[PS & GV #6] Death on Demand (26 page)

‘When did you meet?’

‘Two summers back,’ she said, checking the watch a third time. ‘He said he loved me – turns out the blonde girlfriend is part of the essential gear: Ray-Bans, espadrilles, six-hundred-pound slim board, diver’s chronometer. He loves all of that – the apparel. My dad’s a fisherman, works on the quay at Wells selling crabs and mussels. So he says that’s what apparel means, right, all the stuff you need to fit out a ship. So that’s me, I’m a chandler’s girl. Least he loved something. And he never made any promises.’

They’d started walking, and Shaw could feel the pine cones in the sand with his toes.

‘Javi ever talk about a place called Parkwood Springs?’

They’d emerged from the trees and found a dusty Fiat parked on a sandy track. She threw her bag on the back seat and shook her head.

‘Think he was capable of murder?’

She didn’t look surprised, or shocked, or even indignant. The question had made her think, and as she worked at the idea, turning it in her mind, Shaw could see the colour flooding out of her skin. ‘I don’t think he would ever take what wasn’t his to take. That’s part of the code too. Out on the water, what do you need? A board, a smoke, a suit. They’re sacred – you don’t touch those. So I don’t think he’d take a life, unless it belonged to someone who stood between him and the sea.’

THIRTY-SIX

T
he Ark’s lone angel, but for its shielding stone hands, looked down on the four bodies, laid out on the aluminium tables in the morgue. Or, as Dr Kazimierz, the pathologist, liked to call it, the dead room. She scuttled and fussed between her lifeless patients, checking and cross-checking. Each lay with their feet to the west wall and the angel, their heads to the glass partition which separated the pathology suite from Tom Hadden’s forensic laboratory.

Shaw had assembled the team for a briefing and given them a short summary of Dr Furey’s findings, expertly boiled-down by Paul Twine into a two-hundred-word handout. He’d seen the chief constable for a meeting which took precisely ninety seconds, in which Joyce had given Shaw control of the whole inquiry, including the Lister Tunnel killing. ‘Frankly, I’ve got no choice, given Furey’s intervention,’ he’d added, gracefully. ‘We need to know what’s been happening on this estate. It’s your job to find out, Peter. Don’t let me down.’ DI Carney would continue to investigate the Lewis Gunnel murder, but under Shaw’s direction.

The team considered the dead. Sometimes it was too easy for detectives to forget the reality of murder, the simple binary distinction between life and death. Shaw had brought them here to make sure that they understood why the inquiry was so important, not in an intellectual sense, in their heads, but in their guts.

Mid-morning, but the squad stood bleary-eyed and, Shaw sensed, disorientated. Not one of the team had put in less than an eighteen-hour shift in six straight days. The investigation had struggled to construct a narrative since the discovery of Ruby Bright’s body in her wheelchair at Marsh House. It was Shaw’s job to restore clarity, to dissipate the complexities which threatened to obscure the way ahead.

‘Let’s just think about the dead in the order in which the inquiry encountered them,’ said Shaw, standing to one side, so that they could all see the aluminium tables beyond.

‘Ruby Bright, suffocated with a freezer bag at the age of one hundred …’ Bright’s head, covered in wispy grey hair, seemed incredibly fragile, like a large exotic egg. But Shaw reminded them of Dr Kazimierz’s observation that she’d fought ferociously for life. Of the dead laid out, Ruby’s body seemed the least substantial, as if the mottled skin was corrupting as they watched, completing the transformation from dust to dust.

‘Lewis Gunnel next. Seventeen years old. A random victim of gang violence, or a key part of our jigsaw? I’ve still got an open mind, but consider this: Ruby Bright died believing her friend Beatty Hood had been murdered, at home, on the Springs. She’d been the victim of a studied campaign of intimidation and theft by teenage boys. They’d got into her house, they terrified a blind, elderly widow.

‘Is Lewis part of our story? Read Justina’s preliminary report …’ Shaw waved an A4 file and then tossed it on to an open desktop. ‘The kid died with three stab wounds in his body and several pints of his blood were in the bottom of the skip. But the autopsy told a different tale: Lewis was suffocated first
.
Not only does that put him in line with Ruby, and our last victim – Gokak Roy – but someone was keen to disguise that connection. Keep that in mind.’

