Dead Like You
DEAD LIKE YOU
PETER JAMES
MACMILLAN
CONTENTS
1
Thursday 25 December
We all make mistakes, all of the time. Mostly trivial stuff, like forgetting to return a phone call, or to put money in a parking meter, or to pick up milk at the supermarket. But sometimes – luckily very rarely – we make the big one.
The kind of mistake that could cost us our life.
The kind of mistake Rachael Ryan made.
And she had a long time to reflect on it.
If … she had been less drunk. If … it hadn’t been so sodding freezing cold. If … it hadn’t begun to rain. If … there hadn’t been a queue of a hundred equally drunk revellers at the taxi rank in Brighton’s East Street at 2 a.m. on Christmas Eve, or, rather, Christmas morning. If … her flat had not been within walking distance, unlike her equally drunk companions, Tracey and Jade, who lived far away, on the other side of the city.
If … she had listened to Tracey and Jade telling her not to be so bloody stupid. That there were plenty of taxis. That it would only be a short wait.
*
His whole body stiffened with excitement. After two hours of watching, finally the woman he had been waiting for was turning into the street. She was on foot and alone. Perfect!
She was wearing a miniskirt with a shawl around her shoulders and looked a little unsteady on her legs, from drink and probably from the height of the heels. She had nice legs. But what he was really looking at was her shoes. His kind of shoes. High-heeled with ankle straps. He liked ankle straps. As she came closer, approaching beneath the sodium glare of the street lights, he could see, through his binoculars, through the rear window, that they were shiny, as he had hoped.
Very sexy shoes!
She was his kind of woman!
*
God, was she glad she had decided to walk! What a queue! And every taxi that had gone past since was occupied. With a fresh, windy drizzle on her face, Rachael tottered along past the shops on St James’s Street, past the Royal Sussex County Hospital, then turned right into Paston Place, where the wind became stronger, batting her long brown hair around her face. She headed down towards the seafront, then turned left into her street of Victorian terraced houses, where the wind and the rain played even more havoc with her hairdo. Not that she cared any more, not tonight. In the distance she heard the wail of a siren, an ambulance or a police car, she thought.
She walked past a small car with misted windows. Through them she saw the silhouette of a couple snogging, and she felt a twinge of sadness and a sudden yearning for Liam, whom she had dumped almost six months ago now. The bastard had been unfaithful. OK, he had pleaded with her to forgive him, but she just knew he would stray again, and again – he was that sort. All the same, she missed him a lot at times, and she wondered where he was now. What he was doing tonight. Who he was with. He’d be with a girl for sure.
Whereas she was on her own.
She and Tracey and Jade.
The Three Saddo Singles
, they jokingly called themselves. But there was a truth that hurt behind the humour. After two and a half years in a relationship with the man she had really believed was the one she would marry, it was hard to be alone again. Particularly at Christmas, with all its memories.
God, it had been a shitty year. In August, Princess Diana had died. Then her own life had fallen apart.
She glanced at her watch. It was 2.35. Tugging her mobile phone from her bag, she rang Jade’s number. Jade said they were still waiting in the queue. Rachael told her she was almost home. She wished her a merry Christmas. Told her to wish Tracey a merry Christmas too, and said she’d see them New Year’s Eve.
‘Hope Santa’s good to you, Rach!’ Jade said. ‘And tell him not to forget the batteries if he brings you a vibrator!’
She heard Tracey cackling in the background.
‘Sod off !’ she said with a grin.
Then she slipped the phone back into her bag and stumbled on, nearly coming a purler as one high heel of her incredibly expensive Kurt Geigers, which she’d bought last week in a sale, caught between two paving stones. She toyed for a moment with the idea of taking them off, but she was almost home now. She tottered on.
The walk and the rain had sobered her up a little, but she was still too drunk, and too coked up, not to think it was odd that at almost three on Christmas morning a man in a baseball cap a short distance in front of her was trying to lug a fridge out of a van.
He had it half out and half in as she approached. She could see he was struggling under its apparent weight and suddenly he cried out in pain.
Instinctively, because she was kind, she ran, stumbling, up to him.
‘My back! My disc! My disc has gone! Oh, Jesus!’
‘Can I help?’
It was the last thing she remembered saying.
She was hurled forward. Something wet slapped across her face. She smelt a sharp, acrid reek.
Then she blacked out.
2
Wednesday 31 December
Yac spoke into the metal thing on the tall brick wall. ‘Taxi!’ he said.
Then the gates opened, swanky wrought-iron ones, painted black, with gold spikes along the top. He climbed back into his white and turquoise Peugeot estate and drove up a short, twisting drive. There were bushes on either side, but he did not know what kind they were. He hadn’t got to bushes in his learning yet. Only trees.
Yac was forty-two. He wore a suit with a neatly pressed shirt and a carefully chosen tie. He liked to dress smart for work. He always shaved, combed his short dark hair forward to a slight peak and rolled deodorant under his armpits. He was aware that it was important not to smell bad. He always checked his fingernails and his toenails before leaving home. He always wound up his watch. He always checked his phone for messages. But he had only five numbers stored on the phone and only four people had his, so it wasn’t often that he received any.
