Death Comes Knocking: Policing Roy Grace's Brighton

2: A Very Broken Home

There is never a good time to get murdered. Most people would rather avoid it altogether. But if you were going to be bludgeoned to death you probably would not want it to happen when the police were wrestling with transition and turmoil.

Times were changing. In 1985, when I was posted to Gatwick, science and technology were only just creeping into policing.

For those of us of a certain age the mid-1980s seem like only yesterday. It is worth remembering that much of what Roy Grace’s detectives now take for granted, such as DNA testing, had hardly been thought of then.

How would DS Annalise Vineer, Grace’s crime analyst, cope with no internet and computers that were just word processors? What could DS Norman Potting do with next to no CCTV, no mobile phone data and no ANPR system to plot villains’ movements across the country? How about Glenn Branson not being able to readily access information from the Passport Agency, Department of Work and Pensions or hospitals?

Until the early 1980s most murders were the work of local villains and rarely part of a pattern that crossed county boundaries; people were less mobile in those days. The slaying of thirteen women and the attempted murder of a further seven in northern England, which led to the 1981 conviction of the York-shire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, was a gruesome exception to that rule. The fact that the investigating police forces operated their own paper-based systems resulted in Sutcliffe being interviewed nine times before being unmasked as the killer. It took this to persuade the police, subsequently, that they had to get their act together and fast.

Detective Inspector (DI) George Smith was a high flyer, the Grace of his time. Quiet, intelligent and ruthlessly professional, he was going places. He was also young and athletic, and a regular starter for the Brighton CID football team. As the perfect role model for any young up-and-coming detective, he was the ideal choice as head of CID training. With that came the responsibility for introducing the technological product of the Ripper failings, the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System (HOLMES), to Sussex Police. The vision was that this computer would be welcomed by all Senior Investigating Officers (SIOs) as the silver bullet to aid any murder enquiry. Sadly, some Luddites saw the system as a needless interference with their tried and tested methods. George, however, was the personification of police modernization.

In early 1985, shortly after the IRA bombing of Brighton’s Grand Hotel where Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Government were staying, and after his stint in training and introducing HOLMES, George had earned his first operational CID command in my then home town, Shoreham-by-Sea. This small but vibrant annexe of Brighton, just a mile and a half west of the city’s boundary, features heavily in Grace’s world. For example, the demise of Vic and Ashley after the car chase in Dead Simple and the horrific execution of Ewan Preece that gave Dead Man’s Grip its name took place in Shoreham.

Real drama happens there too. In a typical blurring of fact and fiction, the hallmark of Peter James’ novels, the day Grace turned thirty and his wife Sandy disappeared he was investigating the death of a biker in Shoreham Harbour. That was, in reality, sixteen-year-old Hell’s Angel Clive ‘Ollie’ Olive, who in 1973 made the error of sleeping with the girlfriend of a rival gang leader. In brutal revenge, Ollie had a weighted chain wrapped around his ankles, and was dumped, still alive, into the harbour. His leathers protected his body from the ravenous lobsters, crabs and eels that inhabit the inky, icy depths but they feasted heartily on his exposed head, providing police divers the grisly find of a skull stripped clean some weeks later.

A few months before that murder, George had dealings with Ollie’s girlfriend over an unconnected matter. His skilful and sensitive way with people was such that after Ollie’s body was discovered, she would speak to no-one but him, even though he was just a young DC.

George was like a dog with two tails when he was given his own CID. As now, in those days the station DI had status. He was in his early thirties, and had risen quicker than most. Even Grace didn’t make DI that swiftly.

Mondays are normally a busy day of catch-up for DIs: assessing the events of the weekend, making sense of crime trends, digesting what the informants are saying and setting priorities for the coming week.

As Grace knows, call-outs have a habit of coming at the least convenient time. Monday, 4 February 1985 was such an occasion. Following a frenetic shift, George was at home slapping coats of paint on the dining-room wall. As he was ruminating on the day that was and the week that would be, the telephone shrilled him back to the present.

‘Boss, we thought you might like to know we’ve had a call to the Lighthouse Club at Shoreham Harbour. There’s a woman’s body. Seems her stepson and his wife have come home and found her there. Looks like a murder.’

‘Right, I’m coming in,’ announced George, before reeling off his list of instructions and requirements to safeguard the evidence which, experience told him, might unlock whatever mysteries this tragedy held. Awful though this would be, he was not entirely sorry that he had an excuse to leave the painting for another day.

Satisfied that he had set enough activity in train to buy himself a few minutes, he jumped in the shower to scrub off the splatters of emulsion. However, even those moments of steam-induced reflection were denied him when, again, the phone rang. Hopefully the station sergeant did not guess that his new DI was dressed in nothing but a fluffy bath towel when he delivered the grim update.

