Left You Dead

104

Glenn Branson drove fast out of Eastbourne, heading along the steep, twisting, clifftop road, with the darkness of farmland to their right as they left the town and the darkness of the English Channel, beyond the cliffs, to their left.

‘Coming up on the right,’ Roy Grace said.

There was a sign for the Beachy Head Chaplaincy on their right and then one for the pub. Branson slowed right down as they approached the pub’s huge car park. It was almost deserted. Just the Range Rover, on one side, parked close to some kind of mobile industrial unit, and a large camper van with German plates some distance from it, almost at the far end, facing towards the cliffs. The camper van’s roof extension was open, and the interior lights were on. Holidaymakers settled in for the night, Grace guessed, an idea forming.

‘Don’t go in, drive on by.’

As they did so, a figure emerged from the camper van, from a door on the far side to the Range Rover, and sparked up a cigarette.

There is a God, Grace thought. ‘Spin her round, go into the car park, drive normally as if you’re deliberately heading to the camper van, and pull up beside it, on the far side of it to the Rangey.’

Branson threw him a puzzled look and complied. As they approached the camper, they saw a man in shorts, a vest and flip-flops, sheltering beneath a small awning above the door. He looked at them warily. Grace lowered his window, smiled and said, ‘Guten abend!’ He smelled the sweet aroma of the smoke.

The man smiled back and replied with something that Grace, with his very limited German, failed to catch. He climbed out of the car, holding up his warrant card but still smiling. Putting a finger to his mouth to indicate they should be quiet, Grace said, ‘Polizei! Sprechen Sie Englisch?’

‘Ja!’ the German replied. Then he added, ‘I am very good to speak English.’

‘We are just keeping an eye on someone.’ Grace pointed at the binoculars around his neck and the man nodded. ‘Is it possible we can sit in your camper for one hour, to observe?’ He jerked a finger surreptitiously to the far side of the car park, in the direction of the Range Rover. Again quietly, but loud enough for the German to hear, he said, ‘Criminals.’

The man’s eyes lit up with excitement. He crushed out his cigarette, opened the door, and they entered. It smelled of damp clothes and grilled meat. A middle-aged woman was sitting watching a movie in German on the video screen, a bottle of wine open beside her, two glasses on the table. The man spoke to her in German briefly. She froze the film, turned and waved at the two detectives, then said something to her husband and held up the bottle.

‘My wife asked if you would like a drink? A glass of wine?’

‘Nein, danke! You are very kind. Can we go to the front seats?’

‘Please, be free. You want lights in the cabin off or on?’

‘Off, as they are, danke.’

Grace and Branson settled into the front seats, Grace with the left-hand-drive vehicle’s steering wheel in front of him. They now had an unobstructed view, through the rain-blurred windscreen and side window, both of the Range Rover and of the road and clifftop ahead.

As he lowered himself in his seat to be as inconspicuous as possible, Branson murmured, ‘Looks like she’s still in the car.’

Grace raised his binoculars. ‘She is,’ he confirmed.

As soon as he was settled, Grace looked out of his side window.

Then they both stiffened as they heard the roar of a car approaching at high speed. Headlights appeared. A boy racer shot past in what looked and sounded, in the darkness, like a clapped-out Subaru with a boombox exhaust.

Then silence again.

The rain had lessened, but a strong wind buffeted the vehicle. Grace watched the red dot on his screen, all his sadness over Bruno momentarily put to one side, into a compartment, his focus now completely on the job he was here to do. And he realized that being here, right now, in the moment — the thrill of the hunt, the anticipation, feeling the buzz — this was one of the things he loved most about his work.

A call came in from another surveillance car, further along Beachy Head Road, the detective nicknamed Smudger. ‘Nissan Micra, Bravo Delta Five One Sierra Mike Romeo, driving slowly, seems to be looking for something.’

‘Copy that,’ came Taylor’s voice.

Moments later, just as the heavens opened again, headlights appeared, and then a small car turned in. Watching through his night-vision binoculars, Grace saw it was a Nissan Micra, with the licence plate Smudger had just given. He watched it drive around the car park, before coming to a halt some distance from any of the other vehicles. He immediately called the Control Room. ‘I need a PNC check on a Nissan Micra, index Bravo Delta Five One Sierra Mike Romeo, please.’

