Dead at First Sight

112 Friday 12 October

Roy Grace let Glenn Branson drive, to give him time to think and to study the roads and terrain around Primrose Farm Cottage. But they’d barely travelled a couple of miles from Police HQ before he remembered why it was that, last time Glenn had driven him, he’d vowed never again. He gripped the grab handle above him in scared silence, stabbing an imaginary brake pedal in the footwell in front of him, willing Glenn to slow as he was driving far too fast, in his opinion, for the wet road. Glenn overtook a car and pulled into a tight gap shortly before an oncoming lorry thundered past.

‘A bit close, matey,’ Grace said, grimly.

‘Nah, plenty of time. It’s all about judgement.’

‘And the Collision Investigation Unit and the mortuary. Didn’t they teach you the principles of driving on blue lights at police driving school?’ Grace asked.

‘Yeah, get there fast!’

‘Really? The key message I took away was drive to arrive.’

Glenn, as ever when he drove, had the focus and grim determination of Lewis Hamilton, but without the Formula One driver’s skill.

‘Road death statistics are badly up in East Sussex this year,’ Grace added by way of a more subtle hint.

‘Many back-seat drivers among them?’ Branson retorted.

Grace, with a copy of the Ordnance Survey map on his knees, looked at the satnav screen. He consoled himself with the knowledge that there were now less than nine miles to go. A further comfort was the statistic a traffic officer had given him, that most accidents take place within one mile of starting a journey. At least, some small relief, they were out of that danger zone.

He tried to focus on his task. Could he really allow Lynda Merrill to go to the cottage — at least without putting armed officers inside with her? But it came back to his concerns that she might inadvertently alert Copeland and panic him into doing a runner. No, he had to press on with his plan, but that plan had, first and foremost, to ensure she was fully protected.

It was just coming up to 1 p.m. when they found the tumbledown gates that marked the entrance to the cottage, fallen leaves carpeting the drive. He told Branson to pull over, then climbed out of the car and walked some yards down the steep drive to the point where it levelled out, but he couldn’t see the house from here. The first CROPS officer would be much further along. Both the ferns and shrubbery either side, and the forest beyond, were dense. There was clearly no other route to the house from here, for a vehicle, other than this driveway.

Grace got back into the car and directed his colleague to take the first right. They turned into an even narrower lane, beneath a guard of honour of overhanging trees. Much of the road surface was covered in fallen leaves.

‘Amazing colours,’ Branson said, staring at the autumnal golds around them.

‘So you do actually notice the beauty of the countryside sometimes?’ Grace ribbed.

‘When it’s autumn, yeah — all dying, decaying. That’s our bag, isn’t it, death?’

Grace scanned both sides of the lane as they drove. They passed an occasional cottage and one very large house set a short distance behind a five-barred gate, with a horsebox in the driveway. Carrying on, the landscape dipped sharply down to their right. They passed a fallen tree at the roadside, then saw a sign for Southern Water and a reservoir. A short distance on was a sign by a narrow, unmade track for a sailing club. On their right, a barrier made from a small tree blocked off the entrance to another track into the forest.

Endless places for a car to hide, he thought. You could hide an entire army here.

‘You’re in a cheerful mood,’ he said to Branson. ‘Is this how being about to get married makes you feel?’

Branson shrugged. ‘Maybe I’ve been around dead bodies too long.’ He carried on driving, following Grace’s directions along a series of roads and lanes that eventually took them a full 360 degrees around the property.

Roy Grace marked every junction and indentation where a vehicle might be concealed as they went. He didn’t spot where the CROPS support vehicle was hiding — clearly they’d done a good job of concealment. They drove back round to the far side of the property and explored a track that went into the forest. But it stopped after a short distance, opening up into a picnic area.

Grace sat studying the map for some while, discussing with Branson the number of vehicles they would need to check anything approaching. They could put a car at each end of the lane, either side of the entrance. But that wouldn’t give them enough time to have the registration checked. If they made the net wider, he calculated it would need a minimum of a further seven cars to ring fence the place. A resource, even for a major operation such as this, that would be hard to put together quickly, if at all, and he only had a few hours at most.

A new Silver Commander had relieved Julian Blazeby a few hours earlier. Superintendent Terry Novak was an officer after Grace’s own heart because, like himself, Novak was willing to take risks — something that was becoming increasingly rare in the force. Grace phoned him and told him his concerns. Would they be wiser after all to approach Lynda Merrill and take a gamble on losing Copeland, he posited?

‘And leave that scumbag free to carry on wiping out the savings and destroying the lives of decent people with his internet scams, Roy?’ Novak said, with deep bitterness in his voice.

Grace remembered now. Novak had told him only a few weeks back how his elderly mother had been conned out of £12,000 by a scammer pretending to be her bank. It was almost every penny she and his father had in the world. His eighty-seven-year-old father was so distressed, he’d been unable to sleep and lost his appetite, causing him to end up in hospital suffering from exhaustion. According to the medics, so Terry Novak had said, this was common for victims. The husband would feel consumed with guilt, anger and a sense of utter helplessness — as well as anguish at the irreplaceable loss itself.

Novak went on. ‘Roy, we have two armed CROPS covering the house and we’ll have ARVs in place. Copeland hasn’t a cat in hell’s chance of making it through that front door.’

‘I like your attitude.’

‘Sometimes, Roy, in this world gone crazy, where we police officers spend more time watching our backs than looking for villains, attitude is necessary.’