Love You Dead

119 Monday 16 March

Grace was in a pensive mood. ‘The time is 8.30 a.m., Monday 16th March. This is the eleventh briefing of Operation Spider.’ He scanned his assembled team. Everyone was present except for Norman Potting, who had left him a message that he was on his way.

‘I’ll give you the good news first,’ Grace continued. ‘Most of you here were involved in Operation Violin, the investigation last year into two revenge murders and the abduction of a young boy. Our prime suspect, an American professional killer known only by the name Tooth, vanished following a fight with Glenn on a dock at Shoreham Port. He was missing, presumed drowned, after jumping into the water, although a subsequent extensive underwater search never found a body. Then a short while ago we had a tip-off from Pat Lanigan from the NYPD that Tooth was very much alive and active again, and had returned to Brighton in pursuit of a memory stick and a sum of money that had been stolen from a hotel room in New York, allegedly by none other than our Jodie.’

He sipped some water, then some coffee from the mug in front of him. ‘According to intelligence Lanigan had received, Jodie had links to a Romanian bagman for a Russian crime gang, who was found murdered in New York at the same hotel she had been staying in. She was seen in the bar with him by hotel staff one evening, a couple of days before he was found dead in his room. In what I suspect is not a complete coincidence, during a search of Jodie’s house at 191 Roedean Crescent yesterday, the sum of one hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred dollars was found inside a mattress. Interestingly, a single one-hundred-dollar bill, matching the plate serial numbers of those in the mattress, was found in a holdall in Tooth’s hire car, on Saturday, along with a USB memory stick. We’ve learned that the money was actually counterfeit.’

He sipped some more coffee. ‘The contents of the memory stick are currently being examined by the High Tech Crime Unit. It appears to be some kind of ledger, containing names, addresses and coded transactions, within the US and some mid-European countries. We’re sending a copy to the NYPD as it holds a number of names of persons of interest to them, we understand.’

‘Do we know how Tooth escaped after going in the water?’ Branson asked.

‘Not yet. And I’m not sure that we ever will.’

‘How come?’

‘Video footage taken from Jodie’s Roedean residence shows the unfortunate Tooth attempting to attack her with a stiletto knife. She defended herself by hurling a huge boa constrictor at him, which proceeded to wrap itself round his torso and neck in apparent self-defence — and constrict his airways. This charmer suffered severe oxygen starvation, as well as several bites and stings from various other creatures before the snake was removed. He’s currently in the Intensive Care Unit of the Royal Sussex County Hospital, on life support. His score on the Glasgow Coma Scale — which measures responses — is not good. The only sound he has uttered since being admitted on Saturday morning is, apparently, the word “Yossarian”.’

‘Yossarian?’ Guy Batchelor said. ‘Yossarian was a character in that amazing novel, Catch-22. One of my favourite books.’

‘Can you elaborate?’ Grace said. ‘Apparently he’s repeated it several times, in a state about it.’

‘He was the central character,’ Batchelor said. ‘Shit, I read it a long time ago. He was paranoid that people were trying to kill him, I seem to remember.’

Grace wrote down the name, Yossarian, in his policy book. ‘It would be helpful, Guy, if you could look into this further.’

‘Yes, boss.’

‘Tooth is currently undergoing further tests and I hope to have an update later today. Meanwhile he is under police guard in hospital.’

He looked down at his notes again. ‘OK, now on to Operation Spider, where the news is not as good as I’d hoped. First, I’d like to commend DS Potting, who’ll be here in a minute, for his bravery. None of you will be aware of this, but he was our undercover operative. He placed himself in great danger, and we have sheer luck to thank for him still being with us today. The unintended victim of the bomb was a suspected member of the car theft gang, and a known offender, Dean Warren. He has been identified from fingerprints on an intact arm recovered at the scene. From what we are able to establish so far, Warren appears to have decided Saturday morning was a good time to steal this car.’

‘Didn’t you say in an earlier briefing that Stonor and Warren are associated, chief?’ Frowning, Guy Batchelor stood up and went over to the family tree pinned on one whiteboard, and pointed out the connection.

