Dead Man's Footsteps

  Despite what he considered to be some major successes in recent months, Roy Grace knew he was just one very minor screw-up away from being transferred from the Sussex Police Force to the back of beyond. He really did not want to be moved away from Brighton and Hove. Or, even more importantly, from his beloved Cleo.

  In his view, Cassian Pewe was one of those arrogant men who were both impossibly good-looking and fully aware of it. He had golden hair, angelic blue eyes, a permanent tan and a voice as invasive as a dentist’s drill. The man preened and strutted, exuding a natural air of authority, always acting as if he was in charge, even when he wasn’t.

  Roy’d had a run-in with him over just this, when the Met had sent reinforcements to help police Brighton during the Labour Party Conference a couple of years ago. Through complete blundering arrogance, Pewe, then a Detective Inspector, had arrested two informants Roy had carefully cultivated over many years and then flatly refused to drop the charges. And to Roy’s anger, when he had taken it to the top, Alison Vosper had sided with Pewe.

  Quite what the hell she saw in the man he did not know, unless, as he sometimes darkly suspected, they were having an affair - however improbable that might be. The ACC’s haste in bringing Pewe down from the Met and promoting him, effectively splitting Grace’s duties - when in reality he was quite capable of handling everything on his own - smacked of some hidden agenda.

  Normally irritatingly chatty, Glenn Branson had not said a word since leaving the CID headquarters at Sussex House. Maybe he really was hacked off because he was being dragged away from his Friday night with the family. Maybe it was because Roy hadn’t offered to let him drive. Then suddenly the Detective Sergeant broke his silence.

  ‘Ever see that movie In the Heat of the Night?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Grace said. ‘No. Why?’

  ‘It was about a racist cop in the Deep South.’

  ‘And?’

  Branson shrugged.

  ‘I’m being racist?’

  ‘You could have ruined someone else’s weekend. Why mine?’

  ‘Because I always target black men.’

  ‘That’s what Ari thinks.’

  ‘You can’t be serious?’

  A couple of months ago, Roy had taken Glenn in as a lodger when his wife had thrown him out. After a few days of living at close quarters, it had nearly been the end of a beautiful friendship. Now Glenn was back with his wife.

  ‘I am serious.’

  ‘I think Ari has a problem.’

  ‘The opening shot on the bridge is famous. It’s one of the longest tracking shots in cinema history,’ Glenn said.

  ‘Great. I’ll watch it some time. Listen, matey, Ari has to get real.’

  Glenn offered him a piece of gum. Grace accepted and chewed, perked up by the instant hit of peppermint.

  Then Glenn said, ‘Did you really need to drag me out here tonight? You could have got someone else.’

  They passed a street corner and Grace saw a shabby man in a shell suit talking to a youth in a hoodie. To his trained eye, they looked furtive. A local drug dealer serving up.

  ‘I thought things were better between you and Ari.’

  ‘So did I. I bought her the fucking horse she wanted. Now it turns out it was the wrong kind of horse.’

  Finally, through the clunking wiper blades, Grace could see a cluster of digging machines, a police car, blue and white crime-scene tape across the entrance to a construction site, and a very drenched, unhappy-looking constable in a yellow high-visibility jacket, holding a clipboard wrapped in a plastic bag. The sight pleased Grace: at least today’s uniformed police were getting the hang of what needed to be done to preserve crime scenes.

  He pulled over, parking just in front of the police car, and turned to Glenn. ‘You’ve got your inspector’s promotion boards coming up soon, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yeah.’ The DS shrugged.

  ‘This could be just the type of inquiry that will give you plenty to talk about during your interview. The interest factor.’

  ‘Tell Ari that.’

  Grace put an arm around his friend’s shoulder. He loved this guy, who was one of the brightest detectives he had ever encountered. Glenn had all the qualities to take him a long way in the police force, but at a price. And that price was something that many couldn’t accept. The insane hours destroyed too many marriages. Mostly, those who survived best were married to other police officers. Or to nurses, or others in professions where antisocial hours were par for the course.

