Best British Crime 6 - [Anthology] Read online

  I’d always been a coward. But I’d never been afraid before. Not like this.

  I couldn’t breathe. It was as if I’d been hit in the throat. My heart was banging like a pneumatic drill. And I thought I’d throw up any minute. Or pee in my bed.

  The worst of it was I couldn’t see anything much. There seemed to be dozens of sturdy thighs in jeans at eye level and stubby black things that looked like gun barrels.

  It seemed mad. But it’s what they looked like. All I could hear was panting: heavy, angry panting. Whatever they were going to do, I knew I had to be able to see, so I reached for the specs on my bedside table. A voice yelled at me to f—ing stay where I was and not move. I couldn’t. I mean, my arm was way too heavy. It crashed down on the table and knocked the specs to the floor with the lamp and my book. It made them jam one of the black things nearer my face and yell at me to stay still.

  It really was a gun.

  Then a hand came and grabbed the edge of the duvet. I hadn’t got anything on under it, but that didn’t strike me until they ripped the duvet off me and let the cold air in. I twitched. I couldn’t help it, in spite of the guns. But nothing happened. Except that one of them swore. I don’t know what he thought he’d see under my duvet except me.

  “What?” said one of the others. He moved his head a bit. At least, I think it was his head. All I could see was a kind of furry pink mass where his face must be. He raised his voice: “What’ve you got?”

  “Nothing,” called another man from further away. “There’s no one else. Only a kind of study, with a computer and filing cabinets and magazines and things.”

  “Magazines? What magazines?”

  “Women’s stuff. Cosmo. Vogue. Things like that.”

  He came closer and bent right down into my face. That’s when I saw he had a dark-blue peaked cap with a chequered headband and POLICE in neat white letters.

  I began to breathe again.

  “God, you scared me,” I said, and my voice was all high and quavery. I tried to toughen it. “Can I have my glasses, please? And a dressing gown?”

  “Don’t move.” Three gun barrels came even closer to my face. And I heard the scrunch of glass. I don’t suppose they did it deliberately, but one of them mashed my new Armani specs under his heavy great feet.

  That was enough to make me more cross than scared. Or maybe it was reaction. Shock or something. Anyway, whatever it was, I forgot their guns and not having any clothes on and I just yelled at them, in a voice even my grandmother would have admired. And no one was grander than my grandmother.

  “Stop being so damned silly. You’ve got the wrong sodding address, like the sodding postman. You want the people in the flat across the road. Now let me get up and get my dressing gown. And stop playing silly buggers with those idiotic guns.”

  The nearest man took a step back and I knew I’d won. After a bit, another of them handed me my dressing gown, smiling and nodding in a sloppy apologetic kind of way, like a bashful terrier. A minute ago he’d been holding a gun to my face; now he wanted to be friends? Mad.

  <>

  * * * *

  MANDELBROT’S PATTERNS

  Keith McCarthy

  He was sitting in the bathroom looking at her corpse, as if it were the most normal thing in the world...

  The phone’s call was magnified by the dark of the night, a demanding intrusion that was not going to be ignored.

  First there was a sigh, then a hand reached out for the phone and a deep, almost husky male voice asked, “Yes?” There was a pause. “Yes, that’s right ... Where?” Another of the same. “Who?” This with some interest. “You’re sure? ... Okay.” Once more, nothing was said, before, “No, don’t worry. I’ll contact her. I think she’s visiting her mother.”

  The phone was placed back on its stand and there was silence again, as if the room were empty.

  Then softly...

  “Trouble?” This voice was female.

  “Dead woman. Found in the bath. Apparently her wrists were slit.”

  “Suicide? What’s it got to do with us?”

  “It’s Kate Reed, the wife of Dr. Phil Reed.”

  For the first time, there was a sense of interest in the room.

  “Reed? The forensic pathologist?”

  “The same. He was actually the one who phoned in with the call.”

  After a moment, “I still don’t see why they have to phone a detective sergeant in the middle of the night.”

  “They were after his detective inspector.”

  “So they found her, although they don’t know that. I still don’t see why they were after either of us.”

  An unearthly yowling sounded in the distance as fox called to fox between the dustbins, and with a sigh, the answer was given.

  “Apparently he sat there and watched her do it.”

  * * * *

  They spent the remaining hours of darkness at a very plush five-bedroom detached house in the suburbs, feelings of déja vu fighting with feelings of boredom. They had seen the body naked in the bath, the rose-pink water almost completely hiding her embarrassment, a pallid face showing a degree of relaxation that no living human could ever hope to assume. There was no evidence of a fight, nothing even to suggest an argument, a row, or even a small tiff. Their examination of the house had revealed no money problems, no evidence of extra-marital affairs, nothing that suggested anything other than an ordinary marriage.

