Dead Man's Grip

They continued watching. Then, to Grace’s excitement, the car reappeared, this time travelling west.

‘It’s gone round the roundabout at the Palace Pier, doing a U-turn!’ he said. ‘Where’s the next camera?’

‘Other than the dud one opposite the Regency Square car park, the next is a mile to the west, on Brunswick Lawns.’

‘Let’s look at that one,’ Grace said.

Five minutes later, which indicated the vehicle was sticking rigidly to the speed limit, and allowing for a couple of traffic-light stops and the roadworks delay, the car appeared, still travelling west.

‘Where’s the next?’ Grace asked.

‘That’s the last of the city’s CCTV cameras in this direction, sir,’ Pumfrey said.

‘OK. Now let’s see if this vehicle has triggered any ANPR camera since 11.15 a.m. What’s the first one west of this position?’

Pumfrey turned to a different computer and entered the data. Grace noticed his partially eaten lunch on the wooden table beside him. An empty plastic lunchbox, a coil of orange peel and an unopened yoghurt. Healthy, he thought, depending of course on what had been in the sandwich.

‘Here we are: 11.54 a.m. This is the ANPR camera at the bottom of Boundary Road, Hove, at the junction with the end of the Kingsway.’

Suddenly a photograph of the front of a dark grey Yaris appeared on the screen, its number plate clearly visible, but the occupant hard to make out through an almost opaque screen. By looking very closely it was possible to distinguish what might have been someone in a baseball cap and dark glasses, but without any certainty.

‘Can’t we get a better image of the face?’ Branson asked.

‘Depends how the light hits the windscreen,’ Pumfrey replied. ‘These particular cameras are designed to read number plates, I’m afraid, not faces. I can send it for enhancement if you want?’

‘Yes, both of those images, please,’ Grace said. ‘Is that the only ANPR it’s triggered?’

‘The only one showing today.’

Grace did a mental calculation. If the driver avoided breaking the law, and with a kidnapped child on board he would not want to risk getting stopped… The exit from the car park on to King’s Road was a left turn only… That meant he would have driven east to the end of King’s Road and then gone round the roundabout, by the Palace Pier, and then come back on himself. Allowing for the distance and hold-ups at traffic lights, that would put the car there at the right time from its sighting on King’s Road. Excitement was growing inside him.

The car’s location was alongside Shoreham Harbour, close to Southwick. He was certain that the sadist knew this area. A lot of villains perpetrated their crimes in the places they knew, their comfort zones. He made a note of a new line of enquiry, to have Duncan Crocker do a search on all previous violent crimes in this area. But first, still staring at the frozen image of the front of the Yaris and the faint silhouette of its driver, on the monitor, he called for a PNC check on the car.

The information came back almost immediately that the owner was a male, Barry Simons, who lived in Worthing, West Sussex, some fifteen miles to the west of Brighton. Grace’s excitement waned at this news. That fitted with the car’s occupant and position, heading in the direction where he lived. The only thing that kept him hopeful was the fact that the Yaris appeared to have stopped somewhere in Shoreham or Southwick. He was about to call Gold to ask him to get the helicopter over there and block off the area when his phone rang.

It was Duncan Crocker. ‘Roy, we’ve found a car, a Toyota Yaris, driving on those switched plates taken from the service station at Newport Pagnell – the plates from the woman’s car – that twenty-seven-year-old who was stopped on the M11 near Brentwood. It’s just pinged an ANPR camera, heading north from Brighton on the A23.’

97

Tyler tried kicking again. He could hear the hollow metallic boom-boom-boom echo around him.

What if the man did not come back?

There was a story he had read – he was trying to remember the book – in which someone was locked in the boot of a car and nearly suffocated. How long could you stay in one? How long had he already been here? Was there any sharp edge he could rub against? He tried rolling over, exploring the space as best he could, but it was tiny and seemed to be completely carpeted.

His watch was luminous but he couldn’t see the face. He had lost all track of time. He didn’t know how long the man had been gone, whether it was still day out there or if night had fallen. If the man did not come back, how long would it be, he wondered, before someone wondered about a strange car?

Then he had a sudden panic about Friend Mapper. Had his mother remembered to log on? She made him keep it on all the time, but she often forgot herself. And she was crap with technology.

Maybe he should keep kicking, in case someone passed by and heard him. But he was scared. If the man came back and heard him he might get really angry. He had just made the decision to wait a little longer when he heard footsteps approaching – quick, sharp crunches. Then he felt the car tilt slightly.

Someone had got in.

98

In the CCTV room, Grace stared at the frontal photograph of a dark grey Toyota Yaris on a familiar stretch of the A23, just north of Brighton. But to his dismay the windscreen was even more opaque than the car by Shoreham Harbour in the previous photograph. He could see nothing at all inside, no shadows or silhouettes, no clue as to how many people might be in it.

Branson immediately informed Gold, then listened intently to his radio.

Grace ordered Jon Pumfrey to put out a high-act nationwide marker on the car. He did not intend to take any risks. Then he sat for a moment, clenching his fists. Maybe, finally, this was it.

‘What CCTV units do you have on the A23?’ he asked the controller.

‘The only fixed ones are ANPRs on the motorway. The next one, if he keeps heading north, is Gatwick.’

Grace was feeling excitement but, at the same time, frustration. He would have liked to be out there, on the road, present when they stopped the car. Pumfrey pulled up a road map on to one of the monitors, showing the position of the two ANPR cameras. There were plenty of opportunities for the suspect to turn off the motorway. But with luck the helicopter would have him in sight imminently.

He turned back to the bank of monitors and looked at the car that had been photographed heading east along the seafront, owned, according to its registration document, by Barry Simons. Just as a precaution, he phoned the Incident Room. Nick Nicholl answered. Grace tasked him with finding Barry Simons and establishing for certain that he had been driving his car along Brighton seafront this morning.

From the suspect’s current position on the A23, it would take him about twenty-five minutes, Grace estimated, to ping that next ANPR camera at Gatwick. On the radio he could follow the developments. This was a true fast- time operation. The helicopter, which was also fitted with ANPR, would be over the M23 in ninety seconds. One unmarked car was already on the motorway, approximately two miles behind the target, and two more were only minutes away. It was policy in kidnap pursuits to use unmarked cars wherever possible. That way, the perpetrator would not panic as he might at the sight of a marked car passing him, with the risk of involving his victim in a high- speed chase. If they could get unmarked cars in front of and behind the suspect, a minimum of three vehicles, and preferably four, they could box him in – TPAC him – before he realized what was happening.

‘I need to get back to Sussex House,’ Glenn said.

‘Me too.’

‘I can patch any images you want through to you in the Incident Room,’ Pumfrey said.

Grace thanked him and the two detectives left. As they walked out of the rear of the building into the car park, Grace’s phone rang. It was Inspector Sue Carpenter at the Regency Square car park.