‘Will do.’ Minter went to head back to his desk.

  ‘Oh, one more thing…’ Boyd said.

  ‘Boss?’ Minter said, turning back.

  ‘You coming down to the pier after work for Friday beers?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Minter replied. ‘Why?’

  ‘Great.’ Boyd winked. ‘I’ve got a bit of good news for you.’

  13

  O’Neal watched Magnusson inching around the edges of the storage unit in a squat, aiming her UV light up and down the corrugated iron walls. Even huddled over, she looked large in this small space. Not overweight large, but large as in a wrongly scaled figurine placed in a diorama: a PlayMobile character roped in to join a Lego playset. She was scanning for droplets of blood on the lower walls and floor, or other bodily fluids… ‘Who knows what a psycho gets off on when no one’s looking,’ she’d explained.

  The single bulb in the low ceiling was off and the only illumination – her UV torch – was casting wild looming shadows around the small space.

  ‘Hmmm,’ she muttered. ‘It certainly doesn’t seem like any chopping was done in here. Which makes sense.’

  ‘So it was done elsewhere and then the crates brought in?’ asked O’Neal.

  ‘Indeed. The chopping would have been very noisy and very messy. Dr Palmer guessed that the older bodies might have been in these crates for ten to fifteen years. But you know, O’Neal… it’s quite likely that the bodies would have been sealed in the crates before they were brought here. They could have been sitting in someone’s spare bedroom or garden shed a few years before they ended up here.’

  ‘Nice,’ said O’Neal.

  Magnusson completed her shuffling inspection, stood up, then switched on the overhead bulb. ‘Well, that’s the UV pass done. Now then, let’s take a closer look at these ’ere crates.’

  She dropped down to a squat again, delved into her equipment bag and produced a dusting kit. She looked up at him. ‘When was the last time you dusted for prints, O’Neal?’

  It was ages ago. He’d been on a taster course just after he’d joined the force. ‘About four years ago, I reckon.’

  ‘Not since?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s what we’ve got you lot for,’ he replied.

  Magnusson tutted. ‘It’s always good to keep your skills up to date.’ She surveyed the

  plastic storage crates. There were twelve of them, four to store each body. They’d started out as three tidy stacks of four; now they were spread out across the floor, most still half-filled with salt.

  ‘They’re too large to fit in a fuming chamber,’ she said, ‘so we’ll have to dust. What’s the first rule of dusting, O’Neal?’

  The detective constable cast his mind back and came up with a blank.

  ‘Identify the most useful contact points,’ she answered for him. ‘Which would be…?’

  O’Neal looked at the nearest crate. ‘The red lifting handles?’

  She smiled. ‘A sensible guess. But wrong. Our killer would most likely have been wearing gloves.’

  He looked again. The lid was off and leaning against the crate that it had been removed from. ‘The lid?’

  ‘Same answer,’ she replied. ‘Try again.’

  The crates had all been sealed with a strip of masking tape running around the edge of the lid to create an air-tight seal, presumably to prevent any foul odours from escaping.

  ‘The masking tape?’

  ‘Good boy,’ she said, grinning. ‘Have you ever tried working with a roll of tape with a pair of gloves on?’ She pulled a roll of Sellotape out of her kitbag and tossed it to him. ‘It’s a nightmare constantly trying to find and re-find the start of the tape, correct? You’ve got to feel for the wretched thing with the tips of your fingers, or your nails if you’re not a chewer.’

  He ran his thumbnail around the tape until it finally caught and found the leading edge of the tape. ‘So, the killer’s gloves might have come off to do the taping?’

  She nodded. ‘That’s where I’d make a start.’ She pulled out her dusting kit: charcoal dust, fingerprint-lifting tape and a large brush with a coral pink handle. She noticed him staring at it. ‘It’s a make-up brush, far better than the ones that come with the standard-issue kit. Let’s get started, shall we?’

  O’Neal was keen. It was gone four in the afternoon and it would probably be gone six before they’d returned to the station and logged any lifted prints. The siren call of ‘Thank fuck it’s Friday’ was summoning him.

  ‘Let’s move the crates beneath this light,’ she said, nodding up at the bulb.

