by Peter James
‘How long have you been looking after her?’
‘Ten years. I lived away from home for a few years, then my dad was sick with Parkinson’s and Mum had a minor stroke and wasn’t able to look after him, so I moved back in with them. He died and I – I sort of stayed on, looking after her.’
‘That’s dedication.’
‘I suppose.’ She smiled wistfully and he sensed even more strongly her deep inner sadness.
She drained her glass and he ordered her another, downing his own too and getting a pleasant buzz from the alcohol. He was enjoying himself. It was good having some company. And he had to admit it, he’d really, really enjoyed being on television. Live television! Roy Grace had called him twenty minutes ago telling him he’d just watched the recording and congratulating him on giving a command performance – even if he had stolen his line about cold cases and the identifying of the victim!
There had been a flurry of calls but no positive leads so far. They’d agreed Grace would take the morning briefing so that he and Bella didn’t have to rush back at dawn.
Which meant he could enjoy himself for a while longer. Away from Brighton and for the first time in a long while not feeling all chewed up inside about Ari and his kids. And suddenly he found himself staring at Bella not as a colleague, but as a guy out on a date would. He didn’t want this evening to end just yet. Instead he found himself wondering what it might be like to sleep with her.
Their eyes met. She had big, soulful eyes. A pretty nose. He liked her slender neck, although that crucifix bothered him some. Was she a prude? Why had she got divorced? He needed to know more about her. ‘Do you have – you know – like – a fella?’
She smiled evasively. ‘Not really. No one – you know – that I’m an item with.’
‘Oh?’ His hopes rose. There had been several times in the past when he had looked at the DS in briefings, munching away almost obsessively on her Maltesers as if they were a Freudian substitute for something else, and thought to himself that with a makeover she could be really attractive. And now here she was, smelling of an alluring scent, and with just that makeover. Although he could improve on her further, if she gave him the chance. And, he decided, emboldened and increasingly amorous from the drink, he was going to try to persuade her to give him that chance.
Roy Grace had told him, on a couple of occasions recently, that he needed to accept that his marriage was over – had been, in reality, for a long time – and that he should start seriously considering a new relationship. Well, he thought, this just might be it.
They chatted on for a while, and she finished her second Cosmopolitan.
‘Have another!’ he said, draining his second beer – or was it his third? A cheesy song was playing in the background, ‘Lady In Red’. Not normally his kind of music, but it was doing it for him at this moment.
‘I have to go to bed,’ she said, slipping off her bar stool, suddenly, surprising him with her abruptness. ‘It’s been a great evening!’ She gave him a quick, damp peck on the cheek and was gone.
He sat there, reflectively nursing his empty glass, then ordered another pint. He listened to more cheesy songs, savouring that soft, wet touch of her lips, and thinking, for the first time since Ari had told him their marriage was over, that maybe it was possible to find a new life.
And that he might have found the person to start it with.
44
Like all police officers, Roy Grace had long been conditioned to arrive early for meetings of any kind, at any level. The Wednesday morning Operation Icon briefing had been short, with little progress to report in the past twenty-four hours. Their best hopes of a breakthrough, at this stage, were pinned on a positive response from Glenn Branson’s appearance on Crimewatch.
At a quarter to ten, he showed his warrant card to the security officer on the gates at Malling House, then drove through the barrier. He was still privately smiling after his encounter with Amis Smallbone last night. He couldn’t help it. He had no doubt the creep was swearing and cussing, and that his head was full of all kinds of retribution, but he had equally no doubt that Smallbone would not go within ten miles of Cleo ever again.
He parked and stepped out of his car into a fresh, warm, early summer morning. He walked across the complex of buildings towards a modern, functional building that housed the visitors’ reception desk, entered the large waiting area, and gave his name to one of the uniformed receptionists.
Then he sat down and picked up a copy of the Police Federation magazine and began idly flicking through it, scanning with interest several articles mentioning officers he knew. After a few minutes a shadow fell over him and he looked up.
