Chapter two
Christmas. It was in the air. The feeling of anticipation and excitement that gripped people those few weeks before Christmas Day. Smiles that crept onto faces as stranger nodded amiably to stranger. People became overly polite to others who carried bags obviously crammed with gifts. A sheepish grin would be the unsaid thank you in return for opening a door or vacating a seat. The mood of people reflected the mood of the season.
Amanda Morgan despised it. She snarled as a passer-by winked at her, his arms full of shopping bags, a rouge of either cold or alcohol colouring his cheeks. The contrived jolliness of the season only served to make her surly, ensuring that she didn't return any faux smiles and certainly did not return any cries of Happy Christmas.
One person that was not going to see Christmas was the high-rise office jumper she had been called in to report. That morning a stockbroker had decided to make her day by ending his. Perhaps it was the thought of another rerun of Christmas specials on TV, Amanda mused as she crossed the road to Capricorn House.
She stepped gingerly around the white canvas tent that surrounded the remains of the late Donald Grace, nodded to one of the scene of crime officers who was zipping up the tent flap, walked through the black marble lobby and took the lift to the 15th floor. A musical reindeer greeted her with a tinny Christmas tune.
'Oh great,' Amanda muttered.
She took a deep breath and remembered that, despite this being her fifth sudden death report this month, it was always traumatic for those affected. She centred herself and walked through to the reception area of Donald Grace Stockbrokers.
She was met by a tearful receptionist, the faint watermark of mascara on her cheeks where she had washed her face, but not well enough.
'Good morning. My name is DC Morgan.' Amanda held up her warrant card. It seemed that popular TV shows demanded it. 'I'm here to see Rachel Ware.'
'That's me. Thank you for coming.' Rachel sniffed into a handkerchief, her eyes brimming with tears. 'I'll show you where his office is.'
'Just point me in the right direction, I need to take a look at the office and it won't take long. But first, I would like to ask you a few questions. And please, call me Amanda.'
Rachel shook her head wistfully, padding her eyes and balling up the tissue. 'This is just so incredible, you know? You wake up in the morning, and it's just another dreary day. The ride to work, staring out of the tube train window. I must have taken that journey a thousand times, but I can't remember any of it from the minute I close my front door to the moment I have that first cup of coffee in my hands. But now? You can bet I'll remember every face on my way home.'
'Shock affects us in many ways,' Amanda said. 'Probably best if you left early today, get yourself home and drink plenty of sweet tea.'
'Yes,' Rachel said. 'We are closing the office early. Out of respect.'
'That's good.'
Amanda glanced around the reception. Fine art and sleek furniture projected the image of a successful firm. City broker suicides were usually financially motivated, and Amanda wanted to assess Donald Grace's state of mind. What would make a successful stockbroker kill himself?
She moved to the front of the reception desk, placing a notepad down and leaning casually forward.
'Now, if I could just ask you a few delicate questions about Mr Grace. Did he seem agitated to you in any way? Did he talk to you about anything that was upsetting him?'
'He didn't seem depressed, if that's what you mean,' Rachel said. 'He was angry about the disruption - he needed to make some very important phone calls and was annoyed at the interruption. But he always seemed to be annoyed about one thing or another. He was that kind of person, really.'
'So he didn't mention anything out of the ordinary?' Amanda asked. 'Not just today, but perhaps over the past few weeks?'
'No, he was quite a bullish character, nothing seemed to get him down. Certainly nothing he ever talked to me about.'
'And what about the interruption?'
'Mr Grace was irritated that the pest exterminator was in his office. He had those calls to make and he doesn't like any fuss going on in the background whilst he's on the phone. On top of that the end of year accounts are almost due.'
'Were there any other meetings due for today? Anyone Mr Grace was expecting to see?'
'No. We have a clear diary on the run up to Christmas. Mr Grace had plans for the Christmas holidays and he didn't like any interruptions to his schedule.'
Amanda noted these facts onto her notepad, 'Perhaps you could tell me what happened?'
'Well, like I say, Donald buzzed the intercom and I grabbed my bits and pieces and went in. He was stood at the window, and I didn't realise it at first but I suppose he must have been crying. His shoulders heaved and he was making this funny sound. I asked him if everything was OK, and he said he wanted some water.'
'When I returned with a glass, he'd opened the window and was standing on the ledge outside, holding onto the frame and looking at me. I was so scared for him then, I could hardly speak. I rushed over, but he let go of the window and fell backwards.' Rachel reached for another box of tissues and wiped delicately under each eye.
'Thank you,' Amanda said. 'You've been very brave. I know how hard it must be, but I've a few more questions.' A nod permitted her to continue. 'Can you tell me about this pest controller?'
'I called him first thing this morning. His business card was pinned up on the notice board, which was handy. It was so disgusting, seeing those things crawling around in the kitchen. I was making my usual kick-start coffee and found a cockroach burrowing in the sugar bowl. My screams brought the rest of the office running and we called a local exterminator.'
'Cockroaches?' Amanda imagined the scuttling needle legs and looked about herself. 'You have a cockroach problem? This looks like a well-kept office, how did you get to have cockroaches on the 15th floor?'
