Peter James - Looking Good Dead

Blane, a balding, bespectacled man, had avuncular looks and a quiet, learned manner which inspired confidence. He clicked the keyboard and a full set of ten prints appeared. He clicked again and Grace’s heart skipped a beat. There on the screen was a police custody photograph of his man. And his name. The driver of the Golf. Janie Stretton’s date at the Karma Bar.

‘We’ve got a match,’ Derry Blane said. ‘I’ve run him through NAFIS, and he was printed just over a year ago, after a brawl at the Escape nightclub in Brighton. He was released with a caution. His name is Mik Luvic. He’s an Albanian, of no fixed abode.’

‘What else do you have on him?’ Grace asked.

‘Here’s the thing.’ Blane tapped his keyboard again. ‘There’s a PNC marker on him as someone to watch – at the request of Interpol.’

Grace’s excitement increased. PNC was the Police National Crime database.

‘So I ran an international search on his full set – we need a full set to do that – and it came up with a link to this charmer.’

Blane tapped another couple of keys and, after a moment, the head and torso of a grossly fat man appeared on the screen. He had a small head in comparison to the bulk of his body, with gelled silver hair pulled back into a tiny pigtail.

‘His name is Carl Venner. Also goes under the name of Jonas Smith. He has an interesting history,’ Blane continued. ‘Venner was in the US military. He started out as a chopper pilot in Vietnam. Got a purple heart for being wounded in combat, then stopped flying for some health reason and became a radio operator. He later got promoted to a high position in military communications out there. After that he was involved in a scandal. You may remember it – a war cameraman and a couple of photographers were indicted on charges of filming the torture and execution of Vietcong, and then flogging the footage.’

‘Snuff pictures?’ Grace asked.

‘Exactly. But Venner wormed his way out of the charges. He stayed with the US military and was moved to an intelligence posting in Germany. Then when Bosnia started up he was posted there. The same thing happened as in Vietnam. Eventually he was court-martialled for filming the execution of prisoners and selling the films into the international snuff movie market.’

‘For real?’ Grace asked.

‘Yes, absolutely. This guy is lower than lowlife. He’s your absolute bottom feeder. A smart lawyer got him off the charges, but enough mud stuck and he was slung out of the military. Next thing, his name crops up in an international child pornography ring based in Atlanta. Except it’s not just men having sex with children; it’s footage of kids being murdered. Mostly Asian, some Indian, some white too.’

‘You really mix with the best, don’t you, Roy?’ Tindall said with a smile, his humour back.

‘That’s me all over. You should come to one of my dinner parties.’

‘I keep waiting for the invite.’

‘So what happened to him?’ Grace asked, turning back to Blane.

‘Seems he did a runner. Fell off the FBI’s radar. Then… three years ago he popped up in Turkey. Then Athens. Then Paris. A cosy little snuff movie ring got busted there. The French police raided an apartment in the Sixteenth Arondissement of Paris. They seized a load of equipment and a bunch of people who said Venner was the ringleader. He hasn’t been seen since.’

‘What’s the link with Luvic?’

‘Interpol have a desk man in London who knows about that. I have his number. His name’s Detective Sergeant Barry Farrier.’

‘Thanks, Derry, you’ve done a great job. And incredibly quick!’ Because of the traffic, it had taken Grace twenty minutes longer to get back to headquarters than he had planned. But Joe Tindall must have had the same problem. Blane couldn’t have had the prints more than fifteen minutes.

Back upstairs, in his private office opposite MIR One, Grace checked first with the surveillance team watching the Golf. The driver had not yet appeared. Then he was about to dial Detective Sergeant Barry Farrier when his mobile rang. As he answered he recognized Harry Frame’s high-pitched, effusive voice.

‘You have something?’ Grace asked the clairvoyant.

‘Well, I don’t know if it means anything to you or not; I’m getting a watch.’

‘A watch?’ Grace said. ‘Like a wristwatch?’

‘Exactly!’ Frame’s enthusiasm mounted. ‘A wristwatch! There is something very significant. A wristwatch will lead you to something very satisfying to do with a case you are working on. This case, I think.’

‘Can you elaborate?’ Grace asked, puzzled.

‘No, I… No, that’s all. As I said, I don’t know if it means anything.’

‘Any particular make?’

‘No. Expensive, I think.’

‘Expensive?’

‘Yes.’

‘A man’s or a woman’s?’

‘It’s a man’s watch. I think there might be more than one.’

Grace shook his head, thinking hard. It really meant absolutely nothing at this moment. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Harry. Let me know if you get anything else.’

‘Oh, I will, don’t you worry!’

Grace ended the call and immediately dialled the Interpol number in London. He had a two-minute wait for Farrier to finish a call, listening to ‘Greensleeves’ on what seemed a permanent loop, then heard a sharp Cockney accent.

‘DS Farrier, can I help you?’

Grace introduced himself. Immediately, Farrier became excited.

‘I’ve got detectives in Greece, Turkey, Switzerland and Paris who would like to have a chat with Mr Luvic.’

‘I know where his car is,’ Grace said. ‘What do you have on Carl Venner?’

‘Zilch. Hasn’t been sighted in three years. And there’s enough of him to see; he’s a fat bastard.’

There was a knock on the door, and Norman Potting came in, clutching a sheet of paper. Grace signalled that he was busy. Potting hovered by the door.

‘I’d be very interested in anything you can come up with on Venner,’ Barry Farrier said. ‘Got markers on him as long as my right arm. Right across Europe.’

‘Could he be in England?’

‘If Luvic is, there’s a chance.’

‘Tell me more about Luvic?’

‘Albanian. Thirty-two. Smart boy. Studied technology at uni there, as well as becoming a kick-boxing champion and a bare-knuckle fighter. Typical of his generation – came out of uni, no jobs. Got involved with a bunch of students designing computer viruses for fun, probably out of boredom. Then he hitched up with another lot, blackmailing large companies.’

‘Blackmailing?’

‘Big business. Take a big sporting event here, like the Derby. The major bookies get threatened with attack by computer viruses, just a few days before, which will shut down their systems for twenty-four hours on Derby Day. Unless they pay up. So they pay up; it’s the cheaper option.’

‘I’ve heard of this happening,’ Grace said.

‘Yeah, it’s big time. Anyhow, then somehow Luvic got hooked up with Venner. Probably recruited by him. They were involved in the French snuff ring together, for sure. Both of ’em vanished at the same time. I can email you all the files.’

‘Please.’

‘Yeah, no worries. Right away. Tell you one thing. I seen some of the pictures. I’d like to get my hands on Venner and Luvic in an alleyway on a dark night. Just five minutes with them, I’d like.’

‘I know how you feel. Tell me something, does a scarab beetle mean anything to you – in connection with these two?’

‘Scarab? Scarab beetle?’

‘Yup.’

After some moments’ silence, Barry Farrier said, ‘Their business in France – there was an insect, a scorpion, always present somewhere in the photos and films.’