‘Ever see that movie
‘I don’t think so,’ Grace said. ‘No. Why?’
‘It was about a racist cop in the Deep South.’
‘And?’
Branson shrugged.
‘I’m being racist?’
‘You could have ruined someone else’s weekend. Why mine?’
‘Because I always target black men.’
‘That’s what Ari thinks.’
‘You can’t be serious?’
A couple of months ago, Roy had taken Glenn in as a lodger when his wife had thrown him out. After a few days of living at close quarters, it had nearly been the end of a beautiful friendship. Now Glenn was back with his wife.
‘I am serious.’
‘I think Ari has a problem.’
‘The opening shot on the bridge is famous. It’s one of the longest tracking shots in cinema history,’ Glenn said.
‘Great. I’ll watch it some time. Listen, matey, Ari has to get real.’
Glenn offered him a piece of gum. Grace accepted and chewed, perked up by the instant hit of peppermint.
Then Glenn said, ‘Did you really need to drag me out here tonight? You could have got someone else.’
They passed a street corner and Grace saw a shabby man in a shell suit talking to a youth in a hoodie. To his trained eye, they looked furtive. A local drug dealer serving up.
‘I thought things were better between you and Ari.’
‘So did I. I bought her the fucking horse she wanted. Now it turns out it was the wrong kind of horse.’
Finally, through the clunking wiper blades, Grace could see a cluster of digging machines, a police car, blue and white crime-scene tape across the entrance to a construction site, and a very drenched, unhappy-looking constable in a yellow high-visibility jacket, holding a clipboard wrapped in a plastic bag. The sight pleased Grace: at least today’s uniformed police were getting the hang of what needed to be done to preserve crime scenes.
He pulled over, parking just in front of the police car, and turned to Glenn. ‘You’ve got your inspector’s promotion boards coming up soon, haven’t you?’
‘Yeah.’ The DS shrugged.
‘This could be just the type of inquiry that will give you plenty to talk about during your interview. The interest factor.’
‘Tell Ari that.’
Grace put an arm around his friend’s shoulder. He loved this guy, who was one of the brightest detectives he had ever encountered. Glenn had all the qualities to take him a long way in the police force, but at a price. And that price was something that many couldn’t accept. The insane hours destroyed too many marriages. Mostly, those who survived best were married to other police officers. Or to nurses, or others in professions where antisocial hours were par for the course.
‘I chose you today because you are the best man to have beside me. But I’m not forcing you. You can come with me or you go home. It’s up to you.’
‘Yeah, old-timer, I go home and then what? Tomorrow I’m back in uniform, busting gays for indecent exposure down on Duke’s Mound. Have I got it right?’
‘More or less.’
Grace got out of the car. Branson followed.
Ducking against the rain and howling wind, they changed into their white oversuits and wellington boots, then, looking like a couple of sperm, walked up to the scene guard constable and signed themselves in.
‘You’re going to need torches,’ the constable said.
Grace clicked his torch on, then off. Branson did the same. A second constable, also wearing a bright yellow jacket, led the way in the falling light. They squelched through sticky mud that was rutted with the tyre tread patterns of heavy plant, making their way across the vast site.
They passed a tall crane, a silent JCB digger and stacks of building materials battened down under flapping sheets of polythene. The crumbling Victorian red-brick wall, fronting the foundations of Brighton Station’s car park, rose steeply in front of them. Beyond the darkness, they could see the orange glow of the city lights around them. A loose piece of hoarding clattered and somewhere two pieces of metal were clanging together.
Grace was eyeing the ground. Foundation pilings were being sunk. Heavy diggers would have been criss-crossing this area for months. Any evidence would have to be found inside the storm drain – anything outside would have long gone.
The constable stopped and pointed down into an excavated gully twenty feet below them. Grace stared at what looked like a partially buried prehistoric serpent with a jagged hole gouged out of its back. The mosaic of bricks, so old they were almost colourless, formed part of a semi-submerged tunnel just rising above the surface of the mud in places.
