Not Dead Enough

by Peter James

  ‘I don’t know yet. I have the six-thirty briefing and will have to see what that throws up.’

  ‘What do you fancy for supper?’

  ‘You.’

  ‘How would you like me garnished?’

  ‘Naked, with just a lettuce leaf.’

  ‘Then get yourself over here as early as you can. I need your body.’

  ‘Love you,’ he said.

  ‘I quite like you too!’ she said.

  Deciding to take advantage of the first free moment he’d had all day, Grace walked across to the PNC unit, at the far end of the building, where poor Janet McWhirter had spent so much of her working life.

  Normally the large office area, with many of its team civilian computer staff, had a lively buzz of activity. But this afternoon there was a subdued atmosphere. He knocked on the door of one of the few enclosed offices. It had been Janet McWhirter’s room and now, according to the label on the wall, housed Lorna Baxter, PNC and Disclosure Unit Manager. He had known her, like Janet, for a long time and liked her a lot.

  Without waiting for a reply, he opened the door. Lorna, who was in her mid-thirties, was heavily pregnant. Her brown hair, normally long, was cropped short into a clumsy monk’s fringe, which accentuated the weight that had gone on to her face, and although she was dressed lightly, in a loose floral-patterned dress, she was clearly suffering in the heat.

  She was talking on the phone, but signalled at him cheerily to come in, pointing to a chair in front of her desk. He closed the door and sat down.

  It was a small, square room, her desk and chair, two visitor chairs, a tall metal filing cabinet and a stack of box files just about filling it. There was a Bart Simpson cartoon pinned to the wall on his right with coloured drawing pins, and a sheet of paper on which was crayoned a large heart and the words, I Love You Mummy!

  She ended the call. ‘Hey, Roy!’ she said. ‘Good to see you.’ Then she shrugged. ‘Bummer, isn’t it?’ She had a strong South African accent, despite having lived over twelve years in England.

  ‘Janet?’

  She grimaced. ‘We were good friends.’

  ‘So what happened exactly? I heard that she fell in love with someone and was moving to Australia with him to get married.’

  ‘Yes. She was so happy. You know, she was thirty-six and had never really had a serious boyfriend before. I think she’d almost resigned herself to being single for the rest of her life. Then she met this fellow and he clearly shot the lights out for her. She was a changed person in weeks.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘She had a total makeover. Hair, clothes, everything. And she looked so happy.’

  ‘And then she wound up murdered?’

  ‘That’s what it sounds like.’

  ‘What do you – or anyone here – know about this man, her fianc�#8217;

  ‘Not much. She was a very private person. I probably knew her as well as anyone – but she was a real closed book. It was a long while before she even admitted to me that she was dating. She didn’t say much about him, although she did let on that he was very wealthy. Big house in Brighton and a flat in London. The big but was that he was married. Planning to leave his wife.’

  ‘For Janet?’

  ‘That’s what he’d told her.’

  ‘And she believed him?’

  ‘Totally.’

  ‘Any idea what he did?’

  ‘He was in software,’ she said. ‘Something to do with rostering. A very successful company, apparently. He was opening up in Australia and decided he wanted to make a new life there – with Janet.’

  Rostering. Grace was thinking hard. Rostering. That was the business Bishop was in. ‘Did she ever tell you his name?’

  ‘No, she wouldn’t tell me. She kept telling me she couldn’t give me his name because he was married, and she’d sworn to keep their affair secret.’

  ‘She was hardly the type to blackmail someone,’ Grace said. ‘And I wouldn’t have thought she had a lot of money.’

  ‘No, she didn’t. She used to travel to work on an old Vespa.’

  ‘So what could have been his motive for killing her – assuming he did?’

  ‘Or maybe they were both killed?’ she replied. ‘And only her body has turned up?’

  ‘That’s possible. Someone after him and she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? Wouldn’t be the first time. Have you heard anything from the investigating team?’

  ‘Not much progress so far. There’s just one small thing that’s interesting.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I saw Ray Packham earlier – from the High Tech Crime Unit?’

