Not Dead Enough

12

Like many of the products of the early post-war building boom, Sussex House, a sleek, rectangular, two-storey building, was not ageing particularly well. The original architect had clearly been influenced by the Art Deco period and the place looked from some angles like the superstructure of a small, tired cruise liner.

Originally constructed in the early 1950s as a hospital for contagious diseases, at that time it had occupied a commanding, isolated position on a hill on the outskirts of Brighton, just beyond the suburb of Hollingbury, and the architect could no doubt have seen his vision in its full, stand-alone glory. But the ensuing years had not been kind. As the urban sprawl encroached, the area around the building became designated as an industrial estate. For reasons no one today was clear about, the hospital closed down and the building was bought by a firm that manufactured cash registers. Some years later it was sold to a freezer company, which subsequently sold it to American Express, which in turn, in the mid-1990s, sold it to the Sussex Police Authority.

Refurbished and modernized, it was opened in a blaze of publicity as the flagship, high-tech headquarters for Sussex CID, positioning the county’s force at the very cutting edge of modern British policing. More recently, it had been decided to move the custody centre and cell block out there also, so these were built on and annexed to the building. Now, despite the fact that Sussex House was bursting at the seams, some of the uniformed divisions were also being moved here. And with just ninety parking spaces for a workforce that had expanded to 430 people, not everyone found the place lived up to its original promise.

The Witness Interview Suite was a rather grand name for two small boxrooms, Glenn Branson thought. The smaller, which contained nothing but a monitor and a couple of chairs, was used for observation. The larger, in which he was now seated with DC Nick Nicholl and the very distressed Brian Bishop, had been decorated in a manner designed to put witnesses, and potential suspects, at their ease – despite two wall-mounted cameras pointing straight down at them.

It was brightly lit, with a hard, grey carpet and cream walls, a large south-facing window giving partial views of Brighton and Hove across the slab-like roof of an ASDA supermarket, three bucket-shaped chairs upholstered in cherry-red fabric, and a rather characterless coffee table with black legs and a fake pine top, which looked like it might have been the last item to go in a Conran shop sale.

The room smelled new, as if the carpet had just been laid minutes before and the paint on the walls was still drying, yet it had smelled like this for as long as Branson could remember. He had only been in here a few minutes and was perspiring already, as were DC Nicholl and Brian Bishop. That was the problem with this building: the air conditioning was crap and half the windows did not open.

Announcing the date and time, Branson activated the wall switch for the recording apparatus. He explained that this was standard procedure to Bishop, who responded with an acquiescent nod.

The man appeared totally wretched. Dressed in an expensive-looking tan jacket with silver buttons, pulled on untidily over his blue, open-throat Armani polo shirt, sunglasses sticking out of his top pocket, he sat all hunched up, broken. Away from the golf course, his tartan trousers and two-tone golfing shoes seemed a little ridiculous.

Branson couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. And try as he might, the DS could not get the image of Clive Owen in the movie Croupier out of his mind. In other circumstances he might have asked Bishop if they were related. And although it had no bearing on the task he was here to carry out, he could also not help wondering why golf clubs, which always seemed to him to have ludicrously formal and outdated dress codes, such as wearing ties in clubhouses, allowed their members to go out on the course looking like they were starring in a pantomime.

‘May I ask when you last saw your wife, Mr Bishop?’

He clocked the hesitation before the man answered.

‘Sunday evening, about eight o’clock.’ Bishop’s voice was suave, but deadpan, and totally classless, as if he had worked on it to lose whatever accent he might once have had. Impossible to tell whether he came from a privileged background or was self-made. The man’s dark red Bentley, which was still parked at his golf club, was the kind of flash motor Branson associated more with footballers than class.

The door opened and Eleanor Hodgson, Roy Grace’s prim, nervy, fifty-something Management Support Assistant, came in with a round tray containing three mugs of coffee and a cup of water. Bishop drained the water before she had left the room.

‘You hadn’t seen your wife since Sunday?’ Branson said, with an element of surprise in his voice.

