Dead if You Don’t

84

Sunday 13 August

13.00–14.00

Roy Grace sat in the passenger seat of the unmarked Mondeo, updating the Force Gold and the CIM, and giving fast-time instructions to the Oscar-1 Inspector as he marshalled his team into place. In silent concentration, Kevin Hall drove at high speed on blue lights, siren wailing, passing the Amex Stadium to their left and the leafy, red-brick Sussex University campus to their right. Cursing, he suddenly braked hard, throwing Grace forward against his seat belt, and momentarily changed the pitch of the siren to a deep honking blast at a driver who had pulled a small Fiat straight out into the overtaking lane in front of them, without apparently looking in his mirrors.

‘Get out the way, you dozy git!’

The Fiat shot back into the gap it had vacated, and Hall sped on past. He headed up the long hill, down the far side, passing the Hollingbury Industrial Estate where their former CID HQ had been housed, drove down into the valley and swept up the far side. There was a windmill to their left, and to their right the open countryside of the South Downs National Park. Roy Grace was focused on his screen, using Google Earth to take an aerial view of the complex of separate four-storey buildings that comprised Boden Court, and the eighty or so flats they housed.

He was wondering how they could identify which flat the kidnappers were in. Speed was key in any raid. If they were wrong about where Mungo was being held and the kidnappers did have him in there, the big danger was alerting them to the police presence. They could just be vicious enough to kill Mungo out of spite in the moments before they were arrested. Grace could not take that chance, which was why he had ordered all units to stay well outside in the street, until further instructions.

Hall switched off the siren and blue lights half a mile before the approach to the roundabout at the top of the hill, not wanting to risk signposting their arrival to the kidnappers, and turned left into wide, residential Dyke Road Avenue. A couple of hundred yards ahead, on the right-hand side of the road, was the entrance to the cluster of brick buildings of Boden Court, marked with a bold, white sign. A number of police vehicles were pulled up a short distance further on, all parked along the cycle lane. Among them were two white vans, containing Local Support Team officers, with their Inspector, Ian Allchild, in the lead vehicle. The whole area looked like a military battalion had moved in. If any of the kidnappers drove out now they would panic for sure.

No doubt there would be some bolshy letter in the Argus later this week about the police blocking the cycle lane, Grace thought, but it was the very least of his problems at this moment.

Several plain-clothes officers, casually dressed and wearing earpieces, were milling around on the pavement, out of sight of any of the flats, trying unsuccessfully to look inconspicuous. To the left, almost opposite the entrance, was a small car park with a stall selling ice creams and soft drinks. Grace saw two dog-unit vans parked in there, along with another van, one of their own, today camouflaged with the name BRYAN BARKER BUILDERS. Inside was a mobile phone tracking team, scanning the complex across the road, trying to pick up a signal from the phone they had identified.

‘Pull in here, Kevin.’

‘Want an ice cream, do you, guv?’

‘Haha.’

Roy Grace called Oscar-1 and told her he was at the scene. In earlier days, he would have had no hesitation in leading a raid from the front, heading straight to a suspect’s dwelling and putting the door in with his shoulder or boot. But hide-bound by the current rules of Health and Safety, every action had to be risk assessed. It was only trained officers from the Local Support Team, the specialist public order unit, who were allowed to effect entry, under their Section 17 PACE powers.

As so often happened in the case of a raid, there was an air of uncertainty. Everyone was here, waiting, pumped up and ready to go. But exactly where? And the biggest uncertainty facing Roy at this moment was which of the flats his suspects were in. There was no way they could go charging around, banging on every door. They were either going to have to find them by stealth or wait for them to show themselves — though in his view it was too time critical to wait, that wasn’t an option for him.

Instructing Hall to remain in the car and keep watch, he climbed out and hurried across the road. He strolled in through the entrance, trying to look nonchalant in case the kidnappers were keeping a lookout from a window. He carried on, down a ramp, passing a visitor’s parking area containing two vehicles, an older-model Jaguar and a red van with the wording in white letters MATTHEW MURPHY ELECTRICAL SERVICES, a man and a woman sitting in the front.

