The Solomon Gray Series Box Set

by Keith Nixon

  He rolled over. A glance onto the floor showed him Tanya’s clothes were gone. She must have slid out while he was sleeping. There wasn’t a note in sight. Maybe she’d left one downstairs. Gray hoped her departure wasn’t due to embarrassment. He lay back on the pillow, resolved to have five minutes to properly arouse. He smiled at the word association, and at the good memory he’d always possess.

  ***

  It was late morning when Gray’s mobile rang from somewhere on the floor. He should find it, but couldn’t be bothered. Everyone was allowed a day off, weren’t they? It would stop soon enough.

  It did.

  The chime kicked in again, finally pushing Gray from under his duvet. His head was pounding. He crawled across the floor, hunting for the phone.

  He found it in the pocket of his scrunched-up, inside-out trousers.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “About bloody time!” barked Hamson.

  “What’s up?”

  “You’re needed. There’s a body.”

  Thirty Five

  Five Years Ago

  It was a beautiful, sunny day. Cold, but bright. Rain would fit Gray’s mood, and the occasion, much better.

  A few of the congregation had demanded that the burial could not proceed because Kate had taken her own life. But Alice Newbold had silenced even the most fervently negative voices.

  The service went smoothly, the arrangements apparently made by Kate only a few weeks previously. Gray wanted to ask Alice and Hill whether they knew of his wife’s plans. Not now. After.

  The reverend’s supple voice floated across the surprisingly large number of mourners who’d turned out. A small number of Gray’s colleagues showed their support - people Kate couldn’t stand, like Carslake and Fowler - as well as the churchgoers who had prayed with Gray’s wife on an almost daily basis.

  But the true believers were fewer each year as, one by one, old age or disease whittled away at their number. Scully was in the congregation too. Not for support, but for a story.

  And Hope. All Gray could do was smile a hello at her. His in-laws, now her guardians, kept her away from him. Every time he glanced their way, Gray was met by a wall of hate.

  Gray scanned the crowd, concentrating on the spaces between the bodies because he’d be smaller than the adults. Looking for him. For Tom. He ignored the fact that Tom was ten and had been missing five years.

  The coffin passed, led by Hill en route to the burial plot. Past the stones arranged to face the church. They looked like a crowd of pale beings, preparing to accept another wasted spirit into the afterlife.

  The Fowlers were at his back, Jeff Carslake at his shoulder, proving once more he was the best of friends by not saying a word. He was there if needed.

  The gravesite was at the furthest reaches of church land. Few burials occurred now; there simply wasn’t the space. Another reason why some objected. Perhaps they were worried their own bodies wouldn’t fit when the time came.

  Next to Hill was the place of honour, at the head of the abyss. Gray filled the gap. The onlookers duly arranged themselves in a circle around the grave. The coffin was slowly lowered. Gray threw some soil on top; a thud as it hit expensive wood. The dirt marked his palm. He didn’t wipe it away.

  When all was said and nothing constructive had been done, the mourners drifted away in knots, some fast, some slow. They were unsure how to behave. Carslake dealt with them in Gray’s mental absence.

  Tom was not here. Gray had been looking every day since he’d disappeared. It was then that Gray dropped to his knees beside his wife’s grave, beside Tom's grave and began to cry among the gravestones. For Kate, for Tom. For Hope, too. But not for himself.

  He deserved nobody’s sympathy.

  Thirty Six

  In a heartbeat Gray was dressed and on the move, his warrant card in his pocket. He patted his pockets for his wallet, but couldn’t find it. Must have left it in the pub last night. A patrol car waited outside, Gray’s own vehicle still parked at the back of the station. The car took him down the hill towards the sea, unrestrained by traffic at this time of day.

  The pleasure of those few hours with Tanya was suddenly overshadowed by the prospect of investigating yet another death. First Nick Buckingham. Then Reverend Hill. Now a third victim. Gray wondered if he was getting too old for all this stuff.

