Looking Good Dead

  The man was stocky and muscular, with gelled spikes of short, fair hair and heavily tattooed arms. He was wearing a white singlet, with a gold medallion on a chain which was almost touching Tom’s face, and he smelled of sweat. As he stared down expressionlessly, he was chewing gum, mashing it with small, intensely white incisors that reminded Tom of a piranha fish.

  The American was staggering to his feet.

  ‘You want I kill him?’

  ‘No,’ the American gasped, puffing and wheezing. ‘Oh no. We’re not going to make it that easy—’

  Suddenly Tom heard a commotion a short distance away. A male voice shouted, ‘POLICE! DROP YOUR GUN!’

  Tom felt his hair released. He saw his assailant turn in shock, then without any hesitation raise his gun and fire several shots in rapid succession. The noise was deafening; Tom’s ears went numb for a moment and his nostrils filled with the reek of cordite. Then his assailant, and the American, vanished.

  An instant later he heard a different voice, English, cry out, ‘I’ve been hit. Jesus, oh Jesus Christ, I’ve been shot!’

  86

  Grace, emerging from the large elevator, pushed past a partly open door labelled with a large yellow and black warning sign: protective clothing must be worn beyond this point. Glenn Branson, first out of the elevator, rounded a corner head of him, and Grace heard him shout, ‘POLICE! DROP YOUR GUN!’

  Moments later he heard five shots in rapid succession. Then Glenn crying out.

  Turning the corner he saw his colleague lying on the ground, clutch-ing his stomach, blood all over his hands, his eyes rolling. Grace shouted into his radio, ‘This is DS Grace. We have a man down! We need an ambulance! Send the firearms unit straight in. And all other units.’

  He stopped, torn for an instant between staying with his colleague and wanting to catch whoever had done this. Waiting outside the building he had two vans of uniformed officers, an entry team from the Police Operations Department, a public order team armed with shields and batons, and a firearms team.

  He turned to Nick Nicholl and Norman Potting, who were right behind him. ‘Norman!’ he yelled. ‘Stay with Glenn!’ Then he ran on. Ahead of him he saw a heavy metal door marked emergency exit only swinging shut. He dived through it, then leapt up a stone staircase, two steps at a time, hearing Nicholl pounding up right behind him. He rounded a corner. Then another.

  Round the next he caught sight of the man in singlet and jeans with short, spiky hair who Derry Blane in the Fingerprint Department had identified as Mik Luvic. ‘POLICE. STOP!’ Grace shouted.

  The man stopped, turned, pointed what looked like a gun at him. Grace, flattening himself against the wall and holding Nick Nicholl back with his arm, saw a muzzle flash, heard a zing then felt shards of cement dust strike his face. The man disappeared.

  Grace waited for several seconds, then ran on up the steps, totally oblivious to danger, just angry – determined to get the bastard, to get him and tear him apart with his bare hands. He rounded another corner and stopped. No sign of Luvic. Up another flight, his heart pounding, round another corner. He paused again, inching forward cautiously. Still no sign.

  They had to be near the top.

  Up more steps and another corner. More steps. Another corner. Then a metal door ahead of them with a big red exit sign, swinging shut. Grace raced, panting, up to it, then turned to Nicholl. ‘Careful.’

  The young DC nodded.

  They heard the roar of an engine, the clack of rotors.

  The helicopter he had seen on the roof, Grace realized.

  He pushed the door open. A hugely fat, pigtailed man, who he recognized instantly from the photograph Derry Blane had produced as Carl Venner, was in the pilot’s seat of the black helicopter. It was a small chopper, a four-seater Robinson. Luvic was untying a mooring rope attached to one of the helicopter’s skids from a metal stanchion.

  Bursting through the door, Grace yelled, ‘STOP. POLICE!’

  The Albanian raised his gun. Grace dived to the ground as he saw the muzzle flash. A strong wind was blowing, worsened by the down-draught of the accelerating rotor blades. Sheltering from the wind and the Albanian’s gun behind the structure next to him, the top of the lift housing, he presumed, Grace heard a crack close to his ear.

