Those Who Feel Nothing (10 page)

‘Where is she?' you repeated. ‘Is she somewhere in this room?'

You started to move him out of the cell.

Westbrook pulled back. ‘Who are you?'

‘I'm a man who has come to rescue you and your daughter from your madness.'

‘She'll be on the top floor in the main cells.' Westbrook's eyes were cloudy. He peered at you. ‘But we may never find her.'

You pulled him towards the door. You checked your watch. Seven minutes before the diversions started.

‘Show me where she is.'

Gilchrist didn't see Bob Watts when she did her morning run. It rained but not the kind of downpour that had drowned Brighton a few months earlier. It was cooling against her face and smelled fresh and tangy. It had stopped by the time she got back to her flat. She dried off the chairs and table on her balcony and plonked down, a glass of juice and her tablet by her side.

She went online for the papers and groaned when she saw the headlines in the redtops. One of the posher papers had the headline: ‘Brighton's Burke – But Where's Hare?'

She read the article aloud under her breath: ‘The Director of Brighton's Royal Pavilion, the second most popular tourist attraction in the UK, was arrested yesterday on suspicion of attempted grave robbery. Bernard Rafferty, 63, was released after several hours in custody without immediate charge.

‘The question must be asked whether this is an isolated incident for Rafferty, who has written widely on cemeteries and has been, in consequence, a regular visitor to Sussex's churchyards over the years.

‘Over those same years, there have been reports of a number of graves being disturbed in the area and floods some months ago revealed a number of empty graves around the county.

‘Southern Police, who have made Rafferty's house a crime scene, have made no official comment but one unnamed policeman said: “Think Fred West's house without the murders.” Mr Rafferty, who did not return home on his release nor go to his job at the Royal Pavilion, could not be reached for comment. Perhaps he's gone underground. Again.'

On his balcony, Bob Watts was reading the same report. Bernard Rafferty. He'd always loathed the creep but he was out of his depth when it came to an objective response to what Rafferty had been up to. His liberal side was saying: it takes all kinds. His Mail Online side was saying … actually, he didn't want to go there.

Watts put his tablet down and looked out to sea. He hoped the job of PCC was going to give some meaning to his life. He was officially a millionaire as he'd inherited a third of his father's net worth. Not that a million was much these days – certainly not enough to buy that beautiful schooner he now coveted.

And anyway: money. That had never been a goal in his life. Other things mattered more. His wife had left him for a man in Canada, his children didn't speak to him and he'd no idea what he wanted to do. All he had left was energy: too much energy to retire.

His phone beeped. A text from Karen Hewitt. ‘Have you seen the papers? Do you want to make the public statements when that time comes?'

The other two rescued sailors were waiting in the doorway to the room. They had been hurriedly dressed and given flip-flops for their feet. They looked weak and haggard. You pulled trousers and a tunic on to Westbrook. He stank.

Howe, in nominal charge, gave you the thumbs up. You gave the thumbs down.

‘There's one more,' you hissed in his ear. ‘We can't go without her.'

‘Impossible,' he said. He glanced at Rogers as if for agreement. ‘We're here to get three.'

You gestured at Westbrook. ‘His daughter. Impossible to go without her.'

Howe sighed. ‘The diversion starts in five minutes.' He nodded at Rogers. ‘Go with them.' He pointed at you. ‘But when the diversion starts, we leave, whether you're with us or not.'

‘What happened to “never leave anyone behind”?' you hissed.

He shrugged. ‘All arrangements are fluid in a combat situation – you know that.'

You nodded at Westbrook and led him upstairs with you. He ran out of breath by step three so you and Rogers half carried, half dragged him up the remaining steps, closely watched by Cartwright guarding the top stair.

‘What are you trying to pull here?' Rogers whispered. ‘You've got your own little side-arrangement going on?'

You glanced at him. ‘The same way you have, you mean?'

You knew his team were up to other stuff on operations you'd been involved with. You just didn't know what – partly because you had no real interest in finding out.

