The Body on the Shore Read online

  ‘This took two.’

  ‘Not really – the first killed him outright. The second passed through his wrist and ended up in the wall.’ Yaz turned and aimed a laser pointer at the wall behind him. ‘It’s still in there.’

  ‘How do you know which was the first shot?’

  ‘Not too hard. Plaster dust from the wrist shot was deposited on top of the bloodstains from the first.’

  Gillard squinted at the wall. ‘Any clue on the trajectories?’

  ‘That’s tricky. Ideally, with a normal bullet, we would like to be able to line up each hole in the glass with a projectile embedded in the far wall. That would give us a clear line to the origin of each shot. However it seems that the wrist shot was deflected too, so we’re going to have to guesstimate.’

  Gillard nodded. ‘It feels like a hit, to me. What do you reckon, Yaz?’

  The Iraqi nodded, his Tyvek suit crackling. ‘Definitely.’

  ‘But why would anyone want to kill an architect?’

  ‘Maybe he designs prisons.’

  * * *

  It was 2 p.m. by the time Gillard was finished at the crime scene, and his mood was not improved by news from HQ that his team would all be based at the Khazi. The notorious mobile incident room was a glorified Portakabin on the back of an ancient diesel-belching lorry, which was now parked in a side street 100 yards from the architects’ office. Gillard’s heart sank as he climbed the wooden steps, opened the squeaky plywood door and grimaced at the toilet-like smell and the black mould that proliferated on its institutional off-white paint. DI Claire Mulholland was already there, looking grim, having just come back from breaking the news of Peter Young’s death to his wife, Laura.

  ‘Sorry, I’m afraid we’re stuck with this,’ Gillard said, wiping a runnel of condensation from the wall.

  ‘It’s okay so long as you don’t lean on the walls,’ she replied. ‘Black mould is hard to get off a white blouse.’

  He nodded. ‘So what did you discover?’

  ‘A lot, but nothing that helpful. Peter Young was married with two young children, had been living in Britain for 12 years,’ Mulholland said. ‘His original name was Pjetër Ardian Cela. He turned up unaccompanied in Canterbury as a 15-year-old, claiming he was orphaned in Kosovo during the conflict in the late 1990s and had run away to Britain to escape persecution by the Serbs.’

  ‘Do we know how he got to be in Kent?’

  ‘He had just got off a French tour bus, and when picked up claimed to have lost his documents. He sought asylum, helped by the children’s charity Barnardo’s, and was granted it a year later. That was pretty slow by the standards of the time. He changed his name to the maiden name of his foster mother, and seems to have lived an exemplary life. A clever student, a talented artist, Birmingham University, won some prizes. I’ve left Gabby Underwood with the wife to act as liaison officer.’

  Gillard stroked his chin. ‘We will need to talk to the foster parents, dig up any original documentation, family connections back home and so on. Any ideas why anyone would want to kill him?’

  Mulholland shrugged and ran her fingers through her bob of blond hair. ‘Nothing so far. It’s too early to start prodding and probing his wife for her ideas. She was distraught, quite inconsolable. We’ll need to give it a day or so maybe for her, so let’s start with the foster parents. They have agreed to see us tomorrow afternoon.’

  * * *

  By the end of the day the CSI team had largely finished with Peter Young’s office. Once the body was removed, a laser device on a tripod was set up to try to line up the bullet hole in the glass with the buildings opposite. It certainly looked as if the shots were fired from the apartment occupied by Ryan Hardcastle and Angela Dinsmore, where the fingerprint technician had found plenty of dabs around the lounge window. They matched both Ryan Hardcastle’s prints and the elimination prints just taken from Angela, but there was no bullet casing or gunfire residue found.

  More progress was being made at the crime scenes than in the Khazi. The printer that Gillard had asked for seemed to be dead, and having waited half an hour for a promised techie to turn up, the DCI squeezed underneath the desk trying to check the connections himself. It was a bad time for his mobile to buzz. Wriggling to get in a position to see the screen, he banged his head, and hadn’t quite finished swearing when he pressed the button to take Colin Hodges’ call.

  ‘Was it something I said?’ the DC asked.

