Need You Dead

55 Monday 25 April

The electric wrought-iron gates slid open. When there was just enough of a space to squeeze through, Kipp Brown, impatiently revving the engine of his matt-black 911, tugged the paddle and the car moved forward towards the clogged morning rush-hour traffic on Dyke Road Avenue.

There was a gap between a white van and a shitty little Hyundai. The moment the Hyundai driver saw the nose of the Porsche, he moved to close the gap.

‘Tosser!’ Brown said, and pulled straight out, turning sharply left, causing the Hyundai to brake. The angry man at the wheel gave him a long blast of the horn. Some people hated Porsches but they didn’t want a collision with one and the hike in their insurance forever after.

‘Dad!’ his wuss of a son, Mungo, admonished.

As the Hyundai driver hooted again, angrily, Brown raised two fingers, making them clearly visible through the rear windscreen.

‘What?’ Brown challenged.

‘That was dangerous, we could have had an accident.’

He tousled his son’s dark-brown hair. Mungo shrank away from him.

‘You know what, old chap? Life’s dangerous. None of us get out alive.’

‘Yeah, well, we could have been killed just then.’

‘By a shit-heap doing ten miles an hour? I don’t think so.’

‘You’re a crazy driver.’

‘Fine, you’d rather walk to school? Be my guest — want me to pull over?’

‘Jeez!’

‘Jeez? What’s with Jeez? You’re not in America, you’re in England. That what they teach you at Brighton College?’

‘You know what, Dad, you’re an idiot.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘Yes. You’re making me late for school, again.’

‘We’d be even later if I hadn’t pulled out like that.’

Ignoring him, Mungo peered down at his phone, tapping the keys furiously. His father glanced down and saw he was on Snapchat. He saw the words ‘road rage’, accompanied by a scowling emoji. Then his own phone rang. It was his PA.

‘Yes, Claire?’ he answered on the hands-free.

‘When will you be in?’ she asked.

‘When Brighton and Hove council stop digging up every sodding road in the city at the same time! Tomorrow. Or maybe the day after at the rate we’re moving. What’s up?’

‘I’ve just had Jay Allan on the phone. He says he’s been offered a mortgage rate of.75 per cent below ours fixed for five years from another IFA.’

‘From who?’

‘Well, he was reluctant to say but I managed to get it out of him. Skerritts.’

‘Bloody Skerritts! That’s the third time in the past week they’ve undercut us.’

‘He wants to know if we can better it.’

‘Remind me of the value of the property?’

‘2.5 million.’

‘Tell him to piss off.’ He hung up.

His son looked up at him reproachfully.

‘What?’ he said, staring daggers at him.

Mungo shrugged and tapped on his phone again.

Thirty minutes later, and twenty minutes late for the start of school, Kipp Brown on the phone again, negotiating another mortgage deal, pulled up outside the grand, neo-Gothic front entrance of the school. His son shook his head at him, grabbed his rucksack from the rear seat and ran off through the archway.

Moments later, as he pulled away, shouting down the phone at a total twat at the North and Western Mercantile Bank, and pulling out a pack of cigarettes — his son didn’t like him smoking, nor did his other two kids, nor his wife, but he sure needed one now — Brown saw the blue flashing lights of a police car in his mirror. He pulled over to the kerb to let the car pass, but instead it slowed, pulling in behind him, flashing its headlights twice at him and giving him a whup-whup on its siren.

He halted the car, terminating the call abruptly in mid-sentence, then slid down his window as a uniformed traffic officer approached from the BMW, straightening his cap.

‘I was on hands-free,’ he said as the officer, a fair-haired man in his late thirties, knelt to peer in, moving his face close to his own, too close, sniffing his breath.

‘And I haven’t been drinking — I don’t drive my son to school drunk. Anything else I can do for you gentlemen?’

‘Is this your vehicle, sir?’ the officer said, politely.

‘No, it belongs to Bart Simpson — I’m his chauffeur. He’s in the back.’ He gave the officer a grin.

‘I see.’ The unsmiling officer stood up, walked round to the front of the car, then spoke into his radio. He returned to the driver’s door. ‘Where have you come from, sir?’

‘What is this? I’m really late for work.’

‘Where have you come from this morning, sir?’

‘Home.’

‘And where is that?’

‘Dyke Road Avenue.’

‘Can you give me your address?’

‘Wingate House, Dyke Road Avenue.’

‘And where are you heading, sir?’

‘To work.’

‘And where would that be, sir?’

