Left You Dead

43

For the next twenty minutes, Roy paced up and down the room like a caged, distressed animal, barely saying a word, consumed by his own thoughts.

His phone rang. He was about to silence it when Cleo said, ‘Take it, darling.’

After a moment’s hesitation, he answered.

It was Glenn Branson. ‘What news, boss?’

‘Nothing so far, just waiting. I’ll let you know when we find out anything.’

‘We’re all here for you. As I said, don’t worry about anything at work, we’re taking care of it.’

‘Thanks, mate.’ He fought hard to hold back tears. ‘What’s happening at the coalface?’ He glanced at his watch. It was just gone 1 p.m.

Cleo remained seated, staring into space. She was finding it impossible to concentrate on anything.

‘Norman and Jon have headed back over to the custody centre, and Paternoster’s solicitor is on his way, too. We’ll see his reaction to the cat litter surprise — not.’

‘Yes. You’ll call me?’

‘If you want? Are you sure?’

‘I am,’ he said emphatically.

‘There’s another development — look, I don’t want to be bothering you at this time, boss.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll tell you when to leave me alone. I’m sure Bruno will be just fine, he’s in the best hands.’ He caught Cleo’s eye and she nodded encouragement back.

‘Louise Soper spoke to the Collision Investigation Unit at Shoreham and they suggested it would be best if she took the Paternosters’ car, along with someone from Digital Forensics, over to the main BMW dealership, where they have all the diagnostic kit to interrogate the onboard satnav. She’s now done this and reported back. There’s something very interesting and possibly significant. Several things actually.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Well, the first is the timing of that photograph of Eden Paternoster in front of the lake at Parham House. Her husband claimed it had been taken this past Sunday afternoon, the first of September. But Aiden Gilbert has already established from the digital date stamp that he was lying, and it was actually taken over a week earlier, at 1.50 on Saturday August twenty-fourth. You know that already, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, EJ, who has been working with me, now has corroboration from the diagnostics team at Chandlers. The BMW’s satnav log, which records all journeys whether it is activated or not, shows it travelled to Parham House that afternoon, and was there, stationary, during the exact time this photograph was taken. This is further corroborated by Aiden Gilbert’s analysis of Niall Paternoster’s phone. The plot of its movements matches exactly that of the BMW. As does the plot of Eden Paternoster’s phone. Which indicates that the couple actually drove there together, in this vehicle, eight days before he maintains he took the photo of her. And this is doubly confirmed by Louise’s interrogation of the ANPR cameras. These corroborate all the BMW’s movements, with further evidence from two Highways Authority traffic-flow cameras. The examination also confirms the journey to Parham House from Niall’s account of what happened this past Sunday.’

Grace thought for a moment about the ramifications of this. Was Paternoster thinking his lie about the photograph date wouldn’t be found out?

Branson continued, ‘We’ve heard back from our enquiries at Parham House and there’s no CCTV or records to confirm either Niall or Eden were there on either weekend. And there’s more. This is where it gets even more significant.’

Grace took a sip of the coffee. It was hot and very slightly fizzed the tip of his tongue.

‘The Outside Enquiry Team spoke to the Paternosters’ immediate neighbour, to the north of their house. An elderly, retired woman who they described as something of a busybody — but with all her marbles. She said that around 6.30 p.m. last Thursday, August twenty-ninth, she was out weeding her lawn and could smell — and hear — the Paternosters were having a barbecue in their back garden. Some while later, she can’t remember exactly when, she heard them having a terrible row. She said that wasn’t unusual, she’d often hear them arguing about something or other, but she said this one was particularly bad. They were screaming at each other and at some point it sounded like one of them had hit the other. She’d been so worried that she’d seriously contemplated calling the police, but she didn’t want the Paternosters to think of her as the nosy, interfering neighbour, so she’d left it and went indoors — there was something she wanted to catch on television.’

‘Did she hear anything more?’ Grace asked.

‘Not of the row, no. But what she did hear, she said, because she’s a light sleeper, was the Paternosters’ car starting up at 2.10 a.m. She was precise about the time, she said, because it woke her and she looked at her alarm clock. She heard it drive off. She was surprised because it was unusual, although she hadn’t thought too much of it, as she knew from her occasional chats over the garden fence with the Paternosters that Niall often worked night shifts driving a taxi.’

