Jigsaw Man (16 page)

Adam flexed his shoulders and stretched out on the narrow divan. His hands hit the
wall behind, his feet hanging over the end of the bed. He wasn't particularly tall,
but there was barely space to swing a cat. The rest of the room was equally uncomfortable.
Just a chair and a chest of drawers, a tiny shaving mirror on the wall and a moth-eaten
Turkish rug partly covering the old floorboards. The only advantage was that the
room was on the ground floor. If Gunner went out, he would hear. The door had no
lock and he had put the chair up against it to secure it. Even so, he had been unable
to relax into sleep for more than a few hours at a time, knowing that Gunner was
upstairs in Kit's room, sleeping off a skinful of Bells, judging by the empty bottle
left on the counter that Adam had found when he went down to the kitchen for a glass
of water in the middle of the night.

He was still reeling from what had happened the previous night: Gunner's sudden appearance
in the house, being forced to move his things out of Kit's room. He cursed himself
for having been so compliant, but the last thing he needed was
confrontation and
questions being asked. Still, he hadn't been thinking straight, and in his fury he
had left one of his bags behind in Kit's room. He made a quick mental list of the
contents and reassured himself that the things in it weren't important, just some
clothes and a couple of pairs of shoes. There was nothing that he need worry about,
should Gunner choose to have a little rummage around. But he hated the idea of him
doing it, of his possessions sitting up there all night, made somehow vulnerable,
with this arrogant stranger. He had become so upset about it that eventually, at
about midnight, he had gone upstairs to ask for the bag. He had heard the sound of
some sort of foul heavy metal coming from inside, but when he knocked Gunner had
bellowed at him through the door, telling him to bugger off.

He assumed that the door was locked, although he hadn't felt like trying it. Kit's
bedroom was the only room in the whole house with a lock. Kit had always locked himself
in at night in case burglars or unnamed others broke in while he was asleep. Kit
suffered from night fears, often talking in his sleep, sometimes even calling out.
He would wake up sweating and have a headache the whole of the next day. Adam had
never quite understood what it was all about; nothing like what Kit described had
ever actually happened, as far as he was aware. But like so much about Kit, it wasn't
rational. However, it made no difference whether Gunner had locked the bedroom door
or not – Adam had no intention of going in while he was inside. What stupid drug
or alcohol-fuelled whim had caused Kit to allow such a man into his life? More importantly,
his presence in the house threatened to ruin everything.

Seventeen

A greyish but sharp glare streamed through the window of the BMW as Tartaglia and
Minderedes headed out of London on the M3 towards Winchester. Tartaglia flipped down
the sun shield, but it made little difference. He sank deeper into the passenger
seat and closed his eyes, letting the innocuous sound of Rihanna's ‘Diamonds' wash
over him. He was exhausted. The sofa he was sleeping on at home was comfortable to
sit on, but it was far too narrow for him to spread out the way he liked to do in
bed. It was also on the soft side and several inches too short. He couldn't work
out where to put his feet. Around three in the morning he had given up and put the
seat and back cushions on the floor as a makeshift bed. He had eventually rolled
off them and woke up with a stiff neck and a headache.

He'd got up and left the flat early that morning, with only time to grab a quick
cup of black coffee on the way. Donovan was still asleep. They had received a tip-off
about a fire involving a human body. It had been dressed up as a Guy and placed
on top of a bonfire at a fireworks party in a small town outside Winchester. A follow
up call to Winchester CID had established that the body was not in one piece. The
head had rolled off into the crowd at the party and the officer described how the
legs and arms had also fallen off as the rest of the body was being removed from
the fire ‘as though they weren't properly attached'. The similarities were sufficient
to warrant further investigation, particularly as two witnesses had seen a man acting
suspiciously around the bonfire. Apart from the ID for
Jake Finnigan, there was still
no word back from the lab on the DNA samples taken from the other body parts in the
Sainsbury's car park fire. He hoped to get the results later that day.

