Looking Good Dead

  ‘Good!’ Grace said, trying to humour the man. ‘I admire your detached professionalism.’

  ‘Detached bollocks!’ Tindall said. ‘I do it because I’m paid to do it. Being appreciated doesn’t bang my drum.’ He stepped out of his protective clothes, bagged them and headed off towards the exit staircase.

  Grace and the Traffic constable exchanged a glance. ‘He can be a tetchy bugger!’

  ‘Cool glasses, though . . .’ the constable said.

  Grace checked the interior of the car, looking in the glove compartment, which contained nothing but an owner’s manual, and in each of the door pockets, which were empty. He checked under the front seats, removed the cushion from the rear seat and looked under that. Nothing. There were absolutely no personal effects in the car at all; it felt more like a rental vehicle than a private one.

  Then he checked the boot. It was spotless, containing just the toolkit, the spare wheel and a reflective warning triangle that he presumed came with the car. Finally, he crawled underneath; there was no mud, nothing to indicate anything out of the ordinary.

  He hauled himself back to his feet, told the Traffic constable that he could lock it up and reset the alarm, and walked along to his car, anxious to get back to Sussex House. Hoping desperately the stroppy but brilliant Joe Tindall was going to produce a result with those prints.

  And that the surveillance team did not lose the VW.

  Bringing Brighton to a halt for no result was hardly going to improve Alison Vosper’s opinion of him. Or his chances of avoiding relegation to Newcastle. Cassian Pewe or no Cassian Pewe.

  Then, suddenly, he thought of Cleo. It was twelve twenty. She hadn’t returned his call.

  80

  Tom threw himself down onto the floor and frantically scrabbled across the hard stone surface with his hands, trying to find the cords. A torch beam stabbed the darkness; it briefly fell on Kellie, then on his face, then jigged against the wall, lighting up a row of chemical drums.

  Including the one with its lid removed.

  Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

  He lay on his side, very still, holding-his-breath still, hands rigidly to his side, legs clamped together, dripping perspiration. He heard the clack, clack, clack of footsteps approaching. His heart was thudding, the roar in his ears of his blood coursing through his veins. The bitter bile of terror rose in his throat.

  This was going to be the moment. As soon as he was discovered. Christ, maybe he had been stupid all over again? Stupid to have left the house, stupid to have let them into his car. And now, stupid, unbelievably stupid to have tried to escape.

  Kellie was right, what she had said earlier. Calling him a failure.

  For an instant he shut his eyes, praying, fighting down vomit. Was this how it was going to finish? All the dreams? Never seeing the children again? Never—

  There was a loud clatter. He heard something rolling across the floor. Whatever it was, it hit him on the side of the head. A hard object, but light.

  He turned, remembering to stay in his trussed-up position. The beam shone directly into his eyes for a moment, blinding him. Then he heard the same broken-English voice he’d heard a short while ago.

  ‘For urinate. No shit.’

  The beam moved away from his face and onto an object lying on its side just a few feet away. It was an orange plastic bucket.

  The footsteps receded. Tom turned to watch; he saw the flashlight beam swinging across the floor until the man reached the rectangle of light in the distance. He thought, fleetingly, that it did not seem to have occurred to the man how he was going to use the bucket with his hands trussed to his sides.

  He heard the slam of a heavy-sounding metal door.

  And then, once again, there was total darkness.

  81

  ‘Are you out of your fucking mind?’ Carl Venner shouted, his face puce like his shirt with its buttons straining against his gut. Veins bulged at his temples. The scratch the young girl had made during his visitor’s last call was still very visible. ‘What do you think you are doing, coming here? I told you never, ever, ever to come here unless you are told. What part of don’t ever, ever come here unless you are told do you not fucking understand, John?’

  Andy Gidney stared down at the cheap beige carpet, his eyes fixed on one tuft; he was trying to calculate how many strands of fibre might be in the tuft.

  Venner brought his index finger to his mouth and began to tear at the skin around the nail. A cigar smouldered in the ashtray on his metal desk on the top floor of the warehouse. ‘And anyhow, just where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you for the past hour.’

