Need You Dead

70 Tuesday 26 April

At 8.30 a.m. the following morning, Guy Batchelor read from his prepared notes to the assembled team in the packed conference room. There were two new whiteboards alongside the four that had been up for some days, displaying crime-scene photographs of Lorna Belling’s death and postmortem, her association chart, and photographs of the suspects — her husband, Corin, Seymour Darling and Kipp Brown. On one of the new ones were grisly photographs of Trish Darling’s dismembered body, and on another a fresh association chart for Seymour Darling, along with his face-on and three-quarter-angle profile photographs taken when he was booked into custody last night.

‘This is the eighth briefing on Operation Bantam,’ the Detective Inspector said. ‘Overnight we’ve had a significant development.’ He told the assembled group about the circumstances in which Seymour Darling was found in the bedroom, holding an axe, surrounded by the dismembered remains of his wife, and was arrested at the scene, without a struggle. ‘An interview coordinator is currently preparing the interview strategy.’

‘I suppose it won’t be a piecemeal interview?’ Norman Potting said.

‘Careful, Norman, you could get poleaxed for a joke that bad,’ Glenn Branson said.

‘Or you could be for the chop!’ DI Dull said, the Direct Entry DI surprising everyone by displaying that he actually had a sense of humour.

Grace smiled. ‘OK, we’ve opened the Christmas crackers and read out all the jokes, shall we now be serious, team?’

Suddenly he heard a rustling, rattling sound that brought back sad memories of Bella Moy eternally rummaging in her box of Maltesers. He glanced round and saw that Velvet Wilde was passing round a large yellow pack of M&M peanut chocolates. Several of the team — some of whom probably hadn’t yet had any breakfast — took them gratefully.

He felt a moment of concern as she offered the pack to Norman Potting. The young DC had no way of knowing just how much pain her kind gesture might be causing him.

Potting waved them away, politely.

Then she rolled a few out onto the work surface in front of her, a red, a brown and two green ones, and popped one into her mouth.

He watched Potting carefully. The old detective looked like he was struggling to keep his composure. Grace wondered whether he should have a word with Velvet after the meeting. Then suddenly, to his surprise, Potting leaned across, grabbed the bag, shook several out into the palm of his hand, and gave the bag back to Velvet with a murmured thanks. He popped a green one in his mouth, looking happier. Grace saw him shoot a sly glance at the DC.

Privately, Grace smiled, shaking his head. Did the old stoat have his beady eye on her? He was happy at the thought that Norman was dealing with his loss of Bella, but if he was thinking of making a play for Velvet, he was going to be in for something of a disappointment.

Batchelor went on, reading from his notes. ‘What we know about Seymour Darling so far is that he has a criminal history of progressive escalation of violence. He has three previous convictions, the first in 1997 for shoplifting, for which he got a fine and community service order. In 2003 he got two years suspended for demanding money with menaces. Then, significantly, in 2005 he got four years for GBH, when he permanently blinded a woman in one eye in an assault in a pub. He’s a regular Mr Nice Guy.’

‘He should have chosen a career in politics!’ Potting said, popping another M&M in his mouth, and shooting another glance at Velvet to see if she responded, but she was looking up at the whiteboards, studying them.

Ignoring the remark, Batchelor continued. ‘DS Exton is currently at the postmortem, which is being carried out by Dr Theobald. I’ll be heading over there after this briefing. But I have a feeling establishing the cause of death is not going to be an issue in this case.’ He glanced down at his notes. ‘OK, media strategy. As we are not looking for anyone else in connection with the murder of Mrs Trish Darling, and therefore don’t need the assistance of the local media, I’m intending to hold a short press conference later this morning, but with the gruesome bits edited out — I don’t want the Argus going sensational on us and scaring everyone in the city. I’m proposing to give the bare facts, that a woman was found dead in her home in Hangleton, last night. Her husband is in custody, and he is also under investigation by the police in connection with the murder of another woman, Mrs Lorna Belling, last week. Does anyone have any issues with that?’

DI Donald Dull raised his hand. ‘Actually, Guy, I do.’