  ‘Yes, I know him. He’s smart.’

  ‘He’s been running forensic software on the computer Janet used here, and he’s recovered the electronic diary that she deleted when she left.’

  Someone knocked on the door and entered. Grace looked up and saw a young man he recognized from this department standing there. Lorna looked up at him. ‘Sorry, Dermot, is it anything urgent?’

  ‘No – no problem – see you tomorrow.’

  He went out and closed the door.

  Her face blanked. ‘Where was I?’

  ‘Janet’s diary,’ he prompted.

  ‘Yes, right. There was one name on it, about nine months back, that none of us here know. It was an entry for an evening in December last year. She had written down, Drink, Brian.’

  ‘Brian?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Grace felt a sudden frisson. Brian. Rostering. Big house in Brighton. Flat in London. A murdered woman.

  Now his brain was really engaging, all his tiredness gone. Was that why he had woken in the middle of the night, thinking about Janet McWhirter? His brain telling him that there was a connection?

  ‘It looks like this means something to you, Roy.’

  ‘Possibly,’ he said ‘Who’s running the inquiry on Janet?’

  ‘DI Winter, in MIR Two.’

  Grace thanked Lorna and headed straight to the incident room that had been set up in MIR Two. There he explained the possible connection to his own double-inquiry that he had just learned.

  Then he returned to MIR One, almost colliding with a triumphant-looking Glenn Branson, who came round the corner at a speed close to a run. ‘Got him!’ Branson said, pulling a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolding it. ‘I’ve got a name and an address!’

  Grace followed him into the room.

  ‘His name is Norman Jecks.’

  Grace looked down at the crumpled sheet of lined paper, with a jagged edge where it had been torn from a ring-pad. On it was written 262B, Sackville Road, Hove.

  He looked up at Branson. ‘That’s not Bishop’s address.’

  ‘No, it’s not. But that’s the one the man wrote down on the A&E registration form on Sunday morning. The disguised Brian Bishop. Maybe he has two lives?’

  Grace stared at it, with a bad feeling. As if a dark cloud was swirling around his insides. Did Brian Bishop have a second home? A secret home? A secret life? ‘Is it a real address?’

  ‘Bella’s checked the electoral register. There’s a Norman Jecks at that address.’

  He looked at his watch, adrenaline pumping into his veins. It was ten past six. ‘Forget the briefing meeting,’ he said. ‘Find out who the duty magistrate is and get a search warrant. Then get on to the Local Support Team. We’re going to pay Norman Jecks a visit. Just as fast as we possibly can.’

  He sprinted back along the labyrinth of corridors to the PNC suite.

  Lorna Baxter was halfway out of the door when he arrived.

  ‘Lorna,’ he said breathlessly, ‘have you got a moment?’

  ‘I’ve got to pick my eldest up from a swimming lesson.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Is it something quick?’

  ‘Just a few minutes – it’s really important – sorry to do this to you. I’m right, aren’t I, that Janet McWhirter would have had signatory authority to make entries on the PNC?’


  ‘Yes. She was the only person here who could.’

  ‘On her own, unsupervised?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you mind looking up something for me on the PNC?’

  She smiled. ‘I can see you need me for more than just a few minutes. I’ll get someone to pick Claire up,’ she said, pulling her mobile from her handbag.

  They went and sat down in her office, and she tapped her keyboard, logging on. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Shoot!’

  ‘I need you to look up someone’s criminal record. What information do I have to give you?’

  ‘Just his name, age, address.’

  Grace gave her Brian Bishop’s details. He listened to the click of the keys as she entered the information.

  ‘Brian Desmond Bishop, born 7 September 1964?’

  ‘That’s him.’

  She leaned forward, closer to her screen. ‘In 1979, at Brighton Juvenile Court, he was sentenced to two years in a young offenders’ institute for raping a fourteen-year-old girl,’ she read. ‘In 1985, at Lewes Crown Court, he received two years’ probation for GBH on a woman. Nice guy!’ she commented.

