Left You Dead

92

Usually these days, the ACC didn’t invite Roy Grace to sit, instead making him stand in front of his desk for their meetings. But today, with an odd, almost simpering smile, he shook his hand firmly. ‘Good to see you, Roy, thanks for sparing the time to see me.’

As Cassian Pewe spoke, he ushered him to one of the two-seater corner sofas and perched himself on the other. ‘Would you like some coffee?’

That was almost another first. This must be Pewe’s way of showing sympathy, Grace thought.

‘I’m fine, thank you, sir.’

Pewe looked closely at him, still with his faintly unintelligent expression. ‘How are you bearing up?’

‘OK, thank you. Being at work is helping.’

‘And your lovely wife, is she coping all right?’

‘Cleo’s trying to be strong — she’s gone into work today as well.’

A frown flitted across his face. ‘I understand the PM on Bruno was carried out at Worthing, is that right?’

‘Yes, to spare Cleo from having to be involved. The funeral directors are collecting his body from there.’

‘Very sensible,’ Pewe said. ‘I’m so extremely sorry, Roy, for your loss. You have my very deepest sympathy. You will please pass my condolences to Cleo and his grandparents.’

‘I will, thank you.’

‘I think it was Aristotle who said, “The gods have no greater torment than for a mother to outlive her child.”’

‘Fortunately for Sandy, if you can call her a mother, she didn’t.’

The wan smile again. ‘I’m sure it applies to the father, as well.’

‘It does,’ Grace replied. ‘And Aristotle was right.’

Pewe nodded, clasping his hands together in a gesture of sympathy. ‘If there is anything I can do, if you need to take some time out as I’ve said before, please let me know.’

‘I appreciate that, sir.’

‘And when you have made the funeral arrangements, please also let me know.’

Was he intending to send a donation to the charity he and Cleo decided on — which they were still discussing — Grace wondered? God forbid he was planning to attend. All the more reason to make it a private, family one. It had been bad enough when he’d attended Sandy’s, he didn’t want this creep polluting their grief at Bruno’s.

‘We’ll be putting an announcement in the Argus,’ he replied.

Pewe nodded.

‘Perhaps you could let me know, in case I miss it.’

Grace grimaced by way of a reply.

There was a moment of silence. Then Pewe’s face clouded into a back-to-business expression. Evidently the ACC was still blissfully unaware of the tsunami heading his way. That thought was the only thing that cheered Grace up at this moment.

‘Right,’ Pewe said. ‘Good. So, I need to talk to you about resourcing, Roy.’

‘Resourcing?’

‘As you are well aware, Operation Lagoon is currently using half the entire Major Crime Team’s available manpower, as well as one of only two Surveillance Teams our finances currently stretch to, so I thought you might like to give me an update?’

‘With pleasure, sir.’ Grace said the word sir happy in the knowledge he wouldn’t be saying it for much longer. Not from the moment Professional Standards acted on the information Guy Batchelor had provided. But for now, he maintained a facade of respect. ‘Should we still be calling it manpower, sir? Not a very up-to-date expression, is it?’

Pewe looked, as he so often did when confronted by anything distasteful to him, as if he could smell something nasty. ‘Do you have a better term for it?’

Grace gave him a deadpan look. ‘Resources?’

For the next five minutes he filled Pewe in on their progress to date and the major turn of events with the discovery of Rebecca Watkins’s affair with Niall Paternoster. When he had finished, Pewe sat for a while, saying nothing. Finally, he nodded.

‘You’ve established, through the surveillance, that Eden Paternoster’s husband and her boss, Rebecca Watkins, are having an affair? Nice work.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Grace said politely, expecting the sting was about to come.

Pewe didn’t disappoint.

‘Clearly, Roy, you believe in the possibility that Eden Paternoster, far from being murdered and her body dissected, may still be alive and well and in hiding?’

‘It’s one hypothesis.’

‘Do you have others?’

‘Three. The second is that she was murdered, either by her husband or by Rebecca Watkins — or by both of them — and her body subsequently dismembered, some of it buried in Ashdown Forest, some deposited in the sea off Shoreham Harbour. My third is that Niall and Eden Paternoster have conspired together to fake her disappearance.’