As he dozed, head against the cold glass, a jumble of images spun through his mind:
night-time and the dimly lit bedroom in the Dillon Hotel, Claire lying across the
bed; the fire in the car park, the charred fragments of body in the car; snake-eyed
Tatyana; Chris, the man with the cross on his hand who doesn't want sex, Jake Finnigan
. . . Why wait six months after killing Finnigan to set fire to his body? Wealthy
Richard English missing for two years, his wallet and keys on the ground by the car,
the homeless man known as Dodger . . . Were they one and the same? Lisa English,
Ian Armstrong, so much to gain financially. Spidery red letters carved into Claire's
thighs.
What I am, you will be . . . What I am, you will be . . . What I am . . .
Who am I? Death. The Dead.
The words spooled round and round.
Claire is dead. You
will be too.
Who was ‘you'? Who did the killer mean? Were the words there for a reason,
or was it just a tease . . .

‘We're here, Sir.
Sir
?'

Minderedes's voice jolted him awake. He opened his eyes and saw that they had pulled
up in a parking lot beside a large brick building, signed Recreation Centre. He glanced
at his watch. The journey had taken the best part of an hour. He stretched and watched
as Minderedes got out of the car and went to greet a stocky middle-aged man who had
emerged from a nearby car. The DI from Winchester CID, Tartaglia assumed. They exchanged
a few words, then came towards the BMW. As Tartaglia got out, the man came over and
introduced himself as DI John Ramsey, based at Winchester.

‘I understand there was a fireworks party,' Tartaglia said, once the basic introductions
were out of the way and they
started walking towards the playing fields behind the
building.

‘Yes. Happens every year,' Ramsey said. ‘They usually get about a thousand people,
or so. Sometimes more. They start with a big procession down the high street with
torches and candles, then they come down here. The bonfire's at the bottom of one
of the fields over there.' He jerked his head in the direction. ‘Anyway, they set
light to it. It's soaked in kerosene so it doesn't take long to get going. They're
all standing around watching it go up as usual, and then Guy Fawkes' head falls off.
It lands on the ground and some little boy sees it and realises it's not a bloody
dummy, then people start screaming blue murder, you get the picture.'

‘Where does the Guy usually come from?' Minderedes asked.

‘The local school. There's a competition each year.'

‘And who puts the Guy on the bonfire?'

‘There's a rota of volunteers from the school, plus locals, but again, because it's
a weekday, they had to use whoever offered. Somebody went to the school yesterday
to get Mr Fawkes but was told he'd already been collected, although nobody can remember
who by. Next thing he's sitting on top of the bonfire. Nobody asked any questions
about how he got there and nobody's seen anything suspicious.'

‘Any witnesses?' Tartaglia asked.

‘The boy I told you about saw a man in the crowd acting suspiciously. Somebody else
– a woman on one of the catering stands – said she saw a man hanging around earlier
in the day who seemed a bit odd. That's about it, I'm afraid.'

‘What about the rest of the body?'

‘Gone off with the head to the mortuary.'

‘OK. I'll need to speak to them when we're done. In the meantime, you'd better show
me where all this happened.'

The area beyond the car park had been cordoned off and they signed in with a uniformed
PC. Ramsey led the way, Minderedes following, picking his way gingerly through the
muddy ground in what looked like a new pair of shoes. Fields and rolling hills stretched
into the distance, with woods beyond. The grass was dotted with abandoned stalls
and marquees, left where they stood the previous night. They followed a line of trees
down a gradual incline towards an open space at the bottom where the charred remains
of a huge bonfire sat in the middle.

‘We had to get the fire brigade to put it out,' Ramsey said.

‘How did they get access down here?' Tartaglia asked, looking around. As far as
he could see, there was nothing but a narrow, well-trodden, muddy track.

‘There's a lane just over there behind the hedge. It runs between the two fields.
They use it to bring in the wood and stuff for the bonfire. It was all stacked under
those tarpaulins over there to keep it dry until the actual day. Whoever brought
the Guy must have come in the same way. You wouldn't want to be carting something
heavy, let alone dodgy, all the way from the car park.'

Tartaglia nodded. ‘And nobody saw the Guy brought in?'

