The Solomon Gray Series Box Set

by Keith Nixon

  “Sounds good,” said Gray.

  “For once I have to agree with the DS here,” said Carslake. Gray wondered which one of them he was referring to. “Come on, there’s a half-decent café round the corner, does an all-day breakfast.”

  “I’m fine,” said Pennance. “I’d just like to get into it.”

  “I’m sure your case can wait a few minutes.” Carslake wouldn’t be denied when food came into the equation.

  Pennance gave in. “I guess so, sir.”

  Eighteen

  Ten Years Ago

  It was late by the time Gray got home. Dark, the curtains tightly drawn, the street lights casting their amber hue. The front door was unlocked.

  “She’s still out,” said Alice, framed in the entrance to the living room. “She’s looking for him.”

  Alice’s expression said, Why aren’t you?

  Gray liked Alice, but wasn’t keen on her influence over Kate. The women were friends through church. Alice, however, was a zealot. No arguing with God’s word. Gray was convinced Alice preached her husband, a quiet man, into an early grave.

  Gray once jokingly told Kate he’d open a cold case, get the corpse exhumed and check for foul play. As it turned out, the only thing foul about the situation was Kate’s mood thereafter.

  “Why are you here?” asked Gray.

  “Someone has to look after little Hope,” said Alice. “Would you rather she was left alone?”

  Gray couldn’t bear the thought of Alice’s unwavering, biblical devotion extending to Hope, even if she was asleep. But he chose to keep quiet and thus keep the peace.

  Alice said, “I’ll make us a cup of tea.” She stepped into the kitchen, began the process of boiling water and getting cups down. Gray trailed in her wake. Alice always behaved as if she belonged here, as if this was her house. Gray decided he needed something stronger than tea. He found it in a cupboard in the dining room.

  A quarter of the whisky bottle was drained by the time Alice brought through the china-laden tray. She pursed her lips when she caught sight of Gray, slumped in a chair, bottle in hand. He responded by pouring himself a drink, draining it, and following up with another.

  Alice placed the tray on the table, laid out two cups. Sending the message that Gray would be drinking tea.

  “You should be out there too,” she said.

  “My colleagues are searching high and low. And I’m here for Hope.”

  “As you were for Tom?” Alice held out a cup balanced on a saucer. “One sugar or two?”

  “Four.”

  Four spoonfuls entered the tea. A teaspoon rattled. The cup was passed over again. Gray took it, swallowed. Ignored the burn and the sickly sweet taste. He raised the cup in a salute.

  “You can leave now,” said Gray.

  “I don’t think so. Your wife also needs looking after.”

  “That’s my job.”

  “Your job is precisely the problem, Solomon.”

  Gray stood, swayed, tried to hide it, and lurched forward. “Get out.”

  “No.”

  The front door opened and Kate entered. Her hair was tied back into a tight ponytail. Her eyes were puffy and shot through with red veins, the pockets beneath black shadows. She'd been crying.

  Kate looked at them both - a glare for Gray, a helpless glance for Alice. Kate walked over, took the glass from Gray’s hand, drained it in one. Held it out for another. Gray poured. Alice did not seem to mind when it was Kate drinking.

  When the glass was empty, she put it to her cheek for a moment then dropped it. She slapped her husband hard on the face. Again. And again.

  “Why? Why?” she screamed.

  Gray didn’t have an answer so he said nothing, accepted the beating. It was the least he could do.

  Kate sank to the floor like a marionette with its strings cut, bent double, head in hands. She sobbed. He wanted to lean down and touch her, but he was drained of all emotion, still in utter shock. Only now did Alice move. She sat next to her friend and put a comforting arm around her.

  Gray watched Kate sob for what seemed an age until she burned out, the depths of her soul scraped dry. Eventually she picked herself up, loped across the room.

  She said over her shoulder, “I hate you.”

  Gray agreed. He did too.

