The Aden Vanner Novels Read online

  The Aden Vanner Novels

  Jeff Gulvin

  Contents

  Sleep No More

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Sorted

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Acknowledgments

  Close Quarters

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Acknowledgments

  A Biography of Jeff Gulvin

  Sleep No More

  An Aden Vanner Novel

  Jeff Gulvin

  A special thanks to Jack Gibberd

  For Alec Law

  I’d like to say a special thanks to my agent and friend, Ben Camardi, whose support, consistency, and advice has allowed my career to keep rolling when it looked like the roads were closed.

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  One

  SHE LAY VERY STILL, her bandaged head barely indenting the pillow. Her face was so pale it was grey: the age lines, the thin arc of her mouth, translucent etchings on a fading parchment. At three in the morning she died.

  Vanner sat in the chair behind the door, a shadow among shadows. He heard the intermittent bleep of the monitor dull to a single, final monotone. He did not move, his ankle crossed over his knee; elbows on the arms of the chair with his hands bunched under his chin. He stared at the triangular section of floor between the bridge of his legs.

  Two nurses came in. They did not move perhaps as hurriedly as they might; as if they thought that age was age and really there was little point. He did not condemn them. He sat where he was, looking at the wall beyond the bed. They disconnected the heart monitor and pushed it away. Somehow the room was that much more peaceful now that the faint but audible humming had ceased. They took the pillows from under her head and laid her out so that she was flat, prostrate, dead. Her right arm flopped straight out from the side of the bed, elbow against the cold, metallic rim. Her limp hand upturned toward the ceiling. Vanner got up out of his chair and the nurses moved back. Slowly, hands in the pockets of his coat, he stepped over and looked down upon the closed and empty face. An old lady. He did not know how old. Somebody’s mother. For what felt like a long time he stood there, just looking down at her. She did not seem at peace and for a moment he imagined her fear.

  ‘Her family are outside,’ the nurse nearest him said.

  Nicholls was walking towards him along the corridor, carrying two plastic cups of coffee. Vanner let the swing door go and it swished into stillness. Nicholls stopped and looked at him. Vanner pursed his lips. Nicholls handed him the coffee. ‘I’ll tell her family. They’re down in the Staff Nurse’s office.’

  Vanner shook his head. ‘I’ll tell them,’ he said.

  Nicholls drove. Vanner squatted, catlike in the passenger seat, one knee hunched against the dashboard with his fist pressing into his chin as if the whole car was too small for him. November rain rattled against the windscreen, the wipers weaving it away only to find themselves swamped all over again. Vanner had to screw up his eyes; tired eyes, eyes that today felt as though they had seen just too much of the world. His mind numbed to nothing. A few minutes earlier he had spoken in clipped, mechanical tones; told a daughter and a son that their aged mother had been bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat. Nicholls glanced at him.

  ‘Maybe you should just go home, Guv. Your shift finished hours ago.’

  ‘I’m fine.’ Vanner sat up more evenly in the seat.

  ‘I can interview him.’

  Vanner shook his head. ‘I want to do it.’

  They drove on through the London traffic, back towards Loughborough Street. Vanner peered through the window into rain blurred by the incandescent glazing of streetlamps. ‘Shit of a night,’ he said.

  Nicholls dropped him on the front steps and then drove the car round to the car park. Vanner stood a moment, feeling the shifting weight of the rain. He peered up the street towards the sign for the tube station. Someone shouted. A can clinked against the pavement. Sudden shrieked laughter. He walked inside and shook himself. The duty sergeant peered at him through reinforced glass and then the buzzer clicked on the door beside him.

  The sergeant watched him as Vanner went through. ‘All right, Sir?’ Vanner grunted.

  ‘How’s the old lady?’

  ‘Dead.’

  The sergeant looked at the counter. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t apologise to me. You didn’t kill her.’ Vanner strode past him and up the flight of stairs to his old room, where he knew he could close the door and just sit there in the darkness.

  In silence he straddled the chair, legs askew, with a coffee cup and a cigarette clutched in his hands. Papers unlooked at, piled in front of him. Rain beat at the window behind his head. The heating was switched off and the room reeked with wintered cold. Subconsciously he gathered the threads of his coat about him and drew deeply on the cigarette. Again he saw her face and beyond it the crumpled faces of her family as he told them she was dead. He thought of a black and white photograph in his father’s house. If she had lived she would have been her age.

  The phone started ringing on the desk behind the papers. He could not see it so he ignored it. But it rang on. It rang and it rang. Brushing aside a pile of reports he lifted the receiver to his ear.

  ‘Vanner.’

  ‘Sorry, Guv. It’s me.’ Nicholls’ voice. ‘We’ve got a bit of hassle down here.’

  ‘What sort of hassle?’

  ‘The kid with the old lady. He’s still mouthing off. Has been for half an hour.’

  ‘Shut him up then.’

  ‘We can’t—short of belting him. He won’t shut up.’

  Vanner was silent for a moment. ‘Is his brief here yet?’