  ‘Is there any anomaly with the entry?’ he asked.

  ‘Anomaly? In what sense?’

  ‘Could it have been tampered with?’

  ‘Well, there is just one thing – although it’s not that unusual.’ She looked up at him. ‘Normally records as old as these are never touched – they just sit on the file forever. The only time they are touched is when amendments are made – sometimes because of new evidence – old convictions getting quashed or a mistake that needs rectifying, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Can you tell when they’ve been touched?’

  ‘Absolutely!’ She nodded emphatically. ‘There’s an electronic footprint left any time they are altered. Actually there’s one here.’

  Grace sat bolt upright. ‘There is?’

  ‘Each of us with signatory authority has an individual access code. If we amend a record, the footprint we leave is our access code, and the date.’

  ‘So can you find out whose access code that is?’

  She smiled at him. ‘I know that access code without having to look it up. It’s Janet’s. She amended this record on –’ she peered closer – ‘7 April this year.’

  Now Grace’s adrenaline was really surging. ‘She did?’

  ‘Uh huh.’ She frowned, tapped her keyboard, then peered at the screen again. ‘This is interesting,’ she said. ‘That was her last day in the office.’

  �

  114

  An hour and a half later, shortly before eight o’clock, Nick Nicholl drove a marked police Vauxhall Vectra slowly up Sackville Road. Grace was in the front seat, wearing a bullet-proof vest beneath his jacket, and Glenn Branson, also in a bullet-proof vest, sat behind him. Both men were counting down the house numbers on the grimy Edwardian terraced buildings. Following right behind them were two marked police Ford Transit vans, each containing a team of uniformed officers from the Local Support Team.

  ‘Two-five-four!’ Glenn Branson read out. ‘Two-five-eight. Two-six-zero. Two-six-two! We’re here!’

  Nicholl double-parked alongside a dusty Ford Fiesta, the other vehicles pulling up behind him.

  Grace radioed the second LST van to drive round and cover the back entrance, and to let him know when they were in position.

  Two minutes later he got the call back that they were ready.

  They climbed out of the car. Grace instructed the SOCO to stay in his vehicle for the moment, then led the way down the concrete steps, past two dustbins, then a grimy bay window with net curtains drawn. It was still daylight, although fading fast now, so the absence of any interior light did not necessarily mean the flat was empty.

  The tatty grey front door, with two opaque glass panes in it, was in bad need of a lick of paint, and the plastic bell-push had seen better times. Nonetheless, he pressed it. There was no sound. He pressed it again. Silence.

  He rapped sharply on the panes. Then he called out, ‘Police! Open up!’

  There was no response.

  He rapped again, even more loudly. ‘Police! Open up!’ Then he turned to Nicholl and told him to get the LST team to bring the battering ram.

  Moments later two burly LST officers appeared, one of them holding the long, yellow, cylindrical door-busting ram.

  ‘OK, Chief ?’ he said to Grace.

  Grace nodded.

  He swung the ram at one of the glass panes. To everyone’s amazement, it bounced off. He swung it again, harder, and again it bounced off.

  Both Branson and Nicholl frowned at him. ‘Didn’t eat enough spinach when you were a kid?’ the LST officer’s colleague joked.

  ‘Fuck this!’

  His colleague, who was even more heavily built, took the implement and swung it. Moments later he was looking sheepish too, as it bounced back from the glass again.

  ‘Shit!’ the constable said. ‘He’s got armour-plated glass!’ He swung it at the door lock. The door barely moved. He swung it again, then again, breaking out into a sweat. Then he looked at Grace. ‘I don’t think he likes burglars.’

  ‘Obviously been taking advice from his local crime prevention officer,’ Nick Nicholl quipped, in a rare display of humour.

  The constable signalled them to move out of the way, then took an almighty swing at the centre of the door, low down. It buckled, with wood splinters flying off.

