Читать книгу The Disciple - Steven Dunne - Страница 6

The man eased the door closed, guiding it gently onto the latch. When he heard the lock click he sucked in a lungful of the sharp salty air to clear his head. He could hear the occasional gull in the distance but it was a lonely note, the early birds not yet on the wing, the light insufficient to make out the pickings left by the receding tide.

He looked at the sky, dark and damp, no hint yet of the grey dawn peeping over the horizon, then hitched his jogging bottoms higher and retied the strings. He smiled as he rearranged his genitalia, feeling the tacky moisture of recent sex along his groin – even at the age of forty-three, the thrill of illicit conquest still bestowed a childish buzz – then stepped onto the wet road and crossed to the far pavement.

He turned to see the girl in the first-floor bay of the guesthouse, barely covered by a worn curtain that had doubtless shrouded hundreds of copulating lovers from the eyes of the world. He grinned but motioned her away from the window in mock censure. She, in response, let the curtain slip to show him a breast, then let the curtain fall completely and stood before him naked.

The man put his hands on his hips in feigned disgust, then looked around and pointed down the road, as though someone else would be walking around at this ungodly hour.

The girl shrugged her shoulders and laughed. She turned her back, bent over and pressed her buttocks against the window.

The man shook his head and turned to jog away, realising that his departure was the only way to end the cabaret. Kids today!

As he turned onto King’s Road, jogging gently towards the burnt-out skeleton of the West Pier, Tony Harvey-Ellis glanced at the grey-black ocean, wondering whether to risk a dip after his run. The water would still be mild even in late autumn.

He pulled in a huge breath and looked around in vain for another soul. He loved this time of day when he could have Brighton to himself. The early hours were the best time to venture out onto the streets. The throngs of tourists had eased after the hot months but Brighton still drew frenzied hordes of hens and stags all year round, carousing long into the night – enough to deter most residents at the weekends.

This was his time, time to think; increasingly his only time since his life had become so complicated. With all the new accounts needing his attention and the constant juggling of the demands of his wife and stepdaughter, he had become unused to solitude. At least Terri’s age was one less problem to concern him – she was legal now. Her real father would find it difficult to pin anything on him after so long … assuming he still cared.

Harvey-Ellis paused briefly, stretching his upper torso and flexing his knees. The sweat was beginning to dot his forehead and his knees felt ready for some real work. He checked his watch – it was five o’clock – and prepared to set the stopwatch on his chunky Tag Heuer.

A noise that was neither the sea nor a car made him turn. A figure, indistinct in a tracksuit and baseball cap, was jogging along the promenade a couple of hundred metres behind him, feet slapping at the ground, breath steaming in the sharp air.

Annoyed at having his solitude contaminated, Harvey-Ellis consoled himself with the thought that at least he’d have a spectator to impress. He started his stopwatch then struck away powerfully from the jogger.

As he ran, Harvey-Ellis practised shifting an imaginary ball to his left and then right. He felt good as he bounced lightly across the tarmac. Maybe this would be his last season. He loved his rugby, loved the physicality of it, the sense of brotherhood, the union of wildly differing human physiques melded into one team, one purpose. But he didn’t love it enough to move from his position on the wing to a berth with the forwards, as his pace dwindled. He’d seen enough human battering rams with beetroot noses and cauliflower ears to want to risk his good looks.

He slowed and half-turned to see the other runner almost upon him. A natural competitor, Harvey-Ellis lifted his pace again. For a few seconds, he listened for the receding sound of the other runner’s footfall, but instead it seemed to be drawing nearer.

Okay, thought Harvey-Ellis, time to put on the burners, show you a sight all too familiar to the fullbacks of the Southern and District League. He picked up his pace to a sprint, lifting his knees, pumping his arms straight and blowing his cheeks rhythmically to take the necessary shallow breaths.

For nearly a minute, he maintained this pace and tried to block out all movement in his peripheral vision. But his ears could not block the sound of the second runner closing in and his eyes could now see the shadow thrown over his own by the jaundiced glow of streetlights. His lungs could take it no more. He threw up his head and slowed through the gears to a stop. He put his hands on his knees and sucked air urgently into his lungs, turning to grin at his pursuer. He didn’t see the clenched fist, or the small needle protruding from it.

‘You win,’ he panted.

Jason Donovan Wallis was alone except for Bianca, his tiny sister snoring gently in her room. His aunt was on nights again and the bitch had left him in charge. Dread. Not that he wanted to go out in this weather but her draughty old house in Borrowash, a few miles to the east of Derby, chilled him to the bone. No heating, no light. Storm damage, they’d said on the radio; the whole area was under blackout. Despite this, the heavy curtains were drawn across the windows, blocking out any hint of the faint moonlight, and Jason was not in the least tempted to change that.

He’d had a text from Banger chatting that the rest of the crew were ‘Gonna make the most of it, smoke some peng, do some cars, whatever.’ Did Jason want to ‘stop being a gay and come and hang. LOL.’

Yeah, right. Walk around in the dark like a skank – with that killer still out there. No way. He weren’t going nowhere on his own. That copper Brook had warned him about The Reaper after his mum, dad and sister were cut up. ‘The Reaper’s out there waiting, watching,’ he goes, ‘waiting to finish the job.’ Jason was well gone at the time. Booze, drugs maybe, he couldn’t remember. Brook had threatened him, tried to make him cough to that old biddy’s murder. ‘You’re next, Jason – you’re next.’

Jason eased into a secret smile. The Reaper had forgotten him. Jason was a survivor. And he’d sorted Brook out – no messing. Trashed his place and mashed his cat’s brains in. Feds who fuck with me get fucked up double.

He pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders, squinting at the single flickering candle he’d managed to root out from under the stairs. He listened to the wind howling and stared out of habit at the inert TV screen.

The noise of the front gate creaking on its rusty hinges made his head turn. Jason waited, not moving, aware of the rising tide of fear washing through him. But no one knocked at the door. No one banged on the window. Only the sound of the gate assaulted his ears, pounding against the wall under the weight of the wind.

‘Bollocks!’ he spat. Now he’d have to go out and refasten it or it would be hammering all night. Trust his aunt to be on nights, leaving him on his own to babysit. He listened for the sound of the gate, dreading its explosion, beckoning him off the couch, out of the sanctuary of the house.

But it didn’t come. Outside the wind raged still, whipping sodden leaves and soupy litter into a drunken dance, but the gate refused to complain under the assault. Gradually Jason’s annoyance turned to puzzlement … then dread began to seep into him. Now he longed to hear the crash of the gate, telling him it was only the weather out there messing with his head.

He tiptoed to the window to look out through a crack in the curtain into the wildness. A dark figure stood by the gate, perfectly still, perfectly calm against nature. Though Jason could see only blackness where the face should have been, he sensed that whoever was standing there was staring straight back at him.

He hurtled out of the living room. With the door opened, the draught sucked the life from the small candle but Jason didn’t return to relight it. Instead, sprinting up the stairs three at a time, he bundled into his bedroom to look out of the window at the garden below. He could make out nothing, until a flash of lightning illuminated the scene. The figure had gone.

Jason’s heartbeat was beginning to slow when a single bang on the door quickened it once more. He could feel panic rising within him like bile and was unable to keep his limbs still. Frantic, he looked round for his mobile, his only umbilical cord to the rest of humanity, then realised, a wave of nausea crashing over him, that he’d left it downstairs.

Another bang on the door, but it wasn’t a friendly sound – rather a booming rhythmic knell.

After the third knock, silence returned. Even the wind whistling up from the Trent seemed to take a time out.

Jason held his breath. Eventually he plucked up the courage to tiptoe back down the stairs. He pulled open the tatty curtain that served to block the draught from the front door and peered through the condensation on the mottled glass. No one there. He heaved a sigh of relief and then fumbled in his pocket for his lighter so he could relight the candle. When he looked up once more, it was to see a figure filling the doorway. He leapt backwards in shock, pulling the curtain back across the door.

Jason shrank back to the foot of the stairs, cowering on the bottom step.

‘I’m sorry about the old woman,’ he said, almost to himself. Then he spoke more loudly, directing his words towards the door. ‘We didn’t mean to kill her. I told Brook. He knows. Didn’t he tell you? Is it the cat? That was Banger’s idea. I didn’t want none of it. It weren’t me …’

Jason began to whimper quietly but stopped at the sound of tinny music leaking out of the front room. He leapt to pick up his mobile and looked at the display. He had a text from an unknown number. Jason pressed a key and read the text.

You’re next.

Jason let his hand fall and began to sob again. Then he lifted his phone once more and dialled the source of the text. It was picked up on the first ring. No one spoke.

‘I said I’m sorry. Okay? I’m sorry. What do you want from me?’ No answer. Then the noise of breaking glass in stereo. In his right ear on the phone. In his left ear from the kitchen at the back of the house. Jason lowered the phone and turned towards the gloom of the hallway. He bolted to the stairs and sprinted back up them, not daring to glance towards the dark kitchen.

At the top of the stairs, he turned and ran towards his bedroom again. It flashed through his mind that perhaps he should grab little Bianca to keep her safe, but he decided he didn’t have time. She’d have to take her chances.

Jason shut the bedroom door and pulled a chest of drawers across it. He yanked back the curtains and opened the window. Immediately the cool spray of rain hit his face, soothing him. He looked down into the gloom of the overgrown front garden, at the billowing privet hedge that his aunt had been nagging him to trim, glad now that she’d refused to pay him and it had been left untended. If necessary, if he had to jump, Jason was confident it would break his fall. Now all he could do was wait. He clutched his phone and pondered ringing the police but, before he could decide, the handle of the bedroom door turned. After a couple of increasingly urgent turns, it began to reverberate under the shoulder of the intruder.

Jason took a huge gulp of air and balanced himself on the sill. The door crashed again and the chest of drawers began to shift. His eyes closed, Jason launched himself into the void.

A couple of seconds later, he felt the breath leave his body as he hit the privet. He could feel his skin begin to tear from dozens of tiny scratches but felt himself come to a near stop, cushioned by the hedge’s volume. Under Jason’s weight, the hedge began to topple but he was able to cling on by grabbing a few flailing branches. He used their movement to land his feet on the pavement of Station Road.

Jason quickly righted himself. He looked down at his right hand. Incredibly his mobile was still in his palm. The display was lit. Another message.

Behind you.

Before Jason could turn he felt a hand grab his damp hair and pull back his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the glint of a blade lifting towards his left ear, then a short, sharp pain as a hand pulled heavily across his throat …

Detective Sergeant Laura Grant walked unsteadily across the beach. A combination of the shifting shingle and the need to hold the two Styrofoam cups of coffee steady caused her to stumble as she picked her way towards the small huddle gathered around the tarpaulin-covered body spreadeagled by the sea’s edge.

Scene of Crime Officers swarmed around the body, working with uncommon haste before the elements returned to launder the evidence. Some took pictures, some dug in the sand with trowels looking for non-existent artefacts, others combed hair and bagged hands.

