Dead Man's Grip

74

Carly Chase sat down beside Glenn Branson at the small round conference table in Roy Grace’s office. Grace joined them.

‘Nice to meet you, Mrs Chase,’ he said, sitting down. ‘I’m sorry it’s not under better circumstances. Would you like something to drink?’

She felt too sick with fear to swallow anything. ‘I’m – I’m OK, thank you.’

She was conscious of her right foot jigging and she couldn’t stop it. Both the policemen were staring at her intently and that was making her even more nervous.

‘I wanted to talk to you,’ she stammered, glancing at Glenn Branson, then looking back at the Detective Superintendent. ‘Detective Sergeant Branson and his colleague explained the situation to me yesterday evening. I’ve been thinking about it overnight. I’m not sure if you know, but I’m a solicitor specializing in divorce.’

Grace nodded. ‘I know a fair bit about you.’

She wrung her hands, then swallowed to try to stop her ears popping. Her eyes darted from a collection of old cigarette lighters on a shelf to framed certificates on the wall, then to a stuffed trout in a display case and back to Grace.

‘I’m a great believer in compromise rather than confrontation,’ she said. ‘I try to save marriages, rather than destroy them – that’s always been my philosophy.’

Grace nodded again. ‘A very noble sentiment.’

She gave him a sideways look, unsure if he was taking the mickey, then realized she knew nothing about his own private life.

‘In my experience, dialogue is so often missing,’ she said, and shrugged, her foot jigging even harder.

Grace stared at her. He had no idea what point she was leading up to.

‘I lost my husband five years ago in a skiing accident. He was buried in an avalanche in Canada. My first reaction was that I wanted to get on a plane to Canada, find the guide who had taken him on that mountain – and who survived – and kill him with my bare hands. OK?’

Grace glanced at Branson, who gave him a helpless shrug back. ‘Everyone has to deal with grief in their own way,’ he replied.

‘Exactly,’ Carly replied. ‘That’s why I’m here.’ She turned to Glenn Branson. ‘You told me last night that my life is in danger from a revenge killing arranged by the parents of the poor boy who died on his bike. But I wasn’t a guilty part of that. OK, I know I’ve been prosecuted for drink driving, but it wouldn’t have made a damned bit of difference if I’d been stone cold sober – your traffic police have confirmed that. It wasn’t the van driver’s fault either, even if he did do a hit-and-run, and it sure as hell wasn’t the lorry driver’s fault. The whole thing was caused by the poor kid himself, cycling on the wrong side of the road!’

Branson was about to reply, but Grace cut in on him. ‘Mrs Chase, we’re aware of that. But, as my colleague has explained, we are not dealing with normal, rational people. The Reveres, from what we understand, come from a culture where differences are settled not in court, but by physical brutality. They have been informed that you did not collide with their son, and it may be that they’ve now finished with their terrible revenge – if that’s what these two killings are about. But I’m responsible for your safety and I have a duty of care to you.’

‘I can’t live my life in fear, Mr Grace – sorry – Detective Superintendent. There’s always a way through a problem and I think I have found a way through this one.’

Both police officers looked hard at her.

‘You do?’ Glenn Branson said.

‘Yes. I – I didn’t sleep a wink last night, trying to figure out what to do. I’ve decided I’m going to go and see them. I’m going to New York to talk woman to woman to Mrs Revere. She’s lost her son. I lost my husband. Both of us would like to try to blame other people to try to find some sense in our losses. I think constantly about that stupid ski guide who should never have taken my husband on that slope in those weather conditions. But nothing vengeful is going to bring Kes back or ease the pain of my loss. I have to find ways to move forward in life. She and her husband are going to have to do the same.’

‘I know a little bit about loss too,’ Roy Grace said gently. ‘I’ve been there. I have a sense of where you are coming from. But from what I know about this family, I don’t think going to see them is a good idea – and it’s certainly not something Sussex Police could sanction.’

‘Why not?’ She glared at Grace with a sudden ferocity that startled him.

‘Because we’re responsible for your safety. I can protect you here in Brighton, but I couldn’t look after you in New York.’

She turned to Glenn Branson. ‘You told me last night that you could only guard me for a fortnight. Right?’

Branson nodded, then said, ‘Well, we would review the situation before the end of that period.’

‘But you can’t protect me for the rest of my life. And that’s what I would be scared of. I can’t spend the next fifty years looking over my shoulder. I have to deal with this now.’ She was silent for a moment, then she spoke again. ‘Are you saying you’d stop me from going?’

Grace opened his arms expansively. ‘I have no powers to stop you. But I cannot guarantee your safety if you go. I could send an officer with you, but frankly he wouldn’t be able to do a lot out of his jurisdiction-’

‘I’m going alone,’ she said determinedly. ‘I can look after myself. I can deal with it. I deal with difficult people all the time.’

Glenn Branson admired her determination, secretly wishing he’d hired this terrified but feisty woman to act for him in his divorce, instead of the rather wishy-washy solicitor he had.

‘Mrs Chase,’ Roy Grace said, ‘we have some intelligence on the Revere family. Do you want to hear it before you make your final decision?’

‘Anything you can tell me would be helpful.’

‘OK. Until recently they owned a club in Brooklyn called the Concubine. They would invite their enemies there for a drink and when they arrived, as special guests of honour, these unfortunates would be invited downstairs to the VIP lounge. When they entered they would be greeted by three men, one of whom was a tall American-Italian charmer nicknamed Dracula, because he looked like Bella Lugosi. A fourth man, whom they would never see, would shoot them in the back of the head with a silenced handgun. Dracula would drain their blood into a bathtub. Another guy, who had started out as a butcher, would dismember their cadavers into six pieces. The fourth guy would package up each limb, the torso and the head, and dispose of them in various waste dumps around New York and in the Hudson River. It is estimated they murdered over one hundred people. Sal Giordino, Tony Revere’s grandfather, is currently serving eleven consecutive life sentences for this, with a minimum of eighty-seven years in jail. Do you understand the people you would be dealing with?’

‘I’ve been Googling them,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot of stuff about Sal Giordino, but I’ve not found anything about his daughter. But from what you’ve told me about their world, isn’t this all the more reason for me to go there and try to talk reason to them?’ she said.

‘These people don’t reason,’ Grace said.

‘At least give me the chance to try. Do you have their address? The home address?’

‘What about emailing or phoning Mrs Revere first, to see what reaction you get?’ Grace asked her.

‘No, it’s got to be face to face, mother to mother,’ Carly replied.

The two detectives looked at each other.

‘I can find the address out for you on one condition,’ Roy Grace said.

‘Which is?’

‘You allow us to arrange an escort for you in New York.’

After a long silence she said, ‘Could – could I make that decision?’

‘No,’ he answered.