by Peter James
‘My housekeeper isn’t—’ He waved his arms helplessly in the air. ‘Um, but can I get you some tea? Coffee?’
Grace was parched. ‘Tea please, milk, no sugar.’
‘The same, please,’ Branson said.
As Stretton went out, Grace walked over to one of the few pieces of furniture in the room, an elegant side table covered in photograph frames.
There were a couple of much older people – grandparents, he presumed. Then one of a slightly younger Derek Stretton with an attractive woman of about the same age. Next to this was a young woman – Janie, he guessed. She was about seventeen or eighteen in the photograph, pretty and very classy-looking, in a black velvet ball gown, with long fair hair swept up and clipped by two diamanté barrettes, and an ornate silver choker around her neck. She bore a striking resemblance to a young Gwyneth Paltrow. She was smiling at the camera, but there was nothing self-conscious in that smile. To Grace it was a Yes, I am gorgeous and I know it smile.
There was another photograph next to it, also of Janie, a couple of years younger, on a ski slope, wearing a lilac anorak, designer sunglasses and a seriously cool expression.
Grace glanced at his watch. It was 11.30 a.m. He’d ducked out of the press conference, leaving it to the PRO Dennis Ponds to tell the pack that they now had the name of the victim, and would be releasing it the moment her next of kin had been informed – which would be in about an hour and a half or so. Then he wanted Ponds, in particular, to get her photograph out in as many places as possible, to see what sightings of her last hours might come in from the public, and to get the case on the next episode of Crimewatch on television, the following Wednesday, if they hadn’t made progress by then.
Branson wandered over to the fireplace. A number of birthday cards stood on the mantelpiece. Grace followed. He stared at one with a cartoon of a proud-looking man in a suit and bow tie, with the wording above, ‘To a very special Dad!’
He opened it up and saw the message: ‘To my Darling Daddy. With all my love, tons and tons and tons of it. J XXX’.
Grace put the card back and walked over to a tall bay window. There was a fine view down to the Hamble River; Branson joined him and they stared at a forest of masts and rigging from a marina that looked as if it was just beyond the boundary of the property.
‘Never been into boats,’ Branson said. ‘Never been totally comfortable with water.’
‘Even though you live by the sea?’
‘Not exactly right by it.’ His phone rang and he pulled it out. ‘DS Branson? Oh hi, yeah, I’m with Roy, down near Southampton. ETA about two o’clock back in Brighton. Roy wants a briefing at six thirty, so everyone there, OK? Yeah. Did we get the extra officers he requested? Only one so far? Who is it? Oh shit, you are joking! Him! I can’t believe they’ve dumped him on us. Roy is going to be well pissed. We’re going straight to her flat from here; Roy wants someone to go to her office, speak to her boss and the staff there. OK. Yeah. Six thirty. You got it.’
Branson slipped the phone back in his pocket. ‘That was Bella. Guess what – your request for two extra officers for the team – know who they’ve given us?’
‘Hit me.’
‘Norman Potting.’
Grace groaned. ‘It’s about time he retired; he’s older than God.’
‘Hasn’t exactly thrilled the ladies. Bella is not happy.’
Detective Sergeant Norman Potting was in his mid-fifties, a late joiner compared to some. He was a old-school policeman, politically incorrect, blunt and with no interest in promotion – he had never wanted the responsibilities – but nor had he wanted to retire when he reached fifty-five, the normal police pension age for a sergeant, which was why he had extended his service. He liked to do what he was best at doing, which he called plodding and drilling. Plodding, methodical police work, and drilling down deep beneath the surface of any crime, drilling for as long and deep as he needed until he hit some seam that would lead him somewhere.
The best that could be said about Norman Potting was that he was steady and dependable, and could get results. But he was boring as hell, and had the knack of upsetting just about everyone.
‘I thought he was permanently up at Gatwick with the anti-terrorist lot,’ Grace said.
