Dead at First Sight Read online

  ‘Did your witness give you any descriptions?’

  ‘She was pretty shaken up. She said both men were black. She gave us a couple of digits from the Audi’s licence plate, but as you can imagine there are many thousands of these cars here in Germany. And probably the plates are false. She said something else that might be of interest. The man who ran from the apartment was wearing shiny red shoes.’

  ‘Red shoes? What man wears shiny red shoes?’ He looked at Branson, imagining him in a pair.

  But even the DI, with his sometimes questionable taste in clothes, looked askance. ‘Not sure I’d trust any bloke wearing red shoes, boss.’

  Grace glanced down at Branson’s feet. ‘Wouldn’t go with those socks anyway.’ They were lime green.

  ‘It’s how you wear ’em.’ Branson grinned. ‘Could be a case for our foot man, Haydn Kelly.’

  ‘Can I see the forensic report, Marcel?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Sure, I will send the autopsy report when it is finished. The photographs are not so nice, probably not ones for her family album.’

  He smiled, grimly. ‘What is your hypothesis, Marcel?’

  ‘What we know so far from our investigations is that this lady had discovered her identity is used by a “romance fraud” gang. She confided in a friend of hers, recently, that she was suspicious of a man she had met online after joining a dating agency herself. She told her friend that she was going to meet the man and confront him. Then she is found dead, missing half of her tongue.’

  Grace shuddered. ‘Which dating agency was it?’

  ‘As I said, her computer and phone are missing – presumably taken by her attacker – and we are examining CCTV coverage from a hidden camera we found. But there seems to be a lot of information on the back-up drive relating to names, photographs and emails, which we are trying to piece together, to see whether this is connected with her death.’

  ‘We have a dedicated “romance fraud” team operating here in Sussex, Marcel,’ Grace said. ‘It’s a growing menace. There are very big sums involved in this country. We estimate about £30 million in the past twelve months in the county of Sussex alone, based on those we know about and an estimate of those we don’t from people who’ve been too embarrassed to come forward.’

  ‘Here also a similar amount. We are aware there’s an organization operating internationally, with one of their bases somewhere in Germany. They are taking people’s identities from online dating agencies and using them to defraud people. This unfortunate lady, Lena Welch, had discovered the truth and was perhaps threatening to expose them. Our hypothesis is they might have killed her in order to discourage other victims from trying to do the same. Perhaps there is some symbolism with the tongue. We are trying to establish who else has been targeted with Lena Welch’s identity around the globe. But, so far, the only person we have is Major Fordwater, in your country.’

  ‘What details can you give me about him?’

  ‘At this stage very little, I’m afraid. We have his name. And his date of birth – which makes him fifty-eight. And we believe he is from your city, Brighton and Hove. If you could find out anything about him, that would be extremely helpful to us.’

  ‘Leave it with me, Marcel. By the way, that hangover I got when I stayed with you in April?’

  ‘Ja?’

  ‘I’m still suffering.’

  The German detective laughed. ‘You poor antique. You are over forty. Maybe you should retire and go live in an old people’s home. With some nice bright-red slippers, perhaps?’

  ‘Ha, ha! I’ll book the room next to yours, Marcel!’

  Ending the call, Grace entered the name, ‘John, Johnny, Fordwater’ into the NICHE – the Sussex Police Combined Crime and Intelligence System search engine.

  Within seconds he had a result. He picked up his phone.

  8

  Wednesday 26 September

  Johnny Fordwater, unshaven, in his dressing gown, hair unkempt, sat at the dining table, on which lay his uneaten breakfast and his unopened copy of today’s Times newspaper. Normally he would have done the crossword first thing, but today he had not even glanced at it.

