by Peter James
Dr Gordon Ryerson was a charming grey-haired man, in a smart white outfit, and of a similar vintage to Rollo, she estimated. And with a roving eye, she guessed, too, from the way he looked her up and down appreciatively. As she was a generation younger, at least, than most of the rest of her fellow female passengers, she guessed he didn’t get to flirt with young women that often on this voyage. So she flirted coyly with him now, meeting his gaze. She loved it, always. Loved seeing in men’s eyes just how damned attractive she was. And sometimes she would think back to her younger days as an ugly duckling and count her blessings. Life now was very much more fun.
‘Nice to meet you, Mrs Carmichael,’ he said, as if suddenly ending the game and going into professional mode, pointing to a chair in front of his desk. ‘Have a seat. What can I do for you?’
She crossed her legs, then uncrossed them slowly, smiling to herself as his eyes followed them. ‘I’ve been feeling queasy ever since we sailed from Dubai, doctor,’ she lied. ‘I was wondering if you could suggest anything? I’ve seen people wearing motion sickness bracelets, but before buying one I thought I’d ask your views.’
‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘Poor you. I’m afraid it does take some people a few days to get their sea legs. Are you on any medication of any kind?’
She shook her head.
He studied the form for some moments that she had filled out for his nurse a few minutes earlier. Then he asked, ‘You’re not pregnant or anything?’
‘God, I hope not! My husband’s had a vasectomy.’
‘They’re not always foolproof, of course. I’ve had patients in the past who’ve fallen pregnant when they thought they were safe.’
‘I’m not pregnant, believe me!’ Changing the subject, she said breezily, ‘This must be a nice job. Do you work on this ship permanently?’
‘No, I’m retired, really. I used to be a general practitioner in Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire. I do a bit of locum work to keep my hand in, and a couple of times a year I do this – my wife and I enjoy a free cruise in return for my working a few hours a day. It’s very pleasant.’
‘How nice!’
‘Well, you know, it’s nice to work with happy people. People come on a cruise to have a good time. Are you and your husband enjoying yourselves?’
‘Very much. So you’re an expert in everything medical?’
‘I began life as an army surgeon, so I wouldn’t call myself an expert in everything, but I can cope with most emergencies that are likely to happen on board ship.’
‘You do operations?’
‘I can whip out an appendix, if needed. But for anything more serious we’d put a patient ashore or have them airlifted off.’ He smiled.
She smiled back. Good. Very good.
He pulled open a drawer behind his desk and produced a blister pack of pills. ‘I’m sure we can clear up this motion sickness very quickly, then you can focus on enjoying yourself!’
‘Thank you,’ she said, as he handed her the pills and gave her instructions on taking them.
She’d already got all she needed from this brief meeting.
The knowledge that he was limited in his experience. He could deal with all the basics. Fine.
She doubted he’d ever had to deal with what she had in mind.
59
Tuesday 3 March
Throughout his career, Roy Grace had been known as an innovative thinker, with a highly organized mind. He was also sentimental and he was sad this would be one of his last investigations to take place in Major Incident Room One – or MIR-1 for short – the place where all the homicide enquiries he had run or worked on for over a decade had been based. It was a large open space, with three huge workstations, and capable of housing three different major crime enquiries at any time. But for now he put all his issues about the changes out of his mind, to concentrate on the task confronting him.
Operation Spider was the name the Sussex Police computer had randomly generated for this operation. Already, since the completion of Stonor’s post-mortem, as was the tradition, one of the team had stuck up on the door to MIR-1 a cartoon parodying the operation name. Today’s was a depiction of Spiderman climbing up the side of a high-rise building.
Grace had assembled just a small team of his trusted regulars, including DI Glenn Branson, DS Norman Potting, DS Guy Batchelor, who he had appointed as Office Manager, DS Cale, DCs Emma-Jane Boutwood, Alec Davies and Jack Alexander, indexer Annalise Vineer, as well as a researcher and a HOLMES analyst.
