You Are Dead

43

Saturday 13 December

An hour later, Roy Grace, with Tanja Cale beside him in the passenger seat, turned the unmarked grey Ford Mondeo left off the Old Shoreham Road into Blenheim Street, a narrow street of small, semi-detached 1950s houses that ran south down towards Shoreham Port.

Cars, vans and a couple of taxis as well as an old, converted ambulance were parked along both sides. Without stopping, they clocked No. 62, a tired-looking house, with flaking paintwork and an unloved front strip of garden. But there was only one Volvo in the whole street — a small recent model with a completely different licence plate. He felt the same butterflies he got in his stomach on every raid he ever attended. What dangers did his team face going through the door? What would they find?

‘The car’s probably garaged somewhere nearby,’ Tanja Cale said. ‘He’s unlikely to be stupid enough to have left it outside.’

Grace nodded. His mind was on the abducted girl from last night. Ashleigh Stanford. He checked his iPhone to see if a picture of her had come through yet. Then it rang. It was the Critical Incident Manager, Superintendent Steve Curry. ‘All in position, Charlie One. Are you ready?’

Grace looked at Cale. She nodded.

‘Yes, yes,’ he replied. ‘Let’s go.’

Adrenaline kicking in now, he turned the car around as fast as he could. Two white vans appeared at the top of the street and accelerated down towards him, both of them halting, double-parked outside No. 62 and its immediate neighbours. He pulled up nose-on to the first, a small van, out of which clambered two dog handlers, in black jackets and trousers, with black baseball caps marked POLICE. They opened the rear doors, and led two German Shepherds down the path along the side of the house to cover the side and rear of the property.

Out of the second, much larger Transit van, poured eight Local Support Team officers, wearing blue combat suits with body armour and helmets with visors down. The two front-runners carried the battering and hydraulic rams. They were followed by the rest of their colleagues.

Grace and Cale climbed out of the car but stayed back as the protocols required until the property was declared safe by the LST’s Inspector, Anthony Martin.

Six of the eight armoured officers grouped outside the front door, waiting for the command, while the other two followed the dog handlers around to the rear of the house.

The inspector gave the signal. All six LST officers yelled in unison, in classic shock and awe procedure, ‘POLICE! POLICE! POLICE!’

The first team member fired up the ram, pushing the two sides of the doorframe wide apart. The second pounded the door with the battering ram, and it splintered open almost instantly. All of them barged through, yelling at the tops of their voices, ‘POLICE! DON’T MOVE! POLICE! POLICE!’

The two detectives waited on the pavement. After less than two minutes the tall, thin figure of Inspector Anthony Martin appeared in the front doorway, his visor up and with a perplexed expression. He signalled them to come in.

As they walked up to him, he said, ‘Not very convinced about what we have here, Roy — are you sure about your intel?’

‘What do you have?’

‘Come and see.’

Inside had a smell of musty furniture and cats. He entered a living and dining area, with an elderly three-piece suite and a small dining table, on which lay the remains of a meal and a copy of today’s Daily Express, and an old fashioned kitchen beyond that reminded Grace of his childhood. Two officers were opening cupboards and removing cushions from the sofa and chairs. Accompanied by Tanja Cale, he followed Martin up the narrow stair treads. As they reached the landing at the top, two fat tabby cats shot past them and downstairs.

‘Is the ambulance coming? I thought you was the ambulance,’ said an elderly, whining, female voice. ‘I called them — I have to get to Worthing hospital — I have an appointment, you see. I thought you was the ambulance.’

Grace looked down at a carpet discoloured with stains and what looked like cat faeces littering it, and wrinkled his nose. There was a smell of urine and body odour. It was the kind of place officers used to joke, in his early days when he had been a beat copper, where you had to wipe your feet on the way out. Above him was an open loft hatch, with an extended loft ladder down to the floor.

Following the inspector, and trying to step in the patches of carpet between the droppings of cat shit, he entered a bedroom. Lying on the bed was an elderly woman in her late seventies or even mid-eighties, patches of pink skull showing through her threadbare white hair, who was so fat it took him some moments to figure out where her multiple chins ended and her face began. Her face reminded him of one of the three-dimensional maps in geography lessons at school, showing hills in relief.

