Dead Man’s Footsteps

113

Grace stared in disbelief as he drove down his street just after 8 o’clock. He recognized Joan Major’s distinctive slab-shaped silver Fiat too now, parked outside his house. But it was the vehicle in the drive that astonished him the most. It was one of the Sussex Police white Scientific Support Branch vans.

Also in the street, behind Joan Major’s car, was a plain brown Ford Mondeo. He knew from the number plate that it was one of the CID pool cars. What the hell was going on?

He pulled up, leaped out of his car and ran into the house. It was silent.

He called out, ‘Hello? Anyone here?’

No reply.

He walked through into the kitchen to check that the automatic feeder fixed to the bowl of his goldfish, Marlon, had been working. Then he looked out of the window into the rear garden.

The sight that met his eyes defied belief.

Joan Major, and two SOCO officers he knew, were walking up his lawn. The forensic archaeologist, in the centre, was holding a long piece of electrical equipment in the shape of a canoe paddle, supported by a shoulder brace, and with a display screen of some kind in the centre. The SOCO officer on her right was peering intently at the screen, while the one on her left wrote down something on a large pad.

Stunned, Grace unlocked the rear door and sprinted out. ‘Hey! Excuse me! Joan, what on earth are you doing?’

Joan Major’s face reddened with embarrassment. ‘Oh, good morning, Roy. Umm. I assumed you knew we were here.’

‘I had no idea. Do you want to fill me in? What is that?’ He nodded at the equipment. ‘What on earth is going on?’

‘It’s GPR,’ she replied.

‘GPR?’

‘Ground Penetrating Radar.’

‘What are you doing with it?’

Her face reddened even more. Then, as if he was having a bad dream, out of the corner of his eye he saw one of the few police officers in the CID that he really did not like. On the whole, in Grace’s experience, most police officers got on with each other reasonably well. Just occasionally he had come across one whose attitude really irked him, and emerging through his garden gate at this moment was a young DC he just could not stomach. His name was Alfonso Zafferone.

A sullen, arrogant man in his late twenties, with Latino good looks and shiny, mussed-about hair, Zafferone was slickly dressed in a smart beige mackintosh over a tan suit. Although he was a sharp detective, Zafferone had a serious attitude problem and Grace had written a scathing report after his last experience working with the man.

Now Zafferone was striding across his lawn, chewing gum and holding a sheet of paper in his hand of the kind that Grace was all too familiar with.

‘Good morning, Detective Superintendent. Nice to see you again.’ Zafferone gave him a smarmy smile.

‘You want to tell me just what is going on?’

The young DC held up the signed document. ‘A search warrant,’ Zafferone said.

‘For my garden?’

‘And the house too.’ He hesitated, then added a reluctant, ‘Sir.’

Now Grace was almost beside himself with rage. This was not real. No way. Absolutely no way.

‘Is this some kind of a joke? Just who the fuck is responsible for this?’

Zafferone smiled, as if he was in on this too and was really enjoying his moment of power, and said, ‘Detective Superintendent Pewe.’