They were all seated around one of the curved workstations in the room. The others were empty, which Grace was pleased about. It meant that if he needed to step up this enquiry, as instincts told him he might, there would be space to expand right here.
Four whiteboards were on the wall behind them. On one there were photographs of Stonor taken during the post-mortem, some in wide angle and some in close-up. On the second was an association chart for Stonor, with several photographs of him, including standard prison mugshots, both face-on and side profile, and a strange flash-lit, blurry image of him that looked to be accidental, blown up to an eight by ten. On the third was a photograph pulled off the internet, of a snake with beige, brown and black markings. On the fourth was a map of the east side of Brighton, with an area of about a square mile crudely ringed by red marker pen.
In front of Grace lay his notes typed by his new Command Secretarial Assistant, Lesley Hildrew, his policy book and a tepid cup of coffee, which he’d had to stir with a knife because as usual all the spoons in the kitchenette had vanished. Reading from his notes he said, routinely, ‘The time is 6.30 p.m., Tuesday March 3rd, this is the evening briefing of Operation Spider, the investigation into the suspicious death of Shelby James Stonor.’
He went on to outline the circumstances, especially the concerns of the helicopter’s alert on-board paramedic that, although he had died at the scene, the injuries Stonor had sustained in the accident were not severe enough to have killed him – although he might have ended up as a paraplegic. The paramedic arranged to have blood samples biked up to Guy’s Hospital where there was a specialist department in tropical diseases and poisons.
It was found that Stonor had toxins in his body from a saw-scaled viper snake, as well as complications from septicaemia. What had at first been mistaken for needle puncture marks had been established as a snake bite. The septicaemia was probably due to the bite causing contaminated clothing fibres to be injected into his leg, enabling bacteria to enter the bloodstream.
Norman Potting raised his hand.
‘Yes, Norman?’
‘In case it’s of interest, chief, I read that tens of thousands of people die annually in India from snake bites. Quite a high percentage from this particular creature.’ He pointed at the whiteboard.
‘Thanks for sharing that, Norman,’ Grace said.
‘Shows how deadly the thing is,’ Potting grumbled.
‘Perhaps you’d like to find out if Stonor had been to India recently,’ Grace suggested.
‘The little shit,’ Potting said. ‘I imagine the nearest he got to India was a takeaway that he didn’t pay for.’
There was muted laughter from the assembled team.
Potting’s fiancée had died tragically some months ago, and Grace was still treating him gently whilst he was going through the grieving process. ‘Quite,’ he said, and looked back down at his notes. ‘The initial purpose of this enquiry is to ascertain how and where Stonor came into contact with this reptile. Was it accidental or did someone use it to kill him? We’ve established there were no snakes kept at the home of his girlfriend, Angi Bunsen, where he’d been living. According to her, Stonor had been working a late shift stacking pallets at the Sussex Autospares warehouse on the Davigdor Industrial Estate. We’ve checked with them and they have no record of any such employee. Stonor’s mobile phone and laptop computer have been sent to the High Tech Crime Unit for fast-track analysis, and we’ll see what they reveal. There is one photograph on hi
s phone that could be of immediate interest to us.’
Grace pointed at the whiteboard containing the photographs of Stonor and the association chart. ‘That weird blurry one. I’ll come back to its relevance shortly. Hopefully we’ll get a plot of Stonor’s recent movements from triangulation of his phone. Shame he didn’t have a more sophisticated one, we could have got the exact address from geo-mapping. Let’s not forget Stonor was a key target in a Brighton operation relating to the thefts of high-value motor vehicles. We need to establish whether his death has more suspicious connotations and is connected to that; has he fallen out with anyone from that team? Do we know if any of them keep snakes? In the meantime we need the following intelligence.’
He sipped his coffee and went on, giving actions to members of his team in turn. ‘We need a search of the police data systems to update all Stonor’s associates. Who he’s linked to. Who has been in cars with him when he’s been stopped. What speeding tickets and parking fines he’s had recently. We need a full ANPR on his car, to see where he had been in the days before his death.’