  ‘Ummm, I’ve been on my way here.’

  ‘So why didn’t you answer your fucking phone?’

  ‘Because you told me never to bring it here.’

  To the Weatherman’s quiet satisfaction, that temporarily silenced Venner, who continued working on his finger for some moments, examined it, then worked on it some more. ‘We have a major disaster on our hands, that’s why I was calling you.’

  Actually you have two, the Weatherman thought. One you don’t know about – yet. Not that he cared. Carl Venner could have a thousand disasters and he wouldn’t care. He continued counting the fibres.

  Venner picked up his cigar, stabbed it between his lips, and puffed it back into life, blowing the smoke out of the corner of his mouth. ‘A fucking disaster, OK?’

  ‘Cromarty, Forth, south-west veering north four or five, occasionally six in North Utsire,’ he informed Venner, still staring at the floor. ‘Rain at times. Moderate or good.’

  ‘What the fuck’s with this weather forecast crap?’

  ‘Ummm, actually – ummm – it’s the shipping forecast.’

  Venner shook his head. ‘Jesus. One of our associates is in a coma and you’re giving me the goddamn shipping forecast?’

  ‘Umm, yes. Umm, that’s right.’

  Venner stared at him. This fuckwit was really beyond him. ‘John, the disaster is that our associate had a laptop with him that he was using to upload our latest offering to our customers. The police have seized it. We need that laptop back.’

  ‘I have it,’ Gidney said. ‘And the clone the High Tech Crime Unit made of the hard disk.’

  Venner looked astonished. ‘You have it?’

  ‘Umm. Yes. Sort of exactly.’

  ‘You have the laptop back?’

  The Weatherman nodded.

  The fat man’s whole demeanour changed. He heaved himself up and shook the surprised Gidney by the hand. ‘You are one smart motherfucker!’ Then he sat back down, as if exhausted by the effort, clamped his cigar back between his lips and held out his hand, greedily, like a fat schoolboy wanting more sweets. ‘So, gimme! You have it in your rucksack?’

  ‘Umm, no, that’s my sandwich.’

  One of the two silent Russians entered the room; he was dressed as usual in a black suit over a black T-shirt. He stood a few feet behind Venner, silent and unsmiling.

  The Weatherman stared back down at the tuft of carpet, ignoring the outstretched hand, trying to pluck up the courage to say what he had come here to say. He thought about Q in Star Trek again, and muttered the words silently to himself. If you can’t take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It’s not safe out here . . . it’s not for the timid.

  The Man Who Was Not Timid took a deep breath and, stammering, his face reddening, he blurted, ‘I don’t actually have them with me.’

  Venner’s face clouded over. ‘Where do you actually have them?’

  Gidney sensed an almost silent footfall behind him. He detected the faintest shadow on the carpet. Venner bringing in his team, the Russian in front, the Albanian behind, to intimidate him. But today he was The Man Who Was Not Timid.

  He would stand his ground.

  He was shaking, his face burning, rivers of perspiration rolling down inside his white shirt. But he was standing his ground. ‘I have them in a s
afe place.’

  ‘Exactly how safe?’ Venner enquired coldly.

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Good. Sensible.’

  ‘If you want them back, you have to pay me what you promised. And-and-and I,’ he was blurting now, gabbling, ‘I-don’t-want-to-dothisanymore.’

  Then he stared at the carpet, gulping down air.

  ‘Is that right, John?’ Venner said calmly. ‘You don’t want to work in our team any more?’

  ‘Ummm, no.’

  ‘I’m really hurt! I figured we all got along so well! You know, John, I thought you and I were becoming real good buddies. I’m really hurt. Of course, you want to leave, you want your money, that’s absolutely fine.’

  The Weatherman was silent; he had not been expecting this reaction. He had expected Venner to explode.

  ‘So exactly where is this very safe place you have the laptop and the cloned disk?’

  Smiling proudly, Gidney looked up. ‘You would never believe it. No one will look there; no one will find them in a thousand years!’

