Want You Dead (19 page)

He was also thinking about a new card trick that he had almost perfected, and how, if it was quiet, he would try it on some of the lads today. He was far too preoccupied to notice the small white van that kept a steady two hundred yards behind him in the breaking daylight.

He turned left, drove along the side of Worthing fire station, and pulled up in an empty bay at the rear. Several of the garage doors were raised and two of the fire engines were out in the car park being cleaned by his night-shift colleagues as their last duty before heading home.

He took a final drag on his cigarette, then tossed it out of the window onto the tarmac. It rolled along, throwing a shower of sparks, before being extinguished by the rain.

One of the biggest excitements about his work was never knowing what was going to happen in five minutes’ time. The siren might sound in the station at any moment. When it did, the officers required would be out of the common room, down the pole, into their uniforms and racing out on blues and twos within the target time of ninety seconds.

In fifteen years he’d not met a firefighter who did not passionately love the adrenaline rush from riding in one of these massive red beasts. And no amount of money on earth could replicate the thrill of helming an eighteen-ton fire engine through a city’s streets, together with the heightened sense of danger that so often went with it, not knowing what you would be facing at the other end.

He wondered what today might bring. The majority of firefighters, like himself, found domestic house fires, where all kinds of different aspects of your training came into play, the most challenging and the most satisfying. Some preferred cutting people out of car wrecks. Others the theatre of massive industrial building fires, with dozens of crews from around the county attending. But for all of them, the most satisfaction came from rescuing people and saving lives.

And there was one thing a number of firefighters had in common: although the Fire and Rescue Service was their day job, and the fulcrum around which their lives revolved, many of them, like himself, had second careers. He hoped that, at some point, he could make enough money out of his magic to do it full-time. It was certainly heading that way, from the rise in the number of bookings. And with two small children at home, his wife, Sue, would be a lot happier if he no longer had to work the dangerous, anti-social – and often extended – hours that went with this job.

Bryce Laurent, standing in the shadows in the pelting rain, watched Matt Wainwright until he had gone inside. Then he turned his focus back to the cigarette butt on the ground. After some minutes, both fire engines were reversed into the garage and the doors closed. The rear car park was now deserted, patterned with a mosaic of weak light from the windows above.

Bryce, dressed head to toe in black, strode stealthily over to the cigarette, picked it up in his gloved fingers, then carefully placed it in a small plastic bag and slipped it into his pocket. Then, looking around and up, he took the few steps over to Matt Wainwright’s Nissan and within a matter of seconds had popped the driver’s door open.

Wainwright had been pissing him off for the past three years. Eating his lunch. Fancying himself. Getting gigs he had been after. And which he would have been much better at.

Not any more, dude!

He slipped inside the car, and closed the door.

49

Tuesday, 29 October

‘Good morning, old timer. Got a few minutes?’ Glenn Branson said, breezing into Roy Grace’s office at a quarter to eight on Tuesday. Then he hesitated, noticing the mug of coffee, the opened can of Coke, and the blister pack of paracetamol, with most of them popped open. Roy Grace’s tie was at half mast, his normally healthy complexion was pallid and his eyes had the telltale bloodshot look that came from lack of sleep or a hangover.

Or, in Grace’s case right now, both.

‘You look like shit!’

‘Thanks,’ Grace said, unsmiling.

‘Seriously, I mean it. Did you have your stag night early and forget to tell me?’

‘Very funny.’ He stared at the DI. Glenn was wearing one of his regular sharp suits, this one a shiny brown, with a tie that could have been seen from Mars. For someone who had lost his wife less than three months ago, even though they were separated, he seemed to have been remarkably cheery these past few weeks. But now he had his kids, his house – and his life – back.

Outside the window, with its view across the ASDA supermarket car park and loading bay, and south over Brighton towards the sea, the sky was a tombstone grey and rain was falling heavily. ‘Remember Cassian Pewe?’ Grace quizzed him.

‘Lovely Cassian Pewe,’ he replied. ‘The golden-haired Met officer, with his rasping, nasally voice. He was seconded here last year and managed to upset just about everyone in this building and in Sussex CID. Yeah, remember him well, unfortunately. Mr Two Face.’