  A switchback single track dropped at a steep angle down the chalk cliff onto the esplanade, a long strip of cast concrete that traversed the beaches. From Louisa Bay, around the horseshoe-shaped Viking Bay, and out towards the lesser sands of Broadstairs. The car pulled up at Stone Bay. Silent at this time of year. Beach huts flat packed, café closed for the winter, the stretch now dedicated to dog walkers and fitness freaks.

  A salty wind picked at Gray’s clothes as he exited the warmth of the car. He buttoned his coat up to the neck. The cliff towered above him, flecks of flint in the chalk making the expanse look like a row of teeth, tainted with decay. Higher still, seagulls wheeled, sinuous curves propelled by gusts of wind.

  Hamson and Fowler stood in a tight huddle, perhaps sharing body heat. A female police constable with a woman and a dog were yards further along. The rhythmic pounding of the sea provided a white noise accompaniment as Hamson threw an impatient wave at Gray and he forced his leaden feet into motion.

  As he approached, Fowler nudged his chin up in a minimal greeting, clearly still unhappy. Gray wasn’t in the mood to apologise for something he hadn’t done.

  Fowler strained at a cigarette, cupped behind a hand to shield it from the wind. He was green in the face, his eyes milky, like a rotting fish. Gray felt himself needing a cigarette. He slapped the yearning into submission. Hamson, when she walked over, appeared no worse for wear.

  A cordon of police tape fluttered erratically, a couple of constables stood sentry at the crime scene, covering the east and west.

  “Where did you get to last night?” said Hamson eventually.

  “Home, Von. I’d had enough.”

  “You missed a really good end to the evening.”

  “I’ll live.” He felt sick. “Maybe.”

  “Speaking of which, good job it’s out of season.”

  In the height of summer this part of the Kent coast would be teeming with visitors, drawn like iron filings to a magnet by the quaint Dickensian feel of the town and its pristine beaches.

  “Where’s the body? Still in situ?”

  Fowler nodded. “Behind the rocks over there.”

  “Who found it?”

  “Dog walker. Mrs Brenda Bates.”

  “She’s been interviewed?”

  “Yes, there’s a PC with her now.”

  “Forensics are here.” Fowler nodded at a white van making slow progress down to the beach. The driver was exercising extreme caution in case the van plunged the few feet onto the sand and exploded.

  The van crawled past Gray and halted a few feet beyond. It disgorged two men, one of whom was Brian Blake. The other Gray didn’t recognise.

  “Has anyone viewed the body yet?” said Blake to Gray, acknowledging Hamson only with a curled lip and minimal nod. To Blake’s mind, Gray was the lesser of two evils.

  “As I’m the SIO,” said Hamson, “I’ll answer your question. DS Gray has only just arrived on the scene.”

  No argument was forthcoming from Blake. “As you wish,” he said stiffly, his face redder than usual.

  “Nobody has been near the corpse since the woman who discovered it.”

  “Well, at least one of you got something right.”

  “I don’t appreciate the insinuation of incompetence.”

  “That’s an assumption on your part. Can you bring me up to speed?”

  Hamson crossed her arms. “Say please.”

  “What?” said Blake.

  She remained impassive. “A bit of politeness never hurt anyone.”

  “For God’s sake, will you please inform me of your findings to date!”

  “That’s more li
ke it. I’d be delighted to.” It took a couple of minutes for Hamson to recount Bates’s discovery. There was a pregnant pause at the conclusion.

  “What?” said Blake.

  “She’s expecting a thank you,” said Gray.

  “Then DI Hamson will be waiting a bloody long time!” Blake’s colleague was trying, and failing, to suppress a grin as the CSM turned his ire elsewhere. “Get taking some bloody photos!”

  Blake stalked around to the back of the van and threw the doors open. He handed out the obligatory gear.

  “Let’s go, then,” said Blake and led Gray down concrete steps and onto the sand. The wall was shaped like a backwards question mark, designed to rebuff the sea. It didn’t always work.

  The beach itself was a gentle incline to the surf. The task of walking was somewhat harder on the softer sand untouched by the water, easier on the damp stuff.

