Peter James - Dead Man’s Footsteps

‘He’s busy most Saturdays,’ George Fletcher said. ‘Tell them what you do on Saturdays, Troy?’

After some moments, reddening a little, the Australian Detective Sergeant said, ‘I play the banjo at weddings.’

‘You’re joking?’ Norman Potting said.

‘He’s in big demand,’ George Fletcher said.

‘It’s how I switch off.’

‘What do you play?’ Norman Potting asked. ‘“Duelling Banjos”? Ever see that film Deliverance ?’

‘Uh huh, I saw that.’

‘When those hillbillies tie the guy to the tree and butt-fuck him? With the banjo music playing?’

Burg nodded.

‘That’s what they should have at weddings, not the “Wedding March”,’ Potting said. ‘When a man gets married that’s what happens to the poor sod. His wife ties him to a tree and butt-fucks him.’

George Fletcher laughed genially.

‘Know the similarity between a hurricane and a woman?’ Potting asked, on a roll now.

Fletcher shook his head.

‘I think I heard this,’ Burg murmured.

‘When they come, they’re wet and wild. When they go, they take your house and car.’

Nick Nicholl stared out of the window miserably. He’d already heard the joke on the plane. Twice. He saw a row of low-rise apartment blocks ahead. They were driving down a street of single-storey shops. A white tram crossed in front of them. A short while later they crossed the Yarra river and passed a geometric building in a wide plaza that looked like it was an arts centre. Now they were entering a busy downtown area.

Troy Burg made a left turn into a narrow, shaded street and parked outside a shop advertising itself as a bottle store. As Nick Nicholl climbed out of the car he saw the shop had a bay-windowed, Regency front that looked as if it had been modelled on one of the antiques shops in Brighton’s Lanes. The window was filled with displays of rare stamps and coins. In gold Olde Worlde lettering above he read: CHAD SKEGGS, INTERNATIONAL COIN AND STAMP DEALERS AND AUCTIONEERS.

They went inside and a bell pinged. Behind the glass-topped display counter, showing more stamps and coins, stood a skinny, tanned youth in his early twenties with spiky, bleached blond hair and a large gold earring. He was dressed in a T-shirt with a surf board emblazoned on it and faded jeans, and he greeted them as if they were long-lost friends.

George Fletcher showed him his ID. ‘Is Mr Skeggs in?’

‘No, mate, he’s away on business.’

Norman Potting showed him a photograph of Ronnie Wilson and watched the man’s eyes. He had never got the hang of Roy Grace’s technique for sussing a liar, but he reckoned he was pretty good at telling, anyway.

‘Have you ever seen this man?’ he asked.

‘No, mate.’ Then the Australian touched his nose, a dead giveaway.

‘Take another look.’ Potting showed him two more photographs.

He looked even more awkward. ‘No.’ He touched his nose again.

‘I think you have,’ Potting said insistently.

Cutting in, George Fletcher said to the assistant, ‘What’s your name?’

‘Skelter,’ he replied. ‘Barry Skelter.’ He made it sound like a question.

‘OK, Barry,’ George Fletcher said. He pointed to Potting and Nicholl. ‘These gentlemen are detectives from England, helping Victoria Police on a murder inquiry. Do you understand that?’

‘Murder inquiry? Right, OK.’

‘Withholding information in a murder inquiry is an offence, Barry. If you want the technical legal term, it is perverting the course of justice. In a murder inquiry that carries a likely minimum sentence of five years’ imprisonment. But if the judge wasn’t happy, you could be looking at ten to fourteen years. I just want to make sure you are quite clear about that. Are you clear about that?’

Skelter suddenly changed colour. ‘Can I see those photographs again?’ he asked.

Potting showed them to him again.

‘Actually, you know, I can’t swear, but there is a resemblance to one of Mr Skeggs’s customers, now I come to think about it.’

‘Would the name David Nelson help you think about it a bit more clearly?’ Potting asked.

‘David Nelson? Oh yeah. David Nelson! Of course. I mean, he’s changed a bit since these were taken. You see, that’s why I kind of didn’t recognize him immediately. You get my drift?’

‘We’re drifting with you all the way,’ Potting said. ‘Now let’s just drift along to your customer address book, shall we?’

Outside afterwards, Norman Potting turned to George Fletcher.

‘That was brilliant, George,’ he said. ‘Ten to fourteen years. Is that right?’

‘Shit,’ he said, ‘I don’t know. I made it up. But it worked, right?’ For the first time since he had set foot in Australia, Nick Nicholl smiled.

The landscape changed rapidly. Ahead of them, Nicholl saw the glimmering water of the ocean. The wide street they were driving down had a resort feel to it, with bleached, low-rise buildings on either side. It reminded him of some of the streets on the Costa del Sol in Spain, which was pretty much the limit of his previous travel horizons.

‘Port Melbourne,’ George Fletcher said. ‘This is where the Yarra river comes out into Hobson’s Bay. Expensive property round here. Young, wealthy community. Bankers, lawyers, media types, those kinds of people. They buy nice flats overlooking the bay before they get married, then graduate to something a little bigger further out.’

‘Like you,’ Troy ribbed his colleague.

‘Like me. Except I could never afford to be here first.’

They parked outside yet another bottle store, then walked up to the smart entrance of a small apartment block and George rang the bell for the caretaker.

The door clicked open and they went into a long, smartly carpeted corridor that was freezing cold from the air-conditioning. After a few moments, a man in his mid-thirties with a shaven head, wearing a purple T-shirt, baggy shorts and Crocs, strutted up to them. ‘How can I help you?’

George again showed the man his ID. ‘We’d like to have a word with one of your residents, Mr Nelson, in Flat 59.’

‘Flat 59?’ he said cheerily. ‘You beat me to it.’ He raised a clutch of keys in his hand. ‘I was about to go up there myself. Had a few complaints from the neighbours about a smell. At least, they think it may be coming from there. I haven’t seen Mr Nelson in a while and he hasn’t picked up his post in several days.’

Potting frowned. Reports of smells from neighbours were rarely good news.

They entered the lift and travelled up to the fifth floor, then went out into the corridor, which smelled strongly of new carpet and nothing else. But as they walked along it, towards the flat at the far end, their nostrils started picking up something very different.

It was a smell with which Norman Potting had long if uncomfortably been acquainted. Nick Nicholl less so. The heavy, cloying stench of decaying flesh and internal organs.

The caretaker gave the four detectives a hope-for-the-best raise of his eyebrows, then opened the front door. The stench became instantly stronger. Nick Nicholl, covering his nose with his handkerchief, brought up the rear.

It was stiflingly hot inside, the air-conditioning evidently not on. Nicholl stared around apprehensively. It was a nice pad in anybody’s terms. White rugs on polished boards and smart modern furniture. Unframed erotic canvases lined the walls, some showing women’s loins, others abstract.

The smell of rotting flesh hung heavily in the corridor, getting denser with every step the five men took forward. Nick, increasingly uncomfortable about what they were going to find, followed his colleagues into an empty master bedroom. The huge bed was unmade. An empty tumbler lay on the table, along with a digital clock radio that appeared to be off.