Hunted. Paul Finch

       Chapter 8

      ‘So who arranged Lansing’s funeral?’ Heck asked.

      ‘His former girlfriend,’ Gail replied as she gunned her canary-yellow Fiat Punto along the twisting Surrey lanes. ‘Monica Chatreaux.’

      Heck glanced up from the paperwork littered across his lap. ‘As in Monica Chatreaux the supermodel?’

      ‘Correct.’

      Heck mused on this. He was seated in the front passenger seat. Beyond the windows, woods and farmland skimmed past in sunny shimmers of green and gold.

      ‘And was she really his former girlfriend … or just his friend?’

      ‘Girlfriend apparently.’

      ‘So he wasn’t gay?’

      Gail shook her head. ‘I considered that possibility – bloke of his age living alone, but apparently not.’

      Heck glanced again through the documentation. ‘Death occurred on 6 July, funeral held on 16 July. Not a lot of time between the two.’

      ‘Week and a half is about normal where I come from.’

      ‘When there are sus circs?’

      ‘Once the coroner had delivered his verdict, it was a bit difficult hanging on to the body.’

      ‘So was Lansing cremated or buried?’

      ‘Buried. Banstead Municipal Cemetery.’

      ‘Good.’

      She fired a glance at him. ‘Good?’

      ‘Yeah … if we need to dig him up again, we can.’

      Gail shook her head at the mere thought, and returned her attention to the road, though at this early hour on a Saturday morning it was unlikely they’d meet much other traffic. In truth, Heck wasn’t keen on the idea of exhumation either. He’d been present at several in his time, and it never failed to knock him sick. Lord alone knew what condition Lansing’s body would be in by now. It was bad enough in the photos taken on first arrival at the mortuary. He flipped through them again, one after another.

      The poor guy had effectively been chargrilled. All five layers of his epidermis had vanished. In its place lay a coating of crispy fat and melted muscle tissue. Here and there, nubs of bone gleamed amid the glutinous, oil-yellow pulp. Worst of all was Lansing’s face. No distinctive features had remained. Most of the flesh was gone; the grey orbs of his eyes had sunk into their sockets like ruptured grapes; the bones themselves sagged inward, fragmented, reduced to a jigsaw puzzle.

      ‘Died as a result of fourth-degree burns,’ Heck noted, scanning the details of the postmortem. ‘Yet it’s interesting that his corpse displayed other significant traumas too.’

      ‘Yeah, but all consistent with him having experienced a high-speed impact.’

      ‘Was he wearing his seatbelt?’

      ‘Difficult to say. The interior of the car was reduced to ashes. We think the airbag deployed.’

      ‘And yet he still suffered extensive facial injuries?’

      ‘I wondered about that too,’ Gail said. ‘Especially as it wasn’t a head-on collision.’

      ‘What’s even odder is that this is a guy with no prior driving convictions and no previous insurance claims. He’s as conscientious as they come, and yet we’re expected to believe that he pulled out onto a main road without checking it was clear.’

      She glanced at him again. ‘When you say “we’re expected to believe”, what other choice do we have? That’s evidently what he did?’

      ‘And no drugs or alcohol in his system either,’ Heck mused. ‘I see he lost several teeth in the accident.’

      ‘Most were discovered in his stomach.’

      ‘Most but not all.’

      ‘I’ve put a request through to have that one you found on the roadside fast-tracked. Don’t see how it could have ended up out there when he was still in the car.’

      ‘Neither do I.’ Heck looked up as they entered the outskirts of Horsham. ‘Course, it’s not necessarily Lansing’s tooth.’

      ‘Don’t fret, once we find the motive we’ll find the method.’ Gail spoke with an air of confidence. ‘And that won’t be difficult. Lansing was filthy rich. What better reason to knock someone off?’

      ‘It depends. I asked you yesterday who his main beneficiaries are. We got distracted before you could answer.’

      ‘His will was straightforward enough,’ she replied. ‘Written some time ago, with no suggestion that it’s been altered since. He has no dependants, no relatives. Quite a bit of his estate was to be divided up between the various charities he supported. They’re all squeaky clean, I’ve checked them. Monica Chatreaux’s in for a cut. She gets Rosewood Grange …’

      Heck assessed a shot of the 38-year-old supermodel which had once adorned the cover of Vogue: doe eyes and Cupid lips set beneath a glorious mop of tawny tresses.

      ‘Interviewed her yet?’ he asked.

      ‘Not yet. Bear in mind she’s a wealthy woman in her own right. She could probably have given Lansing a run for his money.’

      ‘Just because you’ve already got a lot, that doesn’t mean you don’t want more.’

      ‘Plus she’s been out of the country for the last three months, doing fashion shoots in the States. She only came back for Lansing’s funeral, and now she’s gone over there again.’

      ‘She could have hired someone to do the dirty deed.’

      ‘I don’t know …’ Gail looked unconvinced. ‘She and Lansing hadn’t been an item for quite some time when it happened. They stopped dating about eleven months ago. Broke it off by mutual consent. No acrimony, no spat. Think she’s dated someone else since.’

      ‘How did she behave at the funeral?’

      ‘With dignity. No histrionics.’

      ‘But there were tears?’

      ‘Yep.’

      ‘You were there, you saw that?’

      Gail nodded, but looked distracted as she negotiated the narrow streets around the pedestrianised square called the Carfax, in the centre of Horsham’s shopping district.

      ‘You don’t fancy her for this, do you?’ Heck said.

      ‘She’s a suspect; she has to be. But something in my gut tells me this is more to do with Lansing’s finances.’

      Heck glanced at another photo. This one had been lifted from a company website and portrayed a heavy-set man, thinning on top but nevertheless handsome and rather decorous. Rich white curls grew down both of his cheeks; he wore a navy-blue blazer over a white silk shirt and blue-striped tie. His name was Tim Baker, and he was the same age as Lansing – forty-five, which would be about right as they’d been chums since they’d schooled together at Eton. But whereas Gail had her doubts about the involvement of Monica Chatreaux, Heck had similar doubts about the involvement of Tim Baker.

      Baker was a ‘sleeping