’s a lot of trauma to the back of the skull, not just around where the glue was.’ He gazed across the room towards the cubicles. ‘I don’t know … maybe somebody bashed his head in, knocked him out first. Then they’d be able to stick him to the wall, and finish off doing his eyes, nose, mouth.’

  Harland looked at him and nodded slowly.

  ‘And then the poor bastard woke up.’ He shuddered. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here. I need some air.’

  2

  The headquarters of Bristol CID were in a boxy grey building – three storeys of concrete and glass that loomed over the surrounding sea of anonymous industrial units and warehouses. From the small square windows, Harland could gaze out across the car park to the unceasing flow of traffic on the Causeway flyover, and the trains crawling in and out of Temple Meads station. But not from his desk.

  Since he’d transferred here, his new desk was one in a cluster of four, tucked away into a corner of the largely open-plan offices. His neighbours were Linwood, who he generally found useful to talk with, and Pope, who he did not. The fourth spot had remained vacant since his arrival.

  There were no photographs or other decorations cluttering his workspace – just a series of yellow Post-it notes along the bottom edge of his computer screen, a stack of folders beside the phone, and a jotter with curled pages that served as both notepad and mouse mat. The only personal item was a coffee mug that he’d brought with him from Portishead.

  For now, he was sitting on the edge of Pope’s desk, which always seemed tidy enough to have lots of clear surface area, and afforded a better view of the whiteboards. There were two of these, arranged side by side on one of the thin partition walls. At the top of one, the name Arnaud Durand was written in blue capital letters, but you could still see where Linwood had written Le French Connection then rubbed it out.

  Pope had wheeled his chair back a little, and was hunched over cleaning his glasses. Linwood, sitting at his own desk, looked expectantly at Harland.

  ‘What does it say?’ he asked.

  ‘So far it’s pretty much what we expected,’ Harland murmured, leafing back to the first of the printed pages he’d been studying. ‘Preliminary medical report confirms several blows to the back of the head. Not enough to fracture the skull, but probably enough to leave the victim unconscious. No indication of anything sharp being used, and no sign of any weapon at the scene, so it could suggest he had his head banged repeatedly against the wall. SOCOs will let us know for sure, but it fits with your idea, Jack.’

  ‘That he was knocked out first, then glued into place,’ Linwood explained to Pope.

  ‘Or posed,’ Harland added.

  ‘Why seal the nose and mouth if you’ve already tried to kill him by smacking his head against the wall?’ Pope asked him. ‘Why not just whack him a few more times and finish the job?’

  It was a fair point. There were simpler, quicker ways to kill someone.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘Perhaps it’s a kind of message, or a warning. Perhaps it symbolises something.’

  ‘Or maybe Durand’s killer was just making sure that he was dead,’ Linwood mused. ‘You wouldn’t want your victim waking up again.’

  ‘Except he did wake up,’ Pope observed.

  ‘Yeah.’ Harland bowed his head and rubbed a weary hand over the short hair at the back of his neck, trying to release some of the tension in his shoulders. He’d come across his share of bodies in the past, but the thought of being sealed inside your own skin …

  ‘Well, I don’t suppose he could have struggled for long,’ Linwood was saying.

  ‘Long enough.’ Harland turned to shoot a bleak look at him. ‘He’d almost ripped enough of the skin to free one of his hands.’

  Linwood shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  ‘And nobody heard anything.’ Pope shook his head. ‘Still, I suppose his mouth was sealed …’

  Harland thought back to the poster in the club foyer – the girl with the bleeding ears. A noisy environment would hide all sorts of sounds.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, leaning forward and getting to his feet, ‘cause of death was suffocation.’ He held up the report for a moment, then threw it across to land on his own desk. ‘You can read the gory details later if you really want to.’

  It would be easy enough to get distracted by the gruesome manner of Durand’s death, but there were other facts to consider, and he didn’t want the team to overlook anything. Shaking his shoulders to loosen them, he walked over to the whiteboard and picked up a marker.

  ‘The body was discovered by a bartender …’ He spoke slowly, uncapping the pen and noting the solvent smell of the ink. ‘Who were the last people to see him alive?’

  Pope leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. ‘We interviewed all the staff,’ he replied. ‘Nobody remembers serving him, but one of the bouncers saw him coming in around ten.’

  ‘Bouncer’s name?’

  ‘Something Davison …’ Pope frowned for a moment. ‘Gary, I think.’

  ‘OK.’ Harland nodded to himself, the pen squeaking across the board. ‘Jack, how are we doing with the CCTV footage?’

  ‘Well, we’ve lifted everything we can from the club and the surrounding streets,’ Linwood replied. ‘I took a quick look through the interior stuff, and it just shows Durand going from the door, straight down to his little office in the Gents. There’s a couple of nods and greetings on the way, but he doesn’t stop for a proper chat with anyone.’

  ‘OK. Let’s prioritise getting an ID for everyone he said bonjour to.’

  ‘Already on it.’

  ‘No cameras in the Gents, are there?’ Pope asked.

  ‘Nah.’ Linwood leaned back in his chair. ‘And the one that’s nearest the toilet door isn’t well placed for a good view of people’s faces. We’re having to cross-reference with the one upstairs by the main entrance, so we can figure out who’s who.’

  ‘Let’s get a couple more people
on it,’ Harland told him. ‘We need to get a line on everyone who went in or out of there. What time was he found again?’

  Linwood consulted his notes.

  ‘Half eleven, maybe a little after?’ He shrugged. ‘Emergency call was logged at eleven forty.’

  ‘All right, so we work backwards from eleven forty. Hopefully we’ll get lucky and find someone who comes out of that door and leaves in a hurry.’

  ‘Smart people don’t hang around after wasting someone,’ Linwood agreed.

  ‘Smart people don’t kill their local drug dealer with superglue,’ Harland sighed, leaning back against the whiteboard. ‘What are you frowning at, Russell?’

  ‘I was just wondering,’ Pope said slowly. ‘If Durand’s a dealer … then where was his protection?’

  Harland stared for a second, then waved the pen at him.

  ‘Good question. A drug dealer, on his own in the stalls with a load of gear …’ He wrote Protection? on the board and underlined it. ‘Did he have somebody watching his back? Did he know all his customers?’

  ‘I’m guessing he knew his killer at least.’ Linwood looked at them both. ‘I mean, there’s faster ways of doing someone in, right? What happened to Durand was … well … personal, you know?’

  ‘Most likely,’ Harland agreed. He added Personal? Knew his killer? to the board. ‘Could have been one of his customers …’

  ‘… or a robbery?’ Pope suggested.

  Linwood shook his head.

  ‘Durand had …’ He flipped forward through the pages of his notebook. ‘… here we are, he had over a hundred quid in his wallet and another three hundred in his socks, plus about two hundred quid’s worth of gear in his pockets.’

  ‘Then it’s a hit by a rival dealer?’ Pope asked.

  ‘That makes more sense.’ Harland nodded, staring at the board. He turned to Pope. ‘Who’s your friend in the drug squad? The one with the accent?’

  ‘Barclay?’

  ‘Yeah. Speak to him, see if Durand was the subject of a hostile takeover. Even if there’s nothing definite, do some digging, see if he might have been treading on any toes.’ He scrawled Rival dealer hit? in the middle of the whiteboard, hesitated, then circled it. ‘Jack, you carry on working up a list of names from the club.’