suit, shirt and tie. A former police officer himself, he had rejoined the force as a civilian after retirement. With a small team, he ran the CID headquarters and was responsible for all the equipment here, as well as in the three other Major Crime Suites in the county. He could be an invaluable aide to those officers he respected and a total pain in the butt to those he didn’t, and his judgement was usually right. Fortunately for Roy Grace, they got on well.
Tony Case then raised a second finger. ‘Anyone who comes down here – workmen, cleaners, anyone like that – is escorted all the time.’
‘OK, but there must be some occasions when they would be left alone – and could rummage through files.’
Case looked dubious. ‘Not in a place as sensitive as this evidence store, no.’
Grace nodded. He used to know his way around here blindfolded, but the new team had rearranged the filing. Case opened the door and they went in. Wall-to-ceiling red-painted cages, all with padlocks, stretched into the distance. On the shelves behind them were red and green crates stacked with files, and sealed evidence bags.
‘Anything in particular you want to see?’
‘Yes, the files on the Shoe Man.’ Although Grace had summary files in his office, all the actual evidence was kept securely in here.
Case walked along several yards, then stopped, selected a key from a bunch dangling from his belt and opened a padlock. Then he pulled open the cage door.
‘I know this one,’ he said, ‘because it’s currently being accessed by your team.’
Grace nodded. ‘Do you remember Detective Superintendent Cassian Pewe, who was here last autumn?’
Case gave him a bemused look. ‘Yeah, don’t think I’ll forget him in a hurry. Treated me like his personal lackey. Tried to get me hanging pictures in his office for him. Nothing bad happened to him, I hope. Like he didn’t fall off another cliff and this time didn’t have you around to save him.’
Grace grinned. Saving Pewe’s life had turned out to be the least popular thing he’d ever done.
‘Unfortunately not.’
‘Can’t understand why you didn’t get a bravery medal for what you did, Roy.’
‘I can.’ Grace smiled. ‘I’d only have got it if I’d let him fall.’
‘Don’t worry. He’s a shit. Know what they say about shit?’
‘No.’
‘Shit always falls, eventually, from its own weight.’
76
Wednesday 14 January
Thirty minutes later, Grace sat down in front of ACC Peter Rigg’s vast desk at Malling House, the Sussex Police headquarters. It was 4 p.m.
‘So, Roy, you wanted to see me. Do you have some good news on the Shoe Man?’
‘Possibly, sir.’ Grace gave him a general update and told him he hoped to have more for him after the evening briefing at 6.30 p.m. Then he went on: ‘I have a rather delicate situation that I want to run by you.’
‘Go ahead.’
Grace gave him the background on Cassian Pewe and what had happened during the brief time he had been with Sussex CID. Then he went on to outline his current concerns about the man.
Rigg listened intently, making occasional notes. When Grace had finished he said, ‘So, let me get this clear. Detective Superintendent Pewe was in the right places to be a potential suspect during the Shoe Man’s original attacks back in 1997?’
‘It would appear so, sir.’
‘And again, during these past two weeks, his movements might fit with the current attacks?’
‘I’ve asked him to account for his whereabouts at the times of these three recent attacks, yes, sir.’
‘And you think Detective Superintendent Pewe could be the person who took the pages from the file that could contain crucial evidence?’
‘Pewe was one of only a handful of people with access to that file.’
‘Could he be responsible for these past and present leaks to the press, in your view?’
‘It’s quite possible,’ Grace said.
‘Why? What’s in it for him to do that?’
‘To embarrass us? Perhaps me in particular?’
‘But why?’
‘I can see it quite clearly now, sir. If he could make me look incompetent by undermining me in various ways, he might get me transferred out of CID HQ – and safely away from the cold-case files which could incriminate him.’
‘Is that just theory, or do you have anything concrete?’
‘At the moment it’s just theory. But it fits.’ He shrugged. ‘I just hope I’m not letting the past history cloud my judgement.’
The ACC looked at him. He had a wise face. Then he gave Roy a kindly smile. ‘You mustn’t let this get personal, you know.’
‘I want to avoid that at all costs, sir.’
‘I know your experiences with him were less than satisfactory – and that you put yourself at enormous personal risk in saving him, which has been noted – but he is a very widely respected officer. It’s never good to make enemies. Know that old proverb?’
Grace thought he seemed to he hearing rather a lot of expressions this afternoon. ‘No?’
‘One thousand friends are too few; one enemy is too many.’
Grace smiled. ‘So I should let it drop with Pewe, even if I suspect he may be our man?’
‘No, not at all. I want to start our working relationship on a footing of mutual trust. If you genuinely think he might be our offender, then you should arrest him and I’ll stand by you. But this is a politically sensitive issue and it won’t be too clever if we screw up.’
‘You mean if I screw up?’
Rigg smiled. ‘You’ll be including myself and the Chief Constable in the screw-up, by association. That’s all I’m saying. Make very sure of your facts. There’ll be an awful lot of egg on our faces if you’re wrong.’
‘But even more if I’m right and another woman is attacked and we did nothing.’
‘Just make sure your evidence against him is as watertight as your logic.’
77
Wednesday 14 January
Roy Grace’s rapidly expanding team on Operation Swordfish was now too big to fit comfortably into MIR-1, so he held the 6.30 p.m. briefing in the Conference Room in the Major Incident Suite.
The room could hold twenty-five people seated on the red chairs around the open-centred rectangular table and another thirty standing. One of its uses was for Major Crime briefings for press conferences, and it was to provide a visual backdrop for these that there stood, at the far end opposite the video screen, a concave, two-tone blue board, six feet high and ten feet wide, boldly carrying the Sussex Police website address and the Crime-stoppers legend and phone number.
The Detective Superintendent sat with his back to this, facing the door, as his team filed in, half of them on their phones. One of the last to enter was Norman Potting, who strutted in, looking very pleased with himself.
At 6.30 sharp, Roy Grace opened the meeting by announcing, ‘Team, before I start on the agenda, DS Potting has some news for us.’ He gestured to him to begin.
Potting coughed, then said, ‘I’m pleased to report I’ve arrested a suspect.’
