Dead Man's Time (26 page)

‘Not at all,’ Susi Holiday said. ‘You did exactly the right thing.’

‘I was worried, you see. I read an article in the
Argus
a couple of weeks ago about the number of false emergency calls made.’

‘My colleague’s right, Mrs Morgan,’ PC Roberts said. ‘Your tenant’s name is Lester Stork?’

The horse pulled, as if impatient, and she gave a sharp tug on the reins. ‘Henry!’ Then she turned to the police officers. ‘That’s right. Lester Stork.’

‘Could you show us where the cottage is, please?’ Susi Holiday asked.

‘Yes, of course. Let me just tie Henry up, then follow me.’

She tethered the horse to a wooden rail, then they walked around the side of the house, up a short, steep farm track. It led to a small red-brick cottage, more recently built than the main
house, with a decrepit garage annexed to it. A rusty white Renault van was parked outside, and they could clearly hear the engine idling as they neared it.

Dave Roberts, holding on to his hat to stop it blowing off in the wind, peered into the driver’s window of the van, then opened the door, which was unlocked, and peered inside. The cab was
empty and apart from a petrol can, a wheelbrace and an old newspaper, the rear was empty, too. As a precaution, in case fingerprints became important, he took out his handkerchief, gloved his hand
inside it, and turned off the ignition.

Then he entered the porch, rang the doorbell, and moments later, rapped hard on the cheap front door with his knuckles. When there was no response, he knelt, pushed open the letter box and
sniffed. He couldn’t smell anything untoward. To the left of the door there was a window onto a small sitting room, with an elderly television, which was off.

‘Midnight, yesterday, he came back, Mrs Morgan?’

‘Yes, a bit before.’

‘Do you have his phone number?’

She gave it to him. Susi Holiday dialled and all three of them heard it ringing, until it fell silent and the answerphone kicked in, with a chirpy voice. ‘You’ve reached Lester
Stork. I might be busy, I might be dead. Take a chance, leave me a message!’

The three of them walked around the house, peering in the rest of the downstairs windows. They saw a small, empty kitchen, and tried the side door, but it was locked. At the rear of the house
the curtains were drawn. On the far side, where the garage was, there were no windows. Back around the front they stopped outside the porch. Roberts studied the locks on the front door. ‘Do
you have a spare key, Mrs Morgan?’

‘I do, but I’m not sure where it is.’

‘Would you mind if we broke in?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘Go ahead.’

He braced himself, then kicked the front door hard. It did not move. He tried again, even harder. Still it did not move. He frowned at his colleague. ‘Feels like it’s
reinforced.’ He went over to the window, pulled on a pair of gloves, then pulled out his baton and hit the glass hard. It shattered, a chunk of it falling into the sitting room. Then he put
his hand through, feeling for the latch. But could not move it. ‘Bugger!’ he said, then turned apologetically and said, ‘Forgive my language.’

Carol Morgan grinned.

‘Window lock,’ he said. ‘Not making it easy for intruders.’

‘He must have fitted them himself,’ she said.

He smashed out the rest of the glass with his baton, then climbed into the little room, which smelled like a million cigarettes had been smoked in it without a window ever being opened. A couple
of dull, framed horsey prints were on the otherwise bare walls. The furniture, on a threadbare carpet, was meagre and tired. He called out, ‘Mr Stork! This is the police! Mr Stork?’ He
waited some moments then walked through into the hallway. And stopped.

It had been many years since Dave Roberts had last seen the old crook, but he had no difficulty recognizing him. Lester Stork, a wizened shrimp of a man, who might have been a jockey in a better
life, was dressed in a shabby herringbone jacket, crumpled cream shirt, grey trousers and cheap black shoes. He looked like he had been heading upstairs, but never made it. He lay sprawled across
the bottom steps, eyes wide open and sightless, dark-brown wig askew.

The PC knelt, peeled off one glove and touched his face. It was stone cold. He felt for a pulse, even though it was obvious the man had clearly been dead for some hours. He checked his face
carefully and his position, looking for any signs that he might have died violently, but could see none. But the immediate thoughts going through his experienced mind were why had he shut the front
door behind him, leaving his van engine running?

‘Maybe the wind shut the door? But why would anyone arrive home close to midnight and go into his house leaving his van’s engine running?’ Dave asked.