'Something about heavy rainfall last night drove the things up from the basement. He did the job though, because we had them running all around the kitchen this morning, and we've not seen a single one since . . . since . . .' Rachel lapsed into silence.
'And the pest exterminator met Mr Grace?' Amanda enquired.
'Briefly. He was working in his office for half an hour. I did tell him he should be out before Donald started work. And he was, I think. Or at least they overlapped by only a few minutes.'
Amanda circled a name in her pad. Who knew what chemicals they used for pest control nowadays? Some of the detergents under her sink at home were pretty powerful, so perhaps an industrial strength insecticide could have side effects.
'I need the number for this pest exterminator. He may have been using sprays or other substances to deal with the problem. It may have influenced Mr Graces' state of mind.'
'Curious thing, he didn't fumigate the office, like I thought they do. Just browsed around the kitchen and spent some time in Donald's office.' Rachel fished into her side draw, fanning papers and sweets to one side. 'I do have his card somewhere, I'm sure I do.'
'That's good. If you could find it for me while I take a look at Mr Grace's office, it would be much appreciated.'
'Fine. Just head through those doors,' Rachael pointed with a sodden tissue between two fingers. 'Would you like me to come with you?'
'No need. I'll be a few minutes and then you can be on your way home.'
Amanda entered the office and closed the doors behind her.
The large office was brightly lit with a combination of fluorescent and natural light. Papers were strewn over the office floor in front of the desk, blown by the wind from the open window, Amanda assumed. The window was closed now, but nothing else had been disturbed. No crime. No scene. No need for a scene of crime investigation. Amanda was here to assess if there had been any external influences on Donald Grace's decision to take flight from his office window. If there was evidence of blackmail or another source of crime, then she would call it in. And hopefully get to s
ee more action than the past few months follow-up duty had allowed.
Unseen by Amanda, a remnant mist of negative karma still hung around the office, clinging to the desk and painting. Wisps of dark chi desperately wound itself around legs of the chair, seeking purchase though fading slowly away.
Amanda paced around the office, moving through the last wafts of negative karma, and stood at the window. The view was spectacular. Far off patches of green merged with browns and greys of housing estates. An impressionist's vision of modern living that somehow, from this vantage point, lost the grim and despair and was elevated to a thing of beauty and hope.
Glancing down to the street below, she saw the tent that covered the body, a long black van pulled up beside it to remove the remains. Everything looked so toy-like from this distance, as if looking down on a child's play mat. Just reach down and push the passing cars around, screech through traffic lights and swerve past pedestrians.
She felt herself drawn to the plummeting drop, a small voice inside urging her to step out. To spread her arms wide and lean forward. To see what it would feel like, those few moments in the air between life and death. Her hand involuntarily touched the window handle as, unseen, two spirits tugged weakly at her sleeve. The influence of karma was fading, and one of the spirits lost its grip and fell to the floor, disappearing in a splash of smoke.
'Get a grip, girl,' Amanda said to herself, half laughing at the ridiculous notion of jumping.
She turned to face the office, studying the layout. Very much a masculine setup, bronze statues of old generals, paintings of war and sport on the walls. She sat at the desk and fired up the PC.
The quagmire beneath the desk still bubbled, but the activity was subsiding. Dark drifts still appeared infrequently, thin wafts that curled towards Amanda.
Oblivious to any danger, Amanda turned her attention to the computer. She clicked through various folders on the desktop, opening the email and browsing through the sent items. Amanda was looking for any evidence that the death might be more than just a city worker suicide.
There was no last plea or suicide note, which in itself was unusual. Her basic training of sudden death profiling stated that a suicidal person often left notes or messages of explanation to loved ones. Trying, in one last gesture, to relieve the guilt of those they would leave behind. Grace had no family members to bid farewell too, though he could have had friends or lovers that meant something to him.
There was no sign of any threatening email or security protected folder in which sensitive blackmail material could be kept. Amanda sighed. Her one encouraging hope when called to these mop-up operations on suicides was that she may find evidence of foul play and be on the task force of a criminal investigation. Anything that may lead to something other than the endless report writing of dead end tasks, she thought. Pun intended.
Her thoughts drifted to the situation she currently found herself. Not for the first time that day she cursed her poor taste in men. Sleeping with a work colleague was never recommended whatever job you were in. But as a Detective Constable in the Metropolitan Police the very nature of the working environment meant there were no secrets. Policemen and women were the worst of gossips, and nothing could stay a secret for long. Drunken fumbling on a night out had led to the illicit dating of a married man. Even now Amanda fumed at the memory. It had taken just four weeks to realise what an asshole he was - and to think she was risking a career for him.
After a month she wanted out with the minimum of fuss and had asked him round to her apartment for a meal and an explanation. He, of course, had anticipated the end of the relationship by some weird man-radar for such things, and had planned a cruel and vicious joke at her expense, letting the whole station know that it was him that had finished with her.
Even now, four months after the event, some joker kept pinning up a photocopy of the 'lonely hearts - wanted ad' on the notice board. At first she tore them down whenever she saw them. Then she moved on to doodling sarcastic replies of her own on the adverts. Now she just ignored them.
