Dead at First Sight Read online

  And, job done, out again. And then?

  Perhaps Mr Barrey would know, when he met him for the first time tomorrow. Mr Barrey, who had threatened him.

  Consequences.

  Already, he didn’t like Mr Barrey. He didn’t like anyone who threatened him. Mr Barrey wanted to see him at midday. Mr Barrey’s goon had told him his boss did not like people being late. Well, tomorrow was Mr Barrey’s lucky day, Tooth thought.

  He didn’t do late.

  14

  Wednesday 26 September

  Intrigued by the woman at the other end of the phone, but anxious not to ruin his dish, Toby Seward said, ‘I’m sorry – Suzy, right? Did you say you thought you knew me? What do you mean, exactly?’

  ‘Well, Toby – if you don’t mind my calling you that – we’ve been chatting each other up for the past eight months – or I thought we had. Until you asked me to lend you £20,000 for your sick grandmother’s hospital bills.’

  ‘I’m sorry – a sick grandmother? I don’t have a sick grandmother, touch wood. Are you calling the right person?’

  ‘Oh good, is she better?’

  ‘She’s just celebrated her one hundred and fifth birthday last week, I was at the party. A wonderful lady, smokes ten fags a day, drinks a large whisky and is still flirting!’

  ‘I want to be her!’

  ‘So now you know the recipe for a grand old age. What exactly do you mean, that you thought you knew me – and what’s your last name again?’

  ‘Driver. Suzy Driver. I think you might be interested in what I’m going to tell you.’

  ‘I’m already interested.’ With the phone still jammed to his ear, holding a small knife, he began removing the meat from the body of the pre-cracked lobster and putting it into a bowl. Was he talking to a nutter?

  ‘Did you know, Toby, you are in love with me?’

  Definitely a nutter, he decided. ‘I’m sorry, I really think you’ve dialled a wrong number.’

  ‘You are Toby Seward, of 57 North Gardens, Brighton? Successful motivational speaker?’

  ‘I’m in a real rush – what are you trying to sell me?’

  ‘Please listen to me, I’m a fifty-five-year-old widow and I’m not selling you anything. I’m telling you because you’re a victim of identity theft. Please believe what I’m saying. There are eleven women – here in England and in other countries around the world – who are in love with you.’

  ‘In love with me? I’ve no idea what you are talking about.’

  ‘I’m talking about eleven women who think you are God’s gift to them! I’m guessing you don’t know that?’

  ‘No, but I’m flattered,’ he replied, applying his knife to a large, cracked-open claw.

  ‘I would imagine that depends on how you define flattering,’ she said, sounding amused.

  ‘Eleven women, I’d consider that’s pretty flattering! Wait until I tell my husband!’

  ‘They all think you are fifty-eight years old!’

  ‘What? I’m not telling my husband that bit!’ He nearly gouged a chunk of skin from his finger. ‘Fifty-eight? I’m just coming up to forty-eight!’ He put the knife down.

  ‘Not on the internet, you’re not. Fifty-eight, rather dishy, and soon-to-be a multimillionaire – from the sale of your company that operates a fleet of seismic oil exploration ships around the globe!’

  ‘A soon-to-be multimillionaire in my dreams.’

  ‘And their dreams, too.’

  Something in her voice gave him a reality check. ‘What are you saying exactly, Suzy? Suzy Driver, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK, Suzy.’ He glanced at the frozen television screen, then down at the lobster. ‘Fifty-eight years old, you said?’

  ‘I’m aware you are only forty-eight!’

  ‘I think I’m falling in love with you!’ he said, jokily.

  ‘You’ve been in love with me for months.’

  ‘I have?’

  ‘And you’ve been sending me flowers – mostly orchids – every week.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Very beautiful they are, too. They must have cost you a fortune.’

  ‘Maybe we should wind back, Suzy, start from the beginning?’

  ‘Good idea. I think you’ll find what I have to say a little uncomfortable. Just to warn you.’