He glanced at the clock on the dashboard: 6.30 p.m. Good. Thirty minutes to go before he needed to have any tea. Plenty of time. His Thermos sat on the seat beside him.
At the top the drive became circular, with a low wall in the middle enclosing a fountain that was lit up in green. Yac steered carefully around it, past a quadruple garage door and one wall of the huge house, coming to a halt by steps leading up to the front door. It was a big, importantlooking door and it was closed.
He began to fret. He didn’t like it when passengers weren’t already outside, because he never knew how long he would have to wait. And there were so many decisions.
Whether to switch the engine off. And if he switched the engine off, should he switch the lights off ? But before he switched the engine off he needed to do some checks.
Fuel.
Three-quarters of a tank.
Oil.
Pressure normal.
Temperature.
Temperature was good. So much to remember in this taxi. Including to switch the meter on if they did not come out in five minutes. But most important of all, his drink of tea, on the hour, every hour. He checked the Thermos was still there. It was.
This wasn’t actually
his
taxi, it belonged to someone he knew. Yac was a journeyman driver. He drove the hours the guy who owned it did not want to drive. Mostly nights. Some nights longer than others. Tonight was New Year’s Eve. It was going to be a very long one and he had started early. But Yac didn’t mind. Night was good. Much the same as day to him, but darker.
The front door of the house was opening. He stiffened and took a deep breath, as he had been taught by his therapist. He didn’t really like passengers getting into his taxi and invading his space – except ones with nice shoes. But he had to put up with them until he could deliver them to their destination, then get them out again and be free.
They were coming out now. The man was tall and slim, his hair slicked back, wearing a tuxedo with a bow tie and holding his coat over his arm. She had a furry-looking jacket on, red hair all done nicely, flowing around her head. She looked beautiful, as if she might be a famous actress, like the ones he saw pictures of in the papers that people left in his taxi or on television of stars arriving at premieres.
But he wasn’t really looking at her; he was looking at her shoes. Black suede, three ankle straps, high heels with glinting metal around the edges of the soles.
‘Good evening,’ the man said, opening the door of the taxi for the woman. ‘Metropole Hotel, please.’
‘Nice shoes,’ Yac said to the woman, by way of reply. ‘Jimmy Choo. Uh-huh?’
She squealed in proud delight. ‘Yes, you’re right. They are!’
He recognized her intoxicating scent too, but said nothing.
Oscar de la Renta Intrusion
, he thought to himself. He liked it.
He started the engine and quickly ran through his mental checks.
Meter on. Seat belts. Doors closed. Into gear. Handbrake off
. He had not checked the tyres since dropping off the last fare, but he had done so half an hour ago, so they might still be all right.
Check in mirror.
As he did, he caught another glimpse of the woman’s face. Definitely beautiful. He would like to see her shoes again.
‘The main entrance,’ the man said.
Yac did the calculation in his head as he steered back down the drive: 2.516 miles. He memorized distances. He knew most of them within this city because he had memorized the streets. It was 4,428 yards to the Hilton Brighton Metropole, he recalculated; or 2.186 nautical miles, or 4.04897 kilometres, or 0.404847 of a Swedish mile. The fare would be approximately £9.20, subject to traffic.
‘Do you have high-flush or low-flush toilets in your house?’ he asked.
After a few moments of silence while Yac pulled out into the road, the man glanced at the woman, raised his eyes and said, ‘Low flush. Why?’
‘How many toilets do you have in your house? I bet you’ve got a lot, right? Uh-huh?’
‘We have enough,’ the man said.
‘I can tell you where there’s a good example of a high-flush toilet – it’s in Worthing. I could take you there to see it if you’re interested.’ Hope rose in Yac’s voice. ‘It’s a really good example. In the public toilets, near the pier.’
‘No, thank you. They’re not my thing.’
The couple in the back fell silent.
Yac drove on. He could see their faces in the glow of the street lights, in his mirror.
‘With your low-flush toilets, I bet you have some push-button ones,’ he said.
‘We do,’ the man said. ‘Yes.’ Then he put his mobile phone to his ear and answered a call.
Yac watched him in the mirror before catching the woman’s eyes. ‘You’re a size five, aren’t you? In shoes.’
‘Yes! How did you know?’
‘I can tell. I can always tell. Uh-huh.’
‘That’s very clever!’ she said.
Yac fell silent. He was probably talking too much. The guy who owned the taxi told him there had been complaints about him talking too much. The guy said people didn’t always like to talk. Yac did not want to lose his job. So he kept quiet. He thought about the woman’s shoes as he headed down to the Brighton seafront and turned left. Instantly the wind buffeted the taxi. The traffic was heavy and it was slow going. But he was right about the fare.
As he pulled up outside the entrance to the Metropole Hotel, the meter showed £9.20.
The man gave him £10 and told him to keep the change.
Yac watched them walk into the hotel. Watched the woman’s hair blowing in the wind. Watched the Jimmy Choo shoes disappearing through the revolving door. Nice shoes. He felt excited.
Excited about the night ahead.
There would be so many more shoes. Special shoes for a very special night.