Paul Johnson - The Death List

A heavy fog had come down over London that evening and the traffic was backed up all the way from the Lea Bridge roundabout to Hackney Central.

Jawinder Newton banged her hands on the steering wheel as the bus in front of her Peugeot stopped again. It was nearly eleven o’clock. Not for the first time, the monthly meeting of the Hospital Trust had overrun. September’s report was full of unresolved problems and she’d had to fight to keep her eyes open. It wasn’t just her demanding job-she was a solicitor in a busy local partnership that dealt with immigrants’ problems. The fact was, she’d only been back at work for six weeks after maternity leave. She was finding it hard being away from her beautiful Raul. He would soon be eight months old and she already felt she was losing touch with him. At least her mother was able to look after the little boy when she and Steven were out during the day. She didn’t know how people could entrust their children to outsiders.

The traffic finally cleared at the roundabout ahead and Jawinder turned right at Clapton Ponds. She found a parking place opposite the terraced house on Thornby Road and stretched for her bag. Before she got out, she turned on the interior light and looked in the mirror. She was a mess, her short black hair ruffled and her eyes bloodshot, but she didn’t care. In a few seconds she’d be lost in Raul’s delicate scent and listening to the miraculous regular intake of his breath.

Locking the car in the thick drizzle, Jawinder ran across the deserted street, house key in her hand. As she went up the steps, her heart missed a beat. Raul was screaming. Even though the nursery was at the back on the first floor, she could hear his cries clearly and immediately she panicked. What was Steven doing? Surely he couldn’t have fallen asleep in front of the television. The noise was enough to wake the dead.

She pushed the door open, letting her handbag and briefcase fall to the floor.

“Steven!” she shouted, going past the sitting-room door. It was a couple of inches open and she could see her husband’s head lolling on the back of the sofa. Jeremy Paxman was grilling some government spokesman on the television. “For God’s sake, Steven! Can’t you hear Raul?”

Jawinder dashed up the stairs, her heart pounding. The sound of her son’s voice was piercing. It was making the hair on the back of her neck stand up and her breath catch in her throat. She ran into the nursery.

“What is it, my darling?” she said, picking up the red-faced child. His eyes were wide and filled with tears. He was alternately gulping for breath and screaming as if he were completely terrified. Jawinder had never seen him like this before. She clutched him to her chest and pressed the palm of her hand against his forehead. He wasn’t running a fever. The poor thing. He must have had some awful dream. Did babies have nightmares? She cooed to him, stroking his back and feeling the heaving little body gradually calm down.

“It’s all right, my beautiful, Mummy’s home.” She picked up the blanket from the bed and wrapped it round him. “Mummy’s home to look after her little man.”

Raul looked at her with huge, tear-filled brown eyes and let out a grunt of satisfaction. Then he smiled.

“My darling,” Jawinder said, finding his bottle and putting it to his lips. “There you are. That silly Daddy. Let’s go downstairs and find out what he’s doing.” She carried the sucking child out of the bedroom, her eyes narrow in fury. She was going to tell Steven exactly what she thought of his child-care skills.

When she reached the open sitting-room door, Jawinder looked over the dark hair on her son’s head. She noticed now that the TV volume was much higher than Steven liked. He was always complaining about how loud her mother had it.

“Steven?” she said severely. “Didn’t you hear your son screaming?” The remote control was on top of the TV. She went to take it and lower the volume, surprised by its location. Her husband normally put it between his legs, something she was sure he did to irritate her mother. “Steven?”

Jawinder turned and almost dropped Raul. She managed to stifle the scream that burst from her throat, but not before her son started whimpering. She moved him round to keep his eyes from what was on the sofa.

“Steven?” she repeated, her voice nothing more than a whisper.

But her husband didn’t answer. He couldn’t answer. A red scarf had been tied tightly around his mouth, making his cheeks pouch out above it. His eyes, the dark blue that had attracted her so much when they met in the bank five years ago-she’d gone to negotiate a loan for the partnership-that beautiful blue was an awful parody of what it had been now that his eyeballs were bulging like an octopus’s.

Jawinder’s knees were weak, her body racked by spasms that turned Raul’s complaints to bleats of fear. She mouthed her husband’s name, her voice completely gone.

Steven Newton was sprawled on the sofa, his legs wide. He’d kicked over the coffee table and a can of beer had drained onto the carpet. But the smell of alcohol that Jawinder disliked so much was not the one making her stomach heave. That was a visceral, far more repellent stench.

It came from her husband’s midriff. His shirt had been wrenched apart and his abdomen cut open. In a cascade of blood, his inner organs had fallen forward over his groin.

Jawinder staggered to the door, keeping Raul’s face away from his father. She pulled the door shut behind her and reached for the phone on the hall table. The remote handset wasn’t there. She couldn’t bring herself to go back into the sitting room to look for it. Fumbling in her handbag, she found her mobile and hit 999.

Her son started to cry again as she stammered out her name and address in a high-pitched wail. But she couldn’t describe what had been done to Steven.

The horror of it would surely never leave her.

“Jesus Christ Almighty.”

“Steady,” Karen Oaten said. “There are enough unpleasant substances in this room already.”

“Sorry, guv.” Detective Sergeant John Turner, eight years in the job but still possessed of an unreliable stomach, managed to swallow the bitter flood that had risen up his throat. Inspector Oaten had no time for people with weak stomachs. She also had no time for people who called her “Wild” or “Oats,” so no one did, at least to her face. She was a hard one and she wanted no distinctions made between her and her male counterparts, so “ma’am” was out and “guv” was in. Turner, from Cardiff, wished he could stop the rest of the team calling him “Taff,” but he knew there was no chance of that. “What do you think?” he said. “Jamaicans? Turks?”

The inspector gave him an impenetrable look. In white coveralls with matching bootees, she managed to come across as both attractive and in control, her blond hair tied back in a bunch. She was also as smart as they came, a graduate on the fast track who’d be promoted out of the Metropolitan Police’s Eastern Homicide Division soon, Turner was sure. He just hoped she’d stay long enough for him to pick her brains.

“Certainly looks like there’s a drug connection.” Oaten glanced at the hundred-gram bag of cocaine that one of the scenes-of-crime officers had found under the upturned coffee table.

Turner looked at his notes. “According to the wife, he never touched narcotics. He was a bank manager.”