Dead at First Sight, page 37
He switched his mind back to his task. Stalking mode. Instinctively he crouched a fraction, keeping below behind the hedgerow until he reached the rear of the van. Obligingly, the workmen had reversed the vehicle in here. Which meant no one from the road could see him. Good.
He slipped along the far side of the van, which was out of sight to the men in the field, and around to the rear of the vehicle. The doors had been pushed to, but not closed. Perfect. He took another glance at the workmen, then pulled open one door, wincing at the loud creak of its hinge, but the men were too far away to hear it, and one had headphones on anyway. He peered in. It was cluttered with equipment – traffic cones, meters, gauges, a box of valves, a large toolkit, a pump and, to his joy, a tarpaulin that lay under a jumble of road signs, right behind the driver and passenger seats.
He scrambled in, pulled the door shut behind him, then trod his way carefully in the semi-darkness towards the front. Reaching the tarpaulin, he knelt and wormed his way under the heavy sheet, which smelled of damp and plastic. He lay on his back on the hard metal floor, right up against the seats, checking to ensure his legs were concealed by the signs lying on top of the tarp. Then he pulled out his gun, removed the safety catch and settled down to wait.
120
Friday 12 October
Roy Grace sat, worriedly, at his workstation in MIR-1, staring at the clock on his screen: 5.01 p.m. Less than ninety minutes, if their intel was correct, until Jules Copeland was due to arrive at Primrose Farm Cottage for a loved-up weekend with Lynda Merrill – not.
He had been toying with alternative possibilities. Had Copeland boarded a flight at Gatwick Airport? The Ghanaian was distinctive-looking and had two large suitcases with him. But no CCTV cameras had picked him up. Sure, they didn’t cover every square inch of the passenger areas, but the average person walking through the departure lounges of either the South or North Terminals would be picked up several times. Inspector Biggs’s team had shown Copeland’s photograph to all check-in staff and no one there had recognized him either, nor had any security staff. The Gatwick Hilton hotel had also been checked.
The Kia that had crashed outside Marina Heights this morning had been rented from a firm at Gatwick on Tuesday night to a man fitting Copeland’s description, using one of his aliases, Samuel Jackson. He’d assaulted the driver of the van he’d collided with and done a runner. The cab he’d taken to Gatwick Airport would have dropped him there around 8.45 a.m. So where had he spent the past eight and a half hours?
Was he still within the vicinity of the airport? Grace suspected not.
Was he still in the country?
Grace wrote down on his pad what he knew of the man. Resourceful. Ruthless. Driven by greed. Wife and child in Bavaria. £300,000 for the taking.
Then after a few moments further mulling over, he thought about Copeland’s red shoes and added vain to his list. And then:
Vain = arrogant = brazen
= Hubris
A man who was happy to murder two people who’d threatened to expose him, and to maim a third for daring to warn people about internet romance scammers.
Copeland, he decided, almost certainly was not going to let that money go. He was going to turn up.
121
Friday 12 October
Tooth heard the men returning to the van. He sensed the interior brightening a little as the rear doors were opened, heard the clatter of equipment being laid down in the rear, close to him, as he held his breath. Then the slam of the doors. Moments later the van rocked as the two men climbed into the front.
‘You OK to work on, Bob?’ one said.
‘Yeah, nice bit of overtime – you, Rog?’
‘The missus wants a new kitchen, the more the better – and it’s bloody Christmas coming up and all. Got fifteen more properties on our list, we’ll keep going?’
‘Big game at the Amex tomorrow, got my season ticket – I’d rather work on tonight than have to come in tomorrow and miss the footy.’
‘How many other teams out there this afternoon?’
‘There’s eight vans.’
‘So it’s a big leak, you reckon, Bob?’
‘Very big. Head office are concerned, they need it found ASAP. Problem is, a lot of the pipework around here’s ancient – could be a break anywhere.’
‘We haven’t had a frost yet.’