Grant rubbed her eyes as she walked. She’d only just returned to work after her sick leave, and though she felt the unscheduled bout of exercise was beneficial, the unexpected glare of the low sun certainly wasn’t.

Trying not to stare ghoulishly towards the tarpaulin, she reached the hastily erected police tape and bobbed under with some difficulty as Dr Hubbard, the most senior forensic pathologist in Sussex, re-covered the body and rose from his haunches to speak to Detective Chief Inspector Joshua Hudson.

‘White male, forty-ish. He’s been dead no more than eight hours and no less than six, I’d say.’

Hudson looked at his watch. ‘Which would mean he drowned between four and six this morning,’ he said, sweeping back his thick grey hair with a tobacco-stained hand. ‘Early bird, eh?’

‘Or very late, Chief Inspector. Depends on your point of view. It is the weekend. And please don’t pre-empt my findings on COD.’

‘He didn’t drown?’

‘It’s difficult to say definitively at this moment, Chief Inspector. I like to keep an open mind.’

‘Fine. He probably drowned,’ prompted Hudson, lighting up a cigarette and ignoring the reproachful glance of one of the SOCOs.

‘Probably. But it’s not exactly Cape Horn round here,’ observed Hubbard, surveying the calm sea. ‘And he’s wearing boxers, not swimming shorts, so he wasn’t planning a dip.’

‘A lot of them aren’t, Doc, until they’ve had a dozen Breezers and God knows how many tequila slammers.’

Laura Grant held out a cup of white froth towards Hudson.

‘True. But he’s fit for his age. Powerful legs – though not from swimming.’

There was a hint of smugness at that and Grant squinted up at the doctor for further explanation.

Hudson, however, had missed it. ‘These things happen to the fittest people, Doc,’ he said and took his coffee with a brief wink at Grant and a quick ‘Cheers, darlin’’. Grant glanced up at the two uniformed officers on crowd control. PCs Wong and West both gave her a sly grin to provoke a reaction to her first ‘luv’, ‘sweetie’ or ‘darlin’’ of the day but Grant maintained the face of a stoic.

‘Still …’

‘Look, doc, he’s got shorts on. He went in the water and I’m ruling out a shark attack,’ said Hudson. Grant and the two uniformed officers exchanged an amused glance. Even one of the normally taciturn SOCOs managed a smile. ‘So just tell me he went for a swim and drowned so we can all go home.’

‘There is some trauma to the head,’ replied Hubbard.

‘Probably from a boat.’

‘Even so, I’ll need to examine the wound to find traces of boat.’

‘What about his watch?’ asked Grant, deciding it was time to pretend she was a functioning police officer. They all looked at the dead man’s wrist.

‘What about it?’

‘Looks expensive, guv. If it’s waterproof he might have gone for a dip voluntarily. But if it’s not he would have taken it off. Unless …’ she said with a tilt of her head for emphasis.

‘… unless he was murdered,’ nodded Hudson, kneeling to look at it. ‘12.05. Sorry, luv – waterproof.’

Grant shrugged her shoulders. ‘Doesn’t mean he didn’t commit suicide, guv.’

‘Suicide? How about it, Doc?’

‘I’ll say it again, I’m ruling nothing out. If you found his clothes …’

Hudson looked at Grant. ‘We’re on it,’ she said. ‘We’ve got uniform following the tide back. Maybe he left his ID …’

‘A suicide note would be better,’ added Hudson. ‘You’ll do a tox kit on him?’ he asked Hubbard, who rolled his eyes. ‘Bloody tourists. Why can’t they die at home?’

‘Oh, he’s not a tourist, Inspector!’ the doctor interjected.

Grant and Hudson turned to him, impressed.

‘How can you tell that?’ asked Grant, half-expecting some labyrinthine Sherlock Holmes monograph on ‘The Identification of Tourists’.

The good doctor permitted himself a satisfied smirk at the sudden attention. ‘Because I know who he is.’ Hudson pulled back the cover and gazed at the black and blue face on the sand. ‘That’s Tony Harvey-Ellis. I’ve met him a couple of times. Rotary Club, you know. And maybe even a rugby club do, I can’t be sure. But I know he used to play to quite a good standard. He’s a fairly big cheese in Brighton.’

‘Are we talking Dairylea triangle big? Or Christmas Stilton?’ asked Hudson, now dismayed that his workload on the case was suddenly threatening to escalate.

‘Stilton definitely – he’s one of the partners in Hall Gordon Public Relations. They’ve got that large building on the front – pretty successful by all accounts, though I’ve always considered him to be a bit of a prat. Really fancied himself, if you ask me.’

Hudson reached again for his cigarettes. ‘Great. That’s all we need.’

Jason Donovan Wallis woke clutching his throat, panting for his last breath, trying to staunch the blood from a wound inflicted many times before. His gasps slowed as recognition dawned and he became aware of his surroundings. His heart rate levelled but with relief came the tears, slow and unwelcome but above all silent. All signs of weakness were ruthlessly mocked in White Oaks, so inmates cried with the mute button on.

Jason lay back on his bunk. His T-shirt was soaked with sweat so he tore it off, wiped it around his tear tracks and slung it on the floor. He sat up on his bunk and tried to calm himself by taking deep breaths, as softly as he could manage so as not to wake his roommate.

The sun slammed in through the grimy curtain-free window, flat like a searchlight in a watchtower across the quadrangle. He shielded his eyes. Was this it? His life. Every morning, waking up in a fug of moisturised panic, remembering the old woman begging for mercy, or the sheet-covered trolleys of his butchered family, or, worst of all, the faceless psycho chasing him, killing him. What was it Father Donetti had told him after Sunday Service? Cowards die many times. How many times, he hadn’t seen fit to mention. Jason hoped it wasn’t too many more.