‘Go ahead.’ Batchelor raised his arms expansively, his polite smile masking his fury at the hubris of this totally inexperienced parvenu.

‘Aren’t you making a potentially dangerous assumption here? I believe Detective Superintendent Grace has a very apt expression for assumptions: Assumptions make an Ass out of U and Me?’

Glowering at him, Batchelor said, ‘And your point is exactly?’

‘My point is, Temporary Detective Inspector,’ Dull said, pointedly accentuating the ‘Temporary’, ‘Seymour Darling may have murdered his wife in a fit of rage. Why does that make him a prime suspect in the murder of Lorna Belling? The circumstances are very different.’

Batchelor said nothing for some moments; he was thinking hard how to respond without pissing the man off. ‘Not prime suspect, Donald, but of course he does remain a suspect.’

Grace looked at the new DI. He was well aware that part of the reasoning behind bringing in Direct Entry officers was precisely what Dull was doing now — bringing fresh thinking. It was easy for policemen with years of experience to become too cynical and just too suspicious to look beyond the basic facts in front of them. Dull had made a good point. Having met Trish Darling himself, he could see what a bitter person she was. They needed to reserve judgement on whether Darling should continue to be linked to Lorna Belling’s murder — if it was murder — until after he had been interviewed further.

‘I’ve got a point as well, Guy, about your press conference,’ Grace said. ‘You need to deal carefully with any potential issue over the fact that Darling was on bail at the time he killed his wife. I suggest we speak after this briefing and involve Media HQ.’

Ray Packham, from the old High Tech Crime Unit, had been brought back to help with training new staff in the Digital Forensics Team. He had been temporarily seconded to the investigation, to report on the contents of all the suspects’ seized mobile phones and computers. A quietly methodical man, who looked more like a middle-management executive than a geek, Roy Grace had, over the years he had known him, developed a great respect for his abilities. He raised a hand.

‘There is something we’ve — um — recently been using that might be of value here, with this number of possible suspects,’ Packham said. ‘Mobile phones are quite chatty things — when the Bluetooth is left switched on — as most people do — they are constantly seeking other Bluetooth connections around them. But what we have only recently realized is that when the Wi-Fi is left on, that also looks to chat with any other Wi-Fi within range — and that leaves digital footprints, as it were, that can be found on certain routers that it passes.’

‘What kind of routers, Ray?’ Grace asked.

‘They’re known as “enterprise level” routers — a kind of advanced router, more powerful than the normal domestic one most people have in their homes. Some geeks use them, but they’re most common in offices and hotels where they have a network allowing multiple connections. We have a bit of kit — in layman’s language — that can suck out the IP address of any device that has tried to connect to the router for up to several previous weeks.’

There was complete silence, except for the sound of Norman Potting crunching on a chocolate-coated peanut.

‘Very interesting, Ray,’ Batchelor said. ‘What have you found relevant to this enquiry?’

Packham shook his head. ‘We haven’t started looking yet. But I took a walk around the streets adjacent to and bordering Vallance Mansions and there are several pubs, restaurants and B&Bs, some of which might well have such a router. There are also a few businesses operating in some of the premises. If we did another specific house-to-house in the surrounding area, we might get lucky. Even just one such router might show people who have been recent regular visitors to the area. It is possible one of them might turn out to be this Greg character.’

‘Very smart, Ray,’ Batchelor said. He shot a glance at Roy Grace, who nodded his approval. ‘What would you need to resource this?’

‘Just a couple of police officers for credibility — I could start right away.’

Batchelor glanced around, then looked at DC Alexander. ‘Jack, I’ll delegate this action to you.’

Looking pleased as punch at the responsibility placed on him, the young detective constable said, ‘Yes, sir.’

Then Batchelor looked at Arnie Crown, not able to get Potting’s nickname for the American detective, NotMuch, out of his mind. ‘Arnie, would you like to go with Jack? It’ll give you some experience of how we do these house-to-house enquires — if you’re OK with that?’

‘And we go in unarmed?’ the American said.

‘Unarmed? No, we always throw a stun grenade through the letterbox first.’

‘Are you serious?’

Everyone in the room started to laugh.