wouldcome his way, suspecting that he planned to stalk someridiculous teenage girl in a short skirt. Now, then. Now then. Move along.
He laughed. It was so funny, the image of thepoliceman, thumping about in his boots, creaking in hisyellow plastic jacket, the radio squawking constantly inhis ear, sending him messages, messages, more messages,telling him where to go and not to go, instructions andorders, comments and commands, barking and babbling.How did he stand it? The policeman must be deaf. Deafin his mind. It was so funny that he laughed again.Chuckle, chortle, snigger.
But he knew immediately he’d laughed out loud. Hecould tell by the faces of the nightclub queue, turnedtowards him in a glare of light. Derisive, hostile. Someonetittered, someone jeered. Something jabbered and mutteredat the back of his brain. It was time to be elsewhere.
He turned, hunching his shoulders inside his overcoat,and walked towards the Promenade Fish Bar. Hewas following the lure of a rumbling motorcycle engine,a two-tone horn on a car racing up the road. Furtheron, he could hear the sounds of an amusement arcade.Rattle, crash, boom. They wouldn’t let him in, but hecould stand outside and enjoy the buzz of the traffic, too.
Night-time was the most difficult. There was too littlenoise. Always too little. He was sure he wasn’t alone infeeling most vulnerable at night. Darkness could hideanything, couldn’t it? It was populated with fantasiesand horrors, ghosts and demons, and all the other fearsthat chattered like monkeys in the corners of his mind.Not to mention the burglars and rapists, the crazedaxemen muttering in the alleys, drawn to the sound ofhuman breathing like moths to a flame.
Every time he went to sleep, he knew he might wakeup to a presence in the room, a voice congealed intoreality. He pictured the moment when the breathing hecould hear was not his own, when the shadow behindthe door began to move, when an arm brushed againstthe wall, a whisper of fabric in the silence and a hoarsemumble of his name, before the final lunge of the knife.He imagined those last moments so often that he couldfeel his limbs tangle in the sheets as he thrashed to escapethe blade. Slash, stab, rip. There, what did I tell you?
A hospital room was no better. The sounds that drifteddown corridors during the night were strange and incomprehensible.Like bedlam, the music of the madhouse.Howl, roar, bark at the moon. And not only sounds, butsmells. They could blend in the mind like a thick soup,swirling and forming pictures that he’d rather not seeinside his head. There were half-spoken memories thathe’d carry for ever, recollections of unseen people discussinghim, their voices hushed and murmuring, commentingon his state of health, using words that were unknownto him. Planning his disposal, as if he were an animal.
Of course, it was stupid to fear the unknown. Peoplewho did that were just projecting their own ugly thoughtson to a blank mask, like throwing handfuls of mud ata marble statue. Why live in terror of the unfamiliar?Why let the silent, dripping darkness of the imaginationdisplace the wicked reality?
Those were the things that made other people afraid,but he knew he wasn’t like them. He’d been made differentlyfrom the rest of humanity; his mind was constructedof a glittering, fragile crystal instead of some greasy clay,scooped from the earth. His consciousness rang like abell, echoing and tinkling, speaking his name, callinghim softly, tolling with disdain.
Some of these places would be closing for the nightsoon. Matlock Bath would empty, and he’d have to gohome. He’d have to face another night, counting tohimself to fill the silent hours, reciting the alphabet,and cursing, cursing … One, two, three, and DAMN,DAMN, DAMN!
He didn’t care about the unknown. Not in the least.He knew exactly what to be afraid of, and it was somethingall too real. He heard it wailing in the distance.It was difficult to drown out, even now. He knew howdangerous it could be, and where it would come from.He just didn’t know when it would finally draw nearand speak.
Thursday, 27 October
Early next morning, an officer from the incident room entered DCI Kessen’s office at West Street, and placed several slim files on the desk. Watched by Hitchens, Kessen thumbed through the files.
‘Well, it looks as though we’ve got the first hits from our Nichols trawl,’ he said.
‘Any Simons?’ asked Hitchens.
‘Oh, yes. Three. One of them lives in Ashbourne, and he’s ten years old.’
‘Damn it.’
‘Well, maybe we shouldn’t eliminate him out of hand. Kids are given mobile phones at a very young age these days.’
‘And high-powered semi-automatics?’
‘Let’s hope not. Get Ashbourne section to talk to the parents anyway, check there isn’t some remote connection with Rose Shepherd. It seems pretty unlikely, but we’d best rule it out.’
‘And the others?’
‘The second Simon Nichols is eighty-five years old. Actually, his full name is Edward Simon Nichols, so strictly speaking he’s ESN. He’s in a residential care home in Alfreton, but he could have some connection with Rose Shepherd.’
‘We need to spread the net wider, don’t we?’
‘Nichols isn’t an uncommon name,’ said Kessen. ‘There could be hundreds of Simons around the country. But unfortunately, these seem to be the only leads we have at the moment. Do you want to allocate them, Paul?’
Hitchens took the files into the CID room and passed on the news to the officers on the early shift.
‘Is there one for me?’ asked Cooper.
‘Yes, I saved this one for you specially, Ben. This Nichols lives on a farm, so it’ll suit you down to the ground. The address we have for him is Lea Farm, near Uppertown — wherever the heck that is.’
‘I know Uppertown. It’s near Bonsall.’
‘Bonsall?’ said Hitchens. ‘Just a minute — ’
‘Yes, Rose Shepherd made calls to a phone box in that area, didn’t she?’
Hitchens smiled as he handed Cooper the file.
‘Off you go, then. There’s no time to waste.’
When Fry arrived at West Street, it seemed unnaturally quiet. She made her way to the DCI’s office, where she found Kessen and Hitchens frowning over a document written in a language she didn’t recognize. She leaned over the desk and looked closer. No — it was the alphabet she didn’t recognize. Some kind of Cyrillic script?
‘Morning, Diane. Take a look,’ said Hitchens. ‘This could be a whole new angle on the Shepherd enquiry.’
Fry picked out a photograph from the file. It showed the rear view of a red Ford Escort with a foreign registration number and a shattered back window. The car was parked in a garage, with wooden double doors left half open and a padlock hanging from the hasp. The only other thing she noticed was the international plate — BG. Before she could work out what country the initials referred to, she’d unfolded a label attached to the back of the photo and found it was headed in English. The Bulgarian Interior Ministry.
She raised an eyebrow at Kessen, and he took the photo from her. ‘OK. A year ago, there was a double murder in a city in northern Bulgaria — a place called Pleven. This car was found by the roadside outside the city. The bodies of two people were in it.’
‘Who were they?’
‘Their names were Dimitar Iliev, aged forty-three, and Piya Yotova, forty. Iliev had been shot in the head, and Yotova had bullet wounds in the back and arms.’
‘Was it some kind of execution?’
Kessen shrugged. ‘The Pleven police examined the scene for evidence, but they found nothing to help them identify the assailants.’
‘What has this got to do with Rose Shepherd?’ said Fry.
‘We’re not sure yet. But it could have something to do with Simon Nichols. We got a hit on the name from Europol. They’re building up a lot of intelligence on cross-border organized crime these days. According to their
