Need You Dead

86 Friday 29 April

Moments after ending the call, Grace was wondering why Batchelor had made the decision to send Exton to Guildford. He texted him.

Then he sat, mulling the facts. Could Jon Exton have somehow wiped the memory card — or perhaps, more easily, just substituted it with a blank one? Most detectives routinely carried little plastic evidence bags in their pockets. He would have had plenty of opportunity on the drive from Lewes to Guildford to buy a blank card.

He made a call to the ANPR Unit at John Street, and talked to a duty operator, Jon Pumfrey, asking him for a plot from 5 p.m. last night to midnight of Jon Exton’s car.

Pumfrey obtained it while he waited, but it provided no surprise information. Exton had driven from Lewes to the Police HQ in Guildford. Afterwards he had returned to the vicinity of Vallance Mansions, and then much later he had pinged a camera on the A23 near the Withdean Sports Stadium.

Although ANPR cameras could plot the approximate route of vehicles across country, and through many cities, they did not provide blanket, detailed coverage. Exton could have stopped somewhere to shop for a memory card, without this being picked up.

Was it possible that later, in his panicked state, and not thinking clearly, he decided to take the GoPro for belt and braces good measure?

He went and made himself a coffee. Whilst the kettle boiled, his thoughts were boiling too. He just did not, could not, believe that mild Jon Exton was involved in any way.

However, the evidence was mounting all the time against the Detective. Yet he was still reluctant to believe he was a killer. And yet, and yet, and yet...

He had to distance himself from how he felt about the man. He’d never arrested — or even seen — a murderer who had i am a killer tattooed on his or her forehead. It was so often the quiet ones. Someone snapping in a pub fight. The quiet, friendly doctor, like Harold Shipman or Edward Crisp. Charming Ted Bundy. Frequently, when a suspected killer was being led away in handcuffs, a television crew would be interviewing his sweet old lady neighbour. She’d be saying what a nice man he was, how he always used to look after her cat when she went away. It was just these types who all too often were the most dangerous.

Returning to his office, he began making notes on a fresh page of his Investigator’s Notebook.

According to Exton’s police phone records, Grace wrote, DS Exton had been looking at sex-worker sites — despite his vehement denials. He had spent the past few weeks sleeping rough close to Lorna Belling’s flat and — pure speculation — might possibly have contacted her through a site on which she advertised herself — if this theory was correct. Could the deceased have threatened him with some form of blackmail, he wondered?

Exton was in the vicinity of her flat on the night she died.

Exton had been entrusted to drive the memory card, with potentially damning evidence, to Guildford. It had arrived blank.

During this past night someone had broken into Christopher Diplock’s BMW and taken the GoPro — which Diplock had concealed in a headrest.

Who had done that?

It seemed very coincidental — almost too coincidental — that within hours of Exton delivering a blank memory card from the GoPro to the Forensics team in Guildford, the camera it had come from was stolen.

But if it was Exton, how had he known it was there? How had any thief?

He hesitated, thinking. He and Cleo had a GoPro, and when it was on record mode a red light flashed. However well Diplock had concealed it in a headrest, someone might have spotted it.

Especially Exton if he had gone looking for it.

He noted down that all the evidence re Exton was circumstantial. But was it too strong to ignore? Should he arrest him? In addition to his work phone, Digital Forensics was examining his private phone and his laptop. Should he wait to see if there was anything on any of these linking him to Lorna Belling? Then his thoughts were interrupted by another call from Packham.

‘Roy, good news. As I thought, this Diplock fellow is no fool. He’d copied the memory card contents to his hard drive before giving it to us.’

Grace felt a massive flood of relief surge through him. ‘Brilliant! OK, can you get him to make a copy and take it to Guildford yourself — as quickly as you can — and don’t tell anyone, OK? Only report to me.’

‘With pleasure! I’ve just got a new Audi Q3 Quattro TDi, automatic with flappy paddles and 177 BHP! Will be great to give it a run over there.’

‘Nice wheels!’

‘You’re an Alfa man, aren’t you?’

‘Yep. But Audis are good, too. Always liked them.’

‘The only problem is, chief, that Diplock’s out with a client in Dorking — he won’t be able to get home until mid-afternoon.’

‘Can he get back any sooner? Could we get a traffic car to blue light him home and then back to his client?’

‘No, he’s installing a new system for them and can’t interrupt the process.’

‘OK — just ask him to be as quick as he can.’

As he hung up, his thoughts returned to Exton. Why had the errant detective failed to turn up this morning? Moments later a phone call came in, patched through from the Control Room.

It was about Exton.