Peter James - You Are Dead

‘Yes.’ He fixed his eyes on Roy Grace’s.

Roy Grace left, ten minutes later, unsure about everything except for one certainty. Logan Somerville was missing.

The ANPR evidence seemed to eliminate Jamie Ball. But his body language made him appear guilty. Of something.

What was he lying about?

As Grace drove away he made a mental note that he needed to appoint a Family Liaison Officer first thing in the morning, someone who might be able to shed more light on the relationship.

Thursday 11 December

I keep my projects in their own private cubicles in what I like to call my correction chamber. Tanks all plumbed in, my projects kitted out with adult disposable nappies. Cleanliness is so important for morale. I keep them healthy, plenty of vitamins, nutrients, electrolytes. I want them to live as long as possible. So that I can make the choices about when to say goodbye. It’s all about power. Power is hugely exciting.

I don’t like to call them my victims. I prefer the term projects.

I’m not a violent person, really I’m not. Once, when I was a kid, I hit a sparrow with a pebble I fired from my catapult. I can still remember that bird spinning round and round like a helicopter, plummeting to the ground. I’d never really expected to hit it — I’d just fired at it for fun. I picked it up, its feathers all soft and its body so warm, and I was crying, trying to breathe life back into it through its little beak.

I dug a grave for it, laid it in the bottom, apologized, covered it with earth and said a prayer.

I felt like shit for days after. But at the same time it wakened something inside me. Every time I looked at a bird, for the rest of my childhood, I would think to myself about the power I had.

The power of death.

Killing things makes me feel strong. Some people will say that’s evil.

Here’s the thing: does evil exist? Surely only if you believe in God. Otherwise you believe in the survival of the fittest. Which means I survive and others I choose to kill don’t.

Today I’ve chosen to kill. I’ve been looking forward to this moment for days — well, actually, for weeks!

But, of course, you are not capable of ever knowing the pleasure this is going to give me.

Thursday 11 December

Water had been steadily filling the tank for the past hour. Restraints across her neck, wrists, stomach, thighs and ankles kept her secured to the bottom of the tank, unable to move. The water was now brimming over her chin. In a few minutes it would be covering her mouth. Then her nose.

He stared down at his project through his night-vision goggles, and saw the terror in her face in the monochrome green light. He liked to keep the correction chamber in darkness, so that his projects could not see one another. He kept them in the dark, so to speak. That term was his little private joke.

Her brown hair floated all around her face. It was a very beautiful sight and he took an infrared photograph of her. She was staring up at him, looking as if she was ready to scream again at any moment. Some of his projects had beautiful screams that sent a surge of longing deep through him. But not this one. She had a really ugly scream. Strange, that such a beautiful woman, with quite delicious-looking lips, could produce such a hideous sound.

He raised a finger to his lips, then leaned down and kissed her, pressing his own lips hard against hers, forming a seal. At the same time he pinched her nostrils tightly closed with his surgically gloved hand. He kept his lips to hers as she struggled, sucking, sucking, sucking the very last breath from her, feeling the water rising up against his face, still sucking. Then he released her nostrils, let go of her lips and stood up. He watched the bubbles rising. Not many at all.

He’d taken that very last breath from her.

Now he possessed her. Forever.

Soon, while she was still warm, he would make love to her.

She could never reject him!

Friday 12 December

Logan Somerville was still missing in the morning, and that knowledge weighed heavily on Roy Grace, who had come straight from a briefing of his team in the Incident Room at Sussex House.

The rain had stopped during the night and the patches of sky in the gaps between the swift-moving clouds above Hove Lagoon were a stark, cold blue. There was an inner and outer cordon marked off by blue and white crime scene tape, each cordon protected by a PCSO scene guard. A knot of onlookers stood just beyond the outer cordon, several of them taking photos with their phones. Inside the inner cordon, there were now four blue CSI tents rippling and crackling in the strong, salty wind coming in straight off the Channel, the guy ropes tugging at their pegs.

It looked like an entire army of people had moved in since he and Branson had been here last night, Grace thought. The Surrey and Sussex Police helicopter, NPAS 15, hovered overhead, taking photographs to map the scene, and added to the feel of a military operation. A cluster of cars and vans and a small mechanical digger were parked nearby. There was a marked police car, the Major Incident van, another van belonging to the construction company and several private cars. One of these, a yellow Saab convertible, Roy Grace recognized to his relief as belonging to Home Office pathologist Nadiuska De Sancha.

Out of the two specialist pathologists covering this area, who could be called in to investigate suspected homicides, all the SIOs in Surrey and Sussex much preferred the pleasant, easy-going Nadiuska to the pedantic and arrogant Dr Frazer Theobald. De Sancha was popular because not only was she good at her job, she was a fast worker and good-natured with it.

A CSI scene sketcher was making a detailed plan of the entire site, and another CSI, like all the others wearing a disposable scene suit, gloves, face mask, hairnet and over-shoe protectors, was scanning the area immediately around the scene with ground-penetrating radar, searching for any other bodies that might also be here.

Several workmen in hi-viz jackets were hanging around close to the construction company van, some drinking tea or coffee and one struggling with the flapping pages of the Sun newspaper. A Crime Scene Photographer, James Gartrell, whom Grace had worked with many times, was busy taking photographs of the whole scene, and making a digital recording of the events.

Grace glanced at his watch as he strode with Glenn Branson through the onlookers beyond the outer cordon, towards the uniformed PCSO scene guard who was rubbing her hands against the cold. Several gulls bobbed like marker buoys on the near lagoon, and on the far pond a windsurfer in a wetsuit, under tuition, wobbled on his board, bent over, struggling to bring the sail up out of the water. As they reached the PCSO and signed in, Grace heard a female voice call out behind him. ‘Detective Superintendent!’

The two detectives turned to see a young, attractive fair-haired woman, in a bright red mackintosh, hurrying towards them. Siobhan Sheldrake, a recent addition to the Argus newspaper reporting team, and a replacement for their previous Crime Reporter, Kevin Spinella, who had been the bane of Grace’s life.

The relationship with the press was a vital one for the police to manage well. The press needed sensational stories, which often entailed having a go at the police from many angles. But equally in major crime investigations, the press could be crucial in public appeals for witnesses to come forward. He was hoping for a better relationship with this new reporter.

‘Good morning!’ he said pleasantly, raising his voice against the loud thwock-thwock-thwock of the helicopter. ‘You’ve met my colleague, DI Branson?’