Need You Dead

by Peter James

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  At that moment there was a knock on the door. Exton entered and handed over his private phone and laptop.

  Looking hard at him, Grace asked, ‘Jon, is this your only phone?’

  ‘Do you mean apart from my police one, boss?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This is the only one.’

  Grace thanked him, then shooting nervous glances at both men, Exton hurried back to the door.

  ‘Jon!’ Batchelor said, suddenly.

  ‘Yes, boss?’

  ‘Are you busy at the moment?’

  ‘Well – er – not – nothing that can’t wait.’

  ‘Good, I’ll come and see you in a moment.’

  As Exton left, Grace handed the detective’s phone to Packham. ‘You might as well take this with you, Ray. Can you clone it and return the original to Jon so he’s not stuck without a phone? I need you to do this in strictest confidence and report to no one but me, OK?’

  ‘Yes, right away.’ Then he continued. ‘Something that may be worth considering, Roy, if we get a good resolution back from Forensics – have you ever worked with the Scotland Yard Super Recognizer team?’

  ‘No, but we’re on the same page, Ray – I was thinking about them.’

  A few weeks earlier, Grace had attended a seminar on the very new field of Super Recognizers at New Scotland Yard. The DI giving the talk explained that the average human being can recognize 23 per cent of faces that they’ve seen previously. The average police officer, despite the heightened awareness that comes with the territory, can only manage 24 per cent. But a tiny percentage of the population, now known as Super Recognizers, can achieve up to 90 per cent.

  The phenomenon had been discovered during the aftermath of the London Riots, in 2014, when many of the violent rioters and looters had concealed their faces with caps, glasses and scarves. Detectives in London had discovered there were some colleagues who were capable of identifying people, with consistent accuracy, from just one single feature. An earlobe. A nose. A chin.

  One of the champion Super Recognizers was a custody officer called Idris, whose abilities had led to over one hundred and fifty arrests to date. Under an initiative set up by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Super Recognizer team was formed – many of whom were civilians. Some of the unit worked out of Charing Cross police station, but the majority from New Scotland Yard.

  ‘I’ve got a contact with them, an old friend who used to be a PC in Brighton,’ Packham said. ‘Jonathan Jackson.’

  ‘I remember him well – good guy. OK, let’s wait to see what we get back,’ Grace said.

  ‘I’ll ping you Jonathan’s contact details,’ Packham said.

  After Batchelor and Packham left, Grace sat thinking again.

  Momentarily distracted by an email that had come in about next week’s venue for the Thursday-night poker game he tried – and mostly failed – to attend regularly, he was checking his diary when the phone rang.

  ‘Detective Superintendent Grace,’ he answered.

  ‘Roy, do you want to tell me just what on earth is going on with DS Exton?’ It was Cassian Pewe, sounding his usual friendly self – not. ‘I’ve just had a conversation with Superintendent Darke – why did you not inform me right away about the misuse of his phone?’

  ‘Because, sir, Superintendent Darke asked me to speak to DS Exton as a matter of urgency – to see what I could find out.’

  ‘I trust you’ve asked PSD to suspend him?’

  ‘Well, actually, sir, I think he’s in a pretty bad way, mentally. He’s had a relationship breakdown and he’s not coping, in my view. I had a talk with him and he’s agreed to see the force doctor. He’s a highly trusted member of my team and I feel I need to support him, not hang him out to dry – which will just make things worse.’

  ‘Let’s hope you’re making the right decision, Roy. On your head be it.’

  ‘I understand, sir.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Oh – one thing I wanted to ask you, sir,’ Grace went on. ‘I didn’t know you spoke German.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘You were talking quite a bit to my son, Bruno, in German.’

  ‘And your point is, Roy?’

  ‘It was very kind of you, sir, to take the time and trouble.’

  The ACC made a strange grunting sound and hung up. Grace was curious. Why had Pewe sounded so defensive about speaking German?

  But he had bigger issues on his mind right now.

