Left You Dead

by James, Peter

  ‘I appreciate that,’ Roy Grace said, irked by the man’s sudden pushiness. ‘But I don’t think our son is in any hurry. Would you be?’

  Greenhaisen floundered for a reply, his lips twitching. ‘Of course – I mean – of course, please take your time, these are important decisions.’

  ‘Yes,’ Grace said. ‘They are.’

  He felt tears welling up. He stood, shook hands with Greenhaisen, thanked him with a faltering voice and turned away.

  69

  Friday 6 September

  Roy and Cleo arrived home shortly after 1 p.m., to be greeted by Humphrey holding another of his collection of ragged stuffed toys in his mouth – with half the stuffing gone, like most of them. He was wagging his tail but seemed more subdued than usual. Grace knelt and hugged him. ‘Brought me a gift, have you, fellow? Thank you.’

  Humphrey dropped it, a small bear with both eyes missing that had once been Noah’s before he’d appropriated it, then looked at him, a tad balefully. Did he sense something? Roy suddenly remembered a book Cleo had given him for his birthday last year, a volume of short stories titled Explaining Death to the Dog. Did this creature understand something? That Bruno wasn’t coming home again?

  Roy heard beeps and tings and a series of quacks and grunting sounds coming from the lounge – Noah was active in his play area, with his noise-maker toy.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Kaitlynn approach. ‘I thought you guys might be hungry,’ she said gently in her Californian accent. ‘I’ve done you a tuna salad and I found some bagels in the freezer which I thought I’d toast to go with it. There’s no need to speak, I know how hard this is for you both. Just know I’m here and can help when you need.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Cleo said, ‘that’s really thoughtful of you.’

  Roy stood up and smiled his thanks, not trusting his voice.

  ‘I’ve taken Noah and Humphrey for a good walk, so you don’t need to worry about Humphrey for a while,’ she added.

  ‘Just going to go up to Bruno’s room,’ Roy said to Cleo. ‘See what I can find for some ideas for his—’

  ‘I’ll come up with you,’ she said, and turned to Kaitlynn. ‘Lunch in ten?’

  ‘Sure, tell me when you’re ready. You OK?’

  Cleo nodded and said in a quiet voice, ‘Yeah, thanks, trying to hold it together – we just feel like we’re in a daze.’

  They went upstairs and entered Bruno’s immaculate bedroom. His trainers, football boots and shoes all neatly in a row in front of his white wardrobe. Grace looked at the two posters of Bayern Munich football team on the wall. Alongside them was a large photograph of his local hero, the German footballer Pascal Groß, who had joined Brighton and Hove Albion and was dressed in the team’s blue-and-white strip. Below, sat a red model Porsche Turbo on a shelf beside a row of books and computer games.

  ‘I’m pleased we can have his coffin printed in the Bayern Munich colours,’ Cleo said.

  Roy’s reply was interrupted by his job phone ringing.

  ‘Detective Superintendent Grace,’ he answered. And heard Glenn Branson’s voice at the other end.

  ‘Boss, sorry to intrude, but you said to call if we found anything.’

  ‘Tell me?’

  ‘The team excavating the deposition-site area have found a bone – they think it might be human. Lucy Sibun’s assistant attended and says it could be a lower arm radius, but we might not know for sure until Lucy gets here – which is not going to be until early evening. Meantime, they’re emailing photographs of it to Dundee.’

  Dundee University ran the UK Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification. They could normally identify bones as being human or belonging to another animal within a few hours.

  Grace thought for a moment. Glenn had the search under control and, strictly, he wasn’t needed. But as the SIO, with there being a potentially significant find, he wanted to be there. And besides, not really wanting to admit this to himself, it would be a welcome, temporary distraction.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’d like to see the site.’

  ‘I’m heading there, want me to pick you up? I could be with you in forty-five minutes.’

  Grace thought briefly. He didn’t feel like talking to anyone at the moment and wondered about driving there on his own. But maybe it would be good to have the company of his friend. ‘Sure. Where exactly is it?’

  ‘Want me to give you the what3words location?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘It’s boil.stunner.throwaway,’ Branson said.

