Clough, in greens, was up to his arms inside Larry’s chest cavity.
A microphone hung from the ceiling, near the pathologist’s mouth. He would be speaking into it intermittently, recording his observations, though Gray couldn’t hear as the speakers were switched off and there was a plate glass observation window between the theatre and waiting room.
The pathologist removed some organs from Larry, put them into the pan on a set of shiny scales, stepped back, and read the dial. The organs went into a dish beside Clough before he delved in once more.
The post mortem continued for nearly an hour. Part way through, just after Clough had used the bone saw (which Gray could hear, and it set his teeth on edge), he looked up and nodded at Gray briefly. When it was over, Clough exited the theatre via a set of double doors at the rear.
Eventually, after cleaning down and removing his scrubs, Clough joined Gray. “It’s been a busy day,” said the pathologist. “I put your boy here to the top of the queue. He didn’t drown.”
“No diatoms and plankton?”
“Well done. You remembered our lesson. Yes, diatoms and plankton only where they should be. Our Mr Lost had suffered extensive damage. Firstly, a fractured skull where he’d been hit by the hammer; not hard enough to kill but it would certainly have incapacitated him.”
Gray remembered the small cabin. Perhaps Khoury didn’t have the room to get a proper swing in?
Clough continued, “And then there were the knife wounds, eleven of them in all. A frenzied attack, I’d say. Loss of blood was acute. He’d have been in a lot of pain.”
“So he didn’t die quickly?”
“No, or easily.”
“Have you had chance to look at William Noble?”
“The burning?” asked Clough. Gray nodded. “Briefly. It most likely wasn’t the fire that killed him. The back of his head was smashed in too. I’ll have to open him up to be sure, but I’d bet on not finding any smoke inhalation in the lungs.”
Clough held out his hand, ready to make a wager.
“I’m not taking that,” said Gray.
“Spoilsport.”
***
Gray went back to his flat. After witnessing Larry being eviscerated he wanted some time by himself. While he cooked some pasta, he thought back to what McGavin had told him. Millstone appeared to be another common denominator, and he wondered what McGavin’s connection was. When the pasta was done, he poured it into a bowl and carried it through to the living room. He sat at a table and booted up his laptop.
Having just bought and sold property, Gray broadly knew the ins and outs of the tortuous process; strictly speaking, his high-street solicitor had dealt with the detail. Gray had just been the cash machine. Perhaps commercial deals were different.
The police had access to the Land Registry where all details on property transfers since 1993 were held. Gray entered the restaurant’s address and tapped the enter key.
His search revealed that only months ago it had indeed been purchased by Millstone Holdings. Prior to then it was owned by Enterprise Associated Partners. Gray moved over to a search engine. He entered “Millstone Holdings” and thumbed the enter key once more.
171,000 search results were returned. Gray scrolled through several pages. The few relevant links pointed to another official government body, Companies House, where trading information on commercial ventures was held. Like the Land Registry the police had full and free access to the data.
However, the information on Millstone Holdings was as deep as McGavin’s stew. No trading history, no assets or liabilities, and the single director was someone called Fallon based at an address in Guernsey. Gray returned to the search engine and entered the address. Millstone wasn’t the only business registered there. The search engine spewed out page after page of details. It appeared that Millstone was a shell company. Another search revealed Fallon was a London-based lawyer.
EAP was a different matter. There was over three decades of results. The business was wholly owned by Jake Armitage. Besides Jake, the other directors were his sons, Regan and Cameron.
Gray leaned back in his chair, not sure where to go next. Millstone seemed a dead end, its true ownership hidden away. Tomorrow he’d go to see the expert on property deals.
Jake.
Gray remembered his pasta. He skewered some with a fork and put it into his mouth. It was lukewarm but it would have to do. He switched his attention to the Sunset fire. The same search engine produced a raft of results. Gray flicked through the reports, not sure what he was looking for. He spotted an article by William Noble in the now-defunct Thanet Echo. It seemed like the newspaper still had a life in the virtual world. Gray clicked on it.
The article was written a few months after the blaze. It was the last edition put out by the Echo before it closed. The detail was a rehashing of the actual events followed by a summary of the following cases, including the injunction against the newspaper in a chronological order.
The guts of it was Noble’s eyewitness account of the fire itself. It seemed he’d arrived on the scene with the fire engines and detailed what had occurred thereafter. Noble had had the foresight to grab his camera too. Right at the end, Noble stated that Jake’s exoneration had resulted from someone admitting to setting the fire.
Larry Lost.
Apparently he’d thrown a cigarette end over the fence which had started the fire. An accident.
One photo embedded in the text had caught his eye. Gray scrolled back up until he found it. The image was of three people sitting side by side on the sea wall opposite the Sunset, their faces lit by the conflagration. Gray clicked so the photo was full screen. He recognised all three immediately.
Jeff Carslake was standing a few feet away from the couple who interested Gray most: Cameron Armitage with his arm around Rachel O’Shea.