by James, Peter
‘Even though he answered all your questions truthfully? I was watching his non-verbals, too.’
‘It’s not a foolproof test. Especially if someone knows they’re being observed – then it’s easy to manipulate. I just don’t like the man. You?’
‘I agree, boss.’
‘So, let’s recap on what we have. Niall Paternoster calls the police this morning. His story is that his wife, Eden, went into the Tesco Holmbush superstore to buy a bag of cat litter at around 3.15 p.m. yesterday. And he claims he’s not seen or heard from her since. You and I interviewed him, and his attitude was aggressive and defensive. Ordinarily with a misper, dependent on the risk assessment, we’d wait twenty-four hours after they were last seen before the enquiry could be elevated. Again, all dependent on the risk assessment.’ He glanced at his watch, then looked at his colleague. ‘Are you comfortable waiting, knowing what we have?’
Branson shook his head. ‘Not really, no.’
‘Nor me.’
Grace’s job phone rang. He answered, and almost immediately switched it to loudspeaker.
Branson recognized the voice of Velvet Wilde.
‘Boss, O2 have come back to me,’ the DC said. ‘I’ve got a plot of the two mobile phone numbers.’ She read out first Niall Paternoster’s. ‘Between the hours of 9 a.m. yesterday and 11 a.m. it was at one of a few possible addresses in Nevill Road, Hove. It then moved west to the vicinity of Parham House, near Pulborough, in West Sussex. It remained in that area until 2.45 p.m. when it headed east, stopping at around 3.15 p.m. in the vicinity of the Tesco Holmbush superstore just north of Shoreham. It remained in that area until approximately 4.20 p.m., when it returned to Nevill Road, where it seems to have remained until around 5 p.m. The phone then moved its position, via a road in Portslade and then Devil’s Dyke, towards Heathrow Airport and later that evening returned back to Nevill Road. Since that time it has been static in Nevill Road.’
Grace jotted down the details. ‘And the second number?’
‘Well, we had to go back a bit further than the time you gave us because it seems either to have been switched off or its battery went flat Thursday evening. At 6 a.m. Thursday, it moved south, down Nevill Road, across the Old Shoreham Road and down to the seafront, where it turned east and continued to the start of Brighton Marina. It then turned back, west, retracing its path to the Nevill Road address. The distance covered was approximately 8.4 miles and the timings indicate the pace to have been a run.’ She paused for a moment. ‘I know it wasn’t in my brief, but I thought it was worth checking the run against a few apps and we discovered that it had been recorded on a Strava app, belonging to Eden Paternoster – the owner of the phone.’
‘Nice work, Velvet!’ Grace said.
‘Thank you. At 7.50 a.m. the phone then moved north to Croydon to an area we’ve identified as the Mutual Occidental Insurance Company. It remained there until 5.45 p.m. when it then headed south, reaching the Nevill Road address at 6.35 p.m. It remained static there until 10.10 p.m. on Thursday, which was the last signal from the phone.’
‘Nothing since then?’ Grace asked.
‘Nothing,’ Wilde confirmed.
He looked at Glenn Branson, who frowned, What?
He nodded back. Then he said, ‘That’s very helpful, Velvet.’
‘Do you need me to plot it further back?’
‘Not at the moment. I’ll let you know.’
‘Sure. Anything else I can help you with?’
‘Not for now – but if you can email me a summary of all this, please.’
‘I’ll ping it across in a few minutes.’
Grace thanked her and ended the call. Frowning, he turned to Branson. ‘What do you make of that?’
‘Eden goes for an early morning run on Thursday – like you often do yourself. Then she drives to work. She drives home that evening. Then her phone goes dead around 10.10 p.m. And stays off. She has a responsible job in IT at a major insurance company, and she clearly uses her phone not just for work but for recreation – like recording her running on Strava. So, let’s say it did die from a flat battery at 10.10 p.m., why would she not charge it all Friday, Saturday and Sunday? Does that make any sense?’
Grace shook his head pensively.
