Such as the flashing digits on the radio alarm clock that George had spotted, possibly indicating a break in the power supply. Not unusual in itself but, applying the dogged determination of the inquisitive detective’s mind and by layering the little things together, significance starts to shine through. The detectives’ code: ABC – Assume nothing, Believe no-one, Check everything.
He looked at clues, like that flashing clock and the normally ferocious black dog that witnessed the slaying, from a slightly different angle. They started to take on new meaning. Did the clock indicate that something had happened to cut the power temporarily? Assuming the clock reset itself at 00.00, could it be telling George how long it was since the brutal attacks? Did the fact that the guard dog had seemingly not intervened indicate that he knew the killer?
A story was starting to emerge but it triggered two very different and conflicting hypotheses among the investigators: two versions of events that would create irreparable divisions in the senior team, threaten careers and almost deny justice to the mother, father and son lying broken and butchered in their own home. A struggle between the old and the new. One thought the answer lay in some as yet unknown murky gangland feud and the other within the emerging facts.
The Teeds came from Bradford, West Yorkshire. Paul’s parents had separated when he was young and, initially, he and his brother had lived with their mother and stepfather. Paul didn’t take to his mother’s new husband and they regularly fell out. Unlike his brother, he would not accept the bullying by his stepdad but often that meant fleeing home. He got into trouble from time to time, including a bungled burglary of a butcher’s shop where the fact that all but a fraction of their haul was in unusable cheques should have taught him to follow another career. Amazingly he avoided prison for this. Perhaps that gave him a sense of invincibility.
Things weren’t much better for him in Shoreham. Despite finding love and marrying his girlfriend Helen, his high hopes for a new life away from his troubled past were soon dashed. His father had reluctantly allowed him to work at the club. He and Helen had moved into the second flat but literally living above the shop he was unable to escape his father and Hilda, and had become fed up with their drinking and arguing. By now, he and Helen had a three-year-old daughter and he knew he had to make his own way in the world – he just didn’t need his dad constantly reminding him of that.
George Teed was a big, brash self-made entrepreneur with fingers in more pies than Mr Kipling. He seemed born to run this small exclusive, but seedy, nightspot whose membership defined much of the society scene in Brighton at the time.
Dripping with gold and with pockets full of cash, he embodied the work hard/play hard philosophy of the early eighties, not as brash as Harry Enfield’s ‘Loadsamoney’ but equally flamboyant. Nothing in his life was understated. He was a heavy boozer, as was his wife, and they frequently had violent alcohol-fuelled rows. Such garishness inevitably attracted the attention and envy of rivals, enemies and even the downright greedy. Of course, that was bound to be one line of enquiry. Any SIO would be mad not to look hard at that as a motive. A motive, but not the motive.
The early evidence was, however, pointing at something much closer to home. The successful Teed’s disappointment with Paul was no secret. He was often heard deriding his son as a sponger, and had just given him three weeks’ notice to quit the flat, forcing him to put his name down for a council house. ‘Stand on your own two feet,’ he had repeatedly insisted.
Every family has its problems. There are always skeletons to be found, if you know which cupboards to look in. It does not mean, however, that they all go round killing each other. Indeed, leaping too quickly on family discord has derailed many an investigation. Conversely, many have been scuppered by being too timid to confront domestic strife. It is a stark reality that most people are killed by someone they know. Could this be a case of a son trying to expedite his inheritance while eliminating some major grief from his life?
As a DI, George Smith was not senior enough to run a murder enquiry so was asked to lead the outside enquiry and interview teams. A D/Supt and a DCI were appointed as SIO and deputy.
However, there was real tension. Many highly experienced senior detectives had reservations about HOLMES. They had been used to applying their ‘detective’s instinct’ and gut feeling in murder enquiries. They saw that influence being chipped away with the introduction of computers and incident room staff who, they feared, might undermine their leadership. George, the champion of HOLMES, was acutely aware of this risk and soon realized that his sceptical bosses had set up a second ‘incident room’ operating in the old way from the DCI’s office.
Members of the official murder investigation team spotted Regional Crime Squad officers visiting this second incident room but details of the actions they were undertaking or the intelligence they were supplied with were not shared with the HOLMES team. This was the worst of both worlds; each room in ignorance of what the other was doing.
Foremost in the minds of the ‘old school’ was the gangland massacre theory. The DCI, with years of experience investigating organized crime, was comfortable dealing with the dark and grubby landscape of vendettas, hit men and dirty money. He was in his element investigating this hypothesis. George and his team on the other hand were making progress elsewhere.
Helen would often stay with friends and relations in Yorkshire, as she had that weekend. She didn’t fancy going to the big reunion of Teed’s South London friends that the Lighthouse Club was hosting. It wasn’t her scene. It was not unusual, following these visits, for Paul to make the 500-mile round trip when she needed collecting. And, so he said, that was exactly what he did in the early hours of that fateful morning. Grateful that his dad had let him drive his brand new distinctive Range Rover, he claimed that about 1 a.m. on the Monday he left George, Hilda and David safely tucked up in bed and drove north.
