I told Brook. He knows. Didn’t he tell you? Is it the cat? That was Banger’s idea. I didn’t want none of it. It weren’t me …’
Jason began to whimper quietly but stopped at the sound of tinny music leaking out of the front room. He leapt to pick up his mobile and looked at the display. He had a text from an unknown number. Jason pressed a key and read the text.
You’re next.
Jason let his hand fall and began to sob again. Then he lifted his phone once more and dialled the source of the text. It was picked up on the first ring. No one spoke.
‘I said I’m sorry. Okay? I’m sorry. What do you want from me?’ No answer. Then the noise of breaking glass in stereo. In his right ear on the phone. In his left ear from the kitchen at the back of the house. Jason lowered the phone and turned towards the gloom of the hallway. He bolted to the stairs and sprinted back up them, not daring to glance towards the dark kitchen.
At the top of the stairs, he turned and ran towards his bedroom again. It flashed through his mind that perhaps he should grab little Bianca to keep her safe, but he decided he didn’t have time. She’d have to take her chances.
Jason shut the bedroom door and pulled a chest of drawers across it. He yanked back the curtains and opened the window. Immediately the cool spray of rain hit his face, soothing him. He looked down into the gloom of the overgrown front garden, at the billowing privet hedge that his aunt had been nagging him to trim, glad now that she’d refused to pay him and it had been left untended. If necessary, if he had to jump, Jason was confident it would break his fall. Now all he could do was wait. He clutched his phone and pondered ringing the police but, before he could decide, the handle of the bedroom door turned. After a couple of increasingly urgent turns, it began to reverberate under the shoulder of the intruder.
Jason took a huge gulp of air and balanced himself on the sill. The door crashed again and the chest of drawers began to shift. His eyes closed, Jason launched himself into the void.
A couple of seconds later, he felt the breath leave his body as he hit the privet. He could feel his skin begin to tear from dozens of tiny scratches but felt himself come to a near stop, cushioned by the hedge’s volume. Under Jason’s weight, the hedge began to topple but he was able to cling on by grabbing a few flailing branches. He used their movement to land his feet on the pavement of Station Road.
Jason quickly righted himself. He looked down at his right hand. Incredibly his mobile was still in his palm. The display was lit. Another message.
Behind you.
Before Jason could turn he felt a hand grab his damp hair and pull back his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the glint of a blade lifting towards his left ear, then a short, sharp pain as a hand pulled heavily across his throat …
Detective Sergeant Laura Grant walked unsteadily across the beach. A combination of the shifting shingle and the need to hold the two Styrofoam cups of coffee steady caused her to stumble as she picked her way towards the small huddle gathered around the tarpaulin-covered body spreadeagled by the sea’s edge.
Scene of Crime Officers swarmed around the body, working with uncommon haste before the elements returned to launder the evidence. Some took pictures, some dug in the sand with trowels looking for non-existent artefacts, others combed hair and bagged hands.
Grant rubbed her eyes as she walked. She’d only just returned to work after her sick leave, and though she felt the unscheduled bout of exercise was beneficial, the unexpected glare of the low sun certainly wasn’t.
Trying not to stare ghoulishly towards the tarpaulin, she reached the hastily erected police tape and bobbed under with some difficulty as Dr Hubbard, the most senior forensic pathologist in Sussex, re-covered the body and rose from his haunches to speak to Detective Chief Inspector Joshua Hudson.
‘White male, forty-ish. He’s been dead no more than eight hours and no less than six, I’d say.’
Hudson looked at his watch. ‘Which would mean he drowned between four and six this morning,’ he said, sweeping back his thick grey hair with a tobacco-stained hand. ‘Early bird, eh?’
‘Or very late, Chief Inspector. Depends on your point of view. It is the weekend. And please don’t pre-empt my findings on COD.’
‘He didn’t drown?’
‘It’s difficult to say definitively at this moment, Chief Inspector. I like to keep an open mind.’
‘Fine. He probably drowned,’ prompted Hudson, lighting up a cigarette and ignoring the reproachful glance of one of the SOCOs.
‘Probably. But it’s not exactly Cape Horn round here,’ observed Hubbard, surveying the calm sea. ‘And he’s wearing boxers, not swimming shorts, so he wasn’t planning a dip.’
‘A lot of them aren’t, Doc, until they’ve had a dozen Breezers and God knows how many tequila slammers.’
Laura Grant held out a cup of white froth towards Hudson.
‘True. But he’s fit for his age. Powerful legs – though not from swimming.’
There was a hint of smugness at that and Grant squinted up at the doctor for further explanation.
Hudson, however, had missed it. ‘These things happen to the fittest people, Doc,’ he said and took his coffee with a brief wink at Grant and a quick ‘Cheers, darlin’’. Grant glanced up at the two uniformed officers on crowd control. PCs Wong and West both gave her a sly grin to provoke a reaction to her first ‘luv’, ‘sweetie’ or ‘darlin’’ of the day but Grant maintained the face of a stoic.
‘Still …’
‘Look, doc, he’s got shorts on. He went in the water and I’m ruling out a shark attack,’ said Hudson. Grant and the two uniformed officers exchanged an amused glance. Even one of the normally taciturn SOCOs managed a smile. ‘So just tell me he went for a swim and drowned so we can all go home.’
‘There is some trauma to the head,’ replied Hubbard.
‘Probably from a boat.’
‘Even so, I’ll need to examine the wound to find traces of boat.’
‘What about his watch?’ asked Grant, deciding it was time to pretend she was a functioning police officer. They all looked at the dead man’s wrist.
‘What about it?’
‘Looks expensive, guv. If it’s waterproof he might have gone for a dip voluntarily. But if it’s not he would have taken it off. Unless …’ she said with a tilt of her head for emphasis.
‘… unless he was murdered,’ nodded Hudson, kneeling to look at it. ‘12.05. Sorry, luv – waterproof.’
Grant shrugged her shoulders. ‘Doesn’t mean he didn’t commit suicide, guv.’
‘Suicide? How about it, Doc?’
‘I’ll say it again, I’m ruling nothing out. If you found his clothes …’
Hudson looked at Grant. ‘We’re on it,’ she said. ‘We’ve got uniform following the tide back. Maybe he left his ID …’
‘A suicide note would be better,’ added Hudson. ‘You’ll do a tox kit on him?’ he asked Hubbard, who rolled his eyes. ‘Bloody tourists. Why can’t they die at home?’
‘Oh, he’s not a tourist, Inspector!’ the doctor interjected.
Grant and Hudson turned to him, impressed.
‘How can you tell that?’ asked Grant, half-expecting some labyrinthine Sherlock Holmes monograph on ‘The Identification of Tourists’.
The good doctor permitted himself a satisfied smirk at the sudden attention.