  ‘I’m under a desk trying to fix that bastard printer,’ the DCI said. ‘I read somewhere that we’ll soon be printing 3D components for cars and aircraft, but from my experience anything Surrey Police buys can’t even manage two dimensions. This one showed complete bloody bewilderment at a single sheet of paper with a letter on it.’

  ‘My brother’s a computer whizz,’ Hodges said. ‘Looks after some massive technology system for NATO in Brussels, so I always follow his advice.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘Turn it off, then turn it back on again.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Gillard, extricating himself from under the desk, and finding he’d now got a lump of old chewing gum stuck in his hair. ‘So what was it that you called to tell me?’

  ‘Ah yes. Ryan Hardcastle is a glazier, and I just rang the yard where he works. His boss said that he took off in a van at lunchtime and hasn’t been back since. His phone is switched off. I’ve alerted everyone to look out for him.’

  ‘Good work,’ Gillard said, now back on a seat in front of the one reliably working terminal. He entered the password for the Police National Computer, and then watched Hardcastle’s criminal record slowly materialize before him. He had three convictions for affray, one for cannabis dealing and one for actual bodily harm, the latter related to his part-time job as a nightclub bouncer. The photograph showed a thickset man, more fat than muscle, aged 28, with piggy eyes and a wispy dark moustache. Hardcastle obviously thought himself a bit tasty with his fists, and the record showed a man with a temper. The idea that he was also a cool and nerveless assassin didn’t quite seem to fit. But on the other hand he may well have met such a man during the six months he spent inside HMP Coldingley two years ago. A category B prison, Coldingley was just west of Woking, about an hour away. He made a mental note to check who he’d shared a cell with.

  Just then the door to the Portakabin slammed and DI Claire Mulholland walked in. He greeted her, while continuing to trawl through the notes of interviews on the screen.

  ‘Did you get the printer working?’ she asked.

  ‘Not exactly. There’s no techie until tomorrow.’

  Claire said nothing for a moment, then said: ‘That’s an original place to keep your gum.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it?’ he said acidly. ‘Some moron decided that sticking it under the desk was a great idea. Now I’m going to have to cut it out.’

  ‘There are other ways,’ she replied. ‘But you might not like them. You can soak it in peanut butter for a few minutes, or cooking oil.’

  He slowly pivoted around on the chair and scowled at her. ‘Peanut butter?’

  She began to laugh. ‘Okay, I’ve got some scissors in my bag. Just don’t tell Sam that another woman has been running her hands through your hair.’

  ‘I won’t. She’s upset enough that I’ve had to cancel our meal out tonight.’

  * * *

  Gillard dropped Mulholland off at home in Staines and then in the early evening returned to the offices of HDG+ Architects for one last look at the crime scene. He climbed the stairs and found PC Yvonne Kingsland, the stocky officer who’d interviewed the tattooist, on the door to Peter Young’s office.

  ‘Relieving Niall Weston?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, he is absolutely knackered, sir. I think he’ll be back for the overnight from nine. Still, shouldn’t be too spooky for him. The body’s already been taken to the mortuary.’

  ‘Have the architects been giving you a hard time?’

  She looked over her shoulder. ‘Stu
ck-up bastard that partner “Mr Kelvin”,’ she rabbit-eared her fingers. ‘Thinks his work is more important than ours. He said Peter Young was working on some vital modification for a construction project that is already underway. Seems he literally died on the job.’ She grinned experimentally, only widening her smile when it was clear that Gillard appreciated her dark sense of humour.

  ‘I’ll go and have a word with him.’ Gillard smiled.

  ‘Actually I’m right here.’ A tall man with a dazzling kingfisher-blue shirt had emerged from an office behind them. He had a mane of silvery hair and the kind of weathered tan which has nothing to do with a bottle or a sunbed. He stuck out his hand and introduced himself. ‘Kelvin Alexander, senior partner.’

  Gillard reciprocated, and then began to explain the importance of crime scenes before being interrupted.