At least here the only danger was from other inmates, young offenders keen to seek out those weaker than themselves so they could pass on abuse from further up the hierarchy. So far he’d managed to keep his head down and hang tough in all the right places.

Jason stood and pulled his blanket over his pillow and tiptoed over to his bag, already packed for his release. He pulled out a fresh T-shirt, dragged it over his head and crept to the window to look out at the chill of the morning. It was early but he still had to screen his eyes from the low sun. He looked over the grounds, which were covered in a light frost, down the drive to the main gate, and then across at the outbuildings, which housed most of the workshops where the day staff tried to teach some of the inmates a trade.

For the first time since his sentence began, Jason was invaded by a pang for freedom, a yearning to get out of the block and wander round the site. He could have it to himself. He could even walk down the drive to the gates and peer at the world outside. If he really wanted, he could open the gate and walk out. If he wanted …

Hudson and Grant stood either side of the sheet-covered steel trolley. The two women were huddled in position, the younger slightly behind the elder, holding onto her arm with both hands. Hudson nodded to the mortuary technician, who peeled the sheet back from the corpse.

The older woman screamed and collapsed to the floor, the younger woman’s flimsy grip on her arm insufficient to keep her upright. Hudson managed to grab her and haul her up. The young girl ignored her plight and stared open-mouthed at the body of Tony Harvey-Ellis.

‘Oh God, no,’ she said, tears streaming down her face, her breath coming in short hard bursts. ‘Oh God. Oh God.’

A second later the girl seemed to become aware of her surroundings. Her arms sought her mother and gathered her into an embrace, each wedging their tear-stained face onto the shoulder of the other.

Grant nodded at the technician, who re-covered the body with appropriate solemnity.

Hudson posed the superfluous question. ‘Is that your husband’s body, Mrs Harvey-Ellis?’

‘I don’t understand.’ Amy Harvey-Ellis wrung the damp handkerchief around her fingers and stared at the untouched coffee that she’d accepted on her arrival, without understanding any part of the transaction. The tears began to well again. ‘I don’t understand. He shouldn’t even have been here.’

Her daughter Terri grabbed her forearm and wrapped it in hers. ‘Mum,’ she said, for no reason other than to remind her she was there. ‘Mum.’ And as always, whenever comfort is offered to the tearful, the dam burst and Amy Harvey-Ellis began to shake with anguish once more.

Seated on the other side of the interview room, DCI Hudson and DS Grant lowered their eyes in a well-oiled show of respect for distress.

‘Why shouldn’t he be here, Mrs Harvey-Ellis?’ ventured Grant, after an appropriate pause.

Amy looked up at Laura Grant with a desperate look in her eye. ‘He wasn’t supposed to be in Brighton. He should have been at a conference in London until tomorrow night.’

As discreetly as they could manage, the two detectives exchanged a knowing glance. ‘Can you think of any reason why your husband would come back to Brighton early?’ Hudson asked, fighting to keep an inquiring note in his voice.

‘And why he might want to conceal his return from you?’ added Grant.

Terri stopped consoling her mother and looked hard at Grant, tears beginning to gather in her own eyes. ‘Can’t this wait? We’ve just lost somebody we loved. We’ve just had to identify his body.’ Without waiting for an answer, Terri gestured her mother to stand and led her to the door. Hudson made a show of getting out of his chair to usher them out. Grant didn’t move.

At the door, Amy lifted her face away from her hands and spat out, ‘My husband would never kill himself. Never! It’s absurd. He loved us.’

‘Please sit down, Mrs Harvey-Ellis. I know this is difficult,’ said Grant. After a momentary pause, Amy Harvey-Ellis returned to her seat, accompanied reluctantly by her daughter.

‘It’s procedure. We have to explore all possibilities until we can rule them out,’ added Hudson. ‘I mean, there was no note with his clothing so the chances are it’s an accidental drowning. He goes for an early morning jog, works up a sweat and fancies a swim. Something goes wrong, he gets into difficulties …’

‘Did he have any health problems at all? Maybe a bad heart?’ Grant spoke softly, probing gently as all the grief counsellors had advised.

‘Nothing like that. He played rugby, for Christ’s sake.’

‘Okay,’ murmured Grant. ‘And you can’t think of anyone he might have been staying with near the spot where we found his running gear?’

This time it was Terri who answered. ‘We’ve told you, we don’t know anyone who lives near there.’

‘Okay, Miss Harvey-Ellis, I think that’s all for now. Take your mother home,’ said Hudson.

‘Brook. My name is Terri Brook. Tony was my stepfather.’

‘So you weren’t blood relations?’ asked Grant.

‘Can I take my mother home now?’

‘How old are you, Terri?’ asked Grant.

Terri Brook looked at her, a puzzled frown creasing her forehead. Even Hudson raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m seventeen, whatever that’s got to do with anything.’

‘Just for the records,’ nodded Grant, taking a note.

‘Now can we go home?’

Hudson turned to Amy. ‘One more thing, Mrs Harvey-Ellis – how did your husband travel up to London?’

Jason Wallis stood and accepted the hand offered by the grey-haired priest, whose intense blue eyes fixed Jason as they shook hands.

‘Cheers for our talks, Father Donetti. They were a big help.’

‘A pleasure, my son. And I hope you’ll remember what we said. No more shoplifting. I don’t want to see you back in here.’

Jason smiled. ‘No probs. And I’ll try to go to church every Sunday, Father.’

The priest laughed. ‘No, you won’t, lad. But the Almighty is everywhere. Just ask him for help wherever you are. He’ll answer you.’