‘Nobody's come forward so far.'

‘Who uses these sports fields?' Minderedes asked.

‘People from the town and the local school. Whoever did this had local knowledge.'

Tartaglia nodded in agreement. ‘I've seen enough for now,' he said. ‘I'd like to
talk to the witnesses as soon as possible. We have an E-FIT of a suspect we'd like
to show them.'

‘Right. I suggest we start with Liz Hallion. She runs a sandwich shop in the high
street. I told her we'd be along. The boy – Josh – may be at school. I'll get one
of my colleagues to
check and if so, tell him to go home. We can go and see him after.'

‘Do you celebrate Guy Fawkes night in Scotland?' Minderedes asked Tartaglia, as they
started to walk back up the hill towards the car park.

‘We have Bonfire Night, with lots of fireworks. It's really an excuse for a mini
Hogmanay. Nobody cares that someone once tried to blow up your king . . .'

‘
Your
king, you mean. Wasn't he Scottish?'

Tartaglia laughed. Although third generation Italian, he had been born and brought
up in Edinburgh and counted himself as much a Scot as an Italian. ‘OK, then.
Your
Houses of Parliament.'

‘And you a Catholic, Sir. You should be on the side of Guido Fawkes.'

‘Yes. I was forgetting that that was what it was all about. Religion has a lot to
answer for.'

Donovan heard the sound of the front door banging shut and a moment later, Sharon
Fuller bustled into Tartaglia's sitting room, carrying a large shopping bag and an
umbrella. ‘I've brought you some groceries,' she said. ‘I'll just go and put them
away.'

‘Thank you,' Donovan replied from the sofa, wondering why Tartaglia had given Fuller
a key. ‘But I don't need anything.'

Fuller appeared not to have heard her and was already heading towards the kitchen.
Reluctantly, she got up, turned off the television and followed behind.

‘It's just a few bits and pieces,' Fuller said, starting to unpack the contents of
the bag onto the counter. ‘I noticed the fridge was empty yesterday. Mark's too busy
to worry himself about such things at the moment.'

Irritated at the intrusion, along with the assumption that she couldn't deal with
“such things” herself, Donovan watched from the door as Fuller put the various items
away in the fridge and nearby cupboards. When she was done, she went over to the
sink, washed her hands quickly, then turned to face Donovan. ‘Cup of tea?'

‘No thanks.'

‘Been out somewhere?'

‘No.'

‘Your cheeks are pink and you've got a leaf in your hair.' She pointed.

As usual, she missed nothing. Donovan ran her fingers through her hair and found
the dead leaf, which she scrunched up in her fingers. ‘I just went out for a quick
walk around the block, that's all. Needed some fresh air.'

‘Let me make you a cup of tea? I could do with one myself.'

‘OK,' Donovan said grudgingly. She hadn't the energy to argue. Simpler just to let
Fuller go through the motions, then she would be gone sooner. She sat down at the
table.

Fuller switched on the kettle and took out two mugs from the cupboard. ‘Are you managing
to sleep OK?' she asked, dropping a teabag into each of them.

‘Yes.' It wasn't true but there was no point explaining. The pills seemed to take
for ever to kick in and, when they did, they only knocked her out for a few hours.
It wasn't enough. She had been back to see her GP, but he had refused to give her
anything stronger. Whether it was the pills or the lack of sleep or both, she felt
disorientated and could barely string two thoughts together, let alone a sentence.
How was she going to be of any use in her current state?

Sharon was looking at her with concern. ‘Are you alright, Sam?'

‘Yes, I'm fine. I'm just a bit tired.'

‘Are you hungry? Can I make you anything to eat?'

Donovan shook her head. ‘I don't feel hungry.'

‘What about some cereal, or I could make you a sandwich?'

‘No.'

‘OK. You just let me know when you need something.'

‘I just need time on my own,' Donovan said, but Sharon had already turned away, busy
pouring water into the mugs. She prodded them vigorously with a spoon, muttering
something under her breath as she dropped the teabags in the bin and added a drop
of milk to each mug.