Dead at First Sight

93 Thursday 11 October

‘Roy,’ said a very irate-sounding ACC. ‘What part of my email asking for an urgent update did you not understand? I expect to be kept informed, otherwise you make me look a bloody idiot to the Chief. The minimal feedback I keep getting from you lacks all granularity.’

Roy decided to give him back as good as he could muster, having recently trawled the internet himself for management gobbledygook with which to retaliate. Childish, he knew, but it gave him pleasure. ‘With respect, sir,’ he said, ‘I appreciate you like to take the helicopter view. From forty thousand feet it may look one way, but it’s very different down here in the weeds.’

For a brief while it seemed as if Pewe was stumped for a reply. ‘What weeds are you talking about?’

‘Sir, I’m in the middle of a fast-time situation, may I get back to you in a while?’

‘Only if you have anything intelligible to say.’ The phone went dead.

Grace concentrated back on his task. ‘OK, for the benefit of all the team including new members, I’m going to provide a detailed update, so everyone knows where we are with the investigation. This is what we have so far on Operation Lisbon, the investigation into the murder of Suzy Driver, linked to the murder of her sister, Lena Welch, in Munich, and linked to the vicious attack on Toby Seward in this city two nights ago. We have two prime suspects for this attack, who are also our prime suspects for the murders of Suzy Driver and Lena Welch. They are linked to an internet romance fraud scamming outfit operating out of Germany, with further links to Ghana. We’ve established they have been operating from rented accommodation here in Brighton and we believe our suspects recently broke away from a much larger organization, possibly masterminded out of the Channel Isles. DS Camping is liaising with the Jersey States Police.’ He paused to swig some water from a bottle.

‘As you’ll know, a major development today is that one of these suspects, Kofi Okonjo, also known as Dunstan Ogwang, who was arrested on Tuesday night shortly after the attack on Toby Seward and was remanded in custody in Lewes Prison yesterday, was found murdered in a shower block there earlier this afternoon.’

‘Is anyone upset about the loss of such a fine, upstanding citizen, chief?’ Norman Potting asked.

Roy Grace was not smiling. ‘Norman!’ he rebuked.

‘Sorry, chief.’

‘Our role is to solve crimes, not to act as vigilante judge and jury, OK, Norman?’

As Potting looked duly chastised, Grace would dearly love to have added, more’s the pity. But he kept his focus.

‘On Tuesday night, our dear long-lost friend, the amazing disappearing American hitman Tooth, was spotted in Withdean Road, close to the house where our two suspects were running their operation. We don’t know what he was doing there, but it seems he may now be parked outside a block of flats in Kemp Town. Knowing what we do about Tooth’s line of work, I suspect he may be linked to the killing of Okonjo in prison. It is extremely unlikely that Okonjo was murdered as a result of a fight, because in my view he’d not been in there long enough to have made enemies.’

Potting interrupted. ‘Chief, we know from past experience that Tooth has Houdini-like qualities — but are you suggesting he somehow got into the prison, stabbed Okonjo and slipped out again?’

‘I’ve no evidence to support that, Norman. But the presence of Tooth is very timely and indicates that he could be involved in some way. My hypothesis is that Okonjo was the victim of a contract killing — he was killed either to silence him or in retribution, or both. If Okonjo was killed to order, it is very possible there is a contract out on his partner, Jules de Copeland, too. We understand they were both working for Steve Barrey and split away from him to start on their own. Barrey’s a ruthless man. It seems so far he’s been like the old Mafia capo John Gotti, nicknamed the Teflon Don, who evaded prosecution and justice for decades.’

He took another swig of water. ‘I’m going to continue with the surveillance team on Marina Heights, but in the meantime I want two of you to back up PC Trundle. Which of you are green permit holders?’

A green permit holder was a police officer with a driving licence that permitted engaging in a pursuit.

DC Wilde and DC Hall raised their hands.

‘Right, Velvet and Kevin, take a car and go and remain in the area — but keep well clear and out of direct line of sight from anyone in the building. I’ll get Comms to inform Trundle when you are in position.’

Both detectives immediately left the room.

Grace’s phone rang. Apologizing to his team, he took the call. It was Aiden Gilbert from Digital Forensics.

‘Boss, we have some more detail from Jules de Copeland’s email. It’s come as a result of the continuing monitoring of his email account we’ve been authorized to carry out. We don’t have his present location, but he’s made an RV with someone we’ve identified as a Mrs Lynda Merrill for tomorrow evening at an address near East Grinstead. It seems she is bringing a substantial amount of cash with her. At least £300,000.’

