by Peter James
Guy Batchelor came back into the office.
‘How did the surveillance request go, Guy?’ Grace asked him, knowing that these requests often took a while, because of their sensitive nature and complexity. He smiled with relief at Batchelor’s reply.
‘Granted.’
85
Saturday 20 December
At midday the following day, Roy Grace stood on the podium alongside Cassian Pewe, in the Lounge Assembly Room of Malling House. It was again rammed with press, photographers, TV news cameramen and radio reporters.
The Assistant Chief Constable, as usual for these public appearances, spoke first. ‘These are our updates since yesterday. We are taking increased measures, daily, to protect the women of Brighton and Hove. Thanks to the support of our Police and Crime Commissioner, Nicola Roigard, we have been allocated extra budget to enable us to draft in police officers from other divisions. Starting today, additional officers will be out on our streets. And thanks to a bungled attack on Thursday of this week and a very clear-headed witness, we now believe we have a suspect. Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, the Senior Investigating Officer, can tell you more about this.’ He stepped back from the microphone.
Staring at Pewe’s moist, serpentine lips, Grace felt, for some moments, like a mouse that had been dropped through the lid of a cage containing a hungry snake. He took a deep breath and then addressed the throng.
‘We have an e-fit of the person we are seeking urgently to help us with our enquiries, who was seen near Hove Recreation Ground on Thursday night,’ he said. He then indicated the first of the two artist’s impressions on the screen behind him. ‘This refers to the man seen driving away at the time of Logan’s abduction.’ Then he pointed to the sketch that had only been completed half an hour ago, pinned to a whiteboard behind him, and which was being projected on a large screen over to his right.
Pewe frowned quizzically at him, but Grace pretended not to have noticed.
The sketch had been carefully created by the artist, working with Grace and Potting, from a photograph taken secretly of Dr Crisp earlier this morning. Very deliberately the drawing did not depict Crisp too precisely, it was more a representation of his facial features and hair. This approach had been agreed with the Crown Prosecution Service lawyer appointed to the case.
Grace, blinking against the barrage of flashlights, kept a poker face, but inside he was smiling. They were buying this. It would worry Crisp, but it was not an accurate enough portrait for him to be positively identified, nor was it accurate enough to send him scurrying underground.
‘We would like any members of the public, particularly young females, who might have been approached by this man, or anyone who has seen him acting suspiciously to contact us.’
‘Are you able to name any suspects?’ someone shouted from the back of the room.
‘Not at this stage, no,’ Grace replied. ‘I would appeal to anyone who might recognize either of these to contact us urgently.’
‘Detective Superintendent, has there been any ransom demand for Logan Somerville?’
‘No, we have received no ransom demand.’
‘Roy, do you believe Logan Somerville is still alive?’
‘We are hopeful she is alive and we are doing everything that we can to find her.’
‘Detective Superintendent Grace, what is your latest advice to the women of this city?’
‘We advise all young women to be extra vigilant, and not to go out in the evening alone; to ensure they don’t leave doors unlocked or windows open at night and to call us if they are worried by anything they think might be suspicious. Please don’t worry about false alarms, we would rather hear from anyone who has concerns than not.’
‘Detective Superintendent, is there anything to link this to the disappearance of your own wife ten years ago?’
Although Grace had been prepared for this question, it still pierced his heart. Because, he knew, it was always a possibility. ‘There is no evidence to suggest this,’ he replied.
‘How close to an arrest are you?’
‘You’ve heard how the investigation is progressing. We need the help of the public and we are doing everything we can to find and arrest this killer.’
‘Have you conclusively linked the murders of Emma Johnson and Ashleigh Stanford to the ones thirty years ago of Katy Westerham and Denise Patterson?’
‘There are certain parallels which we continue to investigate,’ Roy Grace said, circumspectly. ‘But at the moment we are keeping an open mind.’
‘Have you found the branding iron yet or where it was made?’ a woman reporter called out.
‘No, we haven’t,’ Roy replied. Several more questions about the Brighton Brander followed.
‘Are you able to name any suspects? Is this the Brighton Brander?’ a man shouted from the back of the room.
For the next forty minutes Roy continued to field questions, and also took the opportunity to provide more information to the assembled media representatives.
At the end of the conference he left the podium, feeling totally drained, and drove back to his office at Sussex House. So much was going through his head. This morning’s surveillance report on Edward Crisp was that he had been at home all last night. Two officers had established that by ringing his front doorbell at the gates, dressed smartly, saying they were Jehovah’s Witnesses. He had left the house at 7 a.m. today, taking his dog around Hove Park, and returned an hour later. He had not been out since.
Dr Edward Crisp, Grace thought. A middle-aged family doctor. Could he really be behind all this?
Then he only had to remind himself that Britain’s worst-ever serial killer had been a middle-aged family doctor, Harold Shipman. All of his victims had been patients. Surely it would be too coincidental for another doctor to be Brighton’s first serial killer?
The danger, he knew, from having a good suspect was always the temptation to focus on that suspect and ignore anything else. What else was he missing?
