Not Dead Enough

116

Branson found a small silver, pay-as-you-go Nokia phone hidden beneath Norman Jecks’s mattress and took it over to Grace, who was looking at his watch, fretting. It was now nearly nine p.m. and he was growing increasingly worried about Cleo being alone in her house, despite the relative safety of a gated development.

‘Bag it,’ he said distractedly, thinking he should send a patrol car up to check Cleo was OK.

It was over three-quarters of an hour since Nick Nicholl had phoned the incident room, asking for a search warrant for Norman Jecks’s lock-ups to be typed out and taken to the same magistrate who had signed the one for here. It should have taken a maximum of ten minutes to complete the damn thing, fifteen minutes’ drive to the magistrate’s home, and the signing should have been a ten-second formality. Add a further fifteen minutes to get here. OK, he knew in his impatience he wasn’t allowing for any delays, traffic hold-ups, whatever, but he didn’t care. He was scared for Cleo. There was someone out there. A man he had thought was securely banged up in Lewes prison.

A man who had done one of the most chilling things to a woman he had ever seen.

Because You Love Her.

Just as Branson was sealing the bag, he suddenly remembered the speculation about a pay-as-you-go mobile phone. ‘Actually, hang on, Glenn. Let me see it.’

Under current guidelines, all phones seized should be handed straight to the Telecoms Unit at Sussex House, untouched. But there wasn’t time for that at this moment, any more than he had time for half the new policies that got dreamed up by idiot policy-makers who had never been out in the real world in their lives.

Taking it in his gloved hands, he switched the machine on, and was relieved when it didn’t ask him for a pin code. Then he tried to figure out how to navigate the controls, before giving up and handing it to Branson. ‘You’re the tekkie,’ he said. ‘Can you find the list of recently dialled numbers?’

Branson tapped the keys, and within a few seconds showed Grace the display. ‘He’s only made three calls on it.’

‘Just three?’

‘Uh huh. I recognize one of the numbers.’

‘And?’

‘It’s Hove Streamline Taxis – 202020.’

Grace wrote the other two down, then dialled Directory Inquiries. One was for the Hotel du Vin. The second was the Lansdowne Place Hotel.

Pensively, he said, ‘Seems like Bishop might have been telling us the truth.’

Then a SOCO who had accompanied them into the flat suddenly called out, ‘Detective Superintendent, I think you should see this.’

It was a walk-in broom closet just off the entrance to the kitchen. But it had clearly been a long time since any brooms were kept in here. Grace stared around in amazement. It was a miniature control centre. There were ten small television monitors on the walls, all switched off, a console with a small swivel chair in front of it, and what looked like a stack of recording equipment.

‘What the hell is this? Part of his security system?’ Grace asked.

‘He’s got three entrances – can’t see why he’d need ten monitors, sir,’ the officer said. ‘And there aren’t any cameras inside or outside – I’ve checked.’

At that moment Alfonso Zafferone came into the room, holding the signed search warrant for Norman Jecks’s lock-ups.

Ten minutes later, having left Nick Nicholl and the SOCO officer continuing their search of the flat, Grace and Branson stood in the small mews that was tucked behind a wide, leafy residential street of substantial detached and semi-detached Victorian villas. There were a few small business in the mews – a couple of car-repair outfits, a design studio and a software company – all closed for the night – and then a row of lock-up garages. According to the document they had found, Norman Jecks leased numbers 11 and 12. The blue-painted wooden doors of both were secured by hefty padlocks.

The Local Support Team gorilla who had bashed in the door of the flat, and four further members of his team, stood in readiness. It was almost dark now, the mews eerily silent. Grace briefed them all that once the door was open, no one was to go in if the place appeared empty, which seemly likely, to preserve it forensically.

Moments later the yellow battering ram smashed into the centre of the door, splintering the wood around the padlock’s hasp, sending the entire lock, along with a jagged chunk of wood, on to the floor. Several flashlight beams shone in simultaneously, one of them Grace’s.

