Four Below (30 page)

‘We’ve not established that yet …’

McLusky limped into the kitchen to the waste bin and stomped his walking stick on the pedal. The plastic lid flipped back. He reached inside and with his little finger fished out a bunch of
house keys. He held them up for Denkhaus, who had watched from the sitting room. ‘We have now. Same place scene-of-crime found Oatley’s set.’

Denkhaus still made a show of hesitating but was already nodding. ‘All right. Carry on.’ McLusky and his bloody conjuring tricks. He turned on his heel and walked out just as SOCOs
and forensics clattered their gear on to the landing.

McLusky lifted his stick and let the bin lid drop. He raised the keys dangling from his little finger to eye level and shook his head: a McLusky hunch that actually came off; well what do you
know? He left the field to the white-suited army and had just started the engine of the MiTo when his mobile rang.

‘Deborah Glynn’s ex-boyfriend Gary,’ Austin said. ‘He was not a happy camper when she threw him out. According to her friend Alison here, they had huge rows about
it.’

‘Yes, neighbours here said there were noisy rows.’

‘Apparently he picked up a couple of ornaments and threw them at her.’

‘Tut. Can’t have that, can we. Have we got an address for him?’

‘He went to kip on a mate’s sofa when he moved. Alison thinks he might still be there. Gary is difficult to shift, she said.’

‘All right, give me the address, I’ll meet you there. We can deliver the news together.’

A small attic flat in St George. There was no door release. It had taken them quite a long time to get Gary Hunter to come down and open the door, then to persuade him to climb
upstairs again before they told him what it was about. Made him sit down on the narrow sofa; delivered the bad news.

Gary was a runt of a man with a narrow triangular face and large eyebrows. He was alone, his friend at work. The TV was turned on, the games console plugged in. On the screen, two Japanese
warriors faced each other for unarmed combat, not quite motionless, quivering. Gary stared at it, hands on his knees, similarly frozen, his life paused.

Besides the sofa, which had blankets and a sleeping bag rolled into one corner, there was only a fat blue cushion on the floor to sit on. They remained standing on either side of Gary, Austin by
the window, McLusky leaning in the door to the hall. ‘Can we get you anything? Glass of water?’ Gary managed a tiny shake of the head. ‘I appreciate how it must affect you, but
I’m afraid we’d still like you to answer a few questions for us. If that’s all right.’

‘Sure.’

‘You two recently broke up; when exactly did—’

Gary suddenly spluttered alive. ‘Murdered? How, how was she murdered? Why? I mean …’ He subsided, looking from McLusky to Austin and back.

‘We can talk about that later, when he have more facts. At the moment, all I can tell you is that Debbie’s body was found on the Pill cycle path. We need to establish some basic
facts that will help us put this crime into context. I believe you used to live together until recently.’

‘Yeah. At her place.’

‘So that was her place. She lived there before you two met?’ A nod. ‘And you broke up when?’

‘Ten … ten days ago.’

‘She asked you to leave.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Threw you out.’

‘What’s that got to do with it? What, you think
I
killed Debbie because she dumped me?’

Austin, who was blocking out half the light from the small dormer window, took over. ‘You had a row. Several rows. The neighbours heard you.’

‘So what? Everyone has rows.’

‘But yours were more violent than some. You threw things.’

‘She chucked stuff back. It was almost comedy, only she was really angry.’

‘You must have felt resentful. At being made to leave.’

‘Well I wasn’t exactly chuffed. I mean, what do you expect? I’m homeless now.’ There was a short pause, in which his eyes unfocused. ‘But I … I really liked
her. Really. She was my
girlfriend
.’

‘When were you last there?’

‘I said, ten days ago.’

‘You haven’t been back?’

‘She chucked me out; why would I go back?’

‘It’s only that obviously your DNA will be all over the place. How did you make the move?’

‘What?’

‘When you moved, did you hire a van?’

‘A van? What are you talking about? No. Dan picked me up in his car. I don’t have much stuff.’

‘Dan?’

‘Bloke who rents this place.’

Austin’s mobile rang. He listened for a moment before interrupting the caller. ‘Hang on, Deedee, he’s here, you can tell him.’ He handed his phone across.