  Seven shots, he had counted. How many in the magazine?

  The mooring rope came free. Luvic ran round to the other side of the helicopter. Grace turned to Nicholl and yelled, ‘Stay back!’

  Then he began crawling forward on his stomach, looking around for something he could use as a weapon. A short distance to his right he clocked several bags of cement and a pile of bricks. Spiky Hair was working on the second rope. Grace got to his knees and launched himself at him.

  Luvic raised his gun. Grace threw himself sideways just as he saw the muzzle flash, wishing to hell he’d had the sense to put on a flak jacket. An instant later he heard the crack of the pistol. The man pulled the trigger again.

  This time nothing happened.

  Grace went straight for him. The next thing he knew the Albanian’s feet were flying at him, catching him full on under his chin. Grace was catapulted onto his back on the pitch surface of the roof, winded and stunned.

  He heard the engine roar rise. He rolled over, blinking, still a little dazed, saw rooftops, the single tall chimney stack of what had once been Shoreham power station in the distance. Felt the wind increasing. Luvic was on board now. The helicopter’s skids were off the roof.

  In desperation he threw himself at the pile of bricks. Then he saw a length of scaffold pole lying beside them. He grabbed it and hurled it in a swirling arc, with all his strength, at the tail rotor.

  For an instant, it sailed through the air in what seemed like slow motion. He thought he had thrown it wide. But, to his amazement, it was a bull’s-eye, right in the middle of the rotor.

  There was a grinding metallic sound and a shower of sparks. The helicopter lurched sideways.

  Then he thought he had failed after all, as it rose sharply several feet in the air, before suddenly beginning to rotate on its own axis. And Grace saw that the entire tail rotor had gone.

  The helicopter spun once, twice, then a giddying third time. It veered straight towards him, engine screaming, and he had to flatten himself on the roof to avoid being hit by the skids. The wind threatened to rip his jacket from his back and the hair from his head. Grace heard a huge bang and the next moment was showered with bits of metal and pieces of masonry, as the helicopter struck the side of the lift housing. Like some massive beetle crazed by fly spray, it skewed away, almost sideways, part of one of its main rotor blades clattering down inches from Grace, who rolled sideways to get out of its path.

  He caught a glimpse of Venner in his puce shirt at the controls, saw the fear in his face as he struggled, saw the frozen white shock in the face of Luvic.

  The helicopter tumbled over onto its side and did a complete flip, followed by another, tumbling towards the edge of the roof, reminding Grace of one of those cheap toys Brighton street vendors sold which were weighted and rolled over and over, propelled by their own momentum.

  And suddenly there was a stench of aviation fuel in the air.

  The stricken machine crashed into the lift housing for a second time, crabbed round, still under power, until the cockpit was hanging over the edge of the roof and the helicopter was prevented from going completely over only by its tail wedged against the base of the structure.

  The engine stopped.

  Grace scrambled to his feet and ran across.

  The machine was see-sawing. Teetering on the brink. Luvic was unconscious, lying upside down on the glass bubble of the cockpit roof. Venner was struggling, upside down also, suspended by his harness. At any moment the helicopter was going to fall.

  ‘Help me!’ the pigtailed man implored, thrusting a hand out of the open, swinging door. ‘Please, for God’s sake, help me, man!’

  Grace, who was not good with heights, knelt, s
taring at the car park a long way below, the wind threatening to blow him over the edge. He grabbed the man’s wrist, which was greasy and thick as a ham.

  The helicopter lurched. The stink of fuel was horrendous. Grace felt something bite into his hand. It was the man’s wristwatch. He gripped the pudgy flesh just above it and met the man’s tiny, terrified eyes, staring into his own. Imploring him.

  ‘Help me! Get me out!’ His medallion was hanging above his head.

  The helicopter lurched again. Grace was pulled forward. Another few inches and he would fall over the edge. He realized what the man had to do. ‘Your seat belt! Undo your seat harness!’

  The man was beyond thinking in his panic. ‘HELP ME!’ he screeched.

  ‘UNDO YOUR FUCKING HARNESS!’ Grace screamed back.