‘For what reason?’

‘Financial. I’ve been reading up on that couple, the Darwins, where the husband, John, faked his death to look like a canoe accident in the North Sea some years ago. He did it with the connivance of his wife for financial reasons in that case, collecting the life insurance on him. Emily Denyer is currently looking hard into the Paternosters’ finances as a major part of our enquiries.’

Pewe ran a manicured finger, sporting a Wedgwood signet ring, through his golden hair. ‘Would I be correct in saying that in your view, Roy, in all three of your theories, there is no life at stake at the present time? No life in danger? Eden Paternoster is either dead, or alive and well and in cahoots with her husband, or something else entirely? Would you agree with that summary?’

‘On the evidence so far, yes. Sir.’

Pewe smiled, his upper lip rising like a theatre curtain, revealing a stage set of immaculately whitened teeth. He looked to Grace, at this moment, like a piranha in a blond wig.

‘Here’s my dilemma, Roy. With the greatest respect, one of our Surveillance Teams is currently engaged in an operation to try to protect a teenage girl we believe is being trafficked into the sex trade by a Brighton criminal gang. This is vital work to protect a vulnerable person.’ The gleam of his teeth again, before he continued with the sucker punch.

‘I have a request, from the Divisional Intelligence Unit, for surveillance to monitor a very large drugs consignment believed to be on its way from Liverpool to Brighton. If they can put this in place, they think they could scoop up some of the major players on the Brighton drugs scene. So, what should I do with my resources? Deploy my Surveillance Team to discover the outcome of a marital dispute or to potentially save the lives of many Sussex citizens by cutting off a major drugs supply chain? I don’t like to raise this today of all days, but life has to go on and decisions have to be made.’

‘I don’t think it’s as straightforward as you think, sir,’ Grace said.

‘You’re suggesting it’s not as clear-cut about the Paternosters?’ Pewe retorted.

‘Correct — sir.’

Pewe opened out his arms expansively. ‘So, convince me.’

‘I need more time to keep him under surveillance,’ Grace said calmly. ‘As I told you, something’s going on that I’m not happy about. At this moment I’m still of the opinion that Niall Paternoster may have murdered his wife, with or without the help of Rebecca Watkins.’

‘But you are also considering that Eden Paternoster may have set this up and disappeared of her own volition? Or conspired with her husband?’

‘Yes, I am.’

Pewe picked up a globe paperweight on top of a stack of papers on his desk, then laid it back down again. ‘To repeat myself, you currently have no evidence of a life at stake. You also currently have very little evidence that Mrs Paternoster has been murdered. Correct?’

‘Correct.’

‘So what do you need the Surveillance Team for now?’

‘I need them to continue monitoring Niall Paternoster’s movements. If he has conspired with his wife, he may lead us to her. If he has murdered her, he may lead us to her body — we know that killers frequently return to the deposition site. It’s possible that the grave in Ashdown Forest could be a decoy. As I told you, I’m unhappy about the location the kitchen knife was found in.’

‘You’ve also told me you don’t think Niall Paternoster is very bright. Now you’re saying he’s bright enough to have created a decoy grave and left a clue, in the knife, in an obvious place? Or perhaps conspired with his wife to fake her disappearance?’

‘All of these are current possibilities, sir.’

‘There’s a tracker in place beneath his rental car, placed there by the Surveillance Team?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you have access to the data from the tracker?’

‘We do. On our computers and phones — and tablets.’

‘Fine,’ Pewe said. ‘It seems to me that for now the Surveillance Team has served its purpose. I’ll leave it with you until 6 p.m. today after which I’m going to redeploy it to the Liverpool operation. But I will instruct Mark Taylor to leave the tracker in place. You and your team will be able to monitor Paternoster’s car on your computers, tablets and phones. The rest you’ll have to do the old-fashioned way. Right, I think that’s all. Don’t forget to let me know when Bruno’s funeral is.’

Grace glared back at him.