Fatal Act E-Book

Leigh Russell

• Herausgeber: No Exit Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 467

Beschreibung

The Sixth DI Geraldine Steel Mystery How far would you go to find a murderer? DI Geraldine Steel, known for pushing the boundaries of her position in the name of justice, is on the hunt for a conviction, even if it threatens her life. A glamorous young TV soap star dies in a car crash but despite the severity of the incident, the driver of the second vehicle has somehow survived - and is now missing. When an almost identical case occurs resulting in the murder of another young actress, Geraldine finds herself on the hunt for a serial killer. With mounting evidence, the killer's identity seems within her reach. But with her sergeant's life on the line, Geraldine has a sacrifice to make.

Leseprobe

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Copyright

CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR LEIGH RUSSELL

'taut and compelling' - Peter James

'Leigh Russell is one to watch' - Lee Child

'Leigh Russell has become one of the most impressively dependable purveyors of the English police procedural' - Marcel Berlins, Times

'A brilliant talent in the thriller field.' - Jeffery Deaver

Dedicated to Michael, Jo, Phillipa and Phil

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dr Leonard Russell for his medical advice, my contacts on the police force for their time, my editor Keshini Naidoo for her unerring guidance, Alan Forster for his superb cover design, and Claire Watts, Alexandra Bolton and Jem Cook at No Exit Press for their constant help. Above all, I would like to record my gratitude to Ion Mills and Annette Crossland for their support and inspiration.

1

‘ANDDON’TEVENTHINK about following me. Did you hear me? I said, don’t even think about following me!’

She slammed the door in his face. It was a chilly night, but going back for her coat would ruin her dramatic exit. As she crossed the driveway to her Porsche, a gust of wind whipped her hair into her eyes. Impatiently she brushed it away.

Turning the key in the ignition Anna waited, drumming painted finger nails on the wheel. She glanced in the mirror. The front door remained shut. The next time Piers lost his temper she was going to leave him for good. Right now she was sitting in her car at nearly two in the morning with nowhere to go. Her resolve wavered and she struggled not to cry, telling herself fiercely that she didn’t need him. Clearly he wasn’t rushing to follow her out of the house, but she was damned if she was going to slink back in straight away. He could stay there and stew for a while first. It struck her that he might be watching her out of the window as she sat on the drive with the engine idling. Spinning the wheel, she slammed her foot on the accelerator. The tyres squealed and she narrowly avoided hitting a black van parked at the end of the drive.

‘Arsehole!’ she shouted as she drove off down the road. ‘You bloody arsehole!’

Drops of rain streaked the windscreen as she sped along. Once out of sight of the house she slowed down, aware that she was exceeding the speed limit. Driving cautiously, she kept to the main road for fear of losing her way. Without taking her eyes from the road, she rummaged in her bag and flung her mobile phone on the passenger seat, glancing down to check it was switched on. There were no messages. An oncoming car flashed its headlights and she swerved back onto her own side of the road, cursing out loud at the other driver in her fright.

‘Fucking road hog!’

Her insults were pointless. No one could hear her. The rain was falling more heavily. Distracted by the rhythm of her windscreen wipers, she had to concentrate on the road glistening ahead of her in the soft light of the street lamps.

At first she was only vaguely aware of someone right on her tail.

‘What the hell are you playing at? Do you want to get yourself killed?’

The other vehicle drew even closer and she swore again. He must have been off his head to approach so close. If she braked sharply, he wouldn’t be able to avoid crashing straight into the back of her car.

‘Back off, you moron, unless you want to get us both killed.’

Rattled, she put her foot down, but the other driver kept up. With perverse fury she braked suddenly. A flash of panic hit her as her tyres slid on the wet road. The van swerved, shooting onto the other side of the road where he slowed down to match her speed. Instead of overtaking or falling behind, he remained alongside her, keeping pace with her as she accelerated again.

Agitated, she wound her window down to shout at him, but the combined noise of their engines scotched any attempt to communicate. Through the window she glimpsed the driver leaning forward over his wheel, as though he fancied himself as a racing driver. Apart from their two vehicles racing along side by side the road was empty, but another car could come along at any time and crash headlong into either one of them. She eased off her accelerator and the other driver slowed down alongside her. She considered pulling into the kerb to let him go on ahead, but was afraid he might stop too. He was clearly crazy. As they neared a bend he braked and slipped back behind her to cruise along on her tail. He wasn’t completely suicidal, then.

All she wanted to do now was get home safely. She drove slowly, looking out for a side road she could turn into. With luck she could slip away before her pursuer realised what she was doing. She passed a turning on the right, displaying a no entry sign. She braked abruptly. Her phone flew off the passenger seat. The van slowed down behind her. Worn out and stressed, she couldn’t even remember why she had been so angry with Piers. It had been a stupid argument in the first place. She wished she was back at home, away from the road at night and its wildness. Leaning forward to retrieve her phone from the floor, she punched Piers’ speed dial key. His phone rang, but there was no answer. She glanced in her mirror and glimpsed the other driver, his face a black mask in the darkness.

She flung her phone down on the seat again and switched on the radio. As soon as she could, she would turn round and head back home. Reaching a narrow side road she spun the wheel at the very last minute. Her front wheel hit the kerb. Her bumper must have skimmed the wall as she swung round, but she was past caring about the car. She grinned at the mirror. The street behind her was deserted. The side road was one way, wide enough for only one car to pass. Alongside it, a railing fenced off a small parkland. She kept going, hoping she wouldn’t lose herself in a maze of one way streets. The road was too narrow for her to stop and check her sat nav but she guessed that if she went left and left again she would find Paddington Street, or else end up on Marylebone High Street. The rain was heavy now. The regular pattering of rain and the wipers swishing rapidly across the windscreen were making her drowsy. She turned a corner and gasped. A black van was racing towards her, driving the wrong way along the narrow one way street.

