Need You Dead

74 Wednesday 27 April

‘What a fuckwit!’ Guy Batchelor said, sitting in Roy Grace’s office.

Grace nodded, reflecting on his thoughts on Darling last night. He was undoubtedly an unstable, dangerous man, a manipulator and a wild card. The kind of criminal who would say anything to get himself out of the shit. And understandably. It went with the territory in that world. Accusations against officers were made all the time by suspects, as pretty much their last line of defence. Yeah, I was fitted up by the police. Yeah, you know, they look after their own. Yeah...

Historically there was some truth in those accusations, and there had been many instances of retrials, such as with the Birmingham Six, where that had come to light. But he did not believe that to be the case with any of the trusted officers on his team.

‘Let’s see what Ray Packham comes up with, Guy. We can check out the owners of phones from any IP addresses he gets, and see if any of them fit the description of the man Darling says he saw.’

‘Could be a long process, boss. And Darling could be lying.’

Grace nodded. ‘We’re no longer time-critical. Darling’s confessed to his wife’s murder and we can now formally charge him. He’ll be on remand in prison and won’t be going anywhere. That will give us as long as we need to either further charge him with Lorna Belling’s murder — or find Greg.’

‘What’s your hunch, boss?’

‘My hunch is that Darling’s telling the truth about there being another person in the mix. What’s yours?’

‘I’m veering between the husband, Darling and Brown,’ Batchelor said. ‘Darling has shown he has anger management issues and is capable of murder. Could he have been angry enough to kill someone he suspected had ripped him off? I don’t know — but we do know what he did to his wife. And that shows a man who has totally lost the plot. With Kipp Brown, you don’t get to be rich like that by being Mr Nice Guy. We now have his DNA on semen in the victim’s vagina, and we have a possible motive — rejection, or tarnishing his name in the community.’ He looked quizzically at Grace. ‘So what do you think about him?’

He nodded, saying nothing for some moments. ‘It’s a good theory, Guy. Our priority is to find our mystery Greg. This seems to be stalling our enquiries.’ The spectre of Cassian Pewe hung over his head like the executioner’s axe. In the event of any screw-up, there was only one head that would roll.