  There was a grinding sound. The helicopter lurched further. It was going. Only seconds left, Grace reckoned. ‘UNDO YOUR BELT – YOUR HARNESS!’

  Suddenly he felt his arm almost wrenched out of its socket. Grace clung on for dear life. But it was no good. Still he clung. Clung.

  Clung.

  Saw those tiny, desperate eyes once more.

  Then Nick Nicholl was beside him, reaching down into the helicopter. Grace heard a faint click. Then, as if in a dream, the helicopter was dropping upside down, away from him. Like a huge toy. Until it hit the ground, straddling the roofs of a black Mercedes and a small white Fiat. Almost instantaneously there was a huge ball of flame.

  And the wriggling, petrified, dead weight of Venner was suspended below him, over the drop, supported by nothing except the grip he and Nicholl each had on a wrist, the metal strap of Venner’s watch cutting painfully into his hand.

  Venner produced a long, gurgling whimper. The heat was burning Grace’s face. Venner was slipping. He had to hold on to him. He wanted this creep to live; death was too damned good for him. Somehow, he did not know from where, he found some strength; Nicholl seemed to find it too, at the same time. And the next moment, like a huge, blubbery fish, the fat pigtailed man was hauled to safety, up over the edge of the roof.

  Venner lay on his back, yabbering in terror; there was a dark stain around his crotch where he had pissed himself. Moments later, with no time to spare, Grace roughly rolled him over onto his front, grabbed his hands and cuffed him. There was a vile stench; the creep had crapped himself as well, but Grace barely noticed; he was on autopilot now.

  Yelling at Nicholl to get the man out of the building, Grace ran back to the fire exit, hurtled down the flights of steps and into the basement. Norman Potting, accompanied now by two uniformed constables, was kneeling beside Glenn Branson, who seemed semi-conscious.

  ‘This whole fucking place is going up! Let’s get him out!’ Grace yelled.

  He shoved his arms under his friend’s shoulders, with a constable supporting his midriff and Potting and the other constable each taking a leg. They carried him up the stairs, then burst through a fire exit door into the car park, into a searing blast of heat from the blazing cars and the helicopter, the stench of burning paint and rubber, and a cacophony of sirens.

  They carried Branson away as far as they could from the heat, until Grace saw an ambulance racing towards them.

  They stopped. He looked down at Branson, bringing his face close to his mate’s. ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Remember John Wayne, when he got shot in that movie––’ Branson said, his voice wheezy.

  ‘Did he live?’ Grace interrupted him.

  ‘Yeah, he lived.’

  ‘That how you feel?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Grace kissed him on the forehead. He couldn’t help it; he loved this man.

  Then, standing back as the paramedics took over, he felt something cutting into his hand. He looked down and saw a blue-faced Breitling watch on a broken metal bracelet. It was covered in blood. His own blood.

  It was the watch, he realized, which had been on the pigtailed man’s wrist. How the hell did he – ?

  And he thought back to a couple of hours earlier today, to the phone call he had had from the clairvoyant Harry Frame.

  I’m getting a watch.

  A watch? Like a wristwatch?

  Exactly! 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?

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

  Any particular make?

  No. Expensive, I think.

  Sucking at his hand to staunch the bleeding, he turned to Nick Nicholl, who was closing a police car door on Venner. ‘Do you know anything about wristwatches?’

  His colleague was white, shaking. In a bad way. Seriously in shock. ‘Not a lot. Why?’

  Grace held up the watch he was holding. ‘What about this?’

  Norman Potting piped up, ‘That’s a Breitling.’

  ‘What do you know about them?’

  ‘Only that I could never afford one. They’re expensive.’

  A constable came running towards them, looking petrified. ‘Please move away. We’re worried the whole building might go up – it’s full of chemicals.’

  Suddenly seized with panic, Grace said, ‘Christ, where the hell are Mr and Mrs Bryce?’

  ‘It’s all right, sir,’ the constable said. ‘They’re in ambulances, on their way to hospital.’

  ‘Good man.’

