Lazybones (12 page)

Carol Chamberlain had always been an early riser, but by the time her husband shuffled, bleary-eyed, into the kitchen at a little after seven o'clock, she'd already been up a couple of hours. He flicked on the kettle, nodded to himself. He'd known very well she would have trouble sleeping after the phone call.

It had come the evening before, in the ad break between
Stars in Their Eyes
and
Blind Date.
As soon as the caller had identified himself, begun to tell her what he wanted, Carol had understood the quizzical look on Jack's face when he'd handed her the receiver.

She'd listened to everything that the commander had to say. From the audible exasperation in his voice it was clear that she'd asked a lot more questions than he'd been expecting. After fifteen minutes she had agreed to think about what she'd been asked.

The new team had been set up, she was told, to utilize some of the resources that had been—how had he put it?—
wasted
in previous years. The basic idea was that highly capable ex-officers could bring years of valuable experience to bear on reexamining old, dead cases. Would be able to cast a fresh eye across them…

For most of the time since she'd hung up, since they'd gone back to watching Saturday-night TV, Carol had been in two minds. She was certainly a “wasted resource,” but much as she was happy, no,
desperate,
to
do something, she had also heard something dubious in the voice of the unspeakably young commander. She knew immediately that he and many others would be picturing hordes of aged ex-coppers shuffling in from Eastbourne, on sticks and Zimmer frames, waving dog-eared warrant cards and shouting: “I can still cut it. I'm eighty-two, you know…”

Jack put a mug of tea down in front of her. He spoke softly. “You're going to do it, aren't you, love?”

She looked up at him. Her smile was nervous, but still wider than it had been in a while.

“I can still cut it,” she said.

 

While Thorne had been racing back from Hove, shagging the hired Corsa up three different motorways, Brigstocke had made the scene at the Greenwood Hotel secure. By the time Thorne arrived, it was nearly three hours since the body they would later identify as Ian Welch had been discovered, and more than twelve since he'd been killed. There was little else for Thorne to do but stare at him for a while.

“Well, it's a slightly nicer hotel anyway,” Hendricks said.

Holland nodded. “They even sent us up some coffee…”

“There's a CCTV set-up in the lobby as well,” Brigstocke said. “It's pretty basic, I think, but you never know.”

It was a classic businessman's hotel. Trouser presses, Teasmades, and bog-standard soap in the bathroom. The simple, clean room couldn't have been more different from the pit they'd stood in three weeks earlier. Save, of course, for the one gruesome feature they had in common.

As with the murder scene in Paddington, the bed had been stripped and the bedding taken away. The clothes
lay scattered, but the body itself had been precisely positioned. Dead center with head toward the wall, belt around the wrists, white hands bloodless. The hood, the line around the neck, the dried red-brown trails snaking down the thighs like gravy stains…

This one looked a little older than Remfry. Late forties maybe.

Brigstocke gave Thorne what little they had. Thorne took the information in, standing by the window, one eye on the fields beyond the main road. They were two minutes from the motorway, fifty yards from a major roundabout, but on this Sunday morning, Thorne could hear nothing but birdsong and the rustle of a body bag.

This time the killer had ordered his floral tribute personally. The order had been placed with a twenty-four-hour florist at just after eight-thirty the evening before and paid for with the victim's debit card. Thanks to that, they already had a name for the dead man…

“He didn't fancy leaving a message this time,” Brigstocke said.

Thorne shrugged. Either the killer had learned from his mistake or had done what he needed to do in leaving his voice on Eve Bloom's machine.

“Twenty-four-hour florists?” Thorne shook his head. “Who the hell needs flowers in the middle of the night?”

“They're not
actually
twenty-four hours,” Brigstocke said. “But there's always somebody there until at least ten o'clock. They don't guarantee to get your flowers delivered by the next morning, but apparently they made a special effort in this case, due to the nature of the order…”

At 9
A.M
., a deliveryman had waltzed into hotel reception carrying the wreath. The receptionist, somewhat taken aback, had rung room 313 and, on getting no reply, had asked the deliveryman to wait, and had gone up
to the room. Five minutes later, her screams had woken most of the hotel.

