by Peter James
‘Yes, Mr Starling. It was working when I came on shift.’
‘Do we know what the problem was yet?’
‘I haven’t spoken to Tony.’
Tony was the chief engineer of the company.
Starling watched the activity at the Pearce house for some moments, nodding.
‘Not good, is it, sir?’ Christmas said.
‘It’s incredible,’ Garry Starling said. ‘The worst thing that’s ever happened on any of the properties we monitor and the fucking system wasn’t working. Incredible!’
‘Bad timing.’
‘You could say that.’
Christmas moved a toggle switch on the panel and zoomed in on one SOCO, who was bagging something of interest that was too small for them to see.
‘Kind of interesting, watching how thorough these guys are,’ he said.
There was no reply from his boss.
‘Like something out of CSI.’
Again there was no reply.
He turned his head and discovered, to his astonishment, that Garry Starling had left the room.
56
Wearing expensive high heels makes you feel sexy, doesn’t it? You think spending money on these things is an investment, don’t you? All part of your trap. Do you know what you are like? All of you? Venus fly traps! That’s what you are like.
Have you ever looked closely at the leaves of a Venus fly trap? They are all pink inside. Do they remind you of something? I’ll tell you what they remind me of: vaginas with teeth. Which is of course exactly what they are. Nasty incisors all the way around, like prison cell bars.
The moment an insect enters and touches one of the tiny hairs in those inviting, sensual pink lips, the trap snaps shut. It seals out all the air. Just like you all do. Then the digestive juices set to work, slowly killing the prey if it hasn’t been lucky enough to have suffocated first. Just like you all do! The soft, inner parts of the insect are dissolved, but not the tough outer part, the exoskeleton. At the end of the digestive process, after several days, sometimes a couple of weeks, the trap reabsorbs the digestive fluid and then reopens. The remains of the insect are blown away in the wind or washed away by the rain.
That’s why you put those shoes on, isn’t it? To trap us, suck all the fluids out of us, then excrete our remains.
Well, I’ve got news for you.
57
Monday 12 January
MIR-1 was capable of housing up to three Major Incident investigations at the same time. But with Roy Grace’s rapidly expanding team, Operation Swordfish needed the entire room. Fortunately he’d always kept on the right side of the Senior Support Officer, Tony Case, who controlled all four Major Incident Suites in the county.
Case obligingly moved the only other major investigation currently taking place in Sussex House at the moment – the late-night street murder of an as yet unidentified man – to the smaller MIR-2 along the corridor.
Although Grace had held two briefings yesterday, several of his team had been absent on outside inquiries, for a number of important reasons. He had ordered full attendance this morning.
He sat down at a free space at one of the workstations, placing his agenda and Policy Book in front of him. Beside them sat his third coffee of the day, so far. Cleo was constantly reproaching him for the amount he consumed, but after his early pleasant but testy meeting with ACC Rigg, he felt in need of another strong caffeine hit.
Although MIR-1 had not been redecorated or refurbished for some years, the room always had a sterile, faintly anodyne modern-office smell. A big contrast to police offices before the smoking ban had been imposed, he thought. Almost all of them reeked of tobacco and had a permanently fuggy haze. But it gave them atmosphere and in some ways he missed that. Everything in life was becoming too sterile.
He nodded greetings to various members of his team as they filed into the room, most of them, including Glenn Branson, who appeared to be having yet another of his endless arguments with his wife, talking on their phones.
‘Morning, old-timer,’ Branson greeted him when he ended his call. He pocketed his phone, then tapped the top of his own shaven dome and frowned.
Grace frowned back. ‘What?’
‘No gel. Did you forget?’
‘I was seeing the new ACC first thing, so thought I ought to be a little conservative.’
Branson, who had given Roy Grace a major fashion makeover some months ago, shook his head. ‘You know what? Sometimes you’re just plain sad. If I was the new ACC, I’d want officers with a bit of zing – not ones who looked like my grandfather.’
‘Sod you!’ Grace said with a grin. Then he yawned.
