‘My flat in Harold Road is just off the seafront, down there.’ Helen’s voice broke through his thoughts and he followed her pointing finger to a narrow street that ran alongside an Italian ice-cream parlour and coffee shop on the corner. They crossed the deserted main road. The side street gave on to a broader one that ran east to west, parallel to the main promenade.
‘I told you it was a select area,’ Helen muttered facetiously.
He smiled briefly as they walked the length of the grimy road with nothing to disturb them except the litter blowing in the gutters and the occasional sound of a car on the seafront. Harold Road was a mixture of decaying terraced houses interspersed with ugly low-rise flats, five-storey Edwardian houses which had long passed their glory days and shabby shops, many vacant with ‘to let’ boards in the windows but a few still operational – a launderette, a cycle shop, a Chinese takeaway and, as they progressed further westward, the modern convenience store Helen had mentioned, with a small car park, and beyond that a café on the corner.
‘Home sweet home,’ she announced, waving a hand at the dilapidated Edwardian house next to the convenience store, which was closed. It was the end one of a terrace of four set back from the pavement with what had once been front gardens but were now paved over for vehicles. Only one car, a rusty old Ford, was parked at the front of the house.
‘Not mine,’ she said, reaching for her key as they climbed the six stone steps to the scuffed and scarred door. A light shone dimly from the basement window, but aside from that the building, like its neighbours, was in darkness. Discarded crisp packets, sweet wrappers, paper coffee cups and polystyrene takeaway food cartons swirled around the forecourt. Three black wheelie bins lined the coloured stone-patterned path. The house occupied five floors, which included the basement and attic rooms.
‘I’m on the third floor at the front. That’s Gavin’s flat.’ She pointed to the one to her left on the ground floor. She made to switch on the hall light but Marvik put a hand on her arm. He had already retrieved his torch from his rucksack.
She rolled her eyes as if to say more James Bond stuff but he thought she seemed edgy, which was natural if he was correct about what she had been through. No one was watching the house and no one had followed them. It was still dark – the sun wouldn’t rise for another hour.
The torch’s powerful beam swept the grime-laden, dusty hall with its smell of dirt and stale food. He didn’t like to think of Helen living in such a place, coming here after a day’s work. It was enough to make anyone despair. Ahead, the narrow corridor led to a door – to another flat, he assumed – while halfway down the corridor, which contained a cycle and a pushchair, steps led down to the basement flat where the sound of a fretful baby was coming from. Even to his untrained ears, it sounded hungry.
Helen made to speak but he indicated to her to keep silent. She shrugged and followed him up the stairs to the third floor. No one disturbed them. There she took a key from the pocket of her jacket. Marvik couldn’t explain why but he felt uneasy. Was Helen’s apprehension and tension rubbing off on him? Her breath was coming a little faster and she seemed to be holding back. Had she told him a lie about being followed because she couldn’t bear to step inside the flat where Bradshaw had assaulted her? Maybe. But Marvik knew it was more than that. Something smelled wrong and it wasn’t just the drains. The door was intact; there was nothing to indicate it had been forced. And nothing to show that anyone lay in wait for them behind it but, just as he had on past operations, he knew instinctively that there was danger.
As she made to open the door he took the key from her hand and moved ahead of her, blocking her way, thrusting back the door so it crashed against the wall. No one was behind it. He stepped inside and let his torch play over the room. Its beam froze as it alighted on the body of a man lying on the floor. Swiftly, Marvik turned, pulled Helen in and placed his other hand across her mouth, causing her to start violently. Still holding her tightly, he kicked the door shut behind him and ran the torch over the bundle on the floor.
‘Is that Ian Bradshaw?’ he asked quietly as the beam of light fell on the wide, staring, sightless eyes.
She nodded.
‘You won’t scream?’
She shook her head. He withdrew his hand.
‘I never scream,’ she said indignantly, swallowing hard. ‘But I do swear. Holy shit.’
