Lee Weeks - Frozen Grave

‘I don’t know Mason or where he is. I wouldn’t know where to look. But, I’ll do what I can – talk to the regulars. I’ll do my best.’

Carter wasn’t having it.

‘Did you ever see him with large amounts of money on him before?’

‘No. Never.’

‘So you’d be surprised to learn he came in here with two hundred and fifty quid?’

‘It’s a big surprise.’

‘No idea where he got it?’

‘No, I’m sorry.’

Someone must have an idea; one of his friends must know something. We need your cooperation with this. They obviously talk to you. Someone’s going to be wanting to get it off their chest – they might even be looking for the money. Find Spike for us. He must know Toffee’s involvement. Tell them there’s a reward for information. I’ll pay fifty quid to the person who tells me something useful.’

They looked back through the window into Toffee’s room.

The machines had come to life again.

Ivy brought Toffee’s belongings and clothes in a bag for Carter. He signed for them.

A blonde-haired woman wearing the detective’s unnofficial uniform of black trousers and a dark jacket came towards them down the corridor.

‘This is Detective Constable Zoe Blackman,’ Carter said to Simon as she got near, before walking her back down the corridor to talk with her privately.

‘We need samples: hair from all sites, DNA, fingerprints. As much as we can get. You’ll be all right to stay the night?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘That’s our prime murder suspect in there.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And get friendly with Simon Smith. He’s lying or at least he’s not telling us everything he could. I want to know why.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Sandy stood and stretched as she felt Mason move in his sleep. She was desperate to get up. She walked across to the other side of the arch, where she had once killed and eaten a rat and squatted and peed. From there she could watch anyone approach. She began a low growl.

‘Mason – it’s Spike. Tell your dog to back off. Mason!’

Mason turned over.

‘Sandy, come here, girl,’ he called. She wagged her tail as she obeyed and sat next to him to wait, keeping an eye on Spike. ‘Where’s Toffee?’ asked Mason.

‘He’s hurt. Train hit him. We saw the ambulance come. It was in a hurry so I suppose he’s alive. Not sure for how long. Jesus, look at your face.’

‘A train?’

‘Yes, a train. The police chased him. We’re all in a lot of trouble.’

Mason shook his head, confused. He couldn’t take it in.

‘He had this bag of stuff when it happened. He told me he was getting it for you.’ Spike opened the carrier bag from the chemist’s. ‘I suppose I can try and clean you up if you want and you can owe me?’ Mason didn’t answer. Spike laid out the contents of the bag on the blue coat and tore open a packet of antiseptic wipes, opened a bottle of antiseptic. Mason flinched as Spike cleaned up the cuts and stuck strips across to hold them shut. The cut beneath Mason’s eye opened up again immediately.

‘There – that’s the best I can do. I’ll bring you some food later, if you’ve got money. Did Toffee give you any? I know he had some on him.’ Mason didn’t answer. He lay back and closed his eyes and breathed hard through the pain. ‘Where is it?’ Spike put his hand inside Mason’s pocket; Sandy sprang forward and growled.

Spike got to his feet. ‘All right, all right – you can fucking starve then. Have it your own way.’

After Spike left, the day grew dark and Sandy grew so hungry she couldn’t settle, but she wouldn’t leave Mason. She watched him as he slept. She sniffed Mason’s face. She listened to him as he talked in his sleep and she lay close by to keep him warm.

In the morning, Sandy opened an eye at the sound of the cars arriving to park for the day. She recognized the sounds of individual cars. She crept out to take a look and to watch the people. None of them ever took any notice of her or her master. She watched the young woman get out of her car. She did the same thing every day. She got out and put on her coat and then she reached back in for her backpack. It smelt of food.

At ten, Carter and Willis were back in Robbo’s office with him and his staff. They had worked late into the night.

‘Did you check her PC yet, Robbo?’ Carter turned in his seat to ask.

‘We’re still doing it. It will take time.’

Carter picked up the sheets to read through Olivia Grantham’s phone records.

‘About one in five of these texts is sexually explicit,’ said Hector. ‘And they’re from different men.’

‘Did you have trouble getting into the phone?’

‘No. I managed to bypass her code easily. It looks like she gives several men the same surname: Naughties. So we have Peter Naughties, Mark Naughties, JJ Naughties. I Googled Naughties. It’s a website for swinging Londoners.’

‘I know it. Naughties is the one advertised on the Tube, isn’t it?’ asked Carter. ‘The one with the woman with heavy eye make-up saying “Shhh” and the man stripping off in the background?’

‘That’s the one,’ answered Robbo.

‘Start phoning these men – the ones she’s been texting,’ said Carter, looking at Hector. ‘No – on second thoughts, ring all of the male contacts you can find on her phone. We need to know if they met her, if they had sex with her and, if so, then we need the details. Check out where they were on Sunday evening. Tell them Olivia Grantham has been involved in an incident and we’re trying to trace her contacts. Try not to give too much away. I want to know exactly who they are, what they do for a living, any previous for anything at all. We need to build up more of a picture of Olivia’s life and we need to talk to her workmates again. Someone must know who she’d been seeing.’

‘Do we need to be discreet?’ asked Hector. ‘They could be married.’ He looked at Carter’s expression. Carter had a face that read: ‘Who cares?’

Carter shrugged. ‘Okay. We’ll be respectful… for now.’

Robbo sat forward in his chair and pulled images up on his screen.

‘You attended the post-mortem?’

Carter nodded. ‘Yes. Dr Kahn, Harding’s stand-in, performed it. Have you got the post-mortem report yet?’ he asked.

Robbo pressed the download button on the screen and Willis came round to his PC to view it.

He brought up the photos of Olivia Grantham’s body on the mortuary table, then zoomed in and scanned down the photo of the first overall view of the body. Willis sat down in front of the screen.

‘Three cracked ribs, broken humerus.’ Robbo said, bringing up the X-ray. ‘Several bite marks,’ he added as he continued to study it. ‘Kahn says here that she died from a brain injury caused by a head wound, but that there was internal bleeding and a ruptured spleen. Beaten to death, basically.’

They took a few minutes to look through the photos. Carter sat back.

‘Mob frenzy that someone paid for.’

‘Gang rape can’t have been what she was looking for or buying in to?’ said Robbo. He looked at the photo of Olivia that was on the Linkedin site. It was the profile of a family lawyer. ‘She was headed for great things in her company: ambitious and bright. All the things you’d expect.’

‘Except her sex life was lacking and she was looking to spice it up,’ said Carter.

‘You think of lawyers as cautious types,’ said Pam. Her desk was neatly divided into piles of files. She was the senior researcher in the room. She spent her time trolling through details on websites and checking facts.

Carter shook his head. ‘Not this one, Pam,’ he said as he continued looking through transcripts of the texts. ‘Her bucket list was getting longer by the minute.’