Jason picked up his bag and turned to the large doors that would lead him to the drive and the gates beyond.

He walked down the drive, enjoying the crunch of the gravel underfoot. As he walked he could feel eyes on him, watching his progress. Without stopping, he turned to look. He couldn’t see anyone, but that didn’t mean some of his new acquaintances weren’t following his exit, wishing they were in his place. He looked back at the buildings with something approaching affection. The dreams had stopped for a while. But now being spat out back into the world that had chewed him up, the dreams had started again.

He reached the gates, hoping there’d be no one there to greet him. He’d told his aunt not to bother – it was a long traipse with a toddler. He turned one last time to face the buildings that had offered him sanctuary these past months and then stepped outside the gates.

‘Yo! Jace! MoFo. Over here, blood.’ Three young men standing beside a cream-coloured stretch limo shouted in unison at him from across the highway. All were dressed for sport – baseball caps, sweatshirts, trainers. Only the jeans would betray them on the field of dreams, slung low as they were to flaunt grubby Calvins. The Stella cans they all carried were drained, crushed and discarded on the pavement with a sly look at the limo driver, in the hope of catching an expression of disgust.

Jason tried to look pleased to see them but the old fear started gnawing at him. He’d been warned by Brook.

Grass up his crew or face The Reaper.

He now adjusted his posture and his walk, showing he was dangerous, aggressive, best avoided. He shook out a cigarette and lit it with a macho pull. To finish his repertoire, he spat on the ground as if he hadn’t a care in the world and rolled over to knuckle-tap his crew, a battle-hardened grimace glued to his face.

‘Grets, Banger, Stinger. Gimme some skin. S’guarnin, blood?’

‘Same old, same old. Smokin’ the peng, dodgin’ the leng. How was it?’

Jason grinned, taking in another massive drag of tobacco. ‘Piece of piss, fam. I can do the time standin’ on mi head.’

‘Fucking holiday camp, yeah?’ grinned Banger.

‘We was gonna bring you a squeeze in case you’d turned fag,’ said Grets, laughing.

‘You keep your booty zipped, man?’ joked Banger.

‘What you chattin’?’ laughed Jason in mock outrage. ‘I only saw one guy who was blatant fag,’ he shouted. ‘He tries to gimme a tea-bagging and I tear him a new one.’

‘’Cept he probly enjoy it,’ cackled Stinger. ‘You shoulda sun-flowered his ass, blood. That’d learn him.’

‘I hear that.’

The telephoto lens gazed steadily from the bushes a few hundred yards down the road, whirring rhythmically as the posse’s likenesses were stored. It was lowered once the boys had ducked into the stretch, Jason bobbing in after a final nervous look around as if he expected someone else to be there.

‘Poisoned? Are you sure, Doc?’

‘There’s no mistake,’ said Dr Hubbard, sitting back in his cramped office and contemplating Grant and Hudson with his hands behind his head.

‘So he was dead before he went in the water?’

‘No, he wasn’t. That’s the clever bit. His lungs were full of water. He drowned. Without a post-mortem it looks like an accidental death. But I’ll be telling the coroner murder.’

‘We’re listening,’ said DS Grant.

‘Scopolamine.’ The doctor beamed at them as though expecting Hudson and Grant to slap their foreheads in recognition. ‘Also called hyoscine. Dr Crippen was a big fan. Killed his wife with it.’ When their expressions remained vacant, he ploughed on. ‘It’s in the Pharmacopoeia. It’s a cerebral sedative which was used to treat epilepsy and other manias – I’m talking over a hundred years ago. Then around 1900 it was combined with morphine to create an anaesthetic which was used in the Great War. It brings on a condition called “Twilight Sleep” in which the patient is conscious but effectively paralysed and has no response to, or memory of pain. Very dodgy stuff though.’

‘And was there morphine in Harvey-Ellis as well?’

‘There was, Sergeant.’ The doctor pulled a photograph from a pile on his disorganised desk. ‘This is the victim’s neck.’ They peered at the picture. ‘You see that pinprick? That’s a puncture wound. He was injected.’

‘Injected?’ asked Hudson.

‘Could it have been self-administered?’ ventured Grant.

‘Good lord, no. Even if he’d had the pharmaceutical knowledge, which is unlikely in his line of work, it’s the angle. Somebody stuck a hypodermic into him, as though standing above him. Like this.’ The doctor demonstrated the angle of the injection.

‘So Harvey-Ellis may have been sitting on a bench on the seafront when he was attacked?’ mused Hudson.

‘Perhaps.’

‘If he was out jogging he could have been tying a shoelace or getting his breath back, guv,’ added Grant.

‘Also possible,’ nodded Hubbard. ‘And the effects would have been very fast acting, particularly with his pulse and heart rate elevated. Harvey-Ellis would have begun to feel groggy almost immediately. Depending on dosage, he might even have been hallucinatory. Either way he’s easily handled physically and mentally. It wouldn’t take much to lead him down to the water and help him off with his clothes.’

‘And in the unlikely event there are other people around at that time of day, the killer can make it look like they’re a couple of drunks, guv.’

Hudson eyed Hubbard. ‘So we’re looking for a medical man between the ages of 130 and 160 years old?’

Dr Hubbard stared back at Hudson in blank incomprehension. A sudden explosion startled the two officers as Hubbard guffawed and nodded with genuine appreciation.

