The Disciple

‘Your name, sir?’ asked Hudson, swinging around, preparing to take an interest for the first time.

‘Sowerby. Dave Sowerby.’

‘Do you recognise the man, Mr Sowerby?’ asked Grant.

Sowerby concentrated fiercely on the photograph. ‘No,’ he said after a few moments of unconvincing deliberation. He handed back the photograph, returning his attention to the reception desk and fiddling with some papers as if to imply a heavy workload.

‘Mmmm.’ Hudson wandered off to the front door but neither he nor Grant made any attempt to leave. After a minute, Hudson ambled back to the desk, picked up the local newspaper from under a stack of documents and jabbed a finger at the picture of Tony Harvey-Ellis, smiling on the front page. ‘Perhaps this is a better likeness, Mr Sowerby?’

‘Is that the guy?’ said Sowerby, hardly bothering to look.

‘That’s him,’ said Hudson. ‘His name is Tony Harvey-Ellis. But then you knew that because he stayed here Saturday night. Mr Harvey-Ellis drowned in the early hours of Sunday morning. The picture we showed you was taken at the mortuary.’

‘Most people who see a picture of a dead body tend to react in some way,’ added Grant, smiling coldly.

‘You, on the other hand, didn’t react at all, sir. Now why might that be?’

Sowerby tried to look Hudson in the eye but couldn’t hold on. ‘I didn’t realise …’

‘You didn’t realise how important my time is, did you?’

‘I … I …’

‘You didn’t realise that I get very pissed off when someone wastes my time when I’m investigating a suspicious death …’

His words had the desired effect and Sowerby’s eyes widened. ‘Suspicious!’ he said, agitated. ‘It doesn’t say anything in the papers about suspicious. It says he drowned.’

‘You calling me a liar now, sonny?’ said Hudson, fixing Sowerby with a cruel glare.

‘No, no.’ Sowerby raised his hands in pacification.

‘Cuff him, Sergeant. I don’t like this dump. We’ll do this at the station …’ Hudson turned and began to saunter away. Grant made no attempt to reach for the handcuffs.

‘Wait! Just hang on …’ pleaded Sowerby to Hudson’s retreating back. ‘I’ve got a business to run.’

‘Guv,’ said Grant. ‘Give him a minute. I think Mr Sowerby wants to help.’ She turned back to Sowerby. ‘Don’t you, sir?’

‘I do. I didn’t realise …’

Hudson stopped at the front door but didn’t turn around. There was a brief silence as Grant considered how best to continue. ‘Maybe Mr Sowerby was just trying to protect a valued client.’

Sowerby looked from Hudson to Grant and nodded eagerly. ‘That’s it, a valued client – a regular.’

‘I mean, we can understand that, can’t we, guv?’ continued Grant. ‘He was just being … discreet.’ Sowerby continued to nod eagerly and looked with hope towards Hudson’s back. ‘I mean, we’d want the same discretion if we stayed at a hotel, guv. Wouldn’t we?’

Hudson turned now, his lips pursed. ‘I suppose,’ he conceded eventually and padded back towards the bureau. ‘All right, we’re listening.’

Grant nodded and smiled encouragement at Sowerby, who wasted no further time. ‘Mr H is … was,’ he corrected himself, ‘a regular. He had an understanding that we’d turn a blind eye. You know …’ He looked encouragingly at Grant.

‘Discretion,’ she obliged.

‘That’s it. Discretion. He was married, see …’

‘No?’ said Grant.

‘He was. But he had a right eye for a pretty girl. And he always paid cash, you know,’ added Sowerby enthusiastically, before suddenly realising he’d said the wrong thing. ‘Not that I don’t …’

Hudson held up his hand. ‘Any particular pretty girl this last time?’

‘Well, he had more than one but this weekend it was the usual.’ ‘Usual?’

‘Yeah, the one he’d brought here a few times. Very pretty. Brown hair. Slim but not …’ Sowerby darted a glance at Grant, who raised an eyebrow ‘…not flat.’ Hudson now had to douse down a smirk. ‘And, of course…’ Sowerby now stopped himself, beginning to look uncomfortable.

‘Go on,’ prompted Hudson.

‘…young,’ said Sowerby quietly. ‘They were always very young.’ Hudson and Grant faced Sowerby in silence, well-versed in tightening the screw. ‘Not that I had any reason to think they were … you know … illegal.’ He stared down at the floor to see how far he’d dug himself in.