It never mattered what the nature of his business was with officers from PSD – the Professional Standards Department – he always felt a tad nervous dealing with them. They were, essentially, the force’s own police force, whose job was to investigate both public complaints and any internal misconduct of their fellow officers. It didn’t matter that they might once have been colleagues, as Detective Superintendent Michael Evans had indeed been; they now played for a culturally different team. They were perceived by some as the enemy, even when you were seeking their help or advice.
‘Good to see you, Roy. Long time!’
Grace stood up. It had been several years since they’d last met. A sprinter with the Sussex Police Athletics team, the Detective Superintendent was a wiry forty-five-year-old, with a shaven head and a slightly world-weary cynicism in his eyes. ‘Good to see you too.’
Evans frowned. ‘Did things ever get resolved about your wife – Sandy, wasn’t it?’
He clearly wasn’t up to speed, Grace thought. ‘Nope. It’ll be ten years in a couple of months. I’m going through the process of having her declared legally dead. I’m planning to get married again.’
Evans pursed his lips and nodded, like some inane troll on a toy counter. For some reason his expression reminded Grace that he needed to buy a birthday present for his god-daughter, Jaye Somers, who would be ten in August. Then he said, ‘Word of advice, Roy, make sure you get all that buttoned up. You know, just in case . . .’
‘I know.’
Compliance was a big current issue in the police force. There had been too many scandals over expenses and police relationships recently. They were all walking on eggshells these days.
He followed Evans a short distance to the modern block where the PSD was housed, then along a corridor and into a small, boxlike office, and took one of the two chairs opposite his desk. The office was that of a man who lived a neat, orderly life. Tidy desk, tidy shelves, regulation framed photos of a perfect-looking wife against a blank, blue background, and cute kids against beige backgrounds. Nothing to give any hint of any interests. It was, he imagined, like a KGB member’s office during the height of the Cold War.
‘So how can we help you, Roy?’ he asked, settling down behind his desk and not offering any drinks.
‘You may remember I mentioned to you a while ago I’ve been concerned about leaks of key information on a number of murder enquiries I’ve been running during the past year,’ Grace said. ‘It’s still going on and I need advice from you on dealing with the situation.’
Evans opened a lined notebook, identical to the Policy Books that were maintained during Major Crime enquiries. He jotted down the date and Grace’s name. ‘Right. Can you give me details?’
For the next thirty minutes, Grace talked him through the cases, during the past twelve months, where Kevin Spinella always seemed to have privileged information on what was happening, long before any press officer had circulated it. Sometimes, Spinella had called him only minutes after he himself had been informed of a murder. All the time he kept an eye on the notes Evans was taking – he had long been skilled at reading upside down.
When Grace had finished, Evans said, ‘Well, so far as I can see there are three scenarios. The first is someone in your team is providing the information. The second is another member of
police staff, perhaps even the press office. If you can let me have this Kevin Spinella’s phone number, we’ll run a check on all outgoing calls made from police phones to see if that picks up anything. We can also run a check on work computers to see if there’s any communication between him and any police staff. It could be he has a hold on someone in the Force – either on an officer or a member of civilian staff. And of course the third scenario, which is a hot topic at the moment, is that someone’s hacked into your phone. What do you use?’
‘My BlackBerry, mostly.’
‘My advice to you is to take the phone to the High Tech Crime Unit, and get them to see if it’s clean, in the first instance. If it is, come back and we’ll see what the next step is.’
Grace thanked him for the advice. Then he hesitated for a moment, Michael Evans’s friendly attitude making him wonder whether he should say anything about Amis Smallbone, to head off any possible complaint by the creep. But he decided against. Smallbone, out of prison after a long sentence, was going to concentrate on building his crime empire up again; he wouldn’t risk further wrath from himself by making an issue out of last night. He might seek some kind of revenge against him, down the line, but he would have to deal with that as and when.