  84

  Friday 29 April

  SNAFU. It’s an old US military expression dating back to the Second World War. Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.

  Yep. That’s about the size of it.

  That’s how it would look to the casual observer. Except, I’m not a casual observer; sadly I’m an interested party.

  Very interested.

  My life might be shit at the moment. It feels like it’s all getting out of hand. The hunter and the hunted. But I’ll come up with a plan, I always do. I’ve just got to turn the tables, create that smokescreen. Create that thing we have in the British judiciary. Beyond reasonable doubt.

  Innocent?

  Beyond reasonable doubt.

  Guilty?

  Beyond reasonable doubt.

  I have the advantage here, I know the truth.

  But you know, I was never this way before. I was just an ordinary, decent human being. I never wanted to be a killer. I’m still not even sure I have actually killed, but you are hunting me down like I did.

  Just know one thing, Detective Superintendent, and it’s this:

  I’ll do whatever it takes not to be found out and have my life destroyed.

  Whatever it takes.

  I need help. I really do.

  But I’m not sure help would really help.

  I’m a mess. It’s all a mess. Somehow I’ve got to pack it all back in the box. Stay one step ahead.

  At least I’m in a position to do that.

  85

  Friday 29 April

  As was his ritual each morning whatever time he arrived at work, Roy Grace checked his emails, Twitter, and had a quick glance through the overnight serials – the log of all reported crimes in the city of Brighton and Hove. Muggings, assaults, fights, break-ins, robberies, RTCs, vehicle thefts, drug arrests, missing persons. He was always curious to see what was going on in his beloved city, although few of these serials ever concerned him directly.

  However, there was one particular item today that caught his eye. Made him freeze.

  Made him swear out aloud.

  An hour later, he sat in on the 8.30 a.m. briefing of Operation Bantam. He could have let Batchelor get on with it, but equally, he had too much riding on this himself, and he felt that Guy needed his steering hand. After all, he was the SIO.

  But he was too distracted by the serial he had seen.

  The team had now expanded to over twenty detectives and support staff, but there was one conspicuous absentee in the conference room today: DS Exton. Grace’s concerns about this detective he had long trusted were deepening. They were about to deepen further.

  His phone rang. It was Chris Gargan from the Forensics Unit, sounding perplexed. ‘Sir?’ he said.

  ‘Hang on a sec, Chris.’

  Grace stepped out of the room into the corridor. ‘OK, I’m with you.’

  ‘One of your team, Jon Exton, dropped us over a GoPro memory card last night, with an urgent request to see if we could enhance it.’

  ‘Yes. What have you managed to get?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know if someone’s made a mistake, but it’s blank, sir.’

  Grace felt a sharp, sinking sensation. ‘Blank? The memory card?’

  ‘Yes, there’s nothing on it.’

  Gargan had one of those voices that always sounded totally straight, with no hint of disingenuousness. In all his dealings with this CSI, Grace had found that what you
saw or heard was what you got.

  ‘There couldn’t be any mistake, Chris?’ Even as he said the words, he knew they were futile. The Surrey and Sussex Forensics Department in Guildford was one of the most efficiently run units in both forces.

  ‘No, Roy, I’m sorry, not at this end – what we’ve been given is a blank memory card.’

  ‘Might it have been wiped?’

  ‘Well, yes, either wiped, or it’s a new card, never used, which I think is more likely.’

  ‘It couldn’t just be a dud?’

  ‘No, we’ve tested it and it records correctly.’

  Grace thanked him and ended the call. Shit. The nightmare he didn’t want to believe really did seem to be coming true.

  On the serials earlier, the one that had caught his eye was a theft from a motor vehicle. Not something he would ordinarily have paid any attention to, vehicle break-ins happened all the time. Mostly they were random chaotic crimes by drug users desperate to pay for their next fix, grabbing a TomTom or a handbag, or anything of value the owner had left on view.