Grace drained his glass of Coke then topped it up. ‘Yeah.’ He was remembering him well, too. Which accounted for his drinking binge last night, which he was now regretting in the cold light of day. After Pewe had returned to the Met with his tail between his legs, Grace had found out that Pewe had messed with evidence on a cold case he was looking into, and he had threatened him with arrest.

What he had never known, and still did not, was that Cassian Pewe had had a brief affair with his wife, Sandy.

He told Glenn Branson the latest news about the appointment.

‘I can’t believe it! Pewe? Assistant Chief Constable?’

‘Yeah, well you’re going to have to believe it.’

‘Remember that movie,
The Sting
?’

‘Robert Redford and Paul Newman?’

‘And Robert Shaw.’

‘What about it?’

Branson shrugged. ‘I’ll set my mind to it. We’ll sort the bastard out, somehow.’

For the first time since he had left Tom Martinson’s office last night, Grace smiled. ‘Thanks mate, I like your attitude. Maybe I should try a charm offensive first.’

‘Got a snake charmer, have you?’

‘I should try to find one on Google.’ Grace grinned again, then looked serious. ‘So, you didn’t come to hear my problems. Tell me.’

‘You asked me to go and talk to Ms Red Westwood last night, yeah?’

Roy Grace nodded.

‘She’s a smart lady. Intelligent and rational. I’ll give you the full history and I think you’re going to agree with me when you’ve heard it that the doctor at Haywards Heath Golf Club – the burnt body and the suicide note – there might be something more going on there than we think.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning it might not be suicide.’

‘All the forensic evidence indicates he took his own life,’ Grace said, taking a sip of his coffee. ‘He was alive at the time the fire started. There was flame damage to his mouth and throat, and he had inhaled a lot of smoke.’

‘Hear me out,’ Branson said, pulling out his notebook, then going through everything he had written down in faithful detail.

Twenty minutes later, Grace scrabbled through the piles of folders cluttering his desk and pulled out the one on Dr Karl Murphy. From it he extracted his copy of Murphy’s suicide note. Instantly his eyes went to the one sentence he found so curious.

‘How much did this lady tell you about Dr Murphy, Glenn?’

Branson thought for some moments. Through the window Grace noticed a police patrol car slow down, indicating left as it travelled down the hill, then turning in towards the gates to the Custody Centre. He caught a glimpse of a hunched figure in the rear. A prisoner, arrested for some alleged offence, on his way to be processed. In his gloom, Grace’s thoughts momentarily digressed to his baby son, Noah. There were so many sodding miscreants out there, and they would only ever arrest a tiny percentage. How the hell could he ever make this world safe for his child?

As Glenn Branson relayed all that Red Westwood had said about Karl Murphy, Grace made notes. The doctor was a keen golfer – which fitted with his body being found on a golf course – and, from what little he knew of the game, Haywards Heath had a high reputation.

‘Red said he liked puzzles,’ Branson continued. ‘He did
The Times
crossword every day – he’d told her proudly that his record time was just two minutes short of the world champion.’

‘You any good at crosswords?’ Grace asked him.

Branson shook his head. ‘Don’t think I’m hardwired that way. Ari did them sometimes, used to ask me for help with some clues. I never understood them, except if they were to do with movies. She said I was thick.’ He looked sad suddenly, then shrugged. ‘Yeah, she was probably right. She was a lot smarter than me.’ He fell silent for a moment. ‘We did have good times. Before . . .’

Grace looked at him quizzically. It was the first time in a while that his friend had mentioned his wife. ‘Before?’

Branson shrugged. ‘Before Sammy was born. That’s when it all changed. Suddenly I was no longer number one in her life. Don’t let that happen to you and Cleo.’

Grace knew what he meant. He and Cleo had discussed this many times, and they’d both agreed that whilst the birth of Noah had changed things and they loved him truly, deeply, they would always make time for each other. He nodded. ‘We’re working on it.’

‘Work on it hard, mate. Our happiness graph hit rock bottom and stayed there. It got even worse after Remi was born and Ari became depressed.’

He stopped suddenly, with a catch in his voice, and Grace saw a single tear trickle down his cheek. He leaned across his desk and patted Glenn on his shoulder. ‘She gave you hell that you never deserved, mate. Don’t forget that.’