‘Sorry, boss, we’ve found another body. The lads at the scene are saying it could be a murder/suicide.’

‘OK, we’ll see when I get there. Thanks for letting me know.’

This changed nothing at that early stage. One body, two bodies, it didn’t matter. The key was to lock the scene down. No-one was to enter without a reason and a white over-suit. Everyone had to be logged in and out, all witnesses identified and whisked off to make their statements. The balloon that Grace puts up when he goes to murder scenes may be much larger now but, even back then, it still went up.

George’s personal world had now been put on hold for the foreseeable future. He did not have an assistant to cancel everything as Grace does but, like Grace, he would dedicate whatever it took of his life and his energies to get to the bottom of the horror that was just unfolding.

As you drove along the busy Brighton to Worthing coast road, you could have been forgiven for not spotting the squat cream edifice of the now-demolished Lighthouse Club at the mouth of Shoreham Harbour. Adjacent to where I used to go to Sea Scouts, it was nestled between the nineteenth-century limestone Kingston Buci Lighthouse and the warehouse that hosted the twice-weekly Shoreham Car Auctions. In the 1960s it was a sailing club, of which Peter James was a member. He would delight in rigging up the fourteen-foot Scorpion dinghy he kept there, hauling it down to the water’s edge and putting to sea for a day cruising along the Sussex coastline.

By 1985 it had become a private drinking club with celebrity members such as the late world motorcycle Grand Prix champion — and local playboy — Barry Sheene. It was also the place to go for many dubious characters who fancied themselves as movers and shakers. When George arrived just after 9 p.m., it became obvious that no moving or shaking would be going on there for quite a while.

As he pulled up, a dour-faced PC sidled over to him, conscious of the prying ears of the neighbours and would-be customers who had started to migrate to where the action was.

‘Guv, there’s a third body. A child. It’s bleeding carnage in there,’ he muttered.

This news had by now permeated through the gathered ranks of officers. Their silence, their shocked expressions and their preoccupied stares were evidence that this place had witnessed the most horrific of deaths.

George was a stickler for forensics. Like Aussie DS Fletcher who finds his riverside crime scene trashed in Dead Man’s Footsteps, George could explode on sight should an errant PC traipse over evidence in his size elevens. Practising what he preached, George wriggled into the ‘one size fits no-one’ white protective forensic suit carefully selected from the bin bag of similar garments and slipped on matching overshoes. Providing his name and rank to the well-briefed PC guarding the scene, he climbed the steps and gingerly crossed the threshold through the communal door leading to the two self-contained flats above the club.

Had he not been warned, he would have stumbled over her in the pitch black. If he had, she would not have complained. The dead don’t protest. Hilda Teed’s skull could never have survived the pounding it had suffered. In her dressing gown, she blocked the narrow hallway, lying crumpled in a pool of her own blood and pulverized grey matter.

George had seen all he needed. It was time to step back and get the ‘ologists’ in. Then, as with Grace’s investigations now, the scientists were becoming essential in demystifying murder scenes. Making sense out of chaos was the domain of the eggheads who spent their lives poring over the broken remains of humanity.

The first of these to arrive was the renowned Home Office pathologist Dr Iain West. A veteran of countless homicides across the UK, Iain was the ‘go to’ expert for grisly and complex murders. It always seemed to be either Iain or his wife, Dr Vesna Djuruvic — the real life Dr Nadiuska de Sancha, Roy Grace’s favourite death-doctor — who was on call.

To fill the time while Iain made his way to the scene, George drove the short distance to the police station where DS Dennis Walker was already taking a statement from Paul Teed, Hilda’s twenty-three-year-old stepson. He and his wife Helen had found the bodies, having apparently returned from a trip to Yorkshire.

Paul struck an unremarkable form. Barely 5’8” tall, pasty and not hindered by excess muscle, his quiet, reserved manner meant he would never stand out in a crowd. However, his lack of emotion was puzzling the experienced detective. Helen, who was being interviewed and comforted in another part of the station, was inconsolable.

Police witness interview rooms are soulless places. The poisonous Ashley Harper’s first encounter with the police in Dead Simple was in such a facility. Described brilliantly as ‘small, windowless, painted pea green and reeking of stale cigarette smoke’, they can be a wonderful preparation for a lifetime of imprisonment for those whose dark and macabre secrets are yet to be exposed.

George did not have long until he needed to be back at the scene but he had heard members of staff confiding to officers there that a shotgun was kept on the premises. He was keen to hear what Paul had to say about that. He had offered nothing on this so far. Apologizing politely, George joined Dennis in the interview.

‘Paul, do you remember a shotgun being in the club?’ he asked.

‘A shotgun? No, I don’t think so. Why?’