  * * * *

  “I still don’t believe it.”

  “Believe it, Hannah. Believe it.”

  “Phil Reed is not a murderer.”

  Sam had learned to have great respect for Hannah Angelman’s abilities in the seven months he had known her, but this time he thought that she was wrong.

  “But when she was found, he was sitting in the bathroom just looking at her corpse, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. The scalpel was on the side of the bath. He’d been drinking wine—had a couple of glasses. There was even a half empty glass of wine on the side of the bath by the body, as if to make out that she’d joined in.”

  “But has he admitted to murder?”

  “He hasn’t said anything much. He wants to talk to you.”

  She leaned back in her chair, looking toward Sam as he stood in front of her desk, yet not seeing him.

  “Are we sure the house was secure?”

  “Completely.”

  “So there was no possibility of third-party involvement?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  Another possibility excluded, she reflected that the options were running out for Dr. Philip Reed.

  Outside the window of her office some seagulls, ranging far from their usual home around the Gloucester docks, called raucously as they hovered in the swirling spring air. As if called by them, she rose from her chair and went to stare out the window at the constant traffic of Lansdowne Road; the morning rush into Cheltenham was just beginning.

  “It’s an odd way to murder someone ... maybe it is suicide.”

  “With him watching? Anyway, his fingerprints are all over the handle of the scalpel, which is clear evidence that he took an active part in things. I don’t know what else you need. Accept it, Hannah. He killed her.”

  “Other than the cuts to her wrists, was there any evidence of trauma to the body?”

  “The pathologist says the only thing he can find are two tiny puncture marks, one by each of the cuts.”

  “Nothing else? No ligature marks? No head injury?”

  “No.”

  “That would suggest that she allowed him to do it.”

  “Unless she was drugged. Perhaps that’s what the puncture marks mean; or perhaps he put something in her wine. We’ll only know for sure when we get the toxicology back in a day or two.”

  Hannah turned back to him. “No, she was complicit. At worst this was assisted suicide.”

  Sam snorted. “Assisted and spectated, then. She was naked in the bath, Hannah. He must ha
ve sat there and watched her die.”

  “Poor sod.”

  He couldn’t believe what he had heard. “Why do you say that? After what he’s just done, I don’t think he deserves any sympathy.”

  “There’s a lot of history in that marriage, Sam.”

  “I think he drugged her while she was in the bath—hence her glass of wine—then slit both her wrists and sat and watched her while she bled to death. That’s horrible, that’s unforgivable. No amount of history comes anywhere near to excusing that.”

  “It might explain it, though.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  She turned abruptly around. “Why don’t we go and find out? Where is he?”

  “Room three. Fisher’s with him.”

  * * * *

  As they walked down the stairs to the interview rooms, Sam said, “He had everything. Large house, big car, beautiful wife, and now he’s thrown it all down the drain. What drives a man to do that? Surely it can’t just have been a row.”

  “Which is why I’m having a problem with this. Something tells me that there’s more to this than is at present apparent.”

  It was when they had nearly reached the interview room that Sam asked, “What did you mean by ‘history’?”

  “They had a child, but it died after a few weeks. Internal abnormalities or something. It was a blessing, really.”

  “Oh.”

  “They never had any more luck. Phil and his wife had many good things in their lives, but I don’t think they ever considered them adequate compensation. I look at Phil and I see a lovely man who’s as crippled as effectively as if he were paraplegic.”

  It was the tone as much as the words that impressed Sam. He asked with a slight smile that hid concern, “Have you got a thing for him, Hannah?”

  She laughed. “There’s no need for jealousy, Sam.”

  For Sam’s liking, this was altogether too public a place for such sentiments. “Not so loud. I thought we were being discreet. You know what this place is like. There’s always someone listening.”

  “Oh, of course.” She lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “Mustn’t have a D.I. sleeping with her sergeant. The world might end.”

  “It might ... for us.”

  She stopped quite abruptly so that he had to turn slightly to face her. She asked, “Would that bother you?”

  “Of course it would.”

  “I’m not just another conquest?”

  He looked around, as if the painted stone walls might hide camouflaged eavesdroppers. “Of course not!”

  She examined him for a brief moment, twitched a smile, then sighed, “Good.”

  He stepped toward her and said in a low tone, “I mean it, Hannah.”

  A nod, but one that was not as certain as it might have been. “Good.”

