Dead if You Don’t

116

Monday 14 August

The first floor of the handsome Queen Anne mansion was where the top brass had their offices. Pewe’s assistant, who had escorted Roy Grace up here, knocked on the door and opened it. From the tone of the ACC’s text last night, Roy Grace figured the man wasn’t about to greet him with a bunch of flowers.

He was right.

‘Roy,’ he said, ‘so good of you to be able to spare your time to see me. Do come in, take a seat, have a quick read of this.’

As Grace perched on one of a pair of L-shaped sofas around a mahogany coffee table, the ACC literally threw down a copy of the morning’s Argus newspaper. The headline was stark and clear.

‘I have to step out for five minutes to see someone in Corporate Comms. Have a good read through, see what a great job you’re doing as Head of Major Crime.’

Pewe walked out, slamming the door behind him.

Since a few months ago, due to further budget cuts reducing the number of police buildings, the senior officers at Sussex Police HQ were required to make do with much smaller work spaces. They had to accommodate, as well as other police officers, the recent arrival of the East Sussex Fire Brigade command team. The Chief Constable had led the way by having her once-imposing office reduced in size by over a half. Yet, somehow, Pewe had so far retained his own large office in its entirety. Word around the force was that his ego wouldn’t fit into anything smaller.

Grace speed-read the alarmist front page of the newspaper, and coverage of the grim events of the weekend on subsequent pages, with photographs of some of the victims as well as of police cars, crime scene tape and CSIs in their oversuits. There was speculation regarding the three dead men found at Boden Court, that this was an internal Albanian settlement of scores.

He was relieved by one thing, that in all the seeming mayhem, the coverage of the bomb hoax at the Amex amounted to only a few column inches towards the centre of the paper. After a quieter weekend he’d have probably been the front-page splash, with an embarrassing photograph of him running with the camera.

He looked up the paper’s online pages on his phone to see if there were any updates reported.

Among the new headlines there was one that caught his eye.

He read the short article. The crew of a private sailing yacht crossing the Channel had radioed the Coastguard shortly after 9.30 p.m. yesterday, reporting a large explosion a few nautical miles south of Newhaven. The paper reported that a search of the area had been carried out by the lifeboat and the Coastguard helicopter into the night, after debris had been sighted in the approximate area. Early this morning, the Newhaven lifeboat had recovered a lifebelt stencilled with the name Sweet Suzie. It belonged to a deep-sea fishing boat permanently berthed at Newhaven Harbour that had last been seen heading out to sea earlier the previous evening.

Was there any connection, he wondered, noting down the boat’s name. He would get a check on the owner. As he did so, Pewe came back into the office, closing the door firmly, and stood over him.

Grace looked up. ‘A quick update on the kidnap, sir. The original kidnap turned out to be a plan by two teenage boys — the victim himself and his friend, the son of Jorgji Dervishi, a major Albanian crime boss in Brighton — to extort money from the victim’s father. Our enquiries revealed that the plans changed, and other Albanian gang members hijacked the original kidnap plot, because they became greedy. Finally, it appears, Dervishi himself saw an opportunity to get in on the act.’

Pewe stared at him, glassily. Grace went on. ‘Although we believe that Dervishi was also behind the bomb threat and extortion attempt at the Amex, we are confident that these were not linked, but coincidental.’

Pewe continued staring at him, his face tense. ‘Roy, taking a helicopter view of this past weekend, we seem to have moved the Major Crime needle somewhat. I’d say we’ve been pretty much thrown under the bus. What is your elevator pitch on events?’

Grace stared back at the ACC, trying to interpret his latest corporate-speak.

‘It’s been a bit shit, sir.’

‘A bit shit? Really? Perhaps we need to dive deeper on this issue? Open the kimono?’

‘You’ve lost me, sir,’ Grace said, politely.

‘I’ve lost you? I’m so sorry. Let me jog your mind by winding the clock back over the last forty-eight hours. We’ve had a bomb threat at the Amex. A teenage boy kidnapped. A female drugs mule dead at Gatwick Airport. Body parts showing evidence of torture found at a crusher site at Shoreham Harbour. The crusher operator dead under suspicious circumstances in the Sussex County. Three people shot dead in a flat in Hove, yesterday. An explosion on an industrial estate outside Lewes, at what might have been a bomb factory, with two separate sets of body parts identified so far. Not bad for one weekend, wouldn’t you say?’

‘We recovered the kidnap victim, which was my case and my priority, sir.’

‘Really? Jolly well done. From 40,000 feet that looks good. But once you get into the weeds, it all looks a little different. Would you like to explain everything else to me? Sussex has an average of twelve murders a year. In just this past weekend we have had eight — and counting.’

Grace, feeling in need of a strong coffee, was about to respond when the Chief Constable, Lesley Manning, entered.

‘Roy!’ she said. ‘I heard you were in. I just want to congratulate you on your bravery this weekend.’

He jumped to his feet. ‘Thank you, ma’am!’

‘Excuse me, ma’am,’ Pewe interrupted. ‘Detective Superintendent Grace broke every rule in the book yesterday. He behaved in a reckless manner over a bomb threat at the Amex. And he subsequently ignored all Health and Safety guidelines in the way he recovered a kidnap victim.’

She looked at her ACC with a puzzled expression. ‘Is that correct?’

‘Yes. I want to suspend him from all duties, pending a full investigation of both events.’

‘ACC Pewe,’ she said in a very formal voice, ‘as I understand, the bomb — a fake as we now know — had a timer activated on it. At the time Detective Superintendent Grace picked it up and ran with it, not knowing whether it was real or not, he made a calculated decision, at great personal risk to himself. Is this not upholding one of the sacrosanct traditions of the police? To serve and protect?’

Pewe looked like he was chewing a wasp.

She went on. ‘I have been told that Roy was correct when he recognized the device had a timer mechanism which informed his decision. Roy not only saved a potentially highly-damaging situation at the Amex, which would have had a serious impact on the future of the stadium and the economy of our city, he went on to risk his life saving a teenage boy. I am going to put forward a recommendation for Roy, with my strongest possible endorsement, for a Queen’s Gallantry medal. I very sincerely trust you will support this?’

‘Yes, well, of course, when you put it like that, ma’am,’ Pewe simpered. ‘I completely concur. Of course, I’ll support it fully.’

‘That’s very generous of you, ma’am,’ Grace said, then turned to the ACC. ‘And of you, sir. Thank you both, thank you very much. I’m honoured.’

‘We are honoured to have you on our force, Roy,’ Lesley said. ‘Wouldn’t you agree, Cassian?’

The ACC nodded, his face twitching.

It looked to Roy Grace like the wasp was putting up a pretty good fight. And winning.