‘No. I spend the weeks in London, at my flat. I go up to town Sunday evenings and normally come back Friday night.’ Bishop peered at his coffee and then stirred it carefully, with laboured precision, with the plastic stick Eleanor Hodgson had provided.

‘So you would only see each other at weekends?’

‘Depends if we had anything on in London. Katie would come up sometimes, for a dinner, or shopping. Or whatever.’

‘Whatever?’

‘Theatre. Friends. Clients. She – liked coming up – but . . .’

There was a long silence.

Branson waited for him to go on, glancing at Nicholl but getting nothing from the younger detective. ‘But?’ he prompted.

‘She had her social life down here. Bridge, golf, her charity work.’

‘Which charity?’

‘She’s involved – was – with several. The NSPCC mainly. One or two others. A local battered-wives charity. Katie was a giver. A good person.’ Brian Bishop closed his eyes and buried his face in his hands. ‘Shit. Oh, Christ. What’s happened? Please tell me?’

‘Do you have children, sir?’ Nick Nicholl asked suddenly.

‘Not together. I have two by my first marriage. My son, Max, is fifteen. And my daughter, Carly – she’s thirteen. Max is with a friend in the South of France. Carly’s staying with cousins in Canada.’

‘Is there anyone we need to contact for you?’ Nicholl continued.

Looking bewildered, Bishop shook his head.

‘We will be assigning you a family liaison officer to help you with everything. I’m afraid you won’t be able to return to your home for a few days. Is there anyone you could stay with?’

‘I have my flat in London.’

‘We’re going to need to talk to you again. It would be more convenient if you could stay down in the Brighton and Hove area for the next few days. Perhaps with some friends, or in a hotel?’

‘What about my clothes? I need my stuff – my things – wash kit . . .’

‘If you tell the family liaison officer what you need it will be brought to you.’

‘Please tell me what’s happened?’

‘How long have you been married, Mr Bishop?’

‘Five years – we had our anniversary in April.’

‘Would you describe your marriage as happy?’

Bishop leaned back and shook his head. ‘What the hell is this? Why are you interrogating me?’

‘We’re not interrogating you, sir. Just asking you a few background questions. Trying to understand a little more about you and your family. This can often really help in an investigation – it’s standard procedure, sir.’

‘I think I’ve told you enough. I want to see my – my darling. I want to see Katie. Please.’

The door opened and Bishop saw a man dressed in a crumpled blue suit, white shirt and blue and white striped tie come in. He was about five foot ten tall, pleasant-looking, with alert blue eyes, fair hair cropped short to little more than a fuzz, badly shaven, and a nose that had seen better days. He held out a strong, weathered hand, with well-trimmed nails, towards Bishop. ‘Detective Superintendent Grace,’ he said. ‘I’m the Senior Investigating Officer for this – situation. I’m extremely sorry, Mr Bishop.’

Bishop gave him a clammy grip back with long, bony fingers, one of which sported a crested signet ring. ‘Please tell me what’s happened.’

Roy Grace glanced at Branson, then at Nicholl. He had been watching for the past few minutes from the observation room, but was not about to reveal this. ‘Were you playing golf this morning, sir?’

Bishop’s eyes flicked, briefly, to the left. ‘Yes. Yes, I was.’

‘Can I ask when you last played?’

Bishop looked thrown by the question. Grace, watching like a hawk, saw his eyes flick right, then left, then very definitely left again. ‘Last Sunday.’

Now Grace would be able to get a handle on whether Bishop was lying or telling the truth. Watching eyes was an effective technique he had learned from his interest in neuro-linguistic programming. All people have two sides to their brains, one part that contains memory, the other that works the imagination – the creative side – and lying. The construct side. The sides on which these were located varied with each individual. To establish that, you asked a control question to which the person was unlikely to respond with a lie, such as the seemingly innocent question he had just asked Bishop. So in future, when he asked the man a question, if his eyes went to the left, he would be telling the truth, but if they went to the right, to the construct side, it would be an indicator that he was lying.

‘Where did you sleep last night, Mr Bishop?’

His eyes staring resolutely ahead, giving nothing away intentionally, or unintentionally, Bishop said, ‘In my flat in London.’

