Another apparent crime of passion involved twenty-four-year-old jailbird Mark Ryder who, in 1993, stalked the sprawling streets of Whitehawk hunting Stuart McCue.
Whitehawk is Brighton’s other large council estate. Sitting in the shadow of the hilltop race course, its transition from being the traditional home of the city’s roughest and most violent criminals, as so accurately described in Dead Man’s Footsteps, to a cohesive proud community was complete by the early 1990s. Ryder eventually found McCue outside the Valley Social Club, a community centre crucial to the regeneration of this once run-down area of east Brighton.
Ryder was on the run at the time, having escaped two years earlier during a boat trip organized by Lewes Prison. He had a history of this; he had previously escaped from a Young Offenders Institute in Kent.
While both Ryder and McCue were in prison, they had fallen out over a girl they shared a love interest in, Emma Devoy. Mark was scared of Stuart and therefore spent much of his time in hiding in New Milton, Hampshire. He would only venture into Brighton armed.
That Saturday afternoon, he and two ‘minders’ cruised the city’s streets. Despite claiming to be frightened of him, it was obvious that Ryder was on the lookout for McCue. Spotting him among a crowd outside the club he calmly stepped from the car and blasted him four times with a sawn-off shotgun. As McCue tried to crawl away Ryder fired his final shot. All this in full view of his victim’s new partner, his young nephew and nieces and several other shocked bystanders.
Ryder leapt back into the car and, at terrifying speed, wheel-spun off the estate, followed soon by a fleet of police cars. He drove recklessly into the city centre, racing the wrong way round a major one-way system close to the Royal Pavilion and eventually crashing through a car park barrier just as crowds of shoppers were heading back to their vehicles. He and his minders abandoned the car in the multistorey and managed to evade the search that followed.
As a DC by now awaiting promotion, I was called to help in the hunt. One of my tasks was to interview the girl at the centre of it all.
Emma came from a lovely family and was a delightful young lady herself. She was clearly torn between the two rogues and had dearly loved them both at different times. Over a twelve-hour period we had to coax all the painful background from her. It was a long, hard slog and we had to tread carefully. I really felt for her; her twenty-five pages of statement showed that none of this was her fault, only that she had been caught in the middle. We treated her well, shopping for her so that she could have a change of clothes, letting her freshen up and giving her something decent to eat.
Painstaking investigations eventually located Ryder and his cronies. Mark himself was caught days later, holed up in a squat in London. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Twelve years later, he won further national infamy by escaping from prison for the third time in his delinquent career, eventually being caught in Malaga, Spain.
Each of these incidents serves as a reminder that with an unarmed police force, it is the courageous thin blue line who risk happening upon tooled-up villains willing to kill in the name of freedom or revenge.
2: A VERY BROKEN HOME
There is never a good time to get murdered. Most people would rather avoid it altogether. But if you were going to be bludgeoned to death you probably would not want it to happen when the police were wrestling with transition and turmoil.
Times were changing. In 1985, when I was posted to Gatwick, science and technology were only just creeping into policing.
For those of us of a certain age the mid-1980s seem like only yesterday. It is worth remembering that much of what Roy Grace’s detectives now take for granted, such as DNA testing, had hardly been thought of then.
How would DS Annalise Vineer, Grace’s crime analyst, cope with no internet and computers that were just word processors? What could DS Norman Potting do with next to no CCTV, no mobile phone data and no ANPR system to plot villains’ movements across the country? How about Glenn Branson not being able to readily access information from the Passport Agency, Department of Work and Pensions or hospitals?
Until the early 1980s most murders were the work of local villains and rarely part of a pattern that crossed county boundaries; people were less mobile in those days. The slaying of thirteen women and the attempted murder of a further seven in northern England, which led to the 1981 conviction of the York-shire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, was a gruesome exception to that rule. The fact that the investigating police forces operated their own paper-based systems resulted in Sutcliffe being interviewed nine times before being unmasked as the killer. It took this to persuade the police, subsequently, that they had to get their act together and fast.