‘Other people remember seeing one. Don’t you?’

‘No. I don’t think so.’

‘Oh, come on, Paul. You lived there yet you seem to be the only person who can’t remember it. Now is not the time to hold back.’

‘Oh, right, that shotgun. Yes I do, now you mention it.’

Dennis and George gave each other an almost imperceptible knowing look.

‘Right, that’s better, Paul,’ said George. ‘Now where is it?’

‘I threw it in the sea.’

‘You did what?’

‘I hate guns so I threw it in the sea a few days ago.’

‘Convenient,’ muttered Dennis beneath his breath.

‘What did your dad say about that?’ insisted George.

‘He didn’t know,’ came the reply.

George and Dennis banked that loose end for tying up later.

Arrangements were made for Paul to stay at the police station. Since he had not yet been arrested, they applied gentle persuasion on him to remain. George made his way back to the club.

Back at the scene, observing the forensic protocols, George, Dr West and SOCO (Scenes of Crime Officer) DI Tilt wrapped themselves in their forensic suits and tiptoed inside. Gently stepping over Hilda, Dr West crouched to examine her injuries by flickering torchlight. They all knew what he was about to say, but he had to announce it nonetheless.

‘Killed by extensive and repeated blows by a blunt instrument to the head. No chance of survival.’ The formal post mortem would come later but in all probability the cause of death would boil down to just that.

They moved on into the flat. Knowing there were at least two more tableaus of horror awaiting them.

George Teed had had a reputation for being larger than life. Now, in death too, he made an impact.

Usually he wore designer suits and gold bling, but that night he was as naked as the day he was born. Lying on his back, he looked as if he had been caught by surprise while leaping out of bed to meet his murderous attacker. Again, a blunt instrument to the head, with which he was struck many times and with great force, was the last thing he would have known. No chance of retaliation; not the slightest sign of a defence wound. The walls, carpets, bedding and furniture looked as if they had been showered by crimson dye. The scene was straight off the set of Hammer Horror.

The worst was saved until last. David Teed was only thirteen. He had been entitled to look forward to a life of hope and achievement. He had harmed no-one. His last memories would have been of running for his life around the flat.

He was still dressed in his pyjamas, and forensics revealed that he’d had no option but to run through his own mother’s blood as she lay dead or dying in front of him. Surely knowing that his dad too had been battered to death, he’d made a frantic attempt to wrench open the patio doors to escape. He had pulled at the full-length floral curtains when his own metal American baseball bat was crunched into the back of his skull. He stood no chance. He died where he fell. There were to be no survivors and no witnesses, apart from the family’s black Great Dane.

To most people, such carnage would be overwhelming. It would shroud all rational thought. In the staring, startled eyes of the dead you can sometimes see the horror of their last moments, the disbelief that their life was about to be so brutally quashed. You may detect a fearful plea for help. Police officers know dwelling on that is no good whatsoever. You have to put that to one side. The dead deserve your professionalism. They don’t need your tears and pity.

There is always some clue, some mistake made by the killer if you know where to look. As Peter James often reflects, the perfect murder is the one that never comes to the attention of the police so with all the others there is always a giveaway, a product of the killer’s panic or poor planning. In the same way that Grace looks for that tiny slip-up when analysing the chicken shed torso murder in Not Dead Yet, so twenty-seven years earlier George had to find the murderer’s Achilles heel by thinking outside the box.

It’s often the simple things that get missed. Some people try to be just too clever. There is a reason Grace talks of ‘clearing the ground under your feet’. The clues are invariably there. You just have to know how to look for them.

Such as the flashing digits on the radio alarm clock that George had spotted, possibly indicating a break in the power supply. Not unusual in itself but, applying the dogged determination of the inquisitive detective’s mind and by layering the little things together, significance starts to shine through. The detectives’ code: ABC — Assume nothing, Believe no-one, Check everything.

He looked at clues, like that flashing clock and the normally ferocious black dog that witnessed the slaying, from a slightly different angle. They started to take on new meaning. Did the clock indicate that something had happened to cut the power temporarily? Assuming the clock reset itself at 00.00, could it be telling George how long it was since the brutal attacks? Did the fact that the guard dog had seemingly not intervened indicate that he knew the killer?

A story was starting to emerge but it triggered two very different and conflicting hypotheses among the investigators: two versions of events that would create irreparable divisions in the senior team, threaten careers and almost deny justice to the mother, father and son lying broken and butchered in their own home. A struggle between the old and the new. One thought the answer lay in some as yet unknown murky gangland feud and the other within the emerging facts.