ANPR – automatic numberplate recognition cameras – covered many of the roads throughout Sussex, and the UK. During the past few years it had become increasingly possible to plot the movements, sometimes on a minute-by-minute basis, of all vehicles in many parts of the country.
Grace continued. ‘We have searched the property he shares with his girlfriend, Angi Bunsen.’
‘She sounds hot,’ Potting said.
‘Hot?’ Grace quizzed him.
‘Bunsen burner!’ Potting chortled at his joke, then looked around, but was greeted only with silent stares and, on Guy Batchelor’s face, a hint of a smile.
‘Thank you, Norman,’ Grace said. ‘I’m tasking you with obtaining a list of all poisonous reptile dealers in Sussex, Surrey, Kent and Hampshire. Also check out all internet trading sources. I’m informed you have to have a Department of the Environment licence to keep venomous creatures in this country. See if Stonor kept any poisonous creatures.’
‘Other than being one himself?’ Potting could not resist.
‘And find out, urgently, who in this city keeps venomous snakes, Norman. If one has escaped, we need to find out fast.’ Grace turned to DC Alexander. ‘Jack, I’d like you to obtain a list of all licences for dangerous animals held in these same counties. Also see if there are any reptile associations or clubs in the area – they might be a useful source of information.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Then he turned to DS Cale. ‘Tanja, I’m giving you the action of talking to the source handlers, see what you can find out about Shelby Stonor’s movements in the past couple of months, particularly the last two weeks.’
‘Yes, sir.’
All of the team kept glancing, in a mixture of horror and curiosity, at the first whiteboard. Graphic photographs from the post-mortem which Grace and Branson had attended, earlier that day, were pinned to it. In the central one was a close-up of Stonor’s face, coagulated blood rimming his horrifically bulging eyes. In another close-up, of his hands, there was more coagulated blood that had leaked beneath each of his fingernails.
Grace turned the page of his CSA’s notes, then looked up, briefly. ‘For those of you interested in the toxicology of a saw-scaled viper bite, this is the pathologist’s report.’
He studied the page in front of him briefly, before reading slowly, stumbling over some of the words. ‘Haematological abnormalities are the most common effects of snake envenoming globally. Venom-induced consumption coagulopathy (VICC) is the commonest and most important. Other haematological abnormalities are an anticoagulant coagulopathy and thrombotic microangiopathy. Venom-induced consumption coagulopathy is an activation of the clotting pathway by procoagulant toxins, resulting in clotting factor consumption and coagulopathy. The type of procoagulant toxin differs between snakes and can activate prothrombin, factor X and factor V or consume fibrinogen. The major complication of VICC is haemorrhage, including intracranial haemorrhage which is often fatal. With Echis carinatus – the saw-scaled viper – the duration of abnormal clotting can be reduced from more than a week to twenty-four to forty-eight hours.’ He looked up and smiled. ‘Everyone still with me?’
Guy Batchelor shook his head. ‘You lost me in the first sentence.’
Potting piped up again. ‘If I understand it correctly, from these toxins, under some circumstances Stonor might have been slightly dead – but now he’s actually very seriously dead?’
‘Couldn’t have put it better myself, Norman,’ Grace replied. ‘To cut through all the complex medical jargon, the saw-scaled viper kills its victims by turning them into haemophiliacs. Its venom causes the blood’s coagulation system, which is our defence against bleeding to death when we have a cut, to go into overdrive. Once all the coagulant has been used up, the body starts to haemorrhage. If you cut yourself shaving you’re likely to just bleed out.’
‘Sounds to me like he’s been bitten by one of his friends,’ Guy Batchelor said.
There were several nods around the table.
‘But why would any snake want to be friends with Shelby Stonor?’ Jack Alexander asked.
‘All right!’ Grace said. ‘Enough of that!’ Then, studying his policy book for a moment, he said, ‘This is my hypothesis. It would appear that Stonor has died from snake venom poisoning, and that could have occurred accidentally, but could also be linked to his current criminal activity. It may be that someone wanted to get rid of him. That’s why we’re looking into the death, we need to try to establish the facts. It is also possible he may have been attempting to steal these creatures – either for himself or perhaps to order for someone. My reason for thinking this is that photograph.’
