by Peter James
Noah, in a striped onesie, was lying on his play mat, blinking up at his Christmas mobile under the watchful eye of Humphrey, their black rescue Labrador-Collie cross. Marlon the goldfish was circumnavigating his bowl, as ever. Must be a bit dull for a fish, he thought. At least a dog could get excited by wrapping paper and appreciate a few extra Christmas treats. Maybe Marlon could at least enjoy the Christmas lights, he wondered. He stared lovingly at Cleo, her long blonde hair clipped up and looking gorgeous, and suddenly felt an overwhelming feeling of happiness. Their first Christmas together and their baby son, Noah’s, first ever.
Then his mobile phone rang.
‘Roy Grace,’ he answered, his heart sinking. He hoped desperately this wasn’t going to be a fresh murder inquiry, which would put pay to all his plans. To his relief, he recognized the friendly but serious voice of Chief Constable Tom Martinson. Although it was unusual for the Chief to be calling him personally, it would not be about a murder.
‘Sorry to bother you on a Friday evening, Roy,’ he said, ‘but we have a potential problem. Brighton Council and the Police and Crime Commissioner are extremely worried about crowd safety tomorrow, in light of all the recent attacks, and especially today’s. I should also mention that a minibus bringing kids from the Chestnut Tree House hospice is coming along. As you know, it’s a charity Sussex Police have raised a lot of money for; they’re our special guests tomorrow and we don’t want them disappointed.’
‘Yes, sir, I do.’
‘Although the Public Order Team have had all leave cancelled for tomorrow,’ the Chief Constable continued, ‘and we have drafted in officers from all over the county, I’ve had a discussion with the Assistant Chief Constables, and we’ve decided we should have the Major Crime Team as additional observers in the crowd tomorrow. How many of your officers could you muster?’
Inwardly, Roy Grace groaned. He would be spending the next two hours solidly on the phone. ‘About twenty, sir.’
‘I want them all deployed. Liaise with Nev Kemp who’s Gold Commander for tomorrow.’ Chief Superintendent Nev Kemp was the Divisional Commander for the city, and heading the police operation for the event tomorrow.
‘Yes, sir, I’ll get onto it right away.’
‘Good man.’
The phone went silent. Along with Roy Grace’s festive joy – for tonight, anyway.
*
Snow was forecast for the week ahead, but at 10 a.m., beneath a cloudless cobalt sky, Roy Grace was snugly wrapped up inside a fleece-lined parka, rubbing his gloved hands together as he stood on the promenade, above the sparkling, frosty grass of Hove Lagoon, which surrounded Norman Cook’s Big Beach Café. Half a mile to their left was the bandstand that had been erected overnight. Earlier, he’d briefed the eighteen members of his team that he had been able to muster in the warmth of the Conference Room of the Sussex CID HQ, and now they stood in a ragged circle around him as he deployed each of them in turn to their points.
A large white circle had been taped on the promenade – the drop zone, where Santa would make his landing, wind permitting. Fortunately there was only the faintest breeze – the weather could not be more benign for a parachute jump.
He yawned. Bill Warner had phoned him after midnight, to tell him he was emailing him CCTV footage of the suspect who had chainsawed the Christmas tree. There had been several sightings of him across the city caught on camera.
A few joggers and dog-walkers passed them by. The tide was out, and a wide expanse of mudflat, riddled with worm casts, lay beyond the pebble beach. Over to the east was the skeletal ruin of West Pier, and glitzy Brighton Pier half a mile beyond that, beneath the ball of ochre that was the low winter sun. The Detective Superintendent watched, warily, an elderly man in gumboots working his way along the beach with a metal detector, and another man with a bucket, digging for lugworms in the mud for bait. To his trained, suspicious eye, everyone at this moment was a potential suspect.
Parked all along the road behind was an endless line of police vans. The entire area, as far as the eye could see, was ring-fenced with blue and white police tape and a massive presence of uniformed officers, most of them huddled in groups, nursing beakers and Styrofoam cups of tea and coffee. It was going to be a long morning.