  ‘Reinforced,’ he said grimly. He swung again, then again, until the wood was sheared away and he could see the steel plate behind it. It took another four swings of the ram before the plate had been bent back enough for someone to crawl through.

  Six LST officers went in first, to establish if anyone was in the flat. After a couple of minutes one of them unlocked the damaged door from the inside and came back out. ‘The flat’s empty, sir.’

  Grace thanked the LST team, then asked them to leave, explaining that he wanted to limit the number of officers on the premises in order to conduct a forensic search.

  As Grace went in, pulling on a pair of latex gloves, he found himself in a small, gloomy basement room, almost every inch of the shabbily carpeted floor covered in partially dismembered computer equipment, piles of motoring magazines and car manuals. It smelled damp.

  At the far end of the room was a workstation, with a computer and keyboard. The entire wall in front of it was covered in newspaper cuttings and what looked like flow charts of family trees. To the right was an open door, with a dark passageway beyond.

  He crossed the room, threading a careful path through the stuff on the floor, until he reached the ancient swivel chair at the workstation. Then he saw what was pinned up on the wall.

  And he froze in his tracks.

  ‘Shit!’ Glenn Branson, now standing right beside him, said.

  It was a gallery of news cuttings. Most of the pages, cut or torn from the Argus and from national newspapers, appeared to track Brian Bishop’s career. There were several photographs of him, including a wedding photograph of his marriage to Katie. Alongside was an article, on a pink page from the Financial Times, on the meteoric rise of his company, International Rostering Solutions PLC, talking about its entry, last year, into the Sunday Times list of the UK’s hundred fastest-growing companies.

  Grace was vaguely aware of Branson, and other people, moving past him, pulling on rubber gloves, doors and drawers opening and closing, but his attention was riveted by another article sellotaped to the wall. It was the front page of a late edition of Monday’s Argus newspaper, carrying a large photograph of Brian Bishop and his wife, and a smaller, inset photograph of himself. In one of the columns beneath was a red ink ring around his words: Evil creature.

  He read the whole passage:

  ‘This is a particularly nasty crime,’ Detective Superintendent Grace, the SIO, said. ‘. . . we will work around the clock to bring the evil creature who did this to justice.’

  Nick Nicholl suddenly waved a
flimsy, legal-looking document in front of him. ‘Just found this lease. He’s got a lock-up! Two in fact – in Westbourne Villas.’

  ‘Phone the incident room,’ Grace said. ‘Get someone to type up a new warrant and get it down to the same magistrate, then bring it here. And tell them to shift!’

  Then, as he was staring, again, at the red ring around the words Evil creature he heard Glenn Branson call out, in a very worried voice, ‘Boss man, I think you’d better take a look in here.’

  Grace walked down a short passageway into a dank, windowless bedroom, with a narrow borrowed light high up. The room was lit by a solitary, naked, low-wattage bulb hanging from a cord above a bed, neatly made, with a cream candlewick counterpane.

  Lying on the counterpane was a long, brown-haired wig, a moustache, a beard, a black baseball cap, and a pair of dark sunglasses.

  ‘Jesus!’ he said.

  Glenn Branson’s response was simply to point with his finger past him. Grace turned. And what he saw chilled every cell in his body.

  Taped to the wall were three blown-up photographs, each taken, he reckoned, from his limited knowledge of the craft, through a long lens.

  The first was of Katie Bishop. She was wearing a bikini swimsuit, leaning back against what looked like the cockpit rail of a yacht. A large red-ink cross was scrawled over her. The second was of Sophie Harrington. It was of her face, in close-up, with what looked like a blurred London street behind her. There was also a red-ink cross scrawled over her.

  The third was a picture of Cleo Morey, turning away from the front entrance door of the Brighton and Hove Mortuary.

  There was no cross.

  Grace pulled his mobile phone from his pocket and dialled her home number. She answered on the third ring.

  ‘Cleo, are you OK?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Never better.’

  ‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘I’m being serious.’

  ‘I’m listening to you, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace,’ she slurred. ‘I’m hanging on to every word.’