  Instead he stared glumly out of the living-room window of his home, a spacious fourth-floor apartment on Hove seafront – or rather the bank’s apartment, since they effectively now owned it. He was in hock to them up to the hilt. And, if the police were right about Ingrid, he wasn’t going to be able to meet many more of the monthly payments. He’d been too embarrassed to tell the police that it was, actually, substantially more than 200,000 euros that he’d loaned Ingrid. It was closer to 400,000. He’d raised that by cashing in most of his pension and shares, releasing equity from his property, selling his classic car and going cap-in-hand to his bank.

  Drops of rain slid down the glass and a cold wind blew in, despite the double-glazing, a reminder that summer was over and winter was not far off. Below, on the promenade, a woman in an anorak was being tugged one way by her umbrella and the other way by her grey Spinone dog. It was high tide and the turbulent sea threw spray and pebbles over the pastel-green railings.

  Turbulent, like his mind. The heaving water at its greyest. Also like his mind. It was 11 a.m. He’d lain awake most of the night, his phone beside him. Waiting for a text from Ingrid. A call. Neither of which, he sensed increasingly in his heart, was going to happen. The photographs Detective Potting had given him, which were laid out on the breakfast bar behind him, attested to that.

  Yet he still could not believe it. Did not want to believe it.

  Could not afford to believe it.

  In front of him was a lined notepad with calculations scrawled on it. Sums. Maths. The interest and repayment amounts on the money he owed. What remained of his army pension coming in.

  Strewth, before Ingrid he’d been comfortably enough off. He was able to afford to live in this flat, with the mortgage paid off, and to enjoy plenty of luxuries – not that he had ever been an extravagant person. Now he faced ruin. The prospect of having to go to a military charity perhaps and beg for help mortified him.

  Still in semi-denial, as he watched a seagull swirl a short distance from his window, he drained his coffee and stood up. He needed to eat something, but he had no appetite. He sat back down on a bar stool and stared again at the array of photographs of Ingrid Ostermann. Nine of them. Except in only one of them was she actually called ‘Ingrid Ostermann’.

  In each of the other eight she had a different identity. The same woman, no question. But different names and profiles on different online dating agencies. He sent her yet another text.

  Please call me, Ingrid. Please say the police have it wrong, that this is all a dreadful mistake. I love you. I love you so much. I’m looking forward so much to us spending the rest of our lives together! Call me! Please.

  Moments later a text pinged in. His heart fleetingly rose, until he looked at it. And saw it was from Amazon, informing him of a delivery delay of a book on military strategies he had ordered. It was an expensive book. Maybe he should return it when it arrived?

  He stared at the damned silent phone. Back at the photographs, his heart flip-flopping between love, hatred and disbelief.

  Denial.

  The love of his life did not exist.

  All the money he had in the world, and much more beyond, was not coming back. He was going to lose his home.

  How at his age could he ever make back the money he had now lost? The headline of the newspaper read:

  CURBS ON TOP BANKERS’ PAY?

  Bankers, he thought, erratically. Bankers with bonuses of millions of pounds. None of those fat cats would miss a few hundred thousand. The sum would mean almost nothing to them. But it was everything to him.

  Bastards.

  A lifetime of careful savings and prudent investments, to ensure a decent lifestyle when he retired. Gone. The police told him there was little hope of ever recovering even one penny of it.

  Gone.

  No one was going
to employ him in anything other than a menial job. His life was over.

  He stared at the silver ice bucket on the coffee table, in front of the blue sofa. At the bottle of Laurent Perrier rosé still lying in there, with its soggy label floating free. At the vase of roses he had placed beside it. Was it his imagination or were they wilting, like himself?

  Duped. Conned.

  How stupid and gullible had he been?

  On the wall beside him was a framed winged dagger badge of his former corps, the SAS. And beneath, its legend.

  Who Dares Wins.

  It was there as a permanent reminder of the best ten years of his life. He’d been at the peak of his fitness back then – something he’d endeavoured to get back to recently by doing two challenging hours of weights and interval training every day in the gym. Because he’d determined, successfully, to lose his pot belly and have as much of a six-pack as was possible for a man of his age, for when he and Ingrid were finally in bed together.

  He’d better cancel his membership, to save some money there.