Members of the public were starting to arrive. The first of two warm-up bands, both local groups, was due on at 11 a.m., and they would play until midday. The second band would play until 1 p.m., when Norman Cook was due to come on. He would end his act by announcing the arrival of Santa Claus overhead. With luck, the whole event would start winding down after Santa landed on schedule at 2 p.m., and he would have time to rush over to the Lanes and buy that bracelet for Cleo from Stanley Rosen.
Over the course of the next hour the crowd swelled, parents with their excited children bagging the best spots, closest to the circle. By the time the band was halfway through its set, there were several thousand people amassed. Grace left his station on the promenade to enter the Police Mobile-Command-Centre vehicle, equipped with cameras covering a large part of the surrounding area. So far, everything was fine. The band was great and the crowd seemed happy. Queues were lengthening outside the mobile burger and hot-dog stalls and portable loos, which had been placed on site. Street vendors were out in force, flogging Santa hats, festive balloons and other seasonal tat. Excitement was growing.
By midday the crowd was estimated at over fifteen thousand. So far there were no incidents, other than a couple of arrests of people drinking alcohol in public and one pickpocket caught on camera. By the time Fatboy Slim came on, to a tumultuous cheer from the crowd, there were well over twenty thousand people. On one of the cameras, Grace saw a group of children, mostly in wheelchairs, leaving a Chestnut Tree House minibus. He felt a pang of sadness, thinking about his own baby son. These were all children suffering progressive life-shortening or life-threatening illnesses. This was his son’s first Christmas, but for many of these kids, it would be their last. Despite himself, looking at their happy faces, he dabbed tears from his eyes.
It was easy to forget, amid all the excitement and happiness of Christmas, that for so many people it was the very opposite. For the lonely, and particularly the elderly on their own, it was a time when their loneliness felt more acute. For parents of sick kids, it was a time of emotional turmoil. But at least at this moment, as he carefully scanned the crowd through the monitors, everyone here was having a good time. Occasionally he picked up a local villain he’d encountered in the past. But all those he saw seemed to be with their families, looking happy.
He spoke to key members of his team at their stations. Glenn Branson; Norman Potting; Guy Batchelor; Nick Nicholl and Emma-Jane Boutwood. All of them reported nothing suspicious, so far. A great time was being had by all. Somewhere in the melee were Cleo and Noah, though Grace had no idea where. He glanced at his watch – 2 p.m. was fast approaching.
He stepped out of the command centre and walked down to the promenade, eager to watch the spectacle for himself. Just as Norman Cook’s music was reaching a crescendo, a breakbeat remix of Paul McCartney’s ‘Wonderful Christmas Time’, he heard the sound of an aircraft overhead and looked up. A small plane was banking and beginning a wide arc overhead. He watched the crowd. At first, only a few people seemed to notice and start looking up. Then Fatboy Slim raised his hands in the air. ‘Happy Christmas everyone!’ he shouted into the mic. ‘Here’s Santa!’
Grace saw the awesome sight of thousands of faces all turned to the sky. A banner trailing from the plane, now low in front of them, bore the words ‘MERRY XMAS!’
In the silence following the music, Roy could hear the gasps and cheers of the crowd. The excitement was palpable when, moments later, a second plane appeared, higher up, flying directly overhead. Suddenly an object fell from it. It grew larger as it dropped, until Grace could see it was red. He heard the excitement building in the crowd. More cheering. He watched the sea of upturned faces, then Santa again. Steadily, over the course of the nex
t fifteen seconds, the falling figure grew bigger still. And bigger. And the red became brighter and brighter.
And brighter.
He was leaving it late to open his parachute, Grace thought. All part of the thrill!
The figure became brighter red. And brighter. At any moment the parachute would deploy.
But still it didn’t.
This guy was good, Grace thought!
He kept on falling. Getting closer, bigger, brighter.
Santa was heading towards the ground now at a speed Grace could almost measure. Surely he was going to pull the ripcord now?
Surely?
He kept on falling.
So close now that Grace could even see what he was wearing. A Santa outfit, the coat flailing upwards, red leggings, black boots, beard being blown ragged, and something trailing upwards above him like a sack.
Open your chute man, open your chute!
