by Peter James
He held the paper up. ‘You did a good job, Guy. Let’s hope it goes just as well in tomorrow’s briefing with the press.’
‘Protecting our backsides, boss. I did my best. Let’s hope the buggers at the IPCC don’t make it too hard for you.’
‘Yep, Cassian Pewe won’t need much encouragement to take a pop at me. But hey, let’s focus. Kipp Brown. Could he be Lorna Belling’s anonymous sperm donor?’
Batchelor smiled. ‘Shall we go and talk to him?’ He looked at his watch. ‘Screw up his Sunday for him?’
Grace looked at his watch, also. It was too late to try to catch someone having a Sunday morning lie-in, and he was mindful of the potential damage that it could do to Brown’s life. He reminded Batchelor of the aftermath of the IRA bombing of The Grand, and the distress it had caused. Then he added, ‘We need to get Kipp Brown checked out. He has his own, very successful business, he isn’t going anywhere. Let’s find out all we can about him today, then talk to him tomorrow – perhaps on his way into his office – or at his office.’
‘We need to get his DNA. What do you suggest?’
‘The smart way would be to arrest him tomorrow. We’ve got more than enough to do that. He’s on the phone with her and then goes to her flat hours before she was found dead. We’ve enough to arrest him – or am I missing something?’
‘No, boss, you’re smack on the button!’
‘If we get a DNA match to the semen, then we’re cooking with gas.’
‘I’ve a good feeling about this one, boss.’
‘Keep that feeling, but assume nothing.’
51
Sunday 24 April
‘The time is 4.30 p.m., Sunday, April 24th, this is the fifth briefing of Operation Bantam,’ Guy Batchelor said. Roy Grace, seated beside him in the conference room, was happy to let him continue in his deputy SIO role.
Batchelor brought the team up to speed on the developments of the day, regarding the interview with Seymour Darling, the results on the semen taken from Lorna Belling, and the new information that had come to light that she appeared to have had a lot of contact with a man they believed to be Kipp Brown. So far, he said, Brown did not appear on their radar, and had no history or form.
DI Dull, hunched over his tablet, raised a hand. ‘Guy?’
‘Go ahead, Donald,’ he said.
Dull had a slow, monotone voice. As he spoke, Roy Grace wondered, privately, if he wouldn’t be better employed providing sleep therapy to insomniacs. After thirty seconds he was ready to nod off.
‘You can see from my spreadsheet,’ Dull droned, pointing at a whiteboard to which a series of graphs were pinned, with highlights in orange, green and purple, ‘I’ve put all the details about Kipp Brown that the search engines would provide. You’ll appreciate the time constraints, so there may be omissions. I’ve made a matrix of his life on a spreadsheet – taking into account background, schooling, business and social interests, history of relationships. Then I’ve compared them to known data on six convicted criminals in related fields, as I thought it might give us some helpful insights.’
Grace stared at the man, listening intently and a tad impatiently. Dull seemed to be assuming the role of amateur psychological profiler. But fair play if he came up with something of interest.
Dull turned to another whiteboard, which had seven different graph plots on it. Six of them converged on several points. The seventh, in a thicker, black line, was well clear of the rest.
‘The six different coloured lines that you can see here,’ Dull said, standing up and pointing with a red dot from a laser pen, ‘represent six individual convicted murderers. I’ve created spreadsheets on each of them, drawing on socio-economic backgrounds, offending histories, age and a number of other significant factors. The wider black line is a plot of Kipp Brown, from what I’ve been able to ascertain about him from a trawl through search engines and his LinkedIn profile. As you can see, his journey is completely different.’
Grace, a tad baffled, frowned. ‘And your conclusion is what, exactly, Donald?’
‘Well, sir, he doesn’t fit any of these profiles of a murderer.’
‘So we can safely ignore him?’ Grace was trying hard to mask his scepticism.
‘No, I wouldn’t say that exactly, sir.’
‘OK, what would you say?’