‘McLusky. What you got, Dearlove?’ He listened while his eyes rested heavily on Gary, who began chewing his nails, looking from one officer to the other. ‘Don’t read me
the whole damn thing, just give me the gist of it.’ McLusky listened, nodded, nodded, then said: ‘Thanks, Deedee, excellent.’ He handed the mobile back to Austin and turned to
Gary. ‘Can you account for your movements over the last weekend?’

‘I was here.’

‘All weekend?’

‘We were playing computer games. Ask Dan.’

‘We will. Okay, thank you for your time.’

‘Is that it?’ Gary asked. He remained sitting, wide-eyed.

‘Yes. We’ll see ourselves out.’

Austin followed McLusky down the stairs. They had to let pass a gaggle of students and a man carrying a BMX bike, which meant that only when they reached street level could he echo Gary’s
question. ‘Is that it?’

‘That is it.’

‘What did Deedee have to say?’

‘We’ve been wasting our time here. Forensics are backing me up for once. The two in the woods and the two on the path were most likely killed by the same person or
persons.’

‘How do they make that out?’

‘Something to do with bricks, apparently.’

A hundred and fifty thousand. Why hadn’t he asked for more? Two hundred? Two hundred and fifty? It might have to last him a lifetime. The phone call had been the scariest
bit, much scarier than anything so far. Even though he had been close to him for months, knew his distinctive voice, had heard it many times on the phone too, the phone call had frightened him.
He’d had a few drinks beforehand; that helped a bit. He’d written down everything he needed to say. Mouth dry, hands slippery with sweat. The voice changer he had ordered from the
gadget shop really had worked: he had sounded like a woman, a distorted, electronic woman, but definitely female. He kept saying ‘we want’ and ‘we demand’, as though he
wasn’t alone in this. And the big man had fallen for it. He’d called him ‘bitch’ and said ‘whoever you are’. Once he heard that, he knew the disguise had worked.
He was so relieved, he nearly missed the next sentence completely. But the big man had agreed. To everything.
Just say the word … reasonable … we can do business … as long
as the picture gets destroyed. As long as no more strips go to the
Bristol Herald. Time and place had been agreed. And if he saw anything suspicious, then the deal was off.
I’m as
anxious as you are … you have my word
.

That was when he knew they would kill him. A lousy hundred and fifty thousand and he was inviting them to kill him.
Anxious
. It wasn’t in the man’s vocabulary; it was an act
to allay his fears. He had never heard him speak like that, not to anyone. Or could the picture puzzle really have scared him? Perhaps it had. It could definitely destroy him, force him to flee the
country, have plastic surgery even. That wasn’t such a bad idea either. How much did a new face cost? he wondered. He had done his best over the past few weeks to change his own appearance.
He had grown a beard, shaved his head, bought unfashionable, middle-aged clothes at the charity shop down the road. He looked older now anyway, just eight months on from the beating. It had aged
him inside and out. Perhaps the big man would get a few grey hairs before this was over. He certainly hoped so. But first they would try and kill him. The age of handing over photographs was over.
There were no negatives now to destroy; digital pictures could get endlessly copied and disseminated. Once you had been photographed, and as long as that image lived on a computer, you were at its
mercy. That was why the man hadn’t argued; that was why he had agreed so quickly: they were going to kill him anyway. It was the only way the big man could ever be sure. Sweat pricked on his
chest now as he prepared two more envelopes to send to the
Herald
. The big man had no intention of letting him walk away with the money? Well, two could play at that game.

McLusky’s delight about forensics backing up his wild hunches was short-lived. If anything, it seemed to highlight just how little had been achieved and how much the
investigation was in danger of bogging down. He’d been here before. Many murder investigations that dealt with an unknown perpetrator went through a phase like this, where they all worked
flat out following up witness statements, interviewing witnesses, hunting around on computers, hanging on the phone for tedious hours with nothing tangible to show for it apart from having
eliminated the obvious, like the man upstairs, the irate neighbour, the ex-boyfriend, the disgruntled customer. This phase was not McLusky’s forte; this was not where he excelled. He
performed adequately, but it took a more organized mind to do it reliably well. He admitted it quietly to himself, tentatively to Austin, never to anyone else.