The figure grew bigger. Bigger. Bigger.
He was heading towards the beach.
The crowd fell silent.
And Grace, holding his breath, realized that his parachute wasn’t opening.
Santa Claus continued to plummet towards the promenade, only his sack trailing above him, no sign of a parachute deploying. He missed the carefully marked-out white circle on the promenade by about one hundred yards, and instead hurtled down onto the pebble beach, a good twenty feet below the promenade railings. Mercifully, Roy Grace thought, he was out of sight of the twenty-thousand-strong crowd gathered on the Hove Lawns.
The Detective Superintendent was as stunned as everyone else as he heard the impact. A sickening crunch, as if a giant sack of potatoes had fallen from the sky. Except it was a human being.
For several seconds you could have heard a pin drop.
Then, his training kicking in, Roy Grace sprinted forward. He yelled instructions to the line of uniformed Constables on crowd duty, keeping the area of promenade around the drop zone clear. ‘Make sure everyone stays back!’ He ran over to a Public Order Sergeant he knew. ‘Get crime scene tape and seal the area! Don’t let anyone near the beach!’ He sprinted up to the promenade railings and looked down.
And wished he hadn’t.
Surrounding the horrific sight of a clearly dead Santa Claus, gift packages, their pretty wrapping torn and their contents broken, lay scattered on the pebbles. These were the presents that Santa had been destined to hand out to the children from Chestnut Tree House, who had been given a front row view of his arrival.
Grace’s brain was racing, wondering, speculating. Was this a terrible accident, or was there something more sinister behind it? The handiwork of the creep who had chainsawed the tree in Churchill Square?
He thought quickly through what he needed to do. His immediate priority was to secure the beach and surrounding area to protect the scene. Subsequently, it would be to find out everything about the unfortunate skydiver who was acting the role of Santa Claus, to interview the pilot of the plane that had dropped the skydiver, to impound the plane and to find out, urgently, who had packed the skydiver’s main and reserve parachutes.
He could hear the cacophony of sirens above the wailing of children, and the quiet hubbub of shock and disbelief from the subdued crowd, and then the sound of his phone ringing. He knew who the caller was before he answered, and exactly what he would be saying. He was right on both counts.
It was Chief Constable Tom Martinson, asking for an update on what was happening at the scene. This was a tragedy for everyone, not to mention a disappointment for all the children in the crowd who had just seen Santa Claus die in front of their eyes.
‘I’m cancelling all leave for my team until we establish whether this is just a tragic accident or if there’s something more sinister behind it, sir. I haven’t worked out how yet, but I’m going to make sure that at least some of the kids will see Santa in one piece,’ he added grimly.
*
At the briefing later that day, Detective Sergeant Norman Potting, well known for his politically incorrect comments, said, ‘Maybe we could get a better flat-pack Santa from IKEA than the one on the beach.’
There were a few stifled grins, but no one laughed, other than Potting chortling at his own joke.
‘Thank you, Norman,’ Grace chided. ‘I think we can do without gallows humour right now.’
‘I was just thinking about elf and safety, Chief,’ Potting continued blithely.
That did produce a titter of laughter, and even Grace found himself grinning, for a brief, guilty moment. ‘Thank you, Norman. Enough, OK?’ he said sternly.
The fifty-five-year-old, with his bad comb-over and ill-fitting suit, looked suitably chastened and mumbled an apology.
Roy Grace, his Policy Book open in front of him, glanced down at his hastily prepared notes, then up at Potting, who despite his appearance and appalling sense of humour was one of his most trusted detectives. He nodded at DS Guy Batchelor. ‘Can you and Norman report on your visit to Shoreham Airport?’
‘Yes, boss,’ DS Batchelor said. ‘The aircraft that carried Richard Walker, the skydiver dressed as Santa, has been impounded. We interviewed the pilot, Rob Kempson, who told us that Walker is – was – an extremely experienced skydiver. He’d represented England in many international stunt-jumping events and was qualified to pack and check his own main parachute and his reserve. Apparently his wife, Zoe, was equally experienced but hadn’t jumped for several years after a bad landing, following which she suffered back problems. He tended to rely on her to pack his parachutes, as she had done on this occasion. The procedure today was the same as always and nobody noticed anything untoward.’
