walls hung with abstract paintings that he did not understand. Modern rugs scattered on a shiny oak floor. Two red sofas, black lacquered furniture, a big television, an expensive stereo system. A copy of
Then he saw the square glass fish tank on a coffee table, with a goldfish swimming around what looked like the remains of a miniature Greek temple.
‘You need releasing,’ the Time Billionaire said. ‘It’s wrong to keep animals imprisoned.’
He wandered across to a wall-to-ceiling row of crammed bookshelves. He saw Graham Greene’s
‘Wow!’ he said aloud. ‘We have the same taste in literature! Too bad we’ll never get a chance to discuss books! You know, in different circumstances you and I might have been pretty good friends.’
Then he opened the drawer in a table. It contained elastic bands, a book of parking vouchers, a broken garage-opener remote control, a solitary battery, envelopes. He rummaged through but did not find what he was looking for. He closed it. Then he looked around, opened two more drawers, closed them again, without luck. The drawers in the kitchen yielded nothing either.
His hand was still hurting. Stinging all the time, getting worse, despite the pills. And he had a headache. His head throbbed constantly and he was feeling a little feverish, but it was nothing he couldn’t cope with.
He wandered upstairs slowly, taking his time. Cleo Morey had only just gone to work. He had all the time in the world. Hours of the stuff if he wanted!
On the second floor he found a small bathroom. Opposite was her den. He went in. It was a chaotically untidy room, lined again with crammed bookshelves; almost all of the books seemed to be on philosophy. A desk piled with papers, with a laptop in the middle of them, sat in front of a window overlooking the rooftops of Brighton, towards the sea. He opened each drawer of the desk, tidily inspecting the contents before closing them carefully. Then he opened and shut each of the four drawers of the metal filing cabinet.
Her bedroom was on the next floor, on the other side of a spiral staircase that appeared to lead up to the roof. He went in and sniffed her bed. Then he pulled back the purple counterpane and pressed his nose into her pillows, inhaling deeply. The scents tightened his groin. Carefully he peeled back the duvet, sniffing every inch of the sheet. More of her! More of her still! No scents of Detective Superintendent Grace! No semen stains from him on the sheet! Just her scents and smells! Hers alone! Left there for him to savour.
He replaced the duvet, then the counterpane carefully. So carefully. No one would ever know he had been here.
There was a modern, black lacquered dressing table in the room. He opened its one drawer and there, nestling in between her jewellery boxes, he saw it! The black leather fob with the letters
He closed his eyes and said a brief prayer of thanks to God, who had guided him to them. Then he held up the keys to his lips and kissed them. ‘Beautiful!’
He closed the drawer, pocketed the keys and went back downstairs, then made his way straight over to the fish tank. He pushed up the cuff of his jacket, then the sleeve of his shirt, and sank his hand into the tepid water. It was like trying to grab hold of soap in the bathtub! But finally he managed to grip the wriggling, slippery goldfish, closing his fingers around the stupid creature.
Then he tossed it on to the floor.
He heard it flipping around as he let himself back out of the front door.
92
The joint morning briefing for Operations Chameleon and Mistral ended shortly after nine o’clock. There was a mood of optimism now that a suspect was in custody. And this was heightened by the fact that there was a witness, the elderly lady who lived opposite Sophie Harrington and had identified Brian Bishop outside her house around the time of the murder. With luck, Grace hoped, that DNA analysis on semen present in Sophie Harrington’s vagina would match Bishop’s. Huntington was fast-tracking the analysis and he should get the results later today.
There was now little doubt in anyone’s mind that the two murders were linked, but they were still keeping the exact details back from the press.
Names of people and times given by Bishop in his first interview were being checked out, and Grace was particularly interested to see whether the British Telecom phone records would confirm that Bishop had requested an early-morning alarm call after he had returned to his flat on Thursday night. Although, of course, that call could have been made by an accomplice. With three million pounds to be gained from the life insurance policy on his wife, the possibility that Bishop had an accomplice – or indeed more than one – had to be carefully explored.
