He got back into the car shivering, slamming the door gratefully against the elements. The smell of greasy bacon lingered.
Bella looked at him wearily. ‘I think it’s time to wake up the caretaker,’ she said.
‘Yup, seems very selfish to be the only ones appreciating this beautiful night,’ he said.
‘Very selfish,’ she agreed.
They climbed out, locked the doors, then walked back across to the front door. Glenn pressed the button marked Concierge.
There was no response. After a few moments he tried again. About thirty seconds went by, then there was a sharp crackle, followed by a voice with a strong Irish accent.
‘Yes, who’s that?’
‘Police,’ Glenn Branson said. ‘We have a search warrant for one of your flats and need you to let us in.’
The man sounded suspicious. ‘Police, you say?’
‘Yes.’
‘Fek! Just be giving me a minute, will ya, to get some clothes on.’
A short while later the front door was opened by a strong-looking, shaven-headed man of about sixty, with a broken, boxer’s nose, wearing a sweatshirt, baggy jogging bottoms and flip- flops.
‘Detective Sergeant Branson and Detective Sergeant Moy,’ Glenn said, holding up his warrant card.
Bella produced hers too and the Irishman squinted at them in turn with suspicion.
‘And your name is?’ Bella asked.
Folding his arms defensively, the concierge replied, ‘Dowler. Oliver Dowler.’
Then Glenn produced a sheet of paper. ‘We have a search warrant for Flat 1202 and we’ve been ringing the occupant’s bell regularly since just after eleven last night, with no response.’
‘Well, now… 1202?’ Oliver Dowler said with a frown. Then he raised a finger and gave a cheery smile. ‘I’m not surprised you’re getting no answer. The occupant vacated the premises yesterday. You’ve just missed him.’
Glenn cursed.
‘Vacated?’ Bella Moy queried.
‘He moved out.’
‘Do you know where he’s gone?’ Glenn asked.
‘Abroad,’ the concierge said. ‘Fed up with the English climate.’ Then he jabbed his own chest. ‘Just like me – I got two more years to go, then I’m retiring to the Philippines.’
‘Do you have a forwarding address or a phone number?’
‘Nothing at all. He said he would be in touch.’
Glenn pointed upwards. ‘Let’s go to his flat.’
The three of them rode the lift and stepped straight out into the penthouse.
True to Oliver Dowler’s word, Cosmescu had indeed vacated the place. There was not one piece of furniture left. No carpet, rug, not even any rubbish of any kind. A couple of bare light bulbs hung from their flex, and a few down-lighters burned starkly. There was a strong smell of fresh paint.
They walked through each of the rooms, their footsteps echoing. The whole place looked as if it had been professionally cleaned. In the kitchen, Glenn opened the fridge and freezer doors. Inside they were bare. As was the dishwasher. He checked the inside of the washing machine and tumble dryer in the utility room and those were empty too.
There was nothing that either Glenn Branson or Bella Moy could see, in this cursory inspection, that gave any clue as to the previous occupant, or indeed that there had ever been one. There weren’t even any shadows on the walls from where pictures or mirrors might have been removed.
Branson rubbed his finger down one pale grey wall, but however recent the paint might have been, it was now dry.
‘Did he rent this flat or own it?’ Bella Moy asked.
‘He rented it,’ the concierge said. ‘Six-monthly renewable lease, unfurnished.’
‘How long has he been here?’
‘About the same as me. Ten years I been here, next month.’
‘So his lease just expired?’ Glenn Branson said.
Dowler shook his head. ‘Not at all. He’s paid up for about three months still.’
The two detectives frowned at each other. Then Glenn handed him a card.
‘If he gets in touch with you, will you contact me, please? We need to speak to him very urgently.’
‘He said he would be dropping me a line or an email, with a forwarding address, like for the bills and stuff.’
‘Can you tell us anything about him, Mr Dowler?’ Bella asked.