  ‘Look, I know it seems terribly discourteous, but as they’ve already taken Peter, I just need this tiny little favour.’ He circled finger and thumb in front of his eye. ‘There is a data stick in or around his PC with his modifications for the roof of one of our clients’ buildings in London. They are on my case about it, because they have got three enormous cranes on a daily rental of tens of thousands, not to mention the structural engineers, just waiting for us. Can I just nip in?’

  ‘No.’ Gillard held the man’s gaze. ‘Can’t have you shedding your own DNA and fingerprints in there and contaminating the crime scene.’

  ‘This is preposterous,’ he said, looking down his aquiline nose. ‘I shall speak to the chief constable. We met at the business round table last year. I’m sure your name will come up in conversation.’

  ‘Please feel free,’ Gillard responded. He was quite used to this kind of response. ‘But I can assure you in this case she will back me up completely. Nobody is to go in there until CSI has finished. Now if I was you, I’d return to your office and get on with your work. It sounds like you have plenty of it.’

  The moment that Kelvin Alexander had disappeared Yvonne Kingsland gave a little squeal of glee. ‘Well done, sir. That’s told him!’

  Chapter 3

  Saturday

  Exactly 24 hours after Peter Young was shot dead, and just over 100 yards away, all the detectives on the case were squeezed into the Khazi. With Gillard, as senior investigating officer, sat DCs Colin Hodges and Carl Hoskins, DC Michelle Tsu, CSI head Yaz Quoroshi and DI Claire Mulholland. Most were sitting on tables because of the lack of chairs.

  ‘So this is what we know,’ Gillard said, raising his voice above the drone of the extractor fan, which struggled to suck the damp from the room. ‘Peter Young, successful architect, aged 27, no obvious known enemies, was yesterday killed by two shots fired through the window sometime between 7.45 and 8.15 a.m. when he was found by the receptionist Karen Davies. Next on the scene was one of the partners, Finlay McMullen, and then our own PC Niall Weston who was passing on his way to a training course.’ He passed out a pack which included statements from all three.

  ‘As you can see, the most striking piece of evidence is that no one heard anything. Not a gunshot, not the fracture of the glass, no scream nor the sound of the body falling. Now of course there is a fair amount of traffic noise in Roosevelt Avenue at that time on a Friday morning, but it is a little surprising all the same.’

  Gillard then invited Yaz Quoroshi to describe the crime scene and ballistics evidence. ‘I think we can assume that a suppressor was fitted to the murder weapon, and with the knowledge that hollow-point rounds were used, these do point to a professional hit.’

  ‘I’m no gun expert,’ Mulholland said. ‘So what’s the relevance of hollow-point ammunition?’

  ‘I was hoping someone would ask that,’ Yaz said, ‘because I had to look it up myself.’ He repeated the effect of a hollow-point bullet on the target. ‘The curious thing about this kind of ammunition is that it has been illegal for military use since 1899, under the Hague Convention, so it even predates the Geneva Convention of 1949. This was because it would cause unnecessary suffering. However, in the UK and in many other places, it is the only kind of ammunition that can legally be used, apart from shotgun cartridges, for hunting animals.’

  ‘Okay, so it’s fine to cause unnecessary suffering to an animal,’ Michelle Tsu said.

  Yaz laughed. ‘It’s more the argument that the deformed bullet on exiting the target will not be a danger to anyone else.’

  She didn’t look impressed by the answer. Yaz continued: ‘The obvious places from which the weapon was fired are one of two flats opposite. Early investigations favour the flat above the tattoo parlour because it has better sightlines.’

  ‘Did you get any residues from a weapon there?’ Michelle asked.

  ‘No. Nor unexplained fingerprints, but that doesn’t preclude it being the location. It’s entirely possible that a professional hit man could have broken in while the occupants were at work, made his hit, cleaned up, taken his cartridges with him, and made good his escape.’

  ‘Sounds a bit James Bond,’ said Colin Hodges. ‘For bumping off an architect.’

  There was a general murmur of agreement.

  ‘That leads us neatly into the background. Claire, would you do the honours?’

