by Peter James
57
Tuesday 16 December
‘Good morning, boys, it’s make-your-mind-up time! Make-your-mind-up time, chum!’ he said with a giggle. ‘Who remembers that line, eh? Felix? Harrison? Marcus?’
‘Cilla Black in the TV dating show Blind Date?’ ventured Felix, always the one to lead.
‘No, it was Hughie Green in Opportunity Knocks who used it first,’ said Marcus.
‘What do you think, Harrison?’
‘I’m not so sure. But it rings a bell.’
‘Ding, ding!’ He giggled again.
‘It was definitely Blind Date,’ Felix said.
‘I never saw Blind Date,’ Marcus said.
‘Tut tut, what a sheltered life you’ve led, eh?’
‘A better one than this,’ Marcus retorted, sullen.
‘Tut, tut, tut, what kind of gratitude is that, Marcus?’
‘What exactly do any of us have to be grateful about?’ he retorted.
‘Ooooohhhh, feisty! I like it when you get all feisty, Marcus. It sets all my pheromones racing! You never saw Blind Date? Did you spend the 1990s living under a rock? The whole planet saw that show. Except, of course, for you.’
‘Myself as well as the one quarter of the earth’s population who’ve not yet made a telephone call, let alone enjoyed the luxury of watching television,’ Marcus replied.
‘Oh very good, I love your social conscience, Marcus. I like a person with principles. But I suspect that figure you are quoting is lower these days. You’re out of date, really you are. I don’t know what you spend your time doing, honestly. We’ll have to help your cultural enlightenment. I’ll see if I can find some recordings of Blind Date for you!’
‘I think Felix is right,’ said Harrison. ‘It was Cilla Black in Blind Date.’
‘Yessss,’ he squealed with delight. ‘Yesssss, yessssssss, yessssssssss! So Felix wins today’s prize! Let’s all hear it for Felix! Let’s congratulate him! Felix, you get a Mars bar! I know it’s a bit early in the morning, but hey, as my mum used to say, What’s time to the Irish? Eh?’
He pulled a Mars bar from his pocket, ripped the wrapper off and let it flutter down onto the floor. ‘Oh dear, what a litter lout I am!’ He held out the chocolate bar. ‘Here it is, Felix, enjoy, let the losers salivate over your success! But before you take the first bite, because you’re not quite there yet, I want you to tell me what Cilla Black’s name was before she changed it. Can you tell me?’ He held out the chocolate bar, tantalizing him.
‘I don’t know,’ Felix said. ‘I so totally do not know!’
‘It was Priscilla White!’ he said, triumphantly. ‘Oh dear, you lose!’ He held the bar up. ‘All right, while I decide if one of you gets the whole thing, or we all share it, I’d like to know everyone’s opinion about my latest project, Freya Northrop. Are we all still agreed?’ He held up her photograph. ‘She ticks all the boxes, yes?’
‘She does,’ Felix said.
‘Harrison, what do you think?’
‘Felix is only saying yes because he wants the Mars bar,’ Harrison replied.
‘She’s definitely your type,’ Marcus said.
‘Oh, you are being nice to me now, Marcus. Could it be that you are angling for the chocolate? You are right though, she is my type, isn’t she! Oh yes, she’s exactly my type all right. She’s home early every night to prepare dinner, while her boyfriend – Zak – stays at the restaurant, working away. When he comes home one night this week, big surprise – there’ll be no dinner and no Freya!’
‘Do you have a thing about couples shacking up together?’ Harrison asked.
‘Are you going moralistic on me, Harrison?’
‘I’m only mentioning it.’
‘Purely coincidental, old chap.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sensing a lot of attitude this morning.’ He put the picture down and looked at his watch. ‘Six fifteen. Tut, tut! I’ve not had my brekkie yet!’ He took a large bite out of the Mars bar, and chewed. Through his sticky mouthful of chocolate and toffee, he said, ‘Mmmn, not had one of these for a while. It tastes good, really good. Too good to share! And I’ve got a busy day ahead – need to keep my strength up, sorry everyone!’ He pushed the rest of the bar into his mouth.