‘Let’s hypothesize for a moment,’ Glenn Branson said. ‘He murders his wife on Thursday night and then plays a charade of a day out at Parham House, ending up with her disappearing at a Tesco store on the way home, apparently going in to buy cat litter. Would he be dumb enough to think we wouldn’t check her phone activity?’
‘You’ve met him,’ Grace replied with a sideways glance. ‘I’m not the world’s leading authority on tattoos, but did you see the one on his arm of the grim reaper?’
Branson grinned. ‘Yeah, let’s hope he’s not acted that out.’
‘I agree,’ Grace said. ‘For one of my birthdays, Sandy got me a voucher from a tattoo parlour as a present.’
‘Yeah?’
‘I was never brave enough to have it done. She wanted me to have my name and her name with a heart between on my arm.’
‘Lucky you didn’t. Cleo would have been mightily impressed – not!’
Grace grinned. ‘You could say that.’ Then, serious again, he said, ‘It seems that Eden is a successful woman, hard-working, in the prime of her life, with a close circle of friends and work colleagues. It doesn’t make sense that she has just disappeared and we have found no social media activity since her disappearance. Do you agree?’
Glenn Branson nodded his head.
At that moment, Grace’s phone rang again. It was Aiden Gilbert and he sounded puzzled. ‘Can I clarify something, Roy?’ he asked, the phone on loudspeaker.
‘Tell me?’
‘That photograph of the woman in front of the lake you sent me? You said it was taken yesterday, early afternoon?’
‘Yes, correct – from what I was told.’
‘Not according to the digital date stamp, Roy. On first examination, it wasn’t taken yesterday, it was taken at 1.50 p.m. on Saturday August the twenty-fourth. Over a week before.’
‘You are certain, Aiden?’
‘Completely, Roy.’
Ending the call, Grace called Cleo to tell her that they were going to have to postpone the hen husbandry course tomorrow.
24
Monday 2 September
‘It is 6.30 p.m., Monday September the second,’ Roy Grace announced to his freshly assembled team. ‘This is the first briefing meeting of Operation Lagoon, the investigation into the disappearance of Mrs Eden Paternoster, last seen according to the questionable information given by her husband, Niall, shortly after 3.15 p.m. yesterday, Sunday September the first, in the car park of the Tesco Holmbush superstore, pictured behind me. I’m sure some of you are already familiar with that store and use it?’
He noted a few nods.
On one whiteboard behind Grace was pinned the two photographs of Eden Paternoster, the one in front of a Christmas tree and the one in front of the Parham House lake. They were accompanied by several more photographs of her, sent in by her husband.
One was of Eden with Niall, their arms around each other, a couple who seemingly could not be more in love, in front of the beautiful ruins of moated Bodiam Castle. Another was in front of Hangleton church, Niall in a suit, sporting a red carnation and beaming, and Eden in a long wedding dress, holding a bouquet, smiling radiantly.
On the second whiteboard was a sequence of photographs of the interior and exterior of the Tesco superstore, taken by Crime Scene Photographer James Gartrell. Each was labelled. Various angles of the car park, the public front entrance, the staff entrance and the goods receiving bay. The ones of the interior of the store showed the manned and unmanned checkout tills, several aisles and each of the CCTV camera locations. Beneath them was the poor-resolution image of Niall Paternoster in denim shorts and T-shirt, taken from the CCTV, in the entrance to the store at 3.50 p.m. yesterday.
On the third
whiteboard were two association charts, one showing Eden Paternoster’s family tree, the other her and her husband’s friends and colleagues. These were a work-in-progress, with more names and details yet to be filled in.
‘All routine procedures regarding a misper have been followed, with photographs of the missing lady circulated,’ Roy Grace said, addressing his team seated around the long, oval table in the Major Crime suite conference room. ‘However, we have reason to suspect we may be looking at something more than a standard missing person enquiry. The purpose of this briefing is to update you on our enquiries so far, and to establish lines of command and duties, together with roles and responsibilities. I will be acting as Senior Investigating Officer, with Glenn Branson as my Deputy.’ He nodded at the DI, to his left, who held his pen poised above his Policy Book. ‘Jack Alexander will run the enquiry as Action Manager and Allocator, linking into the HOLMES team, and will also manage the Outside Enquiry teams.’ HOLMES – or correctly HOLMES 2 – was the acronym for the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System.