‘You’d only do that, surely, if you were planning to go out again,’ PC Susi Holiday said, staring at the body.

‘So where is a seventy-five-year-old man going at midnight on a Sunday, in an old van?’ he queried.

‘Not clubbing, that’s for sure.’

‘Probably not to church either,’ Dave Roberts said. He radioed for their Sergeant to attend, then requested a Coroner’s Officer.

While he was making his calls, Susi walked through into the room at the rear, little bigger than a box room, and switched on the light, and immediately realized why the curtains were drawn.

There was a stash of antique items on the floor. She saw bronze statuettes; Chinese vases; a silver tea set; an ornate clock; several oil paintings; a gold plate. Immediately, well aware of the
major domestic burglary that had taken place in the city less than a fortnight ago, she pulled out her phone, selected the camera icon, and took a rapid series of photographs. Then she contacted
the Incident Room for an email address, and sent them with a brief note:

‘I do horrible things sometimes,’ she said.

‘Go on.’

There was a long silence. After several minutes the Munich psychiatrist, Dr Eberstark, asked, ‘What kind of horrible things, Sandy?’

She lay on the couch, facing away from him so they had no eye contact. ‘I put an advertisement in their local paper’s Deaths column that their baby had died.’

‘Roy Grace’s baby?’

‘His and his bitch girlfriend.’

‘But you’re not with him any more. It was your choice to leave him, wasn’t it?’

‘I didn’t think he’d replace me with some bloody bitch.’

Dr Eberstark sat impassively, his face revealing nothing. After several minutes he asked, ‘What did you expect after nine years? For him to be celibate for the rest of his life?’

It was Sandy’s turn to be silent for some minutes. Then she said, ‘I did something else horrible too.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I vandalized the bitch’s car. What’s her name? Cleo? I carved on the bonnet, with a chisel.
COPPER’S TART. UR BABY IS NEXT
.’

‘Nine years after you’d left him?’

‘Almost ten years, actually.’

‘What did you think you would achieve by doing that?’

‘Sometimes I feel I’m like the scorpion in that fable.’

‘Which fable?’

‘The one where the scorpion asks the turtle to give him a ride across a river to the other side. The turtle replies, “I can’t do that. You might sting me to death.”

‘The scorpion says, “Look, I’m not dumb. If you carry me across the river and I sting you, we will both die – you from my sting, and I will drown.”

‘So the turtle says, “Okay, that makes sense!”

‘They get halfway across the river and the scorpion stings the turtle. The turtle, in agony and starting to sink, turns and looks at the scorpion and says, “Why did you do that? Now
we’re both going to die.”

‘The scorpion replies, “I know. I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it. It’s in my nature.”’

‘So you’re the scorpion, you think?’

She said nothing.

‘Is that what you like to think, to justify your anger?’

‘It’s not rational, I know. I should be happy that he has moved on, but I’m not.’

‘Do you want him back? Does he represent the past, something you want but can’t have back? None of us can.’

‘Maybe I’m a psycho and should be locked away,’ she said.

‘The fact that you recognize that tells me you are not. You have all this anger inside you, and it has to go somewhere, so you vent it on him, and on the woman you think is stopping him
coming back to you.’

She sat, thinking, in silence.

After some moments, changing the subject, he said, ‘In our last session you were going to tell me something about the baby. Do you want to tell me now?’

She shrugged. Then she said, ‘The thing is, I’m not sure it was Roy’s.’

‘Oh?’

‘I was having an affair. With one of his colleagues.’

‘Eamonn Pollock’s not been flavour of the month for a long time,’ Glenn Branson said. ‘Not among the Brighton antiques fraternity. Your mate Donny
Loncrane was right.’

Grace turned the car in through the entrance to the Downs Crematorium. Of Brighton’s two multi-denomination crematoriums, Roy Grace much preferred the municipal one, Woodvale, with its air
of a village parish church, and its woodland setting. But the private one, the Downs, was the one chosen by most of the city’s wealthier people.

He had always considered it a courtesy to attend the funeral of murder victims whose cases he was working on, but he always had another, ulterior motive, which was to scrutinize all those
attending, and any lurkers in the background who might be watching. Sometimes, sick killers turned up to observe. And the perps who had killed Aileen Mcwhirter were, unquestionably, very sick
indeed.

