Shadow of Death (9781476057248) Read online

‘I’ve just got into bed; what do you want?’

  ‘Get out of bed again and give the killer the publicity he wants.’

  ‘You mean it?’

  ‘Say that sources within the police force have confirmed an investigation is underway after two female bodies were found in trunks at different locations. Keep it vague. Ask your editor to hide it on page five or something until you can reveal all the details. Don’t mention my name, Hoddesdon, Essex, or anything that could point Marshall in my direction. With any luck, everyone will think it’s Hertfordshire Police and give us the time we need.'

  ‘Are you sure about the story?’

  ‘I’m sure. I’d hate to think he killed another woman because I was afraid of being found out; that’s not who I am.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I’ll put something together and email it to the night editor as a late submission. It’ll be in tomorrow’s paper.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll see you in the morning.’

  He finished walking Digby and returned to the house. Once he’d locked up, he followed Digby up the stairs. As he passed Richards’ room he heard her say through the partially open door, ‘I didn’t mean it, Sir.’

  He didn’t go in, but said through the crack, ‘I know, go to sleep.’

  ***

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Marie, Sir,’ she said, pointing to her name badge.

  Lukas Bryner leaned forward on the reception desk of the Hotel Alpina and revealed his police identification in the palm of his hand. ‘Kantonpolizei Major Stefan Grell, Marie.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘I don’t want people to know I’m police, so please call me Mr Grell.’

  ‘Okay, Sir... Mr Grell.’

  ‘I’d like copies of the registration documents for the guests who have arrived in the last twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Of course, S... Mr Grell.’

  The thin blonde-haired receptionist left him and went into a back room. She was gone less than five minutes, came back with an A4 brown envelope, and put it on the desk in front of him.

  ‘Twenty-one.’

  ‘Thank you, Marie.’ He leaned forward again so that the people in the reception area couldn’t hear him. ‘Which rooms are the Miller-Giffords in?’

  She checked. ‘Room 221, and the children are in the one directly opposite – 234.’

  ‘One last thing- I’ve booked a room, but I’d like it on the second floor.’

  ‘I’ll check if there’s one available.’

  She moved along the reception desk to a computer and after a few keystrokes said, ‘Number 247 is free.’

  ‘Excellent.’ He took out an American Express card in the name of Stefen Grell, and slid it across the grey-patterned Formica top. One of the many names and accounts he had established as a Stasi Colonel all those years ago.

  ‘Do you know how long you’ll be staying?’

  ‘Probably until Friday evening.’ That’s when the Miller-Giffords planned to return to England.

  Marie booked him in as Mr S Grell and took the details of his card. He didn’t fill in a registration document, as the law required, because – as he explained – he was on official business.

  As she put the key to his room down on the desk he slid a 500 Euro note into her hand. ‘Thank you for your discretion, Marie.’

  ‘That’s not...’

  ‘I know it’s not, but efficiency and politeness should always be rewarded.’

  The money disappeared. ‘Thank you very much, Mr Grell.’

  Picking up the key to Room 247, he smiled, but Marie’s attention had already been re-directed towards other guests who needed her efficiency and politeness.

  He caught the lift up to the second floor, and after depositing his bag and the brown envelope in his room, he walked back along the corridor to check out the location of rooms 221 and 234 in relation to his own room. Once he’d found the two rooms occupied by the Miller-Giffords, he slipped into 221. Within thirty seconds he had placed a tiny wireless bug in the light jutting out from the wall on the left side of the bed, a camera between the upper slats in the door of the pine wardrobe and had left the room. Before returning to number 247, he placed another miniature camera on a picture outside the two rooms and walked back along the corridor.

  Now he had a long night ahead of him visiting all of the hotels and pensions in the area to obtain copies of the Registrierungsformular for guests who had arrived in the last twenty-four hours. Once he had the documents, it wouldn’t be too hard to identify the person, or persons, who had been sent by British Intelligence.

  British Intelligence! That was an oxymoron, if there ever was one. If it hadn’t been for the Americans they would never have won the war, or dismantled communism.

  What were they doing targeting one of their own, and a policeman at that? Not only were they lacking in innate intelligence, but they also had no scruples. At least in the Staatssicherheit you knew exactly where you stood.

  ***

  He was masturbating while sitting in his black leather executive chair that he’d bought specifically for watching the computer monitors being fed by the CCTV cameras in the room he’d created – a place with no windows, a place where no one could hear her scream.

  Her name was Louise Trenchard. He’d picked her up last night at the Rhythm Dance Club in Cranham and brought her back here. Now she writhed about naked on the mortuary table that he’d tied her to like a bucking bronco he would soon straddle. He licked his lips and moved his hand faster.

  Yes, she’d buck like that under him. He’d make her squirm and scream before she died. He closed his eyes and visualised her thrusting towards him, swallowing him up whole, sucking him dry. He ejaculated and it squirted over the computer keyboard.

  ‘Shit!’