The Teeds came from Bradford, West Yorkshire. Paul’s parents had separated when he was young and, initially, he and his brother had lived with their mother and stepfather. Paul didn’t take to his mother’s new husband and they regularly fell out. Unlike his brother, he would not accept the bullying by his stepdad but often that meant fleeing home. He got into trouble from time to time, including a bungled burglary of a butcher’s shop where the fact that all but a fraction of their haul was in unusable cheques should have taught him to follow another career. Amazingly he avoided prison for this. Perhaps that gave him a sense of invincibility.

Things weren’t much better for him in Shoreham. Despite finding love and marrying his girlfriend Helen, his high hopes for a new life away from his troubled past were soon dashed. His father had reluctantly allowed him to work at the club. He and Helen had moved into the second flat but literally living above the shop he was unable to escape his father and Hilda, and had become fed up with their drinking and arguing. By now, he and Helen had a three-year-old daughter and he knew he had to make his own way in the world — he just didn’t need his dad constantly reminding him of that.

George Teed was a big, brash self-made entrepreneur with fingers in more pies than Mr Kipling. He seemed born to run this small exclusive, but seedy, nightspot whose membership defined much of the society scene in Brighton at the time.

Dripping with gold and with pockets full of cash, he embodied the work hard/play hard philosophy of the early eighties, not as brash as Harry Enfield’s ‘Loadsamoney’ but equally flamboyant. Nothing in his life was understated. He was a heavy boozer, as was his wife, and they frequently had violent alcohol-fuelled rows. Such garishness inevitably attracted the attention and envy of rivals, enemies and even the downright greedy. Of course, that was bound to be one line of enquiry. Any SIO would be mad not to look hard at that as a motive. A motive, but not the motive.

The early evidence was, however, pointing at something much closer to home. The successful Teed’s disappointment with Paul was no secret. He was often heard deriding his son as a sponger, and had just given him three weeks’ notice to quit the flat, forcing him to put his name down for a council house. ‘Stand on your own two feet,’ he had repeatedly insisted.

Every family has its problems. There are always skeletons to be found, if you know which cupboards to look in. It does not mean, however, that they all go round killing each other. Indeed, leaping too quickly on family discord has derailed many an investigation. Conversely, many have been scuppered by being too timid to confront domestic strife. It is a stark reality that most people are killed by someone they know. Could this be a case of a son trying to expedite his inheritance while eliminating some major grief from his life?

As a DI, George Smith was not senior enough to run a murder enquiry so was asked to lead the outside enquiry and interview teams. A D/Supt and a DCI were appointed as SIO and deputy.

However, there was real tension. Many highly experienced senior detectives had reservations about HOLMES. They had been used to applying their ‘detective’s instinct’ and gut feeling in murder enquiries. They saw that influence being chipped away with the introduction of computers and incident room staff who, they feared, might undermine their leadership. George, the champion of HOLMES, was acutely aware of this risk and soon realized that his sceptical bosses had set up a second ‘incident room’ operating in the old way from the DCI’s office.

Members of the official murder investigation team spotted Regional Crime Squad officers visiting this second incident room but details of the actions they were undertaking or the intelligence they were supplied with were not shared with the HOLMES team. This was the worst of both worlds; each room in ignorance of what the other was doing.

Foremost in the minds of the ‘old school’ was the gangland massacre theory. The DCI, with years of experience investigating organized crime, was comfortable dealing with the dark and grubby landscape of vendettas, hit men and dirty money. He was in his element investigating this hypothesis. George and his team on the other hand were making progress elsewhere.

Helen would often stay with friends and relations in Yorkshire, as she had that weekend. She didn’t fancy going to the big reunion of Teed’s South London friends that the Lighthouse Club was hosting. It wasn’t her scene. It was not unusual, following these visits, for Paul to make the 500-mile round trip when she needed collecting. And, so he said, that was exactly what he did in the early hours of that fateful morning. Grateful that his dad had let him drive his brand new distinctive Range Rover, he claimed that about 1 a.m. on the Monday he left George, Hilda and David safely tucked up in bed and drove north.

In his mind he believed he had constructed a perfect alibi. If to the outside world he could put himself 250 miles away when the killing was supposed to have happened, he hoped he would get off scot-free. Luck goes both ways in murder investigations. Both police and assailant rely on it in equal measure.

Almost anyone who has just committed a violent crime will be uptight and jittery. They will inevitably drive differently — too fast, too slow or plain erratically. Any sharp-eyed beat copper spotting this will at least note down the licence number and check it through the Police National Computer in case it is stolen. Just as the PC outside Buckingham Palace did on seeing a Range Rover at four o’clock that morning.

Other, normally insignificant, factors were becoming relevant. The £370 young Teed had in his usually empty pockets (about my monthly take-home pay at the time) was in stark contrast to the paltry 53p his successful father had in his trousers close to where he lay.