He stood up, walked over to the whiteboard and pointed at the flash-lit blurry image. ‘Take a close look and I’d like any of you to tell me what you see.’
‘A bloody ugly-looking git,’ Potting said.
‘Anything else, Norman?’ Grace said.
‘Yes, looks like a photograph of a ceiling. The ceiling’s in sharper focus than Stonor,’ Potting said.
‘Quite ornate cornicing – the sort you’d get in a Victorian house,’ DS Batchelor said. ‘But that window to the right, the top part of it just visible, with leaded lights, looks like mock Tudor. I know that because Lena and I used to live in a mock Tudor house.’
‘What are those glass cupboards?’ DC Davies asked. ‘They look a bit like the kind you can get from Ikea.’
‘I think they’re storage boxes.’ Glenn Branson stood up and peered closer. ‘Or aquariums?’
‘Vivariums, Glenn?’ DS Batchelor said. ‘I think that’s the proper term for them.’
‘It is, Guy. Containers that reptiles are kept in, providing them with a microcosm of their natural environment,’ Grace said. ‘Some of them look free-standing but others seem to be fitted.’
‘Ah, so Stonor lived in one of them, did he?’ Potting asked. ‘A very suitable home for him.’
Ignoring him, as most of the team did when he became irritating, Branson asked, ‘What’s the significance of this photograph?’
‘It looks like it was taken accidentally,’ Grace said. ‘There are no other photographs for several days before this one and none after. Even though it’s hard to see Stonor’s expression too clearly, he’s not posed for it, and he’s not actually looking into the camera. The date’s interesting – it was taken last Tuesday evening, February 24th. The toxin from a saw-scaled viper takes from around forty-eight hours to several days to kill its victim. It was about 8 p.m., Sunday 1st March that Stonor crashed his car.’
Grace looked down at his notes. ‘The High Tech Crime Unit obtained that information. They’ve also given me the approximate location, from triangulation – it was taken in presumably a house, in the Roedean area of the city. Significantly, there have been a spate of reported burglaries in this area over the past two months, all bearing Stonor’s MO.’ He stood up and walked over to the whiteb
oard with the map of east Brighton, and ran his finger around the red-inked perimeter.
‘So you think he might have broken into a house to steal some poisonous reptiles to order, it went wrong and he was bitten, sir?’ DC Boutwood asked.
‘That’s one line I’m considering at the moment, EJ,’ Grace said. ‘The accidental photograph. The small cut on his right arm the pathologist noticed. Maybe he fell over and the creatures got out. We need to re-interview Stonor’s girlfriend, Angi Bunsen, urgently. We also need to find out where those vivariums came from, and who fitted them. There can’t be many houses that have these.’ He looked at DS Cale.
‘Tanja, it’s going to be a big task – can you get some staff – borrow some from John Street, if you have to – checking building firms and individual carpenters who might have fitted these vivariums in a house in the Roedean area within the past few years?’
‘Yes, sir,’ she said.
Grace liked her. The redhead had joined his team after the tragic death of Bella Moy last year and she had a warm personality and a willing nature.
‘Did anyone report a break-in that night in that area, sir?’ DC Davies asked.
‘No,’ Grace replied. ‘But it could be because they were keeping these creatures illegally.’
‘Or maybe one of these reptiles bit them too,’ Potting said. ‘And killed them?’
‘Why would anyone want to keep a thing like that as a pet?’ EJ asked. ‘Wouldn’t you have to be a bit weird?’
‘Yep, well I think I’d rather have something a bit more cuddly,’ Grace retorted. ‘I can’t imagine you can just walk into the average pet shop and come out with a snake that can kill someone.’
He was interrupted by his phone ringing. Glancing at the display, he just saw the word international. Raising an apologetic finger, he answered it, in case it was to do with Dr Crisp.