“Sir…?”

Thorne turned from the window to see Andy Stone coming through the bedroom door. He was clutching a piece of paper, grinning, and moving quickly across to where Thorne and Brigstocke were standing.

“The victim checked in under his own name…” Stone said.

Brigstocke shrugged. “No real reason for him not to, was there? He thought he was coming here to get fucked.”

“Looks well and truly fucked to me,” Holland said.

When Stone had finished laughing, Thorne caught his eye. “Go on…”

Stone glanced down at the piece of paper. “Ian Anthony Welch.” He half turned toward the body. “Released eight days ago from Wandsworth. Three years of a five-stretch for rape.”

Thorne spoke to nobody in particular. “I don't know why we never considered it. Remfry wasn't killed because of who he was. He and Welch were killed because of
what
they were. Christ, this is the sort of case we normally get brought
in
for…”

Brigstocke stretched, his plastic bodysuit rustling. “Well, this time, we've got our very own.”

Now things were going to change: in the previous week and a half, priorities had shifted. Older cases that had been downgraded in the immediate wake of the Remfry murder had, suddenly, three unsuccessful weeks on, been shunted forward again. Members of the team found themselves knee-deep in court preparations for a domestic, processing the arrest of a teenager who'd stabbed his friend for a computer game or gathering the papers on a drug-related shooting. This reallocation of
resources was normal and now it would need to be done all over again. Now that the Remfry murder was the Remfry and Welch murd
ers,
the more straightforward cases would slide back onto the back burner.

Now Team 3 would be handling no other cases at all…

“One, two, three…”

Thorne watched as four officers heaved the body off the mattress and onto the black body bag that had been stretched out on the floor next to the bed. The belt had been removed but the hands were still clenched tightly together behind the back, fingers entwined. Rigor mortis had set in hours ago and the body rolled awkwardly onto its side, knees drawn up to the chest. The officers looked at one another and, after a few moments, a DS stepped forward. He placed a hand on the chest, and as he rolled the body onto its back, he pushed the legs downward as far as they would go. Flattening the body just enough to zip the bag up.

“I forgot to ask,” Brigstocke said. “How was the wedding?”

Thorne was still watching the sergeant, whose eyes were closed the whole time his hands were on the naked body.

“Not a lot more fun than this,” Thorne said.

 

Fifteen minutes later, just after midday, the core of the team gathered in the lobby. They were about to go their separate ways. The postmortem was being rushed through at two o'clock, and while Thorne would be following Hendricks to Wexham Hospital, Brigstocke and the others would be heading back to the office.

While the DCI spoke on the phone to Jesmond and then to Yvonne Kitson back in the Incident Room, the others sat on mock-leather armchairs and shared a pot of coffee. Less animated than the small gaggle of hotel
staff and guests, they stared out through the plate-glass windows in reception at the body being loaded into the mortuary van.

Brigstocke joined them, sliding his mobile back into the inside pocket of his jacket. “Well, that's everybody up to speed, me included…”

“What words of wisdom from the all-knowing detective chief superintendent?” Thorne asked. Outside, the mortuary van was moving away. Hendricks waved as he climbed into his car to follow it. Thorne raised a hand in return.

“Nothing I can argue with,” Brigstocke said. “We'll have reporters here before they've put new sheets on the bed. So here it is. Officially, we can't confirm
or
deny a link with the Remfry murder.” He paused, making sure the message was sinking in. “It makes sense. The tabloids would have a fucking field day with this one. Screaming about vigilantes, running polls.
Is the killer doing a good job? Yes or no?
”

“Is that a possibility, you think?” Stone asked. “Could this be some sort of vigilante thing?”