‘Very good, Inspector. I’ll have to remember that one for the dinner party circuit.’ Hudson darted a quick glance at Grant. They waited for the mirth to subside. ‘Well. It’s difficult. I mean, older medical men, and particularly chemists, might be familiar with the narcotic qualities of these two drugs to some extent. Scopolamine is a derivative of the nightshade family so anywhere that you find those plants could be a source. My research tells me that the drug is used a lot in Colombia, some tree over there contains it, but it’s not recreational like cocaine. It’s used in rapes and abductions, stuff like that. And it’s colourless and odourless so very difficult to detect.’

‘Are the two drugs used in combination for legitimate medical purposes?’ asked Grant.

‘I can’t think of a single medical circumstance these days,’ said Hubbard. ‘Separately, yes. Morphine is used in the relief of severe pain as you’ll know, and scopolamine in minute doses is used to treat things like motion sickness. Combined? No. No reputable physician would prescribe it. It was last used in the sixties during childbirth but sometimes there were complications when patients were unable to feel and report pain.’

‘Which means any mention in the profiling database will definitely be worth a follow-up, guv,’ nodded Grant.

Hudson sighed. ‘Okay. It’s a murder inquiry. Thanks a lot, Doc.’

Hubbard grinned, shaking his head again as they left. ‘A 160-year-old doctor,’ he chuckled. ‘Very good.’

Jason woke with a start and ran his hand over his throat as he sat up panting. He took several deep breaths to calm himself, darting an eye to his bedroom door to be sure the chest of drawers was still in place. Jason threw back his duvet and padded to the window, tearing off his soaking T-shirt and throwing it down on the floor.

He pulled the curtain aside as minutely as he could and flicked a glance up and down Station Road. A light wind was blowing and the brown and withering leaves of the trees were shedding as the seasons waged their inexorable campaign. Branches swayed with gentle eroticism against the backdrop of the streetlamps. Nothing else moved.

He moved the chest of drawers away from the door and tiptoed to the bathroom. He drank from the tap to counter the dry stickiness of too many WKDs, downed with his crew to celebrate his release. Returning to his room, he fancied he heard a noise so he lifted the chest of drawers back into place as quietly as he could manage.

He flicked at his mobile. It was four in the morning. He pulled the curtain further back, opened his window and took a long pull of chilled air, faintly scented with decay and the sharp promise of winter.

He heard the creak of a floorboard and froze. His eyes darted around the room, at the dark shadows of the wardrobe, the blackness of an alcove. He could imagine The Reaper hiding there, waiting to strike. He flung himself back into the still damp bed and pulled the duvet over his head.

Finally, he poked his head out from his cocoon and heaved a timorous sigh.

‘Oh my days.’

Was this all he had to look forward to – cowering in this gloomy old house, waiting to die? Waiting for The Reaper to spring from his hiding place and cut him to pieces?

He was invaded by an urge for the outdoors and dressed quickly. He padded downstairs to the kitchen to pull on his Nikes. He took a pinch of the barely eaten welcome-home cake baked by his aunt and crunched down on the icing. Kicking aside one of the three deflating balloons mustered for his homecoming, he tiptoed softly to the door. A minute later he was out on Station Road, hunching himself against the breeze in his too thin jacket, heading towards the bridges – one for the river and one for the railway that no longer stopped in Borrowash. He crossed the road that fed traffic across to the scrubby flood plains of the Trent and beyond, heading towards the path from which he’d occasionally fished as a young boy, and further on to the grounds of Elvaston Castle, dilapidated and long since abandoned to its fate by the council.

As he approached the railway bridge, Jason was halted in his tracks by a noise, which might have been a car door slamming. He turned to face the line of parked cars resting beside the pavement from their daily labours. Nothing moved. No one stood outside their car ready to disappear into their home and no engine was started by a driver making an early start.

Jason stood back against a hedge, completely still apart from his eyes, which flicked frantically around in the gloom. Then he spotted the cat wandering down the pavement towards him, bobbing along, not a care in the world. He breathed more easily but wondered whether leaving the safety of the house was a good idea. The Reaper could be out here, waiting for his chance. But that was exactly why he had to get out. In the open air he could see all comers. In bed, death lurked behind every curtain, every door.

He turned to resume his walk but before he could take another step the cat, now just a few yards away, swerved away from a gate and froze, staring at something behind a hedge. Jason tried to follow the cat’s gaze but could see nothing. He crossed the road as stealthily as he could manage and continued to stare after the creature.

Jason’s heart rate, already accelerated, missed a long beat when he saw the shoe glistening black against the streetlight. He could see a leg now, also dressed in black, and further up to what might have been a gloved hand. He looked around for an escape route, peering back up the road to his aunt’s house, wondering whether to make a run for it. But to do so would take him closer to the figure hiding in the neighbouring garden. Before Jason could separate reason from panic, the figure stepped out of the garden and faced him in a manner he knew only too well from his dreams.

In the split second before he ran down Station Road towards the river beyond, Jason’s feverish mind managed to register the black balaclava, black overalls and black sport shoes. Black … to hide the blood.

Chief Inspector Hudson lit a cigarette and watched idly as the Scientific Support Team unloaded their equipment and prepared to do their work on the sleek black Mercedes nestling in the parking bay of Preston Street NCP. A uniformed officer looked round, then took out a set of keys at Hudson’s signal. He approached the driver’s door then hesitated. He reached out a gloved hand and opened the door.

‘Not locked, sir,’ he said then stood back.

‘Thanks.’ Hudson discarded his cigarette and approached. DS Grant reached the top of the stairwell at that moment, panting heavily, and walked with some difficulty over to the hub of activity.

Hudson kept his eyes on the car as Grant joined him. ‘It’s four floors up, girl. Don’t you think you should be taking the lift?’

