Dead Man's Footsteps (2 page)

OCTOBER 2007

Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, seated at the desk in his office, put down the phone and leaned back with his arms folded, tilting the chair until it was resting against the wall.  Shit.  At 4.45 on a Friday afternoon, his weekend had just gone down the toilet – more or less literally. Down a storm drain, at any rate.

On top of a lousy run of cards at his weekly boys’ poker game last night, when he’d lost nearly three hundred quid.

There was nothing like the idea of a field trip to a storm drain on a howling wet Friday afternoon, he thought, for putting you in a really foul mood. He could feel the icy draught of the wind blowing through the ill-fitting windowpanes of his small office and listened to the rattle of the rain. Not a day to be outside.

He cursed the Control Room operator who had just rung him with the news. It was shooting the messenger, he realized, but he had everything planned to spend tomorrow night in London with Cleo, as a treat for her. Now that would have to be cancelled, for a case he knew instinctively he was not going to enjoy, and all because he had stepped in as duty Senior Investigating Officer to cover for a colleague who had gone down sick.

Murders were what really floated his boat in this job. There were between fifteen and twenty every year in Sussex, with many of them in the City of Brighton and Hove and environs – more than enough to go round all the SIOs and give them a chance to show their abilities. It was a tad callous to think this way, he knew, but it was a fact that handling a brutal, high-profile murder inquiry well was a good career opportunity. You got noticed by the press and the public, by your peers and, most importantly, by your bosses. There was intense satisfaction to be had out of a successful arrest and conviction. More than just a job done, it allowed the family of the victim a chance of closure, to move on. To Grace, this was the most significant factor of all.

He liked to work on murders where there was a hot, live trail, where he could crack into action with an adrenaline rush, think on his feet, galvanize a team into working 24/7 and have a good chance of catching the perpetrator.

But from the sound of the operator’s report, the findings in the storm drain indicated anything but a fresh murder. Skeletal remains. Might not even be a murder at all, could be a suicide, maybe even a natural death. There was even the remote possibility it could be a shop-window dummy – that had happened before. Remains like this could have been there for decades, so another couple of days wouldn’t have made a sodding bit of difference.

Guilty at this sudden flash of anger, he looked down at the twenty or so blue boxes, stacked two and three deep, that were taking up most of the carpeted floor area of his office that wasn’t already filled by the small round conference table and four chairs.

Each box contained the key files of an unsolved murder, a cold case. The rest of the case files were bulging out of cupboards elsewhere in the CID headquarters, or were locked up, going mouldy, in a damp police garage in the area where the murder happened, or were archived away in a forgotten basement room, along with all the tagged and bagged items of evidence.

And he had a feeling, born from close on twenty years of investigating murders, that what awaited him now in the storm drain was more than likely to result in another blue box on his floor.

He was so saturated with paperwork at the moment that there was barely a square inch of his desk that wasn’t buried under mounds of documents. He was having to work through the time lines, evidence, statements and everything else needed by the Crown Prosecution Service for two separate murder trials next year. One concerned a scumbag internet sleaze merchant called Carl Venner, the other a psychopath called Norman Jecks.

Glancing through a document prepared by a young woman, Emily Gaylor from the Brighton Trials Unit, he picked up the phone and dialled an extension, taking only a small amount of satisfaction from the fact that he was about to ruin someone else’s weekend too.

He was answered almost instantly. ‘DS Branson.’

‘What are you doing at the moment?’

‘I’m about to go home, old-timer, thanks for asking,’ said Glenn Branson.

‘That’s the wrong answer.’

‘No, it’s the right answer,’ the Detective Sergeant insisted. ‘Ari has a dressage lesson and I’m looking after the kids.’

‘Dressage? What’s that?’

‘Something involving her horse that costs thirty quid an hour.’

‘She’ll have to take the kids with her. Meet me down in the car park in five minutes. We need to take a look at a dead body.’

‘I’d really prefer to go home.’

‘So would I. And I expect the body would prefer to be at home too,’ Grace replied. ‘At home in front of the telly with a nice cuppa instead of decomposing in a storm drain.’

OCTOBER 2007

After just a few seconds the lift jerked sharply to a halt, swaying from side to side, banging against the walls with an echoing clang like two oil drums colliding. Then it rocked forward, throwing Abby against the door.

Almost instantly it plunged sharply again, in freefall. She let out a whimper. For a split second, the carpeted floor dropped away below her, as if she had become weightless. Then there was a jarring crash and the floor seemed to rise, striking her feet with such force it knocked the air out of her stomach – it felt as if her legs were being driven up into her neck.