  Memorizing them, Grace entered them in the what3words app on his phone. The app had recently become an invaluable tool for the police. The entire world had been gridded into three-metre squares, each of which was given a three-word ident. boil.stunner.throwaway showed him a location in Ashdown Forest a short distance from what looked like a parking area.

  Thanking him, Grace ended the call and told Cleo.

  ‘Probably do you some good,’ she said. ‘Focus on something else.’

  He nodded. ‘It’s the only way I can deal with this horrendous time. I’ve got to distract myself, though I know it’s not how everyone would deal with it.’

  And in the meanwhile, there was nothing he could do, other than mope around. Plunging back into work was the best way to take his mind off it.

  Half an hour later, he heard the sound of a car pulling up outside. He scooped some tuna salad onto the two halves of bagel that Kaitlynn had toasted, squished them together and wrapped them in several sheets of kitchen towel, then went outside.

  ‘You want some lunch?’ Grace said as his greeting.

  ‘Thanks, boss – I’m starving!’

  ‘Fill your boots,’ Grace, who had no appetite, said sullenly, passing him the package.

  The DI devoured the bagel in five bites, then started the engine and did a fast U-turn, narrowly missing the only tree on the entire driveway.

  70

  Friday 6 September

  ‘Sorry about that – I remember watching Lewis Hamilton do a doughnut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.’

  Grace looked at him. ‘No disrespect, he’s probably a bit more talented behind the wheel than you.’

  ‘Yeah, but he’d probably be a rubbish detective,’ Branson said, restarting the stalled engine and heading off, at a subdued pace, along the bumpy cart track.

  ‘Apparently, there used to be an entry in the Guinness Book of Records called “The Loneliest Tree in the World”,’ Grace said. ‘It was in the Sahara, 250 miles from the next nearest tree, and was knocked down by a drunk Libyan truck driver.’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me something?’

  ‘Just saying. It’s all a bit sensitive at the moment.’

  ‘Thanks, boss, I understand.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Grace said. ‘But we’re not in a rush. OK? If Eden Paternoster’s been dead since last Thursday, she’s not going anywhere, is she?’

  ‘Good point,’ Branson said. He eased off a fraction. But the horizon was still approaching way too fast for Grace’s comfort.

  ‘Better?’ the DI asked.

  Grace waited until they’d survived the next corner before replying tightly, ‘A little.’

  Over the next twenty minutes, aware Roy wanted to avoid talking about Bruno, Branson updated him on the latest developments on the enquiry. He was meeting the Surveillance Team leader, DS Mark Taylor, now that his team had been signed off from their previous job, to brief him – maybe Roy would like to be there for that? He said he would. Branson had already arranged for a fixed observation point at the Greyhound Stadium until the Surveillance Team were available to monitor Paternoster’s activity.

  Neighbours on both sides of the Paternosters’ home had all been questioned by Jack Alexander’s Outside Enquiry Team, and had informed the officers they’d heard the Paternosters having a violent row last Thursday night. None of them had seen Eden since. Work colleagues at the insurance company, Mutual Occidental, where Eden was employed, who had a
ll now been interviewed, had confirmed that her failing to turn up to work on Friday – and not phoning in – had been quite out of character. She was normally scrupulously punctual and diligent.

  All the close friends and relatives, whose names and details Niall Paternoster had given, had now been contacted, and all confirmed they had not heard from Eden since last Thursday at the latest. Branson added that her mother had apparently been the most vocal, saying she had always thought her son-in-law was not good enough for her daughter. She had tried to warn Eden off marrying him. And, more worryingly, on one occasion some months ago, Eden had come to stay with her overnight in a terrible state, saying Niall and she had split up, but then they’d subsequently got back together, much to her disappointment.

  They had come back with positive DNA matches on the blood on the kitchen floor to both Eden and Niall. Grace knew, as all detectives, that if a kitchen knife was used in a stabbing it would almost certainly cut the assailant’s hand, too, when it struck bone. That tallied, possibly with Niall Paternoster’s cut finger, explaining his blood in the kitchen. There were more positive matches with Eden’s blood on the stairs, the en-suite tiles and on her T-shirt found secreted in there. Results were not yet back on the items of clothing found at the grave.