The door to the communal cell was only bolted. You slid the bolts, stepped carefully in and when your man was inside closed the door behind him. You tried to ignore the stench of faeces, urine and blood. There was heavy breathing and snoring and snuffles and gasps.

You shone your torch low on the floor. As you ran the light from front to back you were startled by what you saw. Once, as a schoolboy, you had seen an exhibition about slavery and the conditions in which slaves were transported from Africa to the Americas. The slaves were packed into the holds of the ships side by side, head to toe, with no space between them.

It was the same here. Four rows of people, two rows either side of a narrow central aisle, lying so that the feet of the people in the two rows faced each other. All were lying flat on their backs, naked except for filthy loincloths or underwear. Those woken by the torchlight turned their heads away.

Rogers stayed at the door and you took Westbrook's hand to lead him down the narrow aisle. He cried out. You shushed him and shone your torch on his hand. The ends of his fingers were a swollen, bloody mess where his fingernails had been torn out.

The cry had woken a number of people in the room. You led the way down the middle, moving the torch-beam along the rows one by one. These were all men.

At the far end of the room, a tall, narrow doorway had been crudely hacked through into the next classroom. You glanced at your watch. Two minutes before the diversion. Westbrook saw your look and pushed past you into the next room. You followed. A room of women pinned to the concrete floor, all virtually naked.

You could not find her as you listened for the dull whump of the explosion two blocks away. Westbrook called out her name. You shushed him again. Women cried out. The despair was unbearable.

Rogers was suddenly beside you. ‘We have to go,' he hissed.

‘Not without her,' you said. ‘She must be on another floor.'

You and Rogers dragged Westbrook stumbling through the men's cell and out of the door you entered. The diversion had begun. Flames were leaping into the sky behind the building across from the prison compound. The hope was that the fire would distract the night guards around the prison but not waken the rest of the garrison.

You set off down to the next floor, Rogers virtually carrying the man behind you.

Two guards lay dead on the ground floor. Otherwise the corridor was deserted. Your unit had left.

Gilchrist wondered if Rafferty had stashed some human remains in the Royal Pavilion. She remembered that Rafferty had personally found the police files relating to the unsolved Brighton Trunk Murder of 1934 in the basement. Those files had formed the basis of her friend Kate's radio documentary about the case and had involved Bob Watts' father, the late writer Victor Tempest.

She'd heard Rafferty was a pretty hands-off director of the Pavilion so wondered what he was doing rooting around in the basement to be able to find the files. Had he stumbled upon them when he had been stashing other things there?

A young woman in a black skirt and shirt was waiting for Gilchrist and Heap in the portico of the Pavilion. She introduced herself as Rachel, from marketing.

‘I remember you,' Heap said.

She looked at him and nodded. ‘I remember you too.'

Heap turned to Gilchrist. ‘This young woman was working in the shop at the Art Gallery when that Gluck painting was stolen a few months ago.' He gestured vaguely around the hallway. ‘Promotion?'

She smiled and pointed at his warrant card. ‘It is. For you too, I think? Weren't you a constable then?'

Heap flushed.

Rachel turned to Gilchrist. ‘I understand you want to see the tunnel.'

‘Tunnel?' Gilchrist said. ‘We want to see the basement.'

‘That too, but there's a store where Mr Rafferty deposited stuff halfway along the tunnel.'

‘Lead us to it,' Gilchrist said.

‘The tunnel is usually out of bounds because of asbestos so you'll have to be careful.'

She led them down a short flight of steps and passed over hard hats and masks. A long corridor led off to their left with, at intervals, solid wooden doors.

‘We use some of these as workshops and others as storage space.'

‘And you know what is in each of them?' Gilchrist said, her voice slightly muffled by the mask.

‘Only that there is nothing of real value. It's a bit damp down here so we don't store museum pieces. It's mostly lumber, old files, that kind of thing.'

‘Where did Mr Rafferty find the police files some months ago?'

The woman gestured to her right. ‘In the old tunnel.'

‘What was the tunnel for?' Gilchrist said.

‘How much do you know about the history of the Pavilion?' Rachel asked with a smile.