‘They obviously had enough of him. Maybe they couldn’t bear any more of his jokes,’ Branson said. ‘And Bella said he stinks of smoke from his pipe. Neither she nor Emma-Jane want to sit near him.’
‘Poor precious souls.’
Derek Stretton came back into the room, carrying a tray with three china cups and a milk jug. He set it on the plastic table, then ushered them to one sofa, and sat down opposite. ‘You said on the phone you have news about Janie, Detective Superintendent?’ he asked expectantly.
Now Grace suddenly wished fervently he had sent the two FLOs in to do this task, after all.
25
Tom had done virtually no work all morning. He’d sat at his desk in his office with a pile of unanswered emails mounting up on his screen – at least his computer was working again now – and dealt with a few calls that had come in for him, as well as gone carefully through a list of costings for Rolex Oyster watches for Ron Spacks, but all the rest of the time he had been thinking.
Thinking.
His brain spinning but getting no traction.
The call last night at home from Chris telling him he had been burgled.
In fact there seems to be only one damned thing missing . . . Your CD . . .
Mind you, he had been in Chris Webb’s office at his home, and it was cluttered beyond belief. It wouldn’t be hard to lose a CD there – he had dozens lying all over the place.
Yet, Tom thought, someone was not happy that he had the CD, and they’d trashed his computer twice to tell him so. So now they’d taken it back? Had Chris Webb tried to play it and alerted them?
If whoever owned that CD – the dickhead from the train – now had it back, would that be the end of the matter?
Maybe the dickhead would be on the train again tonight? But Tom doubted it; in all the years he had been commuting he had never seen him before. Besides, he wasn’t exactly sure what he would do – whether he would go up and shout at him, or whether he would be too nervous to say anything.
He had still not said anything to Kellie about it. Best to keep quiet, keep his head down. There had been no more calls, which meant, hopefully, he’d had his warning.
He sure as hell had got the message.
26
‘The managing agents of the flat your daughter rents in Brighton let us in yesterday, Mr Stretton, and allowed us to take a couple of items belonging to her for DNA testing. We took some hair samples from a brush in the bathroom and a piece of chewing gum we found in a pedal bin,’ Grace explained.
Derek Stretton held his cup without drinking, eyeing him warily.
‘We sent these up to the Police laboratory at Huntingdon, and earlier this morning we received the results. The DNA from the chewing gum and from the hair is from the same person, and there was a complete match with the body that we found on Wednesday. I’m afraid the only conclusion we can come to, sir, is that the murdered young lady is your daughter, Janie.’
There was a long silence, and for some moments Grace thought that Derek Stretton was about to throw his head back and roar with laughter. Instead, all that happened was that the cup began to rattle in the saucer, louder and louder, until the man leaned forward and set it down.
‘I – I see,’ he said.
He looked at Grace again, then at Branson. Then slowly, like a complex folding chair, he seemed to collapse in on himself. ‘She’s all I have in the world,’ he said. ‘Please tell me it’s not true. She’s coming today – it’s my birthday – we’re going to dinner. Oh God. I – I . . .’
Grace stared rigidly ahead, avoiding Branson’s eye, wishing desperately that he could say it wasn’t true, that it was a mistake. But there was nothing he could add, nothing that would make this man’s gri
ef any less.
‘I lost my wife – her mother – three years ago. Cancer. Now I’ve lost Janie. I . . .’
Grace gave him some space, then asked, ‘What kind of a daughter was she, sir? I mean – were you close?’
After a long silence Derek Stretton said, ‘There’s always a special bond between a father and daughter, I’m told. I’ve certainly found it so.’
‘She was a caring person?’
‘Immensely. Never ever forgot my birthday, or Christmas or Father’s Day. She’s – she’s just – a – perfect . . .’ His voice tailed away.
Grace stood up. ‘Do you have a recent photograph of her? I’d like to get a picture out into circulation as quickly as possible.’
Derek Stretton nodded bleakly.
‘And would you mind if we took a look in her bedroom?’
‘Do you want me to come – or . . . ?’
