Not Dead Yet

85

At the Tuesday morning briefing of Operation Icon, Bella Moy reported on her conversation with Stephen Feline, the senior partner of the accountancy firm where Eric Whiteley worked. Feline said that Whiteley was a bit of an oddball who kept to himself, but an exemplary employee, hard-working and totally trustworthy.

‘He’s an oddball all right,’ Glenn Branson said. ‘We went to his house after the briefing last night. He was obviously in, we saw someone moving behind the curtains, but no one answered his door. We rang the bell several times. Then we dialled his home number. Someone answered – sounded like him, and we told him we were outside. He hung up without saying anything. We rang back and we could hear it ringing – and we saw curtains twitch upstairs. But it went to answerphone each time we tried ringing again.’

‘The behaviour of someone who has something to hide,’ Grace said.

‘With his reluctance to see us, me and Bella decided it would be better to talk to his neighbours, see what we could find out about him before we tried him again.’

‘And?’

‘They confirmed he’s one of those people who keeps himself to himself. A couple of them said they’ve never seen him. One said she’s seen him several times go off to work on his bicycle and come home at night and he’s nodded at her a few times, but that’s all. One said she’s seen a tarty-looking woman come to the house a couple of times.’

‘Sounds like a call girl,’ Grace said. ‘He lives alone?’

Glenn Branson nodded. He looked down at his notebook, open on the first page of the interview with Whiteley. ‘Well, the thing was, boss, we were focused on his work connection with Stonery Farm and the angling club. That was a hard enough struggle. We didn’t get much into his private life. But yeah, definitely single.’

‘So none of the neighbours ever talked to Eric Whiteley?’

‘All the immediate neighbours we talked to are elderly, a couple of them pretty infirm. All pleasant enough but no one seems to know or care too much about anyone else. It’s sort of a weird little enclave where he is.’

Grace made a note. ‘This man is not making me feel all warm and fuzzy. I want to know more about him. Why would he hide from you, unless he had something to conceal?’ He looked at Glenn then, pointedly, at Bella. ‘Any thoughts?’

‘I don’t know, sir,’ she said.

‘This is a murder enquiry, Bella. “Don’t know” is not an answer I want to hear. Go back to his office in the morning and get in his face. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, sir,’ she said, and blushed under his uncharacteristically withering glare.

Grace turned to the indexer. ‘Annalise, anything on your check on the serials about Eric Whiteley?’

‘I have one thing, sir. Almost two years ago exactly, he reported a bicycle theft from outside his office.’

There were a couple of sniggers. One from a recent addition to the team, DC Graham Baldock, and the other from Guy Batchelor. Grace glared at them both. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t find having a bicycle stolen funny. It may not be the kind of major crime we deal with in this branch, but if you have a bike you love that gets nicked it’s pretty distressing. Okay?’

Both detectives nodded apologetically.

‘It sounds like Whiteley was pretty difficult then. I spoke to DC Liz Spence at John Street who was dealing with bicycle crime at the time. He was pretty aggressive towards her over it. Didn’t feel the police were doing enough, that they should have made it their major priority. She was sufficiently concerned back then about his level of aggression to put background checks on him.’

‘And?’ Grace asked.

She shook her head. ‘Nothing came up.’

‘If you want my opinion, sir,’ Bella Moy said abruptly, ‘he’s just a harmless saddo.’

Grace looked at her for some moments. ‘You may be right, Bella, but you have to remember something. Criminals escalate. The sicko who starts off as a seemingly harmless flasher can turn into a serial rapist twenty years later.’

‘Yes, sir, I understand,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to be frivolous.’

Grace saw his BlackBerry was flashing red at him. New emails. He tapped to check them as he asked, ‘Norman, anything back yet from the High Tech Crime Unit on Myles Royce’s computer?’

‘No, chief, not so far.’

He glanced through the emails. The second was from the Chief Superintendent of Brighton Police, Graham Barrington.

Roy, call me urgently after your briefing.