One of Us Is Dead

47 Tuesday 4 October 2022

As a result, Roy Grace only just made it to the office in time for a slightly awkward meeting with Glenn Branson. He’d had to explain to his friend that due to the complexity of the investigation, he was taking over the SIO role. It was not a reflection on Glenn, but Roy’s experience told him it was time to take charge. They went straight from this meeting to the morning briefing on Operation Meadow. Norman Potting and Will Glover informed the team they had made little progress in discovering how the blind man and his dog had seemingly disappeared down Preston Street.

But Glover had done something on his own initiative, which further reinforced Grace’s view that the young DC had the potential to be a good detective. He had checked for any parking tickets that had been issued in Preston Street around the relevant time period. There were five, and he would be following up on these today, to see if any could take them further forward. There had been little progress from the other current lines of enquiry.

Grace thanked him and then said, ‘We need to learn a great deal more about Barnie Wallace. As we know, that information may come from his electronic footprint.’ He turned to Branson. ‘What have we had back from Digital Forensics so far?’

‘Nothing yet, boss. I spoke to Aiden — he said they’re struggling with Barnie Wallace’s laptop password, and the same with the phone. EJ went to see his girlfriend to see if she knew or not and doesn’t reckon she does. Unless she’s fibbing.’

Grace cursed, silently. Most people were lazy about their passwords, creating simple to remember ones, such as their date of birth. Digital Forensics had a raft of algorithms they used and could get into most computers and phones fairly easily. But if someone had a mind and know-how — not hard — to create something really difficult then sometimes, as he knew from bitter experience, it could take days, or weeks, or even much longer.

He had once seized a phone from a murder suspect that the Digital Forensics team had been running an encryption-busting program on for three years, so far, going through combinations to try to break the password, still without success. He shook his head angrily, still in a grumpy mood, he realized, from having any possible joy he might have woken up with sucked out of him by Cleo’s aunt. ‘Glenn, hello, this is a murder inquiry.’ He felt restless.

‘What do you want me to do, boss?’

He shook his head in frustration.

Finally, shortly after 9.30 a.m., Grace was able to settle at his desk. As was his routine, he scanned the reported or investigated overnight incidents in the county, then the pages of the Argus. He stopped when he reached the piece on Professor Bill Llewellyn and read it carefully. As soon as he had finished he called the number of the duty CID Inspector at Brighton police station — known by the moniker of Golf-99 — who would be out of the Daily Management Meeting by now.

The phone was picked up by DI Mick Warburton. ‘Sir!’ he said. It came out as a gasp, as if Grace was the sole mountaineer holding the rope from which the caller was dangling over a precipice.

‘Mick, can you tell me anything about the death of Professor Bill Llewellyn at Brighton University, who died yesterday from anaphylactic shock? Is there anything that hasn’t appeared in the media about this?’

‘Apologies about my voice, sir — bit of pasty just went down the wrong way. Anything suspicious, is that what you’re driving at?’

‘Yes.’

Could Llewellyn have made enemies? Did this have any of the hallmarks of a Rufus Rorke accidental death?

From the information the Major Crime Team had accumulated on Rorke, immediately prior to his apparent death, he operated in the rarefied world of the seriously wealthy, charging a substantial fee. Professor Llewellyn’s world was one of academia, he wasn’t in that financial league.

‘Your officers who attended found him dead, on the floor, with an EpiPen beside him. And they presumed anaphylactic shock?’ Grace asked.

‘It was confirmed by the post-mortem,’ DI Warburton replied.

‘I need you to recover that EpiPen, I want it forensically examined.’

‘Well — yes, of course, sir, but it might be difficult. It might have been binned.’

Grace silently cursed the different worlds that normal police officers and Major Crime detectives inhabited. To him, everything was suspicious. Not so much to the average overworked, exhausted response coppers who were daily run ragged. ‘It would be really helpful to find it if you can, Mick. OK?’

Ending the call, he immediately rang Emily Denyer, the financial investigator. He asked her to find out everything she could about Professor Llewellyn’s finances.

Next, he entered a search on his computer for the two previous cases of seemingly accidental deaths that Rorke had possibly been linked to, nearly three years ago, which had emerged in Operation Stenographer. Grace noted down the key details and case references. Then he called Glenn Branson.

‘No promises, mate, until I’ve got it sanctioned — how do you fancy a trip to Barbados?’

‘You’re kidding! My auntie came from there! You mean, like, all expenses paid for me and Siobhan? Two weeks in a fancy hotel?’

‘Not exactly. I need someone to fly out and have a chat with a fisherman called John Baker.’

‘I’m your man.’

‘Of course you are.’