You Are Dead (7 page)

“Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team. Have you heard from your fiancée?”

“No—not—not anything, not a word. Please come in—thank you for coming. Can I offer you a glass of wine?”

“No, thank you, I'm fine.” Grace could smell alcohol on the man's breath and he looked a little unsteady. He was a burly, bearded man with a rugby player's build, and with a stacked-up modern hairstyle, dressed in jeans and a V-neck cardigan over a white T-shirt, shoeless in red socks.

He led the detective through into a living room, with a kitchen area partitioned off by a bar, on which stood a beer glass and several empty cans of lager. He ushered him to one of two small sofas either side of a glass coffee table, where copies of
Sussex Life
and
Latest
magazine lay.

Susi Holliday, on the other sofa, stood up and greeted Grace with a respectful, “Good evening, sir.”

Roy Grace removed his coat, folded it and laid it beside him. Then he studied the man carefully. “Can you give me your full name, Mr. Ball?”

“Yes, Jamie Gordon Ball.”

Still watching the man intently, he asked, “When did you last see Logan?”

“This morning, about seven o'clock. She tripped getting out of bed and gashed her toe open on the bathroom door. I would have driven her to the hospital on any other day, but I had a very important early meeting at work.”

Grace noted his reply but made no comment. “She gave you no indication that she was going anywhere tonight?”

“No, none. We'd made plans to have a Chinese tonight—there's a place nearby that delivers—we have it regularly—and we were going to watch a couple of episodes of
Breaking Bad
—we're working our way through it.”

“Great show,” Grace said.

“It is, we're totally hooked.”

“Where does Logan work?”

“In Hove, she's a chiropractor—she works in a clinic on Portland Road.”

So far, the man's body language indicated he was telling the truth. “How would you describe your relationship?”

Ball was quiet for a moment, then he said, “We love each other.”

For the first time the man's demeanor indicated that he might be lying.

“Have you set a date for your wedding?” Grace pressed.

He looked even more uncomfortable now. “Yes—well, not exactly.”

“Not exactly?”

“We're sort of—discussing it.”

“Sort of?”

“Yes.” He shrugged, awkwardly.

Grace looked at him even more intently. “Has Logan ever done this before—not come home?”

“Never. Look—I heard her scream. I don't know if you've been down there, but the car park here is really creepy. There's been a raft of car break-ins and thefts. The management of this place don't give a toss. She phoned me to say she had seen someone as she drove in. Then she screamed. Then I—”

He covered his face with his hands.

Grace watched him. His distress seemed genuine. Yet at the same time, he was uncomfortable about the way Ball was describing his relationship with his fiancée—something was not ringing true.

“Something's happened to her, Detective—Superintendent—something's happened to her. This is just not like her. Something's happened. She's a strong person, I've never heard her sound afraid before. The fear—the fear in her voice.”

“Tell me what you think has happened to her?”

Jamie Ball shook his head, wildly. “I don't know. But I think she's been abducted. Kidnapped. Taken.”

“You're watching
Breaking Bad
?”

“Yes.”

“Do you watch a lot of cop programs? Crime series?”

“Quite a lot, yes.”

“Are you sure you are not being influenced here? Are you one hundred percent convinced that Logan has been abducted—and not gone somewhere of her own free will?”

“Yes.” He fixed his eyes on Roy Grace's.

Roy Grace left, ten minutes later, unsure about everything except for one certainty. Logan Somerville was missing.

The ANPR evidence seemed to eliminate Jamie Ball. But his body language made him appear guilty. Of something.

What was he lying about?

As Grace drove away he made a mental note that he needed to appoint a Family Liaison Officer first thing in the morning, someone who might be able to shed more light on the relationship.

 

16

Thursday 11 December

I keep my projects in their own private cubicles in what I like to call my
correction chamber
. Tanks all plumbed in, my projects kitted out with adult disposable nappies. Cleanliness is so important for morale. I keep them healthy, plenty of vitamins, nutrients, electrolytes. I want them to live as long as possible. So that I can make the choices about when to say good-bye. It's all about power. Power is hugely exciting.

