Not Dead Enough

113

Finding a route through the red tape of Social Services had been a doddle compared to the phone marathon that now ensued with the Brighton Health Care Trust, Grace rapidly discovered. It took Glenn Branson over an hour and a half of being shunted from official to official, and waiting for people to come out of meetings, before he finally got through to the one manager who was in a position to sanction the release of confidential patient information. And then only after Grace had been put on the line and pleaded his case.

The next problem was that no one by the name of Bishop had been seen at the A&E department on Sunday, and seventeen people had been treated for hand injuries during that day. Fortunately Dr Raj Singh was on duty, and Grace dispatched Branson to the hospital with the photograph from the CCTV in the hope that Singh would recognize him.

Just after four thirty, he stepped out of MIR One and phoned Cleo, to see how she was.

‘Quiet day,’ she said, sounding tired but reasonably cheerful. ‘I’ve had two detectives here all the time, going through the register. I’m just tidying up with Darren, then he’s driving me home. How’s you?’

Grace relayed the conversation with DI Pole he’d had earlier.

‘I didn’t think it was Richard,’ she said, sounding strangely relieved, which annoyed him. He was being irrational, he knew, but there was a warmth in her voice whenever she mentioned her ex, which concerned him. As if it was over, but not really over completely. ‘Are you going to be working late?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know yet. I have the six-thirty briefing and will have to see what that throws up.’

‘What do you fancy for supper?’

‘You.’

‘How would you like me garnished?’

‘Naked, with just a lettuce leaf.’

‘Then get yourself over here as early as you can. I need your body.’

‘Love you,’ he said.

‘I quite like you too!’ she said.

Deciding to take advantage of the first free moment he’d had all day, Grace walked across to the PNC unit, at the far end of the building, where poor Janet McWhirter had spent so much of her working life.

Normally the large office area, with many of its team civilian computer staff, had a lively buzz of activity. But this afternoon there was a subdued atmosphere. He knocked on the door of one of the few enclosed offices. It had been Janet McWhirter’s room and now, according to the label on the wall, housed Lorna Baxter, PNC and Disclosure Unit Manager. He had known her, like Janet, for a long time and liked her a lot.

Without waiting for a reply, he opened the door. Lorna, who was in her mid-thirties, was heavily pregnant. Her brown hair, normally long, was cropped short into a clumsy monk’s fringe, which accentuated the weight that had gone on to her face, and although she was dressed lightly, in a loose floral-patterned dress, she was clearly suffering in the heat.

She was talking on the phone, but signalled at him cheerily to come in, pointing to a chair in front of her desk. He closed the door and sat down.

It was a small, square room, her desk and chair, two visitor chairs, a tall metal filing cabinet and a stack of box files just about filling it. There was a Bart Simpson cartoon pinned to the wall on his right with coloured drawing pins, and a sheet of paper on which was crayoned a large heart and the words, I Love You Mummy!

She ended the call. ‘Hey, Roy!’ she said. ‘Good to see you.’ Then she shrugged. ‘Bummer, isn’t it?’ She had a strong South African accent, despite having lived over twelve years in England.

‘Janet?’

She grimaced. ‘We were good friends.’

‘So what happened exactly? I heard that she fell in love with someone and was moving to Australia with him to get married.’

‘Yes. She was so happy. You know, she was thirty-six and had never really had a serious boyfriend before. I think she’d almost resigned herself to being single for the rest of her life. Then she met this fellow and he clearly shot the lights out for her. She was a changed person in weeks.’

‘In what way?’

‘She had a total makeover. Hair, clothes, everything. And she looked so happy.’

‘And then she wound up murdered?’

‘That’s what it sounds like.’

‘What do you – or anyone here – know about this man, her fiancé?’

‘Not much. She was a very private person. I probably knew her as well as anyone – but she was a real closed book. It was a long while before she even admitted to me that she was dating. She didn’t say much about him, although she did let on that he was very wealthy. Big house in Brighton and a flat in London. The big but was that he was married. Planning to leave his wife.’

‘For Janet?’

‘That’s what he’d told her.’

‘And she believed him?’

‘Totally.’

‘Any idea what he did?’

‘He was in software,’ she said. ‘Something to do with rostering. A very successful company, apparently. He was opening up in Australia and decided he wanted to make a new life there – with Janet.’

Rostering. Grace was thinking hard. Rostering. That was the business Bishop was in. ‘Did she ever tell you his name?’

‘No, she wouldn’t tell me. She kept telling me she couldn’t give me his name because he was married, and she’d sworn to keep their affair secret.’

‘She was hardly the type to blackmail someone,’ Grace said. ‘And I wouldn’t have thought she had a lot of money.’

‘No, she didn’t. She used to travel to work on an old Vespa.’

‘So what could have been his motive for killing her – assuming he did?’

‘Or maybe they were both killed?’ she replied. ‘And only her body has turned up?’

‘That’s possible. Someone after him and she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? Wouldn’t be the first time. Have you heard anything from the investigating team?’

‘Not much progress so far. There’s just one small thing that’s interesting.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I saw Ray Packham earlier – from the High Tech Crime Unit?’

