You Are Dead

85

Saturday 20 December

At midday the following day, Roy Grace stood on the podium alongside Cassian Pewe, in the Lounge Assembly Room of Malling House. It was again rammed with press, photographers, TV news cameramen and radio reporters.

The Assistant Chief Constable, as usual for these public appearances, spoke first. ‘These are our updates since yesterday. We are taking increased measures, daily, to protect the women of Brighton and Hove. Thanks to the support of our Police and Crime Commissioner, Nicola Roigard, we have been allocated extra budget to enable us to draft in police officers from other divisions. Starting today, additional officers will be out on our streets. And thanks to a bungled attack on Thursday of this week and a very clear-headed witness, we now believe we have a suspect. Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, the Senior Investigating Officer, can tell you more about this.’ He stepped back from the microphone.

Staring at Pewe’s moist, serpentine lips, Grace felt, for some moments, like a mouse that had been dropped through the lid of a cage containing a hungry snake. He took a deep breath and then addressed the throng.

‘We have an e-fit of the person we are seeking urgently to help us with our enquiries, who was seen near Hove Recreation Ground on Thursday night,’ he said. He then indicated the first of the two artist’s impressions on the screen behind him. ‘This refers to the man seen driving away at the time of Logan’s abduction.’ Then he pointed to the sketch that had only been completed half an hour ago, pinned to a whiteboard behind him, and which was being projected on a large screen over to his right.

Pewe frowned quizzically at him, but Grace pretended not to have noticed.

The sketch had been carefully created by the artist, working with Grace and Potting, from a photograph taken secretly of Dr Crisp earlier this morning. Very deliberately the drawing did not depict Crisp too precisely, it was more a representation of his facial features and hair. This approach had been agreed with the Crown Prosecution Service lawyer appointed to the case.

Grace, blinking against the barrage of flashlights, kept a poker face, but inside he was smiling. They were buying this. It would worry Crisp, but it was not an accurate enough portrait for him to be positively identified, nor was it accurate enough to send him scurrying underground.

‘We would like any members of the public, particularly young females, who might have been approached by this man, or anyone who has seen him acting suspiciously to contact us.’

‘Are you able to name any suspects?’ someone shouted from the back of the room.

‘Not at this stage, no,’ Grace replied. ‘I would appeal to anyone who might recognize either of these to contact us urgently.’

‘Detective Superintendent, has there been any ransom demand for Logan Somerville?’

‘No, we have received no ransom demand.’

‘Roy, do you believe Logan Somerville is still alive?’

‘We are hopeful she is alive and we are doing everything that we can to find her.’

‘Detective Superintendent Grace, what is your latest advice to the women of this city?’

‘We advise all young women to be extra vigilant, and not to go out in the evening alone; to ensure they don’t leave doors unlocked or windows open at night and to call us if they are worried by anything they think might be suspicious. Please don’t worry about false alarms, we would rather hear from anyone who has concerns than not.’

‘Detective Superintendent, is there anything to link this to the disappearance of your own wife ten years ago?’

Although Grace had been prepared for this question, it still pierced his heart. Because, he knew, it was always a possibility. ‘There is no evidence to suggest this,’ he replied.

‘How close to an arrest are you?’

‘You’ve heard how the investigation is progressing. We need the help of the public and we are doing everything we can to find and arrest this killer.’

‘Have you conclusively linked the murders of Emma Johnson and Ashleigh Stanford to the ones thirty years ago of Katy Westerham and Denise Patterson?’

‘There are certain parallels which we continue to investigate,’ Roy Grace said, circumspectly. ‘But at the moment we are keeping an open mind.’

‘Have you found the branding iron yet or where it was made?’ a woman reporter called out.

‘No, we haven’t,’ Roy replied. Several more questions about the Brighton Brander followed.

‘Are you able to name any suspects? Is this the Brighton Brander?’ a man shouted from the back of the room.

For the next forty minutes Roy continued to field questions, and also took the opportunity to provide more information to the assembled media representatives.

At the end of the conference he left the podium, feeling totally drained, and drove back to his office at Sussex House. So much was going through his head. This morning’s surveillance report on Edward Crisp was that he had been at home all last night. Two officers had established that by ringing his front doorbell at the gates, dressed smartly, saying they were Jehovah’s Witnesses. He had left the house at 7 a.m. today, taking his dog around Hove Park, and returned an hour later. He had not been out since.

Dr Edward Crisp, Grace thought. A middle-aged family doctor. Could he really be behind all this?

Then he only had to remind himself that Britain’s worst-ever serial killer had been a middle-aged family doctor, Harold Shipman. All of his victims had been patients. Surely it would be too coincidental for another doctor to be Brighton’s first serial killer?

The danger, he knew, from having a good suspect was always the temptation to focus on that suspect and ignore anything else. What else was he missing?

The only other potential suspect was the strange Dr Harrison Hunter, phoney anaesthetist, who had gone to see Jacob Van Dam. Middle-aged, blond wig, medium build.

Dr Crisp in disguise? An alter ego?

Van Dam had now been interviewed three times. Why the hell had Hunter gone to see him?

Grace knew the answer probably lay in the erratic mind of the offender. Murder was never a rational thing. It was a line that, fortunately, most decent folk never crossed. But equally it was a line that, once crossed, there was no going back from. You could never undo the fact that you had taken a life. Most people gave themselves up at some point after doing that, because they couldn’t live with the guilt. The truly dangerous ones were the people who found they could live with the knowledge. People who, in the recesses of their twisted minds, actually enjoyed it.

For them it made no difference whether it was one killing or twenty. Once they crossed the Rubicon of their first murder, and found they were comfortable with it, there was no turning back. Even if they wanted to.

Many murders were committed by schizophrenics — people like Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, who heard voices from God telling him to go and kill prostitutes.

Barring those who killed after losing their temper, the majority of murderers were sociopaths — or psychopaths — the same thing in Grace’s view — people born without empathy. People capable of killing with little emotion or guilt.

Had Hunter gone to see Jacob Van Dam to boast? To be absolved? To show off? To sadistically torment him as Logan’s uncle?

But Van Dam was not particularly close to Logan.

What the hell was that all about? A cry for help of some kind?

It was the only answer, at this moment, that he could come up with: that perhaps the offender was feeling guilt and wanted to be caught to stop him from offending further.

Tony Balazs agreed it was a possibility.

Grace felt certain that the clue to finding the offender lay in that visit. Despite the wig and tinted glasses that Dr Harrison Hunter had been wearing, from Jacob Van Dam’s description, his build fitted Dr Crisp.

Feeling almost too exhausted to think straight, he laid his head on his arms on his desk and closed his eyes. Moments later, it seemed, he woke with a start to a dull buzzing sound, like a trapped insect.

His phone, which he had switched to silent for the press conference, was vibrating on the desk.

‘Roy Grace,’ he answered, confused, only half awake. He looked at the time. Shit. He’d been asleep for almost an hour.

It was Jack Alexander. ‘Sir,’ he said. ‘I’ve just taken an urgent call from a woman at the Roundstone Caravan Park in Horsham. She’s seen the images on the lunchtime news and reckons she might know this man — she thinks he has a mobile home there.’