‘See!’ Branson said gleefully. ‘It’s your age. You can’t take the pace.’
‘Very funny. Look, I have to concentrate for a few minutes, OK?’
‘You know who you remind me of?’ Branson said, ignoring him.
‘George Clooney? Daniel Craig?’
‘Nah. Brad Pitt.’
For a moment Grace looked quite pleased. Then the Detective Sergeant added, ‘Yeah, in Benjamin Button – like at the point where he looks a hundred and hasn’t started getting younger yet.’
Grace shook his head, stifling a grin, then another yawn. Monday was a day most normal people dreaded. But most normal people at least started the week feeling rested and fresh. He had spent the whole of his Sunday at work, first going to the pier, to the maintenance room of the ghost train, where Mandy Thorpe had been raped and seriously injured, and then visiting her at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, where she was under police guard. Despite a bad head injury, the young woman had managed to give a detailed initial statement to the SOLO allocated to her, who had in turn relayed this information to him.
Quite apart from the trauma to these poor victims, Roy Grace was feeling a different kind of trauma of his own, from the pressure to solve this and make an arrest. To compound matters, the head crime reporter of the Argus, Kevin Spinella, had now left three messages on his mobile phone asking him to call back urgently. Grace knew if he wanted the cooperation of his main local paper in this inquiry, rather than just a sensational headline in tomorrow’s edition, he was going to have to manage Spinella carefully. That would mean giving him an exclusive extra titbit to the information he would release at the midday press conference – and at the moment he didn’t have anything for the man. At least, nothing he wanted the public to know.
He gave the reporter a quick call back and got connected straight through to his voicemail. He left Spinella a message asking him to come to his office ten minutes before the press conference. He’d think of something for him.
And one day soon he was going to think of a suitable trap. Someone inside the police regularly leaked information to Spinella. The same person, Grace was sure, who had leaked every major crime story this past year to the sharp young crime reporter within minutes of the police being called to the scene. It had to be someone in either the Call Handling Centre or the IT department who had access to the minute-by-minute updated serials. It could be a detective, but he doubted that, because the leaked information was on every serious crime, and no one detective got early information on anything other than his own cases.
The only positive was that Kevin Spinella was savvy, a newspaper reporter with whom the police could do business. So far they had been lucky, but one day he might not be there, and a lot of damage could be done by someone less cooperative in his shoes.
‘Bloody Albion – what is going on with them?’ Michael Foreman strutted in, smartly suited as ever, with gleaming black Oxford shoes.
In the early stages of an inquiry, most detectives wore suits because they never knew when they might have to rush out to interview someone – particularly close relatives of a major crime victim, to whom they needed to show respect. Some, like Foreman, dressed sharply all the time.
‘That second goal!’ DC Nick Nicholl, who was normally quietly spoken, was talking animatedly, shaking his balled fists in
the air. ‘Like, what was all that about? Hello!’
‘Yeah, well, Chelsea’s my team,’ said the HOLMES analyst, John Black. ‘Gave up on the Albion a long time ago. The day they left the Goldstone Ground.’
‘But when they move – the new stadium – that’ll be something, right!’ Michael Foreman said. ‘Give them a chance to settle into that – they’ll get their pride back.’
‘Gay Pride, that’s all they’re good for,’ grumbled Norman Potting, who shambled in last, shaking his head, reeking of pipe smoke.
He sat down heavily in a chair opposite Grace. ‘Sorry I’m late, Roy. Women! I tell you, I’ve had it. I’m not getting married again. That’s it. Four and out!’
‘Half the female population of the UK will be very relieved to hear that,’ Bella Moy murmured, loudly enough for everyone to hear.
Ignoring her, Potting stared gloomily at Grace. ‘You know that chat we had before Christmas, Roy?’
Grace nodded, not wanting to be distracted by the latest in the long saga of disasters of the Detective Sergeant’s love life.
‘I’d appreciate a bit more of your wisdom – some time over the next week or so, if that’s all right with you, Roy. When you’ve got a minute.’