‘Did the pilot have any comment on the relationship between Walker and his wife?’ Grace quizzed.
‘We did ask him that, Chief,’ Norman Potting said. ‘So far as Kempson knew they had been a happy couple, but lately they were in severe financial difficulties, and Walker had got mixed up with some loan sharks, who were making threats to recover their money. We are following this up – whoever he owed money to must at this stage be considered a suspect, Chief.’
‘There’s a specialist team from the British Parachute Association coming tomorrow,’ DS Batchelor said. ‘Hopefully we’ll find out more from them.’
Grace nodded, mindful that he needed to hold a press conference at some point during the next morning, which he was dreading. ‘What time will this team be here?’
‘Nine a.m., boss,’ Batchelor said.
‘There is another thing of possible significance,’ Norman Potting said. ‘According to the pilot, Walker had joked that he had a big life insurance policy and that if he ever died, his financial woes would be sorted and his wife, Zoe, would be well taken care of.’
Grace noted this down. ‘Nice work,’ he said.
Detective Constable Emma-Jane Boutwood raised her hand. ‘Sir, an officer spotted someone who fitted Scrooge’s description shedding his Santa hat ten minutes after the Christmas tree was felled in Churchill square last night, and replacing it with a baseball cap. He’s been identified as Sidney Carp.’
‘Sid Carp?’ said Potting. ‘He was always a fishy blighter.’
The entire team groaned in unison. But they all knew the name. Sid Carp was a frequent flyer with Brighton Police. An old lag and a true recidivist – or revolving door prisoner as they were known – a nasty petty thief and small-time drug dealer. ‘Sid Carp?’ Grace said. ‘He must be older than God.’
‘Got to be nudging seventy,’ Potting said.
‘Old enough to play Santa, anyway, sir,’ DC Boutwood continued. ‘He’d been the resident Father Christmas in the Churchill Square shopping mall until a week ago, when he turned up drunk and was fired. Apparently he went round telling several of the staff that if he couldn’t be Santa, no one would be, and the store and Brighton were going to regret it. So it sounds like this could all be about his revenge.’
‘How on earth did he get past the security vetting?’ Grace asked, shaking his head.
Then he turned to Potting. ‘Norman,’ Grace said. ‘I want you to come with me to see Walker’s wife – we need to find out if, in his financial predicament, she thinks he might have been unstable.’
*
An hour later, Roy Grace and Norman Potting climbed out of Grace’s car in front of a smart, mock-Tudor house on Woodland Drive – a street nicknamed by locals as Millionaire’s Row. It was freezing cold, the stars glittering like heavenly bling above them. There would be a frost in the morning for sure, the Detective Superintendent thought, as they strode past two cars on the driveway, a convertible Audi and a BMW coupé. He rang the doorbell, waited, then rang again. Then he rapped hard on the door.
After a good couple of minutes it was opened by an attractive blonde, with dishevelled hair and streaked make-up. She was wearing a slinky dressing gown with her boobs half falling out.
Grace showed her his warrant card. ‘Mrs Zoe Walker?’
‘Yes?’
‘Detective Superintendent Grace and Detective Sergeant Potting from Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team. I understand you have been informed of the very sad news about your husband?’ he said.
‘I have, yes.’ Tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘Would you like to come in?’
‘Just for a moment, thank you.’
The two detectives entered the hallway and she shut the door behind them.
‘Can I offer you gentlemen a drink? Tea or coffee, or something stronger?’
‘We’re fine, thank you,’ Grace replied. They briefly talked through what had happened that afternoon, and gave her an outline of the police investigation to date. ‘We don’t want to keep you tonight,’ Grace said. ‘But I understand your husband may have had financial worries. I believe he owed a lot of money and had recently been threatened.’
‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid he was a bit of a gambler. He told me he was sorting it all out. I . . .’ She hesitated for a moment and he saw her shoot a sudden glance upstairs. He studied her eye movements carefully.
‘What do you think has happened?’ she asked.