  Beyond his army pension he had no income. He remembered, years ago, being pinned down in a foxhole in Iraq with a bunch of squaddies under his command. They were against impossible odds and running out of ammunition. If they stayed where they were they would eventually be taken out by a shell. If they climbed out, they’d be cut down by machine-gun fire.

  He remembered the words he had shouted out to the men under his command.

  ‘OK, we’re all going to die. Let’s just take out as many of them as we can before we do.’

  Then they’d gone over the top.

  To his astonishment, somehow with the loss of just one of his team, they’d made it through to the enemy gun emplacement and neutralized it by killing all five Iraqi soldiers manning it.

  He had later been decorated with the Military Cross for valour in combat. It hung in a frame on the living-room wall. His proudest achievement, and the last thing he would ever sell.

  Now he had been destroyed, with no bloodshed, by an unseen enemy.

  And he was thinking to himself, Is this what I nearly died for? Only years later to lose my home to another enemy?

  I thought I was smart. How could I have been so stupid?

  Before going into any combat situation, some soldiers drank, some took drugs, others just pumped themselves up with fury-based adrenaline.

  He stared down at the photographs again. Thinking. Anger, like the livid sea beyond his window, surging through his veins.

  I fought so this could happen?

  His phone rang.

  9

  Wednesday 26 September

  The single-engined Cessna bumped and yawed through the grey cloud swirling past the windscreen in front of him. Through his headphones, Andreas Vogel heard the calm exchange between the English pilot, seated to his left, and the St Helier tower on Jersey. The little plane reminded him of his time, years back, as a sniper in the US military in George Bush’s Iraq, being flown places in Black Hawks. Not the greatest of memories. Sitting on his helmet to avoid losing his nuts if someone fired at their helicopter from the ground.

  For most of the journey they’d flown in silence. The pilot, who used to fly for Qantas, he’d told him, and who had flown him from the little private airfield outside Rennes for a very large wad of cash, had attempted to chat to him, but Vogel had said little in response. He didn’t do small talk.

  And he was still thinking about Munich, which he had left on a private flight to Rennes early this morning. What a screw-up that had been. He’d never normally have let something like that happen – his current illness was really impacting on his judgement.

  Moments later the cloud became wispy, then was gone. Below them appeared the grey, white-flecked water of the outer extremity of the English Channel. He saw a couple of rocky outcrops. Then the green, hilly land mass of an island ahead. Clusters of houses; a town; a tall smokestack; a harbour mole.

  Vogel saw the long, straight tarmac of the runway. The pitch of the engine changed and the plane began losing height rapidly. It bounced on the runway, veering right then left, then the wheels touched down again and settled. After a short taxi, the pilot turned right towards a series of hangars, in which there were parked several executive jets. They turned left and he saw a batman ahead, waving them forward with paddles. Finally, they stopped. The pilot killed the engine and removed his headphones. Vogel removed his.

  ‘Welcome to Jersey,’ the pilot said.

  Vogel did not reply.

  ‘Nice talking to you.’

  He didn’t respond to the sarcasm in the pilot’s voice.

  The pilot reached across him and yanked on a door handle. ‘The best way to get out is put your right leg on the rubber strip on the wing, kneel, turn around and put your left leg on the rung just behind the wing.’

  Vogel did what he was told and jumped down onto the tarmac. Then the short, wiry man with an angry face waited in the strong, gusting wind that billowed his camel sports coat as the pilot removed the brown holdall from the luggage locker behind the rear seats and handed it to him. Vogel always travelled light.

  As he took the leather bag and turned away from the aircraft, limping from an injury earlier this year, he looked around warily for any signs of an official. But, as he had been previously reassured, there was none in sight. A woman in her thirties strode out of a building beside the hangars and greeted him. ‘Mr Vogel, welcome to Gama Aviation. Your car is here for you.’

