Find Them Dead

83 Wednesday 22 May

It was gone 8 p.m., but it was still full daylight outside. Roy Grace sat alone in his office, sifting through copies of some of the documents for the Terence Gready prosecution, seeing if any of the evidence linked in any way to Stuie Starr. Laid out on his desk was a thick wad of paper, a printout of all calls made from the offices of TG Law going back to four weeks prior to the arrest of Mickey Starr in November last year.

He had the analysis by Aiden Gilbert’s Digital Forensics Team of the calls made from the mobile phone dropped by Mickey Starr at Newhaven Port. Additionally, there was a further printout of regular calls from the Lewes Prison phone log to the brother’s phone.

Grace rubbed his eyes and took a swig from his bottle of water. This was not getting him anywhere. Nothing in the past twenty-four hours had taken the investigation further. No useful information back from house-to-house enquiries, no vehicles of interest picked up on CCTV or on ANPR cameras. He still had just the three hypotheses written in his Policy Book. The weakest one was kids targeting the brother because of who he was, then going too far. Sadly, it did happen in these sick times. But he preferred the other possibilities, which were stronger. The most likely was that it was a warning to Starr from Gready not to grass him up, which had gone wrong. But he had no evidence and the prime suspect, on that hypothesis, was in jail and had been at the time of the attack. The other hypothesis was the burglary which was either genuine or had been set up.

His phone rang.

He answered a little irritably, not welcoming the interruption, but instantly changed his tone to polite respect when he recognized the voice of the Chief Constable, Lesley Manning.

‘Ma’am, good evening.’ He was surprised to hear from her, she very rarely called him, and usually only when there was a major investigation that she wanted an update on.

‘I hope I’m not disturbing you, Roy?’ she asked, pleasantly, although he sensed an edge to her normally assured voice.

‘Not at all, ma’am — I’m just going through a long phone log on Operation Canoe.’

‘That poor man who was murdered — he had Down’s Syndrome?’

‘Yes, very sad — and a particularly brutal attack.’

‘How’s it going?’

He sensed from the tone of her voice this wasn’t the reason for her call. ‘Slowly, but we’ll get there.’

‘I’ve every confidence you will.’

‘Thank you, ma’am.’

There was a brief silence, then she said, her tone suddenly both sympathetic and a little awkward, ‘Roy, I wanted to let you know myself that unfortunately you haven’t been put forward for the Chief Superintendent’s promotion boards.’

It took an instant for the words to register. Then it felt as if the floor had been pulled away from under him. Before he could comment, she went on.

‘I know this will come as a disappointment to you, Roy; there have been limited vacancies and I’m afraid ACC Pewe has chosen other candidates as opposed to you.’

‘I see,’ he said, blankly, feeling stunned. Inside he was seething, but he knew better than to vent his anger at her. ‘Well, I really appreciate your telling me, ma’am.’

‘I hope you will apply again in the future, Roy.’

‘Yes,’ he said, lamely. ‘Thank you. Maybe.’

‘I hope more than maybe, Roy.’

He said nothing.

‘But I do have a little bit of good news for you,’ she went on. ‘It has been approved that you will be receiving the Queen’s Gallantry Medal for your actions when rescuing the drowning hostage on your recent kidnap case, Operation Replay.’

The award was one of the highest honours a police officer could receive. Under any normal circumstances he would have been elated. But at this moment, it felt like he had been handed a tarnished trophy that no one had bothered to polish. ‘Thank you, ma’am,’ he said, trying to sound as enthusiastic as he could.

‘I thought you’d also be pleased to hear that we are ready for the delayed award to be presented to your late colleague, DS Bella Moy. I know how much you valued and respected her, and just how upset you were by her death — just as we all were.’

‘I’m very pleased to hear that, ma’am. And I think DS Potting will be very grateful for this recognition.’

‘They were engaged to be married, weren’t they?’

‘Yes. I had been so happy for them both.’

‘Well, I’m very pleased to tell you the decision’s been made that both medals will be awarded at a ceremony in London, where they will be presented by HRH the Prince of Wales accompanied by HRH the Duchess of Cornwall — the date will be advised.’

‘Thank you, ma’am, it is very gratifying news.’

‘Perhaps DS Potting may wish to accept the medal on DS Moy’s behalf. Does she have any other close relatives?’

‘Her mother. I know she’s not been in good health, but I’m sure she will want to accompany Norman.’

‘Will you make the approaches?’

‘I will, ma’am. And thank you.’

As soon as the call ended, Grace sat, staring at his phone, all joy about the medal eclipsed by his fury at Pewe. That lying shit, he thought. His first reaction, which he reined in, was to call him and shout at him.

Then he thought, What the hell am I doing sitting in my office at 8 p.m. working for a boss who is a total wanker and a liar?

He left everything as it was, stormed out, slamming the door behind him and went down to the car park. As he fired up the Alfa’s engine, he had just one angry thought.

I will get even with you, Cassian. I promise you.