Four Below (26 page)

‘He wasn’t my employer, he was a client. But no, not at all. He’s often away;
was
, I should say. Captaining yachts. Though not so much recently.’

McLusky picked up a figurine from a group of china ornaments on a shelf and sensed Julie Milne tensing. He pretended to examine the maker’s stamp, then set it back on the shelf, not quite
where it had been. ‘So it was you who cleaned out the fridge.’

‘Yeah. Not that there was so much, but I chucked all of that last time I cleaned.’

‘How long have you worked for him?’

‘A couple of years.’

‘Did you notice any change recently?’

She briefly considered this while lifting her eyes to a gilt-framed reproduction of
The Hay Wain
above the fireplace. ‘Not really. You mean in himself?’

McLusky ran a finger over a high shelf, then inspected it as though checking for dust. ‘Anything.’

‘Well, he spent more time at home than he used to. And I think he had more money.’

‘More money? What makes you say that?’

‘I don’t know. He spent more on food and drank posher wines, that sort of thing. Not really top-end wines, but mid-range, I’d say.’

‘You know your wine, then?’

‘You’d be surprised what you can learn from other people’s kitchens.’

McLusky thought that, being a police officer, he probably wouldn’t be, but kept that to himself. He crossed the room to the balcony door, which gave a view very similar to the one
upstairs, only the sea appeared more distant today. He could see his own car parked below, the road and the nearby industrial estate, and a few buildings of the same development. ‘Did he
always park his car in the car park?’

‘Yes, mostly.’

‘Mostly.’

She joined him by the window. In her trainers she was nearly as tall as McLusky in his stockinged feet. ‘Well, yeah. He’s got his own space, erm … on the left
somewhere.’

‘I know, I’m parked in it. You said
mostly
.’

‘Yes. Only I did notice that a couple of times he was here but his car wasn’t. And once I saw him drive out of the parking lot and turn right instead of left. Then half an hour or so
later he came back without his car. On foot.’

‘Where does that lead to? When you turn right?’

‘Well nowhere, that’s the thing. It’s just the industrial estate, but the back of it. The front entrance is on the main road on the other side. The rest is just waste ground
back there; they’re thinking of developing that as well. Same as this, I think.’

‘Right.’ He was already on his way back towards the hall, where he had parked his boots. ‘Do you have any police officers as your clients?’

‘No, why?’

‘I was just wondering if I could afford your services.’

While he struggled into his boots, she bent over a handbag on the hall table and produced a card.
Prestige Domestic Services
. Daily, weekly, monthly, one-off cleaning. She handed it over
once he was booted. ‘Where is your home?’

‘Montpelier.’

‘That’s quite far. Not really worth my while travelling all the way there unless it’s a big job. It’s the petrol cost.’

‘Thanks, anyway.’ With any luck, Julie Milne had already made it worth his while travelling all the way here.

The lift was busy; he took the stairs. Fine snow was dancing in the air outside as he pulled out of the car park and turned right.

Chapter Seventeen

What had been dancing flurries only minutes ago had now thickened into dense snowfall, driven westward by a squall from the estuary. Within moments the road, which had only had
a single lane cleared, was covered with a fresh blanket of white in which McLusky’s Mazda left the only tyre marks visible. On his right, the housing development had fallen behind, giving way
to waste ground and scrubland, prettified by the snow. On his left, the industrial park could never be prettified. The wall that surrounded it occasionally gave way to chain-link fence or the backs
of solid sheds and low buildings, only to pick up again further along. The day was darkening and the snowfall was so dense that it wasn’t until he was right in front of it that he spotted the
iron gate in the wall. A few yards further on, the road simply ended, a fact advertised by three snow-hooded concrete bollards big enough to stop a truck. Street lamps had abandoned this dead end a
while back, but there was lighting in the yard beyond the gate, and he could hear a heavy engine revving somewhere nearby.

Leaving his car running, he got out and approached the gate. It was made from welded box section, wide enough to let through heavy goods vehicles, and topped with barbed wire. It was locked. Set
into the wall beside it was a rusting box with a speaker grille and a button below. It looked as though someone had once tried to set fire to it. He pressed the button for a few seconds with little
confidence that it was still attached to anything meaningful. A full minute passed before it crackled. ‘Hello?’ The voice sounded far away and doubtful.