And so it was that she was assigned low end work and bottom of the barrel jobs. Burglary follow-ups, shoplifting statistics, suicides. Her requests for transfer to another station were taking their own sweet time, but there was no running from a bad reputation in the job. A bad name had a way of following you wherever you ended up. All this because she slept with a work colleague. And to make matters worse she had slept with her boss, Detective Inspector Phillips.
With a shudder and a shake of her head, Amanda returned to the job in hand. She pulled open cabinet drawers on the right of the desk. Each contained client portfolios in alphabetic order. Quickly scanning each for a loose leaf letter or anything that may have slipped into the files by accident, she noticed that the yearly reports ended in a lot of red. It seemed that most clients were losing money, but none that seemed to be for huge amounts. Each annual breakdown was followed by a lengthy letter from Grace explaining the position and requesting the client stay with the firm.
That may have been a reason for Grace's suicidal state, but somehow Amanda doubted it. The sketchy impression she had put together of Donald Grace was of a thick skinned businessman. Brusque, bull headed and self confident. There had been worst financial years yet Grace survived them all.
Amanda leaned back into the leather chair, stretching the kinks out of her bones. Grace seemed like the kind of man she would despise. A bully, who delighted in belittling employees and screaming down the phone at junior staff. Probably a bully his whole life.
Amanda caught her reflection in the pale blue background of the computer screen and wistfully tucked a curl of blonde hair behind her ear. A childhood habit. As she thought of her youth an unbidden memory sprang uppermost in her thoughts, the last influences of fading chi.
She was nine years old, standing in the cold playground surrounded by a ring of older girls. They were singing a made up rhyme, with nasty words replacing the repetitive chorus. She knew they were nasty words because her father used the same words when he was drunk. But it wasn't Amanda who they taunted with the casual callousness of schoolchildren. Her best friend, Danielle, stood next to her, and it was her that they mocked.
Amanda tried to grab her friend's hand and push through the circle of grey uniforms, but her friend pulled away and fell to the ground. The other girls closed around Danielle, singing and poking fingers into her shoulders and back. Amanda was calling out to her, trying to reach out to her, but she couldn't break through the closed circle.
A knock at the door pulled Amanda from her melancholy memories. She was surprised to find her cheeks wet with tears and pulled her sleeve up to wipe her face.
'Hello?' Amanda called out.
The door opened a sliver and Rachel peered through. 'Would you like a cup of tea?'
'That would be lovely. I'll be through in a moment.'
'Ok,' Rachel replied. 'The kitchen is just down the hall on the left.' Amanda heard the door close quietly.
Taking deep breaths, Amanda shook off the wisps of depression that seemed to have come from nowhere, switched Grace's machine off and placed the chair flush with the desk. The office now seemed grey and lifeless, despite the cloudless day reflecting through the windows.
Rachel stood in the kitchen, drumming her fingers on the laminate side as she stared at the kettle, waiting for it to boil.
'A watched pot,' Amanda said as she entered the kitchen.
'Sorry?' Rachael was startled from her thoughts.
'Never boils. You're watching that pot so intently; it'll never deliver the goods.'
'Just like my boyfriend.' Rachel shrugged. 'Sugar? milk?'
'Milk please.' Amanda leant against the wall, looking around the kitchen. She eyed the sugarbowl suspiciously. 'But no sugar. So you have man problems?'
'Yeah. Same old story. Can't commit, won't commit.'
'Cockroaches, ain't they all!' Amanda said. Rachel half gasped, then chuckled.
&n
bsp; 'The pest controller was a bit of all right.' Rachel admitted, pouring milk into the cups. 'Dreamy. Dark eyes, dark suit, bit of an American accent. Just my type. Quite a stylish dresser for someone who exterminates bugs.'
Taking her coffee, Amanda listened to the receptionist's fantasies of finding a man who was in one a respectable man she could take home to her mother but who would also fire the jealousies of her friends. The monologue was drifting into Brad Pitt territories when movement caught Amanda's attention. From between the gap of the swing lid of the chrome bin in the corner of the kitchen a thin black antennae swayed.
Controlling her revulsion, she approached the bin and dipped the swing lid open. A cockroach navigated the lip of the bin and fell to the floor. Amanda stepped on the skittering insect before it could fully recover, crunching it beneath the thick soles of her size five's.
'Trust a man to do half a job.' The receptionist said having moved to the doorway, ready to make her escape.
Amanda carefully removed the lid of the silver bin and placed it on the floor. The inside was empty but for three cockroaches, antennae waving aimlessly, and a plastic bag from a Chinese Restaurant. Unclipping her baton, Amanda flicked her wrist and the dull metal truncheon extended three foot, extending quickly in sections and locking in place.
She slowly poked the plastic bag, found a handle and hooked it over the end of the baton. She lifted it out of the bin, shaking it once to let an obstinate roach drop from the underside of the bag back into the bin. Smaller roaches crawled within the thin white plastic, and Amanda recognised the name of the take away restaurant, written in red stylised Cantonese English. The Imperial Dragon.
'I'm going to need the number of that pest exterminator,' she said. 'And a full description.'