One of Us Is Dead

71 Thursday 13 October 2022

On the split screen behind Grace were two photographs of their prime suspect. Both showed a tall figure in a hoodie, bulky black jacket, jeans and trainers and very confident, erect posture. The first was the familiar photograph of the man in the Organica supermarket checkout queue. The second was him walking, with the sea a blur behind him. Written across this one was: POI–Chichester Terrace, 2.12 p.m., Thursday, 1 September.

Because he had so many actions to delegate, Grace had drafted in two additional full-time members, the former detective Polly Sweeney, who had already been working in conjunction with Jamie Carruthers, and DS Jon Exton, who had also been a member of his team previously, before being seconded to a stint in Professional Standards, the division that policed the police.

When everyone was assembled in the room for the 8.30 a.m. briefing, he began by bringing them up to speed on the information received from the Digital Forensics team, showing the photographs extracted from Barnie Wallace’s computer and adding that he had sent some of them to Jonathan Jackson at the Met’s Central Image Investigation Unit to see if they could get a match to the man standing behind Barnie Wallace at the Organica supermarket checkout.

Next he gave his reasons for treating the deaths of Dermot Bryson and Tracey Dawson as murder, and for bringing them under the umbrella of Operation Meadow.

Velvet Wilde raised a hand, and when Grace nodded, she asked, ‘Sir, with three murders, does that make the suspect a serial killer?’

‘That’s not a term I would want us to use, Velvet — and it would be particularly unhelpful if the press began using it.’ He shot Glenn Branson a warning glance that carried a message: Do not say a word to Siobhan.

‘The technical definition of a serial killer is someone who kills three or more persons, usually with a considerable gap between the killings, which is not the case here. My hypothesis is that we are potentially looking at a contract killer.’ He turned to Stanstead.

‘Luke, the report from Digital Forensics is that our man is living somewhere in the middle of Arundel Terrace. I imagine all the apartments there are either owned or rented, but some will be sublet. I’d like you to start by contacting the Electoral Register department for Kemp Town and get all the names of the occupants, except for the two end properties, which we can discount for now. Having done that you’ll need to start phoning the letting departments of the local estate agents to see if any of them have rented out a flat there in the past three years. Check online on places like Rightmove too.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the researcher said.

Next he turned to DC Glover. ‘Will, I want you to go to Organica and view their CCTV for the afternoon of September the first, to see if you can find this character then, doing a recce perhaps.’

Glover looked proud to have been given a solo action. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said.

‘Chief,’ Norman Potting said, ‘young William here and I extended our search for outward-facing CCTV cameras in the Preston Street area yesterday, and I think we found something interesting yesterday evening. If I may put it up on the screen? It’s footage from a Ring doorbell camera.’

‘Go ahead,’ Grace said.

Potting tapped his keyboard. A grocery list appeared. Followed by an upside-down naked woman in a Halloween mask.

‘Treating us to your family album are you, Norman?’ Velvet Wilde asked.

A photograph of Donald Trump dressed as a Barbie doll appeared. Then the screen went blank. Potting muttered an apology. Then a series of images came up, showing a street of elegant Regency terraced houses, each with a columned porch. Parked in front of one was a white Ford Transit van, sign-written in large letters, Kingsway Electrical. The time and date showed top right: 15.36, 03/09/22

Eleven minutes after the Phantom Mushroom Switcher had done his stuff, Grace calculated. ‘I know that firm!’ he said. ‘Owned by a guy called Mike Shaw — he did some work on my house with Sandy years back.’

‘That might come in handy, chief,’ Potting said. ‘If you see what happens next. This is the road that connects Preston Street with Regency Square.’

Seconds later, the blind man with his dog came into view.

‘’ello, ’ello, ’ello, what do we have here?’ EJ Boutwood said.

He walked along the far side of the pavement, and out of sight behind the van. Temporarily, everyone presumed.

‘Now watch!’ Potting said, excitedly.

Everyone was watching. For several seconds nothing happened. A Post Office van went by, followed shortly after by a helmeted cyclist.

But the blind man did not reappear on the far side of the van.

‘Has the dog stopped for a pee or a dump?’ Jack Alexander suggested.

Potting wagged a finger in the air. ‘Keep watching,’ he said, enjoying his moment in the sun.

Twenty-eight seconds later, the van drove off. The blind man and his dog had vanished.

‘Great conjuring trick,’ Nick Nicholl said.

‘Derren Brown or Penn and Teller?’ asked Polly Sweeney.

