Find Them Dead Read online

  FIND THEM DEAD

  PETER JAMES

  Contents

  1. Monday 26 November

  2. Monday 26 November

  3. Monday 26 November

  4. Monday 26 November

  5. Monday 26 November

  6. Monday 26 November

  7. Monday 26 November

  8. Tuesday 27 November

  9. Tuesday 27 November

  10. Tuesday 27 November

  11. Thursday 29 November

  12. Thursday 29 November

  13. Friday 30 November

  14. Friday 30 November

  15. Saturday 1 December

  16. Saturday 1 December

  17. Saturday 1 December

  FOUR MONTHS LATER

  18. Wednesday 20 March

  19. Thursday 28 March

  20. Thursday 28 March

  21. Friday 3 May

  22. Friday 3 May

  23. Friday 3 May

  24. Friday 3 May

  25. Thursday 9 May

  26. Thursday 9 May

  27. Thursday 9 May

  28. Thursday 9 May

  29. Thursday 9 May

  30. Thursday 9 May

  31. Thursday 9 May

  32. Thursday 9 May

  33. Thursday 9 May

  34. Thursday 9 May

  35. Thursday 9 May

  36. Friday 10 May

  37. Friday 10 May

  38. Friday 10 May

  39. Saturday 11 May

  40. Saturday 11 May

  41. Saturday 11 May

  42. Saturday 11 May

  43. Saturday 11 May

  44. Sunday 12 May

  45. Monday 13 May

  46. Monday 13 May

  47. Monday 13 May

  48. Monday 13 May

  49. Tuesday 14 May

  50. Tuesday 14 May

  51. Tuesday 14 May

  52. Tuesday 14 May

  53. Tuesday 14 May

  54. Tuesday 14 May

  55. Tuesday 14 May

  56. Wednesday 15 May

  57. Wednesday 15 May

  58. Wednesday 15 May

  59. Wednesday 15 May

  60. Thursday 16 May

  61. Thursday 16 May

  62. Thursday 16 May

  63. Thursday 16 May

  64. Thursday 16 May

  65. Thursday 16 May

  66. Thursday 16 May

  67. Thursday 16 May

  68. Friday 17 May

  69. Friday 17 May

  70. Friday 17 May

  71. Friday 17 May

  72. Friday 17 May

  73. Monday 20 May

  74. Monday 20 May

  75. Monday 20 May

  76. Monday 20 May

  77. Monday 20 May

  78. Tuesday 21 May

  79. Wednesday 22 May

  80. Wednesday 22 May

  81. Wednesday 22 May

  82. Wednesday 22 May

  83. Wednesday 22 May

  84. Thursday 23 May

  85. Thursday 23 May

  86. Thursday 23 May

  87. Thursday 23 May

  88. Thursday 23 May

  89. Thursday 23 May

  90. Thursday 23 May

  91. Thursday 23 May

  92. Friday 24 May

  93. Friday 24 May

  94. Friday 24 May

  95. Friday 24 May

  96. Friday 24 May

  97. Tuesday 28 May

  98. Tuesday 28 May

  99. Tuesday 28 May

  100. Wednesday 29 May

  101. Thursday 30 May

  102. Thursday 30 May

  103. Thursday 30 May

  104. Thursday 30 May

  105. Friday 31 May

  106. Friday 31 May

  107. Friday 31 May

  108. Friday 31 May

  109. Friday 31 May

  110. Saturday 1 June

  111. Saturday 1 June

  GLOSSARY

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  TO JULIAN FRIEDMANN

  1

  Monday 26 November

  Mickey Starr gazed into the night, feeling restless and apprehensive. And afraid. It wasn’t fear of the darkness but of what lay beyond it.

  Going to be fine, he tried to reassure himself. He’d done these Channel crossings before without a hitch, so why should this one be any different?

  But it was. No escaping the fact. This was different.