  ‘No, Guv. It’s the duty solicitor. You know—Mullen. He won’t hurry for a toerag like this one.’

  ‘I’ll be down,’ Vanner said.

  He could hear the noise of somebody shouting as he descended the steps to the cells. A ridiculous booming voice, echoing from behind the metal door as if it came from a cave. Nicholls was seated on the edge of the desk next to the custody sergeant. He got up as Vanner came in.

  ‘Hasn’t anyone shut him up?’ Vanner said.

  ‘Won’t shut up, Sir.’ The custody sergeant walked to the cell. Vanner glanced at the chalk board where the words ‘DANIELS, ASSAULT. VANNER.’ were inscribed in capitals.

  ‘You better change that to MURDER.’ />
  He snapped open the visor. The lad squatted on the bench, hands in his lap and his chin on his chest. Then he looked up at Vanner and stuck two fingers in the air. Vanner closed the visor.

  ‘Time we interviewed him, Joe,’ he said as he walked back to the desk. ‘Get him down to number 4 will you.’

  ‘You don’t want to wait for the brief then?’

  Vanner shook his head. ‘Wheel him down. I’ll be along in a moment.’

  At the end of the corridor Vanner turned left and then ascended a short flight of steps to another door. Beyond this was a second corridor that reached backwards into the building. At the far end he passed into the properties section. A man leaned on the counter checking off items on a clipboard.

  ‘Stock taking?’ Vanner said.

  The man looked up. Vanner smiled. ‘DCI Vanner. Get me number AZ101 will you please? It only came in tonight.’

  The man disappeared into the cupboardlike room behind him and Vanner tapped out a rhythm on the counter. In a few minutes the man had returned with a lengthy polythene case, fastened at the neck by a black plastic twist lock. Inside was a heavy, wooden baseball bat.

  ‘This the one?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  He pushed the book across the counter for Vanner to sign.

  Nicholls stood against the wall in Interview Room 4. Daniels, the suspect, sat in the plastic chair with his arms thrown across the desk. His bleach-blond hair was shaven above his ears, with the tangled mass of the rest flopping heavily across his eyes. He wore baggy jeans over chunky, loose-fitting basketball boots. He looked up as Vanner came in.

  ‘You again? The eyes in the door.’

  Vanner laid the bat on the desk before him, still encased in plastic.

  Nicholls stepped forward. ‘I don’t know if we’ll get anywhere, Guv. He’s speeding or something. Maybe we ought to get the doc to take a look at him.’

  Vanner leaned both hands on the desk and stared long and coldly at Daniels. ‘We’ll do that, Joe. Later though. Get us some tea will you. I’m sure Mr Daniels is thirsty.’

  Nicholls left the room and all at once there was stillness. As the door closed so the air died and Vanner half-closed his eyes. Across the table from him Daniels had straightened up, as if the sudden silence disturbed him.

  Vanner stood back from the table. Carefully he unfastened the plastic tag and then slid the bat from the wrapper. The boy watched him silently.

  ‘Think you’re a hard man don’t you.’ Vanner said it softly. He lifted the bat, both hands firm about the handle. ‘You like to use this. Bone. Blood. The way it sort of jars up your arm when you hit someone. Makes your heart pump doesn’t it.’

  The boy stared at him, his eyes wide. Vanner threw the bat, broadside, straight at his chest. He caught it. He had no choice. It would have hit him otherwise.

  ‘Feel good?’ Vanner took black leather gloves from his pocket. Slowly the boy got to his feet.

  ‘Feel powerful—a weapon like that in your hands?’ Vanner stretched the gloves over his fingers. ‘That old lady you hit—she died an hour ago.’

  The boy still stared at him. Vanner stepped round the table. ‘Defend yourself. I’m going to beat you shitless.’

  Two

  THE TELEPHONE RANG SOFTLY, somewhere at the edge of her dream. Jean Morrison shook off the duvet cover and lifted the receiver. She did not put it to her ear; merely passed it, slack-handed, over her shoulder to her husband.

  ‘Morrison.’

  ‘Sir. This is Scammell.’

  ‘What is it?’ Morrison looked at the blurred hands on his watch face.

  ‘Sorry to wake you, Sir.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Loughborough Street. We’ve got a DCI gone apeshit. He just beat seven bells out of a murder suspect.’

  Morrison tightened his grip on the phone. ‘Loughborough Street. Who?’

  Scammell seemed to pause. ‘Vanner,’ he said after a moment. ‘DCI Vanner.’

  Morrison felt the breath stick in his throat. ‘I’ll get dressed,’ he whispered. ‘Pick me up in twenty minutes.’

  In the bathroom he stripped off his pyjama jacket and inspected his jaw in the mirror. Vanner. He almost mouthed the word. He splashed warm water over his face and was smiling as he lifted the razor.

  Vanner perched on the edge of the chair opposite McCague. Sleep tormented him, danced tantalisingly before the fatigue that lay like oil in his eyes. Through the uncurtained window the last of the night held the city.