The only other potential suspect was the strange Dr Harrison Hunter, phoney anaesthetist, who had gone to see Jacob Van Dam. Middle-aged, blond wig, medium build.
Dr Crisp in disguise? An alter ego?
Van Dam had now been interviewed three times. Why the hell had Hunter gone to see him?
Grace knew the answer probably lay in the erratic mind of the offender. Murder was never a rational thing. It was a line that, fortunately, most decent folk never crossed. But equally it was a line that, once crossed, there was no going back from. You could never undo the fact that you had taken a life. Most people gave themselves up at some point after doing that, because they couldn’t live with the guilt. The truly dangerous ones were the people who found they could live with the knowledge. People who, in the recesses of their twisted minds, actually enjoyed it.
For them it made no difference whether it was one killing or twenty. Once they crossed the Rubicon of their first murder, and found they were comfortable with it, there was no turning back. Even if they wanted to.
Many murders were committed by schizophrenics – people like Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, who heard voices from God telling him to go and kill prostitutes.
Barring those who killed after losing their temper, the majority of murderers were sociopaths – or psychopaths – the same thing in Grace’s view – people born without empathy. People capable of killing with little emotion or guilt.
Had Hunter gone to see Jacob Van Dam to boast? To be absolved? To show off? To sadistically torment him as Logan’s uncle?
But Van Dam was not particularly close to Logan.
What the hell was that all about? A cry for help of some kind?
It was the only answer, at this moment, that he could come up with: that perhaps the offender was feeling guilt and wanted to be caught to stop him from offending further.
Tony Balazs agreed it was a possibility.
Grace felt certain that the clue to finding the offender lay in that visit. Despite the
wig and tinted glasses that Dr Harrison Hunter had been wearing, from Jacob Van Dam’s description, his build fitted Dr Crisp.
Feeling almost too exhausted to think straight, he laid his head on his arms on his desk and closed his eyes. Moments later, it seemed, he woke with a start to a dull buzzing sound, like a trapped insect.
His phone, which he had switched to silent for the press conference, was vibrating on the desk.
‘Roy Grace,’ he answered, confused, only half awake. He looked at the time. Shit. He’d been asleep for almost an hour.
It was Jack Alexander. ‘Sir,’ he said. ‘I’ve just taken an urgent call from a woman at the Roundstone Caravan Park in Horsham. She’s seen the images on the lunchtime news and reckons she might know this man – she thinks he has a mobile home there.’
86
Saturday 20 December
Logan’s captor had not been to see her in what felt like more than a day. It could have been longer. She had no sense of time.
What if, she thought with a deep, dark shudder of panic, she had been abandoned?
Left here to die of hunger or thirst?
She pulled hard with her arms, with every ounce of the feeble strength she now had and, suddenly, she felt the bonds on her right wrist slacken, just a fraction. She tried again, then again. It came a fraction looser. She tried again, oblivious to the pain as it cut into her flesh. Then again. Again.
She was sure it was getting looser!
Then she heard a sound. The roof of her prison was sliding back. She saw a haze of green light above her and she froze.
‘Won’t be long now,’ the voice growled at her.
The roof closed.
87
Saturday 20 December
Residents of Horsham had different theories about where the name had first originated. Some said it was from Horse Ham, meaning a place where horses were kept. Others claimed it was named after a Saxon warrior, called Horsa’s Ham, who had been granted land in the area.
Roy Grace knew this from his dad, who had been passionately interested in Sussex’s history. He liked the town, but with its modern urban sprawl in all directions, equally it frustrated him, because he always got lost there.
‘Where the hell is this place?’ he said.
‘We should have taken the A24 like I suggested,’ Glenn Branson replied.
Grace, trying to read the satnav app on his jigging phone, shook his head. ‘This thing should bloody know.’
There were three missed calls from Cleo on his phone. So far he’d only spent a few hours in their new home. He had no idea what time he would get back today or when he would be able to start unpacking any of his things.
Ten minutes later, a vast array of shiny caravans appeared on their right, each with a price tag in the front window, and a large sign which said, ROUNDSTONE CARAVANS, HOLIDAY HOMES, CALOR GAS.
During the drive Grace had started making the initial arrangements to move some extra resources towards their location, as he was confident this sounded like a good lead, and he hoped they would be needed sooner rather than later. He had asked them to meet at an RV point a short distance away.
They turned in through the gates and followed the signs to reception, a modern building attached to an attractive, large Edwardian house. They pulled up and climbed out. A sign on the office door read, WHEN CLOSED RING HOUSE BELL.
They walked up to the porch of the house and Grace rang the bell. A dog barked and after a few moments a short, well-preserved fair-haired woman in her mid-fifties appeared, dressed in a black roll-neck sweater, jeans and boots.
‘Good afternoon,’ she said with a friendly, if quizzical, smile.
Grace held up his warrant card. ‘Detective Superintendent Grace and Detective Inspector Branson of Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team. We had a phone call a short while ago from an Adrienne Macklin here in response to an appeal on the lunchtime news.’
‘Ah, yes,’ she said. ‘Adrienne who made the call on my behalf is off this afternoon – I’m the owner – Natalie Morris. I have all the information you need. Would you like to come in?’