  Fear was something that had never troubled him before, but throughout this trip he had been feeling a growing anxiety, and now as the shore grew closer, he was truly frightened. Terrified, if it all went pear-shaped, what would happen to the one person in his life who had ever really meant anything to him and who loved him unconditionally. Whatever bad things he may have done.

  Wrapped up against the elements in a heavy coat and a beanie, roll-up smouldering in his cupped hand, the muscular, grizzled, forty-three-year-old stood on the heaving deck of the car ferry, braced against a stanchion to keep his balance.

  In prison, some eighteen years back, his cellmate, an Irishman with a wry sense of humour, had given him the nickname Lucky Starr. Mickey should feel lucky, he’d told him, because he had a spare testicle after losing one to cancer in his teens, a spare eye, after a detached retina in one had put an end to his boxing career, and a spare arm for the one he’d subsequently lost in a motorbike accident.

  It was 4 a.m. and he was fighting off seasickness. He wasn’t feeling particularly lucky at this moment, out here in the middle of the English Channel, in this storm. He had a bad feeling that maybe he’d used up all his luck. Perhaps he should have found someone else to come with him after his colleague had pulled out at the last minute due to sickness. He always felt less vulnerable and conspicuous when he had a female companion with him. Maybe the Range Rover he was driving was too shouty?

  Put it out of your mind, Mickey, get on with the job.

  The sea was as dark as extinction. The salty spray stung as he squinted through the bitter wind and driving rain. His confidence in tatters, he was wondering if he was making the most stupid mistake of his life.

  Calm down. Pull yourself together. Look confident. Be lucky!

  Be lucky, and soon he would be home, back with his younger brother, Stuie, who totally depended on him. Stuie had Down’s Syndrome and Mickey affectionately referred to him as his ‘homie with an extra chromie’. Many years ago, Mickey made a promise to their dying mum that he would always take care of him, and he always had. His ‘differently-abled’ brother had taught Mickey how to see life in other ways, more simply. Better.

  He wouldn’t be doing any more runs for the boss after this. He’d talked with Stuie about setting up a business with the cash he’d stashed away – nice money from the small quantities of drugs he’d pilfered from his boss on each run, too small for him to ever notice. Although this time he’d added substantially to the cargo, and a very nice private deal awaited him. Big proceeds – the biggest ever!

  But now he was riddled with doubt. All it needed was one sharp-eyed Customs officer. He tried to shake that thought away. Everything was going to be fine, just as it always had been on each of these trips.

  Wasn’t it?

  Stuie liked cooking and constantly, proudly, wore his ‘special’ chef’s toque Mickey had bought him for his birthday last year. Mickey had planned to buy a chippy as close to Brighton seafront as he could afford – or in nearby Eastbourne or Worthing, where prices were lower. But with the money he stood to make now, he’d be able to afford something actually on Brighton seafront, where the best earnings were to be made, and he had his eye on a business in a prime location near to the Palace Pier that had just come up for sale. Stuie would work in the kitchen preparin
g the food and he would be doing the frying and front-of-house. All being well, in a few days he’d have the cash to buy it. He just had to get his load safely through Customs and onto the open road. And then – happy days!

  He swallowed, his nerves rattling him again, breathing in the noxious smells of fresh paint and diesel fumes. The boss had patted him on the back a few days ago, before he’d headed to Newhaven, and told him not to worry, all would be fine. ‘If shit happens, just act normal, be yourself. Be calm, take a deep breath, smile. Yep? You’re lucky, so be lucky!’

  The 18,000-ton, yellow-and-white ship ploughed on through the stormy, angry swell of the English Channel, nearing the end of its sixty-five-nautical-mile crossing from Dieppe. Ahead, finally, he could now start to make out the port and starboard leading lights of the deep-water channel between the Newhaven Harbour moles, and beyond – spread out along the shore even more faintly – the lights of the town.

  A short while later a tannoy announcement requested, ‘Will all drivers please return to your vehicles.’