‘They said the ambulance would be here by nine o’clock. I can’t get up, you see. I’m ill.’

Grace had to struggle to stop himself telling her what he thought was actually wrong with her, as he stared at the box of doughnuts, and another, almost empty giant-size box of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolates on her bedside table. On the ancient television on a table just beyond the end of the bed was a fuzzy image of James Martin cooking in his kitchen.

Instead, he flashed his warrant card at her, holding his breath, trying not to breathe in any more of her stinking vapour than he needed. ‘Detective Superintendent Grace, Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid we’re not your taxi service. I’m looking for Martin Horner.’

‘Who d’you say?’ She wrinkled her face.

‘Martin Horner. His Volvo car is registered at this address.’

‘Never heard that name, and he didn’t have no car here. Is the ambulance on its way? I’m going to be late for my appointment. I can’t get out of bed on me own, you see. I’m very ill.’

‘What’s your name, madam?’ Tanja Cale asked.

‘Anne — Anne Hill.’

‘Do you have a carer who comes in, Mrs Hill?’ Grace asked.

‘No. I’m all on me own. I had one for a short time, but not any more. He stopped coming.’

Probably because he’d seen through her, Grace thought, and stared at her eyes. ‘What’s your full name, Mrs Hill?’

‘Hill. Anne. Just Anne Hill.’

Still staring at her eyes, he asked, ‘Someone had breakfast downstairs, Mrs Hill — and bought a copy of today’s Daily Express. Can you explain that?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘No, I dunno nothing about that. I can’t get up, you see.’

Grace pressed. ‘If you can’t get out of bed, then who else is here or was here?’

The old woman was silent for some moments. Her eyes were racing around from right to left, as if searching for a convincing answer. ‘Just me, dear.’

Behind him, he heard a voice call out, ‘The loft’s empty.’ He turned to see an officer from the LST, torch in his hand, clambering down the ladder.

‘So who had breakfast here this morning, Mrs Hill?’ Tanja Cale asked. ‘Martin Horner?’

She screwed up her face, looking puzzled. ‘Martin Horner — who’s he?’

The two detectives looked at each other.

‘As you are bedridden and unable to get up, I’m assuming Martin Horner is the man who bought today’s Express and ate his breakfast downstairs. Unless you have a better suggestion?’

The old woman’s face reddened. She looked fearful, her eyes like two marbles, rolling round as if disconnected from any nerves or tendons. ‘No — no — I — no, I can’t explain that.’

‘Anne Hill, I’m arresting you on suspicion of obstructing the police. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Is that clear?’

With even greater agility than her two overweight cats, the elderly woman suddenly sprang out of bed, her layers of fat wobbling beneath her translucent nightie, and stood, unsteadily for some moments, then unhooked a filthy-looking dressing gown from behind the door and pulled it around her. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘It was me — I went out and got me paper and had me breakfast.’

‘Why did you lie to us?’ Tanja Cale said, sternly.

To his dismay, because he knew what was coming, Grace realized the woman was telling the truth. Paramedics were always complaining about people like this woman who abused the Ambulance Service. They would feign immobility to get a free ride to hospital, instead of having to fork out for a taxi. It was a standing, sour joke among the paramedics that for many hours each day their ambulances were nothing other than big yellow taxis.

‘Shall I call and cancel the ambulance, Mrs Hill?’ he asked. ‘Or would you like me to arrest you for defrauding the National Health Service instead of a charge of obstructing the police?’

She nodded vigorously. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, dear, cancel, I’ll call a taxi.’

She scurried, with surprising speed, down the stairs. Grace and Cale looked at each other and shook their heads.

‘So where is Martin Horner?’ the DI asked him.

‘Not here,’ Grace replied, gloomily. ‘And never has been. We’ve been led on a sodding wild goose chase.’

As he stepped outside and walked back to the car, his iPhone pinged with an incoming text, with a photograph. It was from the duty inspector at John Street police station.

He tapped on the postage-stamp-sized image on his screen, to enlargen it.

And stopped in his tracks.