Dead of Night

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  The Tom Mariner Series From Chris Collett

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Epilogue

  The Tom Mariner Series from Chris Collett

  THE WORM IN THE BUD

  BLOOD OF THE INNOCENTS

  WRITTEN IN BLOOD

  BLOOD MONEY

  STALKED BY SHADOWS

  BLOOD AND STONE *

  DEAD OF NIGHT *

  * available from Severn House

  DEAD OF NIGHT

  A Tom Mariner Mystery

  Chris Collett

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain and the USA 2014 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

  eBook edition first published in 2015 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2014 by Chris Collett

  The right of Chris Collett to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Collett, Chris author.

  Dead of night. – (A Tom Mariner mystery)

  1. Mariner, Tom (Fictitious character)–Fiction.

  2. Police–England–Birmingham–Fiction.

  3. Serial murder investigation–Fiction.

  4. Detective and mystery stories.

  I. Title II. Series

  823.9’2-dc23

  ISBN-13: 978-07278-8434-3 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-540-7 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-586-4 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk,

  Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom.

  Bob Dylan

  ONE

  Something felt very wrong. She was lying on her side on something cold and damp. Had she fallen over? Although she didn’t remember having a drink, her head hurt and her brain was hangover muzzy; the kind of headache you get from lying in bed too long in the morning. She was on a mattress, she decided, but not her bed. Not springy enough and smelling like the outdoors. Her hip and shoulder ached and her arms seemed stuck. When she tried to free them they refused to move, tingling in that heavy pins-and-needles way they do when the circulation’s cut off. Goosebumps crawled over her bare flesh and her mouth was so parched that her lips felt tight. She tried to wet them with her tongue, but it wouldn’t push through and her breath whistled lightly through her partly congested nose. Around her she could make out indistinct shapes in the semi-darkness, but the images tumbling through her head made it hard to ascertain if she was awake or only dreaming, the thoughts so fleeting she couldn’t grasp them for long enough to draw meaning. From time to time, sirens ebbed and flowed, sometimes quite nearby. A memory tickled at her mind, invoking thrill and anticipation. It had been like an adventure at first; something that would make Mum and Dad sit up and take notice. But this wasn’t how it was meant to end.

  A light snapped on. Blinking back the glare, she fixated on the naked bulb dangling on its cord so that only then did she notice the face floating above hers, in one of those flu masks, attention fixed on her exposed body. Then he looked directly into her face and she felt a click of recognition. Surely he could see she was in trouble. Summoning all her effort she tried to alert him, but her groan was thin and weak, and to her horror his eyes crinkled into a smile. He knew! His hand loomed towards her, the outstretched fingers sheathed in a surgical glove. Then suddenly and brutally her remaining airway was blocked. As her vision turned red and starbursts of light exploded behind her eyes, a tune played round and round in her head, so familiar but just beyond reach, until after a slow succession of agonizing heartbeats, the darkness spread in and subsumed her.

  The tension in the lobby of Symphony Hall was palpable, and DCI Tom Mariner could feel it in the prickle of perspiration on his back. He wondered fleetingly if this was how the performers felt moments before they took to the stage. Holding around 2,000 people, the venue had been open for more than twenty years now, and the tradition of world-class orchestral conductors was evident all around them on the walls: black and white images of intense, sometimes agonized concentration. Mariner had never quite understood the purpose of conductors. At the few classical concerts he’d been to it was obvious to him that the musicians knew pretty much what they were doing, while the conductor just stood up front and took the glory. Much as the Assistant Chief Constable was doing at this very moment, choreographing the media, with Mariner’s immediate boss, Superintendent Davina Sharp, at his elbow for support.

  Not that Dawson could be entirely blamed. This was a delicate situation and he, like all of them, had been forced into the role, which right now meant keeping the press occupied while they all waited for the signal. Not for the first time Mariner was struck by the comic potential of Sharp, close to six feet tall in her heels, towering elegantly over the ACC, who had puffed himself up to his squat and balding five-and-a-half feet. Still, he’d been doing a sterling job of talking about bugger all for the last ten minutes, and that had to be admired. It was one of the reasons Mariner was never likely to rise above his newly appointed rank of DCI (Acting). Bullshit wasn’t his forte. But tonight, even the ACC seemed less than his usual relaxed self, and as he wittered on, Mariner could see him casting anxiously around the multilevel glass and granite atrium for any indications that the action might start soon, looking second by second rather more rattled than Rattle.