  He followed her through the building, passing a couple of empty baggage carts in a corridor, and then outside, where a black, long-wheelbase Range Rover was parked. A bald-headed giant of a man, in wrap-around sunglasses and a sharp suit, jumped out and strode towards him.

  ‘Mr Vogel?’

  He gave a short nod.

  ‘Welcome to Jersey, sir. Your first visit?’

  Vogel did not respond.

  ‘Mr Barrey sends his regards. You will see him at midday tomorrow. It’s important to be punctual, Mr Barrey does not like people who are late. I’ll be here to make sure you are not late.’

  Again Vogel did not respond.

  The man took his bag and ushered him into the rear of the car. As they swept away from the airport, Andreas Vogel glanced through the darkened glass. No one knew he was here. Just as no one knew he had left Germany. That was how he needed to travel. No checked baggage, no record of where he was. His mobile phone had been in airplane mode since before leaving Munich. It would remain in that mode until he returned.

  Munich was his new home, for now. For the next few days he would be using a phone that had been placed on the seat beside him for his convenience. Programmed into it were all the telephone numbers he would need. It had no GPS capability. He wasn’t exactly persona grata on English soil these days. Maybe it was dumb to be accepting a job that took him back there. But the truth was, word had gotten around in the US that he had murdered one of his previous paymasters – and that hadn’t been great PR for him. Clients weren’t exactly tripping over each other to hire him any more.

  Maybe it was time to quit. Cash in his chips.

  ‘You been to the Channel Isles before, Mr Vogel?’ the driver asked. Vogel did not reply.

  He didn’t particularly like his current name, Vogel, either. It was a make of healthy bread sold in supermarkets, and not his choice. But it would suffice for now.

  10

  Wednesday 26 September

  Johnny Fordwater saw on his phone display the words No Caller ID.

  Instantly, his spirits rose. Was it Ingrid at last? Excitedly, he answered.

  The voice at the other end said, ‘Hey, buddy, how you doing?’ His old mate, Gerald Ronson.

  Masking his disappointment, he replied, with as much brightness as he could muster, ‘Gerry! Good to hear you!’

  ‘You OK, buddy?’

  ‘Yes, fine.’

  They’d been in that foxhole together, almost twenty years back, and had both, somehow, survive
d the rest of their time in Iraq. They’d remained good friends ever since. Both couples had visited each other back in the good old days when Elaine was fit and well.

  After his divorce, Gerry, who had become a firefighter when he quit the military, sounded like he’d been having a ball trying out online dating agencies. Gerry had been encouraging him to do the same. For over three years, still mourning Elaine’s death, Johnny had resisted. Almost a year ago, with wording provided by Gerry, he’d finally put a toe in the water. He’d chosen a German dating site, partly to avoid embarrassment if anyone in the UK found out, but just as much because of his liking for German women.

  ‘You don’t sound OK, buddy. You sound a little down.’

  ‘Around £400,000 down, if you want to know the truth, Gerry. I’m about to lose my home – thanks to my stupidity.’

  ‘Hey, hold on! What do you mean about what you are going to lose?’

  ‘My home. I’m about to lose my home.’

  ‘Your home?’

  ‘All of it, buddy.’

  ‘How – like – why – what’s happened?’

  ‘Want me to spell it out?’

  ‘Letter by letter.’

  Johnny spelled it out. When he had finished, he sat in silence, waiting for Gerry’s response.

  When it finally came it was succinct. ‘Shit, buddy.’

  Within seconds of ending the call, his phone rang again. Once more he answered with his hopes raised.

  It was Detective Sergeant Potting.

  11

  Wednesday 26 September

  A sharp rap on Roy Grace’s office door, then it opened before he could say anything, and detectives Potting and Wilde appeared.

  There had been a time, last year, when the four-times married Potting, approaching normal police retirement age, had been on the verge of marrying – yet again – this time to a police officer who was subsequently killed in a fire. He had really spruced himself up during the time he had been dating her, and he continued to take pride in his appearance after her death, which would have pleased Bella, Grace reflected.