The van approached so fast she had no time to brake. The pavement was only inches wide. They were on a collision course. She heard herself screaming as the van careered towards her without slowing down. She couldn’t see the other driver. Recovering herself, she slammed her foot on the brake, and tried to swerve. Her front tyre hit the kerb with such force that the front of her car slewed round, scraping along the wall, then swung round again. All she could do was grip the steering wheel helplessly while the car slid along. Before she could slow down, a splintering crash reverberated in her head and the whole car seemed to leap and twist in the air, jolting her bones painfully as it came to a standstill. The engine revved noisily. Her head exploded with a second impact. In the blackness, she wasn’t sure if her eyes were open or closed. Salty blood filled her mouth, choking her. She knew she had to open the door and get out, but she couldn’t move. Aware only of pain slicing through her head and the sound of rain drumming on the car, she lost consciousness.

2

BERNDIDN’TMIND working nights. The hour or two after the trains stopped running could be a real money-spinner. At any rate, it beat sitting in queues during the day. That was bad enough when he had an impatient passenger, but even worse was crawling through traffic to collect fares. It was a pity he was only allowed to clock up the miles, rather than charging by the hour. All things considered nights were better, as long as he avoided picking up drunks. It was almost three in the morning and he was making good time, bowling along the Marylebone Road. With a nice quiet fare in the back, he decided to follow an indirect route along back streets and notch up a few more quid on the clock. His passenger would be none the wiser, even if he knew the streets of London, which was unlikely. Bern could see him in the mirror, some swanky American sprawled in the back of the cab. Staying at The Dorchester Hotel, he could afford the extra. Probably wasn’t even paying for it himself. Once this journey was over, Bern would call it a night.

It was lucky the one way streets were too narrow for anything faster than a slow crawl, because no one had thought to put out a reflective triangle to warn drivers the road was blocked by a Porsche convertible that had slammed straight into the wall. Bern managed to stop in time, but it was a close call. Ignoring complaints from his passenger, Bern climbed out of the cab, pulling his phone out of his pocket. Registering the condition of the Porsche, he regarded the smashed up vehicle warily, shouting into his phone as he walked. As he approached he realised there was a second vehicle involved in the crash, a black van that the Porsche had driven into. The poor bugger in the Porsche hadn’t stood a chance. Neither of the drivers had. Shattered broken glass crunched beneath his feet although he trod carefully. He was reluctant to get too close but he couldn’t turn back, even though it was almost impossible anyone could still be alive. The front of the Porsche was completely crushed. Bern had never seen anything like it.

Observing the driver of the Porsche in the shadowy interior of the car he stopped, uncertain what to do. Craning his neck to peer in through the cracked rear window, he saw the shape of a woman’s head. He called out, but the driver didn’t move. The front seat and dashboard were splattered with blood. He couldn’t get close enough to the van to look inside it as the Porsche was blocking the road, but in any case he had seen enough. The interior of the Porsche was like a scene from a horror movie; blood everywhere. He turned away, wishing he hadn’t looked so closely.

A voice in his ear was telling him the emergency services were on their way, and he was to stay where he was. He wanted to tell the woman on the phone that medical assistance was of no use to a dead driver whose blood was sprayed all over the dashboard, but he couldn’t speak. His daughter was right. He was getting too old for this game. He had been on the point of retiring when Edie had unexpectedly died, so he had carried on. He couldn’t sit at home by himself staring at the four walls, brooding over his bereavement after a forty year marriage. He had to get out of the house and do something. Driving was all he knew.

Feeling shaky, he returned to the cab where his passenger began shouting at him. There was nothing Bern could do but leave his hazard lights on and wait. He could hardly turn round in such a narrow roadway, and he wasn’t about to reverse in the wrong direction along a one way road.

‘What’s the hold up here?’

‘There’s been an accident,’ he explained, jerking his head in the direction of the two smashed up cars blocking the road.

‘Well, can’t you turn around? It’s three o’clock in the morning for Christ’s sake.’

‘We can’t just leave. There’s been a fatal accident. There’s nothing we can do for her, she’s dead. The ambulance is on its way. Fat lot of good it’s going to do her. You’re not a doctor, I suppose –’

‘Are you taking me to my hotel or not?’ the fare interrupted. He clambered out of the cab. Well over six foot, he leaned over Bern as though spoiling for a fight.

‘Yes, yes, I’ll take you there just as soon as the emergency services get here. Look, there’s no point getting shirty about it. This had nothing to do with me. The collision took place before we got here.’

His passenger glared at him.

‘I want you to take me to my hotel now. I’ve got to be up early in the morning –’

‘We’ve got to wait for the Old Bill.’

‘Wait? Wait here? I don’t think so.’

That was all Bern needed. So much for adding a few miles on the clock to earn an extra quid or two. He was driving around in the dark when most people were at home, and all he had to show for it was an irate customer and the memory of an accident which would probably give him nightmares. As if that wasn’t enough for one night, he now had to wait for the police who would probably want a statement, holding him up even longer. He almost wished he had indeed reversed away and driven straight off when he had first seen the Porsche blocking his path. His real mistake had been to leave the main road in the first place. That was what happened when you tried to be clever. In the meantime the American continued grousing.

‘Look, why don’t you get back in the cab, mate? You’re getting soaked out here.’