Detective Inspector (DI) George Smith was a high flyer, the Grace of his time. Quiet, intelligent and ruthlessly professional, he was going places. He was also young and athletic, and a regular starter for the Brighton CID football team. As the perfect role model for any young up-and-coming detective, he was the ideal choice as head of CID training. With that came the responsibility for introducing the technological product of the Ripper failings, the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System (HOLMES), to Sussex Police. The vision was that this computer would be welcomed by all Senior Investigating Officers (SIOs) as the silver bullet to aid any murder enquiry. Sadly, some Luddites saw the system as a needless interference with their tried and tested methods. George, however, was the personification of police modernization.
In early 1985, shortly after the IRA bombing of Brighton’s Grand Hotel where Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Government were staying, and after his stint in training and introducing HOLMES, George had earned his first operational CID command in my then home town, Shoreham-by-Sea. This small but vibrant annexe of Brighton, just a mile and a half west of the city’s boundary, features heavily in Grace’s world. For example, the demise of Vic and Ashley after the car chase in Dead Simple and the horrific execution of Ewan Preece that gave Dead Man’s Grip its name took place in Shoreham.
Real drama happens there too. In a typical blurring of fact and fiction, the hallmark of Peter James’ novels, the day Grace turned thirty and his wife Sandy disappeared he was investigating the death of a biker in Shoreham Harbour. That was, in reality, sixteen-year-old Hell’s Angel Clive ‘Ollie’ Olive, who in 1973 made the error of sleeping with the girlfriend of a rival gang leader. In brutal revenge, Ollie had a weighted chain wrapped around his ankles, and was dumped, still alive, into the harbour. His leathers protected his body from the ravenous lobsters, crabs and eels that inhabit the inky, icy depths but they feasted heartily on his exposed head, providing police divers the grisly find of a skull stripped clean some weeks later.
A few months before that murder, George had dealings with Ollie’s girlfriend over an unconnected matter. His skilful and sensitive way with people was such that after Ollie’s body was discovered, she would speak to no-one but him, even though he was just a young DC.
George was like a dog with two tails when he was given his own CID. As now, in those days the station DI had status. He was in his early thirties, and had risen quicker than most. Even Grace didn’t make DI that swiftly.
Mondays are normally a busy day of catch-up for DIs: assessing the events of the weekend, making sense of crime trends, digesting what the informants are saying and setting priorities for the coming week.
As Grace knows, call-outs have a habit of coming at the least convenient time. Monday, 4 February 1985 was such an occasion. Following a frenetic shift, George was at home slapping coats of paint on the dining-room wall. As he was ruminating on the day that was and the week that would be, the telephone shrilled him back to the present.
‘Boss, we thought you might like to know we’ve had a call to the Lighthouse Club at Shoreham Harbour. There’s a woman’s body. Seems her stepson and his wife have come home and found her there. Looks like a murder.’
‘Right, I’m coming in,’ announced George, before reeling off his list
of instructions and requirements to safeguard the evidence which, experience told him, might unlock whatever mysteries this tragedy held. Awful though this would be, he was not entirely sorry that he had an excuse to leave the painting for another day.
Satisfied that he had set enough activity in train to buy himself a few minutes, he jumped in the shower to scrub off the splatters of emulsion. However, even those moments of steam-induced reflection were denied him when, again, the phone rang. Hopefully the station sergeant did not guess that his new DI was dressed in nothing but a fluffy bath towel when he delivered the grim update.
‘Sorry, boss, we’ve found another body. The lads at the scene are saying it could be a murder/suicide.’
‘OK, we’ll see when I get there. Thanks for letting me know.’
This changed nothing at that early stage. One body, two bodies, it didn’t matter. The key was to lock the scene down. No-one was to enter without a reason and a white over-suit. Everyone had to be logged in and out, all witnesses identified and whisked off to make their statements. The balloon that Grace puts up when he goes to murder scenes may be much larger now but, even back then, it still went up.
