Need You Dead

72 Tuesday 26 April

Roy Grace sat in the sauna at Wickwoods, cushioned by a towel from the burning hot wooden slats of the bench, thinking hard.

When he’d arrived home earlier this evening, he had hurried upstairs to see Noah, and then Bruno, to find out about his son’s first day at his new school, St Christopher’s. The boy was once more on his bed, playing a video shooting game online with Erik, and although he politely told Roy his first day had been fine, he clearly did not want to be distracted. Roy had hoped to have a chat with him about his mother’s funeral, to see if he wanted to say anything or do a reading, but realized this wasn’t a good time, and decided to leave it until the morning, when he would drive him to school. They could talk in the car.

Cleo had persuaded him to take some time out at the country club, in the pool and sauna, before having supper, as it had done his leg so much good last time.

It was good advice. He had done twenty minutes of lengths in the pool, and now ten in here, and he was determined to stick it out for longer.

He spooned some more water on the brazier and felt the instant burst of searing heat on his face and body. Those grim photographs of Trish Belling were firmly imprinted in his mind. He’d seen so many things that had disturbed him during his career. A drug dealer who had been tortured to death with a branding iron; a once-beautiful fashion model who’d had sulphuric acid sprayed in her face by a disgruntled ex. The capacity for human evil had no boundaries. He had learned, or maybe just become accustomed — or immune — to every kind of horror. But nothing he had ever seen had numbed him to the point where he could accept it.

Evil was evil.

And that quote from Edmund Burke always stayed with him: ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’

But something was still bothering him. Instincts. Always in life he had trusted his own judgement and an alarm bell was ringing. Tiny, muted, like one of those irritating car alarms in a nearby street that keeps sounding every few minutes and you can’t quite tune out.

Something.

Not right.

Missing something.

Or was it wishful thinking?

He replayed over and over in his mind the interview with Seymour Darling today. Thinking about everything Darling had said. And his own experience talking to the man’s wife.

He could understand — although not condone, ever — how the man might have lost it with his wife. But the astute observation of Donald Dull stayed with him.

‘My point is, Temporary Detective Inspector,’ Dull had said to Guy Batchelor, ‘Seymour Darling may have murdered his wife in a fit of rage. Why does that make him a prime suspect in the murder of Lorna Belling? The circumstances are very different.’

Grace had not initially been in favour of the recent Direct Entry initiative. It brought into the force a limited number of officers at middle-management level. These new entrants had no experience out on the beat, which was such a huge learning curve for every police officer. But he had to admit that twenty years in the police service would make anyone jaded and automatically suspicious. ABC. Assume nothing. Believe no one. Check everything.

It would be all too easy to assume because Darling had chopped his wife into bits that he may have killed Lorna Belling. But he, too, had doubts.

Sure, it would be a fast-track to reassuring the public that a man had been charged with her murder. There had been plenty of circumstantial evidence to support a prosecution of Darling for Lorna Belling’s murder, although that evidence had been reduced with the result back from LGC Forensics confirming that the DNA on the semen was not his. Still, Darling had a motive, he was in the right place, he had a history of violence against people who had upset him — and now he had been caught red-handed after committing murder, and almost certainly would be charged later, after his next interview, when he had had time to compose himself.

It would be a slam-dunk for any prosecuting counsel to go for a conviction for Lorna Belling, if — and it was a big if — the police were allowed to link the two crimes. It was a grey area of the law, and it could well turn out that in a trial situation, absurdly in his view, Seymour Darling’s murder of his wife would be inadmissible evidence. In that case their evidence would be mostly circumstantial. And from all his experience with juries, it was highly likely they would only convict on the facts before them.

But, in his opinion, it would be a totally unsafe conviction. And when the wrong person was convicted it meant the real killer was still out there, at large. Free to kill again. That was the true danger of a wrong conviction.

He turned his mind to the other suspects. Corin, the husband. Arrogant Kipp Brown. The mysterious Greg. And still not ruling out Lorna Belling having killed herself.

Greg needed to be found and identified urgently. He would task the Intelligence Cell with a comprehensive social media search.

Then he switched to thinking about the grim task ahead, that of Sandy’s funeral, wondering if he had overlooked anything. For Bruno’s sake he hoped there would be a decent turnout. The funeral directors had placed an announcement in the Argus, and he had circulated the details to all his family, friends and colleagues, and of course to all Sandy’s relatives that he knew about; he hoped Sandy’s parents had covered the rest. He was really not looking forward to seeing Sandy’s parents again. But he’d put on his best face, and he knew that Cleo would, too.

He’d discussed with Cleo what he should wear, and fortunately they’d both favoured the same suit, the black one he kept for special occasions that she liked him wearing, saying it made him look like a character in the movie Goodfellas. He had bought it on a whim in New Orleans, from the famous Rubensteins, when he had been attending an International Homicide Investigators’ Association conference in the city, and had only been able to afford it because it was in a sale.

Reverend Smale had suggested he give a eulogy, and he knew the wise clergyman was right. But he really didn’t know what to say. He’d made a start, but he was struggling. Cleo had advised him to keep it short and personal.

What the hell should he say?