  Nineteen

  Gray strode along the Margate seafront, downhill from the station. The others had driven, even though it was no more than a ten-minute saunter. He suspected Pennance would have preferred to walk also; however, Carslake had pressed him into his car, presumably to find out what the hell he was doing here.

  Cars raced by in both directions, drowning out the sound of the sea. Although it was after the school rush hour the highway was still well populated. It seemed to be a fact of life now. Even the smallest of roads was overburdened with vehicles that got larger every year, all driven with less and less regard for the law.

  This desire for a parent to possess a huge 4x4, just to get the little buggers to school, what was that all about?

  Gray was pleased to reach Café Tanya in one piece. He shoved the door which set a brass bell jingling and stepped inside. The quartet of Carslake, Fowler, Hamson and Pennance were at a table against a wall.

  The interior was airy and bright thanks to the various mirrors that covered the walls. The tables, chairs, cutlery and ceramics were all mismatched. It gave the place a quirky, lived-in atmosphere.

  “We’ve ordered already,” said Carslake.

  “Did you get anything for me?”

  “No idea what you wanted,” said Fowler, grinning

  The queue, already long enough, had just added another person. “Great.”

  “Should have got here sooner, Sol,” said Carslake.

  Bunch of arseholes.

  Gray sighed and joined the line being served by Tanya Small, the slim, dark-haired woman who owned the café. Her black bob framed intense green eyes above a button nose and a very kissable pair of lips.

  The smell of frying bacon wafted out from the kitchen and set Gray’s stomach rumbling. He’d recently started visiting the café every work morning. The place was near the station but far enough to get some space. He tended to order the same items. The coffee in particular was good. Although the food was more expensive than those in the subsidised canteen at the station, it was much tastier. And the company was an improvement too.

  Gray finally reached the front of the queue. Typically, no one else had entered after him. For once Gray didn’t mind his bad luck. It meant he had the proprietor all to himself.

  “Hello again,” she said with a smile.

  “Hi.” He grinned back.

  “Scrambled eggs and a flat white, as usual?”

  Gray blinked. “As usual” implied familiarity. Tanya was looking to him for an answer. “Yes please,” he managed.

  “And what about something for lunch while you’re here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ham and cheese baguette with pickle?” asked Tanya.

  “Please.”

  “You can sit down if you like. I’ll bring everything over when it’s ready.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll forget to take my sandwich if I’m not careful.”

  Tanya smiled at him again - she seemed to do that a lot - and busied herself making Gray’s lunch.

  “Do you remember everything your customers eat?” Gray couldn’t hide the surprise in his voice.

  “Yes,” she said. “I have a good memory.”

  “Ah.” Gray chided himself for thinking anyone would show an interest in him.

  “Right, I’ll make that flat white now.”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  She shifted her attention to the huge machine that hissed and spat like a chained beast.

  “I’ve never asked. What is it you do?” She bashed depleted grounds out into the bin.

  “Nothing interesting.”

  Tanya poured fresh coffee into the holder and tamped it down. “How uninteresting?
And does it include a uniform?” She winked.

  “It used to,” admitted Gray. Back when he wasn’t in CID.

  A plume of steam hissed from the machine as Tanya wiggled levers and twisted knobs in a permutation which frankly mystified him. The noise meant no further conversation, so he waited patiently until she’d finished. She poured the steaming brown liquid into a large white ceramic cup on an equally large, misshapen saucer. She placed both on a tray next to a jug of frothy milk.

  “Well, you don’t look like a traffic warden or a security guard.”

  “That’s because I’m not.”

  “So? Tell all!”

  “I’m a policeman.”

  “That’s nice.” She placed his sandwich alongside the coffee. “I’ll fetch your food over in a minute.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  She flicked a strand of stray hair, tucked it behind an ear. Her eyes drifted to his left. Gray sensed the arrival of a new customer.

  Gray headed over to his colleagues. All were quiet, scrutinising him.