‘Could just be a valve’s let go. Or a builder or a farmer’s dug through some pipework without realizing.’
‘Have the traffic police been alerted to look for standing water in an unusual place?’
‘I believe so.’
‘OK, so where’s next?’
Tooth heard the click of their seat belts. It was followed by the rustle of paper – maybe a map or plans. He waited, silently, until the starter motor whirred. As the engine fired, he rose up behind the driver’s seat and was pleased to see the driver had removed his hard hat. Tooth chopped him hard in the back of his neck with his left hand and, instantly, he slumped forward, unconscious.
His startled colleague, still wearing his hat, spun round and found himself looking down the barrel of an automatic pistol.
‘Hello, Bob,’ Tooth said, calmly.
The man had fair hair and a tattooed neck. He stared at Tooth with petrified eyes behind rimless lenses. ‘Wh— what – who – who – what do you – please – please don’t shoot.’
‘Well, Bob, that’s all going to depend on how you and I get on.’ Tooth transferred the gun to his left hand. ‘Undo your pal’s seat belt.’
Shaking with terror, the man leaned over and, a second later, Tooth heard the click of the buckle releasing. ‘We don’t have any money. Is that what you want?’
Keeping the gun trained on the man in the passenger seat, Tooth crooked an arm around the unconscious driver’s neck, then using a taekwondo movement, jerked hard, pulling the man upwards over the top of his seat, with its built-in headrest, and catapulting him over his head, striking the ceiling of the van, then falling on his back onto some of the equipment lying around in the rear of the vehicle.
The man’s work buddy stared on, paralysed with fear.
Behind him, Tooth heard groans. He cursed. He’d not hit him hard enough. ‘Get in the driver’s seat,’ he said.
The man clambered over.
‘I’m going to give you directions,’ Tooth said. ‘You’re going to follow them, nice and easy. You with me?’
The man nodded several times, urgently.
Tooth jabbed the muzzle of the gun into the back of his neck.
‘Please – I – I’ve got two kids – two young kids,’ the man jabbered. ‘Two and four. Please don’t shoot me.’
‘I got a dog,’ Tooth replied.
‘You’ve got a dog? I – I’ve got a dog, too.’
‘You’re going to drive down to the road and make a left.’
‘Yes – yes – what kind of dog? You know? What kind of dog do you have?’
Tooth was silent. There was a loud moan behind him, then a voice called out, ‘Jesus, who are you?’
The man tried to stand, as if making a lunge for Tooth. ‘Who are—?’ Then he cried out in pain, clutching the back of his ribcage.
‘I’m the man with the gun,’ Tooth said. ‘You’re in pain, right, Rog?’
He saw the man’s right hand moving stealthily but clumsily towards a metal rod on the floor. Maybe the one they’d just been using. Then he launched himself at Tooth, raising the rod to strike him.
Tooth fired two near-silent shots in rapid succession into his forehead. His head jerked, then he fell on his back and lay still for a second. Then twitched.
His colleague screamed in shock and terror.
‘Shut the fuck up!’ Tooth said, loudly and firmly.
The man was shaking uncontrollably. ‘You shot him. You shot him! Oh my God, you shot him.’
‘It’s a mutt,’ Tooth said, staring at the man he’d just shot. He was twitching the way he often saw a caught fish twitch after he’d smashed its head with a priest.
‘What?’ the man said.
‘My associate.’
‘Associate?’
‘It’s a mutt. I was just walking along a street in Beverly Hills and it started following me.’
‘I – I – I—’ His eyes were bulging. ‘Started following you? What did?’
‘My dog,’ Tooth replied. ‘You asked about my dog. He’s my associate.’
The man was staring past him at his colleague who was now motionless, with blood running from the two holes in his forehead. He tried to say something but nothing came out. He tried again. ‘I – I – you – you shot him.’
‘His name’s Yossarian.’
He looked at Tooth, bewildered. ‘Yossarian?’