‘We can go on our own,’ Grace said gently.
‘First floor – turn right at the top of the stairs. It’s the second door on your right.’
It was a young girl’s room, a tidy, organized, methodical young girl. A row of cuddly toys lay back against the cushions. A U2 poster hung on the wall. There was a collection of seashells on the dressing table. Bookshelves stacked mostly with children’s books, girls’ adventure stories and a few legal thrillers from Scott Turow, John Grisham and several other American writers. There was a pair of slippers on the floor and an old-fashioned dressing gown hanging on the back of the door.
Grace and Branson opened all the drawers, rummaged in her clothing, through underwear, T-shirts, blouses, pullovers, but they found nothing to remotely suggest what she had done to expose herself to a savage killer.
Then Grace picked up a velvet jewellery box and popped open the lid. Inside were some delicate amethyst earrings, a silver charm bracelet, a gold necklace, and a signet ring with an embossed crest. He closed the lid and held on to the box.
After fifteen minutes they went back downstairs. Derek Stretton did not seem to have moved from his chair, and he had not touched his tea.
Grace held up the box and opened the lid, showing Janie’s father the contents. ‘Mr Stretton, are all these your daughter’s?’
He peered at them and nodded.
‘May I borrow one of the items? Something that she might have worn recently?’ He ignored the strange look that Glenn Branson gave him.
‘The signet ring’s probably the best,’ he said. ‘It’s our family crest. She used to wear it all the time until quite recently.’
Grace removed a small plastic evidence bag from his pocket, which he had brought with him for this purpose, and, lifting the ring out of the box with his handkerchief, carefully placed it in the bag.
‘Mr Stretton, is there anyone you can think of who might have had any reason to harm your daughter?’ Grace asked.
‘No one,’ he whispered.
Sitting back down opposite Derek Stretton and leaning towards him, Grace cradled his chin on his hands and asked, ‘Did she have a boyfriend?’
Staring at the carpet, Derek Stretton said, ‘Not – not anyone special.’
‘But she had a current fellow?’
He looked up at Grace, seeming to regain some composure. ‘She was a fine-looking girl with a great personality. She was never short of admirers. But she took the law very seriously – I don’t think she wanted too many distractions.’
‘She’s a lawyer?’
‘A law student. She did a law degree here at Southampton University, and she’s been studying for the past few years at Guildford Law School. Currently she’s articled – or a trainee – or whatever they call it nowadays – with a firm of solicitors in Brighton.’
‘And you’ve been supporting her during her studies.’
‘As best I can. It’s been a little tight these past months. Bit of a struggle. I . . .’
Grace nodded sympathetically. ‘Can we just go back to the boyfriends, sir. Do you know the name of her most recent boyfriend?’
Derek Stretton seemed to have aged twenty years in the last twenty minutes. He was pensive for some moments. ‘Justin Remington – she went out with him about a year or so ago. Very charming young man. He – she brought him down here a few times. Develops property in London. I quite liked him, but I don’t think he had a big enough intellect for her.’ He smiled with a faraway look. ‘She has a – had a remarkable brain. Couldn’t get near her at Scrabble from the time she was about nine.’
‘Would you know where I could get hold of this Justin Remington?’
There was a silence as Stretton sat thinking, then furrowing his eyebrows he said, ‘He was into real tennis. I don’t think there are that many players. I know he played in London – I believe it was Queens,’ he said.
It was rapidly becoming clear to Roy Grace that he was going to get very little more from the man. ‘Is there someone you can phone?’ he asked him. ‘A relative or a friend who could come over?’
After some moments, Derek Stretton said meekly, ‘My sister. Lucy. She’s not very far away. I’ll give her a call. She’ll be devastated.’
‘Why don’t you make the call while we’re still here, sir?’ Branson urged, as gently as he could.
The pair of them waited while he made the call, retreating as discreetly as they could to the far end of the room. Grace heard him sobbing; then he went out of the room for a while. Finally he came back in and walked over to join them, holding a brown envelope. ‘I’ve put some photographs of Janie together for you. I’d appreciate them back.’