‘Then why think they might be?’

‘The usual one. The first time he brung her in was a couple of years ago…’ Sowerby stalled over the words. Hudson and Grant waited, knowing it would come ‘…And she’d tried to dress up normal but I could see…’

‘See what?’

‘She had one of those sweatshirts on.’

‘Sweatshirts?’

‘You know. You see them all over town. It was one of them from the posh school. Part of their uniform. Badge and all.’

Jason’s limbs were screaming in pain. He decided he couldn’t sit it out any longer. His pursuer had either given up or taken the wrong path. So, with daylight beginning to creep across the horizon, Jason clambered back onto the path, standing as upright as he could manage. He rubbed his back until the noise of a breaking twig froze his entire frame. Slowly Jason turned. The man was standing ten yards away, facing him, perfectly still, perfectly unruffled. Jason tried to see his face but it was completely obscured by the balaclava. Through the hot tears distorting his vision, Jason could see the man’s breath as it hit the morning air. But unlike Jason, he wasn’t panting with fear or looking round for help.

A second later the man moved towards Jason. In a black, gloved hand, raised to catch the dawn light, Jason fancied he saw the glint of a blade through his tears. He began to sob violently and his shoulders shook. He looked around to plot his escape but, instead of turning to flee, Jason’s legs crumpled and his knees hit the ground. Wailing, he curled himself into a ball as the man walked towards him and inclined his head to look down at him.

‘I told you. I’m sorry we did the old woman,’ he wailed. ‘I’m sorry about the cat.’ The figure bent down on one knee to examine Jason. ‘I’m sorry about everything. Please don’t kill me. Please. I’ll remember. I can be good. Please…’ Jason’s voice became a high-pitched whine as his emotions and any semblance of physical control disintegrated.

Jason had no idea how long he’d been unconscious but by the time he woke dawn had turned into a bright chill morning. Birds were singing and the low sun was beginning to burn off the dew. He lifted himself onto one elbow and looked around. The man had gone. Jason stood, grimacing at the squelch of excrement and urine in his trousers, and turned to waddle home, eyes lowered to the ground in misery.

Chapter Two

Hudson rolled his greasy fish-and-chip paper into a tight ball and threw it at the bin next to their bench. It fell short and a couple of seagulls standing guard on the seawall railing glided down to investigate. Hudson stood to pick up the offending litter then jammed it into the bin – to loud dismay from the gulls – and sat back down, squinting into the pale sun. He pulled out his cigarettes and threw one in his mouth. After taking a man-sized pull he exhaled into a Styrofoam cup, taking a large gulp of coffee before returning it to the bench.

Laura Grant had long since finished her tortilla wrap and now had her pen poised over a notebook, listing the tasks that Hudson deemed fit for the two DCs, Rimmer and Crouch, assigned to help them with the legwork, now that Tony Harvey-Ellis’s death was being treated as murder.

‘Anything else, guv?’

‘I guess we pay a call to Hall Gordon PR. Find out if Harvey-Ellis had any enemies they’d know about. Put that at the top of our list.’

Grant raised her eyebrows and fixed him with her cool blue eyes.

‘You honestly think it’s possible?’ asked Hudson. ‘The daughter?’

‘Stepdaughter,’ said Grant. ‘Harvey-Ellis wasn’t her real dad.’ ‘But he was married to her real mum.’

‘Remember what she said when we first broke the news, guv. Someone we loved. It jarred at the time.’

‘She fits the description, I suppose. Right age, right hair,’ conceded Hudson.

‘And Tony and Amy had only been married four years.’

‘Is that significant?’

‘Well, let’s assume Tony and Amy knew each other for at least a year before they married. That means Terri’s known him for about five years. Terri is seventeen now which makes her around twelve when Tony and Amy first meet, thirteen when they get hitched.’

‘So?’

‘You’ve got two grown-up kids, guv. What were the most difficult years? Early teens, right?’

‘By a country mile.’

‘Right. Terri’s a seventeen-year-old girl who’s known her stepfather – the man who replaced her real father – since she was a teenager, before even. Now I don’t know how many people you know with stepmums and dads…’

‘Not many. Different generation. We had to grin and bear it.’

‘Well, I know three. Two of them hated their stepparent with a vengeance. I mean, hated. Enough to wish they would just die for breaking up the cosy family unit.’

‘And the third?’

‘They had an affair,’ said Grant. Hudson pulled a face. ‘There are no half measures with this sort of thing, guv.’