Glenn smiled and wiped away his tear with the back of his hand. ‘Yeah. I know. But I can’t help thinking back.’

‘You’d be a strange man if you didn’t.’

Glenn nodded and sniffed. ‘Okay, let’s focus. One other thing, for what it’s worth, Red said that Karl Murphy’s wife, who died, was German-born, like his mother.’

‘Any significance in that?’

Branson shook his head. ‘Well, nothing that she’s aware of.’

Despite his head feeling like it had been stung by a thousand bees, Roy Grace drummed his fingers on his desktop, and for some moments was preoccupied with his thoughts. ‘I don’t like what I’m hearing from you about the fires.’

‘I didn’t think you would.’

‘What we have against us is the pathologist’s report. But . . .’ He read through his notes. ‘This connection through the fires. Red Westwood is the one common link in all of them. I think I’d like to get a second opinion from Jack Skerritt.’

Roy Grace was Head of Major Crime, and could make the decision to upgrade the enquiry into Dr Karl Murphy’s death into a murder investigation on his own. But because of his uncertainties, and both the time and financial costs to the force of a full-scale murder enquiry, it was normal practice to run his thoughts past his superior – as much to cover his own back as for any other reason, particularly as he knew that ACC Cassian Pewe would be looking for any errors of judgement to give him the chance to haul him over the coals.

He called Skerritt’s assistant, to be told he was away today but had a thirty-minute window first thing the next morning.

‘I can take over the investigation for you while you’re on honeymoon,’ Glenn said. ‘I don’t want this to mess it up for you.’

‘My work comes first,’ Grace said.

The DI shook his head. ‘That’s what screwed up your marriage to Sandy, and mine to Ari. Don’t let it happen to you again. You’ve got someone very special in Cleo.’

‘Karl Murphy was very special to some people, too,’ Grace said. ‘We need to find out the truth.’

‘I’m not letting you screw your life up, mate. You’d better understand that.’

Grace stared back at his friend and colleague. And saw he looked deadly serious.

50

Tuesday, 29 October

It was full daylight now, but still raining hard beneath a bitumen black sky. Back in his van, parked a short distance along from Worthing fire station, Bryce Laurent was glad of the cover the rain would give him. He saw the fire station doors rise. Moments later two appliances, blue lights strobing, sirens wailing, pulled out into the rush-hour traffic. It was shortly after 9 a.m. He noticed in the front passenger seat of the second fire engine the figure of Matt Wainwright. Crew Commander. He knew the routine.

Ninety seconds after the klaxon sounded in the fire station, the crews would head out, following the instructions on the slip of paper printed out at the station, and the updates in real time on the computer screen inside the cab. He’d enjoyed his brief time as a Fire and Rescue officer with this crew here.

But he hadn’t been so happy when they’d sacked him.

That was so totally not deserved. Matt was a wannabe magician. Laurent had helped him, shown him some of the tricks of the trade. Then the little shit had started taking some of his gigs. That had to be stopped.

And, oh yes, he was going to stop this!

The appliances screamed past him.

And something screamed inside his head.

His mother.

He dug his fingers into his ears.

But still he could hear her screams.

That night.

That night he became free.

51

‘Are you ready for Mummy, darling?’

She came staggering into his bedroom, naked except for her red high heels, as he lay reading Dennis the Menace in
The Beano
comic. She had a bent joint in her mouth, with an inch of ash on the tip, and fumes of alcohol filled the air, along with the pungent, rubbery smell of the burning drug.

Moments later she sat heavily on the side of the bed, and looked down in surprise as the ash fell onto the carpet. Her long red hair tumbled around her face like a stage curtain coming down on the first act. She gave him the joint and told him to draw on it. He did so out of duty, then she told him to draw on it again, and slid her hand under the duvet, taking hold of him.

His head began swimming and he felt a tingling deep in his belly. And burning embarrassment. Her grip on him was starting to feel deeply erotic. She slipped her flaccid, wrinkled body under the sheets beside him, and tossed his comic onto the floor, then gripped his penis harder in her hand and began to massage it gently. Despite himself, he felt it enlarging. Until suddenly it was so painfully stiff it hurt.