Peter James: Dead Like You

Moments later, he had the number and dialled it.

It went straight to voicemail. He left a message with his name and rank, asking her to call him back urgently on his mobile number. Then he sat down and Googled her name to see if he could find out anything about her, in particular where she worked. It was 9.15 a.m. If she worked she was likely to be there already, or on her way there.

Moments later on his screen appeared the words, About Lizzie Wyman-Bentham, CEO of WB Public Relations.

He clicked on them and almost immediately a photograph of a smiling woman, with a mass of frizzed hair, came up, together with a row of details to click on for information about the firm. Just as he clicked on Contact, his phone rang.

He answered and heard a rather breathless, effusive female voice. ‘I’m so sorry, I missed your call – heard it ringing just as I stepped out of the house! How can I help you?’

‘This may sound a strange question,’ Roy Grace asked. ‘Do you have a brother or a son?’

‘A brother.’ Then her voice changed to panic. ‘Is he all right? Has something happened? Has he been in an accident?’

‘No, he’s fine, so far as we know. I need to speak to him in connection with a police inquiry.’

‘Gosh, I was worried for a moment!’

‘Can you tell me where I can reach him?’

‘An inquiry, did you say? Ah yes, of course, probably something to do with work. Silly of me! I think he does a bit of work with you guys. He’s Garry Starling and his company – well, he has two – Sussex Security Systems and Sussex Remote Monitoring Services – they’re both in the same building in Lewes.’

Grace wrote the information down, and took Starling’s office phone number.

‘I’m not quite sure why – why exactly have you contacted me?’

‘It’s a little bit complicated,’ Grace replied.

Her voice darkened. ‘Garry’s not in trouble, is he? I mean, he’s a very respectable businessman – he’s very well known in this city.’

Not wanting to give anything further away, he assured her that no, her brother was not in trouble. He ended the call, then immediately dialled Starling’s office. The phone was answered by a pleasant woman. He did not reveal his identity, but merely asked to speak to Garry Starling.

‘He’s not in yet,’ she said, ‘but I’m sure he will be shortly. He’s normally in by this time. I’m his secretary. Can I take a message?’

‘I’ll call back,’ Grace said. He had to struggle to keep his voice sounding calm.

The instant he hung up, he hurried along to MIR-1, formulating his plan as he strode down the corridor.

Monday 19 January

There was less light than Jessie had imagined there’d be, which in some ways she thought was good. If she was very, very careful, keeping totally silent, she was able to tiptoe a short distance along the gridded walkway and look down at the camper van.

It sat there, cream and grimy, with its side door open. It was the kind of camper van that used to be one of the symbols of the hippy era – flower power, ban-the-bomb, all that stuff she recalled from what she had read about the 1960s and 1970s.

This creep didn’t seem much like a hippy.

He was inside the van at the moment. Had he slept? She doubted it. Once or twice during the darkness she’d nearly dozed off, and on one occasion had almost cried out when an animal of some kind brushed her arm. Then a while later, as dawn brought with it a weak, grey haze of light, a rat came and took a look at her.

She hated rats and after that incident her tiredness was banished.

What was his plan now? What was going on in the outside world? She’d not heard the helicopter again, so maybe it hadn’t been looking for her after all. How long would this go on for?

Perhaps he had supplies in the van. She knew he had water and maybe he had food. He could sit this out indefinitely, if he didn’t have a job or a life that was missing him. Whereas, she knew, she could not go on much longer without water and something to eat. She was feeling weak. On edge, but definitely weaker than yesterday. And dog tired. Running on adrenalin.

And determination.

She was going to marry Benedict. This creep was not going to stop her. Nothing was.

I am going to get out of here.

The wind was strong today and seemed to be getting stronger. The cacophony of sounds all around was worsening. Good, because that would help cover any noise she might make moving around.

Suddenly she heard a howl of rage. ‘ALL RIGHT, YOU BITCH, I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR DAMNED GAMES. I’M COMING AFTER YOU. HEAR ME? I’VE WORKED OUT WHERE YOU ARE AND I’M COMING AFTER YOU!’

She tiptoed back to her vantage point and looked down. To her shock she could see him, still with his hood off, with what looked like a big red weal around his right eye. He was running across the ground floor, holding a big spanner in one hand and a carving knife in the other.

He was running straight for the entrance of the silo beneath her.

Then she heard him shouting again, his voice an echoing boom, as if he was shouting through a funnel. ‘OH, VERY CLEVER, BITCH. A LADDER UP INSIDE THE SILO! HOW DID YOU FIND THAT?’

Moments later she heard the clanging of the rungs.

Monday 19 January

Glenn Branson was already waiting for Roy Grace in an unmarked car at the entrance to the industrial estate. He had the signed search warrants in his pocket.

The map they had studied earlier, in their hasty plan for this operation, showed there were only two possible routes in or out for vehicles visiting Garry Starling’s headquarters here for his two companies, Sussex Security Systems and Sussex Remote Monitoring Services. Tucked discreetly out of sight, at this moment, were the vehicles of the team he had organized to carry out the arrest – when and if Starling turned up.

He already had four covert officers in place on the estate, in casual clothes. Parked up a side street, and ready to move in the moment Starling returned, were two dog-handler units to cover the exits to his office building. He had one of the Local Support Team vans, with six officers in body armour waiting inside it, plus four plain cars covering access to the network of roads linking into the industrial estate should Starling try to make a run for it.

Grace left his unmarked car parked in the next street along and climbed into Glenn Branson’s. He felt tense. Relieved, yet hurting from the confirmation of Rachael Ryan’s death. Thinking through the plan now. Plenty worried him.

‘Rock ’n’ roll?’

Grace nodded distractedly. The Shoe Man had never left DNA traces. His victims reported he had been unable to maintain an erection. Did this mean Garry Starling was not the Shoe Man? Or that killing Rachael Ryan – assuming he was the killer – had turned him on enough to ejaculate?

Why was he not in his office this morning?

If he had sex with a woman twelve years ago who was then found dead, how were they going to prove Starling was the killer? If indeed he was. What view would the Crown Prosecution Service take?

A million unanswered questions.

Just a growing certainty in his mind that the man who had murdered Rachael Ryan was the man who had abducted Jessie Sheldon. He desperately hoped he could do a better job of finding her alive – if there was still a chance – than he had done of finding Rachael Ryan. And that he would not be disinterring her from a grave in another twelve years’ time.

As they drove up to the smart front entrance of Sussex Security Systems and Sussex Remote Monitoring Services, he noticed the cars parked in allotted bays, and the empty one marked CEO. But what he was looking at more was the row of white vans bearing the companies’ joint logo.