  The thief had gained access the usual way, by smashing one of the rear windows of the BMW, sometime during the night. The car had been ransacked. Among the items taken was the GoPro camera.

  The car was parked in Vallance Street.

  Its owner’s name was Christopher Diplock.

  Instead of returning to the briefing, Roy Grace strode back to his office, called Ray Packham and updated him on the blank memory card and the stolen GoPro. ‘Ray, is there any way this man, Diplock, could have given you the wrong memory card in error?’

  ‘I doubt it very much, Roy. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who would make many mistakes.’

  ‘So how might it be blank? Could it have happened by accident – I don’t know – such as by being too close to a mobile phone – or some other electronic device?’

  ‘No, Roy, it would need to be something immensely powerful – such as an industrial-scale magnet. Even then there’s likely to be some trace – memory cards are extremely hard to erase completely.’

  Grace thought for a moment. ‘OK. You took the card directly from Diplock and put it in the evidence bag yourself, didn’t you, Ray?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘Did you see any of the playback yourself?’

  ‘No – Mr Diplock told me what he’d seen and that was enough for me.’ Then after a moment he added, ‘Are you thinking the theft of the GoPro might be related to this, Roy?’

  ‘It could be someone trying to wipe away the traces, perhaps? Thinking that if they’ve been recorded on the memory card, then the images would still be on the GoPro?’

  ‘Except the images wouldn’t still be on the GoPro, Roy, they would only be on the memory card.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said.

  But what if that person wasn’t thinking straight? he wondered, privately. Someone in Exton’s state, clutching at straws, increasingly desperate to conceal any evidence?

  86

  Friday 29 April

  Moments after ending the call, Grace was wondering why Batchelor had made the decision to send Exton to Guildford. He texted him.

  Guy, come and see me straight after the briefing.

  Then he sat, mulling the facts. Could Jon Exton have somehow wiped the memory card – or perhaps, more easily, just substituted it with a blank one? Most detectives routinely carried little plastic evidence bags in their pockets. He would have had plenty of opportunity on the drive from Lewes to Guildford to buy a blank card.

  He made a call to the ANPR Unit at John Street, and talked to a duty operator, Jon Pumfrey, asking him for a plot from 5 p.m. last night to midnight of Jon Exton’s car.

  Pumfrey obtained it while he waited, but it provided no surprise information. Exton had driven from Lewes to the Police HQ in Guildford. Afterwards he had returned to the vicinity of Vallance Mansions, and then much later he had pinged a camera on the A23 near the Withdean Sports Stadium.

  Although ANPR cameras could plot the approximate route of vehicles across country, and through many cities, they did not provide blanket, detailed coverage. Exton could have stopped somewhere to shop for a memory card, without this being picked up.

  Was it possible that later, in his panicked state, and not thinking clearly, he decided to take the GoPro for belt and braces good measure?

  He went and made himself a coffee. Whilst the kettle boiled, his thoughts were boiling too. He just did not, could not, believe that mild Jon Exton was involved in any way.

  However, the evidence was mounting all the time against the Detective. Yet he was still reluctant to believe he was a killer. And yet, and yet, and yet . . .

  He had to distance himself from how he felt about the man. He’d never arrested – or even seen – a murderer who had i am a killer tattooed on his or her forehead. It was so often the quiet ones. Someone snapping in a pub fight. The quiet, friendly doctor, like Harold Shipman or Edward Crisp. Charming Ted Bundy. Frequently, when a suspected killer was being led away in handcuffs, a television crew would be interviewing his sweet old lady neighbour. She’d be saying what a nice man he was, how he always used to look after her cat when she went away. It was just these types who all too often were the most dangerous.

  Returning to his office, he began making notes on a fresh page of his Investigator’s Notebook.

  According to Exton’s police phone records, Grace wrote, DS Exton had been looking at sex-worker sites – despite his vehement denials. He had spent the past few weeks sleeping rough close to Lorna Belling’s flat and – pure speculation – might possibly have contacted her through a site on which she advertised herself – if this theory was correct. Could the deceased have threatened him with some form of blackmail, he wondered?

