‘It’s what I like,’ he mumbled without looking up at her, and realized he had now re-read the same sentence three times.
‘It’s important to vary your diet, you know, Eric. There’s a lot of mercury in fish. Too much fish is bad for you.’
‘I’m a bit of a fishy character!’
‘Oooh, you’ve got a wicked sense of humour, haven’t you? I can tell!’
He wished he’d kept his mouth shut. Then he silently prayed that if he were ever in his life unfortunate enough to get stuck in a lift with someone, it wouldn’t be her.
His phone rang.
Saved by the bell, he thought, picking it up.
It was the receptionist. Her voice sounded strange. ‘Eric, there’s a gentleman and a lady who’d like to speak to you in the Conference Room.’
‘Really? What about? I don’t have any appointments today.’
In fact, he very rarely had appointments. He mostly worked alone, crunching numbers; it was other people in this firm who regularly dealt with the clients. The only meetings he ever had were the occasional ones with inspectors from the HM Revenue and Customs probing into the finances of clients, and when he was auditing.
‘They are police officers – detectives. They’re interviewing everyone in the firm.’
‘Ah.’ He frowned. ‘Shall I come down?’
‘Right away, if you could, please.’
‘Yes, good, right.’ He stood up and put on his jacket. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said to Angela McNeill. ‘I – my appointment’s here – I have to go to the Conference Room.’
‘Aren’t you going to finish your lunch first?’
‘I’ll have it afterwards.’
‘Would you like me to put your sandwich in the fridge? You shouldn’t leave it out, you could get salmonella.’
‘A bit of salmonella would go rather nicely with tuna,’ he said, and escaped from the room, leaving Angela to laugh at his joke.
As he walked along the corridor he wondered what this could be about. Had they found the bicycle he’d had stolen two years ago? Somehow he didn’t think they’d be interviewing everyone in the firm about that.
He entered the small Conference Room, with its eight-seater table, with a breezy smile but feeling nervous. A tall black man in a flashy suit and even flashier tie stood there. Next to him was a rather plain-looking woman in her mid-thirties, with tangled brown hair, wearing a white blouse, black trousers and utilitarian black shoes.
‘Good afternoon!’ he said. He could feel beads of sweat popping on his brow. Police always had that effect on him. He noticed the male officer peering down at his feet for a moment.
‘Eric Whiteley?’ The man produced a warrant card. ‘I’m Acting Detective Inspector Branson and this is my colleague, Detective Sergeant Moy. Thank you for taking the time to talk to us.’
Eric studied his warrant card for some moments because he felt he should, to look like he was taking this meeting seriously. Then he said, expansively, ‘Please have a seat. Can I offer you any refreshments?’
‘Thank you,’ the Acting DI said. ‘We’ve already been looked after.’
‘Good!’ Eric said. ‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it!’
He noticed a quick exchange of glances between the two officers. The two detectives sat on one side of the table, with their backs to the window with its view out across the Pavilion grounds, and he sat opposite them. Immediately he realized he was in a bad position, because the strong afternoon light from the brilliant blue sky was directly behind them, making it hard to see their faces clearly.
He felt intimidated. Like sitting in front of two school bullies. ‘Erm, I don’t suppose you’ve come about my bicycle?’
Both of them looked at him strangely. ‘Bicycle?’ the woman said.
‘I had it stolen from outside – a long time ago now. The bastards cut through the padlock.’
‘No, I’m sorry,’ Branson said. ‘That would be local uniform or CID – we’re from the Major Crime Branch.’
‘Ah.’ Eric nodded approvingly.
The detective was staring very hard at his face, eyeball to eyeball, which made Eric feel even more uncomfortable. As if at any moment he was about to say Ubu! Useless, Boring, Ugly! Instead he said, ‘Mr Whiteley, we’re making enquiries regarding the murder of an as yet unidentified body. The torso which was found at—’
‘Stonery Farm?’ Eric interrupted.
‘Yes,’ Bella Moy said.
