Dead at First Sight

35 Tuesday 2 October

Roy Grace stared warily up at the fixings of the large chandelier the woman was hanging from. Decorated with carved, gilded birds and dripping with teardrop pendants, it looked like it belonged in a stately home, as did the stucco work on the ceiling. He was trying to assess the danger from the evident strain on the ceiling, which had caused the cracks and fallen chunks of plaster. Was it going to hold, he wondered, or was the ceiling about to come crashing down under her added weight? From a safety standpoint, the sooner her body was cut down, the better. Another flake of plaster fell as he watched.

‘What do you think, Glenn? Cut her down?’

Branson, several inches taller and closer to the ceiling than him, was looking equally concerned. ‘I reckon the whole chandelier’s going to come down soon if we don’t,’ he said. ‘Like that massive one in the Royal Pavilion, when we were on Operation Icon — the one that came down during our investigation, killing Gaia’s stalker, Drayton Wheeler.’

‘That didn’t have the help of a dead body.’

‘Right, boss.’ He looked up again, nervously. ‘Didn’t one come down in the Phantom of the Opera as well?’

‘I wouldn’t know — I’m not a lover of musicals.’

‘You’re such a cultural philistine, you know?’

‘A philistine? Me? What’s cultural about a bunch of luvvies in ridiculous costumes bursting into song? Cleo took me to the opera once. I spent the whole time praying for a fat lady to come on stage and start singing. Or a heart attack — whichever came sooner.’

‘I rest my case,’ Branson said. ‘There’s no hope for you.’

‘There’s no hope for either of us if the ceiling comes down while we’re arguing. Shall we focus?’ He instructed Alex Call to have someone cut down the dead woman immediately, but to preserve the knot. Knots often yielded fingerprints or DNA, and in the case of serial offenders, the style of knot could be a vital clue.

He scanned the bedroom, not wanting to stay in there too long. Evidence that he was in the home of someone in the antiques world was all around. The grand two-poster bed, the beautiful inlaid dressing table adorned by silver and porcelain ornaments, the chaise longue scattered with cushions. Through the window he could see white marble statues dotted around the lawn of the well-kept garden. They looked vulgar, as if trying to give the place the airs and graces of a stately home. Not his taste. There were framed oil miniatures on the walls, fine curtains and antique rugs, and an exquisitely upholstered bow-backed chair directly beneath the dead woman.

His focus was on the elements that might make it a crime scene, as Bill Warner had suspected. The DI had good reason to be suspicious. The top of the seat cushion was a good six inches below Suzy Driver’s feet. Roy assessed the cushion. If she’d been standing on it, attempting to hang herself, it would have squashed down even more. There was no obvious way she could have hauled herself up the extra distance.

On her right foot was a black velvet slipper with a gold crest. Her left foot was bare and the left slipper lay on its side on the far side of the room, against the skirting board. He speculated on how it had got there. Had she kicked out her legs in her death throes, in her final desperate struggle for air? Or had she been carried unconscious by her assailant and had the slipper fallen off and, in a red mist of panic, had he — or she — not noticed?

Had she even died from hanging, he began to wonder? Or was she dead some time before being strung up there? Hopefully, the pathologist would be able to answer that. But however she had died, he was already pretty certain in his own mind that she had not taken her own life. Someone else had.

An iPhone lay on the floor, beneath the chair at the dressing table. An odd location — had it fallen there? Possible sign of a struggle? He called one of the scene investigators over and instructed him to seize the phone as evidence. Then the two detectives left and carried out a room-by-room walk-through. Downstairs in a sumptuous den were two chesterfields, face to face across a handsome coffee table, and a tidy roll-top desk. The clue that something was missing from it was a Mac power cable lying on the floor. Grace followed the cable under the desk, where it was plugged into a wall socket. The switch was in the on position.

Had her computer been taken? By her killer?

There were no other signs that this was a burglary. No cupboard doors or filing cabinet drawers left open with the contents scattered everywhere. The whole house looked neat and tidy. The offender might have just taken her computer. Because of what was on it? But if so, why hadn’t he — or she — taken the phone also? Not noticed it under the chair, perhaps, in the heat of the moment? What else had they not noticed?

He walked into the hall, with busts on plinths, framed antique Brighton prints on the walls and a very ancient high-backed hall-porter’s chair. He carried on through into the kitchen, which was fairly modern in comparison. And saw the iPad immediately. It sat on a work surface on the far side of the room, next to a toaster and a coffee machine, plugged into a socket.

Had Suzy Driver’s killer also missed this?

He called Aiden Gilbert at the Digital Forensics Team and asked him if someone could take a fast look at Suzy Driver’s phone and iPad, to try to see who she had been in contact with in recent weeks. Next, he radioed the Force Control Room and requested a bike or car from the Road Policing Unit to pick the items up and rush them to Gilbert in nearby Haywards Heath.

On a handsome oak Welsh dresser was a wedding photo in a silver frame. He presumed it was Suzy Driver and her husband. She was standing in the front porch of a church, in a wedding dress, her hair tumbling in ringlets around her shoulders, and wearing a short veil. Raymond Driver, in a morning suit with wide trousers and sporting a red carnation, a fancy gold brocade waistcoat and big hair, stood proudly beside her. Alongside was her maid of honour, a fair-haired woman who looked familiar to Roy.

Next to it was another silver-framed photograph, one he was immediately certain he had seen before. Identical to the one he had received from Marcel Kullen in Germany. The photo of the two ladies in ballgowns. The fair-haired one was the maid of honour.

They weren’t identical but they looked so similar they had to be sisters. Suzy and Lena, Roy thought. Both dead.

He looked at Branson, who had joined him and was staring intently at a yellow Post-it note stuck to a work surface. Something was handwritten on it, in blue ink. ‘Jack Roberts,’ the DI said, pensively. ‘Why do I know that name?’

‘Is he a movie star?’ Grace said, mischievously.

‘Ha ha. If he is, he’s from back in the silent movie era — you’re more likely to remember that, old-timer.’

Grace gave him two fingers and opened a drawer in the dresser. He could see without touching anything that it contained a roll of sellotape, scissors, a couple of ballpoint pens, a stapler and a photograph of three young children playing on a beach that he recognized, from a trip to Australia with Sandy many years ago, as Bondi. He slid the drawer shut, then opened the next and glanced in, but saw nothing of interest, nor in any of the other kitchen drawers.

Then he looked at a cork noticeboard fixed to a wall. There were a couple of taxi firm business cards pinned to it; a Thai takeaway menu; a cartoon drawn by a child of a beach, sea, a sailing boat and a big, low sun.

Then he saw another business card. ‘Bingo!’ Branson said.

‘Perhaps?’ Grace added with a note of caution. The card read:

‘Pay him a visit?’ Branson suggested.

Grace glanced at his watch. Kingston was a good hour away, longer probably as they would be heading into rush hour. ‘Better see if he’s there, and willing to wait for us.’

He dialled the number on the business card.