Those Who Feel Nothing

Table of Contents

Cover

A Selection of Recent Titles by Peter Guttridge

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Author's Note

The Brighton Mystery Series

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT *

THE LAST KING OF BRIGHTON *

THE THING ITSELF *

THE DEVIL'S MOON *

THOSE WHO FEEL NOTHING *

The Nick Madrid Series

NO LAUGHING MATTER

A GHOST OF A CHANCE

TWO TO TANGO

THE ONCE AND FUTURE CON

FOILED AGAIN

CAST ADRIFT

* available from Severn House

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

 

 

First published in Great Britain and the USA 2014 by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of
19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

eBook edition first published in 2014 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

Copyright © 2014 by Peter Guttridge.

The right of Peter Guttridge to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Guttridge, Peter

Those who feel nothing.

1. Murder–Investigation–England–Brighton–Fiction.

2. Cambodia–Antiquities–Fiction. 3. Detective and

mystery stories.

I. Title

823.9'2-dc23

ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8360-5 (cased)

ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-545-1 (ePub)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

This eBook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

For my friend and mentor Stephen Fleming.
Another good man gone.

‘
The world belongs to those who feel nothing.
'

Fernando Pessoa

Y
ou're waiting for your tailoring to arrive, sitting in the now quiet shop. Bales of silk, cotton, linen and mohair line the walls around you. It is humid. A sluggish fan above your head scarcely stirs the thick air. The sweat pops from your pores.

Under the glass top of the low table in front of you, business cards from all over the world are laid out. You have been encouraged to leave one yourself but you do not have one. You look at the ones that are there.

Alix De St Albin from some French recruitment consultancy has left his or hers. Lorenzo Monticello is in Italian water filtration. A couple of American dentists have ‘selfies' with toothy white smiles on their cards testifying to their orthodontic skills. Academics from newer universities in the UK are there in abundance.

All have come to this shop in this little town on the coast of Vietnam to take advantage of its rapid, cut-price tailoring. The town of Hoi An is known for it. Cheap knock-offs of expensive western clothes and designs done in a day.

You ordered a suit last night. There were various things wrong with it this morning. Too tight on the chest. Too long in the sleeves. Pockets too shallow.

Your eye catches a card from Brighton. Brighton, Australia. Trudy Smart, Human Resources Executive.

Here's another Brighton card you almost miss. Brighton, England. You look at it intently. An address in the Lanes. You look around. Nobody is paying you any attention. You reach down and slide the card from underneath the glass of the table. You turn it over. Another office in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Your suit arrives for your final fitting. You don't even look at it. You thrust a wad of US dollars in the hands of the startled manager of the shop and take the suit. You stumble out into the noisy street. It's hectic, bustling. The town is celebrating the full moon tonight so all electric lights are turned off. Paper lanterns illuminate the streets. Candles in hundreds of tiny paper boats have been set adrift on the river. It is a beautiful sight but you're not in the mood for beauty.

You barge your way through the crowds, rattle across the rickety boards of the medieval Japanese bridge, ignoring the soft lights floating below you to the sea.

You're in a daze all the way back to the old wooden merchant's house that is your hotel.

In a daze when you drop the suit on a chair and grab the gin from your suitcase, and when you straighten out the business card crumpled in your hand and stare at it by the wavering light of the candles that have been lit about your room.

You look at the Brighton number on the card and check your mobile for a signal. You try for an international line on the telephone by your bed. Nothing available right now. You're drenched in sweat so grab towels from the bathroom. You lie down on one and mop your face with the other, balancing the glass of gin on your chest. The man on reception phones back. He has a line and can put you through. You repeat the number to him and after clicks and tunnel sounds the number rings, surprisingly loud in your ear. You wonder what you will say if the telephone is answered.

There is another click and a voice on an answerphone message. Deeper than you remember. Older, of course. Tired, too – but then the voice has been travelling a long time. It has been travelling for thirty-five years.

C
onstable George Stanford liked the night shift. Aside from the money for unsocial hours he enjoyed the dark, especially here on the other side of the South Downs. He enjoyed the sight of a fox or a badger in the flare of the headlights. Occasionally he saw a wild-eyed deer, although he'd nearly wrecked the patrol car once avoiding one that had unexpectedly leaped out in front of him.