The lift twisted, throwing her like a busted puppet against the mirror on the back wall, and lurched again before becoming almost still, swinging slightly, the floor tilted at a drunken angle.

‘Oh, Jesus,’ Abby whispered.

The lights in the roof flickered, went out, came on again. There was an acrid reek of burnt electrics and she saw a thin coil of smoke glide, unhurriedly, past her.

She held her breath, trapping another cry in her throat. It felt as if the whole damned thing was being suspended by one very thin and frayed thread.

Suddenly there was a rending sound above her. Metal tearing. Her eyes shot up in stark terror. She didn’t know much about lifts, but it sounded as if something was shearing away. Her imagination running wild, she pictured the shackle holding the cable on to the roof breaking off.

The lift dropped a couple of inches.

She shrieked.

Then another couple of inches, the angle of the floor becoming steeper.

It lurched left with a massive metallic bang, then sagged. There was a sharp crack above her head, like something snapping.

It dropped a few more inches.

When she moved to try to balance herself, she fell over, bashing her shoulder against one wall, then her head against the doors. She lay still for a moment, with dust in her nostrils from the carpet, not daring to move, staring up at the roof. There was a central opaque glass panel, with illuminated strips either side of it. Had to get out of this thing, she knew, had to get out fast. Lifts in movies had roof hatches. Why didn’t this one?

The button panel was just out of reach. She tried to get on to her knees to reach it, but the lift started swaying so wildly, banging into the sides of the shaft again as if it really was held by a single thread, that she stopped, afraid that one movement too many could snap it.

For some moments she lay still, hyperventilating in utter blind terror, listening for any sounds of help coming. There were none. If Hassan, her neighbour two floors below, was away, and if the rest of the residents were either away too or in their flats with their televisions up loud, no one would know what was happening.

Alarm. Got to ring the alarm.

She took several deep breaths. Her head felt tight, as if her scalp was a size too small. The walls were closing in around her, suddenly, then expanding, moving away before closing in again, as if they were lungs. In towards her, then moving away again, lungs that were breathing, pulsing. She was having a panic attack.

‘Hi,’ she said quietly, in a croaking whisper, saying what she had been taught to say by her therapist whenever she felt a panic attack coming on. ‘I am Abby Dawson. I am fine. This is just a wonky chemical reaction. I’m fine, I am in my body, I am not dead, this will pass.’

She crawled a few inches towards the alarm button. The floor rocked, spun, as if she was lying on a board that was balanced on the point of a sharp stick and would fall off at any moment. Waiting until it had stabilized, she inched forward again. Then again. Another wisp of blue, acrid-smelling smoke passed by her, silent, like a genie. She reached out her arm, stretching as far as she could, and jabbed her trembling finger hard against the grey metal button printed in red with the word  ALARM.

Nothing happened.

OCTOBER 2007

There was a meagre amount of daylight left when, deep in thought, Roy Grace turned the unmarked grey car into Trafalgar Street. It might be proudly named after a great naval victory, but this skanky end of the street was lined on both sides with grimy, unloved buildings and shops and, at most times of the day and night, drug dealers. Although the foul weather this afternoon was keeping all but the most desperate of them indoors. Glenn Branson, sharply dressed in a brown chalk-striped suit and immaculate silk tie, was sitting in morose silence beside him.

Unusually for a pool vehicle, the almost new Hyundai had not yet begun to reek like a discarded McDonald’s carton filled with old hair gel but still had that fresh, new-car smell. Grace turned right, alongside the tall hoarding wall of a construction company. Behind it, a large and run-down area of central Brighton was getting a makeover, transforming two old and largely disused railway goods yards into yet another urban chic development.

The artist’s glossy impression of the architect’s vision ran much of the length of the hoarding.  THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTER. ASPIRATIONAL LIFESTYLE HOMES AND OFFICES. It looked, Grace thought, like every other modern development in every town and city you ever passed through. All glass and exposed steel beams, courtyards with neat little shrubs and trees dotted around, and not a mugger in sight. One day the whole of England would look the same and you wouldn’t know what town or city you were in.

But does that actually matter, he wondered suddenly. Am I already an old fart at thirty-nine? Do I really want this city I love so much preserved, warts and all, in some kind of a time warp?

At this moment, however, he had something bigger on his mind than the Brighton and Hove Planning Department’s policies. Bigger too than the human remains they were on their way to observe. Something that was depressing him a lot.

Cassian Pewe.

