Peter James - Dead Like You

Which was a problem with Benedict.

‘I’m happy to meet them any time. You know that.’

She nodded and gripped his hand. ‘You’re going to meet them next week at the ball. You’ll charm them then, I’m sure.’

Her father was chair of a large local charity that raised money for Jewish causes around the world. He had booked a table at a fund-raising ball at the Metropole Hotel to which she had been invited to bring a friend.

She’d already bought her outfit and what she needed now was a pair of shoes to go with it. All she had to do was ask her father for the money, which she knew would please him no end. But she just could not bring herself to do that. She’d spotted some Anya Hindmarch shoes earlier today, in the January sale at a local store, Marielle Shoes. They were dead sexy but classy at the same time. Black patent leather, five-inch heels, ankle straps and open toe. But at £250 they were still a lot of money. She hoped that perhaps, if she waited, there might be a further reduction on them. If someone else bought them in the interim, well, too bad. She’d find something else. Brighton had no shortage of shoe shops. She’d find something!

The Shoe Man agreed with her.

He’d stood right behind her at the counter of Deja Shoes in Kensington Gardens earlier today. He’d listened to her telling the shop assistant that she wanted something classy and sexy to wear for her fiancé at an important function next week. Then he’d stood behind her at Marielle Shoes, just along the road.

And he had to admit she looked really sexy in those strapped black patent shoes she had tried on but not bought. So very sexy.

Much too sexy for them to be wasted on her fiancé.

He sincerely hoped she would return and buy them.

Then she could wear them for him!

Saturday 10 January

The words on the data unit’s screen in Yac’s taxi read:

China Garden rest. Preston St. 2 Pass. Starling. Dest. Roedean Cresc.

It was 11.20 p.m. He had been parked up for some minutes now and had started the meter running. The man who owned the taxi said he should only wait for five minutes and then start the meter. Yac wasn’t sure how accurate his watch was and he wanted to be fair to his passengers. So he always allowed twenty seconds’ grace.

Starling. Roedean Crescent.

He had picked these people up before. He never forgot a passenger and especially not these people. The address: 67 Roedean Crescent. He had memorized that. She wore Shalimar perfume. The same perfume as his mother. He had memorized that too. She had been wearing Bruno Magli shoes. Size four. His mother’s size.

He wondered what shoes she would be wearing tonight.

Excitement rose inside him as the restaurant door opened and he saw the couple emerge. The man was holding on to the woman and looked unsteady. She helped him negotiate the step down to the pavement, then he still clung to her as they walked the short distance, through the blustery wind, over to Yac.

But Yac wasn’t looking at him. He was looking at the woman’s shoes. They were nice. Tall heels. Straps. His kind of shoes.

Mr Starling peered in through the window, which Yac had opened.

‘Taaxish for Roedean Chresshent? Shtarling?’

He sounded as drunk as he looked.

The man who owned the taxi said he did not have to take drunk passengers, especially ones who might be likely to throw up. It cost a lot of money to clear vomit out of the taxi, because it went everywhere, into the vents, down the windows into the electric motors, into the cracks down the sides of the seats. People didn’t like getting into a taxi that smelt of stale sick. It wasn’t nice to drive one either.

But it had been a quiet night. The man who owned the taxi would be angry with the poor takings. He had already complained about how little Yac had taken since New Year and he’d told Yac that he’d never known any taxi driver take so little on New Year’s Eve itself.

He needed all the fares he could get, because he didn’t want to risk the man who owned the taxi firing him and having someone else drive. So he decided to take a risk.

And he wanted to smell her perfume. Wanted those shoes in the taxi with him!

The Starlings climbed into the back and he drove off. He adjusted the mirror so he could see Mrs Starling’s face, then he said, ‘Nice shoes! Alberta Ferretti, I’ll bet those are!’

‘You a fucking pervert or shomething?’ she said, sounding almost as sloshed as her husband. ‘I think you drove us before, didn’t you, quite recently? Last week? Yesh?’

‘You were wearing Bruno Maglis.’

‘You’re too fucking pershonal! None of your damned fucking business what shoes I’m wearing.’

‘Into shoes, are you?’ Yac asked.

‘Yesh, she is into fucking shoes,’ Garry Starling butted in. ‘Spends all my money on them. Every penny I make ends up on her sodding feet!’

‘That’s because, my darling, you can only get it up when – ouch!’ she cried out loudly.

Yac looked at her again in the mirror. Her face was contorted in pain. She’d been rude to him last time she had been in his taxi.

He liked seeing that pain.

Saturday 10 January

He’d spent the whole of the past few days thinking about Rachael Ryan lying in his chest freezer in his lock-up. It was hard to avoid her. Her face stared out at him from every damned newspaper. Her tearful parents spoke to him personally, and to him alone, from every damned television news broadcast.

‘Please, whoever you are, if you have taken our daughter, give her back to us. She’s a sweet, innocent girl and we love her. Please don’t harm her.’

‘It was your daughter’s damned fault!’ he whispered back at them. ‘If she hadn’t taken my mask off she’d be fine. Fine and dandy! She’d still be your loving daughter and not my damned problem.’

Slowly, steadily, the idea he had last night took hold more and more inside him. It could just be the perfect solution! He risk-assessed it over and over again. It stood up to each problem he tested it against. It would be riskier to delay than to act.

In almost every paper the white van was mentioned. It was referred to in big headlines on the front page of the Argus: DID ANYONE SEE THIS VAN? The caption beneath read: Similar to the one seen in Eastern Terrace.

The police said they had been overwhelmed with calls. How many of those calls were about white vans?

About his white van?

White Transit vans were a dime a dozen. But the police were not stupid. It was only a matter of time before a phone call led them to his lock-up. He had to get the girl out of there. And he had to do something about the van – they were getting smart with forensics these days. But deal with one problem at a time.

Outside, the rain was torrenting down. It was now 11 p.m. on Saturday. Party night in this city. But not so many people as usual would be out and about in this dreadful weather.

He made his decision and left the house, hurrying out to his old Ford Sierra runabout.

Ten minutes later, he pulled down the garage door behind the dripping-wet car, closing it with a quiet metallic clang, then switched on his torch, not wanting to risk putting on the overhead lights.

Inside the freezer, the young woman was completely frosted over, her face translucent in the harsh beam of light.

‘We’re going to take a little drive, Rachael. Hope you’re cool with that?’

Then he smirked at his joke. Yeah. Cool. He felt OK. This was going to work. He just had to stay cool too. How did that saying go that he had read somewhere: If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs…

He pulled out his packet of cigarettes and tried to light one. But his damned hand was shaking so much, first he couldn’t strike the wheel of the lighter, then he couldn’t get the flame near the tip of the cigarette. Cold sweat was pouring down his neck as if it was coming from a busted tap.