‘Well,’ he replied, ponderously, ‘Kipp Brown is a person who could well slip under our net if we were to run a profiling matrix.’
Just what planet did Cassian Pewe find this guy on, Grace wondered, still unsure what the hell he was talking about. But, mindful that with Pewe’s unpredictable machinations Donald Dull could end up being his boss in the near future, he kept his calm. ‘So if I understand correctly, Donald, Kipp Brown is a potential suspect, albeit from left field?’
‘You could interpret the data that way, sir, yes. But I wouldn’t rely on it.’
‘So is there something in your findings we can rely on?’
Norman Potting raised a hand. ‘Yes, chief, getting a good mortgage deal from this man!’
He paused for a moment to look around but no one reacted.
‘Trust Kipp!’ Potting continued. ‘He says it, so it must be true.’
‘Thank you, Norman,’ Grace said. ‘If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years it’s when someone tells you that you can trust them, it usually means you can’t.’
‘So,’ Batchelor said, ‘at this moment we have three possible suspects: Corin Belling; Seymour Darling; and now Kipp Brown. To recap on the evidence to date: we have fingerprint and DNA confirmation that Lorna’s late husband, Corin, who had a history of abuse against her, was in the flat at some point prior to her death. We also know that he released six tiny puppies she had been rearing out onto the street, just to get at her. That’s a pretty good indicator of the state of his mind.’
He looked around the room, then continued. ‘We have Seymour Darling, extremely aggrieved about being screwed trying to purchase her car. He blames her, but might well be a victim of cyber fraud. And now we have in the frame Kipp Brown, a successful Brighton businessman – and a married man. What is his contact with our victim? And we still cannot rule out suicide, given the distressing history of her marital relationship.’
Jon Exton raised a hand, addressing Batchelor. ‘What has this character, Brown, had to say, Guy?’
Grace had been looking at Exton carefully, several times, during this meeting. As he had noticed last week, the normally neatly dressed detective’s hair was untidy, he was unshaven, and his complexion was sallow. He would have another quiet word with him later, he decided, concerned for him.
‘We haven’t talked to him yet, Jon. I’m intending to talk to him tomorrow.’
Batchelor then ran through the lines of enquiry to date. The most important at this time were the outside enquiry teams; they were interviewing everyone who lived in Vallance Mansions, as well as the tradesmen visiting the apartment building; checking for CCTV in the surrounding area, and talking to all the neighbours; checking vehicle movements with the nearest ANPR – Automatic Numberplate Recognition devices – to the area immediately around Vallance Mansions; and finding and interviewing all Lorna Belling’s friends, relatives, clients and associates, and continuing to build the association chart for her – which was pinned up on the fourth whiteboard. He would hold a full press conference in the morning, at which he would appeal to the Argus and the local media in particular to put out a request to the public for any sightings of anyone unfamiliar in the vicinity of Vallance Mansions on the afternoon and evening of Wednesday, April 20th.
Fifty minutes later the meeting was terminated. Guy Batchelor told them the next briefing would be tomorrow morning.
He went back to his office, sat down at his desk, pulled up the information he had on Kipp Brown, which included the distinctive personalized registration number of his Porsche, then put in a request for an ANPR plot on the movements of this car during the past week.
&nbs
p; Ten minutes later he had the information. Every weekday, the car left Brown’s residence in Dyke Road Avenue, Hove, headed to Kemp Town, then turned back on itself, heading west across the city towards where the offices of Kipp Brown Financial Services were located. He frowned. Why did Brown dogleg across the city to get to work? Did he drop someone off en route?’
He looked back at the information Donald Dull had come up with on Brown, and then the penny dropped.
52
Sunday 24 April
Twenty minutes after the briefing ended, there was a knock on Roy Grace’s office door. He was looking forward to an evening at home with Cleo and the kids. ‘Come in!’
Jon Exton entered, wearing a suit that seemed to be hanging off him. He was looking apprehensive.
How much weight had he lost, Grace wondered? Exton, a bright DS, was well overdue for promotion. But something was wrong. What?