  Mulholland got to her feet and directed everyone to the third and fourth pages of their documents, printed off at police HQ in Guildford as the Khazi printer was still not working. ‘The murder victim was married, with two young children, and lived in Surbiton. We know quite a lot about the last 12 or so years of Peter Young’s life since his arrival as an orphan from Kosovo. It’s a study in determination and achievement, as underlined by the description of him by his former foster parents.’

  ‘Could the missus have ordered it?’ asked Hoskins.

  ‘Too early to say,’ she replied. ‘We’re going to take a statement from her later today. She’s a speech therapist for the NHS, but seems to have been at home with the children at the time he died. We will have to check on all this, and on the family’s financial circumstances. Debts, big insurance policies, that kind of thing.’

  ‘So what do we know about the occupants of the flats?’ asked Yaz.

  Gillard got to his feet. ‘The couple who live above the tattoo parlour are Angela Dinsmore and Ryan Hardcastle. She’s clean, but he definitely isn’t. Convictions for affray and ABH. Pretty small-time really; on the other hand he left work today at noon and hasn’t been seen since. We would very much like to talk to him.’

  Saturday afternoon

  Eric and Margaret Robinson lived in a large, rambling 1930s council house on the edge of Stevenage, in the commuter belt north of London. Unlike modern-day community housing, these whitewashed homes had large gardens separated by paling fences from their neighbours. When DCI Gillard and DI Mulholland pulled up in an unmarked Ford Focus, they could see three children of various ethnic backgrounds playing in the front garden. They waited a few minutes, hoping that the promised liaison officer from Hertfordshire police would arrive, but then decided to get on with it. When Gillard opened the gate, a black girl with her hair in corn rows said: ‘Hello. Have you come to see Mum and Dad?’

  ‘Yes we have,’ Gillard responded. ‘Are they in?’

  ‘Dad is in the shed at the back, and Mum is doing some cooking,’ said a younger Asian-looking girl wearing an anorak.

  Five minutes later the two police officers were ensconced on an old and rather sagging settee in an unfashionable lounge, with mugs of coffee and a plate of biscuits on the table in front of them. Mrs Robinson had the robust physique and ruddy complexion of someone who had spent most of her life outdoors. With apple cheeks, pale-blue laughing eyes and a thick ponytail of white hair, she had a passing resemblance to a female Santa. Her husband, wearing old-fashioned trousers with braces over a tartan shirt, came in to join them. He was drying his hands on a tea towel.

  ‘So what is this about Peter?’ Eric said as he sat down.

  ‘I’m very sorry to have to give you some bad news,’ Mulholland
began.

  They looked almost paralysed with fear. ‘Has something happened to him?’ Eric asked. Margaret had her hands over the bottom of her face, in preparation for something horrible.

  At that moment a blond boy of about seven burst into the room, breathlessly. ‘Mum, Mum. I found a frog under the tree.’

  Margaret turned a beaming smile on him. ‘That’s wonderful, Martin. You go out now, find a bucket to put him in. I’ll join you in half an hour. Tell the others to stay outside and not come in. Would you do that?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, only now noticing the two strangers on the sofa, and eyeing them suspiciously. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  ‘We’ve just come to talk to your mum and dad,’ Mulholland said, smiling.

  ‘Run along now,’ Eric said, waving the boy away.

  When the room had regained its calm, Gillard spoke: ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you that Peter Young was today found dead at his place of work.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Margaret exclaimed. ‘How? What happened?’

  ‘He wasn’t even 30,’ said Eric, putting a consoling arm around his wife’s shoulders.

  ‘We are still examining the circumstances of his death,’ Gillard said, ‘but we think it only fair to tell you, since you will probably read about it in the papers, that he was shot.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have felt a thing,’ Mulholland added. She and Gillard waited through the first few minutes of tears from Margaret, and open-mouthed shock on the face of Eric. They embraced without embarrassment, her head against his neck, her tearful shudders stilled by his comforting hand stroking her. Half an hour later, after more coffee, some cake and at least two high-speed visits from excited children with urgent news on frogs, Gillard was able to ask some gentle questions.

  ‘I understand that you looked after Peter as soon as he came to this country. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Margaret, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. ‘He was just 15. We were only meant to be temporary foster parents. We were normally given the new arrivals, to bed them in, sort of thing.’