On Monday, after a long convalescence following a car accident and several false starts, Cassian Pewe would finally be commencing work at the CID headquarters, in the same role as Grace. And with one big advantage: Detective Superintendent Cassian Pewe was the blue-eyed boy of Assistant Chief Constable Alison Vosper, whereas he was pretty much her  bête noire.

Despite what he considered to be some major successes in recent months, Roy Grace knew he was just one very minor screw-up away from being transferred from the Sussex Police Force to the back of beyond. He really did not want to be moved away from Brighton and Hove. Or, even more importantly, from his beloved Cleo.

In his view, Cassian Pewe was one of those arrogant men who were both impossibly good-looking and fully aware of it. He had golden hair, angelic blue eyes, a permanent tan and a voice as invasive as a dentist’s drill. The man preened and strutted, exuding a natural air of authority, always acting as if he was in charge, even when he wasn’t.

Roy’d had a run-in with him over just this, when the Met had sent reinforcements to help police Brighton during the Labour Party Conference a couple of years ago. Through complete blundering arrogance, Pewe, then a Detective Inspector, had arrested two informants Roy had carefully cultivated over many years and then flatly refused to drop the charges. And to Roy’s anger, when he had taken it to the top, Alison Vosper had sided with Pewe.

Quite what the hell she saw in the man he did not know, unless, as he sometimes darkly suspected, they were having an affair - however improbable that might be. The ACC’s haste in bringing Pewe down from the Met and promoting him, effectively splitting Grace’s duties - when in reality he was quite capable of handling everything on his own - smacked of some hidden agenda.

Normally irritatingly chatty, Glenn Branson had not said a word since leaving the CID headquarters at Sussex House. Maybe he really was hacked off because he was being dragged away from his Friday night with the family. Maybe it was because Roy hadn’t offered to let him drive. Then suddenly the Detective Sergeant broke his silence.

‘Ever see that movie  In the Heat of the Night?’ he asked.

‘I don’t think so,’ Grace said. ‘No. Why?’

‘It was about a racist cop in the Deep South.’

‘And?’

Branson shrugged.

‘I’m being racist?’

‘You could have ruined someone else’s weekend. Why mine?’

‘Because I always target black men.’

‘That’s what Ari thinks.’

‘You can’t be serious?’

A couple of months ago, Roy had taken Glenn in as a lodger when his wife had thrown him out. After a few days of living at close quarters, it had nearly been the end of a beautiful friendship. Now Glenn was back with his wife.

‘I am serious.’

‘I think Ari has a problem.’

‘The opening shot on the bridge is famous. It’s one of the longest tracking shots in cinema history,’ Glenn said.

‘Great. I’ll watch it some time. Listen, matey, Ari has to get real.’

Glenn offered him a piece of gum. Grace accepted and chewed, perked up by the instant hit of peppermint.

Then Glenn said, ‘Did you really need to drag me out here tonight? You could have got someone else.’

They passed a street corner and Grace saw a shabby man in a shell suit talking to a youth in a hoodie. To his trained eye, they looked furtive. A local drug dealer serving up.

‘I thought things were better between you and Ari.’

‘So did I. I bought her the fucking horse she wanted. Now it turns out it was the wrong kind of horse.’

Finally, through the clunking wiper blades, Grace could see a cluster of digging machines, a police car, blue and white crime-scene tape across the entrance to a construction site, and a very drenched, unhappy-looking constable in a yellow high-visibility jacket, holding a clipboard wrapped in a plastic bag. The sight pleased Grace: at least today’s uniformed police were getting the hang of what needed to be done to preserve crime scenes.

He pulled over, parking just in front of the police car, and turned to Glenn. ‘You’ve got your inspector’s promotion boards coming up soon, haven’t you?’

‘Yeah.’ The DS shrugged.

‘This could be just the type of inquiry that will give you plenty to talk about during your interview. The interest factor.’

‘Tell Ari that.’

Grace put an arm around his friend’s shoulder. He loved this guy, who was one of the brightest detectives he had ever encountered. Glenn had all the qualities to take him a long way in the police force, but at a price. And that price was something that many couldn’t accept. The insane hours destroyed too many marriages. Mostly, those who survived best were married to other police officers. Or to nurses, or others in professions where antisocial hours were par for the course.

‘I chose you today because you are the best man to have beside me. But I’m not forcing you. You can come with me or you go home. It’s up to you.’

‘Yeah, old-timer, I go home and then what? Tomorrow I’m back in uniform, busting gays for indecent exposure down on Duke’s Mound. Have I got it right?’

‘More or less.’

Grace got out of the car. Branson followed.