‘Have a seat, Jon.’ Grace indicated the chair in front of his desk.
‘Thanks, boss,’ he said, perching awkwardly on the edge of it. ‘You said you wanted to see me?’
‘I just wanted to know if you are OK, Jon?’
‘Me?’ He looked surprised. ‘Yes, yes I am. Absolutely.’
‘You know you can come and talk to me in confidence if there’s anything on your mind.’
‘Thanks, but I’m fine.’
‘Maybe it’s your Sunday look?’
‘Sunday look?’
‘You haven’t shaved and your hair’s a mess. You’re normally Mr Dapper. And you’ve lost weight. I noticed the change in your appearance a couple of days ago, but you now look worse. I’m just concerned about you.’
‘Ah, you see, I’m training for the Beachy Head Marathon.’
‘OK – respect!’
‘I’m doing it in aid of the Martlets Hospice. Perhaps I could get you to sponsor me – I’ve got a Just Giving page.’
‘Of course, good cause. Ping me the link.’ He looked at him carefully again. ‘You’re sure there’s nothing wrong? Nothing you want to talk about to a sympathetic ear and get off your chest?’
‘No, absolutely nothing.’
‘OK.’ Grace smiled. ‘See you tomorrow.’
Watching him leave, he remained unconvinced. There was definitely something very wrong. He picked up the phone and called Batchelor.
‘Guy, I’m concerned about Jon Exton. I’d like you to keep a close eye on him. See if he’ll open up to you.’
‘Yes, of course. What’s the problem?’
‘He’s not his normal self – I’m worried about his health. There must be something going on in his life that’s not right. I don’t know if he’s having a mid-life crisis or something.’
‘Leave it with me, boss, I’ll see what I can find out.’
Grace thanked him then left for home.
53
Sunday 24 April
Roy Grace loved this time of year, as the evenings became progressively lighter, regardless of what the weather was doing.
Shortly before after 7 p.m. as he headed along Henfield High Street, which was becoming more and more familiar to him, he felt a new mood of optimism. Finally he was truly free of the shadow Sandy had cast across his life. He felt no bitterness or anger – just sadness for how she had ended up. That beautiful, intelligent and fun woman he had married, whose life had spiralled out of control; ending up a total wreck, both physically and mentally, in a Munich hospital, unable to see any kind of future.
But he could not help wondering. Perhaps Sandy would still be alive now if he had . . .
If he had what?
Not been married to his job more than to her?
If a few weeks ago he had walked out on everything he had and promised Sandy to start a new life with her?
Never.
He was in a good place, a happy place. He loved his wife deeply, he loved his baby son and he felt an overwhelming responsibility towards his newly found son, Bruno, who in time he hoped to love too. The more he thought about Sandy’s strange message, the less concerned he was. Like all human beings, Sandy had always had her dark side – and perhaps it was that coming through in her final message to him? Just wanting to plant a little seed, so that she would go to her grave knowing she had denied her former husband the chance to be totally free of concerns. Her Parthian shot?
Whatever. So far Bruno seemed nice, if understandably a little withdrawn. Hopefully by taking a lot of interest in him and including him in everything, as well as him making friends when he started at school tomorrow, that would change. Grace lowered the window of Cleo’s Audi TT and felt surprisingly warm air on his face. Summer was definitely coming, a welcome relief from a winter that had seemed almost unremittingly dark in so many ways. The car clock at the bottom of the RPM dial was still showing an hour back, but he did not know how to change it.
He turned left at the bakery, then halted, waiting for the lights to change at temporary roadworks that seemed to have been there forever. He had a quick fiddle with the controls to see if he could advance the clock, then gave up as the lights changed to green.
He drove along the lane, passing a modern housing estate, crossed a mini roundabout, then the Cat and Canary pub to his right, followed by open farmland. A short distance on he turned right and wound along a narrow rural lane, passing several substantial properties. Then he turned right onto their long, rutted driveway, driving slowly, mindful of the car’s low ground clearance.
