Dead Like You (43 page)

113

Sunday 18 January

The evening was passing slowly for Roy Grace. He sat in his office, looking at Jessie Sheldon’s family tree, which had been assembled by one of his team members. Her computer and mobile phone records were currently being examined by two members of the overloaded and undermanned High-Tech Crime Unit, who had given up their Sundays for the task.

The only report he’d received so far was that Jessie was very active on social networking sites – something she had in common with the woman who had nearly become a victim of the Shoe Man on Thursday afternoon, Dee Burchmore.

Was that how he followed his victims?

Mandy Thorpe had been active on Facebook and on two other sites as well. But neither Nicola Taylor, who had been raped in the Metropole Hotel, early on New Year’s Day, nor Roxy Pearce, who had been raped in her home in The Droveway, had presences on any social networking sites, not did they Tweet.

It came back to the same thing linking each of these women. They had all recently bought expensive shoes from shops in Brighton. All except Mandy Thorpe.

Despite Dr Proudfoot’s insistence to the contrary, the Detective Superintendent continued to believe that Mandy Thorpe had not been raped by the Shoe Man but by someone else. Perhaps by a copycat. Or possibly the timing was coincidental.

His phone rang. It was DC Michael Foreman from MIR-1.

‘Just had a report in from Hotel 900, who are going down to refuel, sir. So far they have nothing to report, except for two possible anomalies in the old cement works.’

‘
Anomalies
?’ Grace queried, wondering what the police helicopter crew meant by that.

He knew they had thermal-imaging equipment on board, which could detect humans in pitch darkness or dense fog just from the body heat they gave off. Unfortunately, while good for following villains who were fleeing from a stolen car and trying to hide in woods, or in alleys, it was easily fooled by animals or by anything that retained warmth.

‘Yes, sir. They can’t be sure they’re human – could be foxes or badgers or stray cats or dogs.’

‘OK, get a response unit down there to check it out. Keep me posted.’

*

Half an hour later, DC Foreman rang Grace back. A patrol car had attended the entrance to the old cement works and reported that the place was secure. There were ten-foot-high locked gates, topped with razor wire, and extensive surveillance.

‘What kind of surveillance?’ Grace asked.

‘Remote monitoring. A Brighton firm with a good reputation, Sussex Remote Monitoring Services. If there was anything going on in there it would have been picked up by now by them, sir.’

‘I know the name,’ Grace said.

‘The police use them. I think the Sussex House door pads were all installed by them.’

‘Right. OK.’ Like everyone in the city, he knew the cement works. It was one of the big landmarks, heading west, and there were rumours that at some point it was going to be reactivated after nearly two decades in mothballs. It was a vast place, situated in a chalk quarry hewn out of the Downs, comprising a group of buildings, each of them bigger than a football pitch. He wasn’t even sure who the current owners were, but no doubt there would be a sign on the front.

To do a search he’d either have to get their consent or obtain a search warrant. And for an effective search, he’d have to put a big team in there. It would need to be done in daylight.

He made a note on his pad for the morning.

114

Sunday 18 January

‘Jessie!’ he shouted. ‘Phone call for you.’

He sounded so plausible, she almost believed him.

‘Jessie! It’s Benedict! He wants to do a deal with me to let you go! But first he needs to know you are OK. He wants to speak to you!’

She remained silent, trying to think this through. Had Benedict rung, which was highly probable, and the creep answered?

Was this about a ransom?

Benedict didn’t have any money. What kind of deal could he do? And anyhow, this creep was a pervert, the Shoe Man, or whoever he was. He wanted her to masturbate with her shoe. What deal was he talking about? It didn’t make sense.

And she knew, if she shouted, she would give her location away.

Lying on the old cement sacks, aching with cramp and craving water, she realized, for the moment anyway, that despite everything she was safe up here. She’d heard him creeping around the place for nearly two hours, downstairs first, then up on the floor above her, then clambering on to another level that did not sound far below her. At one point he had been so close she could hear him breathing. But mostly he had been silent, just every now and then giving away his position by kicking something, or crunching something underfoot, or with a ping of metal on metal. But he had not switched on his torch.

For a while she’d wondered if he had broken it, or if the battery had run out. But then she’d seen something that chilled her.

A very faint red glow.

It was not an area of technology on which she was clued up, but she remembered a movie in which a character had used night-vision equipment and that had given off a barely detectable red glow. Was that what he was using in here, she wondered?

Something through which he would watch her, without being seen?

So why hadn’t he already sneaked up on her? There had to be only one reason: he had not been able to find her.

That’s what this pretend call from Benedict was all about.