‘Of course,’ Grace said, knowing the poor man would probably have to make half a dozen calls over the coming months to get them back – they would inevitably get misfiled somewhere in the system.
‘Lucy’s on her way – my sister. She’ll be here in about half an hour.’
‘Would you like us to wait?’ Grace asked.
‘No, I’ll be OK. I need some time to think. I . . . Can – can I see Janie?’
Grace shot a glance at Branson. ‘I don’t think it would be advisable, sir.’
‘I’d really like to see her one more time. You know? To say goodbye?’ He put out a hand and gripped Grace’s firmly.
Grace realized he had not absorbed from the newspapers that Janie’s head was missing. This was not the moment to tell him. He decided to leave that to the two FLOs. Vanessa Ritchie and Maggie Campbell were about to earn their keep and give some payback for the massive investment in their training.
‘There are two women detectives who will be along to see you shortly, from our Family Liaison Unit. They’ll be able to guide you on that.’
‘Thank you. It would mean a lot to me.’ Then he gave a sad little laugh. ‘You know, officers, I – I never discussed death with Janie. I have no idea whether she wanted to be buried or cremated.’ Wild-eyed he added, ‘And her cat, of course.’ He scratched the back of his head. ‘Bins! She used to bring Bins here before she went away. I – don’t know . . . it’s all so . . .’
‘They’ll be able to help you with everything; that’s what they are here for.’
‘It never occurred to me that she might die, you see.’
Grace and Branson walked back out to the car in a deeply uncomfortable silence.
27
A community support officer, barely distinguishable from a uniformed constable, stood outside the front door of the building in Kemp Town where Janie Stretton had rented her flat, with a clipboard, logging all the people who entered and left the building. By contrast with the – albeit faded – grandeur of her father’s house, this street with its run-down terraced houses, kaleidoscope of estate agents’ boards, overstuffed rubbish bins, modest cars and vans, was real student bedsit land.
In the nineteenth century, Kemp Town had been aloof from Brighton, a posh Regency enclave of grand houses, built on a hill crested by the racecourse, with fine views out across the Channel. But gradually, during the latter half of the following century, with the construction o
f council estates and tower blocks and an increasing blurring of the boundary, Kemp Town became infected by the same seedy, tatty aura that had long corroded Brighton.
Parked at the far end of the street and sticking out much too much, Grace could see the tall, square, truck-sized hulk of the Major Incident Vehicle. He squeezed his Alfa Romeo into a space between two cars just past it, then walked back along the street with Branson, both men carrying their holdalls.
It was just before three o’clock, and Grace had stomach ache from having gobbled down two prawn sandwiches, a Mars bar and a Coke in the car on the way back from Janie’s father. He’d been surprised he’d had any appetite at all after delivering the grim news, and even more so that he had actually felt ravenous – as if somehow in eating he was reaffirming life. Now the food was biting back.
A blustery, salty wind was blowing and the sky was clouding over. Gulls circled overhead, cawing and wailing; a Mishon Mackay for sale board rocked in a gust as he walked by. This was a part of Brighton he had always liked, close to the sea, with fine old terraced villas. If you closed your eyes, imagined the agency boards gone, the plastic entryphone boxes gone and a lick of fresh white paint on the buildings, you could picture wealthy London folk a hundred years ago, emerging from the front doors in their finery and swaggering off, maybe down to a bathing machine at the water’s edge, or to a grand cafe, or for a leisurely stroll along the promenade, to enjoy the delights of the town and its elegant seafront.
The city had changed so much, even in his brief lifetime. He could remember, as a child, when streets like this were the domain of Brighton’s seaside landladies. Now, after a couple of decades in the hands of property speculators, they were all chopped up into bedsits and low-rent student flats – cash paid, heavies sent round to collect the rent. And if anything went wrong, maybe you’d get it fixed, eventually, if you were lucky.