‘And our third victim, Dr Roy,’ said Shaw, inviting the team to get closer to the glass partition. The colour in the young doctor’s skin saved it from the death-like pallor instilled in the room by the overhead neon lights. ‘Someone squeezed the life out of this young man. Think of the strength that requires. The
application
of violence
.
Why did he have to die?’

‘Did he kill Beatty Hood?’ asked Shaw. ‘Is that what Ruby wanted to tell the press? And what of the other five people who – according to the death certificates he signed – died in Beatty’s house? Why one house? Why the false addresses on Parkwood Springs? We’re still working on the background checks, and they may provide the answers. For now, one of them will have to represent the rest …’

Shaw walked to the partition and splayed a hand against the glass. ‘Of the six deaths recorded by Dr Roy all were buried. So far, we’ve managed to get permission for one exhumation …’

The fourth table held a skeleton, not entirely bereft of flesh, the knuckle-like skull still supporting a mat of what looked like light blond hair. The cadaver was enclosed within a plastic see-through body bag, with a Y-shaped red zip.

‘This is Richard Brook, despite his name, a UK national of Polish descent, who was in the advanced stages of a rare neurological disease when he died just eight months ago. We need to know if his certificate statement, signed by Dr Roy, is an accurate representation of his death. That’s Justina’s job.

‘We have to think of Richard as representative of the others – the five others, who died under Dr Roy’s care. All victims, perhaps.

‘Paul’s summarized what we know about Brook. There’s three things to note. He had no real address, as he’d been in a private hospice until shortly before his death. Dr Roy visited him there three times during his last six months of life. Brook was married, but they’d been separated for ten years. On his documents he usually lists his next of kin as an uncle living in Warsaw. The hospice is checking his file but it looks like he discharged himself, saying only that he’d found “alternative provision” – his precise words. So, if he’s typical of the other victims, then he’s a loner, someone who can just fall out of the system. He was, subsequently, allocated one of the fake Parkwood Springs addresses, presumably by Dr Roy. The burial plan was pre-paid. The internment, at East Sowerby, was attended by two relatives – or friends – and Dr Roy.’

Shaw leaned his back against the glass.

‘So: Bright first, in the wake of Hood. Then Lewis in the Lister Tunnel, then Dr Roy – who points the way to the other Parkwood Springs deaths, represented by Richard Brook. That’s the picture.’

Shaw tossed his empty coffee into the bin. ‘Motive, or motives, are still unclear. Mercy killings? Hardly. This feels much more like a hard-edged scam. Identity theft? We need to check that out – see if their names have lived on, see if their IDs are being re-used after death. Murder? Here’s a thought. Let’s find out how much these people were paying for care. Their bank accounts were bleeding away. What if someone decided to cut short their lives to get at that money? They may look like loners but there’s always someone in line for a windfall. We’ve got forensic accountants crawling over the paperwork. Let’s keep a sharp eye on what they find. They’re not detectives. We are. Let’s make sure they have access to our expertise.’

Shaw checked his diver’s watch. ‘And, while we may still be struggling on motive, we have a clear suspect in Javi Copon. His disappearance is eloquent of guilt. Let’s touch base again right down the line: Interpol, Madrid, the ferry ports. Make sure they know how much we want to find Javi Copon. We need to know why he’s decided to run.’

‘I’ll sort it,’ said Twine, scratching a note with his trademark Montblanc fountain pen.

Mark Birley, sitting down, stretched in his seat, linking his hands and cracking the joints. ‘Just on the practical side. And thinking about the Parkwood six – we’re saying that they all died at Hartington Street? There’s a missing link here, how did the body get to the undertakers for burial? By hearse, presumably. But like, you’d blow the whistle if you turned up at the same house
six
times. Are they in on the scam?’

Twine shuffled papers, put the cap on his pen, and checked his laptop. ‘Good spot, Mark.’ He scrolled up and down twice, checking the certificates and his notes. ‘Yup – six different funeral directors. Four from Lynn, one from Gayton, one from Peterborough. So none of them would have found anything inconsistent in being called to the same address in a short space of time. And there are no neighbours to keep a nosey eye out. It’s a system – it has to be. A conveyor belt.’

‘And but for Ruby Bright’s murder it might be running still,’ said Shaw.

