Find Them Dead

24 Friday 3 May

‘Nice epaulettes, Roy,’ ACC Cassian Pewe commented, slightly mocking as Grace entered his office. ‘But not for much longer, eh?’

‘Actually, Cassian, I’ve been offered an extended Commander posting to the Met,’ he said. On their current equal ranking there was no requirement to call him by the respectful title of sir. For this week, at least. Next week, when he returned to his former rank in Sussex, it would be different, as he dropped back down to Detective Superintendent.

‘So why don’t you take it, Roy?’ Pewe asked. ‘Although I’ll tell you the truth, we’re missing you here.’

‘Really?’

He nodded. ‘We are. We’re short on the Major Crime Team. I hope you’ve felt your time in the Met has been worthwhile?’

‘I do, I think what I’ve learned will be of invaluable help in the future here.’

‘Sounds very worthy, Roy. Jolly good. But is there another reason why you wanted to see me?’

Grace told him his concerns about Dr Edward Crisp.

‘You seriously think the doctor is going to do a runner from court?’

‘If he was capable of escaping from a French prison then I do, yes. That’s why I want to upgrade the security for the trial.’

‘What do you have in mind?’

‘Extra security for his transportation to and from prison to court. Two security guards posted on each court door and at least one police officer, if not two, at the street entrance, for the duration of the trial.’

‘I’m not sure the cost of extra policing would be justified.’

‘A lot less than the cost of a manhunt for an escaped murder suspect. Not to mention the egg on our faces in the eyes of Joe Public.’

Pewe shook his head. ‘I don’t have the luxury of spare police officers to pull off frontline duty to use as doormen. Perhaps in your Met you do, but not here. It’s not going to happen. Relax. If the CPS want more security, they can liaise with the security providers. I’m not using my resources on someone who’s already in our prison system.’

Roy held his counsel for a few seconds before replying. ‘All security discussion aside, Cassian, Sussex Police kick off the promotion procedure for Chief Superintendents next week. It’s something I need to think carefully about — I may be throwing my hat in the ring.’

Pewe looked at him for a few seconds. ‘Really? Are you expecting me to support your application?’

‘Not expecting, but if you value me as much as you say, then I’d like to think I can count on your recommendation?’

Pewe smiled. ‘Look, Roy, I know you and I have our differences. And history. And I don’t want to lose you, I genuinely don’t. I want you back on my team. I have the greatest respect for you.’

‘Really? You’ve a strange way of showing it sometimes, Cassian.’

Pewe stood up, opening his hands in a gesture of friendship, and walked round his desk. He put an arm round Roy’s shoulder and steered him over to the L-shaped sofa. ‘Sit down — can I get you any tea or coffee?’

As he sat, Grace shook his head. ‘I’m fine, thank you.’

Pewe sat a short distance away. ‘OK, let’s start again. Bury the hatchet?’

‘How deep? Beneath sonar range?’ Grace said it with a smile like dry ice.

Pewe winced, visibly stung by the reference to his previous time in Sussex, when he had been on equal rank to Roy Grace. Prompted by the parents of Roy’s missing wife, Sandy, who had long suspected Roy of murdering her, Pewe had taken it upon himself to have a sonar scan done of the back garden of the house where he and Sandy had lived.

Grace had never forgiven Sandy’s toxic parents, nor Pewe for this outrage, although he had been marginally more forgiving of Pewe for acting on information, albeit unsubstantiated, given by her parents.

‘I didn’t have any choice, Roy,’ Pewe said. ‘You know that, you’d have had to do exactly the same if the roles had been reversed.’

Grace resisted the urge to say he would have had the courtesy to let Pewe know first, and not done it behind his back. But if the ACC was genuinely offering him an olive branch, he didn’t want to throw it back in his face. Not yet. ‘Sure,’ he replied, flatly.

‘So,’ Cassian Pewe sat up, brightly. ‘You’ll have my support for your application for the Chief Superintendents boards. And we start afresh from next Monday, maybe not as bosom buddies but as colleagues who respect each other?’

‘Sounds good,’ Grace said, guardedly.

Pewe beamed. ‘Right then, get out there and move the needle on Sussex’s crime statistics. Know a negative feedback loop when you see one.’

Grace looked at him, wondering as he always did where the hell Cassian Pewe got all this corporate gobbledygook from. ‘Absolutely,’ he replied.

Pewe patted him on the shoulder and jumped up again. ‘Are we done?’

‘We’re done.’

‘Good man! Good to have you back.’