Authors: Stella Rimington
The shots which followed showed the interior of the café. This was probably a cheerful enough place when it was open for business and its tea urns were steaming. Empty, however, despite the paper chains and the inflatable Santas, it was decidedly mournful.
The third sequence showed the toilet block. First the exterior, with the pathology and forensics people milling around in their pale blue protective overalls, and looking glad of them as the rain sliced its way round the breeze blocks, and then the interior. This was empty—at least of the living. It was dressed in glazed white tiles, and contained a hand basin, two wall-mounted urinals and a toilet stall. A close-up shot showed that the lock on the stall door was broken. In place of a toilet roll, a Yellow Pages directory hung on a loop of baler twine.
The final sequence showed Ray Gunter. Dressed in an off-white sweater and a pair of dark blue Adidas track-pants, he was lying on the floor beneath a metre-wide starburst of dried blood and brain tissue. At the centre of this was a black hole where the bullet had passed through a ceramic tile. A long red-brown smear led downwards to the slumped body. The round had entered through the left eyebrow, leaving the face more or less intact. The back of the head, however, sagged formlessly away from the skull, and had voided its contents on to the concrete floor.
“Who found him?” asked Liz, narrowing her eyes against the photographs’ bloody horror.
“An HGV driver. Just after six a.m.”
“And the round?”
“We were lucky. It went right through the toilet block and lodged in the boundary wall.”
“Any forensic from the gunman?”
“No, and we’ve been over every inch of the floor and walls. They’ll be testing the victim’s fingernail deposits too, but I’m not hopeful.”
“Where was the killer standing when the shot was fired?” asked Liz.
“Hard to tell at this stage, but far enough away for there to be no obvious powder burns. Twelve feet, perhaps. Whoever did this knew exactly what he was doing.”
“What makes you say that?”
“He went for the head shot. The chest shot would have been much easier, but our killer wanted his man down in one. Gunter would have been dead before his knees started to bend.”
Liz nodded thoughtfully. “And no one heard anything?”
“No one will admit to hearing anything. But then there would have been lorries coming and going and all sorts of incidental noise.”
“How many people were there around?”
“A good dozen drivers sleeping in their cabs. The café shut at midnight and opened at six a.m.” He switched off the laptop and leaned back in his chair. “We’ll know a lot more when the CCTV footage comes in, which’ll probably be in about an hour. How about that drink?”
“The drink that started off life as a sandwich?”
“That’s the one.”
The warmth of the Trafalgar was welcome after the cheerless cold of the village hall. The saloon bar was panelled in oak and decorated with portraits of Nelson, knotted ropes, ships in bottles, and other naval paraphernalia. Above the service counter hung a framed Red Ensign flag. The place smelt of furniture polish and cigarette smoke. A handful of middle-aged customers were nodding and murmuring over ploughman’s lunches, salads and half-pints of beer.
Goss ordered a pint of bitter for himself, a cup of coffee for Liz, and a plate of toasted sandwiches. Liz had no great hopes for the coffee, and didn’t particularly feel like the sandwiches, but felt that she ought to eat. She had a tendency, she knew, to get caught up in the impetus of work and forget such things. Contributing to her lack of appetite—a quiet but insistent backbeat to the day’s other issues—was Mark’s phone call. If he meant what he said, then she would have to act. She would have to break things off; draw a once-and-for-all line beneath the affair.
Later, she thought. I’ll deal with it later.
“So,” she began, when they had settled themselves at a quiet corner table with their drinks, “this 7.62 round.”
Goss nodded. “That’s why I’m up here. It looks like a military-spec rifle was involved. An AK or an SLR.”
“Have you ever come across a weapon like that used in an organised crime context?”
“Not in this country. Far too bulky. Your average UK gangster tends to go the handgun route—preferably tooling up with a status weapon like a nine-millimetre Beretta or a Glock. Professional hitmen prefer easy-carry revolvers like snub-nosed .38s, because they don’t spray used cartridge cases around the place for forensics to pick up.”
Liz stirred her coffee. “So what’s your take on the whole thing? Unofficially?”