‘Correct,’ Branson confirmed. ‘There were also body parts which belong to this same body recovered from the West Sussex Piscatorial Society trout lake near Henfield.’
Eric nodded. ‘Yes, yes, I thought you’d be getting round to me eventually!’ He gave a nervous laugh, but neither detective smiled.
‘How long have you worked here, Mr Whiteley?’ Glenn Branson asked.
He thought for a moment. ‘At Feline Bradley-Hamilton? Twenty-two years. Well, it will be twenty-three in November.’
‘And what exactly is your role here?’
‘I do company audits, mostly.’
The detective was still eyeballing him, without blinking. ‘Would I be correct in saying you carried out the audits this year on Stonery Farm and on the West Sussex Piscatorial Society?’
‘Something fishy about the West Sussex Piscatorial Society, is there, Detective?’ He giggled nervously at his joke.
Neither of them smiled, which made him even more nervous.
‘Nothing fishy at all, Mr Whiteley,’ he replied, levelly. ‘Could you tell us how long you have been auditing these two?’
Whiteley thought for some moments. ‘Well, some years.’ He looked down. He was feeling increasingly intimidated. ‘Yes. Ten years, at least. I can check if you would like? With Stonery Farm I could tell you egg-zactly!’ He giggled again, and was met with stony glares.
‘We’re investigating a murder, Mr Whiteley,’ Glenn Branson said. ‘I’m afraid we don’t quite share your humour on this. Have you ever been to the premises of Stonery Farm, Mr Whiteley?’
‘Every year. I do some of the accounts work on site.’
‘And you’ve been to the West Sussex Piscatorial Society trout lake?’
‘Only once, just to familiarize myself with the location – it’s the club’s main asset. But I carry out the audit work for the club here – it’s very straightforward.’
‘Does anyone else from this firm accompany you when you audit Stonery Farm?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I get on very well with Mr Winter, the owner; it’s a job for one person, really.’ His armpits were damp. He was sweating profusely now and still could not see their faces clearly. He wanted to get back to his office, to his solitude and his lunch and his newspaper. ‘This murder is a terrible thing,’ he went on. ‘I mean, there could be a bad impact on Stonery Farm’s business. I mean, would you want to eat free-range eggs from hens that had been feeding in an area where there was a corpse? I’m not sure I would.’
‘Or eat fish that had been feeding where human body parts were found?’ the woman detective asked.
Whiteley nodded. ‘Very creepy, if you ask me.’ He giggled again, then looked at the two faces glaring at him. At the two bullies. Two unsmiling bullies. ‘I’m very careful what I put in my mouth – what I eat. My body is my temple.’
‘Kramer vs. Kramer,’ Branson said.
‘Pardon me?’
‘Dustin Hoffman said that in the movie.’
‘Ah, right.’
There was a brief silence, which Eric Whiteley found increasingly awkward. The two detectives stared at him as if he were a book they were reading. Clearing his throat he said, ‘Um, so how do you feel that I can – you know – assist in your enquiries?’ He grinned again, from nerves.
‘Well,’ Glenn Branson said, ‘it might help if you stopped finding this so funny, Mr Whiteley.’
‘Sorry.’ Eric ran his fingers across his lips. ‘Zipped!’
There was a long silence again. He felt the two det
ectives just simply staring at him. As if their eyes were full of unasked questions. He squirmed in his chair. He was hungry. He wished he had eaten his sandwich now. And the Twix. But at the same time, his stomach was feeling unsettled. He glanced at his watch. His lunch hour was running out. Ten minutes left.
‘Got a bus to catch?’ Glenn Branson asked. ‘Or a train?’
‘I’m sorry, I’m not with you.’
‘You keep looking at your watch.’
‘Yes, well, I am a bit worried about salmonella. You see, you need to be careful with sandwiches in this heat.’
Once more he clocked the two detectives exchanging a glance. Like some secret code.
Like school bullies.
Branson looked directly at him again, staring into his eyes. ‘Does the name Myles Royce mean anything to you?’