I don't like to call them my victims. I prefer the term
projects.

I'm not a violent person, really I'm not. Once, when I was a kid, I hit a sparrow with a pebble I fired from my catapult. I can still remember that bird spinning round and round like a helicopter, plummeting to the ground. I'd never really expected to hit it—I'd just fired at it for fun. I picked it up, its feathers all soft and its body so warm, and I was crying, trying to breathe life back into it through its little beak.

I dug a grave for it, laid it in the bottom, apologized, covered it with earth and said a prayer.

I felt like shit for days after. But at the same time it wakened something inside me. Every time I looked at a bird, for the rest of my childhood, I would think to myself about the power I had.

The power of death.

Killing things makes me feel strong. Some people will say that's evil.

Here's the thing: does
evil
exist? Surely only if you believe in God. Otherwise you believe in the survival of the fittest. Which means I survive and others I choose to kill don't.

Today I've chosen to kill. I've been looking forward to this moment for days—well, actually, for weeks!

But, of course, you are not capable of ever knowing the pleasure this is going to give me.

 

17

Thursday 11 December

Water had been steadily filling the tank for the past hour. Restraints across her neck, wrists, stomach, thighs and ankles kept her secured to the bottom of the tank, unable to move. The water was now brimming over her chin. In a few minutes it would be covering her mouth. Then her nose.

He stared down at his project through his night-vision goggles, and saw the terror in her face in the monochrome green light. He liked to keep the correction chamber in darkness, so that his projects could not see one another. He kept them in the dark, so to speak. That term was his little private joke.

Her brown hair floated all around her face. It was a very beautiful sight and he took an infrared photograph of her. She was staring up at him, looking as if she was ready to scream again at any moment. Some of his projects had beautiful screams that sent a surge of longing deep through him. But not this one. She had a really ugly scream. Strange, that such a beautiful woman, with quite delicious-looking lips, could produce such a hideous sound.

He raised a finger to his lips, then leaned down and kissed her, pressing his own lips hard against hers, forming a seal. At the same time he pinched her nostrils tightly closed with his surgically gloved hand. He kept his lips to hers as she struggled, sucking, sucking, sucking the very last breath from her, feeling the water rising up against his face, still sucking. Then he released her nostrils, let go of her lips and stood up. He watched the bubbles rising. Not many at all.

He'd taken that very last breath from her.

Now he possessed her. Forever.

Soon, while she was still warm, he would make love to her.

She could never reject him!

 

18

Friday 12 December

Logan Somerville was still missing in the morning, and that knowledge weighed heavily on Roy Grace, who had come straight from a briefing of his team in the Incident Room at Sussex House.

The rain had stopped during the night and the patches of sky in the gaps between the swift-moving clouds above Hove Lagoon were a stark, cold blue. There was an inner and outer cordon marked off by blue and white crime scene tape, each cordon protected by a PCSO scene guard. A knot of onlookers stood just beyond the outer cordon, several of them taking photos with their phones. Inside the inner cordon, there were now four blue CSI tents rippling and crackling in the strong, salty wind coming in straight off the Channel, the guy ropes tugging at their pegs.

It looked like an entire army of people had moved in since he and Branson had been here last night, Grace thought. The Surrey and Sussex Police helicopter, NPAS 15, hovered overhead, taking photographs to map the scene, and added to the feel of a military operation. A cluster of cars and vans and a small mechanical digger were parked nearby. There was a marked police car, the Major Incident van, another van belonging to the construction company and several private cars. One of these, a yellow Saab convertible, Roy Grace recognized to his relief as belonging to Home Office pathologist Nadiuska De Sancha.