‘Police. Would you open the gate, please?’

‘Police? Yeah, okay. It’ll take a minute, mind.’ The loudspeaker emitted a hollow crackle before returning to silence.

It took several minutes, during which the snowfall had time to diminish, before a middle-aged man in a donkey jacket, scarf and baseball cap appeared at the gate and swung it back. McLusky drove
in, stopped level with the man and showed his ID. He was waved on. ‘Park over there if you want.’ He pointed to the lee of the nearest unlit building. McLusky did as suggested. As he
got out of the car, the snow abruptly stopped falling, apart from a tardy flake here and there.

The man had caught up with him. ‘We don’t normally let people in by that gate.’

‘Then why do you have an intercom out there?’

For idiots like you, the man’s look seemed to say. ‘That used to be the main entrance but they made them change it to the other side since they built those houses, to stop all the
traffic going past there. Is anything the matter?’

‘No, I just have a few questions, routine enquiries. Does no one use that gate, then?’

‘Erm, can we walk while we talk? I need to get back across. It’s easiest if you leave that way too when you’re done.’

‘Sure.’ They fell into step. ‘You’re the caretaker here?’

‘That’s me. Though I only just started the job, so go easy on me.’

‘Okay. Tell me, does anyone use that back gate?’

‘Well, apparently most people know to use the other side now. That’s been the main entrance for years. Of course people can if they want to, but no one has buzzed that gate since I
started here last week. The sat nav takes you to the other side, anyhow. And the big artics must have hated that entrance; it’s just not built for it.’

‘Okay, that’s most people. But people do still use it.’

‘Some people have a key, I know that much, and if they want to they can.’

‘What about Donald Bice? Does he have a key?’

‘I’m not familiar with the name, but we’ll soon find out for you.’

The industrial park consisted of several units that looked like warehouses, with rows of delivery vans parked in lines outside, and a few older, smaller units with corrugated roofs, that seemed
to have grown up more haphazardly over many years. Between them lived mountains of palettes, tyres or plastic barrels, now disappearing under snow. For all that apparent industry, the place felt
quiet, apart from the occasional engine noise of vans coming and going.

The generously heated Portakabin that served as a gatehouse looked like it had been installed in the seventies, along with its fittings. A row of three black-and-white six-inch monitors served
the CCTV. Filing cabinets were covered in papers, tea stains and empty takeaway containers. Prestige Domestic Services would throw a fit in here. The large ashtray on the desk was full. The place
smelled strongly of cigarettes and faintly of pizza. The caretaker keyed the name into his old-fashioned desktop PC on a much-abused keyboard.

‘Yes, we got him.’

‘Donald?’

‘Says D., seems likely. What’s he done?’

‘It’s just part of a larger inquiry. But I do need to take a look at the place. What kind of unit is it?’

‘It’s in one of the old buildings at the back; they’re divided into lockups inside.’ He pointed to a yellowing site plan on the wall. ‘It’s in A3. You
can’t miss it; it’s the oldest building and your car’s parked next to it. I’ll get you the keys. But won’t you need a search warrant?’

‘Donald Bice is dead. He was murdered.’

‘Oh, was he one of the dead people found in the woods in Bristol?’

‘I think it may turn out to be that D. Bice. I’m here to find out.’

‘Blimey.’ After some rummaging in the bottom drawer of a metal filing cabinet, the caretaker handed over three large keys tied to a wooden block.
A3
and the Roman numeral
II
had been burnt into the wood.

McLusky thanked him. ‘Is this
a
set of keys or
the
set of keys?’

‘Oh, that’s just our set. They have keys themselves, of course.’

‘I’ll lock up again, but I want to hang on to this key to make sure any evidence remains secure in there.’

‘Fine with me. But you might want to borrow this or you won’t see much.’ He produced a long rubberized torch from a desk drawer. ‘Make sure you bring that back, though.
I’m buggered without it.’

‘No lights?’

‘In the entrance bit. But not in the lockups themselves. Leccy not included.’

