Need You Dead

47 Sunday 24 April

‘I need a snout,’ Guy Batchelor said as they entered the corridor, closing the interview suite door behind them.

‘I’ll come out with you,’ Grace said.

They let themselves out into the courtyard and stood outside the grim facade of the building. A marked police car, with two uniformed officers in the front and a thin, miserable-looking man in the back, drove past and entered one of the receiving bays. Just one of the dozens of people who would be arrested every day and brought up here to Custody for processing, Grace thought. Burglars, muggers, drunk drivers, drug dealers, abusive partners, shoplifters. Many of the city’s low-lifes were frequent flyers here. And mostly their childhoods would have a similar dysfunctional pattern. Followed by their first arrests — for petty thieving, joy riding, street running for drug peddlers — and their first time banged up in a young offenders’ institute. Welcome to the criminal justice system, where a life of crime beckoned.

A dry, blustery wind blew and spring seemed a long way off. Batchelor pulled out his cigarette pack and offered one to Grace. He shook his head. ‘Thanks — too early for me — but I’ll enjoy yours passively!’ He yawned again, then smelled the sudden waft of smoke as his colleague sparked up.

‘What do you think, Roy?’

‘It’s going our way, Darling’s walked straight, slap-bang into it, the lying little scrote. Let’s see what he has to say for himself in a few minutes.’ He grinned.

Batchelor nodded.

‘The time is 9.57 a.m. Interview with Seymour Rodney Darling recommenced.’ Grace once more repeated the caution. Both Darling and his solicitor seemed confident, almost cockily so, presumably bolstered by the chat they’d had whilst he and Guy had been out of the room. They wouldn’t be quite so smug in a few minutes, Grace thought.

He made a deliberate play of looking down at his notebook before he looked back at the suspect. ‘Mr Darling, do you possess a mobile phone?’

‘Yes.’

‘Could you let me have the number?’

Darling gave it to him and he wrote it down. Then he asked, ‘Have you at any time during the past week lost your phone?’

Darling was silent for a moment. ‘No.’

‘Where do you keep it?’

The solicitor looked anxious, having an inkling where this might be going, but said nothing.

‘With me,’ Darling replied.

‘All the time?’

‘Yeah. All the time, like most people.’

‘Are there any occasions when you don’t have it with you?’

‘No. Not intentionally. I’ve left it behind at home, on occasions.’

‘Did you leave it at home on Wednesday, April 20th?’

‘No.’

‘Are you certain?’

Hesitant. ‘Yes.’

‘You seem unsure.’

‘I had it with me.’

Roy Grace produced a sheet of paper on which was printed a street map, with a small red circle drawn on it. He handed it to Darling. ‘I’d like you to take a look at this.’

The suspect and his lawyer both studied it.

‘Do you recognize it?’ Grace asked Darling.

‘It’s a street map.’

‘It is. Are you familiar with this area?’

‘Should I be?’ He sounded sullen.

‘Well, it does look as if you’ve spent a bit of time there recently. Which supplier do you use for your mobile phone, Mr Darling?’ Grace asked.

‘O2.’

‘The map I’ve handed you is a street map of the area of Hove immediately around Lorna Belling’s flat at Vallance Mansions. Do you see that red circle?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know the location where it is drawn?’

‘It’s the area around Vallance Mansions.’

‘Correct. We obtained this map from the phone company. It’s a triangulation report on your phone number. You told us a short while ago that on the afternoon of Wednesday, April 20th, you were measuring up the grounds of a property in Hurstpierpoint, and afterwards that evening you were walking your dog up on the Downs. Is that correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘According to O2, your phone, which you said you had with you all the time, was in the vicinity of Vallance Mansions from 1 p.m. until 10 p.m. on that day. Can you explain that?’

Darling stared at him, then at Guy Batchelor, and suddenly seemed to shrink even further.

‘I’d like to speak to my client in private,’ Doris Ishack said.

‘A little work on jogging his memory, perhaps?’ Grace said, unable to resist. It was met with stony stares.

‘Interview suspended at 10.07 a.m.,’ Grace announced for the benefit of the recording device.