  ‘Well, my darling, if we’ve been lovers for the past few months, bring it on!’

  ‘I’d hate to make your husband jealous.’

  ‘He’ll get over it!’

  She laughed. He liked her laugh. In another life, hey, who knew what might have been?

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Let’s wind back.’

  ‘I really am in a rush,’ he interrupted politely. ‘Can you give me the short version?’

  ‘Of course. My darling husband, Raymond, died four years ago, from a heart attack. Coming up to fifty-five, I decided I still had some living – and romance – left in me, so I enrolled in a couple of online dating agencies – ones for the more mature person.’

  ‘Very sensible of you,’ Toby Seward said. ‘Fifty is the new forty, it’s all about attitude.’

  ‘Totally. So, online I kissed a lot of frogs, and then I met you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Or so I thought. Except your name wasn’t Toby Seward. It was Norbert Petersen. Or Richie Griffiths. Or one of several others.’

  ‘It was?’

  ‘Yes! You and I really hit it off, Norbert!’

  ‘We did?’

  ‘Trust me! Online, we were going at it hammer and tongs. I was sure I’d met the man of my dreams. We were planning the rest of our lives together. And then you asked me for a loan. That’s when I had a major reality check – and decided to do some investigating. Hence this call.’

  ‘I’m so sorry to be a disappointment.’

  ‘Don’t worry, you’re nothing compared to the Niagara Falls,’ she said.

  ‘Niagara Falls? What do you mean?’

  ‘You never heard what Oscar Wilde said about them?’

  ‘Clearly I’ve led a sheltered existence.’

  ‘He said that, sooner or later, every American groom takes his bride to see the Niagara Falls. And that they must surely be the second greatest disappointment in American married life.’

  Toby laughed. ‘Do you mind if I call you back, I’m in the middle of cooking?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said and gave him her number.

  Ending the call, he sat in silence. Thinking. He’d built up his reputation as a motivational speaker over many years. What impact was this going to have on his life?

  15

  Wednesday 26 September

  Glenn Branson, Norman Potting, Velvet Wilde and DC Kevin Hall crowded around Roy Grace in his office, looking at sets of photographs printed from the email sent by Detective Kullen of the Munich LKA.

  The first photograph was of two women in evening gowns and looking very glamorous, one in a white outfit, with fair hair, the other in red, with dark hair.

  ‘Marcel said the woman in the white dress is the victim,’ Grace told them.

  The next photographs were grim. Each was professionally taken from a different angle by a Crime Scene Photographer. The first group were taken in the street showing the victim in situ. One was a wide-angle shot showing the whole scene, the others were all close-ups. The subject, a blonde-haired woman in her forties, dressed only in shorts and a blood-stained T-shirt, was impaled on railings. Blood, the colour of oil, pooled all around her. Congealed blood masked her chin, like a beard.

  The second set was taken in the mortuary. One was a close-up inside the dead woman’s mouth, showing the blackened stump of her severed tongue.

  Grace glanced at their blanched faces and was reminded of the comment of a senior officer some years back: Wearing a uniform does not protect you from trauma.

  For one of the few moments in all the years Grace had worked with Potting, the DS was silent.

  Wilde’s face was ashen. Kevin Hall was silent, too.

  ‘Not pretty,’ Branson commented.

  ‘Cutting off her tongue has to be symbolic, don’t you think, chief?’ Potting said.

  ‘A warning not to talk, perhaps, Norman?’ Grace replied. ‘Could be.’

  Kevin Hall, who had begun his career as a bookseller before joining the police, suddenly spoke. ‘Gottit!’ he said loudly, then looked around apologetically. ‘Can’t remember who wrote it, boss, but it might apply here. Something like, “A cutting word is worse than a bowstring. A cut may heal but a cut of the tongue does not.”’

  Norman Potting pulled out a long slim black object from his pocket and vaped, several times in succession, blowing the steam at the ceiling. Then he tapped the device on the table.