  Starr took a final drag on his cigarette, his fifth or sixth of the voyage, tossed it overboard in a spray of sparks and hurried through a heavy steel door back inside, into the relative warmth, where he made his way down the companionway stairs, following the signs to Car Deck A.

  No need to be nervous, he told himself yet again. He had all the correct papers and everything had been planned with the military precision he had come to expect of the boss’s organization, after nearly sixteen years of working loyally for him. Well, pretty loyally.

  The boss had long ago told him this was always the best time of day to pass through Customs, when the officers would be tired, at their lowest ebb. He glanced at his watch. All being well, he’d be home in two hours. Stuie would still be asleep, but when he woke, boy, would they celebrate!

  Oh yes.

  He smiled. It was all going to be fine. Please, God.

  2

  Monday 26 November

  At 4.30 a.m., Clive Johnson sat in his uniform dark shirt, with epaulettes and black tie, in the snug, glass-fronted office overlooking the cavernous, draughty Customs shed at Sussex’s Newhaven Port. The Border Force officer was sipping horrible coffee and thinking about the beer festival at the Horsham Drill Hall next Saturday – the one light at the end of the tunnel of a long, dull week of almost fruitless night shifts and big disappointment among his team, so far.

  An average height, stout man of fifty-three, with a friendly face topped by thinning hair, Johnson wore large glasses which helped mask the lenses he needed for his poor eyesight, steadily deteriorating from macular degeneration. Coincidentally and helpfully, his wife owned a Specsavers franchise in Burgess Hill. So far he’d kept his condition from his colleagues, but he knew to his dismay that it would be only a year or two, as the ophthalmologist – who worked for his wife – had informed him, before he would have to give up this job he had come to love, despite its frequent unsociable hours.

  Rain lashed down outside, and a Force 7, gusting 8/9, was blowing. One of the sniffer dogs barked incessantly in the handler’s van at the far end of the building, as if it sensed the team’s anticipation that maybe, after a week of waiting on high alert, acting on a tip-off from a trusted intel source, this might be their night. Although ‘trusted’ was a questionable term. Intelligence reports were notoriously unreliable and often vague. It had indicated that a substantial importation of Class-A drugs was expected through this port imminently, concealed in a vehicle, possibly a high-value one, and coming in on a night ferry this week. Which was why tonight, as for the past six days, they had a much larger contingent of officers than usual present here at Newhaven, backed up by Sussex Police detectives and an Armed Response Unit waiting on standby. All of them growing bored but hopeful.

  The roll-on, roll-off Côte D’Albâtre had just docked after its four-hour voyage and was now disgorging its cargo of lorries, vans and cars. And there was one particular vehicle on its manifest emailed earlier from the Dieppe port authority that especially interested Clive.

  Apart from real ale, his other passion was classic cars, and he was a regular attendee at as many gatherings of these around the country as he could get to. He never missed the Goodwood events, in particular the Festival of Speed and the Revival, and he had an encyclopaedic knowledge of pretty much every car built between 1930 and 1990, from its engine capacity to performance figures and kerb weight. There was a serious beaut arriving off this ferry, one he could not wait to see. Bust or no bust, it would at least be the highlight of his week.

  One problem for the officers was in the definition of ‘high value’ vehicle. The source of the report was unable to be any more specific. Dozens of cars came under that category. They’d been pulling over and searching many vehicles that might match the description, including a rare Corvette, to date without any success. All they’d found so far was a tiny amount of recreational cannabis and a Volvo estate with a cheeky number of cigarettes on board – several thousand – all for his personal consumption, the driver had said. On further questioning he’d turned out to be a pub landlord, making his weekly run, turning a nice profit and depriving HMRC and thus the British Exchequer of relatively small but worthwhile amounts of cash. They’d impounded the Volvo and its cargo, but it was small fry, not what they were really interested in. Not what they were all waiting for.

  As the week had worn on, faith in the intel was fading along with their morale. If tonight came up goose egg too, Clive would be losing most of his back-up.

