Lost Souls

by Michael Knaggs

  “And we want all those thousands of guys out there imagining they’re right here doing this to you, don’t we? All part of the ticket price, after all.”

  He moved his left hand up inside her skimpy top, bending to kiss the back of her neck and lick the lobe of her ear. In spite of her fighting against it, she felt her body responding to his touch. She pushed back against him, seeking evidence of his own arousal. There was none – no reaction at all – confirmation of his sexual indifference to her. She knew why, of course.

  “And they’re not going to get a stalk on for a big lump and swollen tits, are they?” He was whispering in her ear. “That’s definitely not what they’re paying for.”

  He swung her round to face him. The anger blazed in his eyes.

  “So here’s the deal,” he almost spat into her face. “If you are pregnant, you either get rid of it in time for the first date, or I’ll replace you with someone else. Right? You’re not that fucking special! Oh, and by the way, I’ll see to it that you never get another chance. Okay? And while you’re turning that over in your tiny mind, get out there onto that fucking stage! I’ve got more important things to think about right now than useless little prima-donnas!”

  He turned and stormed from the room.

  “Thanks for your concern!” she shouted after him.

  A few moments later her anger subsided and she smiled to herself, pleased with the spontaneous lie about her suspected pregnancy. Easy to reverse – she would simply say she had been mistaken – and difficult for anyone to challenge her behaviour in the meantime. More to the point, she seemed to have deflected his suspicions from her real issue.

  *

  DI Harry Waters checked his watch – 11.27 pm. The fine rain was making a ruined evening seem even worse. This time he was the one waiting for his colleague to arrive, having dragged her away from a birthday dinner with friends. At least it wasn’t her birthday, he thought. He’d mention that if she started complaining.

  Members of the Crime Scene Investigation Unit had taped off both ends of the alley which ran between the back gardens of the two rows of detached houses on adjacent streets close to Woking rail station. Police cars were parked across both ends of each street and uniform officers were already knocking on doors asking residents if they had seen or heard anything unusual during the past hour or so. So far, no-one had, except the person who had phoned the police.

  Harry heard the quiet purring of a large engine and looked round to see Amy White’s 700 series BMW glide to a stop alongside one of the police cars. She gave Harry a little wave as she got out of the passenger seat before opening the boot to remove her bag and folded overall. One of the SOCOs held up a large umbrella for her as she sacrificed her dignity and hitched up her tight-fitting party dress to wriggle awkwardly into the suit, before pulling on her surgical gloves.

  “Is this revenge for Wednesday night, Detective Inspector – for interrupting your booze-up in Kensington?”

  “If you’re inferring that I killed him just to get back at you, then no. And I do apologise…”

  “Don’t mention it, Harry. You did me a favour. I could never stand the birthday boy anyway. Just a business associate of my husband. Only attending out of duty.”

  They ducked under the tape and walked down the alley. Security lights operating on sensors at the end of most of the gardens shed enough brightness to illuminate the scene and cameras were flashing all round. The body was lying face down, arms stretched forward and one leg crooked to the side.

  “Shot in the back of the head,” Harry said, “like a carbon copy of the other night in Cobham, except we didn’t have a kleptomaniac turning him over before we got here this time. Not touched him at all yet, so if you can find some ID as soon as, that would be helpful.”

  “Okay,” Amy said. She nodded to Craig Belmont before walking across to the senior SOCO. “So here we are again, Rory. We can’t go on meeting like this.”

  “You won’t catch me complaining, Doc.”

  Amy laughed. “What have we got so far?”

  Harry and Craig left them to it and walked on through the alley to where the uniformed sergeant was talking to a couple of his officers.

  “Any luck, Mac?” Harry said.

  Sergeant Bruce McDonald shook his head. “Nothing more, sir. No-one saw or heard anything. The guy who phoned us – Mr Gus Walton – had let his dog into the garden for a pee – better than taking it for a walk in this, I suppose. The dog went straight to the end of the garden and went mad, according to Mr Walton, barking and jumping about. He walked down to see what was wrong and – you know. But he said he hadn’t heard anything before that.”

  “Right. Keep knocking and asking, Mac. Gets us a time of death quicker if someone did.”

  They set off back down the alley. Craig’s iPhone rang. He stopped to take the call while Harry went across to where Amy was checking the body.

  “Anything yet, Doc?”

  Amy held up a wallet. Harry slipped on his surgical gloves and took it from her.

  “Winston Grimes, according to his credit card. Same MO as Newhouse on Wednesday. Be interesting to see if it’s the same gun – that’s if we can find the bullet. Might not be tonight.”

  Craig walked up to join them.

  “That was the desk at HQ, sir. We’ve got another. Behind some wheelie bins on a retail park. Couple of uniforms there already; seems he was shot from behind like this one.”

  “Christ! Where are we – bloody Tombstone? Looks like you won’t be getting back to your party very soon, Doc.”

  “Well, at least that’s one good thing. Where next then, Sergeant?”