  Grace looked at him, about to chide him, then let it go. Looking at these images was making him crave a smoke himself. ‘For sure there’s some symbolism going on here. Maybe some kind of a warning to others. My understanding is this lady is the one to whom Johnny Fordwater had handed over his life savings – at least the one he thought he was handing them over to. The one he believed to be called “Ingrid Ostermann”, who we now know to be the Munich victim Lena Welch, who in addition to having her identity taken was also being scammed herself.’

  Potting looked at the date and time printed on the first set of photographs. ‘Chief, these were taken at around 10.30 Monday night. At that time DC Wilde and I were interviewing Major Fordwater at Gatwick Airport. Which would give him a pretty good alibi, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Yep, I guess it would,’ Grace replied.

  ‘How much do we know about what happened, sir?’ DC Wilde asked, looking at the photographs again, clearly uncomfortable with the images. ‘What was her cause of death?’

>   ‘We might know more after the postmortem,’ Grace replied. ‘The LKA are concerned by a comment from a neighbour, who saw a man in her corridor, approaching Lena Welch’s apartment, shortly before she was found dead. Apparently this woman has given a good description – including his red shoes – and the Crime Scene Manager there is working with her on an identikit.’

  ‘Chief, as I said, Fordwater might be a former soldier, and could just about go to the toilet unaided, but I don’t think he’d be capable of killing anyone these days, and certainly not in Munich on Monday. Unless of course he’s a time traveller.’

  Potting looked again at Velvet Wilde. Again, she nodded in agreement.

  ‘I think we can rule time travel out, Norman.’

  ‘I’m with you on that one, chief.’

  16

  Wednesday 26 September

  ‘So, Suzy Driver, how exactly did you check on me?’ Toby Seward, amused and concerned at the same time, asked. He had put his phone on speaker so that he could carry on with his cooking.

  Seated on the sofa in the living room of her large, detached Victorian villa in Hove’s Somerhill Avenue, with a view across the street to St Ann’s Well Gardens, with its tennis courts and well-tended gardens, Suzy stroked her Yorkshire terrier, Buster, curled up beside her, and stirred her coffee before replying. ‘Well, it wasn’t too difficult – with the help of a friend of mine’s son who’s a bit of a geek. You’ll find you have a lot of admirers – more than admirers, actually, women, including myself, who are besotted with you and planning to spend the rest of their lives with you.’

  ‘Lucky me!’

  ‘Lucky you – not!’ she retorted. ‘Do you remember our Skype conversation?’

  ‘Our what?’

  ‘I thought as much, it wasn’t you. We had a Skype conversation about ten days ago – just before I went on holiday.’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘On Saturday, September 15th. You – or rather Norbert Petersen – declared your undying love for me.’

  ‘On Saturday, September 15th, my husband and I were sailing in the Aegean, with no internet.’

  ‘That’s what you think!’ she said, good-humouredly. ‘But I know different. You told me how much you liked my eyes, my hair, my face. You told me you were in Bahrain on business and could not wait to come to England to sweep me up in your arms. You actually got quite fruity, Dr Petersen – or is it Mr Griffiths?’

  ‘Dr Petersen?’

  ‘You are a geologist, right?’

  ‘Hey, wind back. I’m a geologist?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m not a geologist, I don’t know the first thing about it. I’m a motivational speaker. I do seminars for businesses.’

  ‘Well, you say that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Would you like to see the conversation? I recorded it on video. Shall I send it to you?’

  ‘I’d very much like to see it.’

  ‘It’s a big file, I’ll have to use file transfer.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to seeing it.’

  ‘I think you’ll find it interesting!’

  ‘Yuck!’ he shouted.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Sorry,’ he replied. ‘I just cracked a bit of lobster and got juice squirted over my face.’

  ‘That’s a lot classier than egg all over your face!’

  ‘I’m feeling the latter.’

  ‘Wipe it off, all your other lovers wouldn’t be impressed. They haven’t handed over their life savings to a man with lobster juice running down his chin.’