*

He knew one thing for certain. He’d searched every inch of this floor and she wasn’t down here. She had to have climbed up, but where? There were two vast upstairs areas housing the long cooling pipes and the kilns that blasted the hot cement clinker into them. Any number of hiding places, but he thought he had searched them all.

She was clever, this bitch. Maybe she kept moving. He was getting more anxious and desperate with every passing minute. He had to get her away from here and somehow secure her in another place. And he had to be at work tomorrow. It was a very important day. A major new client and a key meeting with the bank about his expansion plans. He was going to have to get some sleep before then.

And his eye needed to be looked at. The pain was worsening all the time.

‘Jessie!’ he called out again, all friendly. ‘It’s for yooooooooouuuu!’

Then, after a few moments silence, he said, ‘I know where you are, Jessie! I can see you up there! If Mohammed won’t come to the mountain, then the mountain’s coming to Mohammed!’

Silence greeting him. Then the bang of a metal flap. Four seconds later, it banged again.

‘You’re only making this worse for yourself, Jessie. I’m not going to be happy when I find you. I’m really not!’

*

Jessie did not make a sound. She realized one thing. All the time it was dark, this creep had the advantage. But the moment dawn broke and some light started seeping in here, however little, all that changed. He frightened her and she did not know what he was capable of. But she was sure she had hurt his eye badly. And she still had the knife, on the floor, right by her hand.

It was midnight. Dawn would be some time around seven o’clock. Somehow she had to find the strength to forget her raging thirst and her tiredness. Sleep was not an option.

Tomorrow maybe there’d be a chink of light coming through a wall. This place was derelict. In semi ruins. There had to be a hole somewhere that she could crawl through. Even if it was on to the roof.

115

Monday 19 January

Despite the vigorous protests of the taxi driver’s solicitor, Ken Acott, Grace had refused to allow John Kerridge – Yac – to be freed, and insisted on applying to the magistrates’ court for a further thirty-six-hour extension. It had been granted readily, since, after the solicitor’s insistence on having a specialist medic present, they had not yet been able to start interviewing Kerridge.

Grace was still not happy with this suspect, although he had to admit the evidence against Kerridge did not look strong, so far. The man’s mobile phone had yielded nothing. He only had five numbers stored on it. One belonged to the owner of his taxi, one was for the taxi company, two were for the owners of the boat he lived on, who were in Goa – a mobile and a landline – and one for a therapist he had not seen in over a year.

The taxi driver’s computer had not revealed anything of interest. Just endless visits to sites involving ladies’ shoes – mostly on the fashion rather than fetish side – visits to eBay, as well as countless visits to perfume sites, sites concerned with Victorian period toilets and mapping sites.

A medical expert, a psychologist of some sort who was trained in Asperger’s syndrome patients was on her way down. When she arrived, if she assessed Kerridge favourably, Acott said he would allow his client to be interviewed. Hopefully they’d find out more then.

Just as he returned to his office from the morning briefing, his mobile phone rang.

‘Roy Grace,’ he answered.

It was a technician he knew at the forensic laboratories and she was sounding very pleased with herself. ‘Roy, I’ve got DNA results for you!’

‘On what we sent you last night?’ he replied, astonished.

‘It’s a new bit of kit – it’s still undergoing trials and it’s not reliable enough for court work. But we had such good DNA from both of those samples, we took some to experiment with, knowing the urgency.’

‘So, tell me?’

‘We have two hits – one for each sample. One is complete, a 100 per cent match, the other is partial, a familial match. The complete match is on DNA from a hair follicle from the corpse. Her name is Rachael Ryan. She disappeared in 1997. Any help?’

‘You’re certain?’

‘The
machine
is certain. We’re still running conventionally with the rest of her DNA, so we’ll have that result later today. But I’m pretty sure.’

He allowed himself only a couple of seconds for this to sink in. It was what he was expecting, but even so it was a shock. A confirmation of his failure to save this young woman’s life. He made a mental note to contact her parents, hoping they were both still alive and still together. At least now they would have closure, if nothing else.

‘And the familial match?’ he asked.

Familial
, Grace knew, meant a near match, but not an exact match. It was normally a match between siblings or a parent and child.

‘That’s from the semen inside the condom that was found inside the corpse – Rachael Ryan as we now know. It’s a woman called Mrs Elizabeth Wyman-Bentham.’

Grace wrote the name down, checking the spelling with her, so excited his hand was shaking. Then the technician gave him her address.

‘Do we know why she’s on the database?’

‘Drink-driving.’

He thanked her, and as soon as he had terminated the call, he dialled Directory Enquiries, gave the name of Elizabeth Wyman-Bentham and her address.