‘It’s a bit of a reach, Laura. But it’s easy enough to check all the same. Crouchy’s on the car park cameras to see if it was the girlfriend who dumped Tony’s luggage. So get Rimmer to sniff out a picture of Terri for that lowlife Sowerby to take a peek at, see if she’s “the usual”. Better yet, have him get a picture of her from school.’ Hudson smiled. ‘She might be wearing the same school uniform he saw her in.’

‘Will do.’

‘If this pans out and the girl has been having it off with her stepfather, it opens up all sorts of avenues. With Harvey-Ellis porking his wife and daughter,’ he said, with a glance at Grant to see if she was offended, ‘it brings the mother into the equation.’

‘Hell hath no fury,’ nodded Grant, ignoring her colleague’s choice of language. She knew from experience that he enjoyed proving female coppers were oversensitive. She thought for a moment. ‘Or maybe the mother knows and doesn’t mind.’

‘How could the mother not mind?’ said Hudson.

‘Maybe she knows but she doesn’t know. Knowing tears her life apart. She loses husband and daughter. But if she blinds herself, she’s a happily married mother – if that makes sense.’

‘Female logic?’ Now it was Grant’s turn to pull a face and Hudson, with a guilty laugh, held up his hand. ‘Okay, I know what you mean. She blocks it out.’ He squirrelled a glance at her. ‘Thank God you’re not one of those lesbian ballbreakers they’ve got up in the smoke, Laura.’

‘How do you know I’m not?’

Hudson laughed. ‘Because you’re a top girl, Laura. A top girl.’ Grant raised a cautionary eyebrow, but couldn’t resist a smile and Hudson laughed. ‘Roll on next year, when I can collect my pension and piss off to Jurassic Park with all the other dinosaurs, eh?’

‘Amen to that, guv.’

Jason Wallis lay on his bed and stared up at the ceiling, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, feeling only the dry distortion of old tear tracks on his cheeks. He’d woken up a couple of hours previously but hadn’t moved at all.

The house was quiet now. His aunt was in bed resting before her next shift and baby Bianca had finally fallen asleep after her lunch of chips and beans. Thankfully his aunt hadn’t returned until half an hour after Jason had waddled home, soiled and scarred by his ordeal. He’d had time to bung his fouled clothing into the washer and set it going before showering and retreating to his room in shame and terror, once more pulling the chest of drawers across his door for safety. He’d collapsed into bed and lost consciousness almost at once – to call it sleep would have implied rest – and had woken with a start some time later, a film of sweat covering every millimetre of his skin. He’d sobbed quietly for the rest of the afternoon before finally succumbing to something approaching sleep.

When he woke again, he was surprised to discover waking didn’t involve panting and clutching at his throat. He merely opened his eyes gently and looked towards the window. The sun was beginning to set and Jason’s tight belly had begun to growl. Footsteps approached his door, followed by a soft knocking.

‘Jason?’ his aunt asked. ‘You in there?’ She knocked again. Still no answer from Jason who continued to lay mute, eyes burning into the ceiling. Finally his aunt tried the door but the chest of drawers prevented entry. ‘What are you doing, Jason? You better not be taking drugs, you little shit!’ She rattled the door but couldn’t shift the chest. ‘Let me in.’

Jason sat up. Necessity required a response. ‘I’m not. Don’t worry, Auntie. I’m all right.’

‘You sure you’re not doing drugs?’

‘You’re doing my head in. I’m okay, I tell you. What is it?’

His aunt hesitated, then, no doubt mindful of the time, said, ‘I’m off to work. There’s a chicken pie in the microwave for you and I’ve put your washing on the radiators.’

‘Cheers.’

‘If Bianca wakes up, let her watch cartoons. But make sure you put her to bed before seven. Got that?’ No reply. ‘Got that?’ she repeated.

‘I’ve got it,’ Jason replied, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice.

‘You sure you’re all right, Jason?’

‘Oh my days, I’m all right.’ Jason’s aunt’s grunted and her footsteps receded along the landing. A moment later the stairs began to complain under the assault from her hefty frame. The front door slammed, her car coughed into life and Jason heaved a sigh of relief. He closed his eyes and a tear squeezed onto his cheek.

‘I’m all right,’ he muttered. ‘I’m all right.’

Hudson prepared a sly cigarette as Grant fired up the computer. Although she disapproved of him flouting the smoking ban so brazenly, she was disinclined to make an issue out of it.