‘Turn around, put your seat belt on and drive.’ Tooth raised the gun, putting it right up close to his face. ‘Drive.’
The man continued staring at Tooth as if too frozen with terror to think or move.
‘You want me to shoot you, too? I don’t mind, I’ll drive myself.’
‘N-n-n-n-n-no, please.’
The man spun round as if a plug had been pushed into a socket, sat down, clicked on his belt and put the vehicle in gear. They lurched forward and stalled.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Sorry. Please don’t kill me, please, please, I’ll drive.’ He restarted, they lurched forward again and this time they kept going.
‘Left at the road,’ Tooth said.
‘Left. Left at the road,’ the driver repeated.
‘He has different-coloured eyes. One’s kind of red, the other sort of grey. Depends on the light.’
‘Different eyes?’
‘My dog. Make the next right.’
They turned into a narrow lane. There were damp leaves on the road surface and the trees formed a tunnel overhead, blotting out the sky.
‘W-what kind of d-dog did you say you have?’ He was struggling to speak through his fear.
‘Anyone stops us, anyone asks you any questions, you tell them what you’re doing, hunting a leak, right? Hunting a big leak. You’re working late like a lot of your colleagues tonight, hunting a big leak. Saving the environment, saving natural resources. Understand what I’m saying?’ He pressed the barrel into the man’s neck for emphasis.
‘Yes, yes, I do!’ the man yammered, jerking in terror, and the van swerved, momentarily losing grip on the slippery surface as he fought with the wheel to steady it.
‘Drive more carefully, asshole.’
‘Yes, sorry, sorry.’
‘Or you want me to put you in the back with your friend?’
‘No, please, please, please.’
‘You make a left at the T-junction.’
The driver turned left at the T-junction. He was shaking and nodding his head at the same time.
‘I don’t know what kind. It’s a dog,’ Tooth said. ‘I don’t give a shit what kind.’
They passed a row of cottages with a couple of cars parked outside. Then a large house to the left, with a horsebox in the driveway. They continued past a sign to a sailing club and to waterworks, then Tooth instructed him to slow right down and turn into another single-track lane.
The light was beginning to fail, and Tooth was happy about that. He told the driver to slow again as they reached an open gate and read the sign.
PRIMROSE FARM
‘Carry on,’ he instructed.
A quarter of a mile further, Tooth saw rotten wooden gates that were open. And the oval sign, PRIMROSE FARM COTTAGE, with a cart-track of a driveway dipping steeply down.
‘Turn in here,’ Tooth said.
122
Friday 12 October
Riley, deep in his hide in the rhododendron bush, heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. Immediately, the CROPS officer radioed the support team.
Moments later the van came into view.
‘Mike Whisky One, do you have visual contact?’
‘Romeo One, a Ford Transit van with Southern Water markings, heading towards target house.’
‘Southern Water?’
‘Yes yes.’
‘Hold station, we are checking.’
‘Hold station, yes yes.’
Riley watched the van drive around the bumpy driveway and pull up in front of the house.
Inside the rear of the van, Tooth, now wearing the dead man’s yellow high-viz jacket, crawled up behind the driver and chopped him hard in the back of his neck, knocking him out. He hauled him over the seat and onto the floor, where he gagged him and tied him up securely with cable from a reel and wound duct tape round his mouth.
He then climbed over the driver’s seat and, as an added precaution, pulled the keys from the ignition.
‘You don’t move, Bob. Understand?’ he said to the unconscious man. He opened the door and stepped out into near darkness.
Doug Riley’s radio crackled. ‘Romeo One to Mike Whisky One.’
‘Romeo One, this is Mike Whisky One.’
‘Mike Whisky One, we’ve just spoken to Southern Water. There is a serious leak in the Forest Row area causing localized water pressure issues. They currently have a number of vehicles out working into the night, checking the pipes and meters of properties in the area, trying to locate and isolate the problem.’