THREE
‘Stay where you are,’ Marvik commanded.
‘I wasn’t about to go and make a cup of tea,’ she quipped. ‘Sorry, always flippant when I’m scared, as you probably remember.’
He crossed to the body. There was no need to check for signs of life because the bloody gash across the throat told Marvik that Bradshaw was dead. His mind was racing with scenarios. Maybe she had lied to him about going to Bradshaw’s boat and Bradshaw had come here and she’d killed him? But Colbourne and Marwell had been real, although not necessarily their conversation. It was possible that Bradshaw had followed Helen back here and, drunk, had forced himself on her. Or perhaps she had returned willingly with him, plied him with drink and drugs and then slit his throat. The self-harming knife wounds on her wrists he’d seen when he’d first met her in February flashed before him, along with the sliver of blood on her sleeve he’d noticed on the boat earlier, but surely there would have been more blood on her if she’d killed him.
His torch picked out the spattering of blood around the body, on the chairs either side of it and on the floor close to the electric fire where it had spurted when the artery had been severed – the pumping of the heart had literally sprayed the blood. Even if Helen had slit his throat from behind – and there was no other way from what he could see of the wound that it could have been done – there would still have been blood on her, some splashes on her upper clothing and fine blood spots on her lower clothing and shoes when the blood splashed on to the floor. The carpet was threadbare and hadn’t soaked up the blood. But she could have changed and dumped her bloody clothes in a bin somewhere and cleaned herself up in a public toilet while waiting for him to arrive at the marina. Bradshaw had got into this flat somehow and the only way he could have done so was with a key he’d been given or she’d let him in. The lock on the door was intact.
Roughly, he pushed such thoughts aside and concentrated on the corpse. He was careful to avoid stepping in any of the congealed blood and leaving footmarks but knew that even if he avoided doing so there would still be traces of him left in this room for the forensic experts to find. He moved the left leg only slightly and noted that rigor hadn’t yet reached the feet or lower leg. Rigor could occur from two to four hours after death and last for up to four days depending on the manner of death and the temperature. The room was cold. The windows were shut and the April weather had been unseasonably chilly, slowing down the process of rigor mortis, and he could see that Bradshaw was a heavy-set man – running to fat – which would further slow it down.
‘What time did you leave here?’ he asked quietly while his ears were attuned to the slightest sound from the hall.
‘About eleven o’clock or just after. I didn’t stop to look at the clock – there isn’t one anyway and I don’t wear a watch.’ She bit at the fingernails of her right hand. Her eyes seemed incapable of leaving the body.
It looked to Marvik as though Bradshaw had been dead for about four hours, maybe five, which would put his death very close to when Helen said she had left here. Had she done this? Even if she had found super-human reserves of strength out of anger and desperation, she couldn’t have put a knife around this man’s throat and slit it from behind – not unless he had been sitting in one of the chairs in front of the small fireplace and she’d come up behind him while he was drugged. But then the body would be either in the chair or it would have slipped or been pushed forward on to the floor in front of the grate, whereas it was lying on its back behind the two shabby, grimy, threadbare chairs in front of the five-bar electric fire, the head towards the door, feet facin
g into the room. Helen could never have moved him. And the blood spatter didn’t match with him having been seated. There would have been more arching around the fireplace and over the wall. There was also no evidence of any kind of struggle, unless the room had been tidied.
‘Did you draw the curtains?’
Her eyes flicked towards the window. ‘No. At least, I don’t think so. I just wanted to get out. Do you think he followed me?’ She scowled at the body.
Marvik caught the sound of a distant siren. ‘Get some things together.’
‘But … OK.’
He heard her moving about as he adroitly searched Bradshaw’s pockets. There was a driver’s licence in a wallet with a photograph. There were also credit cards and a membership card to the Grancha Casino. Marvik didn’t know it or where it was situated, but then he wasn’t a gambling man.