There was a knock on the door and DCs Jimmy Crouch and Phil Rimmer came in without waiting for an answer. Hudson’s cigarette hand moved from behind his back and returned to his mouth when he saw it wasn’t the Chief Super. ‘Take a seat.’

Rimmer, a tall and well-muscled thirty-year-old with short blond hair and handsome features, and Crouch, a smaller and broader man with thickset features and wavy black hair, pulled up chairs. Both were holding large envelopes.

Hudson moved over to a board where a large close-up of the late Tony Harvey-Ellis, face slackened and eyes closed, was pinned.

‘Let’s get started.’ He pulled out his notebook from a pile of papers on the desk and flipped it open. ‘This is our victim. Tony Harvey-Ellis, wealthy local businessman and ladies’ man. As you know, Harvey-Ellis died in the early hours of Sunday morning sometime between 4 and 6 am, having left the Duchess Hotel to go for a run. His running shoes and kit were found on the beach, just past the West Pier. His body, however, was carried nearly a mile further down the seafront and was washed ashore just off Madeira Drive.

‘According to the pathologist he drowned after being drugged or, more accurately, poisoned, with a mixture of…’ Hudson broke off to peer at the preliminary forensic report pinned under Tony’s face ‘…scopolamine and morphine. The assailant injected Tony with the drugs, rendering him incapable of defending himself. He was completely docile within minutes and unable to resist when the killer helped him out of his clothes and into the sea where, suffering from muscular paralysis, he drowned. Laura.’

The two detective constables switched their gaze to DS Grant, who took up the reins. ‘As you know, his car was found in Preston Street NCP unlocked and with his luggage inside. It seems Tony had driven back to Brighton from London where he’d been at a conference and parked in Preston Street on Saturday around lunchtime…’

‘14.07,’ beamed Hudson.

‘14.07,’ echoed Grant, with barely a glance at him. ‘At this point he was alone so it’s reasonable to assume that the girl he was meeting is from the local area, although it’s possible he might have already dropped her off at the hotel in nearby Waterloo Street. Either way he’s booked a double room…’

‘I thought he lived locally,’ said Rimmer.

‘He lives locally with his wife, Phil,’ interjected Hudson. ‘Out near Falmer. But Tony is what we used to call a shagger.’

The two DCs smiled and nodded; Grant shook her head in mock disapproval. ‘Or a “ladies’ man” to anyone under sixty, although his taste seems to run to young girls,’ she continued, addressing Rimmer and Crouch. ‘Not very young,’ she added, ‘but borderline legal.’

Rimmer took this as his cue. ‘Theresa Brook goes to Roedean. She’s in sixth form now studying English and Media Studies – very bright apparently. The school won’t give us a picture though. Not without written authority from the Chief Super. They’re afraid of paedos.’

‘We may not need it, guv,’ interrupted Crouch. He pulled a black and white A4 photocopy from his envelope. It was divided into four smaller squares each containing a distinct image. ‘This is from the NCP on Sunday morning. The girl in this picture carried a case identical to the one we found in the car.’ He passed it round. ‘See, she’s even got a suit wrapped in plastic over her arm. Now we haven’t got her putting the case and suit in the car, but Forensics have lifted two sets of prints from the car and the case. One set belongs to the victim. Likely the other belongs to her.’

Hudson gazed at the picture of Terri Brook struggling under the weight of the luggage and nodded at Grant. ‘You were right, Laura.’

‘Is this our killer, guv?’ asked Crouch eagerly. ‘Not yet,’ replied Hudson. ‘For now she’s just someone with something to hide.’

‘Like what, guv?’ asked Rimmer.

‘This is Terri Brook, the victim’s stepdaughter,’ said Grant. The two DCs nodded with the gravity of it all but still risked a ribald glance at one another. ‘We can now surmise that Harvey-Ellis spent the night with his seventeen-year-old stepdaughter. Jimmy, show this picture to the landlord at the Duchess, a Mr Sowerby, to confirm.’ Crouch made a note.

Hudson crushed his lit cigarette between his yellowed fingers, sending sparks to the floor, then placed the tab in a drawer and strolled over to the window. ‘Terri Brook was probably the last person to see the victim alive and now, seen cleaning up after the fact, she has to be a viable suspect.’ Hudson’s voice trailed off and he put his hand to his chin and tapped it with his fingers, a mannerism Grant recognised as a sign that he was perplexed by something.