  He bent down to pick up the first crate, grabbing the red handles in his gloved hands. It was heavy, still being half full with grit. He grunted with the effort as he lifted it from the floor and shuffled over with it and set it down.

  Magnusson got busy with her kit as he turned to pick up the next crate. It was then that he noticed it… lying within the dust and grit-free footprint marking where the crate had been standing in darkness for the last eleven years.

  ‘Did you bring a takeaway coffee in here with you yesterday?’ he asked.

  ‘Hmm?’ she replied, distracted with setting her kit out.

  ‘A takeaway coffee?’

  She looked up at him and then followed his gaze. A paper cap, crushed like Wile E. Coyote beneath an Acme anvil, lay perfectly flat on the floor where the crate had been.

  Boyd brought the tray of drinks up to the Bier Garden’s rooftop area. It was busy this evening; every wooden table was occupied by after-work drinkers – a good proportion of them from Hastings police station. He offered a polite nod to DCI Flack at another table, surrounded by his Operation Rosper team. It looked as though they were celebrating something, a birthday, a drugs bust… or simply that it was the end of the working week.

  ‘Here you go, kids,’ he said, setting the tray down. Okeke, Minter and Warren helped themselves.

  ‘No Jay?’ he asked Okeke.

  She shook her head. ‘He’s working late. He might join us later.’

  Boyd smiled. ‘On some covert op, is he?’

  She shrugged. ‘I presume so. He says he can’t tell me anything. Client confidentiality,’ she added, laughing.

  Boyd eased his leg over the bench, wincing with the effort and sat down. ‘He’s taking it very seriously, then.’

  ‘Very. I reckon he thinks he’s been recruited by MI5.’ Okeke pulled open a bag of crisps. ‘No Charlotte, guv?’

  ‘Not tonight. We’re taking Emma out to the Pump House later.’ He checked his watch. ‘One pint and I’m going to have to love you and leave you.’

  Minter took a sip of his beer. ‘So, boss… what’s this bit of good news you’ve got?’

  Bugger. He’d been hoping to catch Minter alone to share it. ‘Fox has put in for a transfer to Brighton. Which means there’s a slot to fill,’ he said.

  Minter froze, pint in hand, mouth open, brows raised with hopeful anticipation.

  Boyd hesitated for a moment, enjoying the look on his face. ‘I discussed it with Sutherland and I’ve put you forward to go up to DI.’

  ‘You are shitting me, boss!’ Minter replied.

  ‘And Okeke to DS,’ Boyd added, glancing at Warren, who looked both surprised and a tad disappointed.

  Minter turned to Okeke to clink his pint glass with hers. ‘Congratulations, Detective Sergeant Okeke.’

  Okeke clinked his glass and smiled. ‘And up yours, Detective Inspector Minter.’

  Warren lifted his glass to them. ‘Congratulations, both of you.’

  Boyd nudged Warren’s arm. ‘Your time will come soon enough.’

  Warren nodded mutely. Boyd realised the lad had been hopeful for a minute there and now – dammit – Boyd felt like a shopping-centre Santa Claus having handed out the last present in his sack.

  14

  Boyd woke to the delightful sound of Emma puking in the bathroom down the hallway. He could hear her heaving and spitting, heaving and spitting, followed by a long, frustrated groan.

  He had a flashback to her as a child: the tips of her long mousy brown hair spotted with regurgitated cake as she dangled her head over the toilet bowl in a play-barn cubicle. It had been her sixth birthday party. There had been cake and a kids’ buffet at a soft-adventure centre and the excitement of that, combined with all her school friends arriving with gifts, had resulted in an embarrassing tsunami at one end of the birthday table and a frantic rush to the toilets with Emma under one arm.

  He decided to go and sit with her, as he had back then (while Julia had the unenviable task of wrapping the party up and apologising to the other mothers). He winced as he sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

  ‘Poor girl,’ muttered Charlotte, still half asleep. ‘It’s not a lot of fun… baking a bun.’

  He padded barefoot across the floorboards into the hallway and tapped his knuckles gently on the bathroom door.

  ‘Is it okay to come in?’ he asked.

  Emma grunted.