George’s personal world had now been put on hold for the foreseeable future. He did not have an assistant to cancel everything as Grace does but, like Grace, he would dedicate whatever it took of his life and his energies to get to the bottom of the horror that was just unfolding.
As you drove along the busy Brighton to Worthing coast road, you could have been forgiven for not spotting the squat cream edifice of the now-demolished Lighthouse Club at the mouth of Shoreham Harbour. Adjacent to where I used to go to Sea Scouts, it was nestled between the nineteenth-century limestone Kingston Buci Lighthouse and the warehouse that hosted the twice-weekly Shoreham Car Auctions. In the 1960s it was a sailing club, of which Peter James was a member. He would delight in rigging up the fourteen-foot Scorpion dinghy he kept there, hauling it down to the water’s edge and putting to sea for a day cruising along the Sussex coastline.
By 1985 it had become a private drinking club with celebrity members such as the late world motorcycle Grand Prix champion – and local playboy – Barry Sheene. It was also the place to go for many dubious characters who fancied themselves as movers and shakers. When George arrived just after 9 p.m., it became obvious that no moving or shaking would be going on there for quite a while.
As he pulled up, a dour-faced PC sidled over to him, conscious of the prying ears of the neighbours and would-be customers who had started to migrate to where the action was.
‘Guv, there’s a third body. A child. It’s bleeding carnage in there,’ he muttered.
This news had by now permeated through the gathered ranks of officers. Their silence, their shocked expressions and their preoccupied stares were evidence that this place had witnessed the most horrific of deaths.
George was a stickler for forensics. Like Aussie DS Fletcher who finds his riverside crime scene trashed in Dead Man’s Footsteps, George could explode on sight should an errant PC traipse over evidence in his size elevens. Practising what he preached, George wriggled into the ‘one size fits no-one’ white protective forensic suit carefully selected from the bin bag of similar garments and slipped on matching overshoes. Providing his name and rank to the well-briefed PC guarding the scene, he climbed the steps and gingerly crossed the threshold through the communal door leading to the two self-contained flats above the club.
Had he not been warned, he would have stumbled over her in the pitch black. If he had, she would not have complained. The dead don’t protest. Hilda Teed’s skull could never have survived the pounding it had suffered. In her dressing gown, she blocked the narrow hallway, lying crumpled in a pool of her own blood and pulverized grey matter.
George had seen all he needed. It was time to step back and get the ‘ologists’ in. Then, as with Grace’s investigations now, the scientists were becoming essential in demystifying murder scenes. Making sense out of chaos was the domain of the eggheads who spent their lives poring over the broken remains of humanity.
The first of these to arrive was the renowned Home Office pathologist Dr Iain West. A veteran of countless homicides across the UK, Iain was the ‘go to’ expert for grisly and complex murders. It always seemed to be either Iain or his wife, Dr Vesna Djuruvic – the real life Dr Nadiuska de Sancha, Roy Grace’s favourite death-doctor – who was on call.
To fill the time while Iain made his way to the scene, George drove the short distance to the police station where DS Dennis Walker was already taking a statement from Paul Teed, Hilda’s twenty-three-year-old stepson. He and his wife Helen had found the bodies, having apparently returned from a trip to Yorkshire.
Paul struck an unremarkable form. Barely 5’8” tall, pasty and not hindered by excess muscle, his quiet, reserved manner meant he would never stand out in a crowd. However, his lack of emotion was puzzling the experienced detective. Helen, who was being interviewed and comforted in another part of the station, was inconsolable.
Police witness interview rooms are soulless places. The poisonous Ashley Harper’s first encounter with the police in Dead Simple was in such a facility. Described brilliantly as ‘small, windowless, painted pea green and reeking of stale cigarette smoke’, they can be a wonderful preparation for a lifetime of imprisonment for those whose dark and macabre secrets are yet to be exposed.