  ‘I chose you today because you are the best man to have beside me. But I’m not forcing you. You can come with me or you go home. It’s up to you.’

  ‘Yeah, old-timer, I go home and then what? Tomorrow I’m back in uniform, busting gays for indecent exposure down on Duke’s Mound. Have I got it right?’

  ‘More or less.’

  Grace got out of the car. Branson followed.

  Ducking against the rain and howling wind, they changed into their white oversuits and wellington boots, then, looking like a couple of sperm, walked up to the scene guard constable and signed themselves in.

  ‘You’re going to need torches,’ the constable said.

  Grace clicked his torch on, then off. Branson did the same. A second constable, also wearing a bright yellow jacket, led the way in the falling light. They squelched through sticky mud that was rutted with the tyre tread patterns of heavy plant, making their way across the vast site.

  They passed a tall crane, a silent JCB digger and stacks of building materials battened down under flapping sheets of polythene. The crumbling Victorian red-brick wall, fronting the foundations of Brighton Station’s car park, rose steeply in front of them. Beyond the darkness, they could see the orange glow of the city lights around them. A loose piece of hoarding clattered and somewhere two pieces of metal were clanging together.

  Grace was eyeing the ground. Foundation pilings were being sunk. Heavy diggers would have been criss-crossing this area for months. Any evidence would have to be found inside the storm drain – anything outside would have long gone.

  The constable stopped and pointed down into an excavated gully twenty feet below them. Grace stared at what looked like a partially buried prehistoric serpent with a jagged hole gouged out of its back. The mosaic of bricks, so old they were almost colourless, formed part of a semi-submerged tunnel just rising above the surface of the mud in places.

  The storm drain from the old Brighton to Kemp Town railway line.

  ‘Nobody knew it was there,’ the constable said. ‘The JCB fractured it earlier today.’

  Roy Grace held back for a moment, trying to overcome his fear of heights, even for this relatively small distance. Then he took a deep breath and scrambled down the steep, slippery slope, exhaling sharply with relief when he reached the bottom upright and intact. And suddenly the serpent’s body looked a whole lot bigger, and more exposed, than it had seemed from above. The rounded shape curved above him, nearly seven feet high, he guessed. The hole in the middle looked as dark as a cave.

  He strode towards it, with Branson and the constable right behind him and switched on his torch. As he entered the storm drain, shadows jigged wildly back at him. He ducked his head, crinkling his nose at the strong, fetid smell of damp. It was higher in here than it had seemed from the outside; it felt like being in an ancient tube tunnel, with no platform.

  ‘The Third Man,’ Glenn Branson said suddenly. ‘You’ve seen that movie. You’ve got that at home.’

  ‘The one with Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten?’ Grace said.

  ‘Yeah, good memory! Sewers always remind me of it.’

  Grace shone the powerful beam to the right. Darkness. Shimmering puddles of water. Ancient brickwork. Then he shone the beam to the left. And jumped.

  ‘Shit!’ Glenn Branson shouted, his voice echoing round them.

  Although Grace had been expecting it, what he saw, several yards away down the tunnel, still spooked him. A ske
leton, reclining against the wall, partially buried in silt. It looked like it was just lounging there, waiting for him. Long fronds of hair were still attached to the scalp in places, but otherwise it was mostly just bare bones, picked or rotted clean, with a few tiny patches of desiccated skin.

  He squelched towards it, being careful not to slip on the mulch base. Twin pinpricks of red appeared for an instant and were gone. A rat. He swung the beam back on to the skull, its inane rictus grin chilling him.

  And something else about it chilled him too.

  The hair. Even though the lustre had long gone, it was the same length and had the same winter-wheat colouring as the hair of his long-vanished wife, Sandy.

  Trying to dismiss the thought from his mind, he turned to the constable and asked, ‘Have you searched the whole length?’

  ‘No, sir, I thought we should wait for the SOCOs.’

  ‘Good.’

  Grace was relieved, glad that the young man had had the sense not to risk disturbing or destroying any evidence that might still be in here. Then he realized his hand was shaking. He shone the beam back on the skull.