But three in the morning by the railway line in Hassocks on copper cable thieving watch was nobody's idea of a good time. Certainly not grumpy Constable Dennis Richardson with whom he'd been lumbered for the past six months. Stanford hated time-servers.

Richardson was grumbling about something or other – Stanford had tuned out ages ago – when they both saw a medium-height man with what looked like a heavy bag climbing over a fence on to the railway embankment.

‘Where the hell did he come from?' Stanford said, nudging Richardson.

‘It's where he's going we need to worry about,' Richardson said, opening his door.

Stanford followed.

Although both policemen were careful, the man turned, either at the sudden flash of light or at the sound of the car doors closing in the still night.

‘Excuse me, sir,' Stanford called, his voice oddly amplified by the darkness.

The man didn't hesitate a moment. He dropped off the fence, abandoned his bag and set off at a run.

‘Bugger,' Richardson said.

‘You get the bag, I'll go after him,' Stanford said.

God, he hated chasing people when he was weighed down with all the stuff the modern copper was lumbered with. Clanking and clattering along, he heard Richardson get back in the car and start to follow. The man ducked away from the embankment and ran into a side street.

Stanford was a fit bloke. He ran on the treadmill in the gym three times a week. But all this bloody clobber hanging off him sapped him within a hundred yards.

By the time he got on to the side street the man had disappeared. He stopped and listened for the sound of the man's running feet. He could hear him – but where? He knew Hassocks well. A man could easily lose himself in the network of streets.

‘Bugger it,' Stanford said.

Richardson pulled up alongside him. Stanford climbed back in the car.

‘Judging by the clobber in his bag he's a copper thief all right,' Richardson said as he turned into the side street.

They crisscrossed the streets for ten minutes, windows down, listening for footfalls. They didn't see or hear a soul.

‘Let's leave it,' Richardson said. ‘We've done our duty – prevented a crime. And we can probably get some prints off the gear.'

He pulled on to the main road through Hassocks and headed towards Ditchling. As they came into the snake bend at Keymer, Stanford pointed at a car parked half on the pavement in front of the gates of Keymer church. The boot was open.

‘He's after the copper in the church now,' Stanford said.

Richardson pulled up about ten yards down the road, also half on the pavement, and both policemen started back towards the car. Stanford glanced to his right, into the churchyard. He nudged Richardson. They stopped to watch as a light moved across the front of the church and disappeared around the side.

The wall was low and both men climbed over. Stanford grimaced as he splattered a slug with his hand. He wiped his palm on his trousers as Richardson pointed him to the left of the church. Richardson set off the other way to follow the torchlight.

Stanford moved cautiously between old gravestones. He had his torch in his hand but didn't want to use it yet. He didn't need to. It had been a cloudy night but suddenly a shaft of moonlight illuminated the ground in front of him.

Stanford looked at a mound of earth. He stepped closer and looked down into an open grave. He shone his torch into it. It took him a moment to make sense of the rotten planks pushed aside and the pale skull embedded in mud. Then someone pushed him hard in the middle of his back and he fell, forward and down.

Bob Watts was back. The disgraced poster boy for modern policing examined his face in his bathroom mirror as he pulled off his running gear. Not too bad, Bobby boy. The ex-chief constable of Southern Police had assumed his career in policing was dead in its tracks after the debacle of what the press dubbed the Milldean Massacre, in which armed police had shot and killed apparently innocent people. But now, thanks to stupid politicians who didn't understand policing but liked headlines, he was a law enforcer again.

Admittedly, his route was via an apathetic public, uninterested in what the politicians had foisted on them. But that didn't matter. He had won his election fair and square.

He might think the politicians were misguided but their decision gave him a new opportunity to make a difference. He hadn't thought the new, elected post of Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) was a good fit for the way policing was done in Britain but if the Southern Force was going to have a PCC, he was going to be it. He genuinely believed he was the best man for the job. And even if he wasn't he wanted it.

He had scheduled a private meeting for late morning with Chief Constable Karen Hewitt, his deputy back in the day, but he expected to encounter her before then at the champagne breakfast for the launch of the annual Royal Escape boat race from Brighton to Fécamp. That could be awkward.

Karen had taken over when he'd been fired as chief constable. He could guess how she'd feel about him being her boss again. He was eager to get started; she would be less eager.