Grumbling, the passenger climbed back in and sat, arms folded, glaring. Bern shivered and pulled up the collar of his raincoat, hoping he wasn’t going to catch a chill. He was definitely too old to be driving around at night.

At last the sound of a siren pierced the night air. A moment later, the blue flashing light of a police car came round the corner, followed by an ambulance. Bern was irrationally relieved to see a paramedic running towards the demolished Porsche. The driver was dead; it made no difference. But the image of her bloody face had become someone else’s memory to expunge.

A policeman in uniform approached with an officious air. Noting down Bern’s details, he asked him for a full account of what had happened. Bern gazed at him uncomfortably. All he wanted to do was to go home and sleep but he still had his fare, and the policeman was scowling at him. He was probably tired too. Bern answered his questions as helpfully as he could, but he had little to say.

‘I didn’t check the time but I must have arrived on the scene about a minute before I called 999. I just got out the cab to see what had happened, saw the state of the Porsche, and called up. That’s all, really. I saw the vehicles and –’ He broke off with a shrug. ‘There was so much blood. It was horrible. I thought I ought to take a look, you know, in case there was someone still in the car, trapped maybe, and needing help urgently. But I could see she was past help.’

The police officer squinted suspiciously at him.

‘How could you tell? That’s for a medical officer to –’

‘Take a look for yourself,’ Bern cut in with a burst of annoyance, ‘and then you tell me if you think anyone could survive with injuries like that. I’m telling you, it doesn’t take any sort of medical training to see that woman’s dead.’

Without warning he turned his head away and threw up, splashing the policeman’s boots with flecks of vomit.

3

‘I DON’TKNOW why we’ve been summoned to a hit and run,’ Detective Sergeant Sam Haley grumbled by way of greeting. ‘What’s wrong with traffic?’

Her usually cheerful round face was twisted into a sour expression as she scowled up at the grey sky.

‘Why didn’t you ask the chief why we’ve been called out, if you’re so keen to know?’ Detective Inspector Geraldine Steel responded mildly.

She hoped her colleague might be able to tell her about the accident they had been summoned to investigate, but Sam shook her head.

‘It’s hardly the sort of question a lowly sergeant can ask.’

Geraldine acknowledged the remark with a rueful smile.

Their senior investigating officer, Reg Milton, had a tendency to regard questions as a challenge to his authority. In his defence, he was efficient in disseminating information promptly. When she had first arrived in London, Geraldine had found his authoritarian attitude abrasive. The longer she worked with him, the more strongly she suspected he was actually quite insecure beneath his arrogance. But Sam was right. Reg was not the kind of man to encourage informal questions. He was more comfortable issuing orders.

A light shower began to fall, dampening Geraldine’s mood even further. Jumping into the driver’s seat, Sam ran her fingers through her bleached blonde cropped hair, lifting it back into its customary spikes.

‘It seems there’s something suspicious,’ Geraldine said as they drove off.

‘It had better be bloody suspicious to get us out of bed at this ungodly hour on a Saturday morning.’

Geraldine couldn’t help laughing.

‘It’s gone nine o’clock. It’s hardly early.’

‘It’s nine now, but I’ve been up for nearly an hour. It’s Saturday. I’d still be asleep if it wasn’t for this bloody job.’

Up early to do some last minute shopping in preparation for her niece’s visit that weekend, Geraldine had been secretly relieved to be summoned to work. Although she had only recently discovered that she had been adopted at birth, she had never felt close to her sister, Celia. Offering to spend time with her niece was Geraldine’s way of making an effort to support her sister. Celia was taking a long time to come to terms with the loss of their mother who had died not long before Geraldine had relocated to London. Before Geraldine had moved, she had made a vague promise to have her niece to stay. She had been putting off fixing a date, but the invitation had somehow slipped out in an unguarded moment. To Geraldine’s relief, Celia had sounded resigned rather than angry when Geraldine had called to postpone her niece’s visit.

‘So? What’s so urgent we had to be called out in the middle of the night?’ Sam repeated her question as they drove out of the car park.

Ignoring the exaggeration, Geraldine related what little she knew about the incident. A car had driven into a van. The damage to both vehicles had been out of all proportion to the speed indicated on the car’s dashboard, where the speedometer had smashed on impact.

‘So it’s a car crash,’ Sam replied. ‘Big deal. Like I said, traffic should be dealing with it.’

‘Yes, but they felt something wasn’t right about it, so they called the Homicide Assessment Team out, and they also thought there was something wrong and so here we are, doing what we’re paid to do. Someone died in that crash,’ she added solemnly.

Sam grunted. Geraldine continued, hammering her point home. She was aware that she sounded pompous, but she didn’t care. What she had to say was more important than maintaining her image as a tough detective.

‘Whatever time we’re summoned makes no difference to the dead. Just because they have no voice doesn’t mean they have no rights.’

‘I know, I know, but this isn’t a suspicious death, it’s a car crash.’

‘Well, let’s wait and see what we find when we get there. We must have been called out for a reason.’

‘A cock up, more like.’

The rain began to fall more heavily as they drove in silence the rest of the way.

Even on a Saturday morning the roads were congested as they approached central London and crawled along the Marylebone Road. Neither of them spoke. Sam stared ahead sullenly. Geraldine made no attempt to engage her in conversation, accepting that in her present mood the sergeant was best left alone. If Geraldine had been at home, she would have been tidying her spare bedroom in readiness for her niece’s arrival. Celia would have been on the way to London. It would have been strange for Geraldine, not having her flat to herself, even if it was only for one night. She was surprised that her initial relief had turned to disappointment, now the visit had been cancelled. Forcing herself to focus on the task ahead, she ran through what little she knew about the incident so far.