When I’ve got a minute I want to spend it sleeping, Grace thought wearily. But he nodded at Potting and said, ‘Sure, Norman.’ Despite the fact that the DS frequently irritated him, he felt sorry for the man. Potting had remained in the force long past the age when he could have taken his pension, because, Grace suspected, his work was all he had in life that gave him purpose.
The last to enter the room was Dr Julius Proudfoot, a tan-leather man bag slung from his shoulder. The forensic psychologist – as behavioural analysts were now called – had worked on a large number of high-profile cases during the past two decades, including the original Shoe Man case. For the past decade he had been enjoying minor media celebrity status, and the spoils of a lucrative publishing deal. His four autobiographical books, charting his career to date, boasted of his achievements in playing a crucial role in bringing many of the UK’s worst criminals to justice.
A number of senior police officers had privately said the books should be on the fiction rather than non-fiction shelves in the bookshops. They believed he had wrongly taken the credit in several cases where he had actually only played a bit part – and then not always successfully.
Grace did not disagree, but felt that because of Proudfoot’s earlier involvement in the Shoe Man case, Operation Houdini, the man could bring something to the table on Operation Swordfish. The psychologist had aged in the twelve years since they had last met, and put on a considerable amount of weight, he thought, as he introduced him to his team members. Then he turned to his agenda.
‘First, I want to thank you all for giving up your weekends. Second, I’m pleased to report that we have no issues from the Crime Policy and Review Branch. They are satisfied to date with all aspects of our investigation.’ He looked down quickly at his agenda. ‘OK, it is 8.30 a.m., Monday 12 January. This is our sixth briefing of Operation Swordfish, the investigation into the stranger rape of two persons, Mrs Nicola Taylor and Mrs Roxy Pearce, and maybe now a third victim, Miss Mandy Thorpe.’
He pointed to one of the whiteboards, on which were stuck detailed descriptions of the three women. To protect their privacy, Grace chose not to display their photographs openly, which he felt would be disrespectful. Instead he said, ‘Victim photographs are available for who those who need them.’
Proudfoot raised a hand and wiggled his pudgy fingers. ‘Excuse me, Roy, why do you say maybe now a third victim? I don’t think there’s much doubt about Mandy Thorpe, from what I have on this.’
Grace looked across to the workstation where Proudfoot was seated.
‘The MO is significantly different,’ Roy Grace replied. ‘But I’ll come on to that a bit later, if that’s OK – it’s on the agenda.’
Proudfoot opened and closed his tiny rosebud lips a couple of times, fixing his beady eyes on the Detective Superintendent and looking disgruntled at being put back in his box.
Grace continued. ‘First, I want to review our progress to date into the rape of Nicola Taylor on New Year’s Eve, and of Roxy Pearce, last Thursday. We have six hundred and nineteen possible suspects at this moment. That number is made up of the staff of the Metro-pole Hotel and guests staying there that night, plus partygoers at the hotel on New Year’s Eve, including, as we know, several senior police officers. We also have names phoned in by the public, some directly to us, some through Crimestoppers. The suspects for the moment include all registered sex offenders in the Brighton and Hove area. And two different perverts who have been making nuisance calls to Brighton shoe shops, who have now been identified through phone records by the Outside Inquiry Team.’
He sipped some coffee.
‘One suspect on this list is particularly interesting. A local repeat burglar and small-time drugs dealer, Darren Spicer. I should think he’s known to a number of you here.’
‘That piece of shit!’ Norman Potting said. ‘I nicked him twenty years ago. Did a series of burglaries around Shirley Drive and Woodland Drive.’
‘He has one hundred and seventy-three previous,’ the Analyst, Ellen Zoratti, said. ‘A regular charmer. He’s out on licence after indecently assaulting a woman in a house in Hill Brow that he broke into. He tried to snog her.’
‘Which is unfortunately a regular pattern,’ Grace said, looking at Proudfoot. ‘Burglars turning into rapists.’
‘Exactly,’ Proudfoot said, seizing his cue. ‘You see, they start off penetrating houses, then they graduate to penetrating any woman they happen to find in the house.’