He drove back to Sussex House, then wound his way along the corridors of the ground floor to the rear of the building, and entered the High Tech Crime Unit. To the casual observer, most of it didn’t look any different to many of the other departments in the building. An open-plan area, densely packed with workstations, on several of which stood large server towers, and on some, the entrails of disembowelled computers as well.
A plain clothes Sergeant was in charge of the unit, and many of the people working there were civilian computer experts. One of them, Ray Packham, hunched over a computer on the far side of the room, he knew well, and had worked with on a number of recent cases. A pleasant-looking man in his forties, neatly dressed, he had the quietly efficient air of a bank manager. On the screen in front of him were rows of numbers and digits that were meaningless to Grace.
‘How long can you spare it for, Roy?’ he asked, taking the BlackBerry.
‘I can’t spare it at all,’ he said. ‘I’m in the early days of a new murder enquiry. And I have to help safeguard Gaia, who’s arriving today. How long would you need it?’
Packham’s eyes lit up. ‘Could you do me a big favour, Roy? Get her autograph for Jen? She’s crazy about her!’
‘I’ll be getting her autograph for half of Sussex Police and their beloveds at this rate! Sure, I’ll try.’
‘I’ve got to finish an urgent job I’m on – I wouldn’t be able to start looking at it until later today at the earliest. But I can clone it, if you give me an hour, and keep that, so you can have the phone back.’
‘Okay, that would be great.’
‘Where are you going to be?’
‘Either in my office or MIR-1.’
‘I’ll bring it up to you as soon as I can.’
‘You’re a good man.’
‘Tell Jen!’
Grace grinned. Packham doted on his wife and his new, crazy beagle puppy, Hudson. ‘How is she?’
‘Good. Her diabetes is much more under control, thanks for asking.’
‘And Hudson?’
‘Busy trashing the house.’
Grace grinned. ‘He should meet Humphrey. Actually, on second thoughts, better not. They might swap ideas on new ways to eat a sofa.’
45
At 12.30 p.m. Colin Bourner, the doorman of The Grand Hotel, stood proudly outside the handsome portals of the historic building he loved so much, sharp and elegant in his black and grey uniform. Built in 1864, its swanky interior had once boasted the first lifts in England outside of London. A darker chapter of its history came in 1984, when the IRA blew it up in an unsuccessful attempt at killing the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.
The hotel had been lavishly rebuilt, but in recent years, under different management, had lost much of its kudos. Now under a passionate new manager, Andrew Mosley, it was steadily climbing back to its former glory. As testament to that was the quality of cars parked outside in the crescented driveway, for which he had the keys in his safe keeping. A black Bentley saloon. A red Bentley coupé. A silver Ferrari and a dark green Aston Martin. Also parked outside, less conspicuously, an unmarked silver Ford Focus, with two police officers from the Close Protection Unit inside.
And the surest endorsement of all for any establishment with high aspirations, a large cluster of paparazzi crowded the pavement outside and some, with long lenses, across the street. Accompanying them were outside broadcast units from both local television stations and Southern Counties Radio, along with a growing crowd of excited onlookers, as well as a cluster of Gaia fans, several holding record sleeves, CD booklets, or copies of her autobiography. A number of them were dressed wildly, in homage to some of their idol’s more outlandish stage appearances.
Bourner was excited too. High-profile celebrities were good for his hotel’s image. And, with luck, he might get Gaia’s autograph himself! For the next month this place was going to be fizzing with excitement. Brighton had its share of star visitors, but rarely the calibre of the one they were expecting at any minute.
After the vile weather of yesterday, there was a clear sky, and beyond the promenade on the far side of the busy road in front of him, the flat sea was deep blue. Brighton looked its glorious best; a fitting welcome for the star.
Suddenly a convoy of three black Range Rovers swept into the drive and pulled up in front of him, in perfect synchronization, leaving a large gap between each of them.
Bourner stepped forward towards the first one, through a strobing blaze of camera flashlights. But before he reached it, the front and rear doors opened, and four scowling heavies emerged. All of them were north of six feet tall, wearing identical black suits, white shirts and slim black ties, with headsets hooked over their ears and wrap-around sunglasses. None of them seemed to have a neck.
