A few minutes before eight thirty, having showered, grabbed a quick bowl of cereal and, although it was Saturday, thrown on a dark suit, white shirt and plain tie – not knowing what the day would bring and who he might have to meet – Grace arrived at MIR One in the Major Incident Suite in a filthy mood, ready to skin someone alive.
His whole team was already there, waiting for him – and by the looks on their faces, all of them had seen the
Just in case they hadn’t, he thumped the paper down on the workstation. By way of a greeting he said, ‘OK, who the fuck is responsible for this?’
Glenn Branson, Nick Nicholl, Bella Moy, Emma-Jane Boutwood, Norman Potting and the rest of the team all stared back at him blank-faced.
Grace fixed his accusatory gaze on Norman Potting as his first port of call. ‘Any thoughts, Norman?’ he said.
‘The writer on the piece is that young journo, Kevin Spinella,’ Potting rumbled in his deep rural voice. ‘That bugger’s always trouble, isn’t he?’
Grace suddenly realized that in his anger he had neglected to look at the byline. It was because he was tired; he did not have his brain fully in gear after his sleepless night. A long run normally charged him up, but at this moment he felt drained and badly in need of a strong coffee. And the smell of the stuff was rising tantalizingly from several cups on the desk.
Kevin Spinella was a recent recruit to the paper, a young, sharp-voiced rookie crime reporter, fast carving a reputation for himself at the expense of the Sussex Police. Grace had had a previous run-in with this journalist, as had most of his colleagues.
‘OK, Norman, your first task today is to get hold of this scumbag and find out where he got his story from.’
The Detective Sergeant pulled a face then sipped on his styrofoam cup of coffee. ‘He’ll probably just tell me he’s protecting his sources,’ he said with a smugness that really irritated Grace.
Grace had to restrain himself from yelling at the man because the truth was, Potting was probably right.
‘The problem is, Roy,’ Branson said, ‘we’ve got a hundred Specials drafted in, searching for the victim’s head. Could be one of them. Could be one of the SOCOs. Could have come from the Coroner’s office. Or the mortuary.’
He was right, Grace knew. That was the problem with a major enquiry like this. Everyone was curious, that was human nature. It only needed one careless person to leak anything and it would spread in minutes.
But the bloody damage that could do. Or had done.
Parking the issue for the moment, he ran through the list that Bella Moy and Eleanor had prepared, and would continue to update, twice daily, throughout this enquiry. Then Norman Potting interrupted him.
‘You never know, Roy; we might be able to pin something on this Kevin Spinella.’
‘Like what?’ Grace said.
‘Well, I heard rumours that he might be a brown-hatter. You know, a turd-burglar.’
Grace, his heart sinking, felt another Potting moment coming on. ‘Gay is the word we use.’
‘Exactly, my friend.’
Grace stared at him sternly. Norman Potting was just so out of touch with the real world. ‘And how exactly would that help us?’
Potting pulled a briar pipe, with a well-chewed stem, out of his suit pocket and stared at it with pursed lips. ‘I’m wondering how the editor of the Argus, the voice of the City of Brighton and Hove, would feel about having a poof working for him.’
Grace could scarcely believe his ears. ‘Norman, as the City of Brighton and Hove has the largest gay community in the whole of the UK, I think he’d be quite happy if the entire editorial team was gay.’
Potting turned to Emma-Jane and gave her a broad wink, a bead of spittle appearing in the corner of his mouth. Jerking his thumb at his own chest he said, ‘It’s all right, darling; lucky there’re still a few
‘When I find one, I will,’ she said.
‘Norman,’ Grace said, ‘the language you’re using is totally unacceptable. I want to see you in my office straight after this meeting.’
Then to the team he said, ‘OK, let’s focus. E-J and I have an appointment at an insect farm in Bromley at eleven. Norman, you have your day cut out with Spinella and your follow-ups on Janie Stretton’s answering machine.’
He continued on through the list of the day’s tasks for each member of the team. All being well there would be a one-hour window this afternoon for himself and Glenn to meet in downtown Brighton, and do a spot of serious clothes shopping.
Then he tried to push aside the guilt he felt for just thinking this when all his attention should have been concentrated on Janie Stretton. Surely, after all the years of hell he had been through, he was allowed one treat, just occasionally?
Then, like a dark cloud slipping over the sun, he thought about Sandy again. She was always there, quietly in the background. It was as if he needed her approval for anything he did. He thought guiltily about her belongings that only a couple of hours or so ago he had dumped into a black bin liner. In case he brought Cleo Morey back home tonight?
Or just to try to clear his past, to make way for the future?
Sometime soon, when he had a moment to himself, he would go to an estate agent and put the bloody house on the market.
Even just the thought of that was like some giant weight lifting from his shoulders.
Glenn Branson’s phone rang. He glanced at Grace, who nodded approval for him to answer.
‘Incident room, DS Branson speaking. How can I help you?’
‘Do you know why most men die before their wives?’ Norman Potting suddenly said.
Grace, trying to listen to Branson’s conversation, braced himself for what was coming next.
In response to a sea of shaking heads, Potting said, ‘Because they want to!’
All the women groaned loudly in unison. Glenn Branson clapped the phone closely to his head and covered his opposite ear with his hand, trying to blot out the sound.
Potting, the only person who seemed to find his joke funny, was chortling away to himself.
‘Thank you, Norman,’ Grace said.
‘Got a whole lot more where that came from,’ the DS said.
‘I’ll bet you have,’ Grace retorted. ‘But it is a quarter to nine on a Saturday morning. Maybe you’d like to tell us some a bit later on, after we’ve arrested our killer?’
‘Good plan!’ Potting said, after some pensive moments. ‘Can’t fault you on that one, Roy.’
Grace stared back at the man. It was hard to tell sometimes whether he was being smart or just totally stupid. From past experience with the Detective Sergeant, he seemed, usually, to manage to be both simultaneously.
Branson, dressed today in an expensive-looking collarless leather jacket over a black T-shirt, was scribbling a number down on his pad. ‘Ten minutes,’ he said. ‘I’ll call you back. No, don’t worry. Absolutely. Thank you.’
Everyone had suddenly fallen silent, watching him. As Branson hung up the receiver he said, ‘Another possible lead.’
‘Any good?’ Grace asked.
‘A man was calling me from a payphone – he was scared to talk from his home. Then he started worrying about a car parked down the street. He wanted to walk past it, check it out. I have to call him back in exactly ten minutes.’ Branson checked his watch, a massive, stainless-steel rectangle that he liked to show off ad nauseam. It was a Russian divers’ watch, he told everyone, which he had bought from some trendy shop in Brighton. It was meant to be the largest wristwatch in the world. Grace had seen grandfather clocks that had smaller faces.
They had logged over two hundred and fifty calls from the public since the story of the murder first broke on Wednesday afternoon. All of them had to be followed up, and all but a tiny percentage would amount to nothing. Now with the information about the scarab beetle in today’s