  McCague stared at Vanner. ‘You look like death.’ He pushed himself away from his desk. ‘You shouldn’t even have been here. Your shift ended hours ago. What the hell were you doing?’

  Vanner ignored him, the words floating in and out of his mind as if they did not belong between them.

  ‘Vanner.’ The sharp, brittle sound jerked him awake. McCague was staring at him. ‘Talk to me for Christ’s sake.’ He got up, knocking away his chair as he did so. He faced the window with his back squared and his hands in his trouser pockets. ‘Whole damn career up in smoke.’ He shook his head. ‘Some of the younger ones maybe. But you. Jesus Christ, Vanner.’

  He turned again. ‘God knows what you’d have done if Joe Nicholls hadn’t walked in. What the hell were you playing at? Why’d you give him the bat? You’ll have screwed that up as well. How can we submit his fingerprints after you handed it back to him?’

  ‘Blood.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Blood. We found it on his clothes when we nicked him. Traces on his hands.’

  McCague stuck out his chin. ‘Well it better fucking match.’ He paused. ‘It’s premeditated this, you know. They’ll make you walk the plank.’ He closed his eyes for a moment, then he leaned on the table. ‘Listen, you better go and get some coffee or something. Wake yourself up. CIB are on their way and you won’t get a rest till they’re finished.’

  Morrison waited just inside his front door until he heard the car pull in from the main road. He stepped out into the drive, blowing great clouds of breath into the rain-soaked atmosphere. The rain itself had stopped now but the smell of its passing was everywhere.

  ‘So,’ Morrison said as he settled himself in the passenger seat, feeling the warmth of the heater about his knees. ‘Loughborough Street.’

  Scammell hauled on the steering wheel and guided the car across the road. ‘We should be there in about half an hour at this time of day, Sir.’

  Morrison nodded and rested back in his seat. He thought about Vanner as they drove, thought back nearly four years to Dalkeith. Silent, arrogant Vanner, with a past that dragged behind him like mist.

  Vanner had been a Detective Inspector in those days and had just transferred in from Hammersmith. Morrison was a DCI, and in charge of the Serious Crimes Squad based in the South Lothian Region. Vanner had just arrived; out of the blue almost, and that was what rankled most with Morrison. He had been on two weeks leave, no mention of a new man before he went. He gets back and Lo and Behold—DI Vanner confronts him.

  Morrison pulled his file and later the same day he met with his Chief Super for a drink. Morrison was immaculate as ever and he bought the drinks. His Chief was a balding, fifty-five-year-old called Raymond. He was serving out time now and would jump at early retirement.

  ‘He just landed on us,’ Raymond was saying. He wiped frothy beer from his lip. ‘And I mean exactly that. I had no idea there was a new man being attached to your lot. I just got a call from the Chief Constable. He told me there was a new DI on his way to me from London. On secondment, to be attached to your unit.’ He paused to sip at his beer.

  Morrison watched him, one finger tapping against the line of his lips. ‘You’ve read his file though, Sir?’

  ‘Of course I have.’

  ‘And you brought it up with the Chief?’

  ‘Andrew, when you’re a bit older you’ll understand more about politics.’

  Morrison coloured. ‘Sorry, Sir. Ex-Army though. Four years in Belfast
. He must have kept volunteering.’

  ‘Probably did. By all accounts he was good. A Captain at twenty-three you know.’

  Both of them looked at one another. ‘A bit fuzzy later though,’ Morrison said.

  ‘Fuzzy?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘You mean when he resigned his commission?’

  ‘And after.’

  Raymond shrugged. ‘Who knows, Andrew? Who knows? Maybe other people had eyes on him. Their loss, our gain … etc., etc.’

  ‘What was he doing in Hammersmith?’

  ‘Six-month thing. Undercover. West London gangs. Some kind of investigation that began when he was in D11. Armed building society robbery.’

  ‘He shot someone.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But why move on? I mean D11 is generally a career in itself.’

  Raymond shrugged his shoulders. ‘Maybe there are plans for him that minions like you and I don’t know about. Use him, Andrew. He’s supposed to be very good.’

  Morrison had watched him after that. A new DI landing on him. Army background. Belfast. He watched him.

  Scammell was talking to him. ‘You know Vanner don’t you, Sir?’

  Morrison looked across at him. ‘You mean apart from what we see on television?’

  Scammell smiled. ‘Didn’t you work with him?’

  ‘Aye, for a while. Have you got SOCO on the move?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Morrison nodded. ‘Good. I want this to be by the book, David. No slip-ups.’ He looked forward again, tapping his fingers on his knees. Rain had begun to drift in the wind against the screen, so that the wipers were flicking across at irritatingly lengthy intervals. Scammell’s words brought memories back to him now, Galashiels and the very first Watchman killing.

  He was walking out to his car when Vanner drove in. Morrison waited for him, one foot in, one foot out of the doorwell. He rattled his keys against the roof.

  ‘Vanner?’

  Vanner looked up from locking his car.

  ‘Get yourself over here.’

  Vanner paused for a moment and then pocketed his own keys and walked over. ‘Get in the car,’ Morrison told him.