  87

  Five minutes later, just as the first fire engine pulled up outside, the warehouse exploded. The blast blew out windows from buildings up to a quarter of a mile away. It was over two days before it was cool enough for the forensic investigators to enter and begin their grim task.

  Three sets of human remains were eventually found. One would be identified in a few weeks’ time by his brother, still under police guard in hospital, from the partially melted gold medallion found around his neck. The second, just a human skull, would be identified from dental records as being Janie Stretton. The third would also be identified from dental records as being Andy Gidney.

  The intense heat had made it impossible to determine, from what little remained of his bones, Gidney’s precise cause of death. And no one was able to offer any explanation of what he had been doing on the premises.

  In a couple of months, Detective Sergeant Jon Rye of the High Tech Crime Unit would provide a report for the Coroner’s Court. And, for lack of evidence, the Coroner would have no option but to return an open verdict. More succinct but less informative than a shipping forecast.

  It was half past four when Roy Grace finally left the blaze, which was a long way yet from being under control. He drove straight to the Royal Sussex County Hospital and went to find Glenn Branson in the emergency ward.

  Glenn’s pretty wife, Ari, was already there. She had never shown much warmth towards Grace, blaming him, he suspected, for keeping her husband away from home so much. And there was no thaw today. Glenn had been lucky. Only one bullet had hit, and it had gone through his abdomen, missing his spine by half an inch. He would be a little sore for a while, and Grace had no doubt he would enjoy much of his convalescence watching movies in which screen heroes took bullets and survived.

  Next, in the intensive care unit, he met Emma-Jane’s parents, her mother an attractive woman in her forties who gave him a stoical smile, her father a very quiet man who sat squeezing a yellow tennis ball in his hand as if his daughter’s life depended on it. Emma-Jane seemed to be improving; that was the best they could say.

  When he left the hospital, he felt depressed, wondering what kind of a leader he was to let two of his team come so close to death. He stopped off at a workmen’s cafe, went in and had a massive fry-up and a strong cup of tea.

  When he had finished, feeling considerably better now, he sat hunched over the Formica table and made a series of phone calls. As he stood up to leave, his mobile rang. It was Nick Nicholl, asking how he was, then telling hi
m he hadn’t had a chance to report on his meeting with the officer from the Met, about the girl who had been found dead on Wimbledon Common with a scarab design on her bracelet. It had turned out to be a dead end. A coincidence. The girl’s boyfriend had confessed to her murder. Bella Moy, who had been working on all the other forces, had found no other murders with a scarab beetle at the crime scene.

  Maybe we got lucky and caught them early? Grace wondered. But not early enough for poor Janie Stretton.

  He told the young DC to go home, to put his arms around his wife, who was due to give birth any day, and tell her he loved her. Nicholl, sounding surprised, thanked him. But that was how Grace felt at this moment. That life was precious. And precarious. You never knew what was around the corner. Cherish what you had while you had it.

  As he climbed back into his car, Cleo rang, sounding bright and perky.

  ‘Hi!’ she said. ‘Sorry to be so long calling you back! Are you free to talk?’

  ‘Totally,’ he said.

  ‘Good. I’ve had one hell of a day. Four cadavers – you know what it’s like after a weekend!’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘One motorbike fatality, one fifty-year-old man who fell off a ladder, and two old ladies. Not to mention a male head that came in yesterday without much else left of him – but I think you know about that one.’

  ‘Just a little.’

  ‘Then I had to go into the centre of Brighton at lunchtime to buy an anniversary present for the aged Ps.’

  ‘Aged whats?’

  ‘My parents!’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘And I got my damned car stuck in the Civic Square car park. There was a bomb scare – can you bloody believe it?’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘When I finally got the car out, the whole bloody city was gridlocked!’

  ‘I did hear something about that,’ he said.

  ‘So how was your day?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, you know – average.’

  ‘No big excitement?’

  ‘Nah.’

  There was a strange but comfortable silence between them for some moments. Then she said, ‘I’ve been longing to speak to you all day. But I wanted to do it when we had some quality time. I didn’t want it to be just a hurried, Hi! Great shag last night. Bye!’