‘Bastard!’ Marcus said.
He nodded. ‘Yep, I am, you’re right about that, Marcus; but then you always have been!’
58
Tuesday 16 December
Shortly after 7 a.m. Roy Grace carried a mug of steaming coffee into his office and sat at his desk, reflecting on the events of yesterday, and in particular the first Gold group meeting that had followed the grim funeral and the equally grim wake, before the press conference and the evening briefing. It was dark beyond his rain-spattered window, the Asda superstore complex and the skyline of Brighton barely visible apart from the hazy, misty glow of street lighting.
In between two of the piles of paperwork he needed to tackle sat a foil package containing the egg and tomato sandwich Cleo had made him last night for his breakfast, and six red grapes – she had read in some health column that six red grapes a day were the new big anti-ageing elixir. And the tomato was apparently good for warding off many cancers in later years. Since Noah had been born, he had noticed that she had become more preoccupied than ever with both of them eating healthily. And never ordinarily a nervous person, she had become a tad anxious. No doubt something do with a mother’s protective instincts, he thought.
Feeling very flat, he stared up at the photographic print of the words branded on unknown female, U R DEAD, pinned to his noticeboard. At least part of the gloom he felt was over the imminent arrival of the Met officer, Detective Chief Inspector Paul Sweetman. Maybe Pewe was acting in his best interests, but from past experience, anything Pewe did needed to be viewed with suspicion.
A lot of people had congratulated him on his eulogy, but he’d barely heard their words. Although he’d had no involvement at all in Bella’s decision to enter that burning building, he still felt a strong degree of blame. The fire had been started by the arsonist monster at the centre of the investigation he had been running. If they had caught him sooner, Bryce Laurent would never have started the fire, and Bella would still be alive.
He replayed over and over in his mind the whole scenario of that investigation, Operation Aardvark, from the very first report that a woman, Red Westwood, was in danger from a stalker, to the moment when Detective Sergeant Moy had so bravely – if recklessly – entered that burning building, wondering what he might have done differently to have arrested the man sooner.
It gave him little satisfaction that Bryce Laurent had burned to death in a cell at Lewes Prison, in an apparent suicide. He would like to have seen the man brought to trial, and through that process understood something of what had created such a twisted mind. On the other hand, Laurent’s death did mean closure, of a kind, for Red Westwood, the woman whose life he had made such hell. At least she would not have to live with the fear that one day he might be released from prison and come after her again.
As was his morning ritual, he logged on to the serials and checked the tagged summary log. An attempted gay rape of a man in Kemp Town; an escaped prisoner from Ford open prison arrested at an address in Hollingbury; a street robbery; a reported break-in at a house in Hove, nothing apparently stolen, according to the owners, a chef and his partner; and another break-in, at a student house off Elm Grove, where two laptops had been taken.
Next he turned his attention to this morning’s briefing on the joint investigation, Operation Haywain. He reached for his sandwich and began to remove the foil wrapper Cleo had put around it, and as he did so, he noticed, among the different piles on his desk, a folder with a yellow Post-it stuck to the top, with Glenn Branson’s slanted handwriting on it.
Take a look at this!
He put his breakfast down and opened the folder. And felt a jolt as if a bolt of electricity had shot through him.
He was looking at a copy of one of severa
l CAD – Computer Aided Design – impressions of unknown female, the body found at Hove Lagoon, the computer-generated image created from the bone structure of her skull. Each version showed a different hairstyle. She looked an attractive young woman in her early twenties, and in this one, the artist had shown her with long brown hair.
‘Shit,’ he said to himself, aloud.
‘Yeah, that’s what I said, too.’
He looked up to see Glenn Branson, sharply dressed and looking a lot fresher than he himself felt, and smelling more strongly than usual of a musky fragrance. He hadn’t heard him enter. ‘Obviously,’ Branson went on, ‘the artist has speculated on the hairstyle; a few strands aren’t much to go on.’
