Find Them Dead

100 Wednesday 29 May

It had been a great fishing trip on Saturday, with the sea almost flat calm. Bruno had reeled in a ton of mackerel when they hit a shoal on the way out, and later hooked a fine bass, several good-sized mullet and a Dover sole. They’d taken some of the catch home and Bruno had eagerly helped cleaning and filleting the fish, which they’d then barbecued on Sunday. Bruno seemed in his element, and happier than Roy and Cleo had ever seen him. Humphrey had gobbled down his leftovers, too, and it did seem he might be turning a corner. The vet had referred him for myotherapy treatment at the Galen Centre, where he had started on a course.

To Roy and Cleo’s relief, the therapist believed through her assessment that the dog wasn’t becoming aggressive but was being grumpy towards Noah as a consequence of being in pain with his muscles. This also explained his occasional reluctance to go for walks and the continual licking of his paws. There was still a way to go with the treatment, but they were happy with the early signs and news that he could be helped back to health with some more sessions. Roy was relieved that Humphrey’s grumpy moods and uncharacteristic bouts of being aggressive had nothing to do with Bruno. He’d never really considered it that seriously, but it was often Cleo’s first thought when Humphrey acted strangely that it must have something to do with his elder son perhaps tormenting him.

But now, coming up to the 6 p.m. briefing of Operation Canoe, Roy Grace was less happy with the team’s progress in the case. They were still no further along with any clues as to Stuie Starr’s killers, and Norman Potting had warned him earlier in the day, as if he didn’t already know it, that Cassian Pewe was even more on his back than ever.

Suddenly his door burst open and a beaming Potting lumbered in, holding something in his outstretched hand. Before Grace had a chance to rebuke him for not knocking first, the DS said, ‘We have a breakthrough, chief!’

‘Yes? Tell me?’

Triumphantly, the DS plonked a small black memory stick on his desk. ‘Take a look at this!’

Grace frowned. ‘What’s on it?’

‘Take a look!’ he beamed.

Grace inserted the USB, then clicked the image that appeared on his screen to open it and saw the start button for a video. He clicked on that and immediately there was an aerial view of lush, rolling countryside. The video was silent, slowly moving across the landscape, and very steady. Was it from a drone, he wondered?

Shortly, Grace could see a housing estate, and near it a cluster of industrial buildings. The landscape changed, rapidly, to an urban one — the edge of a town or city. He always found aerial views took a while to figure out, everything looked different and distant. But it was starting to look a little familiar as they passed over a large church or cathedral.

‘Recognize that?’ Potting exclaimed, his excitement palpable.

‘Chichester?’

‘Yes! Look at the date and time, top right on the screen!’

It read: Wednesday 8 May 3.24 p.m.

Grace felt a beat of excitement. This was the day before Stuie Starr’s body was discovered by his carer. The day on which, according to the pathologist, Stuie might have died. It fitted.

‘Keep watching, chief!’

More of the city appeared as the camera tracked over it. Then, suddenly, the image froze. It began zooming in on a particular area below, before it started moving again.

‘I’ve had Digital Forensics work on this all day, enhancing it,’ Potting said.

Grace could now see a garage, with a housing estate opposite. As the image was enlarged even further, he could make out what he was pretty sure was the Starrs’ house. A lone car was parked further down the road and, after the camera zoomed in further still, he could recognize the marque, a Mercedes, dark-coloured — either a C or E-class, he wasn’t sure.

Two figures, in hoodies, suddenly ran out of the house, sprinting away to the car. They looked furtively around, then jumped into the Mercedes and drove off at speed.

‘Norman, this is bloody brilliant! How did you get it?’

‘We didn’t have any luck from the aerodrome, but whilst I was out I passed a park in Chichester and saw people flying their drones. I went over and spoke to them and asked if any of them had been flying them on the 8th of May. They said they hadn’t but would mention it to other drone enthusiasts that they knew. One of them contacted me earlier today and produced this video. Sheer luck, chief.’

‘Excellent work, Norman.’

The video continued moving away from the house, in the opposite direction to the car, across the city, circling out over the harbour and the sea. Grace stopped and replayed the earlier part.

‘A local dealer’s confirmed the model as a current E-Class,’ Potting said. ‘I’ve had the ANPR team check all cameras in the Chichester area for an hour either side of 3.24 p.m. The gods are smiling on us, it was relatively light traffic. Just five of that particular model had pinged any cameras and only two of them dark-coloured. And here’s the bit you are really going to like, chief — one of them has a Sussex Police marker on it as being linked to a suspected armed drug dealer. Name of Conor Drewett.’

‘That’s a familiar name.’ Grace smiled. ‘I nicked him a while back in a drugs bust.’

‘Yep, well, he’s still around and still a nasty piece of work. I had the pleasure of being bitten on the nose by him about ten years ago and then ending up with a dislocated thumb as I put him on the ground. We have his address. With your permission, chief, I’d like to arrange some of our guys and the local team to pay him a visit early tomorrow.’

Grace grinned. ‘What a shame to spoil his beauty sleep.’ He shook his head. ‘Driving a known car and parking it in the same road. I often think how lucky for us that some villains are not the whole enchilada.’

‘The whole enchilada? You’ve been away in the smoke for too long. Know what I mean?!’

‘Six months in the Met, you pick up their jargon, but I’m back home now.’

‘He could be a candidate for the Darwin Awards,’ Potting said.

Grace frowned. ‘The what?’

‘It’s a spoof award, given annually to the person who by the nature of their stupidity has contributed the most towards Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Mostly they’re awarded posthumously for editing themselves out of the gene pool.’

Grace smiled. ‘Love it. Any idea who the other person with him is?’

The DS shook his head. ‘No doubt one of our finer citizens, chief. If we arrest Drewett, maybe he’ll squeal, or we’ll find some DNA in the Mercedes.’

‘Whatever, nice work, Norman.’ His phone rang. Grace answered and listened to the call, intently. The moment he ended it he turned to Potting. ‘That was the lab — it shows that good detective work will always produce results. The lab has found DNA material in the drain-hole contents in the shower tray, belonging to Conor Drewett. My hunch about the towels on the floor has come up trumps. I had a feeling that with all that blood at the crime scene, one of them may have taken a shower.’

As soon as the DS had left his office, Grace dialled Cassian Pewe’s number. Long past his sell-by date Pewe had said, dismissively, about Norman Potting.

He waited, eagerly, for the ACC to answer.