  Mariner had his own reasons for wanting proceedings to get under way. Since he’d yet to master the art of being in two places at once, this was just the latest example of the race against time the last few weeks of his life had become. He needed to get this over with and be gone. To curb his growing impatience, he slipped along a side corridor away from the ACC’s circus and put through a call to his home, five miles away in Kingsmead. As the
phone rang and rang, Mariner felt his heart begin to pound a little faster, until at last the line clicked and a sleepy voice said ‘Hello?’

  Jesus. He breathed out again. Why did she do this, and why did he fall for it every time? He pictured her sprawled on his sofa in front of the new flat-screen TV, bag of Doritos on her lap. ‘Hi, Mercy, it’s Tom. How’s everything?’ he asked.

  ‘Hi, Tom.’ She made it sound as if he’d rung for a spontaneous social chat. ‘Everything’s fine here.’ Although born and raised a Brummie, as far as Mariner was aware, she had inherited that West Indian lilt to her voice that perfectly characterized her relaxed approach to everything.

  ‘What are you up to?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, you know, had our dinner and watchin’ a bit of TV.’

  ‘And Jamie’s OK?’

  ‘He’s doin’ fine.’ Mariner didn’t like to ask exactly what that meant; he was afraid he might not like the answer. But presumably it indicated that Jamie was safe, which was the most important thing and it was hardly as if he had a choice in these things. ‘Are you all right to stay on a little longer?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, you know me. I’m good. You take as long as you need.’

  ‘Thanks, I’ll get back as soon as I can.’ He ended the call and tried to ignore the gnawing guilt.

  Considering what a big part of his life Mercy had lately become, Mariner knew ridiculously little about her own personal arrangements; only that to his great relief, she seemed to have almost limitless time and inclination to mind Jamie. Mariner, through necessity, exploited this quite ruthlessly, while at the same time hating the unfamiliar feeling of obligation. To ease his conscience he paid her what he felt confident was a generous wage, and so far the arrangement seemed to suit them both. Everyone a winner; except possibly Jamie. No complaint from him, for obvious reasons, but spending hours cooped up in front of the TV with only a middle-aged woman for company, was far from ideal for the thirty-eight-year-old, autistic or not.

  Mariner was unsettled, too, by a recent, vague intimation that Mercy might be considering moving back to Grenada to be closer to her extended family. It seemed improbable, but then he didn’t even really know her exact age – she could be anywhere between forty-five and sixty-five – only that she was divorced, or possibly widowed, and that, for the moment at least, she seemed to find Mariner’s house, with its brand new entertainment system (replacing the one that was stolen) and well-stocked fridge, preferable to her own. How had it come to this? Through Mariner’s own stupidity, mainly, and now he was stuck with the situation, like it or not. But it wasn’t a problem he was going to solve tonight, so having successfully allayed those particular anxieties, he forced his attention back to the task at hand, slipping easily back into professional mode.

  At Granville Lane the response from Detective Constable Charlie Glover was instant and alert, the verbal equivalent of standing to attention. Mariner could picture Glover in his customary sports jacket and tie, the latter firmly knotted and his hair neatly combed.

  ‘Ready when you are, boss,’ he said, his flat Midlands accent always slightly heightened at times like this. ‘We’ve got five lines manned and standing by.’

  ‘Same here,’ said Mariner. ‘We’re on the starting blocks, but waiting for the signal.’

  Mariner half expected Charlie to offer up some biblical quote about patience and virtue, but for once he held back. ‘Do you think it’s going to help, all this?’ he asked instead.

  It was a question and a half. Mariner had been involved in only a handful of reconstructions in his whole career and popular belief had it that they marked a sticking point; the time in an investigation when all the initial leads had been exhausted and even the press were beginning to lose interest. Tonight he was ambivalent about the strategy, coming as it did only two weeks after Grace Clifton, the eighteen-year-old daughter of Councillor and Mrs Clifton, apparently vanished off the face of the earth, somewhere between leaving her job as a steward at Symphony Hall and meeting her friends for a late-night drink across the city in Hurst Street. It was a distance of about a mile, over territory alive with activity: theatre- and concert-goers on their way home and youngsters out in the bars and clubs of the city; but as yet not a single witness had come forward.