  He’d make her pay for that. Oh she’d pay for everything, like the others. Her menstruation wasn’t due for another six days – Tuesday of next week – just in time for the 1st June deadline. But before that he planned to have a lot of fun with her. He laughed as he thought of a certain celebrity’s catchphrase – A lorra, lorra fun.

  Using a paper handkerchief, he cleaned the keyboard, picked up the high-powered torch, and left the small room. With the torch on, he strolled along the dark corridor to the room within a room and opened the doors.

  He switched the torch off. The light was on inside the room. He wanted her to see where she was, to rob her of hope. No one knew she was here; there was no escape, and no one would come and rescue her. He smiled again as he thought of the supposed inscription over the gates of hell in Dante’s Divine Comedy: Abandon all hope ye who enter here. Yes, hope should be left outside the door of this room. The unclean deserved no hope. His eyes glazed over and he began to recite the 23rd Psalm:

  The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

  He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;

  He leadeth me beside the still waters.

  He restoreth my soul;

  He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

  I will fear no evil;

  For thou art with me;

  Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

  Thou preparest a table for me in the presence of mine enemies;

  Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:

  And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

  ‘Please?’ she pleaded.

  He moved his hand gently from her tear-streaked face down her neck, over the nipple of her left breast, across her stomach, but stopped when he reach her pubic hair.

  ‘If you let me go, I promise I won’t tell anyone.’

  Stroking her dark brown hair, he bent and kissed her on the lips, and then he licked the tears from her cheeks as he squeezed her breasts. He could feel himself getting hard again. Oh, this one was a temptress all right.

  Jerking
upright, he clenched his right fist, and smashed it into the side of her face. ‘You filthy, unclean whore of Babylon.’

  He hit her again and again, on the breasts, the arms, the stomach, and the thighs until his breaths came in short gasps and beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.

  At first she screamed. ‘Oh, God, no. Please, no,’ which just made him angrier. She was using the Lord’s name, his Lord, the Lord God he had devoted his life to.

  As quick as the anger had come, it left. He fell to his knees at the side of the mortuary table and wept.

  Louise Trenchard sobbed.

  He stood, gave her water, wiped her face with a wet flannel, brushed her hair, and left.

  As St John he had the power of life and death. He would save her – through death came eternal life. Isn’t that what Jesus taught us? Each of us must walk through the valley of the shadow of death to dwell in house of the Lord forever. He was in that valley now. The shadow of death hung over him like a cloak of evil, which he knew he must expiate before he could ever reach the Lord’s house.

  Chapter Eight

  Wednesday 25th May

  At four o’clock in the morning Kantonpolizei Major Stefan Grell returned to Room 247 in the Hotel Alpina. He had visited all seventeen hotels and pensions in the vicinity and collected copies of the Registrierungsformular for guests who had arrived in the previous twenty-four hours.

  He made himself a strong black coffee and sat down in the easy chair. There would be time to sleep later, after he had identified who the British had sent. But first, he checked the recordings of the surveillance devices he had planted. He lingered over Mrs Miller-Gifford getting undressed, but soon realised – after two children – that she had not taken care of her body. What he did re-wind and take another look at was a man with a beard and slight limp pausing outside the two rooms. He recognised the limp, but not the face until he enlarged it, removed the beard, and changed the hair to grey.

  He rang Paula.

  ‘Are you mad ringing me at quarter past four in the morning?’

  ‘Some of us have not been to bed.’

  ‘Well some of us would like to get back to sleep. What do you want?’

  ‘There is a man here with a limp...’

  ‘Parish called him Sir Charles Lathbury from MI6, but that’s not who he really is.’

  ‘No, I know. He is from MI6, but his real name is Arthur Pocock. We knew about him; he worked for their disposals team. From what you tell me, he has improved his position.’

  ‘He seems to be in charge.’

  ‘Not for much longer. You can go back to sleep now.’

  ‘Very kind.’

  He ended the call and made himself another strong black coffee. Arthur Pocock must be here to supervise his agent. In the event of the agent failing the mission, Pocock would do the job himself. He must have some dire agents. So, the agent first and then Pocock. He sat back down and began going through the Registrierungsformular. There were three hundred and fifty-seven, but it didn’t take him long to reduce the pile to a manageable five. After another sift-through he ended up with two. There was a man on his own at the three-star Hotel Feirenhaus, which was half way up the mountain, and a married couple in the two-star Hotel Alte Post on the edge of Klosters close to Küblis. After due deliberation, he chose the married couple because they were in the two-star Alte Post. He knew from past experience that the British were cheapskates, and would always put their agents in the cheapest hotel. He also found out Arthur Pocock had arrived using the alias of Peter Tremain. It didn’t make any difference whether he coloured his hair, or grew a beard, the limp gave him away every time.

  He looked at the photocopies of the passport photographs and smiled. It was five to five. The Miller-Giffords weren’t due to start out until ten o’clock. They would travel on the Rhaetian railway to Küblis, and then ascend in the cable car to the top of the Weissfluhgipfel run. He had a couple of hours, and then he would return to the Hotel Alte Post.

