As the kettle switched itself off, Tom sat back down. ‘I don’t need anyone present.’
‘OK, thank you,’ Roy Grace said. ‘So can you tell me if you have any life insurance cover on Mrs Bryce?’
The man’s eyes darted again to the right. ‘No. I had some on both of us – for the children’s sake – but I had to cancel it a few months ago because of the cost.’ He stood up and went to make the coffee, and run Branson a glass of water. Grace waited until he had sat back down, and he could see his face clearly once more.
‘Have you noticed any change in Mrs Bryce’s behaviour in recent months?’
And now Grace saw the flickering hesitation in Tom Bryce’s eyes; they darted very definitely to the left, to construct mode. He was about to lie to them. ‘No, not at all.’
Then immediately after Tom had said this, he wondered whether it was time to come clean and tell them about the vodka. And about her strange Kellie moments?
But he was scared that if he did they might lose interest. So what the hell was the point in telling them?
Grace picked up his coffee cup, then set it down again without bringing it to his lips. Again fixing on Bryce’s eyes, he asked, ‘Do you have any concerns that Kellie might be having an affair?’
Eyes securely right again. ‘Absolutely none. We have a strong marriage.’
Roy Grace continued with his questions for another half an hour, at the end of which Tom felt the Detective Superintendent had expertly and thoroughly – and at times more than a little unpleasantly – filleted him.
He felt drained as he finally closed the door on them at almost eleven o’clock, and also uncomfortable. It seemed from the DS’s questions – and the way he had reacted to Tom’s answers – that he was to the police a prime suspect. This was something he wanted to change, quickly, because all the time they were suspicious of him, they would be focusing their energies in the wrong direction. And he realized he had forgotten to ask DS Branson why he had kept quiet about the dickhead’s identity this afternoon.
Tom popped his head round the living room door, to see the FLO engrossed in his book. He told him to help himself to anything he fancied in the kitchen, and apologized for not having a spare bed. DC Willingham told him he had had some sleep during the day and planned to stay up all night.
Then Tom climbed upstairs to his den, far too keyed up to contemplate sleep. He had some important emails to write about the morning’s presentation and somehow had to find the strength to concentrate on them.
He tapped the return key on his laptop, to wake it up. Moments later a load of emails downloaded. Twenty, thirty, forty. The junk-mail filter picked up most of them, leaving just half a dozen. Three were from friends, no doubt containing jokes. One was from Olivia, his ever-efficient secretary, listing the week’s appointments and reminding him what he needed for the presentation in the morning. One was from
The last one was from
He double-clicked to read the email. The text was brief and unsigned.
Kellie has a message for you. Remain online.
60
At 11.15 p.m. Emma-Jane Boutwood and Nick Nicholl were still at their desks at the workstation. The rest of the team had left, heading home to their lives, one by one, with the exception of Norman Potting, who was just getting to his feet now, straightening his tie and pulling on his jacket.
A handful of people remained at the other two stations. The surfaces were littered with empty coffee cups, soft-drink cans, food cartons, and the waste bins were overflowing. The room was always fresh first thing in the morning, Emma-Jane thought, and by late evening it smelled like an institutional canteen: a faintly sickly confection of aromas – onion bhajis from the deli counter of the Asda supermarket across the road, pot noodles, potato soup, microwaved burgers and fries, and coffee.
Potting gave a long yawn, then burped. ‘Ooops,’ he said. ‘Pardon me. Them Indian things always do that to me.’ He hesitated for a moment, getting no reaction. ‘Well, I’m off then.’ Then he lingered where he was. ‘Either of you care for a quick jar? One for the road on the way home? I know a place that will serve us.’
Both shook their heads. Nick Nicholl was engrossed in what appeared to be, at least to Emma-Jane, a difficult personal call on his mobile. From the few words she had caught it sounded as if he was trying to pacify his wife, who was upset about something. Probably that her husband was still at work at this hour on a Sunday. In a way, although she missed having a boyfriend – it was a year since she had broken up with Olli – Emma-Jane was relieved that she had no one in her life at the moment. It meant she could concentrate on her career and not have to feel guilty about the crazy hours she put in.
Ignoring the fact that Nicholl was talking, Potting leaned closer to his face and asked, ‘Don’t suppose you heard the cricket score? I was trying to find it on the net.’
Nicholl glanced up at him, shook his head then focused on his call again.
Hesitating again, Potting dug his hands in his trouser pockets and repeated, ‘Well, I’m off then.’
Emma-Jane raised a hand. ‘Bye, have a nice evening.’
‘Just about time to get home and back before tomorrow,’ he growled. ‘See you at eight thirty.’
‘Look forward to it!’ she said, a touch facetiously. Taking a sip of mineral water from a bottle, she watched him walk across the room, a shapeless man in a badly creased suit. Although she found him gross, in truth she felt a little sorry for him because he seemed so desperately lonely. She resolved to try to be nicer to him tomorrow.
She screwed the cap back on the bottle, then resumed working her way through the statements from Reggie D’Eath’s neighbours, which had been taken down earlier today by the house-to-house enquiry team. She was also working on trying to find out more information about the white Ford Transit van that had been clocked outside his house the previous night by one of the dead man’s neighbours.
Even though the D’Eath murder enquiry was being run by a different team, Grace believed it had enough relevance to Operation Nightingale for his team to be fully up to speed on all aspects of the enquiry at this stage.
On her desk was the licence number GU03OAG. Its registered owner was a company called Bourneholt International Ltd, with an address, a PO box number, that she would not be able to check out until the morning. When she’d shown it to Norman Potting, earlier, he’d told her that more than likely it was nothing more than an accommodation address. That seemed likely as nothing came up for the name in a search on the internet.
One of the phones on the workstation started ringing. Nick was still hunched over his desk talking into his mobile so E-J picked up the receiver. ‘Incident Room,’ she said.
The voice at the other end sounded brisk but courteous. ‘Hi, it’s Adam Davies here from Southern Resourcing Centre. Could you put me on to Detective Superintendent Grace?’ Southern Resourcing was the call handling centre where all non-emergency calls were answered and assessed by trained handlers like Davies.
‘I’m afraid he’s out at the moment. Can I help you?’
‘I need to speak to someone on Operation Nightingale.’
‘I’m DC Boutwood, part of the Operation Nightingale team,’ she replied, feeling proud at saying it.
‘I have a gentleman by the name of Mr Seiler on the line phoning about a white van. I ran a registration check on the number he gave me, and it came up on the system that DS Grace has put a PNC marker on this vehicle. I thought he might want to speak to the gentleman.’
‘Is he the owner of it?’
‘No, apparently it’s parked outside his flat. He made a complaint earlier this evening – it was logged at six forty p.m.’
‘It was?’ Emma-Jane said, surprised, wondering why this hadn’t been picked up by anyone. ‘Please put him on.’
Moments later she was talking to an elderly, irate man with a guttural Germanic accent. ‘Hello, yes. You are not the police officer I am speaking with earlier?’ he asked.
Jamming the phone against her ear with her shoulder, the young Detective Constable was tapping the keyboard furiously. Seconds later she found the 6.40 p.m. entry, logged by a Detective Sergeant Jon Rye of the