The interior, mostly taken up by a car beneath a fitted dust cover, was silent and empty. It smelled of engine oil and old leather. On the floor at the far end, two pinpricks of red light gleamed and then were gone. Probably a mouse or a rat, Grace thought, signalling everyone to wait, then stepping in himself and looking for the light switch. He found it, and two startlingly bright ceiling bulbs came on.

At the far end was a workbench on which was a machine resembling the kind he had seen in shops that offered key-cutting services. A variety of blank keys were fixed to the wall behind it, in a carefully arranged pattern. Tools were hung on all the other walls, very neatly again, all in patterned clusters. The whole place was spotlessly clean. Too clean. It felt more like an exhibition stand for tools than a garage.

On the floor was a small, very ancient suitcase. Grace popped open the catches. It was full of old buff file folders, corporate documents, letters, and near the bottom he found a blue Letts schoolboy’s diary for the year 1976. He closed the case – the team would go through the contents carefully later.

Then, with Branson’s help, he removed the car’s cover, to reveal a gleaming, moonstone-white 1962 3.8 Jaguar Mk2 saloon. It was in such immaculate condition that it looked brand new, despite its age. As if it had come straight from the factory to here, without ever being soiled by a road.

‘Nice!’ Branson said admiringly. ‘You ought to get one of these, old man. Then you’d look like that detective geezer on the box, Inspector Morse.’

‘Thanks,’ Grace said, opening the boot. It was empty, and just as brand new-looking as the exterior. He closed it again, then walked towards the rear of the garage and stared at the key-cutting machine. ‘Why would someone have one of these?’

‘To cut keys?’ Branson suggested, less than helpfully.

‘Whose keys?’

‘The keys of anything you want to get into.’

Grace then asked the LST officers to turn their attention to the next-door unit.

As the door splintered open, the first thing his torch beam struck was a pair of licence plates, propped against the wall. He went straight over to them and knelt down. They each read: LJ04. NWS.

It was the number of Brian Bishop’s Bentley.

Possibly the number that had been photographed by the ANPR camera at Gatwick on Thursday night.

He switched on the interior lights. This garage was every bit as immaculate as the one next door. In the centre of the floor was a hydraulic hoist jack capable of lifting an entire car. Other tools were tidily arranged around the walls. And when he walked down to the far end and saw what was lying on the workbench, he stopped in his tracks. It was the workshop manual for an MG TF 160. Cleo’s car.

‘I think we just hit the jackpot,’ he said grimly to Branson. Then he pulled out his mobile phone and dialled Cleo’s home number. He expected she would answer within a couple of rings, as she normally did. But instead it rang on, four rings, six, eight. Ten.

Which was strange, because her answering machine was set to kick in after six. Why hadn’t it? He dialled her mobile. That rang eight times, then he got her voicemail message.

Something did not feel right. He would give it a couple of minutes, in case she was in the loo or bath, he decided, then try again. He turned his attention back to the MG manual.

Several pages were marked with yellow Post-it tags. One was the start of the section on the central locking. Another, the section on the fuel injection. He dialled Cleo’s home number again. It rang on endlessly. Then he tried her mobile again. Eight rings followed by her voicemail. He left a message, asking her to call him straight back, his concern rising every second.

‘You thinking what I’m thinking?’ Branson said.

‘What?’

‘That we might have the wrong man in jail?’

‘It’s starting to look that way.’

‘But I don’t get it. You saw the parents of Bishop’s twin. Genuine people, you said, right?’

‘Sad little old couple, they seemed genuine enough, yes.’

‘And their adopted son – Bishop’s twin – they said he was dead, yeah?’

‘Yes.’

‘They gave you the number of his plot in a cemetery?’

Grace nodded.

‘So how come if he’s dead, he’s still around? Are we dealing with a ghost or something? I mean, that’s your terrain, isn’t it, the supernatural? You think we’re dealing with a spirit? An unrested soul?’

‘I never heard of a ghost ejaculating,’ Grace said. ‘Or driving cars. Or tattooing people with power drills. Or turning up in the A&E department of hospital with a hand injury.’

‘Dead men don’t do any of those things either,’ Branson said. ‘Do they?’

‘Not in my experience, no.’

‘So how come we have one who does?’

After some moments Grace replied, ‘Because he’s not dead enough.’