At last they reached the entrance to Ashland Place, which was blocked by a police vehicle spanning the narrow side road. They had to park round the corner in Paddington Street.

‘What happened exactly?’ Geraldine asked as they entered the cordoned off area.

She felt her usual frisson of excitement, rapidly followed by a twinge of guilt because the summons meant there had been a fatality. Up ahead, a white Porsche had driven into a black van. From a distance, she surveyed the heap of crumpled metal and shattered glass, the mangled remains of two vehicles. A forensic canopy had been erected over the cars as protection from the rain that was now falling steadily. The highway glistened with rainbow patches of oil as she bent down to pull on blue overshoes before approaching the vehicles.

Beneath the canvas, white coated scene of crime officers were industriously measuring and photographing, collecting samples of glass and fabric. Apart from an occasional shout, the only sound was the muffled hum of traffic passing along the main road. Approaching the white car, she looked at its shattered front. The Porsche had slammed head first into a van, which had probably shunted it backwards. The car must have been travelling at speed because its front section had concertinaed, as though it was made of tin. The driver hadn’t stood a chance.

‘Someone’s in there,’ Sam muttered.

‘Yes, someone’s in there,’ a scene of crime officer echoed, in a curiously hollow tone.

‘What about the driver of the van?’ Geraldine asked sharply.

No one answered.

Geraldine peered inside the Porsche. The air bag had been deflated to allow access to the dead woman seated at the wheel. Her face was covered in pools and rivulets of blood, making it difficult to distinguish what she looked like. From the little Geraldine could see of a turned up nose and neat chin, she thought the victim looked very young.

‘Don’t worry, we’ll find out who did this to you,’ she whispered under her breath to the dead woman.

She made her way along the narrow gap between the vehicles and the side wall of the building that bordered the road, to the front of the van. The side windows were intact, but the windscreen had been smashed. A scene of crime officer had the driver’s door open and was examining the seat carefully.

‘Was the van empty?’ Geraldine asked. ‘There can’t have been anyone driving it. No one could’ve escaped unhurt from that,’ she added, nodding to indicate the crash.

The scene of crime officer who was working on the interior of the van straightened up and shrugged.

‘Yes, it’s hard to see how anyone could have survived a collision like that. The Porsche must have been going at a cracking pace, although the speedometer was smashed in the crash and that indicates the vehicle was travelling at under twenty miles an hour. There’s no sign of the other driver. We’ve searched the entire street in case he was somehow thrown clear, and managed to crawl away, but we’ve found nothing yet. The van must have been parked here, with no lights on, and the Porsche rammed straight into it. Which means she must have been doing more than twenty miles an hour to do this much damage. A lot more. We’re getting the speedometer checked.’

‘But what about the van? There must have been a driver at some point. Who’s it registered to?’

The scene of crime officer shrugged.

‘Someone called Trevelyan. Your colleague over there has the details.’

Geraldine returned to the Porsche and stared at the blood spattered face of the victim for a moment before turning to look for Sam. The sergeant was talking to a uniformed officer standing by the cordon. Geraldine suspected Sam was happy to avoid viewing the victim.

‘We’re still checking the interior of the van,’ a scene of crime officer replied, ‘it’ll take a while.’ He frowned. ‘But so far there’s been no sign of any injured party. No blood stains. Nothing. The whole thing’s weird, actually, because the van’s facing the wrong way. It must have been parked here. Either that, or else a ghost was driving that van.’

He grinned as though he had cracked a joke. No one laughed.

It was all quite straightforward. No one sitting in the driver’s seat of the van could have survived the crash. Someone had parked irresponsibly, the Porsche had come along travelling far too fast, and a woman was dead. With a sigh, Geraldine turned her attention back to the Porsche which had been shunted sideways across the street by the impact, so that the passenger door was almost flat against the wall. Only the driver’s door was accessible. She leaned down to peer inside the car. There wasn’t much to see from there, just the back of a head of long blonde hair soaked in blood like some ghastly lowlights.

‘Don’t touch anything,’ the scene of crime officer warned.

‘This isn’t our first potential crime scene,’ Geraldine snapped.

The initial rush of adrenaline had faded and she felt exhausted.

Having studied the interior of the car, she went over and joined Sam who was still deep in conversation with a uniformed constable manning the cordon. He was gesticulating and seemed to be ranting about something, while Sam alternately nodded and shook her head.

‘What was he going on about?’ Geraldine asked, when she and Sam were on their way back to the car and the constable could no longer hear them.

‘He was pissed off about some bloody reporter turning up earlier on, just before the Homicide Assessment Team arrived. It makes you sick, the way they exploit something like this, just for a story.’

‘How did the reporter get here so quickly?’

‘Apparently she was just round the corner. Aren’t they always? Anyway, she heard the accident. It must have been an almighty crash, and she came running up hoping for a story. They sent her packing before she could get anywhere near the Porsche. Imagine if she’d got a picture and someone who knew the victim saw it! These people are vultures. They’re shameless.’

Geraldine nodded.

‘Still, it would have been useful to speak to her. She might have seen something.’

Sam shook her head.

‘We can’t have those bastards trampling around here one minute, and the next minute they’re complaining the police are doing nothing about it, when they’re the ones who contaminated the crime scene in the first place.’

‘Did she say which paper she was with?’

‘No. All the constable could tell me was that she was tall and busy poking her nose in where it wasn’t wanted.’

‘Oh well, never mind. She was probably a freelance reporter. The constable was right to send her packing, anyway.’

As they drove off, Geraldine continued airing some of the puzzling aspects of the accident.