Thorne reached for the coffeepot, poured himself another cup. “This is something very personal. The man who's doing this isn't doing it for you or me…”

“Maybe,” Brigstocke said. “But all the same, there
will
be people asking whether or not we should be grateful…”

The hotel manager walked through reception, talking quietly to a small group of guests in golfing gear. They stopped at the main doors and chatted some more. The manager shook their hands before watching the bemused golfers duck underneath the police tape and walk away, shaking their heads. It was a game Thorne had little time for, but he guessed they'd have something other than new cars and holidays to talk about on the first tee.

Brigstocke cleared his throat. “Right. Forensics will be moving as quickly as they can, but while we're waiting, there's plenty we need to do…”

“We'll get nothing,” Thorne said. “It's cleaner than the last place, but it's still a hotel room. They'll be gathering samples into next week.”

“We might get lucky,” Holland said.

“More chance of six numbers coming up Saturday night…”

Brigstocke tapped a spoon against his coffee cup. “Let's cut the morale building short for a minute, shall we? Talk about what we
can
do…”

Holland raised a hand. “Sir. If I
do
get six numbers up on Saturday night, I'm officially requesting permission to resign from the case and fuck off to Rio de Janeiro with twin supermodels.” The few seconds of laughter did everybody good.

“I want to know exactly what Ian Welch has been doing since he came out,” Brigstocke said. “Where he's been staying, who he's been seeing—”

Stone cut in. “He came out NFA. The prison gave me the address of a hostel…”

Brigstocke nodded. “Good, and you're going to be calling a
lot
more governors before we're finished. We'll need to contact every prison in the country housing sex offenders, talk to anyone with an imminent release date. That's the easy bit. We're also going to trace every rapist, groper, and flasher who's been released in the last six months. Check that none of them have received letters. Warn them in case they get any.”

“How many are we looking at?” Holland asked.

Brigstocke picked up a small pack of biscuits, sealed in plastic. He dangled it between two fingers. “Based on the last set of Home Office stats, probably one serious sex offender is released somewhere in the country every
day.” He tore open the packet with his teeth, spat out the plastic, looked at the faces of the other men around the table. “I know. Frightening, isn't it? Just going back to the start of this year, we're going to be looking for something like a hundred and fifty offenders…”

Stone raised his eyebrows. “Well, we should know where most of them are, in theory at least. Still might be a shitload of work, though.”

“Yes, it might be,” Brigstocke said.

“Are we going to be able to justify that? I mean, like you said, these aren't exactly innocent victims, are they?”

Brigstocke blinked, opened his mouth to shout. Thorne got in first. “Not your worry, Andy.”

“I know. I was just saying…”

Thorne raised a hand. “What we
can't
justify are bodies…”

 

They walked out to their cars. Brigstocke drifted away from the others toward his Volvo, took Thorne with him. He glanced toward Andy Stone.

“Have a word…”

Thorne nodded. “Well, he
was
making the same sort of point you made yourself earlier. Remfry, Welch, doing what they did, being what they are. Some people might well think that…”

Brigstocke pressed the remote, deactivating the car alarm with a squawk. “I'm not talking about what he said back there. I'm talking about the Gribbin business.”

Thorne had been waiting for this. He had known that Stone's behavior during the raid was not just going to be forgotten. “Right…”

“Don't worry, it's not going as far as the Funny Firm. All been put down to protecting the girl. Still, I want you to let him know he overstepped the mark.”

“Fair enough…”

Brigstocke got into the car, started the engine. He began to pull slowly away. “Call me from the Wexham as soon as Phil's finished…”

Holland loped across the gravel as Thorne walked to the Corsa. “You up for a drink later?”

“I'm likely to be up for several,” Thorne said.

Holland ran a hand along the front wing of the hire car. “This is the sort of thing
you
ought to get.”

“Sort of thing I ought to get
when
?”

“Come on, your car is fucked. This is nice, though…”