It did not seem right either that at the end of his marathon drive Paul would feel the need to take in the washing before he went indoors, leaving Helen to be the first through the communal door. It turned out that he had expected the bodies to be found by the cleaners, hours earlier. The absence of police activity when he pulled in told him that the staff could not have turned up that morning.

He panicked and left the discovery to Helen. He would have known the scream was coming. He knew the House of Horrors he had left as a welcome for her. The bloodbath his darling spouse was about to walk into would be branded on her memory forever. His reaction to her terror however was yet another example of his odd behaviour.

‘Paul!’ she had hollered. ‘Paul, help. Hilda’s on the floor. She’s covered in blood. Oh God, no. Paul, please come and help,’ she implored.

‘Oh Christ, phone 999,’ was all he replied.

No rushing in to check on his stepmum. No looking for any sign of a break-in. No concern that there might be an intruder still inside. No thought for his dad or brother. Nothing. From what his wife had said, an innocent son would have presumed a nasty fall. An innocent son would have dashed in to help. But that wasn’t Paul. He knew what was behind that door. He knew that no amount of CPR could save Hilda. He knew of the massacre he would face should he venture in.

When the first PC had emerged, horrified by the carnage she had stumbled across, Paul hadn’t even bothered to ask what had happened to his family and whether his dad and brother were OK. A person’s inactions can be as damning as their actions. Paul was already slowly but surely sealing his fate.

With all of these anomalies, by the early hours of the following morning, George Smith had had enough. He strode back into the interview room where Paul was resting his head on his folded arms.

‘Paul Teed, I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murders of George Teed, Hilda Teed and David Teed. You do not have to say anything unless you wish to do so but anything you do say may be used in evidence,’ he declared with all the necessary formality such a step warranted.

Stunned, Paul was taken, quietly protesting, into the tiny cell block at Shoreham Police Station, not realizing he had just drawn his last breath as a free man for the next quarter of a century.

Over the next thirty-six hours, Paul faced a series of interrogations designed to scrutinize every detail, every comment, every last piece of evidence to test his truthfulness. None of the modern-day techniques that Grace insists on were available then. No profilers like the fictional Dr Julius Proudfoot, no advanced interviewers, no online volumes of case law to refer to, no tape recorders. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act, which governs how the police interview suspects, had yet to take effect.

This was an intellectual duel, a game of poker with the highest stakes imaginable. Neither could lose. For one it would smack of failure in the eyes of his bosses — it was unthinkable in those days to fail to elicit a confession from such a high-profile suspect. For the other, second prize would lead to a lifetime behind bars.

The questioning covered everything: the timing and exact route of Paul’s trip to Bradford, his reaction to Helen finding Hilda, his acrimonious relationship with his dad, even the small amount of cannabis found in his bedroom. Paul remained resolute. Other than the dope, he thought he could explain or deny everything. He believed he had the upper hand. He was convinced he was walking. Then came the killer question:

‘Paul, you’ve been here for two days. We’ve interviewed you many times. We’ve listened very carefully to your answers. We have made you go through every detail time and time again. You have continually tried to assure us you had nothing to do with the murders. You’ve been certain of that, Paul. If that is true why have you, not once, asked us how your dad, stepmum and brother died? Why is that, Paul?’ George queried softly.

Silence.

‘Paul?’

Silence.

‘Paul, why have you never asked?’

‘I think I’d like to see a solicitor now, please, Mr Smith,’ was all the crestfallen prisoner could mutter.

‘I’ll see what I can do. Just think about it,’ insisted George as he walked the tearful Paul back to the cold, lonely cell.

‘Sir, he has asked for a solicitor,’ announced George as he entered the makeshift incident room.

‘I didn’t hear that,’ replied the clearly irritated DCI.

‘He has asked for a solicitor. He knows his rights. He’s got previous convictions and he’s in custody for three murders,’ said George.

The atmosphere was tense. The seated D/Supt was conspicuously ignoring the argument that was brewing. The stifling silence was eventually broken when the DCI brusquely ordered George, and Dennis Walker who had witnessed the whole confrontation from the open doorway, out of the office.

George was taken aback. He knew he was of a different generation to those above him but surely they could see the risks in such a denial. Assistant Chief Constable (ACC) Alison Vosper treated Grace badly on many occasions, pressurizing him to get results and get them at all costs. The priority would be to make the boss look good, deliberately ignoring that a conviction attained through dubious means is a hollow victory.

With no choice, George obeyed but not before writing every word down in his notebook as a precaution — as Grace did in You Are Dead when protecting himself against his nemesis ACC Cassian Pewe. Despite the overwhelming pressure later to remove it from his witness statement, he had a Pontius Pilate moment — ‘What I have written, I have written.’