  He rang room service and ordered a full English breakfast. He had taken to the English penchant for a thoroughly unhealthy morning meal when he’d visited London, but it wasn’t often that he had the opportunity to avail himself of this luxury, so he would take full advantage of his visit.

  Next, he stripped, shaved, showered, and was drying himself when the meal arrived. He gave the waitress a 100 franc tip, got dressed, and sat on the balcony to eat a leisurely breakfast while watching the sunrise burst over the Serneus Mountains.

  ***

  Before he picked up Catherine Cox, he arranged a Peugot 207 on hire over the phone. Two teenagers in green coveralls brought the car round fifteen minutes after Richards should have left for work.

  ‘I’m going to be in trouble now, Sir,’ Richards said, adjusting the seat and the rear view mirror. ‘We were meant to be leaving for Southend at nine o’clock.’

  ‘Tell Marshall it was my fault.’

  ‘That would make it worse.’

  ‘So, are you going to sit there moaning at me for organising you a car, or are you going to get your arse moving?’

  ‘You have a lovely turn of phrase.’

  ‘I’m glad you appreciate it.’

  ‘You’re with that Catty Cox today, aren’t you?’

  ‘You know I am, and I promise I won’t want her as a partner over you.’

  ‘I am still your partner then?’

  ‘Of course you are. Think of it as a stint with another detective for training purposes. When all this is over, you’ll appreciate me even more.’

  She laughed. ‘As if.’

  After she’d gone, he went back in the house. Digby wagged his tail, not used to him being home at this time during the week.

  ‘What time do you have to leave?’

  He looked up at the kitchen clock, and saw that it was twenty past eight. ‘About quarter to nine.’

  ‘That’s enough time,’ she said, grabbing his hand and pulling him towards the stairs.

  ‘But... didn’t I pay all my debts last night?’

  ‘Not all of them. There’s one outstanding account that needs to be settled now.’

  They only made it halfway up the stairs, and he didn’t leave until five to nine.

  ***

  From his third floor balcony, Peter Tremain – wrapped in his towelling dressing gown after his full English and shower – watched the laughing Miller-Giffords leave the hotel like Arctic explorers clomping through the snow, weighed down with skis, rucksacks, boots, hats and mittens. They were walking the short distance to the bahnhof, and would soon be in Küblis catching the cable car up to the top of the Weissfluhgipfel.

  The snowploughs had been out earlier clearing the fresh snowfall from the road. He saw a horse-drawn buggy go by full to overflowing with another excited family. A family – something he would never have. He had devoted his life to keeping the enemies of Britain – both inside and outside – at bay. Sometimes he felt as though he was fighting a losing battle, and that he stood alone on the battlefield like Achilles in burnished armour facing the might of the Trojan army.

  He returned to his room, let the dressing gown fall to the floor, and stood in front of the full-length mirror. Yes, he could have been Achilles. At sixty-four, he still had a good physique, although the once hard musculature was beginning to sag. He ran his hand over his flat stomach, but ignored the semi-hard penis. It was seeking attention as it always did when he envisioned himself as the mighty Achilles, but it would have to be patient.

  Today, he had booked himself into the hotel Wellness Centre, which he preferred to think of as the punishment suite. He’d start off with a Siberian-spruce sauna, move onto a 45-degree Celsius steam-bath, perform some light exercise on the weights, dive into the crystal clear, freezing swimming pool, and to finish it off – a massage. He was hoping for the extra-special massage, but if it was not on offer then he’d have to avail himself of a lady of the night – one who would be willing to finish him off for a few hundred francs.
His erection rose at the thought of the punishment. He would have preferred to be beaten within an inch of his life by a dominatrix wielding a leather whip, but he was working, and he never let his personal predilections interfere with his work – that’s how fatal mistakes were made.

  Later today he was hoping to hear that James Miller-Gifford – and possibly his wife and children – had been in a tragic accident. He didn’t know how the accident would happen, and he didn’t really care – just so long as it did happen.

  ***

  Mr and Mrs John Sawyer were sitting at a table in the Hotel Alte Post discussing how accidents could so easily happen when one was downhill skiing. They had both eaten a continental breakfast of cold meats and cheese with substantial amounts of German coffee.

  Yesterday they had made the 12 kilometre near vertical drop from the top of the Weissfluhgipfel run down to Davos, and decided on the perfect location to cause James Miller-Gifford’s accident. It was the one place they could be certain of the desired outcome, and he would be unlikely to survive. Not long after Mittlestation Höhenweg, at 2,219 metres, the run entered the forest and that’s where the accident would take place.

  They finished their coffee, zipped up snug and warm because it was going to be a long day in the mountains, and collected their rucksacks and skis from the entrance.

  At nine fifteen they would catch the Rhaetian train to Küblis. No one would even remember what Mr and Mrs John Sawyer looked like. They were English tourists like a million other English tourists, in their early thirties, probably successful junior traders in the city of London if they could afford Klosters, albeit in a two-star hotel,reasonably good looking, but nothing that would stick in the memory. They looked like Mr and Mrs Average – nothing more, and nothing less.