His heart skipped a beat as he crested a slight ridge and the house came into view. Although they had been here for a few months it still gave him a thrill to see the small, rectangular cottage that was now their home. A former farm cottage, the building itself wasn’t pretty in any conventional sense, a mishmash of different shaped and sized windows, a porch that looked like it had been stuck on as an afterthought and a steeply pitched tiled roof. But the walls were clad with wisteria which was starting to come to life, masking some of the bland red brick, and some of the shrubs and flowers in the front – and the young cherry tree – were beginning to come into early bloom.
He pulled up behind his beloved Alfa, which Cleo had commandeered today because it had a rear seat where she had fixed Noah’s car seat, in case she had wanted to take both boys for a drive. Neither of them had wanted to get rid of the cars they both liked so much in favour of something more practical, although with the arrival of Bruno, he wondered how long they would be able to cope with the Alfa’s cramped rear seats and the even more cramped ones in the Audi. Also, they’d been lucky there had been no snow this winter – neither car would have made it up or down the drive easily. It was a problem they would have to address before the onset of next winter.
But right now he had more important things on his mind.
He opened the front door and Humphrey greeted him by rolling onto his back. He gave him a few moments of attention, kneeling and stroking his belly. ‘Hey, boy! Hey, boy!’ he said.
Cleo appeared in the hallway behind the dog, in jeans, trainers and a black pullover, with a big smile on her face. But he noted her slightly stooped posture.
‘Darling, you’re home much earlier than you thought, that’s brilliant.’
‘Managed to get away,’ he said, hugging her gently. ‘How’s your back?’
‘A bit rubbish.’
Cleo had suffered back pain since Noah had been born, but it had got a lot worse recently after she and a colleague at the mortuary had had to manhandle a thirty-eight-stone female corpse.
‘When are you seeing the chiropractor again?’
‘Well, I’ve got a firm she recommended, called Posturite, coming to the office tomorrow – they’re going to do some kind of workplace assessment, to see whether an orthopaedic chair might help.’
‘Good.’
Humphrey barked again, ran off and came back with a squeaky toy, a rubber duck, in his mouth.
‘Brought me a present? Thank you, Humphrey.’ He leaned down to take it, but as he gripped the duck, Humphre
y held on tightly, pulling back.
‘Tug of war?’ He shook it, and Humphrey shook his head, determinedly, making playful growling sounds.
‘OK, boy, you win!’ He let go and the dog, comically, shot back, stumbling, and almost fell over backwards. Turning to Cleo, he asked, ‘So, how’s everything else?’
‘Well,’ she said, smiling, ‘it’s been interesting.’
‘Oh? What have you been up to?’
‘Bruno and I went for a walk this morning – I took Noah in his pushchair. We went quite a way down the lane, and Bruno insisted on pushing Noah much of the way – he’s quite the gentleman, you know.’
‘Must have got that from his father!’ Grace grinned.
‘Then we passed a house – a very pretty place – and there was a guy outside who was cleaning his Porsche. Bruno went straight up to him and they had a ten-minute conversation – mostly about Porsche brakes, can you believe? The guy was charming – his wife came out and chatted to us, too. Nice people, they’d love us to come over for a drink sometime. Great to meet some neighbours.’
‘Yes – do they have any kids – anyone Bruno’s age?’
‘Three kids but they’re all much older. But the guy offered to take Bruno for a drive in his Porsche sometime, and Bruno’s eyes really lit up.’
‘Wow, great! So was Bruno chatty with you?’
‘Not really. I tried to talk to him, but he wasn’t that responsive today – he seemed subdued. Only really seemed to come alive when he saw that Porsche. Then we came home and had some lunch.’
‘What did you have?’
‘I cooked him some chicken, which he seemed to like – there’s a bit left for supper. I’ve got some German recipes off the internet. I’m going to ask him if he fancies cooking any with me, like it says we should on the step-parenting forums.’