  “About three streets away. We could probably walk.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Sunday; 6 September

  The prime minister’s inner sanctum at 10 Downing Street was comfortable, functional, quiet and his preferred place of work when not on official duties in the building. And ‘official’ by his own definition was any formal meeting or gathering in what he regarded as the museum which comprised the remainder of the famous address.

  This relatively secret office featured an antique wooden desk with red leather inlay covered by a glass top, with a well-upholstered swivel chair of similar vintage behind it and a pair of wing chairs in front. A huge sideboard occupied one side of the room and floor-to-ceiling book shelves the other, in front of which was a low, circular glass-topped table between two armchairs. The functionality was reflected in the scratches, stains and other marks on all the furniture and the untidiness of the horizontal surfaces, which played host to scattered documents, files and folders.

  In spite of the informality of his surroundings, and the fact that it was Sunday morning, Andrew Donald wore an expensive pin-striped Italian suit, white shirt and Eton Old Boys tie, held in place with a pin which matched his cufflinks. He was a couple of inches over six feet, with dark hair combed to the side from a ruler-straight parting, above a round, boyish face.

  Standing just inside the door when he entered the office was his chief aide, Marcus Henshaw.

  “Good morning, Prime Minister.”

  “Good morning, Marcus. What have we here?”

  The Sunday newspapers were stacked on the side-board in three neat piles as usual, but today one had been opened at a particular page and placed on his desk.

  “Comment in The Mail on Sunday, sir. Peter Bridgley, page 25. I think you may want to read that first. Your tray is on its way. Anything more, Prime Minister?”

  “No, that’s all,” Andrew said, absently, as he took his seat at the desk, already frowning at the headline, ‘A Change of Heart and Mind?’ The door closed as he picked up the paper and began to read.

  ‘How times have changed. Not long ago, never a day passed without Tom Brown, the then Home Secretary, giving at least a couple of interview
s, charming us all with his smiling wit and convincing words. And whereas it is not possible for him to formally comment these days, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a lot to say. But what he does say bears little resemblance to his reassuring messages from the past.

  The national and international audience that he used to attract has been replaced by a somewhat narrower cross section of humanity, and the channels of communication made available to him by the media have been substituted by a louder voice and stronger language. But he remains as committed to his beliefs as ever. It’s just that those beliefs are not only different to the ones he held before; they are diametrically opposite.

  For those who have only recently emerged from a coma, Tom Brown was the architect of the New Justice Regime which includes, among its provisions, expulsion – the permanent banishment from our society of anyone over the age of eighteen who misbehaves himself (no provisions for ‘herself’ at the moment) enough to be regarded as a nuisance. Mr Brown was so pleased with this popular – though brutal – way of dealing with high-spirited senior adolescents, that he began to extend it to other crimes earlier this year – the first on his list being Class A drug dealing. Against considerable opposition, even within his own party, he pushed this through, only to discover that his own son was, himself, a drug dealer.

  What subsequently happened to his son is something that no parent should have to endure, and we continue to extend to him our deepest sympathy for his loss. It has clearly had a devastating impact on his personal life as well as precipitating the end of his political career. However, Mr Brown still retains his clarity of thought. Only now he seems to think that expulsion is a bad idea.

  In a series of impromptu speeches in bars and clubs in Central London and similar venues south of the Capital, he has been energetically sharing his U-turn with – it has to be said – an unwilling audience. Unwilling in the sense that they didn’t go to that particular place on that particular day to hear a former politician attempting to discharge his guilt in a torrent of slurred clichés while they sipped their drinks. What is clear, however, is that strong support (sympathy?) for Tom Brown is still out there. He undoubtedly retains the ability to take large numbers – perhaps even a majority – of people along with his opinions and beliefs.

  While he was around defending the contentious issue of expulsion, it was always likely to survive. It’s just as likely to collapse with his opposing it. And, along with it, perhaps the whole NJR.

  Over to you, Mr Donald!’

  Andrew was prevented from tearing the paper to pieces by the knock on the door which signalled the arrival of his breakfast tray. By the time it had been placed on his desk, the plunger of the cafetiere depressed, and the junior aide had left the room, he was thinking more constructively.

  He reached instinctively for the white phone on the desk in front of him and picked up the handset; then paused. He checked his watch – 9.15 am. Six hours difference – that would make it 3.15 am. He replaced the handset and took his mobile from his side pocket, scrolling through his contacts until he found the number he wanted.

  “I need you here, now. It won’t wait. Where are you? … Right, twenty minutes, then.”

  He ended the call.

  *

  The detective sergeant opened the rear door of the black Mondeo to greet the new arrival.

  “Hi, Craig. Jesus, what a weekend,” Harry said as he eased out of the car.

  “Evening, sir. Sorry you had to turn out at this time on a Sunday, but we seem to have been hit by some sort of epidemic.”

  “That’s okay, Craig. It’s my wife you need to apologise to; she now has to listen on her own to the latest episode in the saga of her parents’ dodgy central heating. She begged me to bring her along.”

  DS Belmont laughed. “You could always call her and ask for back-up, sir.”