‘So what do you make of it all?’ she asked at last, adding, ‘we need to know when the van was left there.’

‘It was the van driver’s fault, really,’ Sam agreed.

‘The victim drove slap into him.’

‘But he shouldn’t have been parked there in the first place. A black van like that is hardly going to be easy to spot at night.’

‘Could a collision like that have been planned?’ Geraldine asked. ‘I mean, it’s an odd place to leave a vehicle.’

After some discussion, they dismissed that idea. No one could have predicted that the Porsche would come round the corner too fast for the driver to stop.

There was nothing more to do but return to the station and find out as much as they could about the victim, and the owner of the black van.

‘Well, that was a waste of time,’ Sam said as they made their way back to the police station through slow moving Saturday traffic. ‘Whoever summoned us was way off the mark. I don’t think there was anything dodgy, unless you consider bad driving suspicious. It was just an accident.’

‘What about the speedometer in the Porsche? Don’t forget it showed the car was travelling far too slowly to cause that kind of damage.’

‘So there was a fault with the speedometer. Big deal. Tell you what, why don’t we stop for breakfast on the way?’

‘Always thinking of your stomach,’ Geraldine grumbled good-naturedly.

She wondered if Sam would have felt as hungry if she had seen the dead driver of the Porsche close up.

4

DETECTIVE INSPECTOR REG MILTON was observing the team assemble when Geraldine arrived. Although in some ways he was an effective leader, with his large frame and domineering personality, she wondered if she would be able to count on his support if she ever messed up. She was fairly sure he would always put his own career prospects first. He looked slowly around the room, sizing up his team. Despite greying hair and deep creases on his forehead, there was a sense of physical power in his broad shoulders and upright carriage, which was accentuated by his well-spoken voice. But if he was keen to get results solely to further his own career, that didn’t really concern her. Reg had a reputation for running successful investigations. A young woman had died in a car accident because someone had been irresponsible enough to leave a black van blocking a narrow road at night without any lights on. All that mattered now was to identify the victim, establish the circumstances of her death, and track down whoever had left the van blocking a narrow one way street.

‘It sounds like something out of Sherlock Holmes,’ Sam whispered, when Reg referred to the case of the curious disappearance of the van driver.

‘What’s wrong with traffic?’ a detective constable grumbled. ‘If it’s a hit and run, why the hell’s it come to us? As if we haven’t got enough to do.’

Sam raised her eyebrows at Geraldine who nodded. She was relieved that the sergeant had recovered her good spirits. In a vast and anonymous metropolis it was a comfort to be on friendly terms with her sergeant, especially as Geraldine hadn’t been living in London for long enough to have met anyone outside work.

‘This won’t take long,’ Reg went on briskly. ‘But something’s come up that we need to look into. At first sight it appears to be a clear cut case. A Porsche slammed head on into a stationary van that had been left parked in a narrow one way street, facing the wrong way. The driver of the Porsche was killed in the crash. It shouldn’t have been beyond the wit of traffic to deal with it and we shouldn’t have been involved at all, only the Homicide Assessment Team wanted to be sure there was nothing iffy about this accident.’

He looked around the room slowly.

‘As I said, it looks straightforward. There was something wrong with the speedometer on the Porsche, so we’re looking into that, and then we’ve just got to tie up a few loose ends and we’ll be done.’

Turning his attention to the incident board, he pointed to the image of a woman’s pale face. She had been cleaned up. While one side of her face was unblemished, the other was badly scratched from smashed glass. The detective chief inspector turned back to the assembled officers.

‘This is the victim,’ he said.

Geraldine studied the vaguely familiar face of a woman in her early twenties. She had dishevelled blonde hair and blue eyes. Apart from the ghastly pallor of her damaged face, she would have been beautiful. The inspector stuck some more images of the dead woman on the board and the assembled officers fell silent, watching.

‘Even with an air bag the collision was almost certain to be fatal, according to the boys in traffic. The windscreen was shatter proof, but she suffered multiple lacerations to the side of her head and face, as you can see, caused by splinters of glass from the doors. It was some crash. She drove straight into a van at considerable speed, travelling along a narrow one-way street. She went into it head on. She didn’t have a chance.’

He paused and glanced up at the incident board before referring to his notes.

‘She was driving a white Porsche.’

He read out the registration number.

‘Nice,’ one of the uniformed officers remarked.

‘Not any more,’ Reg replied, showing an image of the crumpled front of the vehicle.

‘The victim was a twenty-two year old white female called Anna Porter.’

He paused and the assembled officers looked appropriately subdued on hearing how young the victim was.

‘Anna Porter?’ one of the constables piped up suddenly, staring at the photo of the young woman’s bloody face. ‘I thought I recognised her. She’s Dorothy in Down and Out, isn’t she?’

‘What’s Down and Out?’

‘It’s a hit series on the TV. You must have heard of it.’

Reg gave a noncommittal grunt. Several of the younger officers muttered, recognising the actress.

‘The key task is to question the driver who parked the other vehicle involved in this accident,’ Reg added.

‘Bloody idiot,’ someone muttered.

He nodded at a sergeant who had been researching the vehicles. Anna had been driving her own white Porsche when she had crashed into a black van registered to a man called Piers Trevelyan.

‘Anna and Piers lived at the same address,’ the sergeant added and a murmur of interest rippled around the room.

‘It’s a crime of passion!’ Sam whispered.

Geraldine smiled at her young colleague’s enthusiasm.

‘So,’ the sergeant resumed. ‘the victim was living with Piers. They’d been living together for about six months.’

