Peter James - Dead Like You

‘All I can say at this stage is that we are following some good leads and we are grateful to the public for their response.’

The tubby man got in a second question quickly. ‘Your enquiry into Rachael Ryan seems to be a departure from police policy,’ he said. ‘You don’t normally react so quickly to missing-person reports. Would I be correct in assuming you think there may be a link here to the Shoe Man – Operation Houdini – even if you are not publicly announcing this?’

‘No, you would not be correct,’ Skerritt said bluntly.

A woman reporter raised her hand. ‘Can you tell us some of the other lines of enquiry you are pursuing on Rachael Ryan, Chief Inspector?’

Skerritt turned to Roy Grace. ‘My colleague DS Grace is organizing a reconstruction of the parts of Rachael’s journey home that we can be reasonably certain of. This will take place at 7 p.m. on Wednesday.’

‘Does this mean you don’t believe you are going to find her before then?’ Phil Mills asked.

‘It means what it says,’ retorted Skerritt, who had had several run-ins with this reporter before. Then he nodded at his colleague.

Roy Grace had never spoken at a press briefing before and suddenly he was nervous as all hell. ‘We have a WPC who is of similar height and build to Rachael Ryan, who will be dressed in similar clothing and will walk the route we believe Rachael took on the night – or rather early morning – of her disappearance. I would urge all people who might have been out early on Christmas morning to spare the time to retrace their steps and see if it jogs their memories.’

He was perspiring when he finished. Jack Skerritt gave him a brief nod of approval.

These reporters were after a story that would sell their papers, or bring listeners to their radio stations or viewers to their channels. He and Skerritt had a different agenda. To keep the streets of Brighton and Hove safe. Or at least to make the citizens feel they were safe in a world that never had been safe and never would be. Not with the kind of human nature he had come to know as a police officer.

There was a predator out on the streets of this town. As a result of the Shoe Man’s reign of terror, there was not a woman in Brighton who felt comfortable right now. Not a single woman who did not look over her shoulder, did not ram home her door chain, did not wonder if she might be next.

Roy Grace was not involved in the Shoe Man investigation. But he had an increasingly certain feeling that Operation Houdini and the search for Rachael Ryan were one and the same thing.

We’re going to get you, Shoe Man, he promised silently.

Whatever it takes.

Monday 29 December

Rachael was in a helicopter with Liam. With his long, spiky hair and his sulky, boyish face he looked so much like Liam Gallagher of Oasis, her favourite group. They were swooping low through the Grand Canyon. Crimson rocks of the cliff face were passing either side, so close, dangerously close. Below them, a long, long way down, the metallic blue water snaked along through jagged grey-brown contours.

She gripped Liam’s hand. He gripped hers back. They couldn’t speak to each other because they had headsets on, listening to the pilot’s commentary. She turned and mouthed I love you to him. He grinned, looking funny with the microphone partially obscuring his mouth, and mouthed I love you back.

Yesterday they’d walked past a wedding chapel. For a joke he’d suddenly dragged her through the door, into the tiny golden-coloured interior. There were rows of pews either side of the aisle and two tall vases of flowers acting as a kind of cheesy non-denominational altar. Fixed to the wall behind was a glass display cabinet containing on one shelf a bottle of champagne and a white handbag with a floral handle, and on another an empty white basket and big white candles.

‘We could get married,’ he said. ‘Right now. Today!’

‘Don’t be daft,’ she’d replied.

‘I’m not being daft. I’m serious! Let’s do it! We’ll go back to England as Mr and Mrs Hopkirk!’

She wondered what her parents would think. They’d be upset. But it was tempting. She felt so intensely happy. This was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.

‘Mr Liam Hopkirk, are you proposing to me?’

‘No, not exactly – but I’m thinking, you know, screw all the crap and bridesmaids and stuff that goes with a wedding. It would be fun, wouldn’t it? Surprise them all?’

He was being serious and that shocked her. He meant it! Her parents would be devastated. She remembered sitting on her father’s knee when she was a child. Her father telling her how beautiful she was. How proud he would be one day to walk her down the aisle on her wedding day.

‘I couldn’t do this to my parents.’

‘They mean more to you than me?’

‘No. It’s just…’

His face darkened. Sulking again.

The sky darkened. Suddenly the helicopter was sinking. The walls turning dark and rushing past the big bubble window. The river beneath rushing up towards them.

She screamed.

Total darkness.

Oh, Christ.

Her head was pounding. Then a light came on. The feeble glow of the dome lamp of the van. She heard a voice. Not Liam, but the man, glaring down at her.

‘You stink,’ he said. ‘You’re making my van stink.’

Reality crashed through her. The coils of terror spiralling through every cell in her body. Water. Please. Water. She stared up at him, parched and weak and dizzy. She tried to speak but could only make a feeble deep whine in her throat.

‘I can’t have sex with you. You revolt me. Know what I’m saying?’

A faint ray of hope lifted her. Perhaps he would let her go. She tried again to make a coherent sound. But her voice was just a hollow rumbling mumble.

‘I should let you go.’

She nodded. Yes. Yes, please. Please. Please.

‘I can’t let you go, because you saw my face,’ he said.

She pleaded with her eyes. I won’t tell anyone. Please let me go. I won’t tell a soul.

‘You could put me behind bars for the rest of my life. Do you know what they do to people like me in prison? It’s not nice. I can’t take that chance.’

The knot of fear in her stomach spread like poison through her blood. She was trembling, quaking, whimpering.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and he really did sound sorry. Really apologetic, like a man in a crowded bar who had just accidentally stepped on her foot. ‘You’re in the papers. You are on the front page of the Argus. There’s a photograph of you. Rachael Ryan. That’s a nice name.’

He stared down at her. He looked angry. And sulky. And genuinely apologetic. ‘I’m sorry you saw my face,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t have done that. It wasn’t clever, Rachael. It could all have been so very different. Know what I’m saying?’

Monday 5 January

The newly formed Cold Case Team was part of Roy Grace’s Major Crime Branch responsibility. It was housed in an inadequate office within the Major Incident Suite on the first floor of Sussex House, with views across a yard cluttered with wheelie bins, emergency generator housings and SOCO vehicles to the custody block, which cut out much of the natural light.

There were few things in the world, Roy Grace always thought, that could create as much paperwork as a Major Crime investigation. The grey-carpeted floor was piled high with stacks of large green crates and blue cardboard boxes, all labelled with operation names, as well as reference books, training manuals and a doorstop of a tome sitting on its own, Practical Homicide.

Almost every inch of the desktop space of the three workstations was covered by computers, keyboards, phones, racks of box files, crammed in trays, Rolodex files, mugs and personal effects. Post-it notes were stuck on just about everything. Two freestanding tables visibly sagged beneath the weight of files piled on them.