He paused before continuing, sounding increasingly excited. ‘Now get this. The plot of the BMW’s satnav and of Niall Paternoster’s phone indicate he departed from their Nevill Road home at 2.11 a.m. and headed north-east towards Ashdown Forest — also confirmed by two ANPR cameras. He arrived at a location we’ve identified as a car park on the edge of dense woodlands at 2.48 a.m. and remained static in that vicinity for just over an hour. From there he travelled to Shoreham Harbour, arriving at 4.35 a.m., heading to a point that we’ve identified as the east mole of the harbour breakwater. Niall Paternoster’s phone was then shown as leaving the BMW and heading down to the end of that mole, returning to the BMW minutes later.’

‘Taking in the early morning sea air?’ Grace ventured.

Cleo looked up at him, puzzled, then got up, walked around the room and sat back down again.

‘A normal thing to do in the middle of the night, wouldn’t you say, boss?’

‘Doesn’t everyone?’ Grace replied flippantly.

‘The BMW and Niall Paternoster’s phone returned to the locale of the Paternoster home at 5.02 a.m.’

Grace thought this information through carefully before replying again. ‘The couple had a row. It ended with what the neighbour thought might be a blow. Then in the middle of the night Niall Paternoster drives to a forest. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

‘Deposition site?’

‘Unless he has a particular interest in forest wildlife,’ Grace replied. ‘Then he drives to the harbour. A second deposition site?’ He frowned. ‘I’m trying to make sense of the timeline here. The previous Saturday they drive to Parham House and take photographs. The following Thursday they have a row, which a neighbour hears, and suppose he kills her. Did he dismember her, which might account for the blood at the house? He then drives out into the forest and buries part of her body. The rest he dumps out to sea at the end of the harbour, where there are strong currents. Four days later he reports her missing, giving the explanation that she went into a Tesco store to buy cat litter and vanished off the face of the earth. Am I missing anything?’

‘I think we’re on the same bus,’ Branson replied.

‘We need an underwater search team to check out the area around the harbour mouth. But it’s strongly tidal.’

‘It was an ebb tide at that time, boss, which means that anything he dumped in the sea would be carried some way out.’

Grace was pensive for some moments. ‘Ashdown Forest?’ He knew, from experience, that some parts of Sussex were more conducive to burying a body, or body parts, than others. Much of the county was on chalk, which made digging a grave deep enough to conceal a body a challenging task, even more so during the summer months when the soil was dry and hard.

Thirty miles south of London, located in the north of Sussex, Ashdown Forest had originally been created as a medieval hunting forest soon after the Norman Conquest. More recently it was the home of Winnie-the-Pooh. And with its sandy soil, it was a very easy place to dig a grave.

Few domestic murders were ever planned meticulously in advance and from what he had seen of Niall himself, a man with a clearly volatile temper, and from what the neighbour had reported, this had all the hallmarks of a classic and tragic argument gone too far. If he had murdered his wife, Ashdown Forest would have been geographically perfect for Niall Paternoster. The internal police statistics on deposition sites showed that normally killers would drive their victim’s bodies a maximum of thirty miles from the crime scene, wanting as short a journey as possible for fear of either being stopped and searched or having a crash.

Ashdown Forest, with its mix of open heathland and dense woods, spread over a wide area, made it tricky to search, and Grace wanted this done quickly. With the current warm weather, a body would decompose rapidly, making the task of forensic examination increasingly hard. There was also the risk, in woodlands, of foraging animals carrying off body parts for food and clothing items for nests and lairs. If the killer was fortunate, a body in a shallow woodland grave could be completely gone in just a few weeks. And if the body was already dismembered, which is what this sounded like, that could happen much faster — in just days.

Grace went through a mental checklist, rattling off items to Branson. ‘After the POLSA has made the assessment, get the team to search the immediate area of the forest car park. Get the handlers to bring cadaver dogs. At the same time, put a drone up to do a wider sweep.’

Human bodies were heavy to carry, so if Eden had been buried intact, her body was likely to be close to the car park. But if it was only body parts he was carrying, Niall could have ventured much further away. ‘Deploy the volunteer search team — see if you can get them out today. And one other thing: we may well need the help of the pollen lady, depending on what’s found in the forest. If it’s what we expect, pollen evidence on the foot pedals of his car and on his shoes might help put him at the scene.’

‘All noted, boss. I don’t think your good buddy, the ACC, will be happy sanctioning the cost of the dive team and all this as well.’

Ever since Sussex Police’s own dive team, the Specialist Search Unit, had been dismantled, they now used the services of a private firm. They were highly effective but didn’t come cheaply.

‘No,’ Grace replied with a smile, so absorbed back in his work that he had momentarily forgotten the nightmare this day had become. ‘He won’t.’