The storm drain from the old Brighton to Kemp Town railway line.
‘Nobody knew it was there,’ the constable said. ‘The JCB fractured it earlier today.’
Roy Grace held back for a moment, trying to overcome his fear of heights, even for this relatively small distance. Then he took a deep breath and scrambled down the steep, slippery slope, exhaling sharply with relief when he reached the bottom upright and intact. And suddenly the serpent’s body looked a whole lot bigger, and more exposed, than it had seemed from above. The rounded shape curved above him, nearly seven feet high, he guessed. The hole in the middle looked as dark as a cave.
He strode towards it, with Branson and the constable right behind him and switched on his torch. As he entered the storm drain, shadows jigged wildly back at him. He ducked his head, crinkling his nose at the strong, fetid smell of damp. It was higher in here than it had seemed from the outside; it felt like being in an ancient tube tunnel, with no platform.
‘The Third Man,’ Glenn Branson said suddenly. ‘You’ve seen that movie. You’ve got that at home.’
‘The one with Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten?’ Grace said.
‘Yeah, good memory! Sewers always remind me of it.’
Grace shone the powerful beam to the right. Darkness. Shimmering puddles of water. Ancient brickwork. Then he shone the beam to the left. And jumped.
‘Shit!’ Glenn Branson shouted, his voice echoing round them.
Although Grace had been expecting it, what he saw, several yards away down the tunnel, still spooked him. A skeleton, reclining against the wall, partially buried in silt. It looked like it was just lounging there, waiting for him. Long fronds of hair were still attached to the scalp in places, but otherwise it was mostly just bare bones, picked or rotted clean, with a few tiny patches of desiccated skin.
He squelched towards it, being careful not to slip on the mulch base. Twin pinpricks of red appeared for an instant and were gone. A rat. He swung the beam back on to the skull, its inane rictus grin chilling him.
And something else about it chilled him too.
The hair. Even though the lustre had long gone, it was the same length and had the same winter-wheat colouring as the hair of his long-vanished wife, Sandy.
Trying to dismiss the thought from his mind, he turned to the constable and asked, ‘Have you searched the whole length?’
‘No, sir, I thought we should wait for the SOCOs.’
‘Good.’
Grace was relieved, glad that the young man had had the sense not to risk disturbing or destroying any evidence that might still be in here. Then he realized his hand was shaking. He shone the beam back on the skull.
On the fronds of hair.
On his thirtieth birthday, a little over nine years ago now, Sandy, the wife he adored, had vanished off the face of the earth. He had been searching for her ever since. Wondering every day, and every night, what had happened to her. Had she been kidnapped and imprisoned somewhere? Run off with a secret lover? Been murdered? Committed suicide? Was she still alive or dead? He’d even resorted to mediums, clairvoyants and just about every other kind of psychic he could find.
Most recently he had been to Munich, where there had been a possible sighting. That made some sense, as she had relatives, on her mother’s side, from near there. But none of them had heard from her, and all his enquiries, as usual, had drawn a blank. Every time he encountered an unidentified dead woman who was remotely in Sandy’s age bracket, he wondered if perhaps this time it was her.
And the skeleton in front of him now, in this buried storm drain in the city where he had been born, grown up and fallen in love, seemed to be taunting him, as if to say,
6
Abby, on the hard carpeted floor, stared at the small sign beside the panel of buttons on the grey wall. In red capital letters on a white background it read:
WHEN BROKE DOWN
CALL 013 228 7828
OR DIAL 999
The grammar did not exactly fill her with confidence. Below the button panel was a narrow, cracked glass door. Slowly, one inch at a time, she crawled across the floor. It was only a few feet away but, with the lift rocking wildly at every movement, it might as well have been on the far side of the world.
Finally she reached it, prised it open and removed the handset, which was attached to a coiled wire.
It was dead.
She tapped the cradle and the lift swayed wildly again, but there was no sound from the handset. She dialled the numbers, just in case. Still nothing.
Great, she thought. Terrific. Then she eased her mobile from her handbag and dialled 999.
