by James, Peter
Grace looked at his watch. It was now 4.45 p.m. ‘If we could bring it forward, from 6.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m., it would help. Then I can get home to be with Cleo – she’s pretty cut-up too, as you can imagine.’
‘Of course, 5.30 p.m. it is.’ Branson extended a hand and squeezed Grace’s arm, looking into his eyes. ‘Look, I know you’re an old wise man, and I’m just a humble upstart wannabe, but I’ve been through grief in my time, too. I lost my close friend, who was everything to me, when she was around Bruno’s age – I told you, I’m sure, she had a brain tumour. I got through it, eventually, by bawling my eyes out for days on end. I bawled and bawled until I had nothing left inside. Somehow, I got it out of my system – well, the worst of it. The sense of losing her and how unfair it was. Now, all these years on, whenever I think about her it’s only good thoughts. Smiling at the fun we had together. That’s my advice: don’t bottle it up, sodding well let it all out. Yeah?’
Grace smiled back at him bleakly through blurred eyes.
74
Friday 6 September
As soon as Glenn Branson had left his office, closing the door behind him, Roy Grace began to cry. He had been managing to hold it together in front of his team, but moments like this, on his own, were when his sadness returned. Should he even be here? He called Cleo.
She sounded strained as she answered.
‘OK, darling?’ he asked, putting on a brave front.
There was a short pause. ‘Not really, no. I can’t stop thinking about him.’
‘I can’t, either.’
‘I see all these dead bodies all day long at work. Old, middle-aged, young – and kids. But I don’t know them, I don’t know their families, their stories. All I know is these are people who woke up one morning – mostly, other than those who died in their sleep – with their day ahead of them. Then something happened. They said goodbye to their loved ones, went out and they never came back home. They fell off a ladder. Got crushed to death on their bike by a cement lorry. Were texting as they drove and went head-on into another car. Got into a fight outside a pub or a bar and hit their head on a kerb. Or had a stroke, a heart attack, whatever. Regardless of the plans they’d made for that evening, the following day, the weekend, whatever. Fate got to them first. And now it’s got Bruno.’
‘I know,’ was all Grace could think of to say at this moment.
‘It’s not fair, Roy, is it? Bruno was just getting through all the shit from his crazy mother.’ She fell silent for a moment. ‘Darling, I’m sorry – I don’t mean to be insensitive.’
‘No, it’s fine, she was nuts – or became nuts. I don’t know what demons were inside her, but yes, you’re right, it’s not fair.’
‘I’ve been thinking about what the funeral director said – that all Bruno’s friends at school would want to attend.’
‘I’ve been thinking the same,’ he replied. ‘Maybe, with a normal kid of his age, that would be true. But from what we know of how few friends he had – and how many of his fellow pupils he’d upset – we could be setting ourselves up for a fall.’
‘I have a suggestion.’
‘Go on?’
‘Why don’t we announce it’s going to be a private funeral – family members only. If it then turns out that loads of his fellow pupils did want to attend, then we could have some kind of a memorial service later?’
‘I like that,’ he said. ‘Let’s talk about it when I get home. I’ve got a 5.30 p.m. briefing and I’ll head home straight after that – should be back by 7 p.m. latest.’
‘Any thoughts on what you’d like for supper?’
‘I don’t know, I’m just not hungry – not right now, anyway. Want me to pick up something on the way home? From that Indian place in Henfield, perhaps?’
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘I’ve got the menu on the wall in the kitchen – want me to photograph it and send it over?’
‘No need. A king prawn balti, something like that. Some poppadoms – oh and maybe some cheese naan. And some pickles. Maybe a tandoori chicken starter.’
‘And you’re not hungry?’ she said with a hint of sarcasm, her voice lightening up a little.
‘And something for yourself! I’m thinking about food now, and anyhow, we can always have leftovers tomorrow if we don’t feel like eating much,’ he said. ‘If you can call them, tell them I’ll swing by around 7 p.m.?’
‘I’d better tell them you’ll be there at 8 p.m.’