  He entered to find her sitting on the floor beside the bowl, arms cradling her three-month bump, legs drawn up and head resting pitifully on the seat.

  ‘You look a sight,’ he said as he sat on the rim of the bath beside her. ‘Morning sickness?’

  She raised her head to look at him. ‘You think?’

  He ran his hand over her damp forehead as he had done years ago. ‘It should be easing off now, though, right?’ he asked.

  She shrugged. ‘I googled it… It can last into the second trimester…’ She spat into the toilet bowl. ‘For the lucky few.’

  He stroked her back as she dipped her head down to rest on the seat again. ‘I saw Dan last night,’ she muttered.

  ‘Really?’ Boyd thought that Dan had given up his job in the Pump House. His band was making enough money with various downloads and streams, and the bar work was no longer a necessity.

  ‘He was there as a patron, not pulling pints,’ she added, guessing his thoughts.

  ‘I didn’t see him. Did you speak to him?’ he asked.

  ‘Briefly.’ She lifted her head and ran a hand through her hair to tame it out of the way. ‘He was there with some of his bandmates –’ she managed a bitter smile – ‘and a gaggle of dewy-eyed groupies.’

  Boyd juggled his feelings about the lad: on the one hand, he was pleased for him. Having tried to become a rock star himself once upon a time, Boyd was well aware of the hard work, the relentless gigging, the constant humping of guitar amps out of and back into a transit van, and the endless, exhausting hope that one day it would all pay off. On the other hand, the scrawny little bugger had got his daughter pregnant and had scarpered like a frightened rabbit on hearing she’d decided to have the baby.

  ‘He said…’ she began, then waggled her hand in the air. ‘Water. Please.’

  He turned to see she’d set a glass down on the sink. He passed it to her and she took a hearty slug. ‘He said,’ she resumed, ‘that he’s done some soul-searching. He wants to help.’

  ‘To help?’ Boyd asked.

  Emma shrugged. ‘We’re going to meet for a coffee,’ she replied. ‘And try to decide exactly what that looks like.’

  Boyd sighed. ‘He could come over here, you know? I’m not going to eat him. Though he more than deserves it.’

  She looked at him. ‘He’s frightened of you.’

  ‘What?!’ he exclaimed.

  Emma laughed wearily. ‘You know. You’re an angry, over-protective patriarch. That old cliché.’

  Boyd could imagine that Dan had visions of him as a surly Don Corleone, demanding Dan did the decent thing and make an honest girl of his daughter… and if he didn’t, he’d wake up with a horse’s head in bed with him. Boyd grinned. He quite liked that. ‘I’m not going to have a go at him,’ he replied. ‘Well, maybe just a little.’

  She reached over and patted his knee. ‘Leave that to me, Dad.’

  Jay followed his surveillance target from a discreet distance. Michael Tebbutt was thirty-seven and married with kids. His thinning hair was tied back in a lank ponytail, and he sported a goatee to hide a generous chin. And this morning he was wearing a baggy Red Dwarf T-shirt and three-quarter-length khaki shorts as he led his kids through the arcade machines, all blinking lights and noisy jingles, penny falls and crane grabbers that promised to grasp and deliver tempting prizes but in reality merely caressed them in their limp claws.

  Tebbutt was in the process of making an insurance claim against Conquest Hospital. Specifically, that the paramedics who’d collected him from his home several months ago had not exercised due care in transporting him and had caused irreversible damage to his lower back in the process. His claim had been supported by pictures taken by his wife of some bruising on his back and a video clip of him shuffling around his house using a Zimmer frame, wincing and groaning as he did so.

  There was none of that going on this morning, though.

  Jay raised his phone and took a couple of snaps of Tebbutt lifting his boy up to slot some coins into one of the machines in Pelham Arcade.

  ‘Oh dear, mate,’ he muttered as he swiped the screen to review the image. He had a nice little collection on his phone now. One with Tebbutt in a dodgem car – a nice action shot as his car rear-ended someone else’s. One with him and his boy clambering aboard the busy Ferris wheel. Several with Tebbutt and family playing crazy golf: one shot with him bending down to collect a golf ball. And in none of the pictures was he clutching a Zimmer frame, or balancing on crutches or even holding his supposedly ruined lower back.