Wiping the cards, driving licence and the leather wallet clean with a tissue, he replaced them in the dead man’s pocket. Then, patting the pockets of Bradshaw’s sailing jacket, he located a set of keys on a fob that carried the Jaguar emblem. He hadn’t thought the rusty old Ford in front of the house had been Bradshaw’s but neither had he seen a Jaguar parked along Harold Road. He stuffed the keys in his pocket and did likewise with Bradshaw’s mobile phone as the sound of the siren drew closer. It could be an ambulance. A fire engine had a slightly deeper tone. It could be going anywhere. It was unusual that it was sounding this early in the morning when there wasn’t much traffic to negotiate. And, as if reading his thoughts, it stopped. Perhaps it had reached its destination.
He quickly surveyed the room, keeping his torch low. ‘Bring your passport.’
‘We’re going abroad?’ she asked, surprised.
‘You never know.’
‘But shouldn’t we report him … this, to the police?’
‘Only if you fancy spending a couple of days in a police station being questioned.’
‘Not bloody likely.’
She opened a drawer and rummaged around for a passport while throwing some things into her rucksack. The street light afforded them further illumination over and above the torch. Marvik didn’t want to risk switching on the light and alerting anyone either within or outside the building to their presence. He took in the surroundings. There was nothing on the mantelpiece above the fireplace and nothing personal displayed in the depressingly dreary room. The single bed was made up, and beside it a small cabinet with a lamp. Opposite the bed and to the right of the door was a small television, and on the other side of the door was a chest of drawers with a mirror on it and then a wardrobe. The room was neat. Nothing was out of place, unless you counted the body on the floor. The kitchenette was directly opposite the door, with a sink, a cabinet underneath it, another cabinet to the right next to the cooker and a fridge to the left of the sink. On top of the cabinets was a kettle, a toaster and a couple of mugs. He crossed over to them. They hadn’t been used, or if they had they’d been washed. But he didn’t think Bradshaw had sat and supped tea with his killer. Again, he wondered if Helen could have drugged him, then washed up the mugs. There was no bathroom, which meant that Helen must share one with the other tenants. It was probably further along the corridor on this floor.
He played the beam of his torch over the smoke alarm on the ceiling to the right of the door. It didn’t look as though it had been tampered with. A single pendant lamp hung from an elaborate ceiling rose in the centre of the room. Then, crossing the room, he turned his attention to the bedside light.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
He threw her a look.
Her eyes widened with disbelief. ‘Who the hell would want to watch and listen to me?’ Then her expression darkened and she glared at the dead man. ‘Unless that creep …’
‘He wasn’t. There aren’t any devices.’ No one was after Helen. It was just his training kicking in. And his training was telling him that the police siren that had started up again was much closer. His instinct was telling him it was heading here. And his gut was telling him that, for some reason he didn’t know or understand, Helen had been framed for the murder of her boss.
He crossed to the window where, standing to the side of it, he peered down into the street. There was no one loitering in a darkened doorway and no one suspicious walking past but, just as Helen had said, he sensed someone was there. No, he knew they were. His eyes travelled over the rather squalid block of flats opposite. He couldn’t see anyone observing this room or the building but that didn’t mean they weren’t.
He turned away. ‘Cover your hair.’
‘Eh? Oh.’ She threw the hood of her sailing jacket over her head.
With one last glance, he registered exactly how the shabby bedsit looked, the position of the body and where everything was, as though taking a photograph. His visual recall was a great gift when he wanted it to be and a curse when he didn’t. He’d had to perfect a technique of mentally switching it off to prevent it from recalling every minute detail of the horrifying sights he’d witnessed in the Marines. Silently, he closed the door. The siren had ceased, which meant the police must be close by or drawing up outside. The baby had stopped crying.