Grace was about to correct her, then realized it was just her mocking him. But she was right. He would invariably end up staying longer here than planned.
75
Friday 6 September
Mark Taylor sat in the square, boxy room at Police HQ, briefing his night-shift team of nine surveillance officers seated in front of him. Six male and three female, all in plain clothes, some deliberately scruffy, wearing reversible jackets and with a variety of caps and beanies stuffed in their pockets, others in varying degrees of smart casual. They would be joined soon by Sharon – Wazza – Orman, and they were aware three of their colleagues were in situ outside the subject’s house.
There was a nickname for everyone in this team, with many not able to recall the real names of their colleagues, due to how infrequently they were actually used. Nicknames were easier to use when communicating amongst the team.
A monitor on the wall behind him showed a view across a wide street of four nice-looking 1950s semi-detached houses. Two were rendered in white plaster; the other two, one with a red ring drawn around it, were in brick. The ringed one had a blue Fiesta parked in the drive; they had seen the subject pick it up from a local hire company. This house, like its twin, had a deeply recessed front door behind an arched porch.
On the top right of the screen was displayed the time in hours, minutes and seconds. Immediately below that were GPS coordinates. It was the start of the evening rush hour and a steady stream of cars, motorcycles, lorries, vans, buses, cyclists and pedestrians passed by in both directions.
Taylor thumbed the remote he was holding, freezing the image, then turned back to his team. ‘This is Nevill Road, Hove, taken twenty minutes ago, from Gummy’s van inside the Coral Greyhound Stadium car park, almost directly across the street. The van’s marked all over with the Coral logo, and it’s one of three parked up together, so it won’t draw any attention. Gummy’s going to remain in situ for the long haul.’
They all knew what this meant. Gummy – Jason Gumbert – would be concealed inside a crate in the back of the van, videoing through the rear windows, which were two-way mirrors. He would have several days’ supply of food and water, would pee into containers and, if he needed to, shit into plastic bags, which he would then seal.
‘I imagine as locals you’re all familiar with the area – anyone not?’
All shook their heads, one managing to do that while chugging from a water bottle at the same time.
‘Smithy, good to see you multitasking!’ Taylor ribbed.
The wiry DC, Darrell Smith, had a naturally furtive face, with permanently half-closed eyes, giving him the deceptive appearance of dozing. Removing the bottle from his lips, he replied in a slow, pedantic voice that belied his sharp brain, ‘It’s a new skill I’ve learned – I can drink and listen at the same time.’
‘And this from a bloke who six months ago couldn’t suck mints and walk at the same time!’ quipped ‘Long Tom’ Thompson, who was a shade over five foot seven.
Taylor, smiling, looked back at the display. ‘The house ringed is the Paternosters’. Niall Paternoster, the subject, is about to appear.’ He pressed a button in the remote, starting the recording again, and a skip truck passed. A moment later, a muscular man with tousled hair and bulging arms, wearing a T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops and carrying two seemingly weighty carrier bags, stepped into view, hurrying across the road and making for one of the brick-faced houses.
Taylor froze the image, then zoomed in close so that Paternoster and the bags he was carrying were i
n clear focus. Then he looked inquisitively at his team. ‘Anyone tell me what you can figure out from this image?’
‘That he’s ugly with bad hair?’ said a shaven-headed man, nicknamed Hulk.
‘I’m looking for something a little more worthy of your detective brains,’ Taylor said, acknowledging Hulk with a faint grin.
‘The shopping bags, sir?’ suggested Lucy Arndale, nicknamed Frog Girl after once spending almost two days and nights semi-submerged in reeds at the edge of a river, waiting for a drugs drop.
‘Go on,’ Taylor encouraged her.
The slight woman in her late twenties, with shoulder-length brown hair and thin lips, said, ‘Those are Waitrose carrier bags, sir.’
‘Good shout,’ Taylor said. ‘And your point is?’
‘Waitrose has a reputation for quality, but also as being one of the most expensive grocery store chains in the UK. So, I’m immediately wondering, if Niall Paternoster is struggling for money, what’s he doing shopping in Waitrose?’