THIRTY-SEVEN

D
I Joe Carney phoned Jan Clay at seven that evening. Sat in an armchair by the gas fire, which was off, she’d been so still she jumped at the sound. Valentine had sent her a text saying he was on his way home an hour earlier, but had not appeared. His sullen retreat into the role of stricken wanderer had at its heart, she felt, a selfish streak. His announcement that he’d decided to turn down the chance of an operation when the date was offered had not been open to discussion.

Angry, dejected –
rejected
– she had decided to leave. A trundle-case on two wheels stood in the hallway, and what was left of a fish and chip supper was in the oven. She’d simultaneously decided that she wouldn’t go until Valentine was back in the house. She’d tell him to his face why she couldn’t stay. Stupidly, she couldn’t stop herself worrying about the cat. Zebra lay curled listlessly beside its untouched food. She’d booked an appointment that evening with the vet, but doubted Valentine would be able to inveigle the animal into its carrier.

‘Look, Clay,’ said Carney, as soon as she picked up the call. ‘This is good work on the Lister Tunnel. It’s been noted. Well done. We’ve got a suspect. I want you in for the interview, that’s in twenty minutes, St James’. You can make that? Stow the kids, do whatever you have to, just get here.’

‘Sir. On my way.’

She put the phone down. ‘Tosser,’ she said, so loud the cat looked up.

The arrest had been made that afternoon at St James’. Like so many criminal cases the apparent breakthrough had involved luck and routine in equal measure. There’d been a brawl in a town centre shopping mall between two sets of kids: North End versus South End. The security guard in the Arndale saw it start on CCTV and rang the police control room. By the time a squad car arrived on the scene there was only one teenager left: Jacob James Dunne and he was lying in a sticky, smudged pool of his own blood. The extent of his injuries suggested the fight had been about more than territorial rights.

While Dunne was receiving treatment in A&E, DI Carney had persuaded him, despite the fact the victim was half senseless with painkillers, to agree to the police entering his home address to pick up a change of clothing. An old trick, it had worked to perfection. By the time Dunne’s mother had summoned the wit to ask for a warrant the forensic team had found a bloodstained T-shirt.

DI Carney was desperate for an arrest in the Lister Tunnel killing to undermine Shaw’s inquiry. He hadn’t moved his family from the stunning Irish coastline to a dead-beat north Norfolk commuter village to get lumbered with a petty gang dispute, while some one-eyed whizz kid was left to run a multiple-murder inquiry. He planned to dutifully inform Shaw of the arrest and interview, after the fact.

The suspect ‘Jake’ Dunne, sat beside his lawyer – a legal aid regular Jan recognized from court called Ashington. No one had spoken for ten minutes. Dunne was staring into the lap of his jeans. When he looked up Jan could see the extent of the beating he’d taken. The original shape of his skull was not discernable, as he was so badly bruised the eye sockets and nose were misshapen. One eye was closed, the skin darkening to black, his top lip so badly broken it appeared in two separate sections, separated by a blood-red gash. She had to admit Carney was right. This was no teenage spat over a pair of trainers.

Ashington, the lawyer, kept checking his watch.

‘The doctor was entirely clear,’ he said to Jan, breaking the silence. ‘Half an hour max. He needs to rest.’

The echo of his words, trapped in the tiled room, circulated and then, finally, died. DI Carney’s footsteps clattered outside and he burst in with a swagger. Flicking on the digital recorder, a cigarette behind one ear, he asked them all to identify themselves. When Jan heard herself declaring her own name and rank, she felt a genuine thrill of achievement, wanting Valentine to be there. In a single moment of telepathic certainty she knew he was in the building, over their heads, in the CID room.

‘OK. Now. We’ve done the dull stuff, haven’t we, Jake?’ said Carney, affecting ‘hail fellow, well met’ conviviality. ‘
You say
this fight was just a dust up over name-calling.
You say
you didn’t leave your house on the night Lewis Gunnel was strangled, then knifed to death.
You say
the blood on your T-shirt was a mate’s who cracked his head in a game of street footy.’

Carney waited for a response. Dunne nodded.

‘We’ve taken statements from your mother, step-father and half-sister to the effect that you were upstairs in your bedroom …’ Carney cast a glance over a statement sheet. ‘Doing your homework, it says here. Very commendable. You’re at West Anglia College right, doing a GCSE in business studies?’