He walked alongside the van, curious to know what they were doing here on a Sunday, and decided to check them out. He went up to the driver’s window, holding up his warrant card discreetly.

The window lowered. He rapidly satisfied himself they were bona fide, Matthew Murphy and his wife, Sam, who jointly owned the company. They’d only been here a few minutes, collecting payment on a job their firm had completed in one of the flats. Neither of them had seen any car come in or leave.

He thanked them and approached the entrance to the first building. The smell of cooking wafted from a window, roasting meat — Sunday lunch. It gave him a sudden pang of hunger, reminding him he hadn’t eaten anything since a sandwich in the early hours and a muffin.

Staring at the entry panel, he found the nameplate he was hoping for: CARETAKER. He pressed the buzzer beside it. Would he or she be in?

There was a crackle and an Italian-sounding voice. ‘Hello?’

‘Police,’ Grace said. ‘Could I have a word, very urgently.’

‘Police? OK.’ There was a click of the door’s latch and Grace pushed it open. There was a stronger smell of Sunday roast now, as well as stale cigarette smoke. He was mindful that it was possible the kidnappers could be using the caretaker’s flat. But when he saw the door open at the end of the corridor and the very short man of around sixty, wearing white-flecked dungarees and a liberal amount of paint on his face and hands, shuffle towards him, he decided they were not.

‘Hello, officer,’ the caretaker said. ‘I’m not usually in on Sunday, but I’m decorating today — so how can I help you?’ He sounded Italian.

Grace showed him his warrant card. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Vince.’

‘OK, Vince, I’m looking for the drivers of two cars,’ he said. ‘An Audi A4 and Volkswagen Golf.’ He told him the registration numbers. ‘Does either vehicle ring a bell?’

The man thought, screwing up his forehead, then shook his head. ‘We have a lot of cars here. Quite a few Audis and Golfs, you know — very popular cars.’

‘Where does everyone park — are the garages round the back?’

Vince shook his head again and pointed a stubby, nicotine-stained finger at the floor. ‘Underground.’

Grace felt a sudden flash of excitement. ‘Is there a separate car park for each of the buildings?’

‘No, one big one, with separate lifts up to each building.’ He looked at Grace with a kind of beady, mischievous excitement in his eyes. ‘What’s up, officer? We have terrorists here? Bank robbers?’

‘I can’t tell you at the moment, I’m afraid. Can you show me the car park?’

He shrugged. ‘Sure.’

Grace followed him along the corridor, the man walking unhurriedly, almost painfully slowly, a big bunch of keys dangling from his belt. He pressed to open the lift doors, waited for Grace to enter, then stepped in.

They went down one floor. The door opened and they stepped out into a sparsely lit expanse of parking bays, about a third of them empty. It was dry and warm, with the same familiar smell of engine oil, spent exhaust fumes and rubber compounds, as most underground car parks Grace observed, other than municipal ones which tended to smell of urine, as well. But they were in upmarket territory here.

‘Are the bays allocated to specific flats, Vince?’

‘Yes, numbered.’

‘So, from the number of the bay, you can identify the building and the flat number?’

‘Sure.’

Grace strode along towards the far end, with Vince keeping pace. There was a wide range of cars down here, mostly modern and across the price spectrum, as well as a 1970s Bentley coated in dust and with flat tyres, that didn’t look like it had moved in years. A short distance along they passed what looked like the shape of a Porsche beneath a dust sheet. He reached a Golf, and checked the number plate against the one stored in his memory: TR57 GPN. It was different, but he still patted the bonnet, just to check. Stone cold, the car had not been driven today.

As they turned a corner, passing a wide concrete pillar, he saw an Audi and a Golf next to each other, some bays along. He broke into a run, and as he came closer looked at their number plates.

TR57 GPN; RW15 AVU.

It was them.