  “No, as long as I’m out of it. So what have we got?”

  “Same again, I’m afraid, sir.”

  Craig led the way across to the taped-off area at the end of the narrow cul-de-sac. The street was part of a small industrial estate behind the railway station, normally dark and deserted at this time on a Sunday evening but currently alive with police and SOCOs and brightly illuminated by the portable spot lamps, camera flashes and searching torchlights.

  They stopped at the barrier while Harry pulled on the white overshoes and surgical gloves, then Craig lifted the tape and they ducked under it. A couple of the SOCOs glanced across at them and did a double-take. For once, DI Waters was not wearing his hallmark faded grey suit, but sported a pale blue cashmere sweater and black jeans under a navy soft-shell jacket.

  “Been out clubbing, sir?” one of the officers asked.

  “I’ll be clubbing you in a minute, Jarvis. Tell me what you’ve got.”

  “Doc reckons same MO, sir. Head shot from behind. Probably dead before he hit the deck. Got the bullet already, so we should get a match tonight.”

  “Or no match,” the DI said.

  “Or no match; but if I was a betting man…”

  “Yes, I’m sure you’re right. ID?”

  “Elliot Simms,” Craig said. “Known to the police, but only as a drug user. Prosecution before the amnesty for use of crack but, as far as we know, soft stuff only for some years now.”

  “So what’s all this about? No criminal background worthy of note, so who would want him dead? There has to be some link between these people. They’re just too similar to be random targets.”

  “Except the first one, sir,” Craig said. “Newhouse had previous, including two custodial.”

  “Yes, but they were some time ago. Recently, he’s been pretty much the same as this one and the two last night.” He turned to Rory Jarvis, nodding across to the figure in the white all-in-one kneeling over the body. “Any idea of time of death yet?”

  Amy White stood up and turned to them as if she had sensed the nod in her direction.

  “Hi, Harry. Don’t tell me they’ve dragged you out of church.”

  Harry smiled. “Believe it or not, Amy, I went this morning.”

  “I don’t believe it. Anyway, it seems like we have a bit of a rampage going on in Woking at the moment.”

  “It would seem so. Time of death?”

  “Guesstimate for now, I’d say three to five hours ago. That would put it between five-thirty and seven-thirty. I’ll be able to get closer when we get him to the morgue.”

  “Who found him?” The DI turned again to his sergeant.

  “Phone call from a mobile about an hour ago. Desk said it sounded like kids. No reason why they should be round here unless they were up to mischief, so I guess they didn’t want to stick around and get involved answering awkward questions. We’ll be able to pinpoint the phone close enough to ask the right people some questions, but they couldn’t have been any part of it. Unless they waited at least two hours before reporting it, which I very much doubt.”

  “No sign of them coming back to check out the scene? When I was a kid, I wouldn’t have been able to stay away.”

  “There was a group of about six kids on bikes rode past the end just after we got here, but they disappeared when we approached them and we’ve not seen anybody since.”

  “Okay, well let’s see if we can find them.” He turned back to the pathologist. “How soon before you finish here, Amy?”

  “CSI unit will be here for a while yet, but once you’ve checked over the late Mr Simms, we can get him to the lab right away. So we’ll be there, let’s say, thirty minutes after you sign his pass-out.”

  “Right, let’s take a look-see.”

  *

  Monday; 7 September

  Tom stared up at the unfamiliar ceiling, at the ornate chandelier with its sculptured rose; the decorative cornice; the picture rail. His mind was struggling to combine a confusion of
disparate thoughts into some sort of reasoned picture. Vague calculations of timescales floundered for tangible results.

  Eleven weeks – or thereabouts – since his close encounter with the River Thames on the central arch of Vauxhall Bridge. Or was it really a close encounter? A cry for help – that’s what people say when you look like you’re going to end it all and then you don’t. If it was a cry for help, he had no idea who he was supposed to be crying out to. Anyway, he had changed his mind. Katey had been responsible for that – even though she wasn’t there on the bridge. Except she was, of course. In his mind; in his heart. She’d made the difference.

  So, eleven weeks back to then. And it was three weeks prior to that when his son had done what he, himself, had only pretended he was going to do.

  Fourteen weeks, then, during which his world had descended into an unstructured procession of lost nights and half-remembered days. As a consequence, waking up as he just had, at a little before noon, with a severe headache and a wretched taste in his mouth, he was not at all surprised to discover that he had no idea where he was.

  He was lying on a bed. That was a good start – he’d woken up in a lot worse places recently. He forced himself to move, pulling himself into a sitting position and swinging his legs round to touch the floor. The effort took its immediate toll and he fell back onto the bed clutching his temples and groaning. At least he didn’t feel sick this time. In fact, he didn’t feel anything. Except, that is, sadness, regret, shame… Come to think of it, he felt a lot of things, and most of all loss – his son – irretrievably; his wife; his daughter; Jason; and – very soon – his best friend… again…

  He tried once more to sit up, then succumbed to the way of least resistance and went back to sleep.