Left You Dead

28

After Potting and Exton had driven off with their prisoner, Roy Grace didn’t strictly have a further role to play tonight, other than as the SIO to make his own initial assessment of the crime scene. The fewer people who entered a potential crime scene the better, to limit contamination. He watched Gee sign the scene guard log and go into the house, and Barbara Onoufriou and four Search Team officers walk round to the rear garden. But he was too curious to leave. All his instincts were telling him something was very definitely wrong here.

Turning to Branson, he said, ‘You can go home, mate, I want to hang around a bit.’

‘I’ll stay with you, boss.’

‘Honestly, you don’t have to. Go and cherish your family.’

The DI shook his head. ‘The kids are at their grandparents and Siobhan’s taken a day off — she’s been out with her sister at the final wedding dress fitting. She said they were going to dinner together — which is shorthand for getting trolleyed.’

Grace grinned. ‘Think I would too — at the thought of getting married to you!’

‘Your humour doesn’t improve with age.’

‘Nah, just my wisdom.’

After worming into fresh forensic suits, overshoes and gloves, and pulling on masks, they approached the Paternosters’ house. The young, uniformed PC scene guard standing behind the tape was in for a long night, until the poor sod was relieved around 6 or 7 a.m. tomorrow, depending on how they worked their shifts these days, Grace thought. Both of them signed his log and ducked under the cordon.

The guard contacted the Crime Scene Manager, who came out into the tiny front garden to join them.

‘All OK, Chris?’ Grace asked.

‘We’ve found two laptops and two iPads — I’m having them bagged and sent over to Digital Forensics. Any chance Mr Paternoster would oblige us with the passwords, do you think?’

‘That will be a good test of whether he’s going to cooperate. If he won’t give them, it might indicate he has something to hide — I’ll make a call. And we’d like to take a look around if you’re happy, Chris? I want to get more of a feel for the place, but if you’d prefer us to stay outside, I’d understand.’

Gee smiled. ‘You’d both be welcome, sir. You came here earlier today, so I don’t think we have to be worried about contamination from either of you. I’ve already had a quick look round and there’s no obvious sign that any section of the carpets have been cleaned recently. There are two tiled areas, the kitchen and en-suite bathroom floors — if you could avoid walking on those for the moment, sir. We’re taking a close look at the kitchen where the attending officers earlier noticed recent cleaning and saw fresh blood — which Mr Paternoster blamed on cutting his finger on a potato peeler.’

‘Of course,’ Grace said.

The bathroom, in particular, was where a lot of domestic murders happened, because the killers thought they were easy places to rinse away and wipe clean any bloodstains. But, Grace well knew, what many murderers did not realize was that most bathroom tiles were very slightly porous. You could wipe the surfaces completely clean of bloodstains, but if the tiles were lifted, there was a high probability of finding that some small amounts of blood had seeped through them. Which was why he always encouraged his Forensics Team to dig up floor tiles and check their reverse.

The plugs, drainage and U-bends were also often areas of rich evidence retrieval. The other key place to check for blood was the outer surface of the sinks — offenders would often carefully clean the inside, but forget the outside area.

At least the press and media hadn’t yet picked up on what was happening, he thought, relieved — although it wouldn’t be long, for sure. The press and blowflies — both could smell a dead body from miles away.

Trailed by Branson, he followed Gee’s footsteps across into the hall, along the track that had been laid down to the kitchen door. A Forensic Officer in full protective clothing was kneeling by the sink next to an open cupboard door, pulling out the contents of the rubbish bin one item at a time with gloved hands, examining each carefully before placing it in a bin bag on the floor beside her.

‘Checking the bins,’ Gee said. ‘After that we’ll work on the surface of the floor tiles then dig them up and look at the flip sides. Is there anything in particular you’d like to see while you’re here?’

‘I’d like to take a good look around the living room and the master bedroom,’ Grace said.

‘No problem at all. Go ahead.’

Leaving the Crime Scene Manager in the kitchen, Grace led the way through into the open-plan living-dining area. He called Norman Potting and asked if Niall Paternoster would give up the passwords for both computers and iPads, assuming he knew his wife’s.

‘We’re just arriving at the custody centre, chief, I’ll ask him and bell you back.’

‘Tell him any cooperation would count a lot in his favour.’

‘Yeah, well, he’s not being very cooperative at the moment.’

Grace began looking again, in more detail than he had on his previous visit, at the elegant, minimalistic decor. The two white velour sofas. The smoked-glass bookshelves stacked with crime novels and true crime non-fiction. The fancy, ultra-modern electric fireplace and the row of framed photographs of the couple on the mantelpiece above it. Copies of most of them they’d already seen, pinned to the whiteboard in the Major Crime suite conference room. ‘Does anything strike you as odd, Glenn?’