More interviews with Paul followed, including one led by the Detective Superintendent, but they yielded nothing more, just denials and him glossing over inconvenient facts, protesting his innocence.

Faced with no firm admission, no forensics yet — that took weeks in those days — and no eyewitnesses, George had little choice but to bail him from custody. However, Paul went nowhere. Some warrants for non-payment of fines had been discovered in Leeds, and this meant Sussex Police could instantly rearrest him.

Over the previous two days, some of George’s team had been in Bradford, ten miles from Leeds, making enquiries. Their brief was to speak to anyone and everyone who knew the Teeds, to get under their skin, find out what Paul had been doing there and leave no stone unturned. Now, George volunteered to drive Teed up north to answer his warrants, which conveniently would give him a chance to see how the Sussex detectives were doing but more importantly would give them five hours in the car together, perhaps giving him the chance to open up. This close contact between investigator and suspect would never be allowed now, but at the time it was not uncommon.

The car journey did give George and the highly respected Dennis Walker an opportunity to get to know their frightened yet stoic suspect better. Paul’s tongue loosened but he kept his counsel about any involvement in the bloodbath.

Lady Luck visited again just as George had handed Paul over to the burly Yorkshire custody sergeant.

One of his team slipped him a folded scrap of paper which George hurriedly opened, reading the scribbled note as he strode out of the cell block.

‘Guv, pls phone DC David Gaylor in the Shoreham incident room — URGENT!!’

Darting into a nearby office, George grabbed a phone and dialled the number he knew by heart. He listened intently and a rare smile broke his usual dour expression. He called his team together in the Bradford CID office to update them on the news.

‘Chaps, we have a breakthrough. We know that these killings have aroused the interest of the national press. Well, it seems that has got someone a little scared. One of Paul’s friends has become spooked that we may be looking for him.’

‘What, have we got the wrong man?’ came a voice from the back.

‘Let me finish,’ George insisted. ‘This fellow, Larry [not his real name], says that Paul approached him some weeks ago. They are old friends but he now lives in London. Paul asked him if he would kill his dad for the insurance.’

You could hear a pin drop.

He continued. ‘He told him there would be £1,700 in the safe and he would give him another £5,000 when the insurance came through. He even offered Larry a sawn-off shotgun and a map of the flat. When he turned it down he thought that would be the end of the matter. Until he saw the news, that is. He got scared. He’s no angel; he has form for armed robbery but, as he said, he’s no killer. For the first time in his life, Larry has provided a full witness statement and has handed over Paul’s sketched map. Gentlemen, we’ve got him, well, almost.’

Meanwhile, DC David Gaylor — who later in his career would become the inspiration for Roy Grace himself — DC Chris Cox and the rest of the incident room team back at Shoreham were beavering away, trying to turn suspicion and intelligence into something that might stand up in court.

A careful count back from the time flashing on the alarm clock had led them to the moment that the power had been restored to the flat — 3 a.m. That gave them a possible time of the killings.

Through the Police National Computer, they had discovered the check carried out by the cop on George Teed’s poorly driven Range Rover outside Buckingham Palace. Paul’s alibi depended on the police believing that he could not have committed the murders as he had been in Bradford. The witnesses there were not providing much help but the timings of those two events showed that he could have wiped out his family and then made the journey north. A case was starting to build.

After a restless night planning his next move, George steeled himself for what he knew would be a landmark interview.

Soon after Paul had arrived in West Yorkshire the police had allowed his uncle, Frank Towel, to visit him. Frank brought with him a friend, John McKenna, who happened to be a solicitor’s clerk, as well as a retired police inspector. George met both and was struck by how caring and genuine they were. They were allowed a private visit with Paul at which no police officers were present.

Following that visit, it transpired that something had been said that had troubled John and after much soul-searching he told George that Paul had admitted the murders.

George stepped into the dark, grey, airless interview room at Leeds Police Station. Paul agreed that John could be there, as a friend rather than a solicitor, to support him through what would doubtless be a very difficult few hours. The prisoner sat ashen-faced and trembling on a cold metal chair that, together with the scarred and scorched table, was shackled to the floor by rusty chains.

Taking the only other seat, George built up the tension by arranging his papers into neat piles. The silence was only broken by the distant slamming of a cell door and the plaintive cry of another inmate demanding a light for his cigarette.

George cleared his throat, then in a quiet, fatherly tone he rearrested Paul, reminded him that he was under caution, then revealed that John had told him of the admission he had made.

Paul became furious, glared at John, turned to George and demanded, ‘I don’t want him here. Can I see you alone?’ Without another word John slipped out leaving just George and the very frightened young man in the room.

‘Paul, for the past few days you’ve been bottling it up, something has got to give. Look at the state you are in. Would you now like to tell me?’ said George.