He did not like the bullying stare from the detective and looked down at the table. ‘Myles Royce? No, I don’t think so, why?’
‘You don’t think so?’ Glenn Branson asked. ‘You don’t think so or are you certain?’
The detective’s manner was making him agitated. He was feeling flushed again, his face getting hot. He wanted to be out of this room and back in the sanctuary of his own office. ‘How certain can any of us be of anything in life?’ Eric replied, eyes still fixed on the table. ‘I don’t want to give you a wrong answer. This firm deals with lots of clients and each of them in turn employs lots of people. The name doesn’t mean anything to me today, but I can’t guarantee I’ve never met someone of that name. I wouldn’t want to be accused of misleading you.’
‘I’m not exactly clear,’ Glenn said, speaking very slowly and firmly. ‘Are you saying you’ve never met someone by the name of Myles Royce? Myles Terence Royce?’
Eric closed his eyes for some moments. He was shaking. Then he glared defiantly back at Branson. ‘I will not be bullied. Do I make myself clear?’
80
As Drayton Wheeler clambered down the steps of the coach into the blazing June sunshine, he was perspiring heavily and his wig had become even itchier. A young man, wearing a yellow tabard over a T-shirt and ripped jeans, was bellowing through a megaphone.
‘All extras proceed to the assembly area opposite the front entrance of the Pavilion!’
The street was lined with production trucks and there were heavy-duty cables trailing everywhere. A camera mounted on a dolly sat on a long length of track on the Pavilion lawn. There were gantries of lights high up off the ground; harassed-looking grips and gaffers were working feverishly. The Director of Photography was standing near the camera, taking light measurements and issuing instructions to his crew. To the left, on the tarmac area in front of the Dome, was a cluster of large motorhomes with slide-outs, and it was easy to spot Gaia’s, which was the size of a house, and Judd Halpern’s, only marginally smaller, parked alongside it, power cables and water hoses trailing from each. A huge crowd of onlookers was gathered behind a tape cordon manned by several security guards.
Gathered to watch the filming of scenes he had suggested and which Brooker Brody Productions had stolen.
Oh, they were going to be sorry.
The young man, the third, fourth or fifth Assistant Director, continued to bellow instructions.
Drayton scowled. He shuffled along in the line of extras in their equally hot and uncomfortable costumes.
A hawk-eyed young woman came running up to him, her hair in a messy ponytail, a headset with earpiece and microphone clipped to her head. ‘Sorry,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘You can’t have that rucksack with you!’
‘I’m a diabetic!’ he snapped back. ‘It has my medication.’
‘I’ll look after it for you – if you need anything in it, just let me know – I’ll be around.’ She reached for the bag and he gripped it tightly.
‘I’m not letting this out of my sight, young lady. Okay?’
‘It’s not okay. People in 1810 did not carry rucksacks!’
Wheeler pointed at the building. ‘Yeah? Let me tell you something. You see that building?’
‘The Pavilion?’
‘Uh huh. You’re telling me rucksacks didn’t exist in 1810?’
‘That’s right!’
‘Yeah, well let me tell you something else. This goddamn fucking Royal Pavilion didn’t exist in 1810 either.’
‘Well,’ she said, smiling, unfazed. ‘This is a movie – we have to cut a little slack here and take some licence with exact dates.’
Gripping his rucksack tightly in his fist he said, ‘Yeah, right. Well, that’s what I’m doing too, I’m cutting a little slack. So fuck off.’
They glared at each other for some moments. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll be right back!’
He watched her hurry off. Then he hastily pushed his way past the long line of costumed extras in front of him and reached the front entrance of the Pavilion. A security guard stepped into his path. ‘Sorry, sir, ticket holders only.’
‘I have to use the toilet,’ Drayton Wheeler said.
The guard pointed to his left, towards the catering truck and the cluster of motorhomes. ‘The toilet facilities for extras are over there, sir.’
He pointed to his rucksack. ‘The AD told me I could put my rucksack inside. I’m a diabetic you see. She said I could store it in the back room where the wheelchairs are. I need to take a shot.’