  She began walking again and he fell into step. “So why are you so convinced about Phil Reed’s innocence?” he asked.

  She had to think about that one. Eventually, all she could produce was: “I’ve just known him a long time. He’s not a killer.”

  “Wasn’t maybe. He is now.”

  * * * *

  “Is that steak okay? It certainly looks good.”

  Her mouth full, Kate nodded at once. “Mmm ... delicious.”

  He thought, You’re beautiful. Even a blind man would be able to tell that.

  “And the wine? You like the wine?”

  “I certainly do.”

  Reed smiled. “So I should hope, considering the price.”

  He hadn’t really been able to afford the restaurant—if truth be told, he felt out of place in it—but he had things to say tonight.

  “Well it’s very good ... mmm ... very good indeed.”

  “I thought so.”

  The couple at the table next to them were in their late sixties and would not have looked out of place at an imperial ball; he suspected that they were looking secretly askance at the whippersnappers so uncomfortably close to them, perhaps unable to believe that they had let people in who were not related to the Lord Lieutenant of the County.

  “So what’s the excuse for such extravagance?”

  “Do I need an excuse?”

  “Well ... it’s hardly in character.”

  He pretended outrage. “How dare you! I’ll have you know, I’ve been known to spend three pounds on a bottle of wine.”

  “And the rest!” Her smile gilded a lily and somehow improved it.

  “Anyone would think I’m a cheapskate.”

  She leaned forward conspiratorially. “Wouldn’t they just?”

  “Oh! So that’s what you think, is it?” He turned his face away, corners of his mouth turned downward. If he hoped for sympathy, it was a hope that was doomed from the off.

  “Me and a few thousand others...”

  There was no background music in the restaurant, no violins. As he let the silence between them grow, the chattering around them intruded.

  His timing was good, though.

  “So you wouldn’t want to marry me?” The tone—hurt innocence—was also good.

  “What?”

  Feigned surprise. “You wouldn’t want to marry me. What with me being a cheapskate.”

  As she realized what he had said, her face erupted with bright delight. “Oh ... Oh, God...”

  “Fair enough,” he went on, apparently oblivious of her reaction. “I’ll strike you off the list and then move on...”

  “You mean it?”

  He shrugged. “It was only an idea. It doesn’t matter.”

  She reached out, grasped his hand, as if to make him realize that she had something to say. “Of course I do! My God! Of course I do. I thought you’d never ask.”

  He continued in the same slightly distracted tone, “Only, now that I’ve got a consultant’s job...”

  “You what?” Her voice rose appreciably, and Lord and Lady Muck next door did not like it.

  “Didn’t I tell you? I’ve been appointed as consultant pathologist at Saint Benjamin’s. I start in three months.”

  “That’s fantastic!”

  “Is that a ‘yes’ to marriage, then?”

  “Of course it is!”

  He shook his head. “You just want to marry a doctor. You’re a gold digger.”

  At last he smiled, and after a moment’s pause, she sighed huge relief.

  “You bet,” she said.

  * * * *

  “Interview commencing at eight twenty A.M., Friday, the seventh of June 2006. Present are Dr. Philip Reed, Detective Sergeant Sam Rich, and Detective Inspector Hannah Angelman. Dr. Reed has been cautioned but has declined to take up his right to have a solicitor present.”

  Hannah smiled at the man across the desk. “Hello, Phil.”

  He bowed his head. His demeanor was one of exhaustion, but his smile was genuine. “Hannah.”

  I’m only the pathologist, the one who has to come face to face with whatever atrocity someone has brought upon another.”

  “You know Sam?”

  “I think we’ve met a couple of times.”

  She relaxed back in her chair as if she were in a coffee shop, as if this were a meeting between old mates from university. “I must say, I never expected to find us in this position.”

  His head bobbed from side to side. “A life without surprise would be a poor life indeed. It might, though, be marginally better than one that contains too many of them.”

  “Or ones that are too big.”

  He acknowledged this graciously. “Indeed.”

  “How long have we known each other, Phil?”

  “Oh, I suppose it must be seven, maybe eight years.”

  She nodded. “I thought I knew you.”

  “No human being ever truly knows another.”

  “But I think I can usually tell the killers. God knows I’ve known a few.”

  Reed closed his eyes. Sam thought that he looked ready to sleep for a thousand years. His jacket was creased and looked tired, his shirt coll
ar grimed. He said slowly, didactically, “Killing and killers aren’t a specific type, Hannah. Even I know that, and I’m only the meat man, the poor blood infantry, the pathologist. I’m only the one who has to come face to face with whatever atrocity someone has brought upon another.”