trying to block from his ears the swinging of doors opening and closing, the cheery banter of greetings, the clicks of briefcase locks, the murmured voices between lawyers and clients. After a couple of minutes he took two deep breaths, and the oxygen hit gave him an instant small boost. He stood up and looked around. In a moment he might find out whether he would be needed or not today. Hopefully not, and he could get back to Sussex House, he thought, looking around for the person he needed to speak to, Liz Reilly from the Crown Prosecution Service.
There were a good hundred people in the room, including several gowned barristers and assistants, and he spotted Liz at the other end of the room, a smartly dressed, conservative-looking woman in her early thirties, holding a clipboard and deep in conversation with a barrister he did not recognize. He walked across and stood near them, catching her signal that she would be with him in a moment. When she finally broke away. from the barrister, she looked excited. 'We have a possible new witness!' 'Really? Who?' 'A call-girl from Brighton. She rang the GPS last night saying she's been following the trial in the papers, and alleging that Suresh Hossain beat her up during a session with her.
The sex session was on the night of February 10th last year, in Brighton.' February 10 was the night of the murder for which Suresh Hossain was on trial. 'Hossain has a cast-iron alibi that he was at dinner in London with two friends that night. Both have testified,' Grace said. 'Yes he has, but they are both employees of Hossain. This girl isn't. She's terrified of him - the reason she hasn't come forward before is she's been threatened with her life if she does. And there's a problem, which is she doesn't trust the police. That's why she rang us, rather than the police.' 'How credible do you think she is?'
'Very,' she said. 'We'd need some high-level witness protection for her.'
'Whatever she wants. Anything!' Grace wrung his hands in excitement. He wanted to hug Liz Reilly. This was wonderful news. Wonderful! 'But someone's going to have to go and convince her that the police won't bust her for - you know - her trade.' 'Where's she now?' 'At her home.' Grace looked at his watch. 'I could go and see her right away. Is that possible?'
'Go in an unmarked car.'
'Yes, and I'll take a WPC with me who can stay with her. We don't want to give Hossain any chance of getting at her. I want to go and see her and persuade her to come in right away.'
'If you play her carefully, you'll be pushing on an open door.' Suddenly, Grace wasn't tired any more.
83
It was shortly after midday when he arrived back in the Incident Room. The witness, Shelley Sandier, was good, he thought. Mid twenties, intelligent, articulate, vulnerable, she'd be highly credible in court. Just so long as she didn't panic and change her mind at the last minute, as so often happened. But she seemed determined to get back at Hossain. Very, very determined. This was such good news. After a shaky few days last week, it now looked to Grace as if getting the verdict he so badly wanted was going to be achievable. The full team were at the work station, plus two new assistants, a young male constable and a middle-aged female assistant, so he called a briefing meeting, telling them all to stay seated. Keeping his voice low, as the other work stations were occupied also with teams hard at work,
Nick Nicholl spoke first. 'Roy, the receipt we took earlier this morning from Miss Harper's house, two thousand, four hundred and thirty-seven pounds for a scanner?'
'Uh huh.'
'I got all the information on it from Century Radio.' He handed a few printed sheets off a web page to Grace. 'The rest of us have seen this.' Grace looked at it.
AR5000 Receiver 'Cyber Scan'. Incredible 10Khz-2600Mhz Frequency Range! The AR5000 advances the frontiers of performance, providing excellent strong signal handling, high sensitivity and wide frequency coverage with microprocessor facilities to match including 5 independent VFOs, 1,000 memory channels, 20 search banks, Cyber Scan fast scan and search including all mobile frequencies. Scanning and search speed is 45 channels or increments per second...
He turned to Branson. 'You're the best techie I know. I think I have already guessed what this thing is - can you confirm?'
'It's a state-of-the-art radio frequency scanner. It's the kind of thing used by Citizens' Band radio nuts to find new friends, to eavesdrop on police radio networks or on mobile calls.' Grace nodded. Then to Emma-Jane Boutwood he said, 'Do we have any evidence that Ashley Harper was ever into Citizens' Band radio either in her current incarnation or any previous one?'
'We don't,' she said. 'No.' He looked at the colour picture of the scanner. A large silver box on its own legs, with a dial on the front, and the same perplexing array of knobs and buttons you'd find on any complex piece of radio kit. 'So, on Tuesday night her fiance disappears. Wednesday afternoon at two-thirty she legs it to London and buys a radio scanner for two and a half thousand quid. Any good theories why? And how the hell did she knew how to use it?' 'Desperation?' volunteered Nick Nicholl. 'I don't buy that,' Grace said.
'She obviously genuinely did not know where he was,' Bella Moy suggested. Grace nodded distractedly. That made sense, but to him it did not fit. 'She might have known that Michael Harrison had a walkietalkie. Perhaps it was to try to communicate with him?' Emma-Jane Boutwood said. 'Or - how about - to listen in to who else he might be communicating with?' Grace was impressed. 'Yes, good thinking.' He looked around. 'Any more theories? OK, let's park this for a moment. Any other progress?'
'Yes,' Nick Nicholl said. 'After you left Ashley Harper's house, Joe Tindall started pulling up floorboards. We discovered an envelope full of receipts behind a chest of drawers we moved - it might have fallen there accidentally or it might have been hidden. Most of the receipts don't seem that interesting to us, but there is one here you should see.' It was for 1,500 pounds from a company with a Maddox Street, London Wl address, called Conquest Escorts. Underneath the name was the legend 'Discreet, charming male and female escorts for every occasion'. Two dates were shown - the previous Saturday, the intended day of Ashley Harper's wedding, and the previous Monday.
'Turn it over, Roy,' Nick Nicholl said. 'Take a look at the other side.'
Grace turned it over and saw written in ballpoint pen the name Bradley Cunningham. His mind shot back to the conversation he had had with Ashley, in her house, on Friday night. He could remember her sitting there so dejectedly, talking about her Canadian uncle, saying, 'We adore each other... he took the whole week off just so he could be at the rehearsal on Monday.' '
She's faked an uncle?' he said, puzzling.
'She's faked a whole lot more than just an uncle - E-J will tell you in a minute,' Glenn Branson said. 'Take a look at this first.'