Smithy shot up his hand. ‘Boss, could it not simply be that this store is the closest to his home? So he went there for convenience and hang the cost?’
‘I’d buy the convenience angle,’ Taylor responded. ‘But he could have jumped into his car and, for the minimal expense of his petrol, made big savings from buying at Tesco or Sainsbury or Lidl or Iceland. So for a man so short of money, doesn’t Waitrose seem a little extravagant?’
‘Perhaps he’s celebrating the end of his austerity, sir,’ Lucy Arndale posited. ‘He thinks, in his small mind, that he’s successfully murdered his wife, with nothing to connect him to her killing, and now the house and whatever cash she has are going to be his to enjoy – with his girlfriend, perhaps the lady he’s suspected of meeting at the Devil’s Dyke car park last Sunday evening?’
The DS nodded. But before he could reply, a string of low-level beeps came from his phone, alerting him to a radio comms. He put the phone to his ear and pressed the ‘listen’ button. It was Gummy, his voice urgent.
‘Boss, subject’s on the move. He’s out of the house, getting in the Fiesta.’
Taylor immediately switched the video from playback to live feed. They all watched.
Niall Paternoster, looking spruced up now, in a pale-blue shirt and white chinos, walked round the rear of the Fiesta and zapped the door lock.
‘Too bad we don’t have the tracker already in place,’ Taylor said.
‘If he leaves the car out all night,’ Smithy said, ‘it’ll be a doddle.’
‘Unless he’s going to dismantle it and lug it in through the front door, he probably will leave it out all night, Smithy – since the house doesn’t have a garage,’ retorted Long Tom.
Smithy looked at Thompson. His voice sounding even more pedantic than ever, he said, ‘How does it go, Tommy? “When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me”? He could have a lock-up round the corner somewhere, couldn’t he?’
Thompson nodded. ‘Fair point.’
But all the team’s focus was now on the Fiesta trying to reverse into the stream of traffic. An old red van eventually stopped to let it out. Then the Fiesta accelerated away, heading north.
It was 5.10 p.m.
76
Five days earlier: Sunday 1 September
As Niall drove Eden’s BMW into the car park of the Tesco superstore, three miles to the west of their home in Brighton, he was immediately annoyed by the queue of cars in front of them. ‘Look at this – shit, baby – this is going to take ages,’ he said.
‘Just stop the car and I’ll jump out and run in while you park. Then I’ll come and find you,’ she replied.
‘That stuff’s heavy – are you sure?’
She gave him a sideways look. ‘When did you last actually get any?’
‘Um – I don’t remember.’
‘So how do you think it appears in the house? By magic? Does the Tooth Fairy bring it?’
‘OK, OK, muscle woman – look, I’ll pull in over there.’ He swung into an empty bay, some distance from the store.
Grabbing her handbag, Eden jumped out, blew him a kiss, slammed the door and hurried off through the maze of vehicles.
When she was confident she was out of sight of his rear-view mirror, she stopped. Thank God the store was so busy and she’d had an excuse to jump out far from the entrance. From her previous reconnaissance of this place, she knew they were well beyond the range of the store’s external CCTV cameras. She’d deliberately picked a Sunday because she’d hoped it would be rammed with people doing their shop for the week – and she’d been right. Checking that the parked cars around her were all empty, with no one to see her, she knelt, removed a loose-fitting long-sleeved top and lightweight, equally loose trousers from her handbag, and donned them. Next, she pulled a grey hijab from her bag, wound it around her head and low over her brow, then put her large sunglasses back on.
Keeping crouched low, she edged her way along the bays on the outer perimeter of the car park until she reached the little dark-blue Nissan Micra, which had been left for her earlier this afternoon in the agreed spot. Still crouched, she pulled the spare key out of her handbag, unlocked the driver’s door and slipped in.
Briefly checking in the mirror that the hijab and glasses were masking enough of her face, she opened the glovebox and pulled out her secret phone. She sent a brief text.