‘Good for me,’ she grinned by way of explanation, though Hudson knew all about her claustrophobia.

‘Face it, luv. You’ll never see twenty-nine again. It’s downhill all the way.’

‘So I see,’ panted Grant, giving Hudson the once over. Hudson laughed, then turned his eyes from the interior of the vehicle to the uniformed officer and nodded at the boot. ‘Okay, Jimmy.’

The officer popped the boot and Hudson and Grant moved to take a look. Inside was a soft brown leather suitcase which, to judge from its shape, appeared full. On top of the suitcase a dark blue suit covered in cellophane had been hastily tossed in. Next to the case was a set of car keys. The officer examined the suit and pulled a piece of paper from the pocket of the jacket. He handed it to Grant, who’d just finished snapping on latex gloves.

‘Double room. Paid in cash,’ said Grant. ‘It’s an invoice from the Duchess Hotel. I know it. It’s a dive on Waterloo Street.’ Hudson flashed an inquiring glance. ‘A tom I know got beaten up there by her client.’

‘So Harvey-Ellis did come back early for a bit on the side. Our big cheese has got himself a tasty cracker.’

Laura Grant smiled indulgently. ‘Well, he was alone when he parked the car, guv, I’ve just seen the footage. The car arrived at 14.07 hours on Saturday …’

‘14.07 hours,’ said Hudson. ‘This is National Car Parks, darlin’, not the SAS.’

‘That’s what it says on the computer, guv. But I can put “Saturday lunchtime” in the report if you prefer?’

Hudson chuckled, then gestured at the suited technicians waiting to examine the car. They approached the vehicle and set to work combing, sifting and collecting.

Keep running. Keep thinking. Keep running. Keep thinking. Jason was used to neither but still he ran and tried to think, attempting to block out the vision of a vengeful hunter gaining on him. He’d set off into the murk of the fields, picking up the path that hugged the deceptively idle river.

But his tar-lined lungs wouldn’t let him run and he had to stop to suck in much-needed oxygen. He wheeled round unsteadily, ready for an attack, but there was no one behind him. He coughed then sucked in a few hard breaths and tried to focus back down the path, but sweat stung his pupils. He wiped it away and a few seconds later he saw the figure, maybe a hundred yards away, striding relentlessly towards him. Jason turned and struck out again, trying to tamp down the fear that was constricting his lungs even more than the tar.

When he slowed again, he could hear the steady rhythm of his pursuer. Eventually Jason had to rest again but this time his rapid pull for oxygen couldn’t ease the stabbing pains in his chest. He faced back down the river, trying to see, but again the sweat salted his vision. Although there was no artificial light to soothe him, a fine moon ensured good visibility and, as his breathing became easier, he was able to distinguish a dark figure rounding the bend of the path.

As he scrambled along, Jason began to sob soundlessly as he’d learned to in White Oaks. A part of his brain urged him to stop to face his fate: anything was better than this torment, day and night. But he didn’t. Something basic, something primal inside kept him going.

When he stopped again, Jason realised he was at a fork in the path. The main path continued to follow the river back towards Derby, but the left fork wound its way round to Elvaston Castle and its dark tree-lined grounds.

He turned down the path towards Elvaston. After hobbling round a couple of ninety-degree bends, he staggered onto the overgrown bank of a stream. He settled into the undergrowth with a view of the path and tried to regain the rhythm of his breathing as quietly as he could.

Several minutes elapsed but nobody came down the path. Jason began to shiver and, worse, started to get cramp. He’d crouched in as near a position of readiness as he could manage but it soon began to hurt. After ten minutes of this, Jason finally had to swivel into a seated position and wait, eyes darting, ears pricked, every sense on heightened alert.

Hudson and Grant stepped into the gloom of the dingy lobby onto a threadbare carpet, feeling the tacky pull of ancient spillage on their shoes. The noxious odour of cheap disinfectant assaulted their noses and the tobacco-stained walls did the same for their eyes.

The man behind a cramped bureau gave Grant an unsubtle stare of approval as she approached, then turned to Hudson with an over-friendly grin. He was short, slightly overweight, and had long straggly hair that disguised his early baldness as ineffectively as the grin hid his yellowing teeth.

‘It’s thirty for the hour or sixty-five for the night and we don’t do breakfast …’ Grant’s warrant card silenced the man and his manner became defensive. ‘Oh yes, Sergeant. What can I do for you?’

‘I’m DS Grant, this is Chief Inspector Hudson. We’re inquiring after a guest who stayed here on Saturday night,’ said Grant, brandishing a photograph of Tony Harvey-Ellis under the man’s nose. ‘Are you the proprietor, sir?’ she asked as he took the picture from her.

He looked up at her and back at the photograph. After a moment’s hesitation he nodded. ‘I am.’

‘Your name, sir?’ asked Hudson, swinging around, preparing to take an interest for the first time.

‘Sowerby. Dave Sowerby.’

‘Do you recognise the man, Mr Sowerby?’ asked Grant.

Sowerby concentrated fiercely on the photograph. ‘No,’ he said after a few moments of unconvincing deliberation. He handed back the photograph, returning his attention to the reception desk and fiddling with some papers as if to imply a heavy workload.

‘Mmmm.’ Hudson wandered off to the front door but neither he nor Grant made any attempt to leave. After a minute, Hudson ambled back to the desk, picked up the local newspaper from under a stack of documents and jabbed a finger at the picture of Tony Harvey-Ellis, smiling on the front page. ‘Perhaps this is a better likeness, Mr Sowerby?’

‘Is that the guy?’ said Sowerby, hardly bothering to look.

