Peter James - Dead Like You

The reports from Nicola Taylor and Roxy Pearce were remarkably similar. They tallied with statements from some of the victims of the Shoe Man in 1997. It was the same smell they had described when something had been pressed against each of their faces.

Chloroform.

You don’t know who I am or where I am, do you, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace? Not a clue! One arrest. Then you had to let him go for lack of evidence. You’re panicking.

And I’m not.

Bit of a screw-up this afternoon, I’ve got to admit that. But I’ve recovered from far worse. I’ve been off the radar for twelve years and now I’m back. I might go again, but rest assured, hasta la vista, baby! I’ll be right back! Maybe next week, maybe next month, or next year, or next decade! When I do come back, you’ll be very sorry you said that small dick thing about me.

But I’m not gone just yet. I don’t want to leave with unfinished business.

I don’t want to leave without giving you something to really panic about. Something that’s going to make you look stupid to your new ACC boss. What’s that word you used in the Argus this evening? Hunting! You said that the Shoe Man is hunting.

Well, you’re right, I am! I’m hunting! Stalking!

I didn’t get her at the Withdean Sports Stadium, but I’ll get her tomorrow night.

I know her movements.

Friday 16 January

Roy Grace was not often in a bad mood, but at this Friday morning briefing he was in a truly vile one, not helped by having had a virtually sleepless night. He’d stayed in MIR-1 with some of his team until past 1 a.m., going through everything they had on the Shoe Man past and present. Then he’d gone to Cleo’s house, but she had been called out within minutes of his arrival to recover a body found in a churchyard.

He’d sat up for an hour, drinking whisky and smoking one cigarette after another, thinking, thinking, thinking about what he might be missing, while Humphrey snored loudly beside him. Then he re-read a lengthy report he’d brought home, from the High-Tech Crime Unit. Their Covert Internet Investigator had come up with a whole raft of foot- and shoe-fetish websites, chat-room forums and social-networking presences. There were hundreds of them. In the past six days he’d only managed to cover a small percentage of the total. So far with nothing conclusive.

Grace put down the report with some astonishment, deciding that perhaps he’d led too sheltered a life, but not sure he would want to share any fetish he developed with a bunch of total strangers. Then he’d gone to bed and tried to sleep. But his brain was on warp drive. Cleo had come back at about 4.30 a.m., showered, then climbed into bed and fallen asleep. It always amazed him how she could deal with any kind of corpse, no matter how horrific the condition or the circumstances of the death, then come home and fall asleep in moments. Perhaps it was her ability to switch off that enabled her to cope with the stuff her job entailed.

After lying restlessly for another half-hour, totally wired, he decided to get up and go for a run down to the seafront, to try to clear his head and freshen himself up for the day ahead.

And now, at 8.30 a.m., he had a blinding headache and was shaky from a caffeine overdose; but that did not stop him from cradling yet another mug of strong black instant as he sat in the packed briefing room, his inquiry team now extended to over fifty officers and support staff.

A copy of the morning’s Argus lay in front of him, next to a pile of documents, on the top of which was one from the Crime Policy and Review Branch. It was their ‘7-Day Review’ of Operation Swordfish, which had just come in, somewhat delayed.

The Argus featured a photograph of a white Ford Transit on the front page, with the caption: Similar to the one used by the suspect.

Inset separately, and with good dramatic effect, the paper reproduced the cloned registration plate, with a request for anyone who saw this vehicle between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. yesterday to phone the Police Incident Room or Crimestoppers, urgently.

The owner of the van whose registration had been cloned was not a happy bunny. He was a decorator who had been unable to leave the site where he was working to buy some materials he urgently needed because the van would not start. But at least he had the perfect alibi. From 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. yesterday, he had been at the roadside, accompanied by an RAC patrolman who had drained his van’s petrol tank, and cleaned out the carburettor. In the patrolman’s view, someone had very kindly emptied a bag of sugar into the tank.

Was this another of the Shoe Man’s touches, Grace wondered?

The only good news so far today was that the ‘7-Day Review’ was at least positive. It agreed with all he had done in the running of this case – at least in its first seven days. But now they were another nine days on. The next review would be at twenty-eight days. Hopefully the Shoe Man would be getting a taste of prison-issue footwear long before then.

He sipped some more coffee, then, because of the large number of people in the room for the briefing, he stood up to address them.

‘So,’ he said, skipping his normal introduction, ‘how sodding great is this? We release our suspect at midday and in the afternoon the next offence happens. I’m not very happy about it. What’s going on? Is this John Kerridge – Yac – character having a laugh on us? The bloody Argus certainly is!’

He held the paper aloft. The front page splash read:

SHOE MAN FOURTH VICTIM’S LUCKY ESCAPE?

There was little doubt in anyone’s mind that the man who had been waiting in Dee Burchmore’s car yesterday was the Shoe Man. The location and the confirmation from an emergency analysis by the path lab that the substance on the cotton wool was chloroform both pointed to it. The car was now in the SOCO workshop, where it would remain for several days, being examined for clothing fibres, hairs, skin cells or any other telltale sign the offender might have left behind, however microscopic.

The timeline, established by Norman Potting, cleared John Kerridge from involvement. The taxi driver’s solicitor, Ken Acott, had driven him home to his houseboat. A neighbour had confirmed his alibi, that he was on the boat until 5.30 p.m. yesterday, when he had left to start his evening driving shift.

But there was something else, something personal, that was helping to fuel Roy Grace’s mood. DC Michael Foreman had reported back that Pewe was being completely unhelpful. So far he had made no progress at all with the Detective Superintendent.

The temptation to arrest Pewe was so strong. But the words of his new ACC were even stronger.

‘You mustn’t let this get personal, you know.’

He had to admit to himself that to arrest Pewe now, on the flimsy evidence he had to date, would smack of being personal. And to arrest and then have to release a second suspect without charge would look like he was clutching at straws. Instead, reluctantly, he told Foreman to keep working on it.

To rub the final salt into the wound, Nick Nicholl had reported that he’d viewed CCTV footage from the the Neville pub. The image was poor and he was having it enhanced, but it showed someone who might be Darren Spicer drinking there until past 1.30 a.m. on New Year’s Day. If it did turn out to be him, that would clear the serial burglar of involvement in the attack on Nicola Taylor. However, the man had no corroboration for his alibi as to where he was at the time of the attack on Roxy Pearce, other than restating he was at the greyhound stadium – a mere fifteen minutes’ walk from her house. Nor did he have any corroboration for his alibi for last Saturday night, at the time when Mandy Thorpe was attacked on the ghost train at Brighton Pier.