Not Dead Yet

60

Glenn was still thinking about Norman Potting and Bella Moy at 6.45 the next morning, as he made the now familiar left turn at the West Sussex Piscatorial Society sign and crossed the cattle grid. Ominous clouds were thickening overhead and he didn’t need the weather forecast on the radio to tell him a deluge was on its way. Rain was not good news for an outdoor crime scene.

In the city, the uniform division called it ‘Policeman Rain’. The streets were always much quieter when it was raining, there were fewer street fights, fewer muggings and bag snatches, fewer break-ins, and fewer drug dealers lurking on corners. Villains did not like getting wet any more than anyone else. But for crime scenes, heavy rain was the worst news, because crucial evidence, such as tyre marks, footprints, clothing fibres and hairs could get washed away very rapidly.

He was excited by Roy’s news last night that a head had been found. There was no guarantee it would turn out to be ‘Unknown Berwick Male’s’, but if his clothes were here, and it matched the limbs, then it was highly likely. And if they had the head, they might be able to get a visual identification of the victim, and failing that, identification through dental records. Quite apart from anything else, the swifter this investigation moved forward under his stewardship, the better it would reflect on him.

It was strange, he thought. On all previous murder investigations he had been on, he – and every member of the enquiry team – developed empathy with the victims, and it became personal, a determination to bring the perpetrator to justice. But at the moment, although a man was dead, without knowing his identity he felt distanced from him.

As he drove through the abandoned farmyard development, he was a little surprised not to see the big yellow SSU truck in situ – if they had found the head last night, he would have thought they would have been out in force here from first light today, doing a fingertip search of the area around it. But it was possible they had been called out to an emergency operation somewhere else. The only vehicles here were a marked police car, its windows drenched in dew, belonging to the hapless officer on the last shift of overnight crime scene guard duty, standing forlornly in front of the tape, and a small blue Vauxhall Nova. It might be the Home Office patholo-gist’s, he speculated, but he would have thought that covering the mileage he did, and carting around his equipment, he would have had a more substantial vehicle.

He pulled alongside it and, before switching off the ignition, checked the overnight serials on the car’s computer, to see if there had been any incidents logged that might have required the SSU’s attendance. But it had been a quiet night, just run-of-the-mill stuff. A car theft, two RTCs, a robbery at the Clock Tower, a smashed window at Waitrose, a boat set on fire at the Marina, two domestic fights. He climbed out and peered through the Vauxhall’s window, but the interior of the car looked as pristine and impersonal as a newly collected rental.

He opened the boot of his car and struggled into a protective suit, then pulled on the gum boots he had brought, not making the same mistake as yesterday of ruining his shoes in the mire. Then he clumped his way carefully through the slippery mud of the track and up to the very young woman police officer, and held up his warrant card. Her name badge read PC Sophie Gorringe.

‘I’m the deputy SIO – everything all right?’

She nodded and gave him a stoic smile. She looked in her late teens, and could have barely left college, he thought.

‘Long vigil?’

‘Two hours to go, still,’ she said. ‘Nicer since it got light – it was quite spooky when it was dark – kept hearing an owl.’

‘Whose is that car?’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

Sophie Gorringe was about to speak, when he heard a familiar chirpy voice behind him.

‘Mine, Detective Sergeant Branson!’

Glenn recognized the voice instantly. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be on honeymoon?’ he said in dismay, as he turned.

The twenty-five-year-old reporter from the Argus smiled smugly. He was thin faced, with short, gelled-back hair, wearing a dark grey suit with a white shirt and a narrow tie, and chewing gum, as ever. His face was nut brown, except the tip of his ferret-like nose which was pink, from having peeled. ‘Seems like I came back just at the right time.’ He was clutching his notepad.

Glenn heard a car, and a moment later Roy Grace came into view, driving his unmarked silver Ford Focus estate.

Spinella’s phone rang, and he turned away from Branson to answer it. It sounded like he was being given instructions for another job after he had finished here. Just as he ended the call Roy Grace strode up to them, in gum boots but not in a protective suit.

‘Nice honeymoon?’ he asked the reporter.

‘Beautiful – ever been to the Maldives?’ Spinella asked.

‘No, I’m on a copper’s salary not a bent reporter’s.’

‘Haha,’ Spinella said. But his laughter was uneasy. There was a tenseness in Grace’s demeanour that Glenn could sense, as, clearly, could the reporter.

‘So, what exactly brings you here, Kevin?’ Grace asked him.

Spinella grinned. ‘You know me and my contacts.’

‘So you got tipped off that we’ve found a head – possibly belonging to the missing torso?’

‘Yes – so – I thought I’d better get straight down here and see what – er – what you’d like me to put in the paper.’

‘You did, did you?’

Branson frowned. He knew Grace did not care for this reporter, but his attitude was considerably more hostile than normal. The reporter shuffled from foot to foot.

‘Yeah, you know,’ Spinella said. ‘To help you with your enquiry – that’s how we like to work with each other, isn’t it, Detective Superintendent?’ His eyes went shiftily from Grace to Branson and back to Grace.

‘Who told you about the head?’ Grace asked.

‘I’m sorry, Detective Superintendent, I can’t reveal my sources.’

‘Perhaps that’s because you don’t have any,’ Grace retorted.

‘How – how do – I mean – I can’t reveal them.’ Spinella looked distinctly uneasy.

Suddenly, surprising Glenn Branson and Spinella, Grace lunged forward and snatched the reporter’s phone from his hand. ‘Kevin Spinella, I believe a criminal offence may have been committed. I’m arresting you on suspicion of illegal telephone hacking. You do not have to say anything; but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something that you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

Spinella’s eyes widened in shock. ‘You – you can’t – you can’t do this to me – you – you…’ He stared at the handcuffs Grace had suddenly produced.

‘Can’t I?’

Roy Grace rarely handcuffed people himself these days. But one technique he had never forgotten was how to speed cuff a villain. He snapped one, in one sharp, continuous movement, on Spinella’s right wrist, jerked his left arm behind his back and snapped the handcuff on that, too.

‘What’s this all about?’ Spinella demanded sullenly, but already the tone of his voice had changed and he was sounding anxious rather than insolent.

‘There is no head that’s been found,’ Grace said. ‘I made that up. You swallowed it, hook, line and sinker.’

Glenn Branson grinned. ‘That’s quite appropriate, chief, for this location.’

Grace smiled back grimly.