The tall young DS beside Glenn Branson acknowledged this. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘The Intelligence Analyst will be Luke Stanstead.’ Grace smiled at the young man, who was in a wheelchair pulled up to the table, sitting lower down than the rest of the team. The popular officer had been paralysed in a swimming pool accident a few years earlier. Grace admired the man for his resilience. Away from work, Stanstead had become a front runner and leading light in wheelchair rugby. The HOLMES Supervisor would be joining the team tomorrow, back from her day off. The other HOLMES roles would also be filled during the next few hours.
Grace went on to name his Exhibits and Disclosure Officers, his go-to Financial Investigations Officer, Emily Denyer, the almost impossibly young-looking Crime Scene Manager, Chris Gee, and Sergeant Lorna Dennison-Wilkins as POLSA – Police Search Adviser – as and when needed, to manage any searches.
Checking his notes, he continued. ‘Our Outside Enquiry Team will consist of DS Potting and DC Wilde, DCs Soper and Hall, and the third pair of DS Exton and Polly.’ Investigating Officer Pauline Sweeney, known to everyone as Polly, had just retired as a police officer but immediately rejoined the team as a civilian in an identical role. ‘I’ve appointed Emma-Jane Boutwood as FLO – she has attended at the Paternosters’ home but Eden’s husband told her, at present, he wants to be alone. I will keep this situation under review.’
FLOs – Family Liaison Officers – were allocated to the immediate family members of any Major Crime victim. Their role was twofold, the first being to provide a dedicated officer to act as a conduit between the family and the investigation, obtaining any information and evidence from them and also passing information from the SIO back to the family. A secondary role was to provide a presence and emotional support, from conversation to preparing meals and doing essential shopping. Emma-Jane’s rejection by Niall Paternoster might be further grounds for suspicion, Grace felt.
Detective Sergeant Martyn Stratford would run the Enquiry Intelligence Cell as the Intel Manager supported by their own staff.
Grace went on to detail the situation leading to the purported disappearance of Eden Paternoster, his and Branson’s subsequent visit to the Tesco store earlier, followed by their interview with her husband at the family home on Nevill Road. And then the bombshell, from Aiden Gilbert, about the time and date on the photograph Niall Paternoster had claimed had been taken yesterday afternoon, but which in fact had been taken over a week earlier on Saturday 24 August.
‘As a result of this,’ Grace continued, ‘I asked Velvet Wilde to extend the plotting of both of their phones back to that day, and Aiden’s findings verify this. Both their phones travelled together from their house in Nevill Road to Parham House on the afternoon of Saturday August the twenty-fourth, spending about three hours there before returning to Nevill Road.’
He held up the printouts from the plots of Niall and Eden Paternosters’ mobile phones that Wilde had sent him. ‘I’ll pass these round so you can see for yourselves.’
He allowed the team some moments to absorb all of this and to circulate the printouts. Several of them scribbled details in their investigators’ notebooks.
DS Alexander raised his hand. ‘Sir, what car or cars do the Paternosters own?’
‘They share use of a BMW Three Series convertible,’ Grace replied.
‘A recent model?’
‘I took a note of the registration,’ Branson interjected. ‘It’s a two-year-old model.’
Alexander nodded. ‘I’m pretty sure these have in-built satnav. Perhaps worth having the Collision Investigation Unit take a look at it and interrogate the satnav – and the car’s computer system. They’d almost certainly be able to establish its movements over the past couple of weeks.’
‘Good point, Jack,’ Grace said, making a note. He looked around his team and settled on DC Soper. ‘Louise, your husband knows a thing or two about BMWs, doesn’t he?’
She smiled. ‘A little.’
‘Done a bit of racing in them, right? I’m sure some of it’s rubbed off on you – I’ll give you the action of getting the satnav checked out by the Collison Investigation Unit, as Jack suggests.’
‘Of course, boss,’ she said.