  The body, clearly a woman, lay face down well below the peak water mark, indicated by a straggly contour of washed-up debris. Dark hair splayed out from the corpse’s skull as if it had received an electric shock, fragments of seaweed were tangled within the strands. Pale, bare limbs poked out from a scarlet dress. One flat shoe adorned a foot, the other bare.

  No, it couldn’t be…

  He ran to the body, ignoring Hamson’s shout, knelt, gently brushed the hair from the woman’s face as he had just hours previously. A lifeless green eye stared back at him.

  Thirty Seven

  Gray leaned forward and peered through the windscreen at Tanya’s house. It was three-quarters of the way along Alexandra Road, a narrow and quiet cul-de-sac in Broadstairs. Only a few streets and a few minutes’ walk from where she was found.

  The construction was of brick and flint, older than his own, Victorian, when attitudes were solid and dependable, not flimsy and transitory like they were now.

  The ground floor was obscured by a garden trellis, some sort of evergreen climbing plant coiled its tendrils way through the latticing. The top floor was dominated by a large bay window.

  It took a couple of minutes for Hamson and Fowler to arrive. When they did, Gray was already out of the car and leaning on it.

  “Are you sure you want to do this? You knew her, after all.”

  Once Gray had finally composed himself, Tanya’s cause of death had been clear to see. Shot in the back and the back of her head bashed in. Either one would probably have killed her. So far, no gun had been found in the vicinity. The image was still bright in his mind.

  “We’re wasting time,” he said.

  Allowing Hamson no further pause for thought he led the pair into the small garden which, in the wall’s shadow, was relatively bare, shrubs and plants cut back for winter like David Hill’s plot at the vicarage. Empty window boxes clung to the sills of the downstairs bay window and equally bereft baskets dangled either side of a carefully painted blue front door. The plot smacked of preparation and attention in equal measures.

  There was a porch of sorts under which a young constable sheltered, shivering with the cold, visibly uncomfortable with his lot. A wreath hung on the door, once celebrating Christmas, now commiserating loss.

  A flash of Gray’s warrant card brought a salute from the PC. He shifted sideways to allow them access, knocking into a hanging basket in the process.

  “Shit,” he said, then remembered himself. “Sorry, Ma’am.”

  “It’s not her you should be apologising to,” said Fowler. “Swearing is against my religion.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “Don’t do it again.”

  “You’re such an idiot, Fowler,” said Hamson.

  “I know. Lead on, MacDuff.”

  “MacDuff was a man.

  “I can’t know everything, can I?”

  “Knowing something would be a start.”

  The constable watched the exchange with curiosity. It must have been the most interesting thing he’d seen all day. Gray arched an eyebrow at him. The constable lurched back into attentiveness and unlocked the door for them.

  “Well, this place is rather twee,” said Fowler.

  Ignoring Fowler, Gray peered down the exposed hallway. A long pew and boxes of hats and gloves underneath, a coat rack above and bookshelves further along.

  The arrangement gave the narrow corridor a tighter, homely feel. It was as if Tanya had moved from a large to a small house and possessed neither the space for everything nor the heart to declutter.

  The walls might have been painted white, although it was hard to tell because nearly every inch was obscured by photographs and mirrors of different shapes and sizes. Gray scrutinised one of the pictures. Two young boys in dated clothing.

  “Presumably her kids,” said Hamson. “Next of kin will have to be informed.”

  “She’s a looker.” Fowler pointed at a picture of Tanya in front of the pyramids.

  “She’s dead,” said Gray, “have some respect.”

  Gray caught Fowler pulling a face at Hamson. He bit back another rebuke and instead stepped into the reception room on the left. Unlike his, the living and dining space had been combined. He decided that any similarity between their houses was merely circumspect. Tanya’s had a much warmer feel, much more lived-in. It was a home. There was a good feeling here, the type of atmosphere interior designers fell over themselves to create.

  The kitchen was also unlike Gray’s. Wide, spacious, well-lit and professional-looking equipment on the surfaces. There was a breakfast bar and a small table with a couple of chairs adjacent to some French windows.