He shrugged. “My first thought, given that Gunter was a fisherman, was that he was involved in drugs- or people-smuggling and had a falling-out with someone. My second, which I’m still inclined towards, was that he stumbled into someone else’s operation—some heavy-duty Eastern European mob’s, perhaps—and had to be silenced.”
“If that was the case, though, why do it ten miles inland at Fakenham, in a busy place like a transport café?”
“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?” He looked at her assessingly. “Does your presence here mean that your people think there’s a terrorist connection?”
“We don’t know anything your people don’t,” said Liz.
Technically, given that she had reported Zander’s call to Bob Morrison, this was true. Goss glanced over at her, but any suspicions that he might have been about to voice were silenced by the arrival of the toasted sandwiches.
“Has the murder caused a big stir?” she asked, when the barmaid had withdrawn.
“Yeah. Major chaos when the body was found. We had to clear the place, get all the HGV drivers out and behind the tape barriers. You can imagine how well that went down.”
“Who actually found Gunter?”
“A driver called Dennis Atkins. He drove down from Glasgow last night and parked up at the Fairmile about midnight. He was due to make an eight thirty delivery of precision lathes to an industrial park outside Norwich. The café had just opened and he was going for a pre-breakfast wash.”
“And all that checks out?”
Goss nodded. “It looks kosher enough. Atkins was pretty upset. And the CID have spoken to people both ends and confirmed that he is who he says he is.”
“Much press interest?”
“The locals were there within the hour, and the nationals weren’t long after.”
“What did the DS tell them?”
Goss shrugged. “Man discovered dead as a result of a shooting. Statement as soon as we know more.”
“Have they named Gunter?”
“They have now. They spent several hours trying to locate his only relative, a sister who lives in King’s Lynn. Apparently she went out to work last night and has only just got home.”
“What’s the sister do?”
“Kayleigh? Not a lot. Takes her clothes off a couple of nights a week at a membership club called PJs.”
“And that’s what she was doing last night?”
“Yeah.”
“And the dead man—do we know what he was doing last night? Apart from being shot?”
“Not yet.”
“And none of the vehicles in the car park were his?”
“No—the police have identified all of them as driven there by other people.”
“So we’ve got him ten miles from home in a transport café without any transport.”
“That’s about the shape and size of it, yes.”
“Was Gunter known to the CID? Did he have any form?”
“Not really. He was involved in an affray after a pub lock-in in Dersthorpe a couple of years back, and there was talk of him having set light to a vehicle there at some point too, but no charges were brought. The car belonged to a small-time local drug-dealer.”
“Was Gunter a dealer himself? Or a user?”
“Put it this way: if he was, it wasn’t on a big enough scale to come to our attention.”
“But a bit of a local bad boy?”
Goss shrugged. “According to the CID, not even that. Just a bit mouthy and free with his fists when he’d been drinking.”
“I take it he was single,” said Liz drily.
“Yes,” said Goss, “but not gay, which was one of the first things that occurred to me when he was discovered in the toilets at the Fairmile.”
“Is it a gay pick-up place, then, the café?”
“It’s every kind of pick-up place. They get very frisky, these long-distance HGV boyos.”
“Could Gunter have been there to pick up a woman?” Liz asked.
“He could have been, and there were certainly a few toms who worked the place, but that still leaves the question: how did he get there without a car? Who brought him? If we can answer that one I suspect we might get somewhere.”
Liz nodded. “So what do we know about the shooting?”
“Not a lot, frankly. No one heard anything, no one saw anything. Unless we get a forensic break I’d say our best hope is the CCTV.”
“Were the cameras definitely running last night?”
“The owner of the café says they were. It’s a new system, apparently. There was a spate of thefts from rigs last year and the drivers threatened to boycott the place if he didn’t install some decent security.”
“Fingers crossed, then.”
“Fingers crossed,” agreed Goss.
They talked on, but soon found themselves retreading old ground. Liz remained studiedly neutral in these exchanges. The Special Branch were police, and information had been known to leak from police stations to journalists—usually in return for cash. Goss seemed like the better sort of Special Branch officer, just as Bob Morrison was without doubt the worse sort, but Liz was relieved when the local detective superintendent rang to say that the CCTV footage was back from Norwich.