She led them through into a large, cosy living room, with a log fire burning in the grate, and ushered them to a sofa, then sat down in an armchair opposite. ‘How can I help you? Would you like a drink? Cup of tea?’
Branson was about to say yes, but Grace, in a hurry, cut him short. ‘We’re fine, thank you, Mrs Morris.’ Then he pulled a photograph of Edward Crisp from his pocket and handed it to her. ‘Do you recognize this man?’
She studied the photograph for a few moments. ‘When I saw him on TV I was pretty sure that’s our Mr Hunter, but now I am not so certain.’ She looked again. ‘It’s not a very clear picture.’
Grace leaned forward, adrenaline surging. ‘Harrison Hunter?’
‘Give me a couple of minutes,’ Natalie Morris said.
She hurried out of the room, then reappeared with a large burgundy-covered ledger, and began leafing through it. ‘Mr Harrison Hunter!’ she said. ‘Unit R-73.’
‘Unit R-73?’ Grace queried.
‘Yes, it’s quite a substantial mobile home. One of our permanent ones.’
‘How long has he lived here?’
‘Quite a while. I do hope I’m not wasting your time. The thing is,’ she said nervously, ‘we don’t pry into our customers’ lives.’
‘Of course not,’ Glenn Branson said. ‘Why would you?’
‘It wouldn’t be very nice for them, would it?’ she said. ‘We always hope that we have respectable people here. We just let them come and go as they please.’
‘So long as they pay their rent on time?’ Grace said.
‘Precisely.’ The woman was starting to look increasingly ill at ease.
‘How well do you know Hunter, Mrs Morris?’ Grace asked.
‘To be honest, I don’t really know him at all. He pays on the nail, he is always pleasant. But he’s not really here much at all. We don’t ask questions. Some of our residents use their places for – you know – meeting their ladies. Others as an escape from city life. My attitude is so long as no one is any bother to the other residents, what they do is up to them.’
‘Mr Hunter’s not here at the moment?’
‘I haven’t seen him,’ she said. ‘There’s normally a car outside when he is.’
‘What car?’
She thought for a moment. ‘From memory it’s a big dark grey thing.’
‘Do you have a contact phone number for him?’ Glenn Branson asked.
She looked again at the ledger. ‘I’m afraid there’s nothing here. But that’s not unusual.’
‘Could you point out Mr Hunter’s unit for me, please?’ Grace asked, his excitement surging.
‘Certainly.’ She stood up and walked across to an aerial photograph of the site on the wall. ‘Unit R-73,’ she said, indicating with her finger. ‘I could take you over, you could see the outside, but if he’s not in, I don’t have a key.’
‘I don’t want to approach it obviously at this moment,’ Grace said. ‘Do you have an old raincoat or anorak, a hat or a cap, and a wheelie bin I could borrow for a few minutes?’
She gave him a strange look. ‘Well, yes, I do.’
The light was failing and in less than an hour it would be pitch dark, Grace thought, as he pushed the empty bin across the wet grass, wearing an old tweed cap and an anorak several sizes too big for him, which the proprietor had found. He zigzagged his way past the caravans and mobile homes of different sizes, trying to look nonchalant, as he finally reached Unit R-73, and trundled his bin on past it.
The blinds were down, and there were three keyholes on the door, he noticed, which looked like overkill. There did not appear to be any lights on inside and he could hear no sound. However, just in case he was being watched, he continued past, slowly completed his circuit and returned to the office. Then he stopped before entering, called the Ops-1 Controller and asked if the helicopter was free. Sited at Redhill, it would be a littl
e over five minutes’ flying time from here.
To his relief the Controller told him it was.
Grace asked him to get it airborne immediately, while there was still some daylight, and that he would email over a JPEG of the aerial map of the site. He needed the helicopter to use its thermal-imaging camera to tell him whether anyone was in Unit R-73. He re-entered the office and asked Natalie Morris for permission to photograph the plan, which she gave him.
As Grace was doing that, Glenn Branson asked, ‘Do you have security issues here, Mrs Morris?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘The whole estate is monitored by CCTV and we have someone on security around the clock. We have very little trouble. I can’t remember the last time we had a break-in at any of our units – it was when my husband was alive – over ten years ago, at least.’ Then she hesitated, looking nervous, suddenly. ‘Surely you don’t suspect Mr Hunter of being this Brighton Brander man, do you?’ she asked.
‘What makes you think we might?’ Branson asked.
‘Oh, you know, I like cop shows on the telly. Sometimes my imagination runs riot. But Adrienne and I saw the pictures on the news, and we both said, “That could be Mr Hunter!”’
‘And what sort of person is Harrison Hunter?’ Grace interceded.
She smiled. ‘Well, not weird, exactly. No, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. More, just very private.’
‘I’m going to request a search warrant, Mrs Morris. It will take about an hour. I don’t want to inconvenience you, or cause you any problems with any of your residents. So we’ll be as discreet as possible.’
Natalie Morris raised her hands. ‘I’m always very happy to cooperate with the police.’