George did not have long until he needed to be back at the scene but he had heard members of staff confiding to officers there that a shotgun was kept on the premises. He was keen to hear what Paul had to say about that. He had offered nothing on this so far. Apologizing politely, George joined Dennis in the interview.
‘Paul, do you remember a shotgun being in the club?’ he asked.
‘A shotgun? No, I don’t think so. Why?’
‘Other people remember seeing one. Don’t you?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘Oh, come on, Paul. You lived there yet you seem to be the only person who can’t remember it. Now is not the time to hold back.’
‘Oh, right, that shotgun. Yes I do, now you mention it.’
Dennis and George gave each other an almost imperceptible knowing look.
‘Right, that’s better, Paul,’ said George. ‘Now where is it?’
‘I threw it in the sea.’
‘You did what?’
‘I hate guns so I threw it in the sea a few days ago.’
‘Convenient,’ muttered Dennis beneath his breath.
‘What did your dad say about that?’ insisted George.
‘He didn’t know,’ came the reply.
George and Dennis banked that loose end for tying up later.
Arrangements were made for Paul to stay at the police station. Since he had not yet been arrested, they applied gentle persuasion on him to remain. George made his way back to the club.
Back at the scene, observing the forensic protocols, George, Dr West and SOCO (Scenes of Crime Officer) DI Tilt wrapped themselves in their forensic suits and tiptoed inside. Gently stepping over Hilda, Dr West crouched to examine her injuries by flickering torchlight. They all knew what he was about to say, but he had to announce it nonetheless.
‘Killed by extensive and repeated blows by a blunt instrument to the head. No chance of survival.’ The formal post mortem would come later but in all probability the cause of death would boil down to just that.
They moved on into the flat. Knowing there were at least two more tableaus of horror awaiting them.
George Teed had had a reputation for being larger than life. Now, in death too, he made an impact.
Usually he wore designer suits and gold bling, but that night he was as naked as the day he was born. Lying on his back, he looked as if he had been caught by surprise while leaping out of bed to meet his murderous attacker. Again, a blunt instrument to the head, with which he was struck many times and with great force, was the last thing he would have known. No chance of retaliation
; not the slightest sign of a defence wound. The walls, carpets, bedding and furniture looked as if they had been showered by crimson dye. The scene was straight off the set of Hammer Horror.
The worst was saved until last. David Teed was only thirteen. He had been entitled to look forward to a life of hope and achievement. He had harmed no-one. His last memories would have been of running for his life around the flat.
He was still dressed in his pyjamas, and forensics revealed that he’d had no option but to run through his own mother’s blood as she lay dead or dying in front of him. Surely knowing that his dad too had been battered to death, he’d made a frantic attempt to wrench open the patio doors to escape. He had pulled at the full-length floral curtains when his own metal American baseball bat was crunched into the back of his skull. He stood no chance. He died where he fell. There were to be no survivors and no witnesses, apart from the family’s black Great Dane.
To most people, such carnage would be overwhelming. It would shroud all rational thought. In the staring, startled eyes of the dead you can sometimes see the horror of their last moments, the disbelief that their life was about to be so brutally quashed. You may detect a fearful plea for help. Police officers know dwelling on that is no good whatsoever. You have to put that to one side. The dead deserve your professionalism. They don’t need your tears and pity.
There is always some clue, some mistake made by the killer if you know where to look. As Peter James often reflects, the perfect murder is the one that never comes to the attention of the police so with all the others there is always a giveaway, a product of the killer’s panic or poor planning. In the same way that Grace looks for that tiny slip-up when analysing the chicken shed torso murder in Not Dead Yet, so twenty-seven years earlier George had to find the murderer’s Achilles heel by thinking outside the box.
It’s often the simple things that get missed. Some people try to be just too clever. There is a reason Grace talks of ‘clearing the ground under your feet’. The clues are invariably there. You just have to know how to look for them.
Death Comes Knocking: Policing Roy Grace’s Brighton Page 3