  Exton was in the vicinity of her flat on the night she died.

  Exton had been entrusted to drive the memory card, with potentially damning evidence, to Guildford. It had arrived blank.

  During this past night someone had broken into Christopher Diplock’s BMW and taken the GoPro – which Diplock had concealed in a headrest.

  Who had done that?

  It seemed very coincidental – almost too coincidental – that within hours of Exton delivering a blank memory card from the GoPro to the Forensics team in Guildford, the camera it had come from was stolen.

  But if it was Exton, how had he known it was there? How had any thief?

  He hesitated, thinking. He and Cleo had a GoPro, and when it was on record mode a red light flashed. However well Diplock had concealed it in a headrest, someone might have spotted it.

  Especially Exton if he had gone looking for it.

  He noted down that all the evidence re Exton was circumstantial. But was it too strong to ignore? Should he arrest him? In addition to his work phone, Digital Forensics was examining his private phone and his laptop. Should he wait to see if there was anything on any of these linking him to Lorna Belling? Then his thoughts were interrupted by another call from Packham.

  ‘Roy, good news. As I thought, this Diplock fellow is no fool. He’d copied the memory card contents to his hard drive before giving it to us.’

  Grace felt a massive flood of relief surge through him. ‘Brilliant! OK, can you get him to make a copy and take it to Guildford yourself – as quickly as you can – and don’t tell anyone, OK? Only report to me.’

  ‘With pleasure! I’ve just got a new Audi Q3 Quattro TDi, automatic with flappy paddles and 177 BHP! Will be great to give it a run over there.’

  ‘Nice wheels!’

  ‘You’re an Alfa man, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yep. But Audis are good, too. Always liked them.’

  ‘The only problem is, chief, that Diplock’s out with a client in Dorking – he won’t be able to get home until mid-afternoon.’

  ‘Can he get back any sooner? Could we get a traffic car to blue light him home and then back to his client?’

  ‘No, he’s installing a new system for them and
can’t interrupt the process.’

  ‘OK – just ask him to be as quick as he can.’

  As he hung up, his thoughts returned to Exton. Why had the errant detective failed to turn up this morning? Moments later a phone call came in, patched through from the Control Room.

  It was about Exton.

  87

  Friday 29 April

  ‘Detective Superintendent Grace?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied.

  ‘It’s PC DuBois here from the Road Policing Unit.’

  For an instant Grace thought she was going to refer back to Corin Belling’s fatal accident.

  ‘I think we did meet a few years back, sir – at an inquest – a person of interest to you at the time killed on a motorcycle.’

  ‘Sharka, yes?’

  ‘That’s right, sir.’

  ‘I do indeed remember you. All well?’

  ‘Very good, thank you, sir. The reason I’m calling is that I’m currently at the scene of a single vehicle RTC near Hailsham. Looks like a BMW failed to negotiate a bend and has rolled a couple of times in a field. The driver is a DS in the Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team – and the Control Room said he’s currently working with you on Operation Bantam. His name’s Exton.’

  ‘Shit,’ Grace said. ‘How is he?’

  ‘He’s in the ambulance and the paramedics have just said he’s not badly hurt – he’s mostly suffering from shock and concussion. They’ll know more when they get him X-rayed, but they suspect a couple of broken ribs.’

  ‘Is he conscious?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Has he been breath-tested?’

  ‘Yes, sir, he blew a negative at the scene.’

  ‘Do we know what time this accident occurred, Sharka?’

  ‘It was phoned in by a lorry driver about an hour ago, but it looks like the car could have been there a few hours – its headlights were still on, which indicated it might have been during the night, or very early morning.’

  ‘Any idea of the cause of the accident, or is it too early?’ Grace asked.

  ‘It’s a fairly tight bend, with adverse camber, sir. It has caught people out before – there are warning signs on the approach. Or he could have fallen asleep at the wheel.’