Absolute Proof Read online

  ABSOLUTE PROOF

  PETER JAMES

  MACMILLAN

  TO THE LATE HARRY NIXON

  CONTENTS

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  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

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  37

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  40

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  45

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  50

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  90

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  100

  101

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  103

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  105

  106

  107

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  110

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  131

  132

  133

  134

  135

  136

  137

  138

  139

  140

  141

  142

  143

  144

  145

  146

  Epilogue

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Dead Simple

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  1

  January 2005

  The downtown LA bar was a dump, and that suited Mike Delaney’s mood right now. There was one free stool, between a middle-aged couple playing tonsil-hockey on the right and a surly looking drunk in a lumberjack shirt, jeans and work boots, hunched over a tumbler of bourbon on the left.

  Delaney perched on the cracked leather cushion, caught the bartender’s eye and ordered a beer. On the wall above was a fuzzy television screen showing a football game, with the sound up loud and no one watching. The drunk peered at him with eyes like bloodshot molluscs.

  ‘Know you, don’t I?’ he slurred. ‘You’re the guy from that show, right? Some while back? That’s you, right?’

  The bartender placed a beer in front of Delaney. ‘Paying cash or opening a tab?’

  ‘A tab please.’

  ‘Got a credit card?’

  It was that kind of a place.

  He eased the AmEx from his fraying wallet and laid it on the bar. The bartender palmed it.

  ‘Mickey Magic, right?’ the drunk said. ‘That was you, on television.’

  ‘You remember the show?’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, I do. It sucked.’

  ‘Thanks, pal.’

  ‘No, I mean it. How many years back was it? Ten?’

  ‘About that.’

  ‘Yeah.’ The man downed the remnants of his drink. ‘You were crap. No surprise it got dropped, eh?’

  Delaney took a long pull of his beer and ignored him. It wasn’t just his show that had been dropped; his agent, an hour ago, had now dropped him, too.

  ‘Know what, kiddo?’ Al Siegel had said over the phone from his swanky office on Wilshire. ‘You gotta realize you’re a dinosaur. I was struggling to get you anything before you went and freaked out. Your career’s over. Face it, you’re pushing sixty. Go retire, move to Palm Springs, take up golf or something, you know? I got another call coming in I have to take. Listen, I’m sorry, kiddo, but that’s how it is – are we done?’

  That’s how it is. Boy, did Mike Delaney know that. You were over the hill at forty here in Tinsel Town. When he went to his old haunt, The Magic Castle, hardly any of the magicians there were over thirty. He’d screwed up the last engagement his agent had gotten him, doing close magic at a big movie star’s party in Bel Air. Messed up a trick and then lost the plot and threatened to deck the arrogant guy at the table who’d laughed at him.

  ‘Know what I’m saying?’ the drunk persisted. ‘You gotta admit, you were shit.’ He peered at him again. ‘And you know what, you look like shit.’

  He felt like shit.

  The drunk snapped a finger at the bartender. ‘Another Jim Beam, double, on the rocks.’ He turned back. ‘Beer, huh? That’s a wuss drink.’

  ‘That so?’

  The bartender laid down the tumbler, filled to the brim with whiskey and ice cubes, in front of the drunk.

  The man raised his glass. ‘You should be drinking proper liquor like this, Mr No-Damn-Good Magician. Cheers.’

  He tipped in a mouthful, then, almost instantly, spat it out. ‘Jesus!’ he yelled at the bartender. ‘What the hell have you given me? I ordered Jim Beam. This isn’t whiskey, it’s goddam beer!’

  The bartender, a tall, sad-looking man in his seventies who had been there forever, shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, mister, you’re mistaken. Maybe you’ve had enough?’

  ‘This is goddam beer, I’m telling you! You trying to poison me or something?’

  The bartender produced the half-full whiskey bottle and showed it to him. ‘I poured it from this.’

  ‘Yeah? Well pour another.’

  Irked, the bartender produced a fresh glass tumbler and poured from the Jim Beam bottle. To his astonishment, a beer froth rose in the tumbler all the way to the rim and above, then spilled down the sides.

  Mike Delaney smiled to himself and said nothing.

  2

  April 2005

  Ross Hunter’s Friday morning started with the hangover he had promised himself he would not have. Just like he had promised the same thing last week, and the week before. And the one before that. It had been the same every Friday morning since he had joined the Argus, as a junior news reporter, eighteen months ago.

  But he had no inkling of quite how different today was going to be.

  Coming up to his twenty-third birthday, Ross was tall and fit, with close-cropped dark hair and a good-looking but serious face, as if he was forever analysing everything – which most of the time he was. Except now.