‘That seems to be fairly conclusive then,’ Reg said complacently, ‘let’s go and pick up the boyfriend. See what he has to say for himself, and what his van was doing parked in Ashland Place just where Anna was driving.’

Geraldine scribbled down the address as the sergeant continued.

‘Anna was an actress on the TV. Her boyfriend, Piers Trevelyan, is a big shot casting director, a well known figure in the film world by all accounts. He’s worked with quite a few well known film stars, according to his website anyway. And this year he won a lifetime award for services to the British film industry.’

Reg listened, one eyebrow raised, as though sceptical about the information.

‘There’s one more thing. A business card was picked up from the floor of the car: Dinah Jedway, the victim’s agent.’

‘I can’t believe that’s Anna Porter,’ someone commented, and a faint murmur ran round the room.

‘She was so beautiful,’ another voice agreed.

‘I wonder what they’re going to do on Down and Out now.’

‘Come on then, let’s sort this out,’ Reg said firmly.

He sounded slightly agitated. The significance of the victim’s identity wasn’t lost on anyone in the room. The media was bound to go into a frenzy at the tragic death of a glamorous young celebrity. The police investigation would be a target for critics if they didn’t wrap up the case quickly.

‘We need to find out what Piers Trevelyan was doing, driving the wrong way along a one way street, and leaving his van parked there so dangerously,’ Geraldine said.

‘Just look at that,’ a sergeant added, gesturing at a picture of the Porsche. ‘It looks like she drove into a tank!’

Reg interrupted. ‘The front of the van was smashed in. According to the traffic officers, there’s no way anyone could have survived that impact.’ He paused, frowning. ‘But traffic can’t believe the damage was as severe as that, if the van was stationary and the Porsche was only travelling at about twenty. They reckon it must have been travelling at least three times as fast as the speedometer indicated. That’s what aroused their suspicion in the first place. They thought there might have been something odd about it, because the car had only just turned the corner.’

They all stared at the image of a smashed up black van displayed on the board, the front of the vehicle caved in.

‘We need to find out what the hell happened,’ Reg added.

It seemed he didn’t quite believe it was a simple accident either.

Although there were no security cameras in the immediate vicinity of the accident, the side street was located off a busy main road in central London so there were plenty of cameras in the area. A team of detective constables was tasked with watching CCTV footage, tracking the journeys of the two vehicles and checking to see if there might have been any witnesses. Geraldine and Sam exchanged a complicit grin when they learned that their task was to find out what Piers had to say for himself.

‘Put your feet up while we go out and do the real work,’ Geraldine said with a laugh, although they all knew that CCTV evidence could be crucial. With a joke at the expense of the constables stuck at their desks watching grainy CCTV footage, Sam followed Geraldine out to the car.

5

TALLANDLEAN, PIERS was strikingly attractive rather than good looking. He had a tanned leathery complexion and dark grey hair, streaked with white above his temples. Piercing blue eyes and a pointed nose gave him the appearance of an elegant bird of prey, an impression reinforced by an air of watchfulness. He scrutinised Geraldine, as though sizing her up for a role. It was difficult to be sure of his age but he was well over fifty, probably into his sixties. He was casually dressed in dark jeans and black shirt. Clearly accustomed to dominating others, his self-assurance faltered when she introduced herself.

‘It’s Anna, isn’t it?’ he cried out theatrically, his eyes wide with apprehension. ‘Something’s happened to her. I knew it! Oh my God, poor Anna.’

Geraldine and Sam exchanged a glance. Neither of them had said anything about the accident.

‘May we come in, Mr Trevelyan?’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’

He glanced down at their shoes with a faint frown as though he was about to say something but thought better of it. Instead he turned and led them across real wood flooring into his study where the decor was stylish, if pretentious. The dark red walls were covered with framed signed photographs. Geraldine recognised a few faces from television, including a large one of Anna smiling archly at the camera. She sank into a plush green velvet armchair and explained as gently as she could that Anna had died in a car crash during the night. Piers dropped his face in his hands and sat for a few moments without speaking.

‘Mr Trevelyan, can you tell us where you were between two and three this morning.’

His voice shook as he answered. He sounded slightly hysterical.

‘Here, here. I was here. I was here all night.’

‘Can anyone vouch for that?’

He shrugged.

‘There was just Anna and me here.’

‘What was your relationship with Anna?’

‘Anna –’

His voice broke. He cleared his throat and resumed with an effort.

‘Anna and I were living together.’

‘The house is in your name.’

It wasn’t a question.

‘Yes, that’s right. It’s my house.’

‘And Anna? What was the arrangement with her?’

‘Arrangement? I’m sorry, I don’t follow you. She lived here, with me. The house is mine. It’s in my name. I pay the mortgage and she lives here, with me. I mean, she doesn’t pay rent. She’s my girlfriend –’

He broke off and stared at the floor, shaking his head slowly from side to side. Geraldine noted that he referred to his girlfriend in the present tense, suggesting he hadn’t yet taken in the fact that Anna was dead, but she wasn’t convinced that was significant. He was intelligent, and remained alert despite his apparent shock.

‘Just to be clear, where were you between the hours of two and three last night?’

‘Here. I was with Anna, until she went out.’

‘What time did she leave the house?’

‘I don’t know. It was late. About one o’clock. Well after midnight anyway. It might have been closer to two.’

‘Where did she go?’

Piers shrugged. ‘How should I know? She just went out. For a drive.’

‘Was that usual?’

Piers shifted uneasily in his chair. Geraldine waited. He was behaving erratically, but he had just learned his girlfriend was dead, and shock could affect people in unexpected ways.

‘Usual? What do you mean, was it usual?’ he prevaricated.

