Stephen Leather - Dead Men

She went to the kitchen door. ‘Graham, where are you?’ she called. There was no answer. She looked round the kitchen. It was spotless. There was a Tesco carrier-bag on the counter by the fridge and she peered inside. Two steaks, a bunch of asparagus, a microwaveable pouch of new potatoes and two individual chocolate mousses. At least he hadn’t eaten without her. The kitchen clock told her it was just before nine. Occasionally Graham went to the pub at weekends but rarely during the week. He made a point of being first in the office, which meant getting up at seven each morning. He was probably showering. Button smiled to herself. It had been a while since she’d surprised Graham in the bathroom. Last time it had led to an eventful evening. The steaks could wait.

She headed for the stairs, closing the kitchen door behind her. The last thing she wanted was the dog jumping up on to the bed.

Shepherd flicked on his indicator to make a right turn on the A30 back to London. Opposite him he saw an entrance to the Crown Estate land and, beyond, a rutted track that led through the forest. A blue car was parked beside the gate. Shepherd turned on to the main road, noticing idly that the vehicle was empty. Suddenly he braked. He peered at the car in his rear-view mirror. It was a dark blue saloon, a Ford Mondeo. There was nothing unusual about it, which was why it seemed out of place in Virginia Water. He couldn’t imagine anyone wealthy enough to live in the area driving a common-or-garden Ford. It was a place where BMWs, Jaguars and petrol-guzzling SUVs were the norm. The nanny might drive a Ford, or the gardener, but neither was likely to park it at the side of the road. It might have belonged to a Crown Estate worker – but why would they have parked outside the gate and not driven through it?

Shepherd wondered if he was worrying about nothing. Charlie was at home, and so was her husband. He put the car in gear and accelerated away. He had travelled only a few yards when he stamped on the brake. He couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was wrong, that the car shouldn’t have been parked where it was. He sighed and reached for his mobile phone. It would take only a few minutes to check it out. He tapped in the number of SOCA’s intelligence unit in a nondescript office building in Pimlico, central London, not far from MI6’s more dramatic riverside headquarters.

A man answered. ‘Hello.’ It was standard procedure for SOCA operatives at all levels not to identify their location or function. If Shepherd had asked if he was talking to SOCA or to Intel, the call would have been terminated immediately.

‘PNC vehicle check, please,’ said Shepherd.

‘Name, ID number and radio call sign?’ said the voice.

Shepherd gave his full name and the two numbers.

‘Registration number?’

Shepherd read the digits off the front numberplate of the car.

There was a short pause before the man spoke again. ‘It’s a blue Ford Mondeo 2.0 LX. The registered keeper is shown as the Hertz Rental Company and they have been the keeper since the tenth of January two thousand and seven. There are no reports.’

Shepherd’s jaw tightened. A hire car was a bad sign. ‘It doesn’t by any chance say to which Hertz office the car was assigned?’

‘Just the company name, sorry.’

‘Can you do me a favour?’ asked Shepherd. ‘I’m in the field and pressed for time. Can you contact Hertz and find out which office the car was hired from, and get me the name of the customer?’

‘Not a problem,’ said the voice. ‘Is it okay to call you on this number?’

‘That would be great,’ said Shepherd.

The line went dead. Shepherd rarely used the intelligence unit but when he did he was always impressed with the can-do attitude. If he’d called the Metropolitan Police for help they would have given him half a dozen reasons why they couldn’t make the call to the car-hire company. He settled back in his seat. Maybe he was worrying about nothing. Maybe one of the locals had put his BMW or Jaguar in for servicing and hired a car to tide him over. Maybe.

Button stared round the empty bathroom. ‘Graham, where are you?’ she called. Poppy barked from the kitchen. She went back into the bedroom. He couldn’t have gone far because his car was parked outside and he wasn’t one of life’s great walkers. The bedroom window overlooked the garden and she peered out. She didn’t expect to see him there because he wasn’t one of life’s gardeners, either.

Her jacket was on the bed where she’d thrown it and she retrieved her mobile phone from the pocket. She’d called Graham just before she’d met Patsy Ellis in the wine bar so she scrolled through her calls list and pressed her husband’s number. She put the phone to her ear as she looked round the bedroom. For a crazy moment she imagined her husband had walked out on her, but that made no sense because he would have taken the car. She opened the sliding mirrored door to the wardrobe. All his clothes were there, of course. She shut it and smiled at her reflection. Graham didn’t have time for an affair, and she doubted that any other woman would put up with the hours he worked.

The phone rang, and kept on ringing. Button frowned. That didn’t make sense because Graham never went anywhere without it. He took calls from clients at any time of day or night, no matter where he was or what he was doing, and usually he answered on the second or third ring.

She began to pace round the room. She had often joked with him that only a stroke or a heart-attack would stop him answering his phone, and now a coldness was spreading through her, tightening round her chest like a steel band. The phone stopped ringing and went to voicemail. She cut the connection, then pressed redial as she went on to the landing. As soon as she did, she heard his ringtone downstairs. The James Bond theme. He’d chosen it initially as an ironic comment on her job, but after a while he’d grown to like the tune and had steadfastly refused to change it. Every time it rang he’d look at her, smile slyly, and she would say, ‘Boys will be boys.’

Button moved along the landing, holding out her phone in front of her. If the phone was in the house, so was Graham. The band round her chest was so tight now that she could barely breathe. Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong.

She walked slowly down the stairs. ‘Graham!’ she called, hearing the uncertainty in her voice. ‘Graham, where are you?’

Poppy barked from the kitchen.

Button reached the bottom of the stairs. The phone went to voicemail and the James Bond music stopped. She cut the connection and pressed redial again. She put her head on one side, her brow furrowed as she concentrated. The ring-tone kicked into life again. It was coming from the study. She reached for the door handle and took a deep breath as she tried to convince herself that everything was all right, that when she pushed open the door she’d see Graham at his desk, listening to Phil Collins on his Bose headphones, oblivious to his ringing phone.

Her jaw dropped when she saw him on the floor, lying on his back. His eyes were wide and staring and there was a damp patch at his groin.

‘Graham?’ she whispered. ‘Oh, Graham.’ She hurried across the carpet and knelt beside him. She put her hand to his neck and felt for a pulse, but even as she did so she knew she was wasting her time. He was dead. She sat back and looked at his chest. She opened his jacket and saw a red stain on his shirt. She began to tremble, but fought to stop her hands shaking, and undid the buttons round the glistening stain. ‘Oh, Graham, my poor darling,’ she whispered. The wound was narrow, less than an inch, a clean cut. He had been killed with a knife. A very sharp knife. A single blow to the heart. There was no sign of the murder weapon.