Riley checked his watch as he replied. ‘Romeo One, any idea how long they have to spend at each property?’
‘Five to ten minutes, maximum, Mike Whisky One.’
‘Roger that, Romeo One.’
123
Friday 12 October
Tooth, holding a clipboard, which he knew was always a good prop, looked for a bell, but couldn’t see one. So he rapped hard on the oak door with his knuckles. He found some British accents hard to master, but others came easily. At this particular moment, he was a Welshman.
It was opened by a woman with silver hair, and all dolled-up for lover boy. She wore a low-cut blouse revealing a large amount of cleavage, a short green skirt, knee-high patent-leather boots and reeked of dense, musky perfume. She looked at him with undisguised irritation, clearly not wanting anyone around at this moment queering the pitch.
He flashed the dead man’s identity card, keeping his finger over the photograph. ‘I am so very sorry to be bothering you, like. I’m from Southern Water and we are investigating a major leak. Would you mind if I checked your water meter – it might be saving you money, you know.’
‘Is this going to take long?’ she asked, unsmiling and clearly anxious.
‘Oh no, madam, just a few minutes. Can you direct me to the water meter?’
‘I’m afraid I have absolutely no idea – I’m house-sitting for a friend.’
‘All right then if I have a quick look for it?’
‘Be my guest.’ She glanced at her watch, then out of the window, past the van, at the drive beyond.
Tooth frowned. But he took it as licence to check the place out.
Lady, he thought, if you knew why I was really here, you’d be throwing your arms around me in gratitude. I’m your freakin’ guardian angel, lady.
‘Do you have a loft?’
‘Yes, there’s a hatch up on the landing. I saw a pole with a hook against the wall. I’ll show you.’
He followed her up the stairs, and she pointed to the hatch and then the pole. He reached up with the pole and pushed the hatch, which dropped down on a hinge to reveal a folding ladder. He hooked the bottom rung and pulled it down.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ she said.
As he began climbing she went back downstairs.
124
Friday 12 October
‘Mike Whisky One to Romeo One. For information, Southern Water official has now been inside target house for ten minutes.’
‘Romeo One to Mike Whisky One. Did you say he is inside house?’ The support officer sounded concerned.
‘Inside the house, yes yes.’
‘Mike Whisky One, Southern Water say that all water meters are external. There is no need for anyone to enter a property, other than to ask where the stopcock and meter are.’
Doug Riley was distracted by the sound of another vehicle turning into the drive. A dark-grey Mercedes coupe drove past him, travelling slowly on the bumpy track. Slowly enough to make out the identity of the driver through his binoculars.
‘Romeo One,’ Riley said, urgently. ‘A Mercedes coupe is approaching target house. Driver is a male IC3.’
‘A black man, Mike Whisky One?’
‘Affirmative.’
‘Can you positively identify him as Jules de Copeland?’
‘I can’t positively.’
‘ARVs to carry out enforced stop,’ came the command.
The Mercedes suddenly stopped. Doug Riley, bits of shrubbery tumbling from his clothes and helmet, stood a short distance from the car, his Glock drawn and aimed. He was joined by his colleague, Lewis Hastings, also showering vegetation from his clothes, gun in his hand.
An instant later an ARV raced up behind the Mercedes. A second blocked the exit onto the road.
The first ARV officer stopped at the driver’s door, as his colleague reached the passenger side.
‘Police!’ the first one yelled. ‘Hands in the air! Show me your hands!’ The man behind the wheel, looking scared, raised his arms.
The officer yanked open the door. ‘Keep your hands up and get out!’ The driver tried to move but his seat belt restrained him.
Standing back, holding both hands on the gun, the officer yelled, ‘Unbuckle and get out, out, out!’
The man obeyed and climbed out, raising his arms as high as he could. He was short, wearing a hoodie, jeans and trainers.
Doug Riley instinctively felt something was wrong. That this was not his man. Not from his height, for sure. ‘What’s your name?’ he yelled.