‘Was it usual for Anna to go out on her own, so late at night?’

He seemed to be thinking. Geraldine repeated the question once more, adding, ‘It’s a simple question, Mr Trevelyan.’

‘She went for a drive,’ he said at last.

He looked old and confused.

‘Had you had a row?’

He lowered his head and nodded wordlessly.

‘Mr Trevelyan,’ Geraldine spoke lightly. ‘Can you tell us when you last drove your black van?’

Piers looked baffled.

‘Your black van. When did you last drive it?’

‘My van? I keep it outside. It’s parked on the street. That’s where I keep it. I hardly ever use it any more, but I hang on to it in case.’

‘In case of what?’

‘Oh, you know, moving stuff. I sometimes lend a hand, you know. Sets and props.’

‘When did you last use the van?’

He shrugged.

‘Two, three weeks ago. But it hasn’t been out there for a few days.’

‘What do you mean it hasn’t been out there? Are you trying to tell us someone took it?’ Geraldine asked. ‘You didn’t report it stolen.’

‘No, not stolen. At least, not as far as I know.’

Geraldine frowned.

‘Who else uses it?’

‘Only my son, Zak. He sometimes borrows it.’

‘Doesn’t he ask you first?’

‘Of course he’s supposed to ask, but you know what kids are like, and he is my son. He knows I’d never refuse him anything.’

He dropped his head in his hands again, muttering Anna’s name, but jerked upright when Geraldine told him the registration number of the other vehicle involved in the fatal accident.

‘That’s impossible,’ he blurted out, his face white beneath its natural tan. ‘There must be a mistake. That’s the registration number of my van.’

‘Yes. A black van registered in your name was parked in Ashland Place off Paddington Street last night. It had no lights on and Anna Porter drove into it and died in the crash.’

The accusation hung in the air between them, unspoken.

‘Can you tell us what your van was doing in Paddington Street on Friday night?’

Sam was glaring impatiently at Geraldine who understood perfectly what the sergeant was thinking. The sequence of events appeared straightforward enough, and Sam couldn’t understand why Geraldine was treating Piers so gently. Following an argument, Piers must have pursued his girlfriend out of the house. He had obviously driven after her, eventually abandoning his van, presumably after losing her. But she was still in the area, and had crashed into the van he had left. It sounded vaguely plausible, only Geraldine wasn’t convinced the narrative stacked up. If he had been out pursuing Anna, or looking for her, he would have driven home when he lost her. If the van had broken down, he would have called for help. He was a member of the AA. Apart from such inconsistencies, he didn’t strike Geraldine as a man who had been involved in a car crash. As far as she could see, he wasn’t injured. He hadn’t limped when he led them across the hall to his study, and his hands and face weren’t even scratched. Before she decided to arrest him, she wanted to find out more about him.

‘What did you argue about?’

He sighed.

‘That was the last time I spoke to her.’

He raised a mournful face to stare straight ahead, unseeing. ‘The last words we exchanged were spoken in anger. And it was all so stupid. Anna was nagging me to cast a friend of hers in a show I’m working on. He’s useless, but they were at drama school together and she tried to convince me he’s got what it takes.’

Geraldine nodded to show she was listening.

‘I’ve seen him perform,’ Piers continued. ‘A good looking boy, but talentless. I can’t give in to that sort of pressure. I have a reputation to consider. I’m always in demand, and do you know why? Because I’m bloody good at what I do. Everyone thinks casting’s easy. Find a face that fits, make a few calls, set up a meeting, and the job’s done. Well, I can tell you, it’s not that easy. And you know what they say? You’re only as good as your last job. That’s what people remember. Cast a few duds and your career’s over. I’ve seen it happen.’

He took a deep shuddering breath.

‘Anyway, Anna threw a wobbly and buggered off. So I went to bed.’

‘You went to bed?’

‘Yes, I was shattered. I can’t be running after her every time she throws a tantrum. I’m not as young as I was, and I get tired. Bloody tired. I had no idea where she’d gone, but I knew she’d be back soon enough –’ He broke off, overwhelmed. ‘That is, I thought she would.’

‘Is there anyone who can vouch for your being here all night?’ Geraldine insisted. ‘Does anyone else live on the premises?’

He shook his head.

‘No, it was just me and Anna. Just me now, I suppose.’

Piers protested vociferously about accompanying them to the station for a formal interview, until Geraldine pointed out that he had no choice.

‘We’ll leave him to stew overnight,’ Geraldine muttered to Sam as they left the custody sergeant going through the rigmarole of questions.

‘Why don’t we just arrest him? They had a row, it was his van, he knew where she was, and he knew there were no witnesses if he followed her. He had the means and the opportunity, and he had a motive, so somehow he stage managed a crash. Maybe he didn’t intend to actually kill her, but he did.’ Sam paused. ‘It was his van, for Christ’s sake,’ she added impatiently, when Geraldine didn’t say anything. ‘Surely you can see it had to be him?’

‘Tell me how he could have climbed out of that van without any injuries and I’ll accept he’s guilty.’

‘Someone must have managed it, so why not him?’

‘Let’s see what he has to say after he’s been kicking his heels in there for a night. Right now, I want to check if the taxi driver who found the body saw anything.’

Geraldine found it hard to believe that Piers was responsible for Anna’s death. That kind of immature road rage didn’t seem in keeping with the debonair casting director.

‘He must be three times older than her,’ Sam said, as though his age made any difference.

‘Being so much older than her doesn’t make him a murderer!’ Geraldine replied. ‘We’ll need a lot more than that to make this stick.’

‘I can’t see the problem,’ Sam repeated.

