Need You Dead

80 Thursday 28 April

Glenn Branson and Guy Batchelor were already heading down the corridor towards his office when Grace entered the building, still reflecting on his meeting with Paula Darke. Gesturing them to sit down at the tiny desk in front of his own that he used as a conference table, he decided not to say anything about Exton at this stage; instead he fetched his notes from his desk and joined them.

‘OK, I want to have a word about strategy in advance of this evening’s Op Bantam briefing,’ he said. ‘As I see it we have a number of really good suspects, each of them more than capable of killing Lorna Belling. Her deceased husband, Corin; Seymour Darling; Kipp Brown; and now this mystery lover of Lorna’s introduced into the investigation by her friend, known only as Greg. We have a vague description of the person who might be Greg from Seymour Darling, but in my view he’s an unreliable witness.’

Both the other detectives nodded.

‘Totally,’ Batchelor agreed. ‘I’m not sure we can trust anything that weasel says. And we’re still not able to rule out suicide, especially now we know one of the causes of death was electrocution.’

‘Correct. Now, there is one thing we’ve not considered about Lorna,’ Grace said. ‘The facts we have so far are that we know she was in an abusive relationship with her husband. She worked from home as a hairdresser. She had a secret apartment, the address where she was found dead. And we know from her sister she was planning to leave her husband and move to Australia, and was in the process of raising cash to do just that — hence the probable reason she was selling her car.’ He looked at both men then continued. ‘I have a supposition. Think the unthinkable. What if the real reason she had the apartment was not as a bolthole from her husband, but because she had a secret life as an escort of some kind? Could the reason that there was no phone or computer found in her flat be that the offender took them, knowing his details would be on them?’

Glenn Branson nodded. ‘Interesting thinking, boss.’

‘I think we have just the person to carry out a search of all the escort sites online and advertised in the local media — Spreadsheet Man — Donald Dull. Analysis like that would be right up his alley,’ Batchelor said.

‘Never a dull day,’ Glenn quipped.

‘Every day is if your name’s Dull,’ added Batchelor.

Grace barely noticed the comments. He was thinking again. Lorna had told her friend, Kate Harmond, she had a lover, Greg. Wouldn’t she have told her the whole name and some details about her lover? Could that have been just a ruse, to distract her from knowing the truth? That she was funding her escape to a new life in Australia through sexual services? He looked down at his notes again. ‘Glenn, I want you to pick a small team to look at each of the suspects in depth. Pull together the witness evidence, the forensics, the intel and anything else we have. See if any of them have been accessing escort sites. Grade the suspects — establish who is our most likely one.’

‘I’ll get straight on it.’

Grace looked at Batchelor. ‘Guy, we need a new media strategy targeting the local community. Vallance Mansions is bounded on two sides by residential buildings and Kingsway in front is a very busy thoroughfare. Someone in the apartment block or in the surrounding area may have seen something on the afternoon or night she was killed. And I think we need to update the strategy, and to appoint a house-to-house supervisor to pull in all the PCSOs in the area and get them knocking on doors, and make sure we’ve not missed any CCTV. You can’t walk ten feet in this city without being captured on a camera somewhere. I’ve said I consider the man an unreliable witness — but if Darling is correct and Greg exists and has been a frequent visitor, someone must have seen him, and a CCTV camera must have caught him.’

‘Leave it with me, boss.’ Batchelor hesitated. ‘There is actually something else.’ He shot a glance at Branson, then Grace, who both nodded.

‘I’ve been running an ANPR sweep. I created a matrix, with the help of NotMuch — he’s had a lot of FBI experience in his previous role in Homeland Security, plotting possible routes for attackers into an area. We used the same basic algorithm to plot vehicles travelling from different parts of the city to Vallance Mansions, to see if we could pick up any non-residents visiting frequently — and something interesting has showed up. I could illustrate it better on my computer, but in short summary,’ he said awkwardly, ‘DS Exton has been in the vicinity several times, mostly evenings and often all night. Significantly, he was there on the night of Wednesday, April 20th.’ He looked at Grace expectantly.

Grace frowned, not liking what he was hearing at all. Exton calling sex workers on his phone. Now known to be in the vicinity on the day Lorna died. There was no one on his team who looked less likely than mild, quiet, serious Exton.

This development was potentially horrendous. Could it possibly be true? What were the implications, and how could he deal with this? It hardly bore thinking about. Surely there must be a simple explanation, otherwise this could be his worst nightmare.

‘Where does Exton live, Guy?’ he asked.

‘Hailsham, boss.’

‘And he lives there with his partner, Dawn?’

‘As I understand, yes.’

Hailsham was some twenty miles to the east of the city. ‘Has anyone said anything to him?’ Grace asked.

Batchelor shook his head. ‘I’ve told Glenn but no one else.’

‘Do you have any view on this, Glenn?’

‘I don’t, no. It may be entirely innocent — but he’s not his usual self at the moment.’

‘He told me he had some issues but didn’t go into detail,’ Grace replied.

‘His relationship’s on the rocks, I heard,’ Batchelor said.

‘I asked him the other day,’ Branson said. ‘Told him if he wanted to talk about anything, you know, man to man, I’d go and have a beer with him. He nearly bit my head off.’

‘He’s been like this for a while?’

‘Can’t say for sure, but that feels about right.’

‘Thanks, guys, leave it with me.’

Grace sat still, waiting some moments after the two detectives had left before calling Exton. Thinking. The Detective Sergeant was calling sex workers on his phone. His car repeatedly in the vicinity. His erratic behaviour starting around the time of Lorna Belling’s death.

The unthinkable?

He hoped more than anything in the world, right now, not. Despite all its problems, and the occasional total prick like Cassian Pewe, he loved the police — and particularly his own force, Sussex — with all his heart. There were few things worse than a rogue cop, because internally that damaged the trust that was vital in any team. You looked after each other, watched each other’s backs. The day you lost trust in a fellow officer was a slippery slope, because it diminished everyone in your eyes.

Not relishing the task ahead of him, he tapped the speed-dial buttons on his phone for the DS.