Phobia Read online

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she insisted. ‘Risk assessment is too great; we can’t work out there.

  Heights aren’t my thing, anyway.’ ‘Mine either,’ Raaya replied. ‘I’ll go.’

  Raaya was younger than her by a few years, with an open face and soft dark eyes. He wasn’t being a hero or trying to impress her. In fact, he wasn’t actually looking at her at all as he steeled himself, and then stepped through the doorway onto the scaffolding outside.

  ‘Not great for a first day back on the job, Honor,’ Hansen uttered as he strolled past her and out onto the scaffolding with his hands in his pockets, clearly unafraid, his small black eyes glistening with delight. ‘You sure you’re up for all this, so soon? I can ask DI Russell to take the case.’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  Honor backed away from the stone arch, and instead walked around the edge of the belfry’s interior to where she could better see the victim. She could just make out the two forensics personnel out on the scaffolding, carefully searching for prints and evidence, before the fire brigade would be called in to bring the man down from the grisly heights. Honor edged along the interior of the belfry to where she could see through the next opening.

  From her vantage point she could see the body dangling from a noose out on the edge of the scaffolding boards. He was young, maybe thirty, with thick black hair and a slightly tanned complexion, perhaps Mediterranean in origin. The man’s jaw and head were twisted at an awkward angle, his tongue bloated and swollen into a purple mass that bulged between his lips. One eye stared up into the foggy sky, while the other was rolled up to reveal the white. She wondered who he had been, who his family were, the loved ones who might even now be waiting to hear from him. Not for the first time, she wondered what might have led such a young man to take his own life in such a dramatic way, dangling from a twenty–foot rope out over the streets far below…

  Honor stared at the rope for a moment, and in that instant the entire scene before her changed shape. The moment of revelation. The dawning of new and terrifying possibility. She had felt it before on numerous cases, both as a detective constable and later as a sergeant. The hairs on the back of her neck went up and she felt little insects of loathing scuttle beneath her skin.

  She waited for several minutes until Samir ducked back inside. His features were flushed, and he sat down on one of the beams and took a few breaths to compose himself.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

  He nodded. ‘Just as soon as I’m sure I’m not going to throw up.’

  ‘Did they say anything?’

  Samir shook his head, ran his hand through his hair. Hansen sauntered back into the belfry, his hands still in his pockets.

  ‘No immediate signs of struggle, nothing to suggest a second party. Just like I said, a suicide.’

  Honor said nothing. She already knew that this was no suicide, although clearly the forensics teams and Hansen had not yet come to the same conclusion.

  A constable appeared in the tower behind them and caught Honor’s gaze. ‘We’ve got somebody downstairs, ma’am, a family member.’

  Honor didn’t hesitate. Within a minute she was out of the belfry and back on blessed terra firma, where officers were now struggling to console and restrain a young woman with long black hair. Large crowds had gathered nearby in the rush–hour traffic, and Honor glanced up to see the hanged man clearly visible as the fog began to lift, the sun trying to break though. Honor made her way across the street, and as officers held the woman back from the crime scene, she placed one hand firmly on the woman’s shoulder and turned her gently around.

  ‘My name is Detective Sergeant Honor McVey,’ she said, her warrant card in her hand. ‘I’m the investigating officer. How do you know the victim?’

  The woman’s eyes were thick with tears that had smeared her mascara. She was dressed in a business suit and looked as though she was on her way to work when she had encountered the scene.

  ‘That’s my husband,’ she sobbed. ‘What happened? Why would he do this?’

  Honor kept her voice calm, hoping to draw as much information about their victim from the wife before she succumbed to shock. She also didn’t want to tip her hand too quickly that her husband might have been murdered, as the woman herself might be a suspect.

  ‘We were hoping that you might be able to tell us,’ she replied. ‘Do you know of any reason why your husband would choose to take his own life?’

  The woman shook her head vigorously.

  ‘We’ve never been happier!’ she sobbed. ‘We’re recently married and he’s been promoted at work! This is the last thing that he’d do!’