‘A clever man like Piers,’ Geraldine mused, ‘he seems like a wily old bugger, and a selfish one at that. Do you really think he would have risked his own life in such a clumsy attack?’

‘I don’t see how you can know that about him, wily and all that. I can’t see the problem. It had to be him.’

Geraldine remained adamant.

‘He would have to be an idiot to use his own van. They lived together. He would have had any number of opportunities to get rid of her, if that’s what he wanted to do, without making himself such an obvious suspect. I just think he’s cleverer than that. The whole thing points too clearly at him.’

Geraldine frowned. Something didn’t add up about the car crash.

‘We’re missing something.’

She didn’t think Piers would tell them what it was. But he wasn’t the only person who regularly drove the black van.

6

THEDEADWOMANRESEMBLED someone wearing a half mask, one side of her face white and smooth, the other side criss-crossed with hundreds of small lacerations from the shattered glass of the car window. Individually insignificant, together they created a grotesque image, like a cracked egg shell. Geraldine wondered if the victim had been aware of their impact before she died. In a profession where looks were more important than skill, Geraldine hoped the dead girl had been spared the anguish of knowing she would be scarred for life if she had survived. She wondered if Anna’s character would be written out of the television series, or if the producers had a list of lookalikes ready to step in if one of the actors had to drop out. It was a depressing reminder that no one was indispensable. But none of that was of any consequence to Anna now.

‘There’s more to this than meets the eye,’ the pathologist said as soon as they entered the morgue.

Sam’s eyes widened above her mask and Geraldine gave her a sympathetic glance before turning her attention to the corpse. Sam found autopsies difficult, and was often tetchy when they visited the morgue. Geraldine had never been badly affected in that way, except when she had once been unexpectedly confronted by the cadaver of a victim she had known while he was alive.

Geraldine had worked with Miles Fellowes on a previous case. Now, the young pathologist was almost rubbing his hands together with glee. His hazel eyes twinkled at her, making him look more like a mischievous sixth former than a qualified doctor. There would have been something macabre in his enjoyment of his work, had his enthusiasm not been so engaging. Like Geraldine, he was keen to press on. He turned to the body without pausing to greet the detectives, and launched straight into his commentary.

‘This is an undernourished female in her early twenties. She’s thin, borderline anorexic, but otherwise healthy. Reasonable muscle tone suggests she probably worked out, or at least took regular exercise. Now, to the effects of her fatal accident. Most obvious are the superficial injuries.’

He pointed to the scratches on the victim’s face.

‘There are multiple minor shallow incisions caused by broken glass from the side window of the car. Bruising to the thorax,’ he gestured at a large dark area on the dead woman’s chest and shoulder, ‘and head trauma, all of which might have killed her, in conjunction with the shock of the impact, if she’d been left unattended for long enough.’

‘He sounds as though he’s reeling off a shopping list,’ Sam grumbled.

Geraldine frowned at her and looked back at the body.

‘What was the cause of death? We need to be specific.’

‘Oh, we can be specific all right. The actual cause of death was this.’

He pointed to the back of the victim’s neck and nodded to his assistant. Together they shifted the body onto its front. He pointed with one gloved finger to a deep gash on the nape of the victim’s neck. The skin around the wound was bloodless, white.

‘A sharp instrument passed through her neck, severing the spinal cord. That was what killed her. I mean, she would have died anyway, but this made certain.’

He grinned, as if to say, ‘I’ve got your attention now, haven’t I?’

Geraldine waited for him to continue.

‘Yes, she would most probably have died from her other injuries – blood loss, head trauma – but that was what killed her all right.’

‘It was bad luck that the glass happened to strike her in the back of the neck like that,’ Geraldine said.

The pathologist gave a curious smile. ‘It certainly would have been, if it had happened by chance.’

‘Is there something you’re not telling us?’

‘Well,’ he hesitated. ‘The injury was inflicted with some force.’ He paused. ‘To the back of her neck.’

Geraldine frowned. She wasn’t sure she understood the implication.

‘A piece of flying glass?’ she suggested.

‘Coming from behind her, passing right through her head rest?’

They gazed at the wound in silence for a moment.

‘The cut was effected with some force,’ the pathologist repeated. ‘It almost severed her head from her neck.’

‘What are you telling us?’

‘I’m not telling you anything. I’m just pointing out that it doesn’t seem possible an injury like this was inflicted by a stray piece of glass. All the other lacerations make sense. They are what you’d expect from shattered bits of glass flying around, but this – this is different. How did a shard of glass find its way past her head rest to penetrate her flesh, cutting between the vertebrae? And –’ he paused dramatically, ‘where is it now? Having penetrated so deeply, it would have remained embedded in her neck. Even if it had somehow been dislodged, it would have fallen nearby. Yet scene of crime officers have found no trace of anything remotely in keeping with this wound. Whatever caused the injury seems to have vanished.’

‘Along with the driver of the van,’ Sam said.

Geraldine and Sam went straight from the mortuary to Zak Trevelyan’s address in central London. He was studying set design at Central, the prestigious drama school in London that Anna had attended. They stopped outside a smart block of flats round the corner from Kings Cross station, just a few minutes’ walk from his college.

Sam whistled. ‘This must cost enough. I wonder who’s paying the rent?’

‘No one. Piers bought the flat, and his son’s living in it rent free.’

‘Oh my God. How the other half lives!’

‘Come on, put your tongue back in and stop drooling.’

They rang the bell but there was no one in.

Driving along Gower Street, they passed the imposing entrance to the drama school. Sam raised her eyebrows.

‘I wonder how he got to study at a place like that?’