  Gray randomly opened cupboards. Well-stocked with provisions, but they held nothing of interest. Not that he knew what he was looking for.

  From the selection of carefully arranged paraphernalia on its own shelf, Tanya was obviously a woman who’d appreciated her coffee. But then he’d known that from the way she’d made his. Past tense – Gray was already thinking about Tanya as history.

  “Nice garden,” said Hamson, interrupting his melancholy. She peered out of the French windows which allowed access onto a well-tended lawn bordered by mature shrubs, themselves bounded by high, flint-encrusted walls.

  Upstairs, a double bedroom at the back overlooked the garden, and there were a couple of smaller rooms with made-up beds, presumably for her kids when they came home, as well as a bathroom which positively sparkled.

  After a cursory inspection Gray returned to the master bedroom. He sat down on the mattress, which gave easily under his weight.

  His fingers found the bottle of pills in his pocket. A brief shake and one dropped into his palm. It would help him feel numb.

  ***

  Café Tanya was next.

  “Not the best of names, is it?” said Fowler.

  “Shut up, Mike,” said Hamson. She threw a look at Gray which he felt and ignored, just like he’d ignored her repeated suggestion to take a break.

  He ignored it all. The pill had kicked in and Gray was starting to feel numb, Fowler’s barbs barely piercing his skin.

  “May I?” asked Gray.

  Hamson acquiesced with a single, brief nod. He stepped inside, forced himself to scan the café interior that was so familiar, and yet now so alien. The low, mid-afternoon sun shone brightly through the plate glass windows. He went behind the counter, which gave him a different perspective on the space.

  The display unit was empty. Presumably the food was transferred to a fridge each night. He reached out to the coffee machine. It was cold.

  Next was the kitchen area. He’d seen Tanya exit it many times, had never given it more than a glance himself. The window blinds were down, making the room relatively dark. Fowler flicked on the light. Gray almost swore at him for ruining the atmosphere, but held his tongue.

  Fowler was a spiteful bastard. He’d probably done it on purpose.

  There were two rooms next to each other. One was a storage area – fridge, freezer, and cupboards. The other, which they were standing in, was the kitchen, comprising cooker, work surfaces, an
d a sink beneath the window. To their right was a back door.

  The key was in the lock. Outside there was a small courtyard with a fence around it. An alleyway ran along one boundary. The sounds of the traffic were dully audible. It was all so depressingly normal.

  Gray, unable to keep up the pretence any longer, dropped to his knees and began crying.

  Thirty Eight

  Gray awoke the next morning still fully clothed, face down on his living room floor. He remembered everything, knew immediately it wasn’t all a dream. Tanya really was dead.

  He was gripped by the mother of all hangovers. His head pounded. He wanted to throw up. He ached all over. Yet still it wasn’t enough.

  A steady flow of pills had helped Gray keep his emotions in check. After the café Gray had picked up some cash from his house, headed to the nearest pub, and hadn’t stopped drinking until he ran out of cash, which forced him to go home. He found an old bottle of scotch in the back of a cupboard and finished it. Then nothing until this morning’s close-up view of the carpet.

  Tom’s disappearance, Hope leaving home, Kate’s suicide and funeral, they were all ultra-low points. He’d already been in the depths – each event simply sank him a little further towards Hell.

  But this, in many ways, felt worse because he’d believed Tanya was maybe a path upwards. A balloon which he could hang on to and float away from the darkness.

  Now she was gone too.

  Two shootings in an area where murder was a once-in-a-decade occurrence. A questionable suicide. Fights, drugs, or motoring offences, yes. Not homicide.

  Tanya’s post-mortem was this morning. Gray checked his watch. In less than an hour. He’d have to get a move on.

  A shower, a dose of painkillers large enough to fell a horse, and several espressos didn’t alter how he felt.

  He called Hamson. “Von, I need your help.”

  “Go on.” She sounded wary.

  “Are you attending Tanya’s post-mortem?”

  “Why?”

  “My car’s still at the station.”

  “Didn’t you collect it yesterday?”