Ducking against the rain and howling wind, they changed into their white oversuits and wellington boots, then, looking like a couple of sperm, walked up to the scene guard constable and signed themselves in.

‘You’re going to need torches,’ the constable said.

Grace clicked his torch on, then off. Branson did the same. A second constable, also wearing a bright yellow jacket, led the way in the falling light. They squelched through sticky mud that was rutted with the tyre tread patterns of heavy plant, making their way across the vast site.

They passed a tall crane, a silent JCB digger and stacks of building materials battened down under flapping sheets of polythene. The crumbling Victorian red-brick wall, fronting the foundations of Brighton Station’s car park, rose steeply in front of them. Beyond the darkness, they could see the orange glow of the city lights around them. A loose piece of hoarding clattered and somewhere two pieces of metal were clanging together.

Grace was eyeing the ground. Foundation pilings were being sunk. Heavy diggers would have been criss-crossing this area for months. Any evidence would have to be found inside the storm drain – anything outside would have long gone.

The constable stopped and pointed down into an excavated gully twenty feet below them. Grace stared at what looked like a partially buried prehistoric serpent with a jagged hole gouged out of its back. The mosaic of bricks, so old they were almost colourless, formed part of a semi-submerged tunnel just rising above the surface of the mud in places.

The storm drain from the old Brighton to Kemp Town railway line.

‘Nobody knew it was there,’ the constable said. ‘The JCB fractured it earlier today.’

Roy Grace held back for a moment, trying to overcome his fear of heights, even for this relatively small distance. Then he took a deep breath and scrambled down the steep, slippery slope, exhaling sharply with relief when he reached the bottom upright and intact. And suddenly the serpent’s body looked a whole lot bigger, and more exposed, than it had seemed from above. The rounded shape curved above him, nearly seven feet high, he guessed. The hole in the middle looked as dark as a cave.

He strode towards it, with Branson and the constable right behind him and switched on his torch. As he entered the storm drain, shadows jigged wildly back at him. He ducked his head, crinkling his nose at the strong, fetid smell of damp. It was higher in here than it had seemed from the outside; it felt like being in an ancient tube tunnel, with no platform.

‘The Third Man,’ Glenn Branson said suddenly. ‘You’ve seen that movie. You’ve got that at home.’

‘The one with Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten?’ Grace said.

‘Yeah, good memory! Sewers always remind me of it.’

Grace shone the powerful beam to the right. Darkness. Shimmering puddles of water. Ancient brickwork. Then he shone the beam to the left. And jumped.

‘Shit!’ Glenn Branson shouted, his voice echoing round them.

Although Grace had been expecting it, what he saw, several yards away down the tunnel, still spooked him. A skeleton, reclining against the wall, partially buried in silt. It looked like it was just lounging there, waiting for him. Long fronds of hair were still attached to the scalp in places, but otherwise it was mostly just bare bones, picked or rotted clean, with a few tiny patches of desiccated skin.

He squelched towards it, being careful not to slip on the mulch base. Twin pinpricks of red appeared for an instant and were gone. A rat. He swung the beam back on to the skull, its inane rictus grin chilling him.

And something else about it chilled him too.

The hair. Even though the lustre had long gone, it was the same length and had the same winter-wheat colouring as the hair of his long-vanished wife, Sandy.

Trying to dismiss the thought from his mind, he turned to the constable and asked, ‘Have you searched the whole length?’

‘No, sir, I thought we should wait for the SOCOs.’

‘Good.’

Grace was relieved, glad that the young man had had the sense not to risk disturbing or destroying any evidence that might still be in here. Then he realized his hand was shaking. He shone the beam back on the skull.

On the fronds of hair.

On his thirtieth birthday, a little over nine years ago now, Sandy, the wife he adored, had vanished off the face of the earth. He had been searching for her ever since. Wondering every day, and every night, what had happened to her. Had she been kidnapped and imprisoned somewhere? Run off with a secret lover? Been murdered? Committed suicide? Was she still alive or dead? He’d even resorted to mediums, clairvoyants and just about every other kind of psychic he could find.

Most recently he had been to Munich, where there had been a possible sighting. That made some sense, as she had relatives, on her mother’s side, from near there. But none of them had heard from her, and all his enquiries, as usual, had drawn a blank. Every time he encountered an unidentified dead woman who was remotely in Sandy’s age bracket, he wondered if perhaps this time it was her.

And the skeleton in front of him now, in this buried storm drain in the city where he had been born, grown up and fallen in love, seemed to be taunting him, as if to say,  You took your time getting here!