You Are Dead (16 page)

Interpol would take several weeks before they had results—if any—of fingerprint and DNA tests. But because of the police interest in her, she was due to be moved into one of the private rooms at the side of the ward as soon as one became vacant.

Lippert stared at her now. Her eyes were closed, as they had been since she had first arrived here. Fluids containing the various nutrients that kept her alive were steadily pumped into her through the dual lumen central line catheter that protruded from her upper chest.

Who are you really?
Anette Lippert wondered.
Where were you heading to when you were hit by that taxi? Where had you come from? What have you been running away from?

The police were doing all they could. She had various aliases, they had told the hospital. At some point in her life, before her son was born, she had changed her name, at least twice. But they could not give any reason why. Perhaps to escape from a nightmare relationship? A criminal past? A terrorist? The police were continuing with their investigations.

Meanwhile, Frau Lohmann continued to sleep. Kept alive by the tubes cannulated into her body.

And Anette Lippert continued to stare down at her, with a feeling of deep sadness.
Someone loved you, once. You have a son. Come back to us. Wake up! Your son needs you.

Occasionally Frau Lohmann would take a sharp intake of breath. But her eyes would remain closed.

Always closed.

There were no relatives—at least, none that her son, Bruno, knew of. He was now staying with one of his friends, whose parents brought him frequently to visit.

What the hell is locked in your mind?
Lippert wondered.
How do we unlock it?

On the fourth round of her shift, shortly after midnight, when Anette Lippert was once again staring down at her, the woman suddenly, and very briefly, opened her eyes.

“Tell him I forgive him,” she said, then closed them again.

“Tell who?”

But all she got back was the
beep-beep-beep-beep
from the monitors.

Locked inside her skull, Sandy heard their voices. She understood what they were saying. But she felt like she was swimming underwater at the deep end of a pool. She could not talk back to them.

“Tell who?” Lippert pressed.

But she was gone again. Gone into some deep, inaccessible recess of her brain.

Lippert lingered for some while, then moved on to the next bed.

 

34

Friday 12 December

The Black Lion pub in Patcham had a background, which Roy Grace liked—more than he actually liked the pub itself. In 1976 Barbara Gaul, wife of a shady property developer she was in the middle of divorcing, was shot in the Black Lion's car park, and subsequently died from her wounds. It became one of the most notorious cases in all of Brighton's dark history, with links to the Krays, the famous London gangster family, and to two of the biggest sex scandals of postwar Britain, the Profumo and Lambton affairs.

A shame, Grace thought, that such a colorful but tragic back-ground could not be better reflected in the themed interior of the pub, for a long time now part of the Harvester chain—bright and corporate. But it was convenient for Sussex House.

He sat in a booth in a quiet corner, while Glenn Branson stood at the crowded bar, towering head and shoulders over most of the figures there. Grace was on the phone to Cleo, trying to plan a combined house-warming and New Year's Eve party at their new house. As he spoke to her he glanced down at the thick buff envelope Branson had left on the table.

“I think we should have the same yummy Ridgeview sparkling wine we had at our wedding—and nice to support a local producer.”

“Yes, great thinking! We'd better order fast. How many people are you thinking of?” he asked.

“Oh my God!” Cleo suddenly said, with laughter in her voice.

“What?”

“Noah's just put his hand in Humphrey's bowl and taken some food out! Humphrey's just standing there. Amazing! Hang on, I'd better rescue your son!”

“Great!” he said. “We can save a fortune if we wean him on dog food!”

“Yes, good idea,” she said, sounding distracted. “Text me when you're leaving, and I'll get your dinner ready.”

“So long as it's not from the dog's bowl!”

“That, Detective Superintendent Grace, will depend on how late you are.”

He grinned. “I love you.”

“Love you,” she said but a little more coldly than usual. Again he felt the slight distance in her tone.

“Look, I know I'm not being much help at the moment. I'm sorry.”

“I get it, Roy,” she replied. “I know it's not easy for either of us.”

Grace looked up to see Glenn holding their drinks. He blushed and said to Cleo, “Have to go!” He blew her a kiss, but did not get one back.

Branson sat down, shaking his head. “You'll get over it, mate, one day.” He handed Grace a Diet Coke, then sipped the white, creamy head of his Guinness.

“I don't think so,” Grace replied.

“You will, trust me.”

“You're such a cynic.”

“Yeah,” Branson said. Then gave a sad shrug.

“So you and that
Argus
reporter? Siobhan Sheldrake?”

Branson suddenly looked coy. “What about her?”

“You fancy her, don't you?”

“Rubbish!”

“I've known you too long.” Grace sipped his drink. “You play with fire sometimes. I could see you were attracted to that Red Westwood on our last case. Just be careful, mate. I'd love to see you with a nice lady but—”

“But?”

“Police and the press make a dangerous combination.”

Branson shrugged. “I'm having a drink with her tomorrow evening.” He shrugged again. “She's cool. She and I go back a while, actually—before she joined the
Argus
. We were just good friends—then after Ari died we became closer, but we've been keeping it low key.”

Grace gave him a quizzical look. “Just remember that old nautical expression, ‘Loose lips sink ships.'”

“Ever see that fantastic submarine movie,
Das Boot
?”

Grace nodded. “I seem to remember it sank.”

Branson grinned. “Yeah? That's your memory? I think your brain's a bit addled these days.”

“Just make sure yours isn't in your dick.” He gave him a cautioning look. “Be careful with Siobhan Sheldrake.”

“I'll wear protection.”

Grace smiled and shook his head. “So, you've dragged me away from my investigation because you have a development—tell me?”

“You came to the mortuary earlier—remember that, or is it too long ago for your tired old brain?”

“Very funny!”

“Those words on the dead woman's skull?”

“U R DEAD?”