  Honor noted the woman’s use of present tense, a clear indicator that her husband’s death had not yet sunk in, and a possible primary indicator of innocence.

  ‘Sometimes people don’t tell us about everything that’s going on in their lives,’ Honor said, as gently as she could. ‘Is it at all possible that your husband was hiding something from you, from everyone, that might lead him to…?’

  ‘You don’t understand!’ the woman snapped back. ‘Sebby couldn’t have done this to himself, he’s not capable of it!’

  Honor didn’t rise to the woman’s anger, knowing to keep her own emotions as neutral as possible. Standard procedure – believe a first–account witness, investigate afterward.

  ‘People under terrible stress can do things that we can’t begin to…’

  ‘That’s not what I mean!’ the woman insisted through her tears. ‘Sebastian couldn’t have gone up there, he couldn’t even bear living in a first–floor flat! He’s absolutely terrified of heights!’

  2

  ‘How long before the body is down? We don’t want a bloody circus up there.’

  Honor walked through the main doors of Bishopsgate Police Station, affectionately known as “B–Gate”, a large, grey–stone building in the heart of the city’s old town, with Samir, Hansen and Danny right behind her. By now the fog was clearing to reveal bright autumn sunshine in a powder–blue sky. The morning had also revealed a flood of phone calls from journalists eager for a bite on a new “incident” story unfolding at St Magnus.

  ‘Fire crews are in the belfry, pulling the body in,’ Danny replied.

  Honor nodded as they were buzzed through the building’s lobby and into the interior. She led the way past the newly refurbished custody suite and custody bridge, behind which were the new fingerprint scanning rooms. Fifteen cells adjoined the bridge, beyond which were the endless corridors of the station’s vast interior, which extended all the way back to New Street. The original station had been built in 1866, where once Catherine Eddowes had been held for drunk and disorderly in Houndsditch before being released, only to become the fifth victim of Jack the Ripper. Rebuilt prior to World War Two, the new building was structurally reinforced and had survived a direct bomb hit during the conflict. Now, it served as CP–6 and was rapidly taking over from CP–5 at Wood Street as the City of London Police’s centre of activity.

  ‘Canvassing hasn’t pulled anything in yet, but it’s not a residential area so we’re going to need the MET to assist us. I need that CCTV footage, and anything else we can grab from all ingress routes into Lower Thames Street.’

  ‘Footage is on the way,’ Danny confirmed, keeping pace with her demands with a sedate lack of ostentation. ‘Might take a few hours to collate everything, but there’s no way anybody could have got into that church without being caught on at least one camera.’

  The four of them huddled into an elevator as Samir hit the button for the second floor, where the CID offices were located. Honor took a soft breath, because she didn’t want the others to notice her anxiety as the elevator door closed with a gentle ping, the four of them standing within inches of one another.

  The basement of Bishopsgate held the firing range, the floor above the muster room, canteen and custody suite. CID held court on the second floor, with offices above and the top, seventh floor, what had once been
the restraining suite. A former City Police hospital, the upper floor had long been said to be haunted by the ghost of Evelyn Rolfe, a nurse killed by the direct bomb–hit in World War Two. Even Honor got shivers walking around up there, late at night.

  ‘The pathologist will perform the autopsy by the morning,’ Samir said as he checked his notes. ‘Cause of death is a no–brainer, but we can’t be too careful.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Hansen nodded, ‘it’s pretty clear the guy hanged himself.’

  Honor spoke up, more to distract herself from the ever–closing walls of the elevator than anything else.

  ‘He didn’t hang himself,’ she said. ‘He was murdered.’ Hansen, Samir and Danny looked at her.

  ‘What makes you say that?’ Samir asked.

  The elevator door pinged open and Honor led the way down a corridor to their offices.

  ‘What do we know about our victim, and where’s the wife now?’

  ‘Sebastian Dukas,’ Danny replied, in his hands a series of scribbled notes taken from the wife’s brief questioning, ‘aged thirty–two, Greek heritage, works for a national bank, not one of the big ones in the district. No priors, nothing on CRIMINT. Wife is Katarina Dukas, thirty, graphic designer, clean as a whistle. She’s with an FLO in the custody suite. They live in Clapham, rented apartment, married last year.’

