Peter James - Dead Man's Grip

A voice came through Grace’s radio. It was the scene guard at the entrance. ‘Sir, there’s someone here to see you – says you’re expecting him. Kevin Spinella?’

Grace was expecting him, the way he would expect to see blowflies around a decomposing cadaver. He walked around the corner and up to the barrier. Spinella stood there, short and thin, collar of his beige mackintosh turned up in the clichéd fashion of a movie gumshoe, chewing a piece of gum with his ratty teeth, his gelled spiky hair untouched by the wind.

‘Good morning, Detective Superintendent!’ he said.

Grace tapped his watch. ‘It’s afternoon, actually.’ He gave the reporter a reproachful glance. ‘Unlike you to be behind the times.’

‘Ha-ha,’ Spinella said.

Grace stared at him quizzically but said nothing.

‘Hear you’ve got a body in a van,’ the reporter said.

‘Surprised it took you so long,’ Grace replied. ‘I’ve been here for hours.’

Spinella looked nonplussed. ‘Yeah, right. So, what can you tell me about it?’

‘Probably not as much as you can tell me,’ he retorted.

‘Don’t suppose it could be Ewan Preece, could it?’

An educated guess, Grace wondered? Or had one of the team here phoned Spinella?

‘There is a body in a van, but the body has not been identified at this stage,’ Grace replied.

‘Could it be the van you are looking for?’

He saw Nadiuska De Sancha, gowned up in an oversuit and white boots, walking towards them, carrying her large black bag.

‘Too early to tell.’

Spinella made a note on his pad.

‘It’s ten days since the accident. Do you feel you are making progress with your enquiries regarding the van and its driver, Detective Superintendent?’

‘We are very pleased with the level of response from the public,’ Grace lied. ‘But we would like to appeal to anyone in the Southwick area who saw a white van between the hours of 6 p.m. Monday 26 April and 8 a.m. Tuesday 27 April to contact us on our Incident Room number, or to call Crimestoppers anonymously. Do you want the numbers?’

‘I’ve got them,’ Spinella said.

‘That’s all I have for now,’ Grace said, nodding a silent greeting at the pathologist and signalling he would be with her in a moment. ‘Perhaps you’ll be kind enough to let me know when you’ve identified the body and confirmed what the van is?’

‘Very funny.’

Nadiuska signed the scene guard’s log, then ducked under the tape which Grace lifted for her.

‘Home Office pathologist?’ Spinella said. ‘Looks to me like you could have a murder inquiry going on.’

Grace turned and eyeballed him. ‘Makes a change, does it, being the last to know?’

He turned, with great satisfaction, and escorted Nadiuska De Sancha towards the quay and across to the right, out of the reporter’s line of sight. Then, knowing that she liked to work alone, in her own time, he left the pathologist and went to join Cleo and the rest of the team inside the warmth of the SSU truck.

Half an hour later Nadiuska De Sancha came up the steps and said, ‘Roy, I need to show you something.’

Worming himself into his anorak, Grace followed her outside and around to the white van. The pathologist stopped by the driver’s door, which was open.

‘I think we can safely rule out accidental death, Roy, and I’m fairly confident we can rule out suicide, too,’ she said.

He looked at her quizzically.

She pointed up at a small cylindrical object Grace had not taken in before, clipped to the driver’s-side sun visor. ‘See that? It’s a digital underwater camera – and transmitter. And it’s switched on, although the battery’s dead.’

Grace frowned and at the same time felt annoyed that he had not spotted it. How the hell had he missed it? About an inch in diameter and three inches long, with a dark blue metal casing and a fish-eye lens. What was it there for? Had Preece been filming himself?

Then, interrupting his thoughts, she pointed at the man’s hands and gave him a bemused look.

‘Dead man’s grip is caused by rigor mortis, right?’

Grace nodded.

She reached in with a blue, latex-gloved hand and raised one of Preece’s fleshy, alabaster-white fingers. The skin of the tip remained adhered to the steering wheel. It looked like a blister with tendrils attached.

‘I’ll need to do some lab tests to confirm it, but there’s some kind of adhesive that’s been applied here. Looks to me, as an educated guess, that the poor man’s hands have been superglued to the steering wheel.’

Tooth sat at the desk in his room at the Premier Inn, in front of his laptop, sipping a mug of coffee and editing the video of Ewan Preece’s last few minutes. The smoke detector in the ceiling was still taped up and a pack of cigarettes and a plastic lighter lay beside the saucer that he was using as an ashtray.

He had used three cameras: the one on his wrist, the one he had fitted to the interior of the van and one he had balanced on the edge of the skip. The film, still in rough-cut stage, which he would refine, began with an establishing exterior shot of the van at night, at the edge of the quay. There was a bollard to its right. A time and date print at the top right of the frame showed it was 2 a.m., Tuesday 27 April. Preece could be seen at the wheel, apparently unconscious, with duct tape over his mouth.

Then it cut to the interior. There was a wide-angle shot of Preece, buckled into his seat, in a grubby white T-shirt. He was opening his eyes as if awaking from sleep, seemingly confused and disoriented. Then he peered down at his hands, which were on the steering wheel, clearly puzzled as to why he could not move them.

He began to struggle, trying to free his hands. His eyes bulged in fear as he started to realize something was wrong. A hand appeared in frame and ripped the duct tape from his mouth. Preece yelped in pain, then turned his head towards the door, speaking to a person out of shot. His voice was insolent but tinged with fear.

‘Who are you? What are you doing? What the fuck are you doing?’

The driver’s door slammed shut.

The camera angle changed to an exterior shot. It showed the whole driver’s side of the van and a short distance behind it. A figure, wearing a hoodie, his face invisible, drove a fork-lift truck into view, steered it right up to the rear of the van, rammed it a few inches forward and began to push it steadily towards the edge of the quay.

Then the van suddenly lurched downwards, as the front wheels went over and the bottom of the chassis grounded on the stonework, with a metallic grating sound.

The film cut back to the interior of the van. Ewan Preece was bug-eyed now and screaming, ‘No, no! What do you want? Tell me what you want? Please tell me! Fucker, tell me!’ Then he visibly lurched forward, held by the seat belt, and his mouth opened in a long, silent scream, as if, in his terror, he could not get any more words out.

The film cut back to the exterior again. The fork-lift truck gave a final shove and the rear of the van disappeared over the edge of the quay and momentarily out of sight. There was a hollow splash.

Now there was a new exterior angle. It was the van floating, rocking in the waves, a short distance away from the quay. It was looking distinctly nose-heavy, and sinking slowly but steadily, bubbles erupting around it

The viewpoint returned to the camera inside the van. Preece’s face was a mask of terror. He was fighting to free his hands – frantically pumping his body backwards and forwards as much as he could against the seat belt, jigging his arms and shoulders, his mouth contorted, yammering in terror. ‘Please… Please… Please… Help me! Help me! Someone help me!’