courtyard, engrossed in a call on his mobile. He was looking up, as if trying to see where the banging had come from. She waved at him frantically. He waved back cheerily, then, continuing his conversation, headed with his bike towards the front gates.
Behind her she heard another
And more splintering wood.
116
Branson found a small silver, pay-as-you-go Nokia phone hidden beneath Norman Jecks’s mattress and took it over to Grace, who was looking at his watch, fretting. It was now nearly nine p.m. and he was growing increasingly worried about Cleo being alone in her house, despite the relative safety of a gated development.
‘Bag it,’ he said distractedly, thinking he should send a patrol car up to check Cleo was OK.
It was over three-quarters of an hour since Nick Nicholl had phoned the incident room, asking for a search warrant for Norman Jecks’s lock-ups to be typed out and taken to the same magistrate who had signed the one for here. It should have taken a maximum of ten minutes to complete the damn thing, fifteen minutes’ drive to the magistrate’s home, and the signing should have been a ten-second formality. Add a further fifteen minutes to get here. OK, he knew in his impatience he wasn’t allowing for any delays, traffic hold-ups, whatever, but he didn’t care. He was scared for Cleo. There was someone out there. A man he had thought was securely banged up in Lewes prison.
A man who had done one of the most chilling things to a woman he had ever seen.
Because You Love Her.
Just as Branson was sealing the bag, he suddenly remembered the speculation about a pay-as-you-go mobile phone. ‘Actually, hang on, Glenn. Let me see it.’
Under current guidelines, all phones seized should be handed straight to the Telecoms Unit at Sussex House, untouched. But there wasn’t time for that at this moment, any more than he had time for half the new policies that got dreamed up by idiot policy-makers who had never been out in the real world in their lives.
Taking it in his gloved hands, he switched the machine on, and was relieved when it didn’t ask him for a pin code. Then he tried to figure out how to navigate the controls, before giving up and handing it to Branson. ‘You’re the tekkie,’ he said. ‘Can you find the list of recently dialled numbers?’
Branson tapped the keys, and within a few seconds showed Grace the display. ‘He’s only made three calls on it.’
‘Just
‘Uh huh. I recognize one of the numbers.’
‘And?’
‘It’s Hove Streamline Taxis – 202020.’
Grace wrote the other two down, then dialled Directory Inquiries. One was for the Hotel du Vin. The second was the Lansdowne Place Hotel.
Pensively, he said, ‘Seems like Bishop might have been telling us the truth.’
Then a SOCO who had accompanied them into the flat suddenly called out, ‘Detective Superintendent, I think you should see this.’
It was a walk-in broom closet just off the entrance to the kitchen. But it had clearly been a long time since any brooms were kept in here. Grace stared around in amazement. It was a miniature control centre. There were ten small television monitors on the walls, all switched off, a console with a small swivel chair in front of it, and what looked like a stack of recording equipment.
‘What the hell is this? Part of his security system?’ Grace asked.
‘He’s got three entrances – can’t see why he’d need ten monitors, sir,’ the officer said. ‘And there aren’t any cameras inside or outside – I’ve checked.’
At that moment Alfonso Zafferone came into the room, holding the signed search warrant for Norman Jecks’s lock-ups.
Ten minutes later, having left Nick Nicholl and the SOCO officer continuing their search of the flat, Grace and Branson stood in the small mews that was tucked behind a wide, leafy residential street of substantial detached and semi-detached Victorian villas. There were a few small business in the mews – a couple of car-repair outfits, a design studio and a software company – all closed for the night – and then a row of lock-up garages. According to the document they had found, Norman Jecks leased numbers 11 and 12. The blue-painted wooden doors of both were secured by hefty padlocks.
The Local Support Team gorilla who had bashed in the door of the flat, and four further members of his team, stood in readiness. It was almost dark now, the mews eerily silent. Grace briefed them all that once the door was open, no one was to go in if the place appeared empty, which seemly likely, to preserve it forensically.
Moments later the yellow battering ram smashed into the centre of the door, splintering the wood around the padlock’s hasp, sending the