‘What? Hang on, Aiden.’ Grace told his team to stand down and hurried to his workstation. ‘Tell me what you have?’

‘From the email comms, this lady is all loved-up with a gentleman she believes to be called Richie Griffiths,’ Gilbert said. ‘We’ve identified this to be a false name given to her by Jules de Copeland. It looks like they’ve agreed to meet tomorrow evening at an isolated cottage for a romantic weekend.’

‘Do you have the address?’ Grace asked.

‘I do, she’s sent it to him with elaborate directions on finding it.’

‘Nice work!’

Gilbert gave it to him and he wrote it down. Primrose Farm Cottage, Forest Row. Along with the directions.

‘Sounds like they’re planning to meet around 6.30 p.m. tomorrow evening, boss. You wouldn’t want to go and spoil their beautiful tryst, would you?’

‘An old romantic like me? Why would I even think about doing something like that, Aiden?’

‘Glad to hear it, boss! I’d hate to be the one to blunt Cupid’s arrow.’

As soon as he ended the call, Grace rang the Gold Commander, Detective Chief Superintendent Jason Tingley, and updated him.

They met a short while later, looking at a Google Earth map of the cottage and surrounding areas, and discussed a strategy for tomorrow evening, if there were no developments in the interim. Tingley asked Grace whether he’d considered speaking to Lynda Merrill, telling her the situation and replacing her with a police decoy.

Grace responded that he had already considered this, but it seemed from the intercepted emails that Lynda Merrill genuinely believed Richie Griffiths was real. He knew how reluctant victims of romance fraud often were to accept the truth, often going into complete denial. In his view, with the arrest — and now death — of his colleague, Copeland was a definite flight risk. His hypothesis was that Copeland was going to turn up, grab the money, convert it into a cyber currency and disappear. Back to Ghana, most likely, and then probably completely vanish.

Tingley saw his reasoning, but their primary concern was that Lynda Merrill could not be left exposed. Before policies had changed, some years back, they might have been able to consider using her as bait — like a tethered goat — but not now, when safeguarding victims had to be the priority.

The meandering driveway, over half a mile long from the road to the house, looked to be a major asset. If they had that covered, they both agreed, they could arrest Jules de Copeland before he got into the house. The Silver Command room would be set up at HQ, from which the operation would be run. Two CROPS — Covert Rural Surveillance officers — were to be deployed tonight to position themselves, under the cover of darkness, in observation posts covering Primrose Farm Cottage. They would report to a dedicated support team located in a concealed position close by, which would in turn liaise with the Silver Tactical Command. To cover all likely contingencies, a vehicle containing two Armed Response officers would also be stationed close by, as well as additional police resources.

CROPS officers were trained in concealment. They wore combat fatigues made from Disruptive Pattern Material — DPM — selected for the terrain they were going into, with real vegetation attached to their garb and helmets. They carried provisions and equipment enabling them to stay in place motionless for hours and, if need be, days. Because once in situ they could not move for risk of being seen.

As further back-up, Silver would also request Home Office approval for a listening device to be placed in the cottage.

They agreed that the moment the CROPS saw Copeland coming down the drive, one ARV would carry out a high-threat enforced stop and arrest him in his car, with the second ARV coming up behind, both as back-up and to seal off the exit route for Copeland’s car.

At 8.30 p.m., Grace decided that if his hypothesis was right and it was Jules de Copeland who Tooth was watching for, then nothing was likely to happen until later tomorrow, when Copeland made his next move. Grace set a rota of a skeleton team of his crew to stay during the night, and told the rest to go home and get some rest.

He left to go home, also, with instructions to the officers staying on to call him, no matter how late, if there were any developments.

He had a feeling that tomorrow was going to be a big and long day. In the meantime he had a serious discussion ahead with Cleo, about his job offer from Alison Vosper. He was flattered to be offered it, but he really didn’t know how he felt about it, nor what Cleo’s views would be.

But when he arrived home, Kaitlynn’s car was outside and Cleo’s was gone. The nanny was dozing on the sofa in the living room in front of the television. There was a note on the kitchen table, confirming an earlier text from Cleo.

He loved her gallows humour. Opening the fridge, he put his food in the microwave and then chatted for a short while to Kaitlynn after she’d woken up apologetically. He was fast asleep long before Cleo came back home.