Dead Man's Grip

48

An hour and a half later, Grace and Branson cruised slowly past 209 Manor Hall Road, Southwick. Branson was behind the wheel and Grace studied the house. Curtains were drawn, a good sign that the occupants were not up yet, or at least were inside. Garage door closed. With luck the van would be parked in there.

Grace radioed to the other vehicles in his team, while Branson stopped at their designated meeting point, one block to the south, and turned the car around. The only further intelligence that had come through on Evie Preece was that she was estranged from her common-law husband and apparently lived alone in the house. She was twenty-seven years old and had police markers going back years, for assault, street drinking, possession of stolen goods and handling drugs. She was currently under an ASBO banning her from entering the centre of Brighton for six months. All three of her children, by three different fathers, had been taken into care on the orders of the Social Services. She and her brother were two peas in a pod, Grace thought. They’d no doubt be getting plenty of lip from her when they went in.

‘So, old-timer, tell me, how was the concert last night? What did Cleo think of your sad old git band?’

‘She thought the Eagles were great, actually!’

Branson looked at him quizzically. ‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yeah!’

‘You sure she wasn’t just humouring you?’

‘She said she’d like to see them again. And she bought a CD afterwards.’

Branson tapped his head. ‘You know, love does make people go a bit crazy.’

‘Very funny!’

‘You probably had an old person’s nap in the middle of it. The band probably did too.’

‘You’re so full of shit. You are talking about one of the greatest bands of all time.’

‘And you going to London on Friday night to see Jersey Boys?’ Glenn said.

‘Are you going to trash them, too?’

‘Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons – they’re all right.’

‘You actually like their music?’

‘Some of it. I don’t think all white music’s rubbish.’

Grace grinned and was about to say something to Glenn, but then he saw in the mirror the dog handler’s marked van pulling up behind them. After another few moments the unmarked white minibus, containing eight members of the Local Support Team, halted alongside them, momentarily blocking the road. Two other marked police cars reported they were now in position at the far end of the street.

Jason Hazzard, the Local Neighbourhood Team Inspector, looked in at them and Grace gave him the thumbs up, mouthing, ‘Rock ’n’ roll.’

Hazzard pulled his visor down and the three vehicles moved forward, accelerating sharply with a sense of urgency now, then braking to a halt outside the house. Everyone bundled out on to the pavement. Thanks to Google Earth they’d had a clear preview of the geography of the place.

Two sets of dog handlers ran up the side to cover the back garden. The members of the Local Support Team, in their blue suits, protective hard plastic knee pads, military-style helmets with visors lowered and heavy-duty black gloves, ran up to the front door. One of them carried a metal cylinder, the size of a large fire extinguisher – the battering ram, known colloquially as the Big Yellow Door Key. Two others, bringing up the rear, carried the back-up hydraulic ram and its power supply, in case the front door was reinforced. Two more stood outside the garage to prevent anyone escaping that way.

The first members of the team to reach the door pounded on it with their fists, at the same time yelling, ‘POLICE! OPEN UP! POLICE! OPEN UP!’ It was a deliberate intimidation tactic.

One officer swung the battering ram and the door splintered open.

All six of them charged in, shouting at the tops of their voices, ‘POLICE! POLICE!’

Grace and Branson followed them into a tiny hallway that stank of stale cigarette smoke. Grace’s adrenalin was pumping. Like most officers, he’d always loved the thrill of raids, and the fear that went with it. You never knew what you were going to find. Or what missiles or weapons might be used against you. His eyes darted everywhere, warily, ever conscious of the possibility that someone might appear with a weapon, and that both himself and Glenn were less well protected than the members of this team, wearing only stab vests beneath their jackets.

The LST members, all experienced and well trained in this kind of operation, had split up in here. Some were bursting into different downstairs rooms and others at the same time were charging up the stairs, yelling menacingly, ‘POLICE! STAY WHERE YOU ARE! DON’T MOVE!’

The two detectives stayed in the narrow, bare hallway and heard doors banging open above them. Heavy footsteps. Then a female member of the team, whom Grace knew and rated as a particularly bright and plucky officer, Vicky Jones, called out to him in a concerned voice, ‘Sir, you’d better come in here!’

Followed by Glenn Branson, he walked through the open doorway to his right, into a small and disgustingly cluttered sitting room that reeked of ingrained cigarette smoke and urine. He noticed a wooden-framed settee, bottles of wine and beer littering a manky carpet, along with unwashed clothes, and a massive plasma TV screen on the wall.

Face down, occupying whatever floor space wasn’t littered with detritus, was a writhing, moaning woman in a fluffy pink dressing gown, bound hand and foot with grey duct tape, and gagged.

‘No one upstairs!’ shouted Jason Hazzard.

‘Garage is empty!’ another voice called out.

Grace ran upstairs very quickly, glanced into the two bedrooms and the bathroom, then went back down and knelt beside the woman, as Vicky Jones and another member of the team worked away the tape over her mouth, then the rest of the bindings.

The woman, in her mid-twenties, had a shock of short, fair hair and a hard face with a flinty complexion. She spoke the moment her mouth was freed.

‘Fuckers!’ she said. ‘What took you so fucking long? What’s the fucking time?’

‘Five past ten,’ Vicky Jones said. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Evie Preece.’

‘Are you injured, Evie?’ She turned to another officer and said, ‘Call an ambulance.’

‘I don’t need no fucking ambulance. I need a bleedin’ drink and a fag.’

Grace looked at her. He had no idea at this stage how long she had been there, but she looked remarkably composed for someone who had been tied and gagged. He wondered if it was a set-up. This was not a woman you could trust with any story.

‘Where’s your brother?’ Roy Grace asked her.

‘Which bruvver?’

‘Ewan.’

‘In prison. Where you pigs put him.’

‘So he hasn’t been staying here?’ he pressed.

‘I didn’t have no one staying.’

‘Someone’s been sleeping in your spare bed,’ Grace said.

‘Must have been the Man in the Moon.’

‘Was that who tied you up? The Man in the Moon is into bondage, is he?’

‘I want a solicitor.’

‘You’re not under arrest, Evie. You only get a solicitor if you are charged with something.’

‘So charge me.’

‘I will do in a minute,’ Grace said. ‘I’ll charge you with obstructing a police officer. Now tell me who slept in your spare room?’

She said nothing.

‘The same person who tied you up?’

‘No.’

Good, he thought. That was a big step forward.

‘We’re concerned about your brother,’ he said.

‘That’s bleedin’ touching, that is. You been nicking him since he was a kid, but you’re suddenly concerned about him? That’s rich!’