“Yeah.” The Detective Inspector tapped the bulky envelope on the table. “Take a look at this.”

“Where's it from?”

“Lucy Sibun dated the age of the dead woman at around twenty years old, and estimated she died approximately thirty years ago. Yeah?”

“So I understand.”

“I had my researchers check the files on all mispers and cold cases five years either side of that date estimate, on females of that approximate age. This is what they found. Fill your boots.” He took a large gulp of his drink.

“I'm impressed, you've been moving fast.”

“On it like a car bonnet, mate.”

“Like a what?” Grace looked at his friend quizzically, then picked up the unsealed envelope, which had a musty smell, and pulled out the contents. It contained a batch of documents, with several photographs at the back, held together by two large elastic bands. Handwritten in black marker pen on the outside was
Operation Yorker.

The first document was a Home Office pathologist's report, headed C
ATHERINE
(K
ATY
) J
ANE
M
ARIE
W
ESTERHAM
. Aged nineteen, she was an English Literature student at Sussex University, residing in Elm Grove, Brighton. She had been reported missing in December 1984, and the young woman's remains had been found in Ashdown Forest in April 1985 by a man walking his dog.

Roy Grace reflected, ironically, just how big a debt homicide detectives around the globe owed to people walking their dogs. He'd often thought, if he had the time, of one day doing some research on the percentage of bodies discovered in this manner.

He speed-read through the document. The body was decomposed at the time it was found, with some bones missing, presumed taken by animals. Fragments of lung tissue and the findings of the pathologist indicated death had been by asphyxiation. But there was insufficient material remaining to provide a conclusive cause of death.

Grace then removed the photographs from the paperclip holding them. The first one was a portrait photograph of an attractive girl with long brown hair, unrecognizable from the remains. He stared hard at it for some moments. There was a striking resemblance, more in the hair than anything else, but also the face itself, to Emma Johnson. And she was a dead ringer for Logan Somerville, who had disappeared yesterday.

He removed several more photographs, which showed her entire decomposed body, in situ, each with a ruler in the frame. Then various close-ups of her skull, her rib cage, and other bones that remained.

Then he pulled out the last photo and froze.

It was again a close-up, marked “forehead.” The pathologist's ruler, included in the picture, showed the length, of just over two inches, of what looked like tattooed letters on a fragment of flesh.

They were considerably more distinct than on the remains that had been discovered at Hove Lagoon. But they read the same:

U R DEAD

 

35

Friday 12 December

“You're very quiet tonight, darling,” Jacob Van Dam's elegantly dressed wife, Rachel, said. Even when they dined alone they always dressed smartly. It was something they had done all their married life, to make it more of an occasion, and the time in the day when they caught up with each other.

The psychiatrist sat at the far end of the oval mahogany dining table, in the smart dining room of their Regent's Park mansion, cradling his crystal goblet of claret, staring pensively at the light reflecting in its facets from the chandelier above. The grilled lamb cutlets on his bone-china plate lay untouched and growing cold, along with the petits pois and gratin potatoes Rachel had lovingly prepared.

“Yes, well,” he said pensively. “It's been an interesting day.”

“Would you like to share it with me?” Then after some moments, she said, “Dreadful, the news about Logan, I just can't believe it. No one has any idea where she might be. The police are doing everything they can, apparently. I spoke to Tina myself, earlier, she's in a terrible mess. She said the police don't think it's kidnap, because there's been no ransom demand—they say it's more likely she's been abducted. Apparently they've said if someone her age is abducted it is likely to be a sex offender—and the chances of her being alive lessen the longer she's not found. I feel helpless.”

He barely heard her words he was so consumed by his thoughts about Dr. Harrison Hunter.

Whoever Dr. Harrison Hunter really was.

U R DEAD

The man had lied to him. His niece had no such tattoo—no tattoos at all. She had been missing, possibly abducted, since yesterday evening. So what was the connection with this man and Logan?

The proper course of action would be to call the police. But Hunter's threat had felt very real. The only thing that mattered now was finding Logan and making sure she was safe. He needed the man to come back, then he would find a way of ensnaring him. Getting the truth out of him. But how long did he have? The rest of tonight? The weekend?

What if Harrison Hunter was just delusional? Someone who had read the
Argus
, and was imagining his involvement?

And had fallen at the first hurdle.
U R DEAD.
Logan had no tattoos.

He sipped some more wine, then sliced into the first cutlet. It was pink in the center, just how he liked it. “Beautifully cooked, my dear,” he said.

She gave him one of her penetrating stares. “Is it something you can tell me about?” she asked.

“Not really,” he replied. “No.”

“It is so terrible. I mean, what on earth can have happened to her? She'd broken off her engagement—do you think her boyfriend might be behind this? Or involved in some way?”

He continued to stare at the light dancing off the glass. Then he dipped his fork, with a morsel of cutlet, into the mint jelly on the side of his plate and began to chew. When he had swallowed he said, “Rachel, have you ever in your life had to make a decision that you don't feel equipped to make?”

“You're talking in riddles again, my love. Like you so often do.”

“I apologize. This is delicious, by the way.”

“Good.”

He dabbed his lips with the linen napkin. “Patient confidentiality.” He picked up his glass and stared, forlornly, at it. “That's the decision.”

“What kind of a decision?” she prompted.

“Well, imagine for a moment you are me, in my office. A new patient comes in, who confesses to killing people. My assessment is that he's delusional. But what if I'm wrong and he has killed? I may have to report this to the police. But if it's merely his fantasy, then I would be failing in my duty of care if I report him. He will never again talk openly with confidence to anyone. He won't trust anyone again.”

“Is that what happened to you today?”

“Yes.”

“Does this have anything to do with Logan? Was he telling you he's the man who abducted Logan?”