Out of the two specialist pathologists covering this area, who could be called in to investigate suspected homicides, all the SIOs in Surrey and Sussex much preferred the pleasant, easy-going Nadiuska to the pedantic and arrogant Dr. Frazer Theobald. De Sancha was popular because not only was she good at her job, she was a fast worker and good-natured with it.

A CSI scene sketcher was making a detailed plan of the entire site, and another CSI, like all the others wearing a disposable scene suit, gloves, face mask, hairnet and over-shoe protectors, was scanning the area immediately around the scene with ground-penetrating radar, searching for any other bodies that might also be here.

Several workmen in hi-viz jackets were hanging around close to the construction company van, some drinking tea or coffee and one struggling with the flapping pages of the
Sun
newspaper. A Crime Scene Photographer, James Gartrell, whom Grace had worked with many times, was busy taking photographs of the whole scene, and making a digital recording of the events.

Grace glanced at his watch as he strode with Glenn Branson through the onlookers beyond the outer cordon, toward the uniformed PCSO scene guard who was rubbing her hands against the cold. Several gulls bobbed like marker buoys on the near lagoon, and on the far pond a windsurfer in a wetsuit, under tuition, wobbled on his board, bent over, struggling to bring the sail up out of the water. As they reached the PCSO and signed in, Grace heard a female voice call out behind him. “Detective Superintendent!”

The two detectives turned to see a young, attractive fair-haired woman, in a bright red mackintosh, hurrying toward them. Siobhan Sheldrake, a recent addition to the
Argus
newspaper reporting team, and a replacement for their previous Crime Reporter, Kevin Spinella, who had been the bane of Grace's life.

The relationship with the press was a vital one for the police to manage well. The press needed sensational stories, which often entailed having a go at the police from many angles. But equally in major crime investigations, the press could be crucial in public appeals for witnesses to come forward. He was hoping for a better relationship with this new reporter.

“Good morning!” he said pleasantly, raising his voice against the loud
thwock-thwock-thwock
of the helicopter. “You've met my colleague, DI Branson?”

“Yes,” she shouted back, grinning at Glenn almost mischievously. “Nice to see you again, Detective Inspector.”

“And you too, Siobhan, how are you?” Glenn said.

“Well, a little bird told me you two gentlemen haven't come to a children's playground to have a go on the swings, nor the slide or roundabout—and you don't look like you're dressed for a windsurfing lesson!”

Glenn cocked his head sideways, and Grace noticed the chemistry between them. “Very astute,” Branson said. “You could be a detective.”

She laughed. “So do I have to wait for a press conference to find out what's going on here, or can I get a scoop on the dead body unearthed by workmen last night?”

“Well, at this point,” Roy Grace said, “you appear to know as much as we do.”

“Is it male or female? Do you know the age? How long has he or she been here?” She pointed. “You have a fairly big CSI presence and a Home Office Pathologist, and I understand you have a forensic archaeologist in there, too. So, I would say, you are spending serious money at a time of major budget cuts for the police, which means you have a crime scene you consider worth investigating. We're not talking historical relics, are we?”

She was smart, Grace had to concede, and he had to stop himself grinning back at her. Not only was she attractive, she had an infectious smile.

Glenn Branson jerked a thumb at his colleague and best friend. “I hope that comment isn't referring to this old relic here?” He grinned at Grace. “Sorry, old-timer.”

“Very witty,” Grace retorted.

The reporter smiled. “I won't print that,” she said.

There was something about the reporter that Roy Grace warmed to. She seemed a lot more sincere than many journalists he had encountered. And hell, she had made the effort to get here early and was well-informed. She deserved at least a titbit.

“DI Branson will be holding a press conference, Siobhan, as soon as we have sufficient information. What I can tell you so far is that workmen digging up this path yesterday exposed human remains, which have been tentatively identified as female. We don't know the age and we don't know how long they have been here—other than that they pre-date this path, which was laid approximately twenty years ago by the Council. I hope to have more information as the day progresses.”