  17

  Wednesday 26 September

  It was parents’ evening. Roy Grace and Cleo stood in the large common room of St Christopher’s school, Roy holding a cup of coffee and a saucer, Cleo a glass of mineral water. There were plates of biscuits all around, and parents with their children, none of whom they knew, engaged in conversations with the teachers. Bruno should have been here too, but he had refused to come.

  Roy glanced at his watch: 7.30 p.m. They’d need to leave in fifteen minutes, for their dinner reservation at 8 p.m. The taxi would be waiting outside. So far, they’d talked to Bruno’s geography, maths, biology and English teachers. None of them had been negative but, equally, none had been exactly glowing about the boy.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Grace saw the headmaster, a smartly suited man in his fifties, tall and nearly bald, making a beeline for them.

  ‘Mr and Mrs – or should I say, Detective Superintendent and Mrs Grace?’

  ‘Either is fine, Mr Hartwell,’ Cleo said pleasantly.

  ‘Very good of you to come.’

  ‘Well, of course,’ Cleo replied. ‘We’re very interested to know how our son is doing, and whether he is fitting in?’

  ‘Yes, well – I – we . . .’ Hartwell hesitated, then momentarily looked lost for words. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Bruno is a nice chap. No question. A very polite boy.’ After another brief hesitation he added, rubbing his hands together as if soaping them, ‘Quite independent, his teachers are finding.’ He wrung his hands in silence for a few seconds. ‘A little bit of a loner, perhaps. That’s hardly surprising, given the background, losing his mother – a lady who lived a rather – shall we say chaotic lifestyle – from what you told me?’

  Roy Grace grimaced. ‘I think that’s a fair description of his mother, certainly in recent years, from what I’ve been able to establish.’

  ‘Let’s look at the facts. Bruno’s having problems adjusting, which is hardly surprising. He’s lost his mother, who wasn’t the best role model to him, it would seem. He’s moved country. From being an only child he’s having to contend with a sibling, a stepmother, a father who was never previously part of his life and a new language and culture.’

  ‘It’s something we’re very aware of,’ Cleo said. ‘Our hope is that by giving him a stable and loving home life, together with the caring nature of your school, things will become normalized for him.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Again he hesitated. ‘There are still, unfortunately, some prejudices about Germany, and we have noticed a couple of instances of bullying, which of course we are doing our best to put a stop to, very firmly. Has he mentioned this?’

  Grace looked at Cleo, who shook her head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not a word.’

  ‘I think he’s dealing with it in his own way. And he is actually a very confident boy in some ways.’

  ‘He is,’ Cleo said.

  The headmaster looked pensive. ‘I had a private chat with him a couple of days ago and he did rather surprise me with something he said.’ He seemed unsure he should now repeat it.

  ‘Which was?’ Cleo prompted.

  Hartwell wrung his hands together again, now looking rather bemused. ‘Well, I asked him a question I ask all the boys here of his age, to give me an idea of where their interests lie and to give their teachers direction. I asked your son if he had any thoughts on what he would like to do for a future career. For many of our pupils it is of course far too early. But Bruno was very definite – and, frankly, his response took me a little bit by surprise. Have you ever asked him this question?’

  ‘No,’ Grace said. ‘What was it?’

  ‘Well, he said that he would either like to become a chemist or a dictator.’

  Grace smiled, briefly, until he saw the shocked expression on Cleo’s face.

  ‘A chemist or a dictator?’ she said.

  ‘Exactly those words.’

  ‘Did he elaborate?’ she asked. ‘If a dictator, of which country?’

  ‘I asked him that very question,’ the headmaster said. ‘He told me, quite solemnly, he hadn’t yet decided, but that he favoured Venezuela.’

  ‘Venezuela?’ Grace said. ‘Why Venezuela?’

  ‘He said so that he could create similar conservation ethics to those of the Galapagos Islands and encourage other countries across the world to do the same. Pretty impressive thinking, wouldn’t you say, for a lad of his age?’

  ‘Is Venezuela a dictatorship?’ Cleo asked.