Not Dead Yet

44

Like all police officers, Roy Grace had long been conditioned to arrive early for meetings of any kind, at any level. The Wednesday morning Operation Icon briefing had been short, with little progress to report in the past twenty-four hours. Their best hopes of a breakthrough, at this stage, were pinned on a positive response from Glenn Branson’s appearance on Crimewatch.

At a quarter to ten, he showed his warrant card to the security officer on the gates at Malling House, then drove through the barrier. He was still privately smiling after his encounter with Amis Smallbone last night. He couldn’t help it. He had no doubt the creep was swearing and cussing, and that his head was full of all kinds of retribution, but he had equally no doubt that Smallbone would not go within ten miles of Cleo ever again.

He parked and stepped out of his car into a fresh, warm, early summer morning. He walked across the complex of buildings towards a modern, functional building that housed the visitors’ reception desk, entered the large waiting area, and gave his name to one of the uniformed receptionists.

Then he sat down and picked up a copy of the Police Federation magazine and began idly flicking through it, scanning with interest several articles mentioning officers he knew. After a few minutes a shadow fell over him and he looked up.

It never mattered what the nature of his business was with officers from PSD – the Professional Standards Department – he always felt a tad nervous dealing with them. They were, essentially, the force’s own police force, whose job was to investigate both public complaints and any internal misconduct of their fellow officers. It didn’t matter that they might once have been colleagues, as Detective Superintendent Michael Evans had indeed been; they now played for a culturally different team. They were perceived by some as the enemy, even when you were seeking their help or advice.

‘Good to see you, Roy. Long time!’

Grace stood up. It had been several years since they’d last met. A sprinter with the Sussex Police Athletics team, the Detective Superintendent was a wiry forty-five-year-old, with a shaven head and a slightly world-weary cynicism in his eyes. ‘Good to see you too.’

Evans frowned. ‘Did things ever get resolved about your wife – Sandy, wasn’t it?’

He clearly wasn’t up to speed, Grace thought. ‘Nope. It’ll be ten years in a couple of months. I’m going through the process of having her declared legally dead. I’m planning to get married again.’

Evans pursed his lips and nodded, like some inane troll on a toy counter. For some reason his expression reminded Grace that he needed to buy a birthday present for his god-daughter, Jaye Somers, who would be ten in August. Then he said, ‘Word of advice, Roy, make sure you get all that buttoned up. You know, just in case…’

‘I know.’

Compliance was a big current issue in the police force. There had been too many scandals over expenses and police relationships recently. They were all walking on eggshells these days.

He followed Evans a short distance to the modern block where the PSD was housed, then along a corridor and into a small, boxlike office, and took one of the two chairs opposite his desk. The office was that of a man who lived a neat, orderly life. Tidy desk, tidy shelves, regulation framed photos of a perfect-looking wife against a blank, blue background, and cute kids against beige backgrounds. Nothing to give any hint of any interests. It was, he imagined, like a KGB member’s office during the height of the Cold War.

‘So how can we help you, Roy?’ he asked, settling down behind his desk and not offering any drinks.

‘You may remember I mentioned to you a while ago I’ve been concerned about leaks of key information on a number of murder enquiries I’ve been running during the past year,’ Grace said. ‘It’s still going on and I need advice from you on dealing with the situation.’

Evans opened a lined notebook, identical to the Policy Books that were maintained during Major Crime enquiries. He jotted down the date and Grace’s name. ‘Right. Can you give me details?’

For the next thirty minutes, Grace talked him through the cases, during the past twelve months, where Kevin Spinella always seemed to have privileged information on what was happening, long before any press officer had circulated it. Sometimes, Spinella had called him only minutes after he himself had been informed of a murder. All the time he kept an eye on the notes Evans was taking – he had long been skilled at reading upside down.

When Grace had finished, Evans said, ‘Well, so far as I can see there are three scenarios. The first is someone in your team is providing the information. The second is another member of police staff, perhaps even the press office. If you can let me have this Kevin Spinella’s phone number, we’ll run a check on all outgoing calls made from police phones to see if that picks up anything. We can also run a check on work computers to see if there’s any communication between him and any police staff. It could be he has a hold on someone in the Force – either on an officer or a member of civilian staff. And of course the third scenario, which is a hot topic at the moment, is that someone’s hacked into your phone. What do you use?’

‘My BlackBerry, mostly.’

‘My advice to you is to take the phone to the High Tech Crime Unit, and get them to see if it’s clean, in the first instance. If it is, come back and we’ll see what the next step is.’

Grace thanked him for the advice. Then he hesitated for a moment, Michael Evans’s friendly attitude making him wonder whether he should say anything about Amis Smallbone, to head off any possible complaint by the creep. But he decided against. Smallbone, out of prison after a long sentence, was going to concentrate on building his crime empire up again; he wouldn’t risk further wrath from himself by making an issue out of last night. He might seek some kind of revenge against him, down the line, but he would have to deal with that as and when.

He drove back to Sussex House, then wound his way along the corridors of the ground floor to the rear of the building, and entered the High Tech Crime Unit. To the casual observer, most of it didn’t look any different to many of the other departments in the building. An open-plan area, densely packed with workstations, on several of which stood large server towers, and on some, the entrails of disembowelled computers as well.

A plain clothes Sergeant was in charge of the unit, and many of the people working there were civilian computer experts. One of them, Ray Packham, hunched over a computer on the far side of the room, he knew well, and had worked with on a number of recent cases. A pleasant-looking man in his forties, neatly dressed, he had the quietly efficient air of a bank manager. On the screen in front of him were rows of numbers and digits that were meaningless to Grace.

‘How long can you spare it for, Roy?’ he asked, taking the BlackBerry.

‘I can’t spare it at all,’ he said. ‘I’m in the early days of a new murder enquiry. And I have to help safeguard Gaia, who’s arriving today. How long would you need it?’

Packham’s eyes lit up. ‘Could you do me a big favour, Roy? Get her autograph for Jen? She’s crazy about her!’

‘I’ll be getting her autograph for half of Sussex Police and their beloveds at this rate! Sure, I’ll try.’

‘I’ve got to finish an urgent job I’m on – I wouldn’t be able to start looking at it until later today at the earliest. But I can clone it, if you give me an hour, and keep that, so you can have the phone back.’

‘Okay, that would be great.’

‘Where are you going to be?’

‘Either in my office or MIR-1.’

‘I’ll bring it up to you as soon as I can.’

‘You’re a good man.’

‘Tell Jen!’

Grace grinned. Packham doted on his wife and his new, crazy beagle puppy, Hudson. ‘How is she?’

‘Good. Her diabetes is much more under control, thanks for asking.’

‘And Hudson?’

‘Busy trashing the house.’

Grace grinned. ‘He should meet Humphrey. Actually, on second thoughts, better not. They might swap ideas on new ways to eat a sofa.’