‘Yes, I know him. He’s smart.’

‘He’s been running forensic software on the computer Janet used here, and he’s recovered the electronic diary that she deleted when she left.’

Someone knocked on the door and entered. Grace looked up and saw a young man he recognized from this department standing there. Lorna looked up at him. ‘Sorry, Dermot, is it anything urgent?’

‘No – no problem – see you tomorrow.’

He went out and closed the door.

Her face blanked. ‘Where was I?’

‘Janet’s diary,’ he prompted.

‘Yes, right. There was one name on it, about nine months back, that none of us here know. It was an entry for an evening in December last year. She had written down, Drink, Brian.’

‘Brian?’

‘Yes.’

Grace felt a sudden frisson. Brian. Rostering. Big house in Brighton. Flat in London. A murdered woman.

Now his brain was really engaging, all his tiredness gone. Was that why he had woken in the middle of the night, thinking about Janet McWhirter? His brain telling him that there was a connection?

‘It looks like this means something to you, Roy.’

‘Possibly,’ he said ‘Who’s running the inquiry on Janet?’

‘DI Winter, in MIR Two.’

Grace thanked Lorna and headed straight to the incident room that had been set up in MIR Two. There he explained the possible connection to his own double-inquiry that he had just learned.

Then he returned to MIR One, almost colliding with a triumphant-looking Glenn Branson, who came round the corner at a speed close to a run. ‘Got him!’ Branson said, pulling a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolding it. ‘I’ve got a name and an address!’

Grace followed him into the room.

‘His name is Norman Jecks.’

Grace looked down at the crumpled sheet of lined paper, with a jagged edge where it had been torn from a ring-pad. On it was written 262B, Sackville Road, Hove.

He looked up at Branson. ‘That’s not Bishop’s address.’

‘No, it’s not. But that’s the one the man wrote down on the A&E registration form on Sunday morning. The disguised Brian Bishop. Maybe he has two lives?’

Grace stared at it, with a bad feeling. As if a dark cloud was swirling around his insides. Did Brian Bishop have a second home? A secret home? A secret life? ‘Is it a real address?’

‘Bella’s checked the electoral register. There’s a Norman Jecks at that address.’

He looked at his watch, adrenaline pumping into his veins. It was ten past six. ‘Forget the briefing meeting,’ he said. ‘Find out who the duty magistrate is and get a search warrant. Then get on to the Local Support Team. We’re going to pay Norman Jecks a visit. Just as fast as we possibly can.’

He sprinted back along the labyrinth of corridors to the PNC suite.

Lorna Baxter was halfway out of the door when he arrived.

‘Lorna,’ he said breathlessly, ‘have you got a moment?’

‘I’ve got to pick my eldest up from a swimming lesson.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Is it something quick?’

‘Just a few minutes – it’s really important – sorry to do this to you. I’m right, aren’t I, that Janet McWhirter would have had signatory authority to make entries on the PNC?’

‘Yes. She was the only person here who could.’

‘On her own, unsupervised?’

‘Yes.’

‘Would you mind looking up something for me on the PNC?’

She smiled. ‘I can see you need me for more than just a few minutes. I’ll get someone to pick Claire up,’ she said, pulling her mobile from her handbag.

They went and sat down in her office, and she tapped her keyboard, logging on. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Shoot!’

‘I need you to look up someone’s criminal record. What information do I have to give you?’

‘Just his name, age, address.’

Grace gave her Brian Bishop’s details. He listened to the click of the keys as she entered the information.

‘Brian Desmond Bishop, born 7 September 1964?’

‘That’s him.’

She leaned forward, closer to her screen. ‘In 1979, at Brighton Juvenile Court, he was sentenced to two years in a young offenders’ institute for raping a fourteen-year-old girl,’ she read. ‘In 1985, at Lewes Crown Court, he received two years’ probation for GBH on a woman. Nice guy!’ she commented.

‘Is there any anomaly with the entry?’ he asked.

‘Anomaly? In what sense?’

‘Could it have been tampered with?’

‘Well, there is just one thing – although it’s not that unusual.’ She looked up at him. ‘Normally records as old as these are never touched – they just sit on the file forever. The only time they are touched is when amendments are made – sometimes because of new evidence – old convictions getting quashed or a mistake that needs rectifying, that kind of thing.’

‘Can you tell when they’ve been touched?’

‘Absolutely!’ She nodded emphatically. ‘There’s an electronic footprint left any time they are altered. Actually there’s one here.’

Grace sat bolt upright. ‘There is?’

‘Each of us with signatory authority has an individual access code. If we amend a record, the footprint we leave is our access code, and the date.’

‘So can you find out whose access code that is?’

She smiled at him. ‘I know that access code without having to look it up. It’s Janet’s. She amended this record on –’ she peered closer – ‘7 April this year.’

Now Grace’s adrenaline was really surging. ‘She did?’

‘Uh huh.’ She frowned, tapped her keyboard, then peered at the screen again. ‘This is interesting,’ she said. ‘That was her last day in the office.’