Love You Dead

65 Friday 6 March

Shortly after midday Roy Grace, still distracted by the news he’d had about Sandy, sat in Cassian Pewe’s large office, drinking coffee from a china cup. He absently noted the spoon in the saucer — and doubted that spoons ever vanished here, in this hallowed Police HQ building. He updated the ACC on the processing by the French authorities of their extradition request for Edward Crisp, and the progress on Operation Spider, the investigation into the suspicious death of Shelby Stonor.

Or to be more accurate, and to his old adversary’s clear irritation, the lack of progress on both. With luck there would be an update from the French police, so he had been assured, within a few days. But there was little progress from the actions on Operation Spider that he had given his team at their briefing three days ago. A check of Stonor’s movements since his last release from prison had revealed some relevant information, but not much.

Plotting from the ANPR cameras and footage from the city’s network of 35 °CCTV cameras, showed Stonor had recently made numerous visits to the expensive and exclusive Roedean area of the city. These visits coincided with a spate of reported house burglaries in the area. But thanks to the budget constraints, housebreaking, except where life was in imminent danger had, to Grace’s fury, become a lower priority. He could quite seriously envisage a time, in the near future, when someone would wake to find an intruder in their home, dial 999 and be told to send an email.

Angi Bunsen, Stonor’s girlfriend, had been questioned extensively, but had not provided anything useful. It appeared that Stonor had lied to her about having a job in a warehouse — presumably to cover for his burglary activities. She had said nothing of significance in any of her interviews. Stonor had given her every indication that he planned to go straight and save up to buy a Brighton taxi plate. She couldn’t understand why he might have any connection to venomous snakes.

DC Jack Alexander’s action of checking all holders of licences, under the Dangerous Wild Animals Act of 1976 in the city of Brighton and Hove, had revealed just a handful, including a police inspector they knew who kept a pet python. They were all legitimate.

Suppliers of vivariums had been contacted, the addresses of all customers they held on record visited, to reveal nothing more lethal than a tank of gerbils who had ganged up on one of their own and bitten a toe off. There was a reptile owners’ association but none of its members knew of Shelby Stonor.

Information from source handlers about Stonor and his associates, since he had last been freed, so far had provided nothing new. Nor had the High Tech Crime Unit’s interrogation of his pay-as-you-go mobile phone and computer revealed any unexpected contacts, or anything else of significance other than the blurry photograph. The main person he saw regularly was a small-time drug dealer and car thief called Dean Warren, who also appeared to be part of the gang conspiring to steal high-value cars. Like Warren, Stonor had connections to the Sussex towns of Crawley and Hastings through a number of small-time criminal associates, all of whom were being interviewed, but so far nothing had come from any of them.

To Grace’s surprise, rather than being angry at him for failing to bring the case to a swift conclusion, Pewe took a pragmatic view. ‘I think we have to accept that whatever happened, Stonor is not someone worth throwing unlimited expensive resources at, Roy. Yes?’

‘In the current climate, I’d have to agree, sir.’

‘Good man.’ Pewe, in his white shirt with epaulettes, shiny blond hair and angelic blue eyes, gave Grace a condescending smile. ‘Now I have a nice bit of news, which I’m sure you will like. I’ve just heard from our new Chief Constable, Lesley Manning, that Bella Moy has been posthumously awarded the Queen’s Gallantry Medal. I understand that she and Norman Potting had become an item?’

‘More than an item, sir. They were engaged to be married.’

Pewe nodded. ‘It sounds as if DS Potting will be accompanying Bella’s mother to the ceremony, then. A member of the Royal Family will be presenting the medal later in the year. But to recognize the award in Sussex we are having a small local event with the Chief.’

‘Very appropriate.’

Pewe nodded. ‘I’ll see to it. Now, back to business. I want you to stay on the Stonor enquiry, but don’t bust your balls on it. I’d like you to focus your energies on Crisp. Once he has been released back to us there’s going to need to be a lot of work preparing for his prosecution, and it has to be watertight, belt and braces. It’s going to be one of the highest profile trials we’ll ever have been involved with and I need it to be in a safe pair of hands. Understood?’

‘Yes, sir.’

As ever with ACC Pewe, Grace waited for the sting. It came rapidly and subtly from the man who had once secretly ordered a team to scan and excavate the garden of the home Grace had shared with Sandy, on the suspicion that he had murdered her.

‘Such a shame the glory for his capture goes to the French police rather than to us, don’t you think, Roy?’

Actually, no, he felt like replying, defensively. But that would have been an argument he could not win. The truth was that Operation Haywain, which he had run, had successfully identified and found Sussex’s first serial killer in many decades. Through his efforts and those of his team, Edward Crisp had been trapped in an underground tunnel which had collapsed, nearly killing Grace and several of his colleagues. It had seemed certain that Crisp must be dead. Yet, somehow, he had escaped.

The buck stopped with Grace as the Senior Investigating Officer. However improbable the odds on Crisp having survived, somehow he had. Which meant that in the eyes of Pewe, justifiably, Grace had screwed up. He’d had the offender in his grasp and the man had slipped the net. It didn’t matter that Grace had been in hospital, his leg filled with shotgun pellets, when Crisp had escaped. He was the SIO and ultimately to blame. And to make it worse, the recapture was down to pure luck. Although swift circulation of Crisp’s details had meant the French police were able to act decisively.

‘Yes,’ Grace said. ‘I think Crisp makes Harry Houdini look like an amateur.’

In his sarcastic tone, Pewe said, ‘I would have thought — given all you had found out about the man during your operation — you would have been aware of that.’ He stared sternly at Grace for some moments, then went on. ‘Quite frankly, most people in my position would have taken you off the case after such a fiasco. But I want you to understand, despite our past differences, I’m not a vindictive person. I appreciate with your injuries there were extenuating circumstances, and I’ve not forgotten that last year you risked your life to save mine. So I’m going to give you a reprieve. Just make sure there are no more screw-ups from the moment Crisp is released to us. Bringing a successful prosecution is going to be on your head. Do I make myself clear?’

Grace said, stiffly, ‘Very clear, sir.’

‘I’ll give you some words of wisdom, Roy. We don’t learn from our successes — we only learn from our mistakes. You’d do well to remember that.’

‘I’ll remember that.’