‘Putting the hair aside, their looks are so similar too.’ Grace stared down at the blank, expressionless image that was devoid of whatever personality the deceased woman once had. ‘Emma Johnson, Logan Somerville, Ashleigh Stanford, Katy Westerham. And now, unknown female. Two of them died thirty years ago, three of them have vanished within the past month.’
Time would tell whether these images would be useful or not. But for now it was helpful to have a possible visual focus on the victim.
Branson turned around one of the chairs in front of the desk and sat astride it, his arms folded over the back, staring thoughtfully at his colleague and mentor. ‘How did your Gold group meeting go?’
‘Good. We formalized the structure, and agreed three main objectives: the safety of the citizens of Brighton and Hove, the direction and progress of the investigation and our press and media communications strategy.’
‘Do you want me at the press conference?’
‘I did, mate, but Mr Preening Peacock wants to be there himself along with me – so he can take the glory when we get a result, and blame me if we don’t.’
Grace looked down at the pictures again, his brain spinning, thinking about the different experienced people he had spoken to for advice. Was he covering all the bases? he wondered repeatedly.
‘I have some news which might help us that’s come in overnight. We’ve got the names from the Council records of three of the men who were on the team that laid the path at the Lagoon, who are still alive. Two of them have been located and are being interviewed this morning,’ Branson said. ‘The total workforce there at the time was seven. Three of the men have since died, and one emigrated to Australia.’
‘We’ll need to find him and get him interviewed, if he’s still alive. It could be that one of them is the killer, and took the opportunity to rebury the remains before the surface went down, thinking the path would be there forever.’
‘Norman Potting has a contact in Melbourne Police who he’s spoken to and is on it. But the guy emigrated nearly twenty years ago. It might take a few days.’
‘We don’t have a few days, Glenn.’
‘I’ll volunteer for the trip!’
‘I need you here. If we need to send anyone, and it’s a big if, it might be good to send Norman, give him time away for a few days. By the way, what news on that Argus reporter you fancy – any developments?’
Glenn Branson raised his hands in the air and swivelled them from side to side.
‘What’s that meant to mean?’
‘I’m being careful with Siobhan.’
‘In what sense?’
Branson drew his forefinger across his lip, like a zip.
‘Keep it that way.’
‘She gets it.’
‘She’s a journalist. Journalists eat their young. OK?’
‘Journalists and Traffic officers.’
‘Yep, well the big difference is that I’d trust a Traffic officer. Even if he – or she – booked me.’
‘She’s cool, I’m telling you. I know her pretty well by now.’
Grace gave his close friend a sideways look. A thought was going through his mind: that it might actually be no bad thing to have a tame journalist at this moment.
Then he stared back at the photograph of the branded words. ‘You have someone contacting all blacksmiths in the area, to see who might have forged the branding iron that did this? Someone would remember making this – if he or she’s still around – for sure. There can’t be many blacksmiths get commissioned to make a branding iron with those words.’
‘There aren’t that many blacksmiths or forgemasters at all. Yes, there’s an outside enquiry team on it, but no luck yet. It could of course be a DIY job.’
Grace nodded, silently, thinking. What would give someone the idea to brand victims? What did branding signify? Power? Ownership? Sheep and cattle were often branded, to show their ownership. Slaves, too. Jews in concentration camps were branded for identification – although they were done with tattoos rather than heated metal. But ultimately the branding was done as a symbol of power. I own you now, I can do what I want with you. You are nothing more than cattle.
The idea he had about the Argus crime reporter was forming more clearly now in his mind. ‘Mate,’ he said, ‘I need you to ask Siobhan to do something. It’s a you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours kind of a favour. OK?’
Branson nodded, looking puzzled. ‘Yeah, no problem.’
‘Keep it work related, OK?’
The DI grinned, and said nothing.
59
Tuesday 16 December
Adrienne Macklin enjoyed her job, working in the front office of the Roundstone Caravan Park on the outskirts of Horsham, a prosperous town twenty-five miles north of Brighton, with a modern shopping centre, and surrounded by glorious Sussex countryside. Part of the company’s business was the sale of caravans and they had a wide selection on display, from bargain second-hand tourers up to luxurious, top-of-the-range static caravans. The other part was managing the site’s two hundred mobile homes.