  Jay supressed a smile of satisfaction. McGuire was going to be pleased with the photos he’d managed to take so far. He’d just get a few more, then he was going to melt away into the bustling crowd like a stealthy ninja. He raised his iPhone once again, zoomed in on Mr Tebbutt so as to get a clear shot of his face as he held an arcade gun and readied himself to mow down a horde of zombies on the screen in front of him.

  Except, as the focus settled, the face of Mr Tebbutt was looking directly at him and wearing an expression of both alarm and anger. Jay looked up from his screen to see the man was striding over, remembering halfway to add a theatrical limp to his movement. He drew up in front of Jay and reached out to grab his phone.

  Jay lifted it up out of his reach. He was an easy foot taller than Mr Tebbutt. ‘Oh no, you don’t,’ he told him.

  ‘What the hell are you up to?’ Tebbutt demanded.

  ‘Nothing that concerns you,’ replied Jay coolly.

  Tebbutt’s eyes narrowed. ‘What are you? A pervert? Why else would you be taking pictures of all these kids?’

  There were a lot of children milling around, to be fair.

  Jay tucked his phone into his back pocket. ‘As I said, mate, it’s none of your concern.’

  ‘Gimme that phone!’ Tebbutt barked. ‘Let me see what you’ve been snapping, then.’

  Jay smiled as he shook his head. ‘Nope.’

  ‘Right, I’ll…’ Tebbutt looked around and spotted what he was after. He pointed towards a security guard who was sitting on a stool in the corner of the arcade and looking bored to death. ‘I’ll get him to make an arrest.’

  ‘He doesn’t have that authority,’ said Jay calmly. ‘He’s just a civilian wearing a T-shirt with “Security” on it.’ There was something very satisfying about saying that with a hundred per cent certainty. He’d done his homework; he’d read the IPI’s guidelines… and of course, from his experience as a doorman working at CuffLinks nightclub, he knew that wearing a uniform and a plastic name tag conveyed no legal authority whatsoever.

  Tebbutt looked as though he wanted to punch him but was unsure as to whether Jay’s muscular bulk was just for show – a prancing gym bunny, or a warning sign that he might end up biting off more than he could chew.

  Instead, Tebbutt, moving with surprising agility and speed, reached around Jay and pulled his phone out of his pocket. Jay managed to grab Tebbutt’s forearm before he could run off with it.

  ‘I’ll have that back, thanks,’ he said.

  Tebbutt opened his hand. And the phone began to drop to the floor.

  Jay let go of his arm, ducked quickly and managed to catch his phone just as it was about to hit the ground. ‘Nice try, Mike. Nice try,’ he said.

  Tebbutt’s eyes widened as he rubbed his arm. ‘How do you…?’

  Jay had realised his mistake as soon as the words had left his mouth. Hardly the stealthy ninja, he scolded himself. Michael Tebbutt was going to figure out what was going on, maybe not right now, but later as he replayed today’s events in his mind. The only way forward, Jay decided, was to double down.

  ‘Mr Tebbutt,’ he began, adopting his best attempt at an official-sounding voice, ‘you might want to reconsider your insurance claim against the NHS. That or face charges for attempted insurance fraud.’

  God, he mused. He sounded good.

  15

  What Boyd really should have been doing right then was herding his team into the Incident Room and getting an update on where everyone was with the investigation. Hatcher was back at work this morning and would be wanting to make sure she was seen. Given that there was a homicide case on the go, she’d almost certainly want to pop into the morning briefing to appraise the situation.

  But no, here he was, sitting in a rammed surgery waiting room, watching for his name to pop up on the screen above the reception desk. It was now ten minutes past his appointment time. He was about to get up and check with the harried receptionist when, miraculously, ‘William Boyd – Room 4’ appeared on the screen.

  He made his way into the room and took a seat. The GP, Dr Ho – a man who looked younger than Warren – glanced up from his notes and greeted him with a cheery professional smile that Boyd very much doubted would last the day.

  ‘Good morning, what can I do for you?’ he asked.

  Boyd explained.

  Dr Ho listened thoughtfully. ‘Like a jogger’s stitch, you say?’