  Honor reached her office and dropped her bag into her seat, her mind turning over the information as she considered her options. Normally the DCI would conduct an interview with Katarina Dukas, as they would have taken control of the investigation, but with no actual crime on the record yet there was no formal protocol in place. Honor knew that was about to change, but she didn’t want to tip her hand to the victim’s wife yet. What Katarina knew about her husband’s unfortunate demise might affect how she replied when questioned, and Honor wanted the unvarnished truth from her before she was told that her husband had been murdered. Until she alibied out, Katarina was a person of interest in the case, as were all the victim’s nearest and dearest.

  ‘I’ll talk to the DI about getting an incident room set up,’ Honor said. ‘I want the media out of this for as long as possible. They can’t have failed to notice the body, but it’ll look like a suicide to them so we’ll stick with “we can’t comment on an on–going investigation” and let them sweat the details out.’

  ‘How do you know it’s a homicide?’ Hansen demanded. ‘You couldn’t even get out on that scaffolding, but now you’re telling me that guy was murdered?’

  Danny noticed the accusation and shot Hansen a hot look.

  ‘I went out on the scaffolding,’ Samir replied quietly. ‘It didn’t further our knowledge, did it?’

  ‘Says the direct–entrant,’ Hansen shot back. ‘What the hell would you know? You haven’t even been part of a full–blown homicide case yet. You’ve never even walked a beat.’

  ‘Can it,’ Danny snapped and put himself in front of Hansen.

  Hansen said nothing but his eyes wobbled with panic as Danny got in his face.

  ‘Hansen,’ Honor said, her voice calm, ‘as you pointed out, I’m the Investigating Officer now. I’ll update the CRIS database with what I know, so that everybody can understand how Sebastian Dukas was murdered. Is that sufficient for you?’

  Hansen nodded. Danny smirked at him but said nothing.

  Honor didn’t want to talk about her suspicions with them right now. Her thoughts were dominated by the sight of Sebastian’s face, his tongue bulging from his grimacing features, and by the grief–stricken wife, Katarina, her confusion and angst. It had been six months since Honor had been forced to confront such emotionally taxing scenes, a poison that laced the veins.

  ‘We’ll need to start sifting through that CCTV as soon as it arrives. Samir, you handle everything east of the church. Danny, you watch the west. I’ll take anything north or coming off London Bridge, and update CRIS and EAB with what we know.’

  ‘Will do,’ Danny said, leaving the office with Samir.

  ‘Hansen, go see DI Harper and find out where she wants you.’

  Hansen stared at her for a moment, his confidence returning as Danny got out of earshot. ‘This isn’t your office yet, Honor.’

  Honor couldn’t help herself. She leaned on her desk with both hands. ‘It certainly isn’t yours, Colin.’

  For a moment she thought that he might bite, but then Hansen turned and walked out of the office.

  Honor took a moment to breathe again. First day back, and already she was into a homicide and a pissing contest with Hansen, but at least she could tell that both Samir and Danny were switched–on and eager to get to work. Unlike Hansen, she detected no sense of rivalry from them, no bitterness at her return, filling a vacant slot that either man might have coveted. The limited size of the City of London Police made promotions hard to come by, progression difficult for even the best officers, and so many were often lost to more lucrative posts across the MET and further afield.

  Most people thought that the Metropolitan Police Service covered the entire city of London, and in some respects that was true, but the “square mile” was in fact covered by its own territorial police force, the City of London Police. Operated by a little over a thousand staff, the force was the smallest in the country and was responsible for the City and the Middle and Inner Temples, as the local Inns of Court were commonly known. In recent years, a barrage of resignations and swingeing budget cuts had reduced the Metropolitan Police Force’s numbers to a shadow of their former self, and while the same cuts had hit the City Police, they had increasingly found themselves taking on major crimes from the overstretched MET. The result was Bishopsgate’s Major Crimes Support Unit of four small City Police MITs that ran homicide investigations in and around the square mile, taking the pressure off the MET’s own MIT force. Bishopsgate was one of four boroughs within their jurisdiction, headed up by DI Katy Harper and DCI Tom Mitchell.