‘Could anyone vouch for that?’

Looking agitated, Bishop’s eyes shot to the left. To memory. ‘The concierge, Oliver, I suppose.’

‘When did you see him?’

‘Yesterday evening, about seven o’clock – when I came back from the office. And then again this morning.’

‘What time were you on the tee at the golf club this morning?’

‘Just after nine.’

‘And you drove down from London?’

‘Yes.’

‘What time would that have been?’

‘About half-six. Oliver helped me load my stuff into the car – my golf sticks.’

Grace thought for a moment. ‘Can anyone vouch for where you were between seven o’clock yesterday and half past six this morning?’

Bishop’s eyes shot back to the left, to memory mode, which indicated he was telling the truth. ‘I had dinner with my financial adviser at a restaurant in Piccadilly.’

‘And did your concierge see you leave and come back?’

‘No. He’s not usually around much after seven – until the morning.’

‘What time did your dinner finish?’

‘About half past ten. What is this, a witch hunt?’

‘No, sir. I’m sorry if I’m sounding a bit pedantic, but if we can eliminate you it will help us focus our inquiries. Would you mind telling me what happened after your dinner?’

‘I went to my flat and crashed out.’

Grace nodded.

Bishop, staring hard at him, then at Branson and Nick Nicholl in turn, frowned. ‘What? You think I drove to Brighton at midnight?’

‘It does seem a little unlikely, sir,’ Grace assured him. ‘Can you give us the phone numbers of your concierge and your financial adviser? And the name of the restaurant?’

Bishop obliged. Branson wrote them down.

‘Could I also have the number of your mobile phone, sir? And we need some recent photographs of your wife,’ Grace requested.

‘Yes, of course.’

Then Grace said, ‘Would you mind answering a very personal question, Mr Bishop? You are not under any obligation but it would help us.’

The man shrugged helplessly.

‘Did you and your wife indulge in any unusual sexual practices?’

Bishop stood up abruptly. ‘What the hell is this? My wife has been murdered! I want to know what’s happened, Detective – Super – Super whatever you said your name was.’

‘Detective Superintendent Grace.’

‘Why can’t you answer a simple question, Detective Superintendent Grace? Is it too much for anyone to answer one simple question?’ Getting increasingly hysterical, Bishop continued, his voice rising, ‘Is it? You’re telling me my wife died – are you now telling me I killed her? Is that what you’re trying to say?’

The man’s eyes were all over the place. Grace would need to let him settle. He stared down at him. Stared at the man’s ridiculous trousers, and at the shoes which reminded him of spats worn by 1930s gangsters. Grief affected everyone in a different way. He’d had enough damn experience of that in his career, and in his private life.

The fact that the man lived in a vulgar house and drove a flash car did not make him a killer. It did not even make him a less than totally honourable citizen. He had to dump all prejudices out of his mind. It was perfectly possible for a man to live in a house worth north of a couple of million and still be a thoroughly decent, law-abiding human being. Even if he did have a bedside cabinet full of sex toys and a book on sexual fetishes in his office, that didn’t necessarily mean he had jammed a gas mask over his wife’s face, then strangled her.

But it didn’t necessarily mean he hadn’t, either.

‘I’m afraid the questions are necessary, sir. We wouldn’t ask them if they weren’t. I realize it’s very difficult for you and you want to know what’s happened. I can assure you we’ll explain everything in due course. Please just bear with us for the time being. I really do understand how you must be feeling.’

‘You do? Really, Detective Superintendent? Do you have any idea what it is like to be told your wife is dead?’

Grace nearly replied, Yes, actually, I do, but he kept calm. Mentally he noted that Bishop had not demanded to see a solicitor, which was often a good indicator of guilt. And yet something did not feel right. He just couldn’t put a finger on it.

He left the room, went back to his office and called Linda Buckley, one of the two family liaison officers who were being assigned to look after Bishop. She was an extremely competent WPC with whom he had worked several times in the past.

‘I want you to keep a close eye on Bishop. Report back to me any odd behaviour. If necessary, I’ll get a surveillance team on to him,’ he briefed her.