  ‘That so?’

  The Weatherman nodded excitedly.

  ‘Not even the police?’

  ‘Absolutely not!’

  Venner beamed happily at the Weatherman, then swung his left hand sharply through the air.

  The movement puzzled the Weatherman. It appeared to be some coded signal. But he did not have long to fret about it.

  ‘Watch the birdie!’ Venner said.

  The Weatherman felt increasingly confused. The Russian standing beside Venner was holding up a small video camera.

  The Albanian, standing behind him, took two swift steps forward and, with one chop of the side of his hand, snapped the Weatherman’s neck and spinal cord in two.

  82

  The Fingerprint Department occupied one of the largest floor spaces in Sussex House. On the ground floor, a short walk along from the High Tech Crime Unit, it was a hive of quiet activity, and every time Grace went there, he noticed just the very faintest aroma of ink in the air.

  Derry Blane, one of the senior fingerprint officers, sat at a workstation more or less in the middle of the labyrinth of desks and machinery. On his computer screen was the best print Joe Tindall had lifted from the Volkswagen, off the interior mirror. Grace and Tindall stood behind him, looking down over his shoulder at the screen.

  Blane, a balding, bespectacled man, had avuncular looks and a quiet, learned manner which inspired confidence. He clicked the keyboard and a full set of ten prints appeared. He clicked again and Grace’s heart skipped a beat. There on the screen was a police custody photograph of his man. And his name. The driver of the Golf. Janie Stretton’s date at the Karma Bar.

  ‘We’ve got a match,’ Derry Blane said. ‘I’ve run him through NAFIS, and he was printed just over a year ago, after a brawl at the Escape nightclub in Brighton. He was released with a caution. His name is Mik Luvic. He’s an Albanian, of no fixed abode.’

  ‘What else do you have on him?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Here’s the thing.’ Blane tapped his keyboard again. ‘There’s a PNC marker on him as someone to watch – at the request of Interpol.’

  Grace’s excitement increased. PNC was the Police National Crime database.

  ‘So I ran an international search on his full set – we need a full set to do that – and it came up with a link to this charmer.’

  Blane tapped another couple of keys and, after a moment, the head and torso of a grossly fat man appeared on the screen. He had a small head in comparison to the bulk of his body, with gelled silver hair pulled back into a tiny pigtail.

  ‘His name is Carl Venner. Also goes under the name of Jonas Smith. He has an interesting history,’ Blane continued. ‘Venner was in the US military. He started out as a chopper pilot in Vietnam. Got a purple heart for being wounded in combat, then stopped flying for some health reason and became a radio operator. He later got promoted to a high position in military communications out there. After that he was involved in a scandal. You may remember it – a war cameraman and a couple of photographers were indicted on charges of filming the torture and execution of Vietcong, and then flogging the footage.’

  ‘Snuff pictures?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Exactly. But Venner wormed his way out of the charges. He stayed with the US military and was moved to an intelligence posting in Germany. Then when Bosnia started up he was posted there. The same thing happened as in Vietnam. Eventually he was court-martialled for filming the execution of prisoners and selling the films into the international snuff movie market.’

  ‘For real?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Yes, absolutely. This guy is lower than lowlife. He’s your absolute bottom feeder. A smart lawyer got him off the charges, but enough mud stuck and he was slung out of the military. Next thing, his name crops up in an international child pornography ring based in Atlanta. Except it’s not just men having sex with children; it’s footage of kids being murdered. Mostly Asian, some Indian, some white too.’

  ‘You really mix with the best, don’t you, Roy?’ Tindall said with a smile, his humour back.

  ‘That’s me all over. You should come to one of my dinner parties.’

  ‘I keep waiting for the invite.’

  ‘So what happened to him?’ Grace asked, turning back to Blane.

  ‘Seems he did a runner. Fell off the FBI’s radar. Then . . . three years ago he popped up in Turkey. Then Athens. Then Paris. A cosy little snuff movie ring got busted there. The French police raided an apartment in the Sixteenth Arondissement of Paris. They seized a load of equipment and a bunch of people who said Venner was the ringleader. He hasn’t been seen since.’