A matching set of besuited giants emerged from the second car. From the third climbed a white man in his mid-thirties, of average height, dressed in dark suit and tie, accompanied by three hawk-eyed, power-dressed women, also in their thirties, the doorman estimated.
‘Hello, gentlemen!’ he said to the first group.
One of them, who made King Kong look like a circus midget, peered down at him and in a thick American accent said, ‘This The Grand?’
‘It is indeed, sir,’ Colin Bourner said breezily. ‘Did you have a pleasant journey?’
The white man in the sharp suit strode up to him. He had slick, jet-black hair and spoke out of the side of his mouth with a whiney accent. He reminded Bourner of one of his favourite old Hollywood movie stars, James Cagney. ‘We’re the advance security team for Gaia. Can you take care of the baggage?’
‘Of course, sir.’
A bunch of bank notes was pressed into his palm. It was only later, when he checked them, that he realized they totalled £1,000. Gaia had a policy of tip big and tip early. There was no point in tipping on your last day, in her view. Tip on your first, to make sure you get good service.
Instead of entering the hotel, the eight bodyguards lined up, four either side of the revolving doors.
Moments later there was a cheer from the crowd across the road and another eruption of flashes. A black Bentley saloon swept into the driveway and, clearly pre-rehearsed, pulled into the space between the first and second Range Rover, right in front of the doors.
Colin Bourner leapt forward but was outflanked by four of the bodyguards who got there before him, blocking his view, and opened the rear door of the car. They were joined by another two. The star and her six-year-old son stepped out to a barrage of flashlights and shouts from the paparazzi: ‘Gaia!’ ‘Gaia, over here!’ ‘Gaia, this way!’ ‘Gaia! Hi!’ ‘This way, Gaia!’ ‘Gaia, darling, over here!’
She was dressed in an elegant camel two-piece, and smiling; the littl
e boy in baggy jeans and a grey Los Angeles Dodgers T-shirt was scowling. Her flaxen hair glinted in the sun as she turned and gave a sunny wave to the photographers and the crowd across the road. Moments later she vanished from view as the security guards closed around her, cocooning her and the boy and sweeping them through into the hotel lobby, past more hopefuls clutching record sleeves and CD booklets, and straight to the lift.
None of the entourage paid much attention to the gaunt, cadaverous-looking man in a drab, grey sports jacket over a plain cream shirt, who was reading a newspaper and apparently waiting for a friend or a taxi.
But he was paying a lot of attention to them.
46
‘Did you fall off your bicycle?’ Angela McNeill asked, clutching a file folder in her hand.
Eric Whiteley, seated in his tomb-like back office, was in flustered mood. Things weren’t going right today, at all. He had meant to come in even earlier than usual, so that he could leave the office early, but instead, for the first time in all the years he had worked for this accountancy firm, he had arrived late.
And now he was being interrupted while eating his lunch – which was something he hated. He considered eating a private function.
His tuna mayo sandwich, with sliced tomato on wholegrain, and one bite taken from it, lay in its opened wrapper on his desk. The Twix bar, apple and bottle of sparkling water lay beside it. In front of him was the front page of the Argus, with its headline: Gaia fever hits Brighton!
‘No, I did not fall off my bicycle; I’ve never fallen off my bicycle, actually, well not for a very long time.’ He eyed his meal, anxious to return to it.
This woman was new to the firm. A professional book-keeper, widowed two years ago, she had been trying for some time to strike up a friendship with Eric, the only single man in the firm. She didn’t find him attractive, but she sensed he was lonely, like herself, and that perhaps they could be occasional companions, go to plays or concerts. But she could not figure him out. From the brief conversations they’d had, she knew he wasn’t married, and he didn’t appear to have a girlfriend. But she didn’t think he was gay, either. With her finger she traced a line down her cheek, mirroring the mark on his face. ‘What happened?’