  “That looked cosy,” said Fowler.

  Hamson let out a laugh that caused a couple of people to turn and stare.

  “We talked about the weather,” said Gray, unable to think of anything better on the spur of the moment. He placed his tray on the table and took a seat.

  “You protest too much, Sol,” observed Carslake.

  Thankfully his colleagues’ meals arrived right then, breaking the commentary. Carslake leaned over and grabbed the pepper pot.

  Gray kept quiet, allowing the others to quiz Pennance on his background, most of which he fended off. It was like watching a boxer on the defensive, gloves up, absorbing the blows which came at him from both left and right. There would be plenty of time for his own questions later, ones he didn’t want to voice before the DCI.

  As Tanya was bringing over Gray’s eggs his mobile rang. “Excuse me.” He moved away from the table. Carslake threw a questioning look his way. Gray ignored it.

  “Good morning, DS Gray,” the dour voice of the pathologist, Clough, sounding as lively as one of his cadavers.

  “Hello, Ben.” Gray often struggled to make a connection with people these days, but he and Clough were on the same page. “What can I do for you?”

  “The suicide, Buckingham. I have his remains scheduled for the block today. I was enquiring whether you’d like to be present.”

  “Of course.”

  Clough sounded gratified. He rarely received visitors. He told Gray he had an hour before the procedure began.

  “And there are one or two surprises, you might be pleased to hear,” said Clough.

  “Such as?”

  “You’ll have to wait. Otherwise where would be the fun?”

  “And I have a surprise for you. A colleague will be joining us.”

  “Who?”

  “You’ll have to wait and see.”

  By the time Gray disconnected he didn’t fancy either the eggs or coffee with the prospect of a messy post-mortem anyway. His stomach would be better off empty.

  “Anything important?” said Carslake, picking his teeth with a thick fingernail.

  “Just Clough. Buckingham’s procedure is in an hour.”

  “So you had a word with the good doctor then?”

  “Something like that, sir.” It was only now that Gray remembered Carslake had told him to press Clough. “I assume you’d like to be present, DI Pennance?”

  “Absolutely. Wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

  “There’s lots of reasons I could think of,” said Fowler.

  Carslake checked his watch. “Right, we’d better be off.”

  “DI Pennance and I will go straight to the post-mortem, sir,” said Gray.

  “Makes sense,” said Carslake. “Gives you the chance to finish your breakfast.”

  At the signal to leave the others stood with a scraping of chairs. The DCI put a hand out and stopped Pennance, who was in the process of reaching for his wallet. “Guests never pay.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Consider it my treat. Sol here will get it.” Carslake winked at Gray. “See you back at the office.”

  Pennance finished the last of his bacon sandwich.

  “Are you done?” asked Gray. Pennance nodded.

  Gray stepped up to the counter and handed over some notes to Tanya, received a very small amount of change in return and a receipt he would doubtless forget to claim.

  “See you tomorrow,” he said.

  The bell rattled as he left the café. Gray turned right and began the walk back to work.

  “Excuse me!” Gray turned at Tanya’s shout. She was standing in doorway, waving. “You forgot something.”

  His face colouring, Gray retraced his steps, leaving Pennance standing. Tanya held his sandwich bag up. He took it. “You left it on the table,”

  “Told you I would. Sorry.”

  “I’m the one who should apologise.”

  “Why?”

  “I realised after we spoke, you come here quite a lot and I’m supposed to have a good memory, yet I don’t even know your name.” Tanya looked at the ground.

  “It’s Sol.”

  “I’m Tanya,” she said and held out her hand. Gray shook it. The warm little feeling in the pit of his stomach rekindled at a woman’s touch.

  Twenty

  Ben Clough eyed DI Pennance the way he’d regard a fungal infection on the sole of his foot. He turned to Gray and said, “I assume this is my surprise?”