‘That’s him,’ said Hudson. ‘His name is Tony Harvey-Ellis. But then you knew that because he stayed here Saturday night. Mr Harvey-Ellis drowned in the early hours of Sunday morning. The picture we showed you was taken at the mortuary.’

‘Most people who see a picture of a dead body tend to react in some way,’ added Grant, smiling coldly.

‘You, on the other hand, didn’t react at all, sir. Now why might that be?’

Sowerby tried to look Hudson in the eye but couldn’t hold on. ‘I didn’t realise …’

‘You didn’t realise how important my time is, did you?’

‘I … I …’

‘You didn’t realise that I get very pissed off when someone wastes my time when I’m investigating a suspicious death …’

His words had the desired effect and Sowerby’s eyes widened. ‘Suspicious!’ he said, agitated. ‘It doesn’t say anything in the papers about suspicious. It says he drowned.’

‘You calling me a liar now, sonny?’ said Hudson, fixing Sowerby with a cruel glare.

‘No, no.’ Sowerby raised his hands in pacification.

‘Cuff him, Sergeant. I don’t like this dump. We’ll do this at the station …’ Hudson turned and began to saunter away. Grant made no attempt to reach for the handcuffs.

‘Wait! Just hang on …’ pleaded Sowerby to Hudson’s retreating back. ‘I’ve got a business to run.’

‘Guv,’ said Grant. ‘Give him a minute. I think Mr Sowerby wants to help.’ She turned back to Sowerby. ‘Don’t you, sir?’

‘I do. I didn’t realise …’

Hudson stopped at the front door but didn’t turn around. There was a brief silence as Grant considered how best to continue. ‘Maybe Mr Sowerby was just trying to protect a valued client.’

Sowerby looked from Hudson to Grant and nodded eagerly. ‘That’s it, a valued client – a regular.’

‘I mean, we can understand that, can’t we, guv?’ continued Grant. ‘He was just being … discreet.’ Sowerby continued to nod eagerly and looked with hope towards Hudson’s back. ‘I mean, we’d want the same discretion if we stayed at a hotel, guv. Wouldn’t we?’

Hudson turned now, his lips pursed. ‘I suppose,’ he conceded eventually and padded back towards the bureau. ‘All right, we’re listening.’

Grant nodded and smiled encouragement at Sowerby, who wasted no further time. ‘Mr H is … was,’ he corrected himself, ‘a regular. He had an understanding that we’d turn a blind eye. You know …’ He looked encouragingly at Grant.

‘Discretion,’ she obliged.

‘That’s it. Discretion. He was married, see …’

‘No?’ said Grant.

‘He was. But he had a right eye for a pretty girl. And he always paid cash, you know,’ added Sowerby enthusiastically, before suddenly realising he’d said the wrong thing. ‘Not that I don’t …’

Hudson held up his hand. ‘Any particular pretty girl this last time?’

‘Well, he had more than one but this weekend it was the usual.’ ‘Usual?’

‘Yeah, the one he’d brought here a few times. Very pretty. Brown hair. Slim but not …’ Sowerby darted a glance at Grant, who raised an eyebrow ‘…not flat.’ Hudson now had to douse down a smirk. ‘And, of course…’ Sowerby now stopped himself, beginning to look uncomfortable.

‘Go on,’ prompted Hudson.

‘…young,’ said Sowerby quietly. ‘They were always very young.’ Hudson and Grant faced Sowerby in silence, well-versed in tightening the screw. ‘Not that I had any reason to think they were … you know … illegal.’ He stared down at the floor to see how far he’d dug himself in.

‘Then why think they might be?’

‘The usual one. The first time he brung her in was a couple of years ago…’ Sowerby stalled over the words. Hudson and Grant waited, knowing it would come ‘…And she’d tried to dress up normal but I could see…’

‘See what?’

‘She had one of those sweatshirts on.’

‘Sweatshirts?’

‘You know. You see them all over town. It was one of them from the posh school. Part of their uniform. Badge and all.’

Jason’s limbs were screaming in pain. He decided he couldn’t sit it out any longer. His pursuer had either given up or taken the wrong path. So, with daylight beginning to creep across the horizon, Jason clambered back onto the path, standing as upright as he could manage. He rubbed his back until the noise of a breaking twig froze his entire frame. Slowly Jason turned. The man was standing ten yards away, facing him, perfectly still, perfectly unruffled. Jason tried to see his face but it was completely obscured by the balaclava. Through the hot tears distorting his vision, Jason could see the man’s breath as it hit the morning air. But unlike Jason, he wasn’t panting with fear or looking round for help.

A second later the man moved towards Jason. In a black, gloved hand, raised to catch the dawn light, Jason fancied he saw the glint of a blade through his tears. He began to sob violently and his shoulders shook. He looked around to plot his escape but, instead of turning to flee, Jason’s legs crumpled and his knees hit the ground. Wailing, he curled himself into a ball as the man walked towards him and inclined his head to look down at him.

‘I told you. I’m sorry we did the old woman,’ he wailed. ‘I’m sorry about the cat.’ The figure bent down on one knee to examine Jason. ‘I’m sorry about everything. Please don’t kill me. Please. I’ll remember. I can be good. Please…’ Jason’s voice became a high-pitched whine as his emotions and any semblance of physical control disintegrated.

Jason had no idea how long he’d been unconscious but by the time he woke dawn had turned into a bright chill morning. Birds were singing and the low sun was beginning to burn off the dew. He lifted himself onto one elbow and looked around. The man had gone. Jason stood, grimacing at the squelch of excrement and urine in his trousers, and turned to waddle home, eyes lowered to the ground in misery.