  Feeling like he had
an axe stuck in his skull, he could barely think straight. He climbed blearily out of bed, yawned and headed into the bathroom in search of paracetamol, cursing that he had done this to himself yet again. Every Thursday evening he agreed to have just one quick drink with his colleagues, to be sociable. Every Thursday night he ended up staggering home, late, from the Coach House pub in central Brighton.

  Part of the reason was one particular young crime reporter on the paper, Imogen Carter. He fancied her like crazy but she seemed a lot more interested in one of the subs. And she was able to hold her drink better than all the rest of them. But he did feel that, little by little, she was starting to take more notice of him and flirt just a bit more each time.

  Thanks for another great hangover, Imo, and for letting me watch you wobble off towards the taxi rank arm-in-arm with sodding Kevin Fletcher.

  Recently graduated from the School of Journalism at Goldsmiths and highly ambitious, Ross looked forward every morning to getting to work in the newsroom, where as a junior reporter he could be sent to cover just about anything. A traffic accident, a cot death, a fire, a court hearing, a charity presentation or something as dull to write about as a school open day. All grist for the mill, learning his trade, cutting his teeth on this good, respected local paper.

  Hopefully a workout in the gym, then a long, uphill cycle ride to work would clear his head. He listened to the local Radio Sussex news on the clock radio as he wriggled into his tracksuit and pulled the laces tight on his trainers, hoping for a big breaking story, the kind of story where one day in the future he might make his name and fulfil his dream of a national paper front-page splash and byline.

  Gulping down the capsules with some water, he went into the kitchenette of his draughty second-floor flat off Portland Road, the faint smells of last night’s cooking from the Indian takeaway two floors below not helping the nausea that accompanied his splitting headache. A couple of mouthfuls of banana at the breakfast table made him feel a little better; washing them down with some apple juice, he stared at the Post-it note stuck to the surface with the reminder he had written: Dad’s birthday card. He’d pick one up somewhere, later.

  He went downstairs, walked past his padlocked bike in the hall and let himself out into the darkness and falling drizzle.

  After a brisk, ten-minute jog he arrived at the gym shortly after 7 a.m. Several people were already there, working out in the mirrored room with its faint smells of sweat and polish. Most were alone on the treadmills, cross trainers and spinners or doing weights and crunches, and a few were having personal trainer sessions. The pounding beat of Queen was too loud for Ross’s head as he stepped onto a cross trainer to do a twenty-minute workout programme and cranked its display into life.

  As he built up his pace, watching his heart rate rising – 110 . . . 120 . . . 130 – he was startled to suddenly hear his brother, Ricky, scream out his name. So loud, so close, it felt like he was standing right beside him.

  Except that wasn’t possible. Ricky lived in Manchester, 260 miles away, where he worked as a trainee hotel manager. They rarely spoke on the phone but Ricky had emailed him only yesterday afternoon to discuss what present to buy for their dad’s sixtieth birthday next week.

  An instant later it felt like electricity was shooting from the swinging handles of the cross trainer into his arms. He was unable to move. His feet stopped in the treads. His brain began to spin, like it was hurtling down a fairground helter-skelter. In a flash of panic he wondered if he was passing out from lack of sugar.

  Or was he having a heart attack?

  The room swayed, a sea of grey machines that were now blurs.

  He was being sucked into a long, dark tunnel. His whole body was spinning wildly now and he clung desperately to the handles of the machine. Ahead, in the distance, he saw a light, growing brighter and more intense by the second. Images flashed past. An embryo. A baby. His mother’s face. His father’s face. A ball being thrown. A whiteboard with a teacher holding a marker pen and shouting at him. His life, he realized. He was seeing his life flash by.

  I’m dying.

  Seconds later, the bright light at the end of the tunnel enveloped him. It was warm, dazzling, and he was floating on a lilo on a flat ocean. He saw his brother’s face float right above his.

  ‘It’s OK, Ross, yep? We’re cool?’

  Ricky. Whom he had loathed for as long as he could remember. He disliked the way Ricky looked, the way he spoke, the way he laughed, the way he ate. And he knew the reason why: Ricky was his identical twin. It was like looking into a mirror every time he saw him.

  There was meant to be love between twins. A special, inseparable bond. But he’d felt none of that over the years.

  Instead, just intense dislike.

  It was mainly because his parents had always favoured Ricky, yet Ricky couldn’t ever see that.

  As soon as he was old enough to leave home, he’d escaped, got as far away from Ricky as he could. A different college, in a different city. He had even, at one point, been tempted to change his name.

  Now his brother was drifting away, steadily being absorbed into the white light, and turned towards him, arms outstretched, as if desperately trying to reach his hands, to grasp him. But he was moving away too fast for Ricky, like a swimmer being sucked backwards in a rip current.