‘Drinking buddies, they have been for years,’ Dave Green said.

‘Yes, you are correct, Guy,’ Grace replied. ‘My hypothesis is that Shelby Stonor attempted to burgle Jodie’s residence on the night of Tuesday 24th February. This accords with information Jodie provided us with during interviews yesterday. Prior to, or during, this bungled burglary attempt, in which Stonor may have been fatally bitten by one of the saw-scaled vipers that Jodie kept, he saw this recent-model Mercedes and passed information on to his mate Warren.’

‘That’s what friends are for.’ Guy Batchelor said.

‘I don’t want any of you to underestimate just how close Norman came to driving off in that car. It’s by sheer luck he is still with us. Whilst we are here this morning to celebrate good news, I want all of us to reflect, for a moment, on the dangers that face us daily in our work. Something for which we all too rarely get any public recognition. I can talk openly about Norman being the undercover operative as he has decided that was his first and last deployment undercover — and I don’t think any of us can blame him.’

He was distracted for a moment by Potting entering the room, clutching a sheet of paper, then went on. ‘Jodie is still in custody — we were able to get a forty-eight-hour extension to keep her in, but frankly we need more evidence. She’s so damned clever. All we’ve got against her is circumstantial at this moment, and it may be difficult to convince the Crown Prosecution Service to bring a case.’

‘What about the theft of the two hundred thousand dollars and the memory stick, Roy?’ Tanja Cale asked.

He shook his head. ‘No one’s reported the theft — the information we have from the NYPD is from one of their intelligence sources. It’s probably drugs money — and we know it’s counterfeit. I don’t think anyone’s going to be reporting it.’ He gave a knowing smile.

‘How strong is all the circumstantial evidence on her, boss?’ Batchelor asked.

‘Probably not strong enough. A sister who died, when she was with her, when they were teenagers. Her first husband who died from a snake bite. Her fiancé who died when she was with him, in a French ski resort. Her second husband who died from a snake bite in India. The Financial Crimes Unit are doing what they call following the money. The searches of all three premises linked to Jodie have revealed a number of passports, birth certificates and credit cards in different names. But it could be months before they come up with enough evidence — and even if they do, we’re looking at minor fraud. We need to find something — I don’t know what — some hard evidence.’ He turned a page of his notebook.

‘So we know Jodie was with her sister, her first husband, and her fiancé, when they died. She was on honeymoon with her second husband of just a few days when he died, also from an apparent saw-scaled viper bite. I have serious concerns about this latter death, but I have no substantial evidence to support these concerns, at this stage.’

‘What concerns do you have, sir?’ asked DS Cale.

‘We’ve pulled in a number of experts to help us with this. Dr West, from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, examined Carmichael’s body, and had two major issues. Unfortunately, because it had been embalmed, any opportunity for an effective second post-mortem had gone. But he said he was bothered by the lack of any discolouration — ecchymosis — around the puncture mark on Carmichael’s leg, which he would have expected to have been present following a bite from a saw-scaled viper. He also categorically said that the location where he was allegedly bitten by this snake is not the creature’s natural habitat. He was at the Crocodile Park in Borivali East, outside Mumbai, according to what Jodie subsequently told the cruise ship’s doctor. But James West said this snake typically lives in open, dry, sandy terrain — under rocks, at the base of thorny plants.’

He paused. ‘West knows the Borivali Crocodile Park well — he’s spent time there. He says the exact area of terrain where Carmichael was bitten is swampland, and that a saw-scale viper would not go near that.’

‘Is it possible she brought the snake with her and planted it there?’ DS Exton asked.

‘Well, I think that stretches credulity — even by this lady’s standards,’ Grace said. ‘They were on a minibus from the ship to the crocodile park, so she’d have had no opportunity to buy a snake anywhere en route. Prior to that they’d been at sea for several days. It’s possible she had smuggled one out of England and had it in her cabin, hidden in a suitcase, but I think this is improbable — and besides, we have no real evidence. In reality the only charge she could be facing at this moment in time is killing Rowley Carmichael, and as you’ve heard we’re not there yet.’

Norman Potting raised a hand. ‘I think I may be able to help with that.’