He shook his head. ‘In ten years I never had a conversation with him. Nothing. Very private.’ Then he grinned. ‘But I saw him a few times with some lovely ladies. He had a good eye for women, he did.’
‘What about his car?’
‘Gone too.’ Then he yawned. ‘Will you be needing me any more tonight? Or shall I leave you to be getting on with your search?’
‘You can leave us. I don’t think we’ll be very long,’ Glenn said.
‘No,’ the concierge said with a grin, ‘I don’t think that you will.’
After he had departed Glenn smiled at something. ‘Got it!’
‘What?’ Bella enquired.
‘Who the concierge reminds me of, the actor, Yul Brynner.’
‘Yul Brynner?’
‘
She looked puzzled.
‘One of the greatest movies ever made! Also had Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn.’
‘I never saw it.’
‘God, you’ve led a sheltered life!’
From the crestfallen look on her face, he realized he’d touched a raw nerve.
101
At 7.45 a.m. in the cramped conference room of the Specialist Search Unit, Tanya Whitlock was briefing her team on an operation none of them was enjoying.
Post-mortem tests on Brighton drug dealer, Niall Foster, who had fallen to his death from a seventh-floor flat, had concluded that the blow to the side of his head was caused by a heavy, blunt object which had struck him before he fell, and not, as had originally been believed, by one of the metal railings on which he had landed, head first.
From the bevel-mark imprints on his skull, and metallurgy analysis from fragments in the hair, the pathologist believed the murder weapon might well be an antique brass table lamp – which Foster’s distraught girlfriend said was missing from his flat.
Spread out in front of Tania was a crude map of a large open space to the south of Old Shoreham Road, adjoining Hove Cemetery – the Hove Domestic Waste and Recycling Depot. The whole team would be spending their entire Saturday searching through eighteen tons of rat-infested rubbish for this object. Last time they’d had to search this dump, a couple of months ago, several of them suffered headaches for days from the methane rising from the decomposing rubbish. None of them was looking forward to this return visit.
In the breaking dawn sky above the SSU building, the pilot of a four-seater Cessna was radioing Shoreham Tower.
‘Golf Bravo Echo Tango Whiskey inbound from Dover.’
The little airport was unlit, so only operated between the hours of sunrise and sunset. This plane would be one of the morning’s first arrivals.
‘Golf Bravo Echo Tango Whiskey, Runway Zero Three. How many passengers?’
‘I’m solo,’ the pilot said.
As Sergeant Whitlock showed the next section on the grid that her team members were to cover, they were all concentrating hard. None of them heard the drone of the light aircraft coming in low overhead, circling to make its landing approach to Shoreham Airport’s runway 03.
Private aircraft and helicopters came and went here all the time. As there were no international flights, there was no Border Control presence, or any Customs either. Incoming flights from abroad were meant to radio a request for a customs officer and a border control agent to attend, and to remain in their aircraft until both had cleared them. But that normally meant a long delay, often with no officers arriving anyway, so pilots sometimes took a risk and did not bother.
Certainly the pilot of the twin-engined Cessna was not intending to radio them. The flight plan he had filed last night was from Shoreham to a private airstrip near Dover and then back. He had omitted to include, on the plan, a minor detour across the Channel to Le Touquet in France and back – which he had made with his transponder switched off. For cash payments of the size that he was receiving for this trip, he was always more than happy to make omissions in his flight plans.
He taxied along the three-deep line of parked aircraft towards his parking space, happy to hear that there were several more incoming aircraft stacking up, which would keep the crew in the tower occupied. He turned in, manoeuvring his plane to the same angle as the others, then put on the parking brake and throttled back the engines. He looked around carefully for signs of anyone who might be taking an interest in them, then switched off both ignitions.
As the propellers spun down, the aircraft vibrated less and less and the noise diminished. The pilot removed his headset, turned to the beautiful, blonde German woman directly behind him and said, ‘OK?’