Some of the owners were permanent residents but many were holidaymakers who came several times a year from not only all over the county of Sussex, but from many other parts of the UK. And then there was the gentleman in Unit R-73.
A widow, Adrienne was always on the lookout for a potential new partner and he ticked a lot of her boxes. This man was good-looking, charming and always cheerful, but so far all her attempts at engaging him in conversation had been – very politely – rebuffed. She knew virtually nothing about him at all.
He had owned a very nice mobile home for many years and kept it in immaculate condition. His visits were sporadic, turning up sometimes during the week, sometimes at weekends, occasionally staying for a few days, but mostly only for a few hours. He always came alone, carrying armfuls of newspapers and magazines, and a Waitrose carrier bag with, usually, the neck of a wine bottle peeping out of the top.
One time she’d asked him what he did for a living. ‘Oh,’ he had replied, ‘I’m in IT, you know, that kind of thing. Very boring.’
‘Not to me,’ she had responded, trying to keep the chat going.
‘It is, dear, trust me.’
Another time she’d tried to find out where he lived, but he had replied, cheery as ever, ‘Oh, you know, here and there. I’m planning to retire here. Not long to go!’
So she remained in hope that one day soon he might actually retire here and perhaps she could get to know him better then.
Meanwhile, she attempted a little detective work of her own, snooping around the outside of his mobile home while he was absent. She’d even tried the lock one day, as she kept keys to most of the homes on the park, but without success. There were three separate locks and the door had reinforced steel around it. The windows, with their blinds down, gave her no clue either – it was impossible to see in.
He was clearly a very private man.
Some days she wondered, uncharitably perhaps, if he was a bit of a deviant. Was he some kind of pervert? What did he get up to inside that mobile home with all his papers and magazines?
The only time Adrienne had ever really engaged in any kind of proper conversation with him had been a couple of years back when her daughter, Hayley, had been hel
ping her out as a summer job, to earn some pennies whilst at uni. He’d taken a bit of a shine to Hayley, and had stood in the office for ages, chatting to her about music. It turned out they were both fans of the Kinks, and he told Hayley about a pub in North London which Ray Davies frequented.
It was the first time she had ever been jealous of her daughter. But Hayley soon put her back in her place after he had left for his caravan, clutching his usual armful of papers and magazines.
‘What a weirdo!’ Hayley said.
‘I think he’s rather dishy!’
‘Get real, Mother!’
60
Tuesday 16 December
Following the 11 a.m. Gold group meeting, shortly before midday, Cassian Pewe strutted into the Lounge Assembly Room at Malling House, the Sussex Police Headquarters, wearing a starched white shirt with epaulettes and a black tie.
Roy Grace, in a navy suit, followed him up onto the podium and they stood side by side in front of the microphones facing the largest gathering of press and media Grace had ever seen, amid a dazzling storm of flashlights. He remembered what he had been told many years ago, to take several deep breaths both to calm his nerves and energize him before addressing a crowd.
There were at least fifty people in the room: journalists, television crews from Sky News, Latest TV, BBC South, and radio reporters he recognized from Radio Sussex and Juice FM, as well as half a dozen more he was unfamiliar with. Also on the podium, standing well to their left, was the Police and Crime Commissioner looking smart and elegant in a grey suit and white blouse, and the Chief Executive of Brighton and Hove City Council, Philippa Tomsett, also smartly dressed.
The room fell silent. Pewe began speaking, but no one could hear him.
‘Stand a bit closer to the microphone,’ Grace whispered to him.
There was a squawk, then a loud crackle, then Pewe’s voice rang out. ‘Thank you all for coming. I’m Assistant Chief Constable Cassian Pewe, with responsibility for the overall investigation of major crime in Sussex, and on my right is Detective Superintendent Roy Grace of Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team, who is the Senior Investigating Officer on Operation Haywain. We also have with us on my left the Police and Crime Commissioner for Sussex and the Chief Executive of Brighton and Hove City Council. I’m asking Detective Superintendent Grace to brief you on the investigation thus far and then we will take questions.’