Swiftly, he indicated the landing window which came out on to the fire escape. Helen nodded and made for it behind him. Once there, he lifted it open. It gave a soft screech but no one came to investigate. He indicated to her to climb out after he’d made sure no one was waiting for them below in the dark backyard. Stealthily and quickly, they descended the iron steps. The yard was bounded by a high wall at the rear and to the right. To the left was a gate which led, as Helen had described, into a narrow alleyway running between the house and the convenience store next door. He could hear the whirr of the refrigeration unit of the chillers inside it. Marvik went ahead of her. At the entrance, he paused in the shadows. The police car was parked, silent, no flashing blue lights. Two police officers were at the front door, one male, one female. The female was talking into her radio while her colleague was pressing a buzzer. Marvik couldn’t see which one but he knew the officer stood no chance of it being answered. Was this visit just coincidence? He didn’t think so. His eyes again scanned the road, and then the block of flats opposite. A curtain twitched. That didn’t mean much – the occupant might have noticed the police car and was curious to see what was going on.
From the shadows of the alleyway, Marvik watched as the officer pressed another buzzer and, after a delay, the door opened. He could hear Helen breathing beside him. Then both officers stepped inside. Marvik seized the opportunity, nodded at Helen and jerked his head to the right. They walked speedily towards the café on the corner and the main road. When he reached the junction, Marvik glanced back but there was still no sign of the police officers or of anyone following them.
‘Do you think Ian Bradshaw was the target I heard those men talking about?’ Helen asked as they came out on to the deserted seafront.
‘They’d already left the marina,’ Marvik answered, scanning the road and noting that only a few cars were parked in the bays adjacent to the promenade. One of them was a Jaguar. He made towards it.
‘They could have ordered someone else to do it,’ Helen suggested. ‘But why would anyone want to kill him?’ she asked, baffled.
Marvik pressed the fob on Bradshaw’s key ring and the flashing lights of the sleek new Jaguar responded.
‘Do you know where Bradshaw lived?’ he asked, opening the passenger door and examining the contents of the glove department. Nothing but the usual car-related documents.
‘Not here, if that’s what you mean,’ she answered, quickly catching on. ‘He has an apartment at the marina.’
The car documents confirmed that. Did Marvik chance going there before the police? Not with Helen though, and he didn’t think he’d find anything there that could help him.
‘Ever been inside it?’
‘No,’ she vehemently declared. ‘And I’ve never been in that, either,’ she added, pointing at the ca
r.
‘Good.’ No fingerprints or DNA.
Bradshaw would have known Helen’s address from her employee records. All he had to do was wait long enough for her to arrive home. He’d parked here because an expensive car like this would stick out like a ruddy great beacon for thieves and joyriders in Harold Road. Maybe Bradshaw had been afraid his car would be vandalized or stolen if he left it there.
There was nothing on the seats and only a rug, a Barbour jacket and a box of empty wine bottles ready for the recycling bin in the boot. He zapped the car locked.
‘Is he married?’
‘Divorced and no kids, or at least none as far as I know.’
‘We’ll walk back to the marina.’
He could see she was exhausted but she made no complaint, as he knew she wouldn’t, and she knew as well as he did that they couldn’t risk taking a taxi. They were too easily identified, him with his scarred face and she with her purple hair. The police would put out a call for Helen. The connection would be made between Bradshaw and her – that of employer and employee – and maybe someone would report seeing her go on board Bradshaw’s boat last night or the marina CCTV would pick her out. The police would consider that Helen and Bradshaw had been lovers, they’d rowed, he’d followed her home and she’d killed him – the exact same scenario that had crossed his mind. The police had no former knowledge of Helen or her background but they’d make certain to get the latter and that bothered him. There was another scenario, too – an even more worrying one. It wasn’t long before Helen voiced what had already occurred to Marvik; he’d hoped she wouldn’t have got that far yet but she was no fool – quite the opposite – and now that the initial shock was wearing off her mind was working, despite her exhaustion.
Lost Voyage Page 3