‘I’m sure some of you are thinking “overkill”,’ Roy Grace said. ‘Surely this is just a case of a wife who has, for whatever reason, legged it, perhaps with a lover, like a thousand partners, of all genders, before her? But I think this is something more and very serious for a number of reasons. Firstly, Niall Paternoster told us his wife seldom went anywhere without her phone charged and she was always using social media. And yet on the day he tells us she disappeared, he claims her phone had either died or was switched off. In my view, that’s a little too convenient. Especially when put together with his lie about when the photograph was taken. I’d like to hear any of your opinions.’
Emily Denyer raised her arm. ‘Sir, regarding the phone, could it simply be that she’d forgotten to charge it? We’ve all had that happen. And did he actually see the phone in the car?’
‘Good point, Emily, but it doesn’t explain the photograph. And two things make me doubt what he said about the phone. The first is that he told us he had repeatedly dialled her number. If she’d left it charging at home, he’d surely have seen it when he got back to their house. The second is that I peered in the window of their car as we left and I saw a phone charger in there, plugged into the socket. When we met Niall Paternoster, Glenn and I established that both he and his wife have the same make and model of iPhone. If it had been me in that situation, and I never went anywhere without my phone, I would have taken it and charged it in the car during the journey. Wouldn’t you?’
She nodded. ‘If it had been me, yes, assuming the charger was working – they can be temperamental.’
‘Her husband claims he looked everywhere for her phone when he got home, without success, so he is certain she has it with her,’ Grace said. ‘So where is it?’
‘He’s lying, chief,’ Norman Potting said. ‘Sounds to me like he’s disposed of it.’
‘OK, Norman, let’s go with that for a moment. For what reason would he have disposed of it?’ Grace asked.
Potting scratched his head. ‘Because there was something on it that he didn’t want us to find?’
‘Any idea what, Norman?’ Glenn Branson asked.
‘He didn’t want anyone tracking his communication to her, perhaps,’ Potting ventured.
‘A phone with a dead battery doesn’t give off any signal,’ Chris Gee said.
Grace jotted down in his notebook that the missing phone should be a line of enquiry. His job phone rang.
Raising an excusing finger, he answered.
It was ACC Pewe. ‘What the hell’s going on, Roy?’
‘One moment, sir.’
Had the shit already hit the fan? he wondered. Had Alison Vosper already started the investigation? Surely this was too soon?
Excusing himself, he stepped out of the room into the corridor and closed the door behind him. ‘OK, sir, I’m back with you.’
‘Back with me or out with the fairies?’ Pewe said in his normal, angry whine.
‘Beg pardon, sir?’
‘How long have you been a police officer, Roy?’
‘About twenty-four years, sir.’ Saying sir increasingly stuck in his craw.
‘And how many of those as a detective?’
‘Twenty-two, approximately.’
‘And how many missing person enquiries have you dealt with during this time?’
Now he knew that Pewe had no idea what was coming his way. Despite his cockiness, Grace maintained his veneer of respect. ‘I haven’t counted – sir.’
‘Have you counted how many officers and support staff you have on this one, Roy?’
‘I haven’t, exactly, no.’
‘Well, let me tell you something, you’ve got more people working on this case than you have brain cells.’
Roy Grace said nothing. Sometimes silence was the best reply, especially when dealing with a total asshole like Cassian Pewe.
After several moments, the ACC said, ‘Roy?’
‘Sir?’
‘Did you not hear what I said?’
‘Yes, I heard.’
‘And?’
‘And what?’
Pewe’s voice was becoming increasingly high-pitched, as it always did the angrier he got. ‘A married woman goes missing, which happens all the time. But you, in your infinite wisdom, take it upon yourself to deploy half the resources of the Major Crime Team on one woman who’s been gone barely twenty-four hours?’
Calmly and quietly, Grace replied, ‘As I’m the Head of Major Crime you either have to accept my judgement when I decide to elevate, based on the evidence I have, what might seem to be a routine enquiry into a crime-in-action, or else replace me if you have no confidence in me. Personally, I’m fine either way – sir.’
Roy Grace knew Cassian Pewe was well aware that he had an open offer to move to the London Metropolitan Police in a Temporary Commander role, which would put him on equal status to Pewe. He was confident the idiot would back off. He was right.