  Grace made a number of notes. Bit by bit, the case against Niall Paternoster was building. A ‘no body’ murder was acknowledged by all SIOs as the hardest to prove. It required compelling circumstantial evidence to convince the Crown Prosecution Service to agree to proceed – the notoriously demanding CPS solicitors were always reluctant to commit to the expense of a prosecution case and all the costs of a trial without a degree of certainty that they would win.

  But Grace was feeling uncertain. His early instincts, from his meeting with Paternoster, felt right. Maybe the bone that had been found would prove it beyond any doubt. But he felt there was something still missing.

  He looked down at his what3words app.

  They were almost at the scene.

  Grace knew this forest from his earliest childhood days, when they’d had occasional school outings here, running around and being mindful that there were adders living in the sandy brush. And dense woodland was historically a deposition site for murder victims.

  Branson was braking hard and indicating. Moments later, he swung in left.

  A cluster of vehicles, including the large white CSI van, in the sandy parking area confirmed they were in the right place, as did the outer cordon of crime scene tape just beyond them.

  71

  Friday 6 September

  Few police officers would disagree over what was the most shit job in the entire force. A minority might suggest it was being on public order duty during a riot, but at least that could be mitigated by the potential for getting into a fight – a good old roll-up, which most young, eager officers enjoyed. One of the money-can’t-buy perks of the job.

  But to be delegated the duty of a crime scene guard was universally agreed to be the most numbingly boring. In the city, in daytime, the task tended to be given to PCSOs – the lower cost Police Community Support Officers. But PCSOs weren’t considered as robust as fully trained coppers, and they didn’t do night duty.

  Togged up in their white protective oversuits, shoes, gloves, headgear and masks, Grace and Branson approached the poor sap of a PC who was the current scene guard. The officer watched them with interest, probably the only excitement and break in the monotony he’d had in the past hour or more.

  Aware of the man’s vigil, as Grace showed him his warrant card he asked sympathetically, ‘How long do you have to go?’

  Presenting the two detectives with the log to sign, the hapless young PC said, ‘Midnight, sir.’

  Grace smiled at him. ‘Done it myself. It’s not much fun, is it?’

  ‘Not really, sir, no. But,’ he added hastily, ‘I don’t mind. I’m hoping to be a detective one day, so it’s interesting to see a crime scene like this.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ Grace asked him. ‘I’ll remember it.’

  ‘Conall Bartlett,’ he said. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘You’re Graham Bartlett’s son, right?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Your dad was my boss once, some years back. A great copper.’

  The PC smiled. ‘Thank you – it was seeing how he loved the job that inspired me.’

  Grace smiled. ‘You’re a pretty useful football ref, too, I recall?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about useful, sir, but I try.’

  ‘Good lad!’ Grace signed the log and handed the clipboard to Branson, saying glibly to the PC, ‘Excuse his scrawl, he’s barely literate!’

  ‘Yeah, yeah!’ Branson retorted. He picked up the pen and deliberately and painfully slowly wrote his name immaculately neatly. Handing the clipboard back, he said cheekily, ‘In case you can’t read my colleague’s, he’s Detective Superintendent Smudge.’

  Conall Bartlett took it, uncertain whether to smile.

  The two detectives ducked under the tape, strode the short distance to the inner cordon tape, ducked under that, too, then walked along the metal track that had been laid by the police Forensics Team. Its purpose was to cause minimum disturbance to the route the killer had likely taken to the deposition site.

  It led a couple of hundred yards into the woods where there were two open-sided tents, one small and square, inside which was a generator running noisily and two tables. On one table stood a kettle, mugs, a jar of coffee, a box of tea and two open packets of biscuits. On the other were laid out several sealed and tagged evidence bags, each containing an item.

  The larger tent was rectangular, brightly lit by jury-rigged overhead lights, over a shallow grave. Dotted around on the ground outside the tents were numbered yellow triangles, indicating where possible evidence had been found.