  On the fronds of hair.

  On his thirtieth birthday, a little over nine years ago now, Sandy, the wife he adored, had vanished off the face of the earth. He had been searching for her ever since. Wondering every day, and every night, what had happened to her. Had she been kidnapped and imprisoned somewhere? Run off with a secret lover? Been murdered? Committed suicide? Was she still alive or dead? He’d even resorted to mediums, clairvoyants and just about every other kind of psychic he could find.

  Most recently he had been to Munich, where there had been a possible sighting. That made some sense, as she had relatives, on her mother’s side, from near there. But none of them had heard from her, and all his enquiries, as usual, had drawn a blank. Every time he encountered an unidentified dead woman who was remotely in Sandy’s age bracket, he wondered if perhaps this time it was her.

  And the skeleton in front of him now, in this buried storm drain in the city where he had been born, grown up and fallen in love, seemed to be taunting him, as if to say, You took your time getting here!

  6

  OCTOBER 2007

  Abby, on the hard carpeted floor, stared at the small sign beside the panel of buttons on the grey wall. In red capital letters on a white background it read:

  WHEN BROKE DOWN

  CALL 013 228 7828

  OR DIAL 999

  The grammar did not exactly fill her with confidence. Below the button panel was a narrow, cracked glass door. Slowly, one inch at a time, she crawled across the floor. It was only a few feet away but, with the lift rocking wildly at every movement, it might as well have been on the far side of the world.

  Finally she reached it, prised it open and removed the handset, which was attached to a coiled wire.

  It was dead.

  She tapped the cradle and the lift swayed wildly again, but there was no sound from the handset. She dialled the numbers, just in case. Still nothing.

  Great, she thought. Terrific. Then she eased her mobile from her handbag and dialled 999.

  The phone beeped sharply at her. On the display the message appeared:

  No network coverage.

  ‘Jesus, no, don’t do this to me.’

  Breathing fast, she switched the phone off, then a few seconds later switched it back on again, watching, waiting for just one signal blob to appear. But none did.

  She dialled 999 again and got the same sharp beep and message. She tried again, then again, jabbing the buttons harder each time.

  ‘Come on, come on. Please, please.’

  She stared at the display again. Sometimes signal strength came and went. Maybe if she waited …

  Then she called out, tentatively at first, ‘Hello? Help me!’

  Her voice sound small, bottled.

  Taking a deep lungful of air, she bellowed at the top of her voice, ‘HELLO? HELP ME PLEASE! HELP ME! I’M TRAPPED IN THE LIFT!’

  She waited. Silence.

  Silence so loud she could hear it. The hum of one of the lights in the panel above her. The thudding of her own heart. The sound of her blood coursing through her veins. The rapid hiss-puff of her own breathing.

  She could see the walls shrinking in around her.

  She breathed in slowly, then out. She stared at the display of her phone again. Her hand was shaking so much it was almost impossible to read it. The figures were just a blur. She breathed in deeply again, and again. Dialled 999 once more. Nothing. Then, putting the phone down, she pounded hard on the wall.

  There was a reverberating boom and the lift swayed alarmingly, clanging into one side of the shaft and dropping a few more inches.

  ‘HELP ME!’ she screamed.

  Even that caused the lift to rock and bang again. She lay still. The lift settled.

  Then, through her terror, she felt a flash of hysterical anger at her predicament. Hauling herself a few feet forward, she began pounding on the metal doors and yelling at the same time – yelling until her ears hurt from the din, and her throat was too sore to go on, and she began coughing, as if she had swallowed a whole lungful of dust.

  ‘LET ME OUT!’

  Then she felt the lift move, suddenly, as if someone had pushed down on the roof. Her eyes shot up. She held her breath, listening.

  But all she could hear was the silence.