  Ricky called out, with almost desperation in his voice. ‘We’re cool, Ross? Yes?’

  ‘We’re cool,’ he replied.

  The light swallowed his brother. Then momentarily dazzled him.

  Faces were peering down at him. The light had changed. He smelled sweat, carpet, unwashed hair. Could hear pounding music. His heart was thudding.

  Someone was kneeling over him.

  ‘You OK?’

  Ross stared around, bewildered. With a stab of panic he wondered, had he died?

  Helping hands picked him up, steered him over to a weights bench and propped him up while he sat down.

  A muscular man, one of the gym’s personal trainers, stood over him, holding a plastic beaker of water. ‘Drink this.’

  He shook his head, trying to clear it.

  ‘Maybe you overdid it on the machine?’ a voice said.

  ‘No – no, I . . .’ He fell silent. Confused.

  ‘Shall I call a doctor?’ someone else asked.

  He shook his head again. ‘No, I’m fine – honestly. I’m fine. Maybe I need some sugar or something.’

  ‘Stay sitting here for a few more minutes, until you’re sure you’re OK.’

  Someone held out a spoonful of honey and he put it in his mouth.

  ‘Are you diabetic?’ a voice asked – one of the staff, staring at him with concern.

  ‘No, no, I’m not.’

  It was ten minutes before he felt able to stand without holding on to anything. A short while later, after persuading them he was OK, he left the gym and walked home in a daze, oblivious to the rain, the cold, to everything. He let himself in through the front door and climbed the stairs, feeling exhausted. It felt like climbing a mountain.

  He’d said he was fine to the people at the gym, but he didn’t feel fine at all. He felt terrible. As he let himself into his flat he heard his phone ring and felt it vibrating in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the number on the display, which he didn’t recognize.

  ‘Hello?’ he answered.

  He heard a tearful woman’s voice. ‘Ross? Oh God, Ross?’

  It was Sindy, Ricky’s girlfriend.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, still very shaken. ‘Sindy? What’s – what’s up?’

  She burst into tears. He listened to her sobs for several seconds before she composed herself. ‘Ricky.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The police just came round. Ricky was out for his morning run, in the park. A tree fell on him. Half an hour ago. A tree. Crushed him. Oh God, Ross, oh God, he’s dead!’

  3

  July 2009

  After years of constant bombardment and fighting in the city st
reets, there were no hotels standing intact in Lashkar Gah, and those staffing them had either been killed by the Taliban or fled, long ago. Because of security difficulties and many journalists being kidnapped, some executed, it was considered a no-go area. The members of the international press corps who did venture there were housed in a tent within the white-walled compound on the city’s edge that was the coalition military base for Helmand Province.

  All the journalists had been advised to blend in as much as possible. To grow beards, wear beige clothing, not to walk around alone, and specifically not to wear their press tabards if unescorted, as that would single them out as kidnap targets.

  ‘Twinned with hell’, Ross Hunter had texted his wife, soon after arriving here. Or rather, had attempted to text her. It had taken over a day of regularly trying for the text to finally send. Unlike the other seasoned reporters, this was his first experience in a war zone, and at this moment, constantly afraid, he very much intended it to be his last. For large parts of most days, the sun was obscured by dense smoke from artillery and burning buildings. The air was thick with the stench of decomposing bodies, drains and cordite, and the muezzins’ five daily calls to prayer were mostly drowned out by the constant clatter of helicopters.

  Ross sat on the dormitory bed he had been allocated, scratching his beard, which itched constantly, trying to file his latest piece for the Sunday Times on his laptop, connected online through his satellite phone. To add to his discomfort, he was feeling something of a fraud. A year earlier he had written a piece in praise of a former boy from his old school, who, he discovered, had lost both eyes and his right hand in battle several years ago, and had managed to rebuild his life, marry, father two children and go skiing. In the piece, he talked about the unseen bravery of our troops in battle.

  The article had prompted an enthusiastic response from the Army brass, inviting him to see a war zone for himself and to meet the troops. But it had also prompted a flood of emails from serving soldiers across almost all ranks, some giving their actual names, but many anonymous, telling him horror stories about how the UK government was letting down the troops and causing many unnecessary deaths through shoddy equipment or the lack of it altogether – thanks to scrimping on budgets.

  The Sunday Times had arranged the necessary documentation and paid for Ross to attend a mandatory three-day Hostile Environment Training Course, in Hertfordshire. He had been flown out here on a C-130 Hercules military transport plane, via a circuitous route. His one request to the newspaper was that they did not print anything derogatory until he was safely back in the UK. He wasn’t too keen on the idea of antagonizing any of the people responsible for keeping him safe out here.