‘Mr Smith, I’m frightened,’ Paul confided, tears spilling from his bloodshot eyes.

‘Shall we discuss what happened?’

Desperately he replied, ‘I don’t know if I can trust you.’

‘Hopefully over the past few days you’ve got to know me. I’ve treated you with consideration and compassion. I’m not going to act any differently whatever you decide to tell me,’ George reassured him.

‘How can you say that, Mr Smith? It was so wicked,’ cried Paul.

The cracks were starting to show. Those last four words were the first glimmer of truth. George knew he had to strike now or risk losing his chance forever.

‘Paul, why did you do it?’

A wild and uncontrollable wail was all Paul could offer. He wept from his very core. George sat there silently, feeling sorry for the young man. This conflict is quite common in the more humane officers. It is not our place to forgive but equally we are not there to hate or condemn. George could see Paul’s conflicting grief and guilt but knew he was seconds away from the elusive confession he needed.

Pulling himself together Paul continued between the tears.

‘I’m so frightened, I feel so cold. What’s going to happen to me? I’m not mental. I don’t want to go to a loony bin. I don’t want to be locked away for thirty years. Be honest with me, Mr Smith, what’s going to happen to me?’

Sensing that Paul was veering away from the facts and focusing on himself, George steered him back on track.

‘Let’s sort it out first and we can deal with that matter later. Why did you do it?’

As if it suddenly dawned on him Paul declared, ‘I loved them! I loved them both. They both told me to clear out and never come back. Dad was sloshed and he was shouting at me. He said I was lazy and never had been any good. They were both shouting at me and treating me like a child. I couldn’t handle it. Then she was dead on the floor, all covered in blood. I was standing there holding the bat. It was horrible.’

Crestfallen he went on to describe how he had snapped under a torrent of abuse and lashed out wildly with his brother’s metal baseball bat. The strategy he was using was now becoming clear. He was trying to mitigate the horror by implying impulse and provocation. It’s rare that people in such tight corners have the clarity to think these things through though.

Was it really likely that they had such a row at that ungodly hour of the morning? What about the convenient fact that his wife just happened to be away? What about that shotgun? Why was all the money in his pocket and none in his dad’s?

It was time for the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.

‘Paul, tell me about Larry. What do you know about him?’

‘Who? What’s this about?’ a startled Paul replied.

‘The man you tried to get to kill your dad,’ George continued. ‘The man who let you down at the last minute. The man you gave your shotgun and this sketch to. Ringing any bells?’ he queried, laying a faxed copy of the drawing in front of him.

Paul’s world crumbled. The game was up. No more excuses. No more lies.

Piece by piece, Paul tearfully confirmed Larry’s account, that it was not an impulse crime but a cruel, cynically planned execution for revenge and a few thousand pounds. Defeated, he wrote a statement. With Paul’s permission George invited John back into the room, whereupon the account was read out and endorsed by all.

Years later, Paul was adamant that if his request for legal assistance had been met in Sussex, this could have all been wrapped up very quickly. He had only wanted someone by his side, he claimed. He knew what he had done was evil and unforgiveable but just needed some support.

On his arrival back in Shoreham Police Station the next day, Teed asked to see a vicar. Paul would assert in 2014 that in the course of the killings something deep had happened within. In his words, ‘I went through the door of the flat an atheist and came out a believer.’ But at the time his ecclesiastical consultation, rather than eliciting a deeper confession of what drove Paul to do what he did, only triggered a further demand for a solicitor and an attempt to retract his admissions.

This time his request for legal advice was granted. In a further confirmatory interview Paul resorted to a cornucopia of lies, denials, half-truths and silence. George wasted no more time; Teed was charged with the three murders just half an hour later.

Cadet Jim Sharpe had now become PC Jim Sharpe and had recently been posted to Shoreham. One of his first tasks was to escort Teed to court for his initial remand hearing. Handcuffed to him on the bench seat of a rickety blue police prison van Jim, in his customary convivial way, struck up a conversation. While his memory of the exact nature of that chat is less clear now, he recalls the empathy he felt. Here were two young men about to start on very different life journeys, one in the police, the other in prison.

Jim met Paul many times over the ensuing months. While in police custody in Shoreham awaiting further hearings, Paul grew to like young Jim. His easy style, not common among police officers those days, together with him allowing Helen to visit, made those court appearances more bearable.

The subsequent trial wrestled with all sorts of issues such as the retracted admissions, the refusal of legal advice initially, and the status of John McKenna. Many trials collapse following a successful assault on police and prosecutor practices. Once George’s team had eliminated every possibility other than Paul being the killer, such an attack was the only tactic left if there was to be any hope of the defence winning him his liberty.