Moments later, he had the number and dialled it.

It went straight to voicemail. He left a message with his name and rank, asking her to call him back urgently on his mobile number. Then he sat down and Googled her name to see if he could find out anything about her, in particular where she worked. It was 9.15 a.m. If she worked she was likely to be there already, or on her way there.

Moments later on his screen appeared the words,
About Lizzie Wyman-Bentham, CEO of WB Public Relations.

He clicked on them and almost immediately a photograph of a smiling woman, with a mass of frizzed hair, came up, together with a row of details to click on for information about the firm. Just as he clicked on
Contact
, his phone rang.

He answered and heard a rather breathless, effusive female voice. ‘I’m so sorry, I missed your call – heard it ringing just as I stepped out of the house! How can I help you?’

‘This may sound a strange question,’ Roy Grace asked. ‘Do you have a brother or a son?’

‘A brother.’ Then her voice changed to panic. ‘Is he all right? Has something happened? Has he been in an accident?’

‘No, he’s fine, so far as we know. I need to speak to him in connection with a police inquiry.’

‘Gosh, I was worried for a moment!’

‘Can you tell me where I can reach him?’

‘An inquiry, did you say? Ah yes, of course, probably something to do with work. Silly of me! I think he does a bit of work with you guys. He’s Garry Starling and his company – well, he has two – Sussex Security Systems and Sussex Remote Monitoring Services – they’re both in the same building in Lewes.’

Grace wrote the information down, and took Starling’s office phone number.

‘I’m not quite sure why – why exactly have you contacted me?’

‘It’s a little bit complicated,’ Grace replied.

Her voice darkened. ‘Garry’s not in trouble, is he? I mean, he’s a very respectable businessman – he’s very well known in this city.’

Not wanting to give anything further away, he assured her that no, her brother was not in trouble. He ended the call, then immediately dialled Starling’s office. The phone was answered by a pleasant woman. He did not reveal his identity, but merely asked to speak to Garry Starling.

‘He’s not in yet,’ she said, ‘but I’m sure he will be shortly. He’s normally in by this time. I’m his secretary. Can I take a message?’

‘I’ll call back,’ Grace said. He had to struggle to keep his voice sounding calm.

The instant he hung up, he hurried along to MIR-1, formulating his plan as he strode down the corridor.

116

Monday 19 January

There was less light than Jessie had imagined there’d be, which in some ways she thought was good. If she was very, very careful, keeping totally silent, she was able to tiptoe a short distance along the gridded walkway and look down at the camper van.

It sat there, cream and grimy, with its side door open. It was the kind of camper van that used to be one of the symbols of the hippy era – flower power, ban-the-bomb, all that stuff she recalled from what she had read about the 1960s and 1970s.

This creep didn’t seem much like a hippy.

He was inside the van at the moment. Had he slept? She doubted it. Once or twice during the darkness she’d nearly dozed off, and on one occasion had almost cried out when an animal of some kind brushed her arm. Then a while later, as dawn brought with it a weak, grey haze of light, a rat came and took a look at her.

She hated rats and after that incident her tiredness was banished.

What was his plan now? What was going on in the outside world? She’d not heard the helicopter again, so maybe it hadn’t been looking for her after all. How long would this go on for?

Perhaps he had supplies in the van. She knew he had water and maybe he had food. He could sit this out indefinitely, if he didn’t have a job or a life that was missing him. Whereas, she knew, she could not go on much longer without water and something to eat. She was feeling weak. On edge, but definitely weaker than yesterday. And dog tired. Running on adrenalin.

And determination.

She was going to marry Benedict. This creep was not going to stop her. Nothing was.

I am going to get out of here.

The wind was strong today and seemed to be getting stronger. The cacophony of sounds all around was worsening. Good, because that would help cover any noise she might make moving around.

Suddenly she heard a howl of rage. ‘ALL RIGHT, YOU BITCH, I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR DAMNED GAMES. I’M COMING AFTER YOU. HEAR ME? I’VE WORKED OUT WHERE YOU ARE AND I’M COMING AFTER YOU!’

She tiptoed back to her vantage point and looked down. To her shock she could see him, still with his hood off, with what looked like a big red weal around his right eye. He was running across the ground floor, holding a big spanner in one hand and a carving knife in the other.

He was running straight for the entrance of the silo beneath her.

Then she heard him shouting again, his voice an echoing boom, as if he was shouting through a funnel. ‘OH, VERY CLEVER, BITCH. A LADDER UP INSIDE THE SILO! HOW DID YOU FIND THAT?’

Moments later she heard the clanging of the rungs.