  ‘What’s the link with Luvic?’

  ‘Interpol have a desk man in London who knows about that. I have his number. His name’s Detective Sergeant Barry Farrier.’

  ‘Thanks, Derry, you’ve done a great job. And incredibly quick!’ Because of the traffic, it had taken Grace twenty minutes longer to get back to headquarters than he had planned. But Joe Tindall must have had the same problem. Blane couldn’t have had the prints more than fifteen minutes.

  Back upstairs, in his private office opposite MIR One, Grace checked first with the surveillance team watching the Golf. The driver had not yet appeared. Then he was about to dial Detective Sergeant Barry Farrier when his mobile rang. As he answered he recognized Harry Frame’s high-pitched, effusive voice.

  ‘You have something?’ Grace asked the clairvoyant.

  ‘Well, I don’t know if it means anything to you or not; I’m getting a watch.’

  ‘A watch?’ Grace said. ‘Like a wristwatch?’

  ‘Exactly!’ Frame’s enthusiasm mounted. ‘A wristwatch! There is something very significant. A wristwatch will lead you to something very satisfying to do with a case you are working on. This case, I think.’

  ‘Can you elaborate?’ Grace asked, puzzled.

  ‘No, I . . . No, that’s all. As I said, I don’t know if it means anything.’

  ‘Any particular make?’

  ‘No. Expensive, I think.’

  ‘Expensive?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A man’s or a woman’s?’

  ‘It’s a man’s watch. I think there might be more than one.’

  Grace shook his head, thinking hard. It really meant absolutely nothing at this moment. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Harry. Let me know if you get anything else.’

  ‘Oh, I will, don’t you worry!’

  Grace ended the call and immediately dialled the Interpol number in London. He had a two-minute wait for Farrier to finish a call, listening to ‘Greensleeves’ on what seemed a permanent loop, then heard a sharp Cockney accent.

  ‘DS Farrier, can I help you?’

  Grace introduced himself. Immediately, Farrier became excited.

  ‘I’ve got detectives in Greece, Turkey, Switzerland and Paris who would like to have a chat with Mr Luvic.’

  ‘I know where his car is,’ Grace said. ?
??What do you have on Carl Venner?’

  ‘Zilch. Hasn’t been sighted in three years. And there’s enough of him to see; he’s a fat bastard.’

  There was a knock on the door, and Norman Potting came in, clutching a sheet of paper. Grace signalled that he was busy. Potting hovered by the door.

  ‘I’d be very interested in anything you can come up with on Venner,’ Barry Farrier said. ‘Got markers on him as long as my right arm. Right across Europe.’

  ‘Could he be in England?’

  ‘If Luvic is, there’s a chance.’

  ‘Tell me more about Luvic?’

  ‘Albanian. Thirty-two. Smart boy. Studied technology at uni there, as well as becoming a kick-boxing champion and a bare-knuckle fighter. Typical of his generation – came out of uni, no jobs. Got involved with a bunch of students designing computer viruses for fun, probably out of boredom. Then he hitched up with another lot, blackmailing large companies.’

  ‘Blackmailing?’

  ‘Big business. Take a big sporting event here, like the Derby. The major bookies get threatened with attack by computer viruses, just a few days before, which will shut down their systems for twenty-four hours on Derby Day. Unless they pay up. So they pay up; it’s the cheaper option.’

  ‘I’ve heard of this happening,’ Grace said.

  ‘Yeah, it’s big time. Anyhow, then somehow Luvic got hooked up with Venner. Probably recruited by him. They were involved in the French snuff ring together, for sure. Both of ’em vanished at the same time. I can email you all the files.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Yeah, no worries. Right away. Tell you one thing. I seen some of the pictures. I’d like to get my hands on Venner and Luvic in an alleyway on a dark night. Just five minutes with them, I’d like.’

  ‘I know how you feel. Tell me something, does a scarab beetle mean anything to you – in connection with these two?’

  ‘Scarab? Scarab beetle?’