He reversed the unmarked Ford into a space, giving himself and Glenn Branson beside him a clear view of the arriving cortege.

It wasn’t a long procession. Out of the first limousine following the hearse emerged Gavin Daly, his son Lucas and his wife Sarah. From the next a couple emerged, along with two young
children. Aileen McWhirter’s granddaughter and her husband, Nicki and Matt Spiers, Grace presumed, and her great-grandchildren, Jamie and Isobel. From the one behind that emerged a number of
elderly people, one of whom Grace recognized as Gavin Daly’s housekeeper; he wondered if two of the others were Aileen’s housekeeper and her gardener.

They were followed inside by a woman he knew and liked a lot, Carolyn Randall, the hardworking Area Manager of Sussex Crime-stoppers, presumably one of the charities the dead woman had
supported. Next he recognized the Head of Fundraising for Brighton’s hospice, the Martlets.

Glenn Branson unclipped his seat belt, slipped his hand inside his suit jacket and took out an envelope, which he handed to Grace. ‘His mugshot. Eamonn Pollock.’

Grace shook it out of the envelope and stared at it. A morbidly obese man in his mid-sixties, with a generous thatch of short, wavy grey hair, and an unbearably self-satisfied grin, stared back
at him. He was wearing a white tuxedo and holding up a glass of champagne in a mock toast to the photographer. ‘What intelligence do we have on him?’

‘He’s on a few historic Association Charts, but only one previous: for handling stolen watches and clocks – that was back in 1980. He got two years’ suspended.’

Grace’s interest was instantly piqued. ‘Watches and clocks?’

Branson nodded.

‘I think someone had better go and have a chat with him.’

‘Yeah, I wouldn’t mind a trip to Marbella – in normal circumstances.’ He shrugged and suddenly looked deeply forlorn.

Grace put his hand out and squeezed Glenn Branson’s. ‘You okay, matey?’

Branson nodded. Grace could see the tears suddenly welling in his eyes.

‘Did Ari ever say what she wanted?’

‘She didn’t want to be burned.’ Glenn Branson sniffed. ‘So I guess I have to respect that. I’ve told the funeral directors I want a plot for her at Woodingdean
Cemetery. Will you come with me to the funeral?’

‘Of course. Do you have a date yet?’

The DS shook his head. ‘I’m waiting for the Coroner to release her body.’

A young couple climbed out of a small Audi, then lifted a baby out of the rear seat. Looking at his watch, Grace saw it was five minutes to go. ‘Rock’n’roll?’

‘Yep.’

As they opened their doors and climbed out into the warm sunshine, the Detective Superintendent’s phone rang.

‘Roy Grace,’ he answered.

It was the Crime Scene Manager, Dave Green, sounding excited. ‘Roy, thought you’d like to know we’ve found a tiny blood spot, down the inside of a double radiator we removed
from the house.’

‘The one that Aileen McWhirter was chained to?’

‘Yes, it’s microscopic, but it looks in good enough condition to give us DNA.’

Grace thought immediately of the scab on the knuckle of the arrogant telesales man, Gareth Dupont, and what Donny Loncrane had said to him in Lewes Prison yesterday. ‘Can you get it
fast-tracked?’

‘It’s en route to the lab now.’

Only a couple of years ago, DNA results took several weeks. Now, less than twenty-four hours was sometimes possible. ‘Brilliant work, Dave!’ he said.

‘Thanks, boss, but let’s see.’

‘Of course.’

He ended the call, and was about to tell Glenn Branson the news as they approached the chapel door when Branson’s phone rang.

They stopped and stood still. ‘Yeah, you’re speaking to him,’ Glenn Branson said. ‘Sorry, not a good line – can you say that again?’ He was silent for a
moment; then, his face lighting up with excitement, he said, ‘Shit! Really? You’ve confirmed the IDs?’

Grace watched his friend looking more animated than he had seen him in a long while. After a couple of minutes, the DS terminated the call and turned to Roy Grace. ‘I think you’re
going to like this!’

Returning home from the funeral at 4 p.m., the large house felt emptier than ever and unusually gloomy. Gavin Daly, drained, sat in his study, drinking a larger than usual
glass of wine and smoking a cigar. He had gulped the first glass straight down. He stared out through the window.