  7

  11 SEPTEMBER 2001

  Lorraine Wilson was topless on a deckchair in her garden, soaking up the last of the summer, trying to prolong her tan. Through large oval sunglasses she looked at her watch – the gold Rolex Ronnie had bought her for her birthday, in June, and which he had insisted was genuine. But she didn’t believe that. She knew Ronnie too well. He would not have spent ten thousand pounds when he could have bought something that looked the same for fifty. And certainly not at the moment, with his financial worries.

  Not that he ever shared his problems with her, but she could tell from the way he had recently tightened up on everything, checking her grocery bills, complaining about the money she spent on clothes, her hair and even her lunches out with her friends. Parts of the house were looking embarrassingly shabby, but Ronnie refused to let her call in the decorators, telling her they would have to economize.

  She loved him deeply, but there was a part of him that she could never reach, as if he had a secret internal compartment where he kept and fought his private demon, all alone. She knew a little of what that demon was – his determination to show the world, and in particular everyone who knew him, that he was a success.

  Which was why he had bought this house, just off Shirley Drive, that they really could not afford. It wasn’t big, but it was in one of the most expensive residential districts of Brighton and Hove, a tranquil, hilly area of detached houses with sizeable gardens along tree-lined streets. And because the house was modern, on split levels, it looked different from most of the more conventional Edwardian mock-Tudor houses that were the mainstay of the area; people did not realize it was actually quite small. The teak decking and bijou outdoor pool added a touch of Beverly Hills glamour.

  It was 1.50 p.m. Nice that he had just called. Time zones always confused her; strange that he was having his breakfast and she was having her cottage cheese and berries lunch. She was happy that he was flying back tonight. She always missed him when he was away – and, knowing he was a womanizer, she always wondered what he got up to when he was on his own. But this was a short trip – just three days, not too bad.

  This part of the garden was completely private, shielded from their neighbours by a tall trellis interwoven with mature ivy and a huge out-of-control rhododendron bush that seemed to have ambitions to be a tree. She watched the electronic pool sweeper cruising up and down the blue water, sending out ripples. Alfie, their tabby cat, seemed to have found something interesting at the back of the rhododendron and was walking slowly past, staring, then turning, walking slowly past again and star
ing some more.

  You never knew what cats were thinking, she thought suddenly. Alfie was a bit like Ronnie, really.

  She put her plate down on the ground and picked up the Daily Mail. She had an hour and a half before she needed to leave for the hairdresser. She was going to have highlights put in and then go to the nail studio. She always wanted to look nice for him.

  Luxuriating in the warm rays of sun, she turned the pages. In a few minutes she would get up and iron his shirts. He might buy fake watches, but he always bought the real thing in shirts, and always from Jermyn Street, in London. He was obsessive about them being ironed properly. Now that the cleaning lady had gone, as part of their economy drive, she was having to do all the housework herself.

  Smiling, she thought back to those early days with Ronnie, when she had actually liked doing his washing and ironing. Ten years ago, when they’d first met, when she’d been working as a sales demonstrator in duty free at Gatwick Airport, Ronnie had been putting back together the broken pieces of his life after his beautiful but brainless wife had run off to Los Angeles, to shack up with someone she’d met on a girls’ night out in London, a film director who was going to make her a star.

  She remembered their first holiday, in a small rented flat outside Marbella, overlooking the yacht basin of Puerto Banus. Ronnie had drunk beer on the balcony, looking enviously down at the yachts, promising her that one day they’d own the biggest yacht in the harbour. And he knew how to romance a woman, all right. He was a master at it.

  She had loved nothing better than to wash his clothes. To feel his T-shirts, swimming trunks, underwear, socks and handkerchiefs in her hands. To breathe in his manly smells on them. It was intensely satisfying to iron those beautiful shirts and then watch him wearing them, as if he was wearing part of herself.

  Now it was a chore, and she found herself resenting his meanness.

  She went back to the article on HRT she had been reading. The ongoing debate about whether the reduction of menopause symptoms – and the retention of youthful looks – outweighed the extra risks of breast cancer and other nasties. A wasp buzzed around her head and she flapped it away, then paused to stare down at her own chest. Two years away from forty and everything was starting to go south, except for her expensive breasts.