Branson frowned. ‘Odd as in what?’

‘As in not fitting?’

‘Not with you, boss — not sure what you mean?’

‘This is quite an elegant house. Classily decorated and furnished by someone with taste. Did Niall Paternoster strike you as a man with delicate artistic flair?’

‘Not exactly. No. So how did he strike you?’

‘A typical hunk, with more muscles than sense. This must be the work of his wife.’

Branson nodded. ‘You mean, decorated by someone with flair?’

‘Exactly.’

The DI shrugged. ‘But that’s not unusual in relationships, to have one partner the artistic or brainy one and the other the muscle. That can work.’

‘But maybe Eden became fed up when his business failed, the physical attraction at the beginning has gone and the relationship has broken down?’ Grace suggested.

‘Yeah, and as they’ve got older they’ve changed, one more than the other? Perhaps this is what has happened here?’

‘But if Eden is the brains, and the original passion has gone, wouldn’t she be the one who’d want to leave?’

They were interrupted by Grace’s phone ringing. It was Norman Potting.

‘Chief, I’ve got all the codes.’

‘Nice work,’ he said, and jotted them down in his notebook as Potting read them out.

Turning back to Branson, he said, ‘Interesting he gave up the codes.’

‘He must be thinking he’s got nothing on his computer or iPad or on hers that could be incriminating, boss?’

‘Maybe. Or just knows we’d break the codes anyway so he’s trying to be a good boy, to give us the impression he genuinely wants to cooperate in finding his wife.’

‘Taking a risk, isn’t he?’

Grace frowned, thinking through what it actually might mean. ‘If he has killed her, he might be thinking that by giving us the codes, we’ll look less thoroughly. If he hasn’t topped her, then he’s nothing to hide anyway.’

‘And what do you make of it?’

Grace shook his head. ‘Early doors. I’m staying with my hunch that he’s murdered her and disposed of the body. But I question, from his attitude and demeanour, whether he’s disappeared the body effectively. My guess is he’s dumped her in water or dug a shallow grave — hopefully the BMW’s satnav might tell us where. If I’m wrong and he’s put her in the sea or in Shoreham Harbour, we have to hope she’ll float ashore.’

‘And if not, wise man?’

Grace smirked. ‘Then we really will have a “no body” murder investigation on our hands. Challenging but not impossible to get a conviction — if we can get the Crown Prosecution Service onside and then a half-decent jury.’

They stayed in the living room for some while, assimilating their surroundings, then made their way upstairs, keeping to the narrow metal stepping plates the CSIs had laid down. Another Forensics Officer was on the landing at the top, on his hands and knees, painstakingly fingertip-searching the carpet.

‘Where’s the master bedroom?’ Grace asked him.

The officer indicated with his hand. ‘First door on the right, sir.’

Grace led along the track, followed by Branson, into a bedroom that was entirely neutral. A deep-pile off-white carpet, white bedding, pillows, cushions, white furniture and a white fabric ceiling that made them feel like they were in a tent.

Marie Desmond, another Forensic Officer, was on her knees pulling stuff out of a deep drawer beneath the bed. Books, an assortment of lacy black underwear.

‘Opening a brothel are you, Marie?’ Grace said.

‘Want me to put this on the Sussex Police eBay site?’ she retorted with cheeky glee, pointing at a delicate camisole.

He nodded towards Branson. ‘Yep, Glenn here will be putting in bids!’

She held up something black, with a strap, that looked like a dildo.

‘What’s that?’ Branson asked, his face a picture of horror.

‘A torch — I know what you were thinking!’ she replied matter-of-factly, smiling. ‘We’ve not found any signs of a missing duvet or duvet cover, sir,’ she went on. ‘Just these and a load of old junk so far.’

Then she reached deep into the rear of the drawer and came out with one final item under more lingerie. She frowned at it. ‘Well, well, well, what’s this?’

The two detectives peered at the iPhone in a sparkly case. Grace shot Branson a glance and was about to say something, when another officer emerged from the en-suite bathroom, holding up a large plastic bag that was securely closed with tape. As he came into the room Grace immediately saw that the bag contained an item of clothing.

‘I noticed a small screw on the floor in the bathroom,’ the officer said. ‘I checked and saw it had come from a wall access panel, so I removed the other screws and found this hidden in the cavity.’

‘Oh God,’ Grace said. ‘If that’s—’

The officer looked at Grace and pointed to the bag. ‘I think that’s blood, sir, and do you see the tear there in the material?’