  “I hope I’m not too much of a disappointment,” said Pennance and introduced himself. He made to shake hands. The pathologist held back, displaying his nitrile gloves.

  “I’d reciprocate, but that would mean scrubbing up again.”

  “Next time, perhaps.”

  “There’s always a next time, unfortunately.”

  “Quite.”

  “I’ll crack on, then.” Clough shouldered his way through a double swing door into the examination room, all white tiles and stainless steel, dazzling spotlights, glittering surgical instruments, and gaping drains, everything designed for an easy clean.

  The viewing area was plain in comparison, as if the lion’s share of the budget had been reserved for the dead. The walls were washed in a cornflower blue; rows of uncomfortable chairs were fixed to the floor, all facing the same direction. It was like a McDonald’s restaurant, just more meat on show.

  The air was icy and stank of disinfectant. Gray kept his coat on and breathed through his mouth. Pennance did the same. Gray would see what the DI was really made of once the slicing began.

  Clough ensured the overhead microphone was working before he commenced. His voice issued from a nearby speaker: “Are you ready?”

  Gray shook his head, eliciting a rare grin from Clough. He would drone incessantly throughout, recording everything, no matter how inconsequential, his voice a monotone as he relayed his findings.

  Post-mortems always seemed to take a lot longer than they should. Perhaps it was one of those occasions where time really did slow to a crawl. Joyous events were over in a flash, yet misery stretched for an eternity. The more complicated procedures took hours to complete, sometimes as much as half a day.

  Gray glanced at Pennance. The DI seemed entirely unmoved by the unnatural turning inside out of a body by evisceration, the blood on Clough’s hands and clothes, and the removal and assessment of organs.

  Over the next thirty minutes Gray kept his eyes averted. The possibility that this was his son on the slab wouldn’t leave him, making him want to run out of the room, to throw up.

  Gray attempted to tune out Clough’s monologue.

  A tap on Gray’s shoulder. “Interesting, don’t you think?” asked Pennance.

  “What, sorry? I was somewhere else.”

  “How high was the railing on the balcony?”

  Gray thought back, raised a hand to the approximate height. “About that.”

  “Clough said there’s discolo
uration of the skin apparent on the lower back. More on the arms.”

  Pennance shut up for the rest of the examination, leaned forward with an unnerving intensity.

  At last the pathologist removed his gloves, discarding them in a bin before washing thoroughly. When he exited the examination room the smell of disinfectant swept along in his wake.

  “Not the most remarkable case I’ve ever seen,” he said.

  “You mentioned bruising, Doctor,” said Pennance.

  “Just here.” Clough tapped the side of his hand on his back, just above the hip.

  “In a narrow line?”

  “You mean like the width of a railing?” Pennance nodded. “About right, I’d say.”

  “And the arms?”

  “On the biceps. Perhaps a strong grip applied. Very recently. I looked for any swelling of the brain, in case he’d been violently shaken. It was impossible to tell, given the impact.”

  “So Buckingham could have been walked off the balcony?”

  “It’s possible, although that’s your job to determine, not mine. There’s more, before you focus on that one point. Signs of a historic drug use, injection marks in a variety of veins and by no means fresh. I’ve taken hair samples and sent them off to the lab to be sure. He could have been ingesting narcotics in a different manner. I’ll put everything in my report.”

  Clough was thorough. If he said there was nothing else abnormal that would be the case. No point in pressing; it just annoyed the man.

  “If there’s nothing more, I’ll leave you two alone.” This time Clough held out his hand for Pennance to shake. “Until we meet again.” The pathologist made his exit.

  “Back to the station then, I guess,” said Gray.

  “That would be good. It’ll give me chance to read the case notes.”

  “There’s not much to go on.”

  “All part of a bigger picture.”

  “Would you care to explain what that picture is?”

  Gray’s phone rang. He answered.

  “Are you on your way back?” said Carslake.

  “Yes, all done here.”

  “I need to see you. Get your first impressions, and all that.”