The guard frowned. Then, conspiratorially he said, ‘Okay, be quick.’
Wheeler thanked him, and hurried inside. The corridor was deserted. He stopped by the the closed, ochre-painted half-gate at the top of the stone staircase that led down into the basement of the building, and looked around. No one in sight. He slipped the bolt as he had done previously, closed the gate behind him, then descended the steps and hurried along the underground brick-floored corridor. He stopped outside the decrepit green door, with the yellow and black DANGER – HIGH VOLTAGE sign, and yanked it open. He stepped inside, into the familiar fusty smell and pulled the door shut behind him.
Then he flicked on his torch. He checked out the wall of fuses and electrical switchgear, and the pipework that looked like it was lagged in asbestos. A pair of bright red eyes shone back.
A rat, the size of a small cat. Then with a scratching, scurrying sound it was gone.
‘Fuck you!’
He shone the torch around, checking every crevice. Listening to the humming sound and the rhythmic click-tick-click-tick of the electrics. It felt even warmer in here than before. He shone the torch around again, warily. He hated rats. He hated spiders. He hated enclosed spaces.
In six months’ time his body would be in an enclosed space. A coffin.
He smiled.
The last laugh, oh yes. He would have that all right.
He’d left instructions in his will for his ashes to be flushed down the toilet of Brooker Brody Productions offices on the Universal Studio lot.
As he pulled off his horrible wig, and wriggled out of the rest of his clothes, he just hoped there was an afterlife, so that he could get to witness it.
Particularly to see the face of that bitch, his not quite ex-wife, when she heard about those instructions.
He opened his rucksack and started to take out his normal clothes and provisions. Okay, so this wasn’t the greatest place to spend the next twenty-four hours, and they didn’t do room service. But compared to the coffin awaiting him in six months’ time, this was a suite at the Ritz Carlton.
81
‘The time is 6.30 pm, Monday, the thirteenth of June. This is the eighteenth briefing of Operation Icon,’ Roy Grace said to his team. ‘We’ve made some good progress since this morning.’ He turned to Potting. ‘Norman?’
Potting had a smug smile on his face that made him look like a gross Buddha, Glenn Branson thought, staring at the old warhorse, still unable to believe this man was now, unknowingly, his love rival.
‘We have a report back from the lab,’ Potting said, smugly, in his rural burr. ‘The DNA from the hairbrush
and toothbrush I took from the home of Myles Royce matches the DNA from the torso recovered from Stonery Farm, and the limbs recovered from the West Sussex Piscatorial Society. No question, it is the same person.’
The atmosphere in the room changed perceptibly.
‘Good work, Norman,’ Grace said. ‘Okay, we need to do our background on the victim. Norman, as you’ve already met the mother, you should take a Family Liaison Officer with you and break the news. See what further information you can find out from her about his friends and associates. Get the mother’s permission to search his house. In particular let’s see if he left a computer or mobile phone – and hopefully both. If his mobile phone isn’t there, ask his mother for his number, and we can still get most of what we need from his service provider. We can get cell-site analysis done on his movements, and we can see who he talked to.’
He paused and made a note. ‘If he owned a car, let’s gets its movement history over the past eighteen months off the ANPR network. Also see what photographs he has in his house of other people – who his friends were and who he admired. I’ll get the High Tech Crime Unit to hunt on social networking sites – see if he tweeted, had a Facebook page, Linked-In, any of those. We need to know everything about him. Who he engaged with, where he went to socialize, what hobbies or kinky perversions he was into, what clubs he was a member of. In particular I want to know more about his Gaia obsession and any fan clubs he had joined. Okay, Norman, that’s your action.’
‘Yes, chief.’
Glenn looked at Potting, then at Bella. She looked so sad today, yet he knew how he could make her happy. If he could get that prat Potting out of the way.
Was he being ridiculous? His own life was a total mess, and maybe it was totally wrong to start thinking about messing with someone else’s.