In his mind he believed he had constructed a perfect alibi. If to the outside world he could put himself 250 miles away when the killing was supposed to have happened, he hoped he would get off scot-free. Luck goes both ways in murder investigations. Both police and assailant rely on it in equal measure.
Almost anyone who has just committed a violent crime will be uptight and jittery. They will inevitably drive differently – too fast, too slow or plain erratically. Any sharp-eyed beat copper spotting this will at least note down the licence number and check it through the Police National Computer in case it is stolen. Just as the PC outside Buckingham Palace did on seeing a Range Rover at four o’clock that morning.
Other, normally insignificant, factors were becoming relevant. The £370 young Teed had in his usually empty pockets (about my monthly take-home pay at the time) was in stark contrast to the paltry 53p his successful father had in his trousers close to where he lay.
It did not seem right either that at the end of his marathon drive Paul would feel the need to take in the washing before he went indoors, leaving Helen to be the first through the communal door. It turned out that he had expected the bodies to be found by the cleaners, hours earlier. The absence of police activity when he pulled in told him that the staff could not have turned up that morning.
He panicked and left the discovery to Helen. He would have known the scream was coming. He knew the House of Horrors he had left as a welcome for her. The bloodbath his darling spouse was about to walk into would be branded on her memory forever. His reaction to her terror however was yet another example of his odd behaviour.
‘Paul!’ she had hollered. ‘Paul, help. Hilda’s on the floor. She’s covered in blood. Oh God, no. Paul, please come and help,’ she implored.
‘Oh Christ, phone 999,’ was all he replied.
No rushing in to check on his stepmum. No looking for any sign of a break-in. No concern that there might be an intruder still inside. No thought for his dad or brother. Nothing. From what his wife had said, an innocent son would have presumed a nasty fall. An innocent son would have da
shed in to help. But that wasn’t Paul. He knew what was behind that door. He knew that no amount of CPR could save Hilda. He knew of the massacre he would face should he venture in.
When the first PC had emerged, horrified by the carnage she had stumbled across, Paul hadn’t even bothered to ask what had happened to his family and whether his dad and brother were OK. A person’s inactions can be as damning as their actions. Paul was already slowly but surely sealing his fate.
With all of these anomalies, by the early hours of the following morning, George Smith had had enough. He strode back into the interview room where Paul was resting his head on his folded arms.
‘Paul Teed, I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murders of George Teed, Hilda Teed and David Teed. You do not have to say anything unless you wish to do so but anything you do say may be used in evidence,’ he declared with all the necessary formality such a step warranted.
Stunned, Paul was taken, quietly protesting, into the tiny cell block at Shoreham Police Station, not realizing he had just drawn his last breath as a free man for the next quarter of a century.
Over the next thirty-six hours, Paul faced a series of interrogations designed to scrutinize every detail, every comment, every last piece of evidence to test his truthfulness. None of the modern-day techniques that Grace insists on were available then. No profilers like the fictional Dr Julius Proudfoot, no advanced interviewers, no online volumes of case law to refer to, no tape recorders. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act, which governs how the police interview suspects, had yet to take effect.
This was an intellectual duel, a game of poker with the highest stakes imaginable. Neither could lose. For one it would smack of failure in the eyes of his bosses – it was unthinkable in those days to fail to elicit a confession from such a high-profile suspect. For the other, second prize would lead to a lifetime behind bars.
The questioning covered everything: the timing and exact route of Paul’s trip to Bradford, his reaction to Helen finding Hilda, his acrimonious relationship with his dad, even the small amount of cannabis found in his bedroom. Paul remained resolute. Other than the dope, he thought he could explain or deny everything. He believed he had the upper hand. He was convinced he was walking. Then came the killer question:
‘Paul, you’ve been here for two days. We’ve interviewed you many times. We’ve listened very carefully to your answers. We have made you go through every detail time and time again. You have continually tried to assure us you had nothing to do with the murders. You’ve been certain of that, Paul. If that is true why have you, not once, asked us how your dad, stepmum and brother died? Why is that, Paul?’ George queried softly.
Silence.
‘Paul?’
Silence.
‘Paul, why have you never asked?’
‘I think I’d like to see a solicitor now, please, Mr Smith,’ was all the crestfallen prisoner could mutter.
‘I’ll see what I can do. Just think about it,’ insisted George as he walked the tearful Paul back to the cold, lonely cell.
‘Sir, he has asked for a solicitor,’ announced George as he entered the makeshift incident room.
‘I didn’t hear that,’ replied the clearly irritated DCI.
‘He has asked for a solicitor. He knows his rights. He’s got previous convictions and he’s in custody for three murders,’ said George.
The atmosphere was tense. The seated D/Supt was conspicuously ignoring the argument that was brewing. The stifling silence was eventually broken when the DCI brusquely ordered George, and Dennis Walker who had witnessed the whole confrontation from the open doorway, out of the office.
George was taken aback. He knew he was of a different generation to those above him but surely they could see the risks in such a denial. Assistant Chief Constable (ACC) Alison Vosper treated Grace badly on many occasions, pressurizing him to get results and get them at all costs. The priority would be to make the boss look good, deliberately ignoring that a conviction attained through dubious means is a hollow victory.
