Need You Dead

101 Saturday 30 April

‘Sir, I thought you should know immediately, a vehicle allocated to your Major Crime team has just been involved in a hit and run accident,’ Inspector Kim Sherwood said.

‘One of our vehicles?’ Grace replied, taking a moment to absorb it. ‘Hit and run? What vehicle — what exactly’s happened, Kim?’

‘One of our fleet cars — a Ford Mondeo estate, sir. About forty-five minutes ago on the westbound carriageway of the A27, outside Lewes,’ the Ops-1 inspector said.

‘What details do you have?’

‘An eyewitness in the vehicle behind — a Brighton Streamline taxi driver — told officers at the scene that a silver Ford Mondeo had apparently undertaken him recklessly at high speed, then pulled over into the outside lane in front of him, causing him to brake hard. It then started to overtake a Volvo saloon on the inside lane, when it suddenly swerved — apparently deliberately — into the rear offside. Sounds like a classic tap — the one Traffic often use in a pursuit to stop a vehicle. The Ford knocked it sideways, sending it into a massive slide, then drove off, fast. The Volvo driver lost control, his vehicle struck the central barrier, veered away, then barrel-rolled, finishing upside down. The driver is injured but alive.’

‘Jesus,’ Grace said. Could it be road rage, he was wondering?

‘Fortunately the taxi has a dashboard camera and the driver has the whole incident recorded, with the Ford’s registration. He stopped at the scene.’

‘What do we know about the Ford — who’s logged it out?’

‘The car has been assigned to DI Batchelor for the past ten days, for his SIO role on Op Bantam.’

‘Guy Batchelor?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Guy Batchelor?’ he repeated. ‘DI Batchelor?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Are you absolutely certain?’

‘He has exclusive use of the vehicle at the moment, sir.’

Grace felt physically sick.

The tumblers of a huge lock, opening a door to an unwelcome place, were falling, relentlessly, one after another.

‘We don’t have any sighting of the driver, it’s possible the vehicle might be stolen, sir.’

For a moment, Grace clung to that thought. Or another possibility — he had seen how stressed Batchelor seemed today. Had he lost his rag over an incident on the road?

But he knew he was clutching at straws, trying to delay the horrific truth.

‘Has anyone checked the vehicle log, Kim?’

‘It needs someone your end to do that on the paper sign-out. We don’t have anything electronic.’

‘Yes, yes, of course. I— I’ll—’

His mind flashed again to the attempts he had made in the past half-hour to contact Weatherley, and his surprise that he hadn’t yet returned his call or text.

‘What information do you have on the condition of the driver of the Volvo?’

‘He’s being attended to by paramedics in an ambulance at the scene. He’s conscious and the report I have is that his injuries don’t appear to be life-threatening. Coincidentally — he’s identified himself as a police officer.’

‘A police officer? One of ours?’

‘No, he’s a DS with Scotland Yard. His name is—’

Grace didn’t need to be told the name. He knew it.

‘Weatherley, Kim?’ he said. ‘Detective Sergeant Tim Weatherley?’

He shot Packham a horrified look.