Breakthrough
. It was what everyone hoped for, but no one even used the word, since it implied that until then, you’d been staring at a brick wall. What he was staring at right now
was a room full of less-than-enthusiastic detectives. He was acutely conscious of the problems ahead, and opted for a mix of optimistic spin and pushiness. ‘We can now say with some certainty
that all four victims were killed by the same perpetrators. We are most likely looking for more than one person, since all four appear to have been snatched, probably held prisoner for a while and
systematically murdered. All were severely beaten, but three also had been stoned.’ He tapped the forensics report. ‘In case you were wondering what
lapidation
meant. The two
Leigh Woods bodies and the woman. Many of the injuries were caused not by blows, but by some bastards throwing stones at them. It is, of course, a good way of delivering injury without getting
close, without getting your hands too dirty, without getting blood on your own clothes. The victims were tied up while this went on. I’m told that some of the missiles used were brick, and
that these three had brick dust embedded in their skin where they were hit, not by whole bricks but probably by bits of broken bricks. Brick dust was also present in Mike Oatley’s hair. It
means all four were taken to the same place to be killed, then their bodies were disposed of elsewhere.’

A young DC raised a hand. ‘But broken bricks are everywhere, sir. They could have been killed in all sorts of locations. A brick’s a brick, innit?’

‘No it ain’t, though until a couple of hours ago I’d have said the same. I called forensics about it, who put me on to a guy at the university who convinced me otherwise. And
if anyone’s interested in a forty-minute lecture on the fascinating history of brick-making, I can give them his number later. The ingredients of bricks have changed, and these are early
nineteenth century. That’s sufficiently old to narrow down the location even in a city like Bristol.’ There were optimistic murmurs. ‘Bearing in mind, of course, that brick has
often been recycled.’ Disappointed groans. ‘But we might be looking for a derelict nineteenth-century place somewhere. There aren’t many left; everything is being developed
now.’ He patted the handle of his walking stick with the forensics file for emphasis. ‘There’s further evidence that the murders are connected: we have two partial footprints, of
a trainer, one on Oatley’s hand and one on Deeming’s trousers, in the groin area, in case you were wondering.’ Several male officers pulled a face. ‘Both prints came from a
Nike trainer, probably size ten. Questions.’

French started it off. ‘The victims are so different, though. We know the Leigh Woods bods had drug-dealing in common, but the cycle-path bods hadn’t. And the disposal is so
different.’

‘Horses for courses. The dealers ended up in Leigh Woods because they’d been “disappeared”. The cycle-path bodies landed where they did because they were meant to be
found. They were both left right next to the river. The obvious thing would have been to at least dump them in there, just a few feet away. With a good weight on them, they might not have been
found for quite a while, if ever. So killing those two had a different purpose. Mike Oatley and Deborah Glynn have things in common; have to have. For a start, they were both unemployed.’

French piped up. ‘Glynn had just got a job.’

‘True, but that’s splitting hairs. She didn’t live to start it. They were both working class, piss-poor, Glynn had been unemployed for ages, both lived within a couple of miles
of each other on this side of the river, and their bodies ended up on the other side of the river. There must be more things they have in common.’ A civilian had quietly entered the room and
handed him another forensics report. McLusky nodded his thanks while carrying on. ‘They connect to each other or the killer in a similar way; perhaps to both. Find that connection. We need to
work on the location, too. Find that, and we’ve practically nailed it. Right, go.’

McLusky stuffed both files under his arm and left, while detectives returned to their workstations, picked up phones, logged on to computers.

Dearlove opened the
Bristol Herald
on his desk and quickly turned to page three. Another grainy slice of the mystery picture. He tore it out, then laid the others he had saved next to it.
They didn’t add up to anything; he was sure they did that on purpose so you could only see it when you got to the very last bit. A gimmick to sell more papers, obviously, but hey, if it took
his mind off file-sifting and form-filling for five minutes, then he didn’t mind. Anyway, he liked pizza, and on his pay, a free pizza was a glittering prize. He slipped all three cuttings
under his pencil jar.