With no choice, George obeyed but not before writing every word down in his notebook as a precaution – as Grace did in You Are Dead when protecting himself against his nemesis ACC Cassian Pewe. Despite the overwhelming pressure later to remove it from his witness statement, he had a Pontius Pilate moment – ‘What I have written, I have written.’
More interviews with Paul followed, including one led by the Detective Superintendent, but they yielded nothing more, just denials and him glossing over inconvenient facts, protesting his innocence.
Faced with no firm admission, no forensics yet – that took weeks in those days – and no eyewitnesses, George had little choice but to bail him from custody. However, Paul went nowhere. Some warrants for non-payment of fines had been discovered in Leeds, and this meant Sussex Police could instantly rearrest him.
Over the previous two days, some of George’s team had been in Bradford, ten miles from Leeds, making enquiries. Their brief was to speak to anyone and everyone who knew the Teeds, to get under their skin, find out what Paul had been doing there and leave no stone unturned. Now, George volunteered to drive Teed up north to answer his warrants, which conveniently would give him a chance to see how the Sussex detectives were doing but more importantly would give them five hours in the car together, perhaps giving him the chance to open up. This close contact between investigator and suspect would never be allowed now, but at the time it was not uncommon.
The car journey did give George and the highly respected Dennis Walker an opportunity to get to know their frightened yet stoic suspect better. Paul’s tongue loosened but he kept his counsel about any involvement in the bloodbath.
Lady Luck visited again just as George had handed Paul over to the burly Yorkshire custody sergeant.
One of his team slipped him a folded scrap of paper which George hurriedly opened, reading the scribbled note as he strode out of the cell block.
‘Guv, pls phone DC David Gaylor in the Shoreham incident room – URGENT!!’
Darting into a nearby office, George grabbed a phone and dialled the number he knew by heart. He listened intently and a rare smile broke his usual dour expression. He called his team together in the Bradford CID office to update them on the news.
‘Chaps, we have a breakthrough. We know that these killings have aroused the interest of the national press. Well, it seems that has got someone a little scared. One of Paul’s friends has become spooked that we may be looking for him.’
‘What, have we got the wrong man?’ came a voice from the back.
‘Let me finish,’ George insisted. ‘This fellow, Larry [not his real name], says that Paul approached him some weeks ago. They are old friends but he now lives in London. Paul asked him if he would kill his dad for the insurance.’
You could hear a pin drop.
He continued. ‘He told him there would be £1,700 in the safe and he would give him another £5,000 when the insurance came through. He even offered Larry a sawn-off shotgun and a map of the flat. When he turned it down he thought that would be the end of the matter. Until he saw the news, that is. He got scared. He’s no angel; he has form for armed robbery but, as he said, he’s no killer. For the first time in his life, Larry has provided a full witness statement and has handed over Paul’s sketched map. Gentlemen, we’ve got him, well, almost.’
Meanwhile, DC David Gaylor – who later in his career would become the inspiration for Roy Grace himself – DC Chris Cox and the rest of the incident room team back at Shoreham were beavering away, trying to turn suspicion and intelligence into something that might stand up in court.
A careful count back from the time flashing on the alarm clock had led them to the moment that the power had been restored to the flat – 3 a.m. That gave them a possible time of the killings.
Through the Police National Computer, they had discovered the check carried out by the cop on George Teed’s poorly driven Range Rover outside Buckingham Palace. Paul’s al
ibi depended on the police believing that he could not have committed the murders as he had been in Bradford. The witnesses there were not providing much help but the timings of those two events showed that he could have wiped out his family and then made the journey north. A case was starting to build.
After a restless night planning his next move, George steeled himself for what he knew would be a landmark interview.
Soon after Paul had arrived in West Yorkshire the police had allowed his uncle, Frank Towel, to visit him. Frank brought with him a friend, John McKenna, who happened to be a solicitor’s clerk, as well as a retired police inspector. George met both and was struck by how caring and genuine they were. They were allowed a private visit with Paul at which no police officers were present.
Following that visit, it transpired that something had been said that had troubled John and after much soul-searching he told George that Paul had admitted the murders.
George stepped into the dark, grey, airless interview room at Leeds Police Station. Paul agreed that John could be there, as a friend rather than a solicitor, to support him through what would doubtless be a very difficult few hours. The prisoner sat ashen-faced and trembling on a cold metal chair that, together with the scarred and scorched table, was shackled to the floor by rusty chains.
Taking the only other seat, George built up the tension by arranging his papers into neat piles. The silence was only broken by the distant slamming of a cell door and the plaintive cry of another inmate demanding a light for his cigarette.
George cleared his throat, then in a quiet, fatherly tone he rearrested Paul, reminded him that he was under caution, then revealed that John had told him of the admission he had made.
Paul became furious, glared at John, turned to George and demanded, ‘I don’t want him here. Can I see you alone?’ Without another word John slipped out leaving just George and the very frightened young man in the room.
Death Comes Knocking: Policing Roy Grace’s Brighton Page 4