George had to front this for Sussex Police. It isn’t unusual for a senior officer to be set up to draw the venom of defending counsel. I have done it often, absorbing all the criticism personally, and, in most cases, it protects others.

Pummelled in the witness box, as Grace has been on many occasions, George had to bob and weave. He had to explain and re-explain every decision, every act, hoping that his honest accounts remained consistent in the eyes of the jury. This included the denial of access to the solicitor, which was a particular worry for him.

His meticulously written notebook and seventy-eight-page witness statement certainly helped, as did his conspicuous integrity and obsessive attention to detail. The arguments lasted for hours but George won every point.

His bosses’ scrutiny of their young DI’s performance during the trial reminded George that the outcome of this contest would determine his future career. Everything was on his shoulders. Resolute yet isolated, George knew who was going to be the fall guy if Teed walked free. Despite his unerring honesty and professionalism George felt angry, lonely and vulnerable. If the old triumphed over the new he, and many like him, would be finished.

Thankfully, despite all the grubby accusations thrown at the police by the defence, the jury saw sense. Three clear cries of ‘Guilty!’, one for each victim, rang out from the jury foreman across the hushed Lewes Crown Court. Justice delivered for George, Hilda and young David Teed.

A mandatory life term followed but, stunningly, no appeal. No desire to overturn verdict or sentence. Just a solemn acceptance of his fate and twenty-three years to dwell on his evil was how it ended for Paul Teed.

George felt he and his modern tactics had been vindicated. Two years later he worked with the Deputy Chief Constable to take charge of a major review of Sussex CID. Promotion came soon after and he became the first serving UK police officer with ‘special dispensation’ from the Home Secretary to operate as a full member of the Security Service (MI5). He operated as a member of K2 Branch (Counter-espionage), which also saw him work with MI6 and, in the USA, with the FBI and CIA. On his return he headed Brighton CID then moved on to work in other sensitive areas of policing. He was my boss when I was a DC and I held him in the highest regard. His sense of justice, fairness and respect were a huge influence on me as I matured in service. His bosses went on to embrace the new world, both achieving further promotions.

Paul is now free. I was fascinated by what becomes of a person who has wiped out his family once they have been released, so I tracked him down. Although I doubted that he would agree to meet, incredibly he was very keen to.

Peter James and I have, over the years through our different professions, met many killers, but not mass murderers and certainly not those who have had twenty-three years of incarceration to contemplate their act.

We met Paul in an austere roadside pub half way between Leeds and York. When we drove up in a black Mercedes it must have looked like we were carrying out a drugs deal. We didn’t know what to expect, we didn’t even know what Paul would look like now. As a thin, gaunt man in his fifties climbed out of a rackety Ford Fiesta that had lurched into the empty car park, blue smoke spewing from the exhaust, we guessed we hadn’t been stood up.

He was much cheerier than I had expected, but Paul’s prison pallor bore testament to the way years inside, with the stale air, drug culture and diet of cheap food sap the vitality from every pore.

Over the next three hours he laid bare his life before, during and after the slaying. He knows what he did that night was truly bad. He accepts that he meticulously planned the deaths yet, despite the evidence, maintains that neither his father, Hilda nor David had any idea what had happened to the others, such was their clinical yet brutal execution. He blames his actions on a slow build-up of tension, animosity and jealousy. The seed, he says, was sown months before with every cross word or fallout thereafter fuelling his determination to take their lives.

He is philosophical about his life in prison. He talks about inmates being broken machines and needing their software fixing (as opposed to those in psychiatric hospitals who he says have hardware problems). He is less convinced that jail is effective at the reprogramming prisoners so need.

Nowadays he is forever trapped, defined and scarred by that moment of evil madness. He struggles to find employment; he secured a job once in a garden centre but they got cold feet when they found out he had battered three people to death. He has turned to painting and tries to sell his abstract artwork online.

He has become deeply spiritual; he believes in signs and portents such as black dogs — like his father’s Great Dane and one he owned that was crushed by a train in 1984 at the site of the 1989 Purley rail crash — and the number twenty-three, his age at the time of the murders and the time he spent incarcerated.

He is a great believer in destiny but, above all, he is clear that he chose to do what he did; no-one forced him. He accepts that he had no right to do it and insists that he regrets it every day. Only he knows how much.

He wonders what life would be like if he had made different decisions. The true tragedy is however, whatever was going on in his head, he denied the others any choices; he took those for himself with every swing of the bat.

Unlike several killers I’ve met who are clearly psychopaths and have no conscience, enabling them to live guilt-free with the knowledge of what they have done, Peter and I both got the sense from Paul that he is, deep inside, consumed with remorse. His victims are long dead and buried, and Paul is now at liberty. But I don’t see him ever being a free man. He will be chained to his conscience forever.