  The first vehicle off the ferry to enter the Customs shed was a camper van with an elderly, tired-looking couple up front. Clive spoke into his radio, giving instructions to the two officers down on the floor. ‘Stop the camper, ask them where they’ve been, then let them on their way.’

  Body language was one of Clive Johnson’s skills. He could always spot a nervous driver. These people were just plain tired, they weren’t concealing anything. Nor was the equally weary-looking businessman in an Audi A6 with German plates who followed. All the same, to deliberately make his target nervous if he was behind in the queue of cars, he ordered two officers to pull the Audi driver over and question him, too. The same applied to another elderly couple in a small Nissan, and a young couple in an MX5. The lorries would follow later. Some of these would be picked out at random and taken through the X-ray gantry, to see if there were any illegal immigrants hidden among their cargo.

  Clive had heard the period between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. called the dead hours. The time before dawn when many terminally ill people passed away. The time when most folk were at their lowest point. Most, maybe, but not him, oh no. Just like an owl, he hunted best at night. Clive had never set out to be a front-facing Customs officer because he had never been particularly confident with other people in that way, too much small talk and pretence. He used to prefer back-room solitude and anonymity, the company of tables, facts and figures and statistics. When he’d originally joined Customs and Excise, before it was renamed Border Force, it had been because of his fascination – and expertise – with weights and measures. He had an excellent memory which had served him well as an analyst in the department before he had, rather reluctantly, accepted a move a few years ago to become a frontline officer, after his superiors had seen in him a talent for spotting anything suspicious.

  Over these past seven years he had proved their judgement right. None of his colleagues understood how he did it, but his ability to detect a smuggler was almost instinctive.

  And all his instincts told him that the driver of the approaching Range Rover towing an enclosed car trailer unit looked wrong. Nervous.

  Nervous as hell.

  He radioed his two officers on the floor.

  3

  Monday 26 November

  When anyone asked Meg Magellan what she did for a living, she told them straight up that she was a drug dealer. Which she really was, but the good sort, she would add hastily, breaking into a grin. In her role as a k
ey account manager for one of the UK’s largest pharmaceutical companies, Kempsons, she sold and merchandized their range of over-the-counter products into the Tesco store group.

  She also tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to augment her income by betting on horses. Never big stakes, just the occasional small flutter – a love of which she’d got from her late husband, Nick, whose dream had been to own a racehorse. The closest he’d got was to own one leg of a steeplechaser called Colin’s Brother. She’d kept the share after Nick’s death, as a link to him, and followed the horse in the papers, always putting a small bet on and quite often being pleasantly surprised by the nag getting a place – with even the occasional win. Whenever the horse ran at a reasonably local meeting, she would do her best to go along and place a bet and cheer him on, along with the two mates, Daniel Crown and Peter Dean, who owned the other three legs between them. She’d become so much closer to them both since Nick died. In a small way they kept Nick alive to her and she could see his humour in them.

  At 4.30 a.m., Meg’s alarm woke her with a piercing beep-beep-beep, shrieking away a dream in which Colin’s Brother was heading to the finishing post but being strongly challenged, as she shouted encouragement at the top of her voice.

  Avoiding the temptation to hit the snooze button and grab a few more precious minutes of sleep beneath the snug warmth of her duvet – and continue the dream – she swung her legs out of the bed and downed the glass of water beside her.

  She had to get up now. No option. At 9 a.m., in less than five hours, she was presenting her company’s latest cough-and-cold remedy to the Tesco buying team, seventy miles of stressful traffic to the north of here. Normally, she’d have stayed at a Premier Inn close to the company’s headquarters. A ten-minute drive instead of the three hours facing her now, if she was lucky with the traffic. But this wasn’t a normal day.

  Today, her daughter – and only surviving child – Laura, was heading off to Thailand and then on to Ecuador as part of her gap year. She and Laura had rarely been apart for more than a few days. They had always been close, but even closer since five years ago, when they’d been driving back to Brighton from a camping holiday in the Scottish Highlands.