Grace clocked the frowns on the faces of several of his colleagues, who clearly thought this was mere psychobabble. But he knew that, sadly, it was true.
‘Spicer was released from Ford Open Prison on licence, on 28 December. DS Branson and DC Nicholl interviewed him yesterday morning.’
He nodded at Glenn.
‘That’s right, boss,’ Branson replied. ‘We didn’t get much – just a lot of lip, really. He’s a wily old trout. Claims he’s got alibis for the times all three offences were committed, but I’m not convinced. We told him we want them substantiated. He was apparently seeing a married woman last Thursday night, and refuses to give us her name.’
‘Has Spicer got any form for sex offences, apart from the last one?’ DS Bella Moy asked. ‘Or domestic violence, or fetishes?’
‘No,’ replied the Analyst.
‘Wouldn’t our offender be likely to have some previous as a pervert, Dr Proudfoot, on the assumption that rapists taking shoes is not a regular occurrence?’ Bella Moy asked.
‘Taking trophies of some kind is not uncommon for serial offenders,’ Proudfoot said. ‘But you are right, it is very unlikely these are the only offences he’s committed.’
‘There’s something that could be very significant regarding Spicer,’ Ellen Zoratti said. ‘Last night I studied the victim statement – the one given by the woman Spicer indecently assaulted in her home just over three years ago – Ms Marcie Kallestad.’ She looked at Roy Grace. ‘I don’t understand why no one’s made the connection, sir.’
‘Connection?’
‘I think you’d better have a read of it. After Marcie Kallestad fought Spicer off, he knocked her to the floor, grabbed the shoes from her feet – and ran off with them. They were high-heeled Roberto Cavallis which had cost her three hundred and fifty quid. She’d only bought them that day, from a shop in Brighton.’
58
Monday 12 January
There was a palpable change of mood in the briefing room. Roy Grace could sense the sudden, intangible buzz of excitement. It happened every time there was a possible breakthrough in an inquiry. Yet he was the least excited member of his team at this moment.
‘Shame we didn’t know about this yesterday,’ Glenn Branson said. ‘We could have potted Spicer then.’
Nick Nicholl nodded in agreement.
‘We’ve got enough to arrest him now, boss, haven’t we?’ said Michael Foreman.
Grace looked at Ellen. ‘Do we know whether the shoes were recovered subsequently?’
‘No, I’m afraid not,’ she replied. ‘I don’t have that information.’
‘Would they have had a cash value for him?’ Nick Nicholl asked.
‘Absolutely,’ Bella Moy said. ‘Brand-new Roberto Cavalli shoes like that – there are loads of second-hand clothes shops in the city that would buy them – at a knockdown price. I buy things from some of them. You can get brilliant bargains.’
Grace looked at Bella for a moment. In her early thirties, single and living at home, caring for her aged mother, he felt a little sorry for her, because she was not an unattractive woman but appeared to have no real life beyond her work
‘Ten per cent of their cost, Bella?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know – but they wouldn’t pay much. Twenty quid, perhaps, max.’
Grace thought hard. This new information was certainly enough to justify arresting Darren Spicer. And yet . . . it didn’t feel right. Spicer seemed almost too obvious to him. Sure, the villain was conveniently out of prison in time to have committed the first rape, on New Year’s Day. Even more conveniently, he had been working at the Metropole Hotel, where it occurred. And now they had just learned that he’d taken his last burglary victim’s shoes. But, Grace fretted, could the man really be so stupid?
More significantly, Spicer’s past form was as a career burglar and drugs dealer. He made his living, such as it was, breaking into properties and into safes inside them, taking jewellery, watches, silverware, cash. Neither Nicola Taylor nor Roxy Pearce had, so far, reported any property stolen other than their shoes and, in Nicola’s case, her clothes as well. It was the same with Mandy Thorpe on Saturday night. Just her shoes were gone. Unless Spicer had come out of prison a changed man – which, with his history, he doubted – this did not seem like Spicer’s MO.