  Detective Inspector Katy Harper held court in an office just down the corridor from Honor. Although older and more experienced, Katy Harper had been unfortunate in missing the promotions boat on three occasions, most often pipped at the post by male colleagues in a world that existed long before the #metoo movement. Her anger at being denied promotion radiated itself down through the ranks with seismic force, preventing any female officer from suffering the same fate, an asset that now benefited Honor as she knocked on the open door of Katy’s office. The door was rarely closed.

  ‘Honor,’ DI Harper said with a cautious smile. ‘Welcome back.’

  Honor walked in as Harper gestured with a wave of one hand to a chair opposite. Petite, slim, with bobbed auburn hair and thin lips, the DI was famous for a desk piled high with mountains of paperwork, files and other paraphernalia from which she might ambush anybody walking past her door who looked like they should be working harder. It was said that she had not taken a day off in six years, even after spraining an ankle at home. Instead, she had taken a taxi direct from A&E to her desk, and was known to sleep on a sagging leather couch tucked against one wall of the office when handling particularly difficult cases.

  ‘St Martyr’s,’ Harper said.

  ‘Thirty–two–year–old victim,’ Honor replied, ‘swinging from a noose off scaffolding on the steeple. Wife’s in the custody suite with a FLO, forensics are done and the body’s off to the morgue for autopsy. We’re going to need an incident room.’

  Harper’s left eyebrow jumped up and hovered for a moment.

  ‘You going to justify that? CRIS has it listed as a suspected suicide; city suit takes a dive and checks out of life.’

  CRIS was the Crime Reporting system used by City CID to log and report crimes, and which most detectives used to update their work on any given case. Hansen had already logged the case on the system and tagged it as a suicide.

  ‘The crime was staged to appear a suicide,’ Honor said. ‘We’ve only got one Homicide Assessment Team vehicle.’

  ‘We’re handing over to MIT 4 this morn
ing,’ Honor pointed out. ‘We won’t need the wheels. This is a fresh case and it’s already got the attention of the media; it’ll be on the news before noon. We need to be ready to move or we’ll be facing lots of horrible questions and no decent answers.’

  ‘Make it worth my while.’

  Honor sucked in a breath.

  ‘The victim was hanged from a rope almost twenty feet long. Hangings need a rope that is a specific length, based on the weight of the victim. Too short, and they asphyxiate slowly on the end of the rope or are able to free themselves if they’re not bound. Too long, and the drop tears the head clean off the body, decapitating the victim.’ Harper winced. ‘Sebastian Dukas did not hang himself, he was lowered into position, either already dead or left to die. Given that he was not bound by the wrists and could plausibly have saved himself, it’s my assessment that Sebastian Dukas was already dead before he was hanged.’

  Harper watched her for a long moment.

  ‘You’ve been watching too many horror movies,’ she finally said with interest, ‘but I don’t doubt that you’re right. I once read they screwed up the rope length when they hanged Saddam Hussein, took his head clean off. If you’re right, how does that affect the nature of this case?’

  Honor didn’t hold back, willingly allowing herself to fly by the seat of her pants. This was speculation time, a chance to share ideas and see what revelations they could uncover.

  ‘Highly visible corpse,’ she said, ‘positioned to display as clearly as possible to crowds as soon as the sun came up. The fog could have scuppered that plan, if it was the plan, but it also concealed the body until later in the morning. Our HAT vehicle didn’t arrive until rush–hour was already in full swing.’

  ‘You think the weather played a part? That’s elaborate.’

  ‘Getting a body or an unwilling victim two hundred feet above the ground and hanging them from scaffolding is already elaborate. This was planned, methodically. I don’t believe anybody could kill a victim and then just concoct that display on the fly. Given Sebastian’s Mediterranean ancestry, this could be a hate crime.’