murder inquiry, with all the responsibilities that entailed. But however much he tried to concentrate, part of him was in another place, another city, another investigation altogether.
He was feeling confused about his relationship with Cleo suddenly. What if Sandy really was in Munich? What would happen if he met her?
There were just too many imponderables. Here at this moment, seated at the workstation in the real world of MIR One, expectant faces were staring at him. Was it his imagination or were they looking at him strangely?
‘The time is six thirty, Friday 4 August,’ he read out from his briefing notes. He had removed his suit jacket, pulled his tie to half-mast and popped open his top two shirt buttons against the sweltering heat.
‘This is our first briefing of Operation Chameleon,’ he went on. ‘The investigation into the murder of a thirty- five-year-old female person identified as Mrs Katherine Margaret Bishop – known as Katie – of 97 Dyke Road Avenue, Hove, East Sussex, conducted on day one following the discovery of her body at eight thirty this morning. I will now summarize the incident.’
For some minutes, Grace reviewed the events leading up to the discovery of Katie’s body. When he got to the gas mask, true to form, Norman Potting interrupted him.
‘Maybe he had chronic wind, Roy. Gave her the gas mask out of kindness.’ Potting looked around with a grin. But no one smiled.
Inwardly, Grace groaned. ‘Thank you, Norman,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a lot to get through. We can do without the humour.’
Potting continued to look around, grinning irrepressibly at his audience, unfazed by their blank faces.
‘We can also do without the gas mask being leaked anywhere,’ Grace added. ‘I want absolute silence on that. Understood, everyone?’
It was common practice to withhold key pieces of information discovered at a crime scene from the public. This way, if anyone rang in and mentioned a gas mask, the investigating team would know immediately that the caller was almost certainly for real.
Grace began reviewing the tasks for each person. Katie Bishop’s family tree needed to be established, the names of all the people she associated with, plus backgrounds on them. This was being worked on by the FLOs, and he had assigned supervision of the task to Bella Moy earlier in the day.
Bella read from a printout of notes in front of her. ‘I don’t have much so far,’ she said. ‘Katie Bishop was born Katherine Margaret Denton, the only child of parents living in Brighton. She married Brian Bishop five years ago – her third marriage, his second. No children.’
‘Any idea why not?’ Grace asked.
‘No.’ Bella seemed a little surprised by the question. ‘Bishop has two by his first marriage.’
Grace made a note on his pad. ‘OK.’
‘She spends her weeks mostly in Brighton – usually goes up to London for one night. Brian Bishop has a flat in London, where he stays Monday to Fridays.’
‘His knocking shop?’ ventured Norman Potting.
Grace didn’t respond. But Potting had a point. No children after five years of marriage, and substantially separate lives, did not indicate a particularly close relationship. Although he and Sandy had been married nine years, and they hadn’t had children – but there were reasons for that. Medical ones. He made another note.
Alfonso Zafferone, chewing gum, with his usual insolent expression, had been detailed to work with the HOLMES analyst to plot the sequence of events, list the suspects – in this case, one so far, her husband. A full time-line needed to be run on Brian Bishop to establish if he could have been present within the period that Katie was murdered. Were there any similar murders in this county, or in others, recently? Anything involving a gas mask? Zafferone leaned back in his chair; he had shoulders so massive he must have worked on them, Grace thought. And like all the men in the room, he had removed his jacket. Flashy rhinestone cufflinks and gold armbands glinted on the sleeves of his sharp, black shirt.
Another action Grace had assigned to Norman Potting was to obtain plans of the Bishops’ house, an aerial photograph of the property and surrounding area, and to ensure all routes by which someone could have got to the house were carefully searched. He also wanted from Potting, and then separately from the forensic scene manager, a detailed assessment of the crime scene, including reports from the house-to-house search of the neighbourhood, which had been started early that afternoon.
Potting reported that two computers in the house had already been taken to the High Tech Crime Unit for analysis; the house landline records for the past twelve months had been requisitioned from British Telecom, as had the mobile phone records for both the Bishops.
‘I had the mobile phone that was found in her car checked by the Telecoms Unit, Roy,’ Potting said. There was one message timed at
