You Are Dead

50

Sunday 14 December

Grace stared at the piece of paper he’d torn off Glenn Branson’s desk notepad, on which he had scrawled ‘Dr Jacob Van Dam’. The name of the man Liz Seward had spoken to, who insisted on talking only to him.

The man’s name rang a faint bell.

He hurried along the corridor, logged on to his computer, and then to Google, and typed in the doctor’s name.

And was instantly impressed. Now he knew why the name was familiar. Van Dam had been, at one time, among the leading forensic psychiatrists in the country. But looking at his date of birth, he was knocking on, well past retirement age. Curious, he dialled his number.

A quavering man’s voice answered after five rings. ‘Dr Van Dam?’ Grace asked.

The response was guarded. ‘Yes, who is this?’

‘Detective Superintendent Roy Grace. I’m the Senior Investigating Officer on the disappearance of Logan Somerville. I understand you wanted to speak to me?’

‘Well, yes, thank you for calling. I’m very worried about wasting police time, but the thing is — you see I have something that has been bothering me for the past — nearly — two days.’ He fell silent.

‘Tell me?’ Grace prompted.

‘The first thing I should tell you is that I am Logan Somerville’s uncle.’

‘OK.’

‘Well, you see, I had a very peculiar patient on Friday, whose name was Harrison Hunter. Does that mean anything to you?’

‘Harrison Hunter?’ Grace wrote the name down. ‘No, it doesn’t.’ The man was speaking almost irritatingly slowly.

‘He told me he is an anaesthetist. But so far I’ve not been able to verify that.’

Grace made a further note.

‘Then he made a rather strange claim. I held off contacting you because, to be frank, I rather dismissed him as a fantasist — I’ve had plenty of people like him during my career. He claimed to know all about Logan’s abduction. Then he told me — as evidence of his bona fides — that Logan had a tattoo or a mark of some kind on her right thigh.’

Suddenly Grace’s interest in the man increased dramatically. ‘On her right thigh?’

‘That’s what he told me. So immediately he left, I got the name of Logan’s fiancé from her mother — and I telephoned him to ask if Logan had a tattoo. He was absolutely adamant that she doesn’t.’ The psychiatrist fell silent for some moments. ‘I’ve been discussing it with my wife. But the thing is that Logan’s parents — her mother is my sister — are worried out of their wits.’

‘Understandably,’ Grace replied.

‘They are worried about Logan’s relationship with her fiancé. Apparently she broke their engagement off and he’s had a problem accepting it. So it is possible he lied to me when I asked him the question about the tattoo.’

‘Why do you think he would lie about a tattoo?’

‘I can’t explain that. Unless, of course, as the parents think, he might be behind this.’

‘Did this Dr Hunter give you any description of this tattoo?’

‘Yes, he did. Well, it said, U R DEAD.’

Roy thanked him for the call and sat in stunned silence for a few minutes, thinking hard. Then he made three phone calls. The first was to Glenn Branson, asking him to send one of their detectives to London right away to interview the psychiatrist. The second was to the Chief, Tom Martinson, and the third Pewe, to alert them and schedule a meeting.

This latest information had just turned a major investigation into potentially one of the biggest that he and Sussex Police were likely to experience. There would no doubt be massive national and international media interest, and it would be important for him to keep control of the investigation. He would also have a duty to work with key opinion formers and community groups to ensure that the public’s reaction was managed to prevent panic. He would be telling the Chief and Pewe that in his opinion they needed to form a Gold group.

A Gold group was only formed in extreme circumstances, such as a major crime, critical incident, significant public event or natural disaster. The group would consist of senior police officers, senior representatives from the City Council, Safety Officers, the Police and Crime Commissioner, the local MP, the Divisional Commander, members of the Independent Advisory Group and, importantly, a dedicated senior Public Relations Officer. He would be discussing the details straight after the briefing when he went to headquarters.

This was all he needed: a funeral tomorrow, and with this current investigation perhaps the biggest challenge of his career, in the week he was moving house. He picked up the phone to dial Cleo, taking a deep breath before she picked up.