  James Gartrell, the highly competent CSI photographer whom Grace knew well, busy recording the area on video, paused to nod a greeting. ‘Afternoon, boss.’ He was also in full protective clothing.

  ‘How are you doing, James?’

  ‘Fine, boss, thank you. Lorna and Simon are inside the tent.’ Then, obviously knowing Grace’s news, asked sympathetically, ‘And you, boss – I’m so sorry about—’

  Grace silenced him with a grim smile and a raised hand, then approached and opened the larger tent. Inside, he saw the white-suited backs of two people examining the shallow grave. The POLSA, Sergeant Lorna Dennison-Wilkins, and the assistant forensic archaeologist, Simon Davy, stood at the edge, Lorna sipping from a steaming mug, Simon standing over the two search officers, watching them. Both turned immediately as they heard the footsteps.

  ‘Sir,’ the Sergeant said, addressing Grace. ‘I heard you were coming.’ Then she gave him a forlorn look. ‘I’m sorry about your news.’ She shot a smile at Branson by way of acknowledgement.

  ‘Thanks, I appreciate it, Lorna,’ Grace said. ‘So, what do we have?’ He walked over to the freshly excavated area. The two specialists – impossible to tell who without seeing their faces – were scraping the soil at the bottom with trowels, with the painstaking and back-breaking diligence of archaeologists on a dig, checking the freed, loose soil with their gloved fingers before discarding it over the top, onto a growing pile.

  ‘Well, sir, Simon has some early thoughts which might be helpful.’

  The assistant forensic archaeologist, in his early thirties, only a small part of his face visible, said, ‘The soil in the grave is quite loose and there appears to be recent disturbance, which indicates to me that it was probably dug earlier and then back-filled not that long ago.’

  ‘Planned and made ready?’ Grace asked. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Yes, sir – that’s how it looks to me.’

  ‘What have you found?’

  ‘Well, sir, apart from the items of clothing we’ve retrieved so far, some of which have been sent by Sergeant Dennison-Wilkins to the lab for analysis, the grave contained traces of blood
and lots of evidence of animal disturbance. And as I believe you’ve been told, we discovered a bone nearby just over an hour ago, it may have been dragged away by animals.’

  ‘Human?’

  ‘Possibly – we can’t be sure at this stage. Would you like to see it, sir?’

  ‘I’m no anatomy expert, but yes.’

  Grace and Branson walked behind Lorna and Simon along more track to the smaller tent. The forensic archaeologist picked an evidence bag from the table, which contained a clean bone with a gnarled double lump at one end and a skewed knot at the other. Both ends appeared to have been chewed.

  The detectives studied it carefully. ‘Humans have two lowerarm bones, if I’m right?’ Grace said.

  Simon nodded. ‘The radius is one of two forearm bones – it’s the shorter of the two but thicker than the other, the ulna. It runs from the lateral side of the elbow to the thumb side of the wrist, and parallel to the ulna.’

  Grace looked at it again for some moments. ‘You’ve sent a photo of it to Dundee for verification, I understand?’

  ‘Yes, they’re pretty good about coming back quickly.’

  ‘What’s your own assessment of the bone, Simon?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, Lucy’s the expert. In my view this could be human, but it might well be a roe deer tibia – this forest is home to a large number of deer.’

  Grace continued studying the bone, none the wiser. ‘The fact that there are no body parts present in the grave could be put down to predation.’ He looked at Lorna and Simon for confirmation. Both nodded.

  ‘A dismembered body, especially in woodlands like this, can be carried off by animals within days – even more so if the grave is on a fox or badger run. But bones picked as clean as this, in less than a week? It’s possible, I guess – do you agree?’

  ‘It is, I – we – have seen it happen, sir,’ Lorna said. ‘Especially underwater. And, of course, acid is always a possibility.’

  Grace had worked with Lorna in the past when she had been in charge of the now disbanded Sussex Police Specialist Search Unit. He’d seen instances of human bodies on the seabed being picked clean by fish and crustaceans in a very short time. And he’d seen his share of skeletal remains in acid baths.