Plan A is a go! See you sooner than soon XXX
She started the car, drove to the exit and then out onto the road. Yessssss! she thought, exhilaration surging through her. So far so good. The plan, starting with the row she’d engineered on Thursday night, so their neighbours would hear, was working a treat! She looked at the car clock and then at her watch: 3.23 p.m.
Amid the ridiculous number of apps Niall had accumulated on his phone, he had never noticed the one she had added a week ago, ExifTool. It enabled you to change the date on any photograph you took. So simple. She’d used it to good effect in the BMW a short time ago, while Niall was driving, then deleted the app. He would never have noticed.
By her reckoning, and her knowledge of Niall, he would wait in the car for fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, before his patience ran out and he went to look for her. He’d search Tesco, then maybe Marks & Spencer, all of which would take at least another quarter of an hour. Quite possibly longer, but she wasn’t going to allow herself the luxury of any margin. From her dress rehearsal, she could do everything she needed to do and be away within twenty minutes.
As she drove east, towards the city of Brighton and Hove, for the first time in a long while she was happy, her life filled with a new purpose.
She just had to get through the next hour.
And a very good plan would be to not get stopped for speeding. The speedometer was registering 45 mph and it was a 30 mph limit. Shit! Stupid!
She lifted her foot off the accelerator and braked sharply.
And as she did so, her heart lifted up.
The nightmare was nearly at an end.
Just a few tiny obstacles to navigate, and then . . .
She allowed herself a private smile, invisible to the outside world inside her headscarf. Just as she was.
And would remain.
No more having to put up with him. No more being with someone whose eye was elsewhere. No more having to put up with his infidelities – she knew about all of them because he was so rubbish at IT.
No more living in terror about his plan to kill her.
77
Sunday 1 September
Eden passed their house and drove a couple of hundred yards up the road before pulling in and parking. This was the dangerous part. None of their immediate neighbours had any outward-facing CCTV but, even so, it was a concern. She just had to hope that no one was bothering to look out of their window at this hour on a Sunday. And if they did, they would see a woman in a hijab strolling along. Not an uncommon sight.
The time was 3.40 p.m.
She had to be out of here by 4.05 p.
m., for a clear margin. Although in reality she probably had until 4.30 p.m. But, no unnecessary chances. She only had this one. A few cars passed in both directions, and a cyclist, none taking any apparent notice of her. Then she froze for a moment as she heard the banshee howl of a siren. A police car, on blues and twos, shot up the road, passed her and disappeared.
Entering the front door, kneeling briefly to give the cat, Reggie, a stroke, she pulled the checklist out of the inner pocket of her bag and began working through it. She would really miss this cat, she knew. Was there a way to bring him with her? Later, she thought, all in good time, she would figure a way to get him picked up once Niall was locked away.
First was her diamond engagement ring and her wedding ring. She placed them in a bag together with her passport and hid them beneath a loose wooden floorboard in the upstairs spare room that was his home office.
Tick.
Into the utility room to check the store cupboard. Tick.
Next, she removed the clothes she had been wearing earlier that day, a T-shirt, popsocks, shorts and trainers, putting them into a plastic bag, and changed back into her loose-fitting clothes, hijab and a spare pair of shoes. Then – and she hadn’t been looking forward to this bit – she went into the kitchen, clutching the bag, and pulled the large, serrated-edge kitchen knife from the block. She pressed it to the base of the index finger of her left hand, closed her eyes, took in a deep breath and, as she exhaled, drew it quickly across the skin, slicing deeply.
Stifling her cry at the sharp pain, she opened her eyes, pleased to see blood running from the cut. She let a couple of drops fall on the work surface and some on the floor, before ensuring some more spots went onto the T-shirt, her shorts, one of her socks and onto one of her trainers. Then she wiped the floor and work surface with a kitchen towel so that the blood would be invisible to Niall’s naked eye. But not to the equipment of any subsequent investigating CSIs, if what she’d gleaned from all the crime shows she’d seen on television was correct. She put the towel into her handbag. She then used the cloth and bleach to wipe the skirting boards in the kitchen to make them visibly clean.