“It’s pretty rough, apparently,” said Goss, returning his phone to his belt. “It’s going to have to be enhanced if we’re to get any useful information off it.”
Liz looked down at the remains of her lunch. Half of the sandwiches were uneaten, languishing alongside an untouched mound of Branston’s pickle. And she’d been right about the coffee. “I’ll go up and pay,” she said. “This one’s on Thames House.”
“That’s very generous of them,” said Goss drily.
“You know us. Sweetness and light.”
As Liz got to her feet, a phone began to ring behind the bar. The barmaid picked up the receiver, and a few seconds later her mouth opened in a speechless gasp. She’s just heard about the murder, Liz guessed. No, she already knew about the murder but has just found out that the victim was Gunter. She must have known him. But then everyone in a place this size would know each other.
Liz was beaten to the bar by a young man in a leather jacket and a lilac tie. Journalist, thought Liz. Almost certainly tabloid. That particular blend of the metropolitan and the downmarket was unmistakable.
“Another pint, love,” he demanded, placing a glass and a ten-pound note on the bar. The barmaid nodded vaguely and turned away. A minute later, still visibly dazed, she delivered the drink and rang up the price on the till. As she handed over the change, Liz saw the man’s eyes briefly widen.
“Excuse me,” said Liz, addressing the barmaid. “I think you’ve made a mistake. He gave you a ten-pound note. You’ve given him change for a twenty.”
The barmaid froze, the till still open in front of her. She was a heavy girl of about eighteen, with flustered gypsyish eyes.
“The fuck’s it got to do with you?” asked the man in the leather jacket, turning to Liz.
“Give her a break,” said Liz. “Her till’s going to be out.”
The man addressed his pint. “I think you’re mistaking me for someone who gives a shit.”
“Is there a problem?” asked Steve Goss, materialising at Liz’s side.
“No problem,” said Liz. “This guy accidentally pocketed some extra change, but he’s about to give it back.”
“Ah,” said Goss sagely. “I see.”
The man in the leather jacket took in the sober bulk of the Special Branch officer. Shaking his head and smiling as if in the presence of the mentally unhinged, he slapped a ten-pound note down on the bar and carried his drink away.
“Thanks,” said the barmaid, as soon as the man was out of earshot. “I have to make it up out of my wages if I’m short.”
“Local guy?” asked Liz.
“No. Never seen him before. When he came in he was asking me about the . . .”
“The murder?”
“Yeah. At the Fairmile. If I knew the dead man and that.”
“Did you?” prompted Liz gently.
She shrugged. “Knew him to look at. He came in a few times. In the public bar.” She flicked over the pages of her pad and handed Liz the bill. “That’s seven pounds exactly.”
“Thanks. Can you do me a receipt?”
The nervousness returned to the barmaid’s eyes.
“On second thought,” said Liz, “don’t worry about it.”
When they got outside, the wind was throwing down irregular spatters of rain.
“That was neatly handled,” grinned Goss, forcing his hands into his overcoat pockets. “What would you have done if the guy had refused to give back the money?”
“Left him to your tender mercies,” said Liz. “We’re just an intelligence-gathering organisation, after all. We don’t do violence.”
“Thanks a lot!”
They turned back in to the village hall, where Don Whitten, the detective superintendent in charge of the case, had just arrived back from the Fairmile Café. A bulky, moustached figure, he shook Liz’s hand briskly and apologised for the spartan conditions in which they found themselves.
“Can we sort out some heating for this place?” he demanded, looking exasperatedly around the bare walls. “It’s brass bloody monkeys in here.”
The constable, who was crouched in front of the VCR, got uncertainly to her feet. The DS turned to her. “Ring the station and ask someone to bring over one of those hot-air blowers. And a kettle, and some tea bags and biscuits and ashtrays and the rest of it. Jolly the place up a bit.”
The constable nodded and thumbed a number on her mobile. A plainclothes officer held up a video cassette. “Norwich have identified the footage and run us off a copy of the Fairmile CCTV tape,” he announced. “But the quality’s terrible. The camera wasn’t set right, and the tape’s all ghosting and flare. They’re working on an enhanced version, but we won’t see it before tomorrow.”