‘Clearly not enough,' Gilchrist said. She gestured to Heap. ‘I bet my sergeant will know, though.'

Heap reddened a little. ‘It's a tunnel connecting the Pavilion with the Dome complex a couple of hundred yards away. The story goes that the Prince of Wales had his women smuggled in and out of the Pavilion in secrecy via this route.'

Rachel nodded. ‘A story that is total rubbish, of course,' she said with a laugh. ‘Women like Mrs Fitzherbert would have gone through the front door.'

‘Shame,' Gilchrist said. ‘It's a good story.'

Rachel led them to the right then turned left. She flicked a light switch and Gilchrist and Heap were looking down a long, slightly curved tunnel with a brick floor and plastered ceiling and walls. Utility cables and pipes ran at head height down each side of the vaulted ceiling and a bigger pipe, presumably for sewage, ran along the left-hand wall at floor level. There were electric wall-lights every twenty yards or so.

‘This was in use when the Pavilion was being used as council offices. Then asbestos was discovered all down here and down the other tunnel back there, so it's been closed to the public ever since. We're planning to refurbish and reopen it soon, though.'

‘What was its purpose, then, if not to shuttle the Prince's totties to and fro?' Gilchrist said.

Rachel frowned. ‘Just a convenient way to get between here and the Dome, I suppose.'

‘Why would you want to?' Heap said. ‘The Dome was just stables, wasn't it?'

Rachel shrugged. ‘Maybe they didn't want to track horse-poo on the carpets upstairs.'

They all smiled.

Rachel pointed. ‘See that window bay down on the left there? The files were piled there with a lot of other stuff. And there's a storeroom on the other side a bit further along. But I think both spaces are empty now.'

Heap went first with the bolt-cutters. Gilchrist instinctively ducked, although the curved roof of the tunnel was a good foot above her head.

The window bay looked out on to a brick footway. It was empty. Heap walked on to a solid-looking wooden door on the opposite wall. A large padlock hung from it. He looked back down the corridor to where Rachel was waiting.

‘Sure you don't have a key?' he called, brandishing the cutters.

She grinned. ‘Afraid not,' she shouted back. ‘Do your worst.'

It was fiddly getting the blades of the cutter in the right position around the shackle but once Heap had done so he cut through without any difficulty. So easily, in fact, that the lock clattered to the floor before Gilchrist, who was standing beside him, had a chance to catch it.

They looked at each other.

‘After you, Detective Sergeant,' Gilchrist said.

Heap undid the hasp and pulled open the door. The daylight coming through the window behind them illuminated the storeroom enough for them to see that there were things in it, but both turned on their torches to see what those things were.

Mostly they were green bin bags.

They exchanged looks again.

‘Seniority, ma'am – you should go first.'

Gilchrist approached the pile of bags cautiously. They were knotted at the top but she used her Swiss army knife to make a small slit in the side of the first one. She pulled on the sides of the incision to make a hole. Heap stepped forward to shine his torch inside. He didn't need to: they could both see the end of a bone protruding from the hole in the bag.

‘And that's just the first bag,' Gilchrist murmured. She played her own torch on the rear of the store. ‘There are packing cases here too.'

She shouted back at Rachel hovering a few yards into the tunnel. ‘We're going to have to get more people down here. This tunnel is now off-limits.'

You looked across the compound. The other guards were still gathered at the gate, alarmed by the flames shooting into the night sky.

Westbrook pointed into the yard. ‘There.'

You saw now that one of the people hanging from the goalposts was a woman, her small breasts exposed, long hair falling down over her face.

Rogers exchanged a glance with you. ‘The guards won't be diverted by the fire much longer.' You nodded. ‘Going out there to cut the woman down is very risky.' You nodded again. ‘You'll be totally exposed – especially if the guards on the landings of the other buildings turn on the searchlights.'

You nodded and walked out on to the courtyard, trying to make yourself inconspicuous. The guards at the gate were still looking outwards. Twenty yards. The woman was unmoving. She might well be dead. Ten yards. A couple of the guards started to drift away from the gate. Five yards. Several others turned away from the conflagration.