‘My office, Kipp Brown Associates, Church Road, Hove. And I’m late — thanks to all the insane roadworks going on.’

The officer stood up and stepped away a few paces, speaking into his radio again.

Moments later he heard the wail of another siren. An unmarked silver Mondeo estate, blue lights flashing, pulled up in front of him, then reversed, coming so close he thought the car was going to ram him. Two men in suits climbed out. They walked up to the driver’s side of the Porsche and showed Brown their warrant cards.

‘Detective Inspector Batchelor and Detective Sergeant Exton,’ the older man said. ‘Would you mind stepping out of your vehicle and having a chat with us in our car, sir?’

‘What is this? I’m already late for work and I have a very busy day ahead in my office.’

‘Sir,’ Batchelor said firmly. ‘We can either have a chat in our car now, which shouldn’t take more than a few minutes, or we will have to ask you to accompany us to Brighton police station.’

‘Am I under arrest or something?’

‘No, sir, but if we have to arrest you, we will.’

‘Would somebody mind telling me just what this is about?’

‘We will do, if you step out, sir.’

Reluctantly, and angrily, Kipp Brown switched off the engine, climbed out then pressed the key fob to lock the doors, pointedly. ‘It’s a yellow line — I assume you’re not going to ticket me for parking here?’

‘No, sir, we won’t.’

Accompanied by the two detectives, he walked to the Ford and climbed into the back seat. Batchelor and Exton sat in the front, closed the doors and turned to face him.

‘Mr Brown,’ Batchelor said. ‘This may seem like an intrusion, but we have a very delicate situation here and we didn’t want to embarrass you, or cause you any problems by visiting you at your home yesterday, or your office today. So we thought this would be the best place to have a talk.’

Brown raised his hands in the air. ‘What do you need? An ISA? A new mortgage? Some advice on your police pension scheme?’

‘Police pension scheme? That’s another story,’ DS Exton said, bitterly. ‘Best not go there.’

‘I hear you guys got stuffed by the Tory government. Theresa May? She’s on a par with the Antichrist with you guys, right?’

Neither of them spoke, but he could see from their expressions he had hit a nerve. ‘I can sort you out on that, if you give me the chance.’

Ignoring the comment, Guy Batchelor asked, ‘Could you tell us, Mr Brown, where you were last week on the afternoon and evening of Wednesday, April 20th?’

He held up the cigarette pack. ‘Mind if I smoke?’

‘I’m afraid it’s not permitted in this car, sir,’ Batchelor said.

‘Great.’

‘Could you tell us, Mr Brown, where you were last week on the afternoon and evening of Wednesday, April 20th?’ the detective repeated.

‘What does that have to do with anything?’ he replied.

‘I’d be grateful if you would answer the question, sir,’ Batchelor said, deadpan, watching him carefully.

The Independent Financial Advisor looked uncomfortable. ‘Yes — I — er — I was at work — until late, then I went home. I worked in my office at home for a while, then I had supper with my wife on a tray in front of the television.’ He began to look more relaxed. ‘We watched an episode of Homeland. We’ve been watching it forever. How does anyone ever get to the end of all these long series? You know, they take over — we haven’t watched anything else for weeks.’

‘You didn’t leave your office at any time during the day?’ Batchelor asked.

Brown shook his head. ‘No.’

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘I’d love to have the luxury of taking time out. But no way.’

‘So,’ Batchelor continued. ‘You spent the entire day in your office, and then went home — at what time approximately?’

‘I left — I don’t know — about a quarter to seven.’

‘And your office staff — they could verify that you’d not left the office all afternoon?’

Brown hesitated. ‘Yes.’

‘Does the name Lorna Belling mean anything to you?’

Brown’s eyes shot all over the place. ‘No. Lorna who?’

‘Belling.’

He shook his head.

‘You didn’t visit her at her apartment in Vallance Mansions, on the afternoon of April 20th?’

‘Absolutely not.’

The two detectives exchanged a glance. Then Guy Batchelor said, ‘Mr Brown, I’m afraid in that case I’m going to have to ask you to accompany us to the police station for an interview.’

‘No way. I’ve got a very busy morning, as I’ve told you.’

‘So you are not going to come voluntarily, sir?’

‘What part of no way don’t you understand, officer?’

Again the two detectives exchanged a glance. Then Batchelor said, ‘In which case, sir, you leave us with no option. Kipp Brown I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Lorna Belling. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

‘What? You said I wasn’t under arrest! You bloody lied!’

‘No, sir,’ the DI said. ‘You’re the one who’s just lied.’