Love You Dead

5 Tuesday 10 February

Roy Grace had been hoping to get home early, in time to help Cleo bath Noah and put him to bed with his favourite picture-book story. Instead he had been chained to his desk all day, with Glenn Branson, exchanging phone calls and emails with an English-speaking police officer, Bernard Viguet, in the Lyon, France, office of Interpol.

On his desk in front of him lay the email Glenn had brought in earlier, that had come from an officer in the Lyon Gendarmerie addressed to the Senior Investigating Officer of Operation Haywain, the continuing enquiry into the missing suspected serial killer, Dr Edward Crisp.

It stated that a sex worker in the city had gone missing two days ago, after being seen getting into a car late at night in the red-light district. A fellow prostitute, who had been shy to come forward at first, had raised the alarm. She had caught a glimpse of the man in the car, and he resembled the image of Crisp that Grace had circulated through Interpol. The colleague had given a description of the car, and the part of its registration plate that she could recall. It matched a rental car that had been hired from Hertz, and subsequently returned, by an Englishman called Tony Suter.

Something that had piqued Grace’s interest was that Tony Suter was one of the numerous aliases that Crisp had used in past years. Of course, it could have been coincidence. What could also have been coincidence was the appearance of the sex worker. She was in her early twenties, with long brown hair.

The exact profile of every single one of Crisp’s known female victims to date.

The car had been valeted and already gone out with another customer. The French police were now urgently looking for it. In response to Roy Grace’s confirmation that this could indeed be his suspect, they were currently in the process of obtaining the CCTV footage from the rental company’s premises, and a manhunt was under way for the young woman.

‘A big place, Lyon.’

‘I’ve been there.’

‘One of the largest metropolitan areas in France,’ Branson said, helpfully.

‘Thanks for the geography lesson.’

‘You’re welcome. Here’s one for you — The French Connection, with Gene Hackman, remember that?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘That was partly set in Marseilles. The second largest city.’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Nothing. Just trying to use any opportunity to educate you. And it had a great ending.’

‘You trying to tell me something?’

Branson was hesitant suddenly. ‘Oh, yeah, right,’ he said. ‘I forgot. Maybe not so tactful.’

‘You could say that,’ Grace said. ‘Unless you’re trying to give me some kind of message?’

Branson grinned, then raised his hands submissively. ‘No message.’

‘I’m glad about that, because the bad guy got away.’