Left You Dead

23

Twenty-five minutes later, having picked up a wrap and a banana and a couple of chocolate bars, Glenn Branson manoeuvred the car into Roy Grace’s parking slot on the Sussex Police HQ campus. It was a privilege reserved for SIOs; most detectives and other staff who drove to work had to take their chances on the streets beyond. Climbing out, he and Grace headed towards the bland, low-rise building that now housed the Major Crime Team after its second move in the short while they had been here.

Back in Grace’s office, Branson devoured his food, sharing one of the chocolate bars with Grace, then went to pick up a couple of coffees, leaving Roy thinking back to his earlier meeting with Norman.

He had been keeping positive in front of Norman, but he was concerned about what he’d heard. Despite his bravado about being a tough bugger, Roy knew that, underneath, Norman was a vulnerable man who still hadn’t got over the death of his fiancée — if indeed he ever would. To cope with this new ordeal, he was going to need all the support he could get, particularly from himself, Cleo and all the team. He’d already spoken to Cleo on the phone and she was researching the condition and treatment so they could talk about it later. She was going to speak to her sister, who had experienced the same type of cancer and had been clear of it for over five years.

Glenn Branson came back in with two steaming coffees and dug his hand into the digestive packet, still there from earlier. He pulled out the last biscuit, proffering half to Roy, who shook his head, and polished that one off, too, in a shower of crumbs. Seeing his boss’s look of disapproval, he swept those onto the floor, as before. ‘So?’ he said.

Grace was pensive for a moment. ‘I’m even less happy having met him,’ he said. ‘The more I think about it, the less I like it.’

‘Even though he answered all your questions truthfully? I was watching his non-verbals, too.’

‘It’s not a foolproof test. Especially if someone knows they’re being observed — then it’s easy to manipulate. I just don’t like the man. You?’

‘I agree, boss.’

‘So, let’s recap on what we have. Niall Paternoster calls the police this morning. His story is that his wife, Eden, went into the Tesco Holmbush superstore to buy a bag of cat litter at around 3.15 p.m. yesterday. And he claims he’s not seen or heard from her since. You and I interviewed him, and his attitude was aggressive and defensive. Ordinarily with a misper, dependent on the risk assessment, we’d wait twenty-four hours after they were last seen before the enquiry could be elevated. Again, all dependent on the risk assessment.’ He glanced at his watch, then looked at his colleague. ‘Are you comfortable waiting, knowing what we have?’

Branson shook his head. ‘Not really, no.’

‘Nor me.’

Grace’s job phone rang. He answered, and almost immediately switched it to loudspeaker.

Branson recognized the voice of Velvet Wilde.

‘Boss, O2 have come back to me,’ the DC said. ‘I’ve got a plot of the two mobile phone numbers.’ She read out first Niall Paternoster’s. ‘Between the hours of 9 a.m. yesterday and 11 a.m. it was at one of a few possible addresses in Nevill Road, Hove. It then moved west to the vicinity of Parham House, near Pulborough, in West Sussex. It remained in that area until 2.45 p.m. when it headed east, stopping at around 3.15 p.m. in the vicinity of the Tesco Holmbush superstore just north of Shoreham. It remained in that area until approximately 4.20 p.m., when it returned to Nevill Road, where it seems to have remained until around 5 p.m. The phone then moved its position, via a road in Portslade and then Devil’s Dyke, towards Heathrow Airport and later that evening returned back to Nevill Road. Since that time it has been static in Nevill Road.’

Grace jotted down the details. ‘And the second number?’

‘Well, we had to go back a bit further than the time you gave us because it seems either to have been switched off or its battery went flat Thursday evening. At 6 a.m. Thursday, it moved south, down Nevill Road, across the Old Shoreham Road and down to the seafront, where it turned east and continued to the start of Brighton Marina. It then turned back, west, retracing its path to the Nevill Road address. The distance covered was approximately 8.4 miles and the timings indicate the pace to have been a run.’ She paused for a moment. ‘I know it wasn’t in my brief, but I thought it was worth checking the run against a few apps and we discovered that it had been recorded on a Strava app, belonging to Eden Paternoster — the owner of the phone.’

‘Nice work, Velvet!’ Grace said.

‘Thank you. At 7.50 a.m. the phone then moved north to Croydon to an area we’ve identified as the Mutual Occidental Insurance Company. It remained there until 5.45 p.m. when it then headed south, reaching the Nevill Road address at 6.35 p.m. It remained static there until 10.10 p.m. on Thursday, which was the last signal from the phone.’

‘Nothing since then?’ Grace asked.

‘Nothing,’ Wilde confirmed.

He looked at Glenn Branson, who frowned, What?

He nodded back. Then he said, ‘That’s very helpful, Velvet.’

‘Do you need me to plot it further back?’

‘Not at the moment. I’ll let you know.’

‘Sure. Anything else I can help you with?’

‘Not for now — but if you can email me a summary of all this, please.’

‘I’ll ping it across in a few minutes.’

Grace thanked her and ended the call. Frowning, he turned to Branson. ‘What do you make of that?’

‘Eden goes for an early morning run on Thursday — like you often do yourself. Then she drives to work. She drives home that evening. Then her phone goes dead around 10.10 p.m. And stays off. She has a responsible job in IT at a major insurance company, and she clearly uses her phone not just for work but for recreation — like recording her running on Strava. So, let’s say it did die from a flat battery at 10.10 p.m., why would she not charge it all Friday, Saturday and Sunday? Does that make any sense?’

Grace shook his head pensively.

‘Let’s hypothesize for a moment,’ Glenn Branson said. ‘He murders his wife on Thursday night and then plays a charade of a day out at Parham House, ending up with her disappearing at a Tesco store on the way home, apparently going in to buy cat litter. Would he be dumb enough to think we wouldn’t check her phone activity?’

‘You’ve met him,’ Grace replied with a sideways glance. ‘I’m not the world’s leading authority on tattoos, but did you see the one on his arm of the grim reaper?’

Branson grinned. ‘Yeah, let’s hope he’s not acted that out.’

‘I agree,’ Grace said. ‘For one of my birthdays, Sandy got me a voucher from a tattoo parlour as a present.’

‘Yeah?’

‘I was never brave enough to have it done. She wanted me to have my name and her name with a heart between on my arm.’

‘Lucky you didn’t. Cleo would have been mightily impressed — not!’

Grace grinned. ‘You could say that.’ Then, serious again, he said, ‘It seems that Eden is a successful woman, hard-working, in the prime of her life, with a close circle of friends and work colleagues. It doesn’t make sense that she has just disappeared and we have found no social media activity since her disappearance. Do you agree?’

Glenn Branson nodded his head.

At that moment, Grace’s phone rang again. It was Aiden Gilbert and he sounded puzzled. ‘Can I clarify something, Roy?’ he asked, the phone on loudspeaker.

‘Tell me?’

‘That photograph of the woman in front of the lake you sent me? You said it was taken yesterday, early afternoon?’

‘Yes, correct — from what I was told.’

‘Not according to the digital date stamp, Roy. On first examination, it wasn’t taken yesterday, it was taken at 1.50 p.m. on Saturday August the twenty-fourth. Over a week before.’

‘You are certain, Aiden?’

‘Completely, Roy.’

Ending the call, Grace called Cleo to tell her that they were going to have to postpone the hen husbandry course tomorrow.