The Control Room operator came back in seconds. ‘No trace lost or stolen. Registered owner is Ginevra Mary Stoneley of Woodbury Cottage, Chiddingly, East Sussex. Postcode—’

He cut her short. ‘Thanks, that’s good enough.’

Turning to Branson, he said, ‘Ginevra Mary Stoneley, that name mean anything?’

He flipped his phone face down, not wanting the light to show, and signalled to Branson to do the same. Then he picked up his binoculars. He could just make out the silhouette of the driver, through the rain, but it was hard to see the face clearly. They were wearing a baseball or golfing cap pulled down low, and sunglasses, despite the darkness.

‘Ginevra Mary Stoneley? Unusual name, Ginevra. No, doesn’t mean anything.’ He also trained his binoculars on the Micra. They both watched through the rain that was coming down even harder now. The occupant of the car was just sitting. Biding her — or his — time — for what?

Meeting someone? Or just for the rain to stop and go for a walk? Or to jump?

Lowering the binoculars, Grace turned his phone over and glanced at the red dot of Niall Paternoster’s rental Fiesta. It was very definitely moving in this direction, the app estimating a time of less than ten minutes away.

Mark Taylor confirmed over the radio that a surveillance car had it in sight.

It was 11.42 p.m.

The shower was slowly dying down. Passing through.

‘Occupant’s getting out!’ Branson said.

Grace raised his binoculars again. The driver’s door of the Micra was ajar, the interior light on, but their view of the driver’s face was blocked by an umbrella. Then the figure alighted, the face still completely hidden from view by the umbrella. The door was pushed shut, then the indicators flashed — the car had been locked by remote.

‘Shit, who is it? Male or female?’ Grace whispered.

The person’s back was to them now, walking across the car park to the road. A calf-length dark raincoat with a hood raised over the cap and jeans tucked into walking boots.

‘Female, I reckon,’ Branson said. ‘From the way she’s walking.’

Grace nodded as the subject’s stride quickened across the car park towards the road. The figure, umbrella still raised, crossed over and walked a short distance up a grassy incline on the far side, towards the edge, before turning right and striding off into the night.

Both continued watching until the subject was out of sight, then they lowered their glasses and frowned at each other in the faint glow from their phones. ‘What’s going on there?’ Branson said. ‘A late constitutional along the top of the cliffs?’

Grace shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but it definitely does not feel right.’ He turned his binoculars back on the Range Rover. The figure was still in the driving seat — Rebecca, he was sure, but he couldn’t see her face clearly.

‘A lovers’ rendezvous — perhaps just being ultra-cautious — the partner parked up somewhere, concealed? I mean, they’re hardly going to be able to do it in a Micra, are they? Not unless they’re extremely small.’

‘Yep, good luck with that one,’ Grace murmured.

The rain suddenly became heavier again, worsening into a torrent. Grace looked at his phone. At the red dot. Six minutes away now.

A minute later the rain stopped, almost as suddenly as it had started, and there was a break in the clouds. Branson kept his binoculars glued to the Range Rover. Then he exclaimed, ‘She’s on the move!’

Grace raised his glasses. He saw a female figure in a knee-length belted coat and jeans, umbrella low over her head, walking across the car park towards the road. She then crossed, striding determinedly over the grass in the direction of the clifftop.

‘What the hell?’ Branson asked.

Both detectives kept their binoculars trained on her as she walked up the grassy slope towards the cliff edge.

‘What’s she doing?’ Glenn said. ‘Why’s she going there?’

Grace looked down at the red dot, which was moving ever closer. ‘I don’t know, mate,’ he replied.

She stopped some distance short of the edge, then stood, as if she was looking out to sea admiring the view. Except, Grace was well aware, in this darkness there was no view, other than the possibility of a few silent lights far away on the horizon, of supertankers and container vessels out in the English Channel’s shipping lanes.

Suddenly they heard Smudger’s voice. ‘Vehicle containing subject one approaching from west.’

Grace felt a rush of excitement as bright lights appeared from their right and a Fiesta came into sight, driving slowly. A red glow inside might have been the driver, presumably Paternoster, smoking a cigarette.

A second later the car began indicating and turned into the car park. As it did so a trail of small sparks of red flared fleetingly behind it.