  That Grace was missing was an indisputable fact, but there any certainty ended. The nature of that disappearance, and the appropriate police response to it, were subject to wider interpretation. There was no doubt that Councillor Bob Clifton enjoyed the kind of money and power that would make him a target for potential kidnappers and Grace was an attractive young woman. But it was also too early to rule out the more mundane explanations: that Grace herself had chosen to disappear, or that someone closer to home knew where she was. While there was undoubtedly some value in using a reconstruction to turn up the heat on whoever lay behind the disappearance, be it Grace herself or persons unknown, Mariner and his team were well aware that it was also part PR exercise, undertaken to ‘reassure’ Grace’s father that the disappearance was being taken seriously. As the current Council Leader, Clifton would have substantial influence over police budgets for the next twelve months, at a time when ‘public spending’ had become a dirty phrase. And this was a man with an established record of criticism of the police.

  In terms of generating leads, the enterprise was far from ideal for a number of reasons. In reality, the CBSO audience was unlikely to be the same one as two weeks ago, and the proportion of people repeating their experience on Broad Street would also be low. Back in the day, Saturday night meant clubbing in the city, but for many young people now it was a luxury. Most of them couldn’t afford the inflated prices every week, so confined their outings to special occasions. The weather hadn’t helped either. Tonight was dry, with a clear, starry sky, but the Saturday when Grace had vanished had been wet, the drizzle punctuated with heavier downpours. It was the kind of night when people kept their heads down, getting as quickly as they could from one place to another, without noticing much of what was going on around them.

  Was it going to help? ‘It won’t do any harm,’ said Mariner, diplomatically, to Charlie.

  ‘OK, well, good luck, anyway,’ Glover replied, before ringing off.

  Finally Mariner contacted DS Vicky Jesson. The line was poor, the interference symptomatic of Jesson’s location out on the street in the Arcadian area of the city, where she was surrounded on all sides by people enjoying a night out. ‘Everything all right there?’

  ‘Saturday night in Brum? About what you’d expect,’ she said cheerfully. Mariner envied her composure. No hint from her that she was pulled in different directions. On the team for only a matter of weeks, as an outcome of the extensive service reorganization, Vicky Jesson was quickly establishing herself as a reliable successor to DC Millie Khatoon. A single mother to her three kids, she had assured Mariner at interview – even though they weren’t allowed to ask – that her domestic arrangements would not be ‘an issue’. So far she’d been true to her word, though Mariner couldn’t help wondering how she managed to square things at this time on a Saturday night.

  ‘I’ll keep in touch,’ Mariner said. He ended the call with a feeling not entirely new to him that there was something missing; at least, not something, but someone. DS Tony Knox, normally his right-hand man, had been recently seconded to operation Athena, to assist in curbing the circulation of illegal firearms in the city. The initiative had begun a year ago, in direct response to a series of gang-related shootings that had culminated in the ambush of two police officers, one of whom had been shot dead. Over time, personnel had been drafted in from every operational district to work on the city-wide investigation, and Mariner and Sharp between them had managed to convince Knox that it would be a good career-building opportunity. But there were few days when Mariner didn’t slightly, selfishly, regret that strategy.

  Pocketing his phone, Mariner heard a slight stir out on the main concourse and crept along the corridor to see Gary Moore, Symphony Ha
ll’s stage manager waddling towards the box office, walkie-talkie in hand. A big man in his forties, Mariner scrutinized Moore’s shiny, round face for any hint of a salacious thrill. Though he didn’t know it, Moore was one of the people Mariner’s team were keeping a special eye on, having been amongst the last to see Grace Clifton before she left Symphony Hall on the night she was alleged to have disappeared. But Moore’s face was neutral enough as, at that moment, he saw Mariner and changed his course, bypassing the press and the ACC, and headed towards the side door of the locker room. ‘It’s finished,’ he said. ‘They’re just taking the curtain call, so any time now the audience will be starting to leave.’

  As if in response, on the far side of the atrium a door swung open and a middle-aged couple hurried out, whispering and pulling on coats before they scurried off towards the exit to catch the last train, or beat an expiring car park ticket.

  TWO

  Mariner opened the door immediately behind him, marked ‘Staff Only’, and he and Moore went in. As they did, Mariner caught the full-on reflection of Pippa Talbot frowning with studied concentration into the mirror, adjusting her clothing and inspecting her hair and make-up one last time. Younger by far than anyone else in the room, it was on her narrow shoulders that the real responsibility rested tonight. For her this was a kind of performance; a benefit show for her best friend, complete with a media audience all waiting outside to see if it would be the hoped-for triumph. But it wasn’t a show that even the most confident of performers would choose to be part of, and Mariner could see the ill-concealed nervousness in the way that she checked and re-checked her lipstick, pouting at her reflection.