‘Guv?’

Hudson roused himself and turned to face Rimmer and Crouch. ‘What else have you got, fellas?’

‘Forensics are looking at the victim’s running gear from the beach,’ said Rimmer. ‘They found traces of fresh semen on his tracksuit so it looks like the victim had sex before he went for his run. It’s possible his partner’s DNA will be present. They’re following it up asap.’

‘Jimmy?’

‘Preliminary findings on the victim’s room at The Duchess aren’t good. The room was cleaned and another couple had already stayed there. The techs aren’t hopeful. Anything they find is likely to be compromised.’

‘All right. This is what I want. Continue chasing up appropriate CCTV if there is any. Concentrate on where Tony’s clothes were found. That’s where he was attacked. That’s the one place we know his killer was. On that basis, organise as much uniform as you can and go door to door around that area. I want witnesses, whether they saw or just heard something. Why aren’t you writing this down?’ Rimmer hastily started scribbling.

‘Anything else, guv?’ he asked a moment later.

‘Yeah. Parking tickets. You can’t stand still in roller skates without getting one on the sea front so check details for the week before within a half-mile radius of the Duchess. Our killer seems to know his way about.’

‘He?’ asked Grant with a raised eyebrow.

‘Figure of speech,’ answered Hudson, not looking at her.

‘Should I follow up on the school picture, guv?’ ventured Rimmer.

‘No. Forget it.’ Hudson inclined his head. Crouch and Rimmer took the hint, stood up and left.

After a suitable pause spent watching Hudson pace the room, Grant returned her attention to the computer, keying in her ID when prompted. While she waited for recognition she looked up.

‘Guv?’

‘It’s all wrong, Laura.’

‘What is?’

‘We’ve got two halves of a crime that don’t fit together. This girl Terri…’

‘Are we bringing her in?’

Hudson turned to her. ‘Tell me why we should.’

‘We have it from Sowerby and the CCTV. She cleared out the room she and Tony were staying in. Guilty conscience right there.’

‘She’s having an affair with her stepfather, maybe since she was fifteen. Anything else?’

‘There isn’t anything else, guv. That’s why we should bring her in.’

Hudson paused, seeking the right words. His face cleared when he found them. ‘Did she kill her stepfather?’

Now it was Grant’s turn to think. ‘Poisoning is a woman’s crime,’ she said. Hudson waited. ‘There may be a motive we don’t know about,’ she ploughed on. ‘She may have found out there were other girls.’ Hudson said nothing. ‘Okay, guv. Honestly, I can’t see her as the killer.’

‘Why not?’

‘She’d need sophisticated medical or pharmaceutical knowledge for a start.’

Hudson smiled at her. ‘As opposed to English and Media Studies.’

‘But she’s a bright girl, guv. She may have made the effort. There’s always the internet.’

‘It’s just the way Harvey-Ellis was killed, Laura. It was so cold and…’

‘And professional?’ Grant ventured.

‘Exactly. I’ve seen a lot of domestics, I’m sure you have. And I saw Terri and her mother. They were in pieces. If either of them had killed Tony, it would have been a crime of passion. If someone had shot him six times in bed, I’d be looking at them. If someone had taken a baseball bat to him while he slept, I’d be looking at them. If someone had chopped off his knackers…’

‘All right, guv, I get it.’

‘And if Terri had done any of those things I could accept that in the heat of the moment she might get her prints all over the evidence and her mugshot on camera. But someone managed to get the better of Harvey-Ellis while he was pumped up with adrenaline – a fit rugby-playing forty-three-year-old. Someone was waiting for him. And when they got the chance there was no hesitation. This was planned and executed by somebody far more ruthless than a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl.’

‘So what now?’ asked Grant, breaking off to answer a prompt from the computer. She hit the return key, typed in the words ‘scopolamine’ and ‘morphine’ from her notebook and returned her attention to Hudson.

‘We speak to her to sign off on the details, but we treat her as a witness. Maybe she saw something; maybe she knows who might have wanted Tony dead. Unlikely, I know. Also, if we’re treating the murder as professional then first we go to his profession…’

‘Oh Jesus!’ exclaimed Grant, staring intently at the monitor.

‘What?’

Grant flipped the monitor round. ‘The MO, guv. It’s The Reaper.’

Laura Grant drove up the shady, tree-lined drive to a large whitewashed house. She parked outside what looked like the main entrance and killed the engine.