‘Can you show us the driver, Norman?’ Grace asked.

Potting froze the recording then zoomed in on the passenger window. The driver, on the far side, was indistinct, fuzzy. It was just possible to see he was wearing a baseball cap, dark glasses, and face mask.

Jon Exton read out the licence plate letters and numbers. Grace noted them down.

‘I think I still have the boss of that firm in my contacts,’ Grace said and pulled out his personal phone. It took him only seconds to find the mobile number of the proprietor. As it rang, he put it onto speaker, so everyone could hear.

It was answered by a friendly-sounding, ‘Hello?’

‘Mike Shaw?’

‘It is!’

‘It’s Roy Grace.’

‘Well, hello, sir. This is a blast from the past. I keep reading about you in the Argus, over the years. Expecting to see you as chief constable any day now!’

‘You’ll have to wait a while yet, Mike. Listen, I’m calling you on police business. One of your vans was parked between Preston Street and Regency Square on Saturday, September the third. Can you give me any information about what it was doing there and who was driving it?’

‘Saturday, September the third? We don’t work weekends, except for emergencies, Roy. Are you sure it was one of my vans?’

Grace read him the licence plate details.

‘That’s an old vehicle, Roy,’ he said. ‘I moved it on at least a year or so ago — if not longer.’

‘With your company name still on it?’

‘The chap who bought it said he’d take care of removing it — all part of the deal. It was sign-painted, but he said he would livery it up in his own colours.’

‘Do you remember the name of this person? And his address?’

‘To be honest, we’ve a number of vans and I always chop them in after a couple of years — I’m out on a job at the moment, I’ll look at my records when I get back to the office.’

Grace thanked him and turned to Stanstead. ‘Luke, run a PNC check on the registration right away, please.’ He moved on. ‘Dermot Bryson, who died on Saturday night, had a 3D printed Glock-style handgun in the glove box of his Ferrari. We need to know why he felt he needed to carry a gun.’ He turned to DS Exton and to Polly Sweeney. ‘You two have always been good at digging deep into characters. See what you can find out about Bryson’s personal and business dealings. Emily Denyer might be able to help you on this by looking into his financial dealings.’

‘Boss,’ Exton asked, ‘I’m not a firearms expert. Could any Tom, Dick and Harry buy a 3D printer and knock out a working gun?’

Polly jumped in. ‘The answer’s no, Jon. I’ve done some reading up on it and it’s a highly complex process. For starters they’d need to find the blueprint or digital files for the firearm. They’d need a highly expensive 3D printer capable of printing materials that could withstand the stresses involved in firing a gun — it would need to be an industrial grade printer that can work with metal alloys. There’s highly complex calibration required, and also all the components like springs and the firing pin. In addition, they would need ammunition.’

‘So if I wanted a gun, why not just buy the real thing?’ Exton asked. ‘It wouldn’t be hard if I had the right contacts, would it?’

‘Any normal handgun — or any firearm — you buy would be traceable, Jon,’ Polly said. ‘The attraction to a villain of a 3D printed one would be that it would have no serial number.’

‘And where would someone buy a 3D printed gun, Polly?’ Exton asked. ‘The dark web?’

‘That’s where I’d go shopping,’ Polly replied.

‘Sir,’ Luke Stanstead said. ‘Got the response back on the Ford Transit — it is still registered to Kingsway Electrical.’

‘It is?’ Grace replied, puzzled. ‘Is it possible that Mike Shaw could have sold it a couple of years ago and it’s still registered to his firm?’

Nick Nicholl answered. ‘If the new owner says he’ll deal with the paperwork and notify the DVLA of change of ownership, it is possible, boss.’

‘And the reason you’d do that, Nick, is so it can’t be traced back to you?’

‘So long as the new owner pays the insurance and keeps their nose clean, no one will be any the wiser, boss.’

Grace thought for a moment and made a note. Then he looked back at DS Potting. ‘Norman, you and Will seem to be our CCTV wizards right now. While Will goes to Organica, you go back to the Control Room and see what ANPR and local CCTV hits we can get on this van. Index, Golf Sierra, One Seven, Charlie Papa November.’

‘On it, chief,’ Potting said.

Grace’s phone rang and he saw it was Mike Shaw. He answered it, raising an apologetic hand to the team.

‘Roy, I’m not going to get back to the office tonight — been called out on an emergency. I’ll be able to confirm the name of the guy I sold the van to first thing in the morning. It’s on the tip of my tongue.’

Grace thanked him, and felt they were finally moving forward. He was on fire!