Outside in the yard, the lighting was just about adequate, McLusky thought, at least if you knew your way around. He did see several lamps that weren’t lit on his way to unit A3, either
from economy or neglect. He spotted his car and found the building. It was weathered red brick and had once had a tiled roof that had long been replaced with what looked to him like well-worn
corrugated asbestos. The high windows were covered in wire mesh. The entrance was a large wooden double door painted wine red, high and wide enough to let in a lorry. Inset on the right-hand leaf
was a smaller door for foot traffic. It reminded McLusky of a prison gate. Very unlike a prison gate, the door was ajar and light showed in the gap. He stepped inside and called: ‘Anybody
home?’

It took him a moment to make out what he was looking at. The entrance hall was feebly lit by a single naked energy-saving bulb that would have struggled to illuminate a broom cupboard. This
space was perhaps twenty-five feet deep and twenty high and had a perished concrete floor. He could just see the two further wooden doors either side of the central partition through all the
clutter piled high in front. Palettes loaded with boxes and cellophane-wrapped bundles of what looked like piping or metal rods had been dumped haphazardly and stacked high, right in the centre, as
though whoever delivered it hadn’t been sure which lockup they were destined for. McLusky squeezed between piles of boxes into the space in front of lockup II. The Roman numerals had been
rendered in black paint on the red doors. It was dark enough in this canyon for him to switch on the torch. All three keys were of similar size. He chose one at random and stopped dead.

It was a kind of snuffling sound, like a suppressed cough or laugh, and so close that he could not tell which direction it had come from. He swung the torch left and right. Then he turned it off
and closed his eyes. He thought of Leigh Woods in the dark. He thought he could smell something that did not belong here. ‘Police, show yourself,’ he called loudly.

It was as if the echoing call itself brought the place crashing down on top of him. It was the tilting shadows and movement of air that warned him, only too late. Even as he turned to ward off
the avalanche of boxes, the f rst one knocked him off his feet. Bundles of piping, each weighing five stone or more, cascaded after it, pinning him to the concrete floor, burying him, crushing
down. He cried out first in dismay, then in pain as the last bundle of metal rods dealt his left ankle a hammer blow in the dark. The light had been turned off. He heard the door he had entered by
being gently closed, making the darkness complete.

‘It’s not much of a lead, but it’s the first bit of good news we’ve had since the deaths started,’ Denkhaus said.

‘It feels like it. Sugar?’

Denkhaus made a show of patting the pockets of his suit. ‘Yes, I don’t seem to have brought my sweetener.’

It was one of the superintendent’s favourite delusions that he carried his little box of sweeteners everywhere to shave a few calories off his daily intake. Fairfield had never even seen
the thing. She stirred both sugar and cream into his cup before putting it down in front of him and sliding back into the seat behind her desk. She always made sure that the superintendent’s
chair was placed slightly to the left, making it less formal. She disliked Denkhaus and found him hard going. She had treated the discovery that his super-efficient secretary was mysteriously
incapable of making decent coffee as an opportunity to fit another string to her bow. It wasn’t much, perhaps, but whenever he deigned to come to her office and drink her coffee, he seemed
better disposed to listen to whatever she had to say.

‘I knew persistency would pay off eventually. We got lucky, doubly lucky. It was the sisterof the dead junkie who decided to talk. She’s not an addict. She does use drugs, of course,
E and blow, but she’s against hard drugs. And perhaps she’s not yet quite clear about what dangers squealing can bring. But she’s given us a good description of the man she says
was her brother’s dealer.’

‘Shame it’s not the anthrax we’re talking about.’ Denkhaus frowned, took a sip of coffee. His frown disappeared. ‘Still. Doubly lucky, you said?’

‘Yes. The description fits the man both Sorbie and I saw making off from a squat in Easton where a dead junkie had been discovered. He had his face obscured then, but together with the
description, I’m confident we’ll recognize him.’

‘Well, that sounds like at last—’ A knock on the door, fast, urgent, interrupted him.

‘Come,’ Fairfield called.

It was DC Dearlove. ‘Sorry, sir, ma’m, from control: DI McLusky has been injured. They’ve taken him to the Royal Infirmary.’