You Are Dead

92

Saturday 20 December

‘If Dr Crisp’s been home all day, does that mean we’re back to square one?’ Branson asked.

‘No. Not necessarily. There could be another explanation for Louise Masters not turning up for her shift.’

Branson gave him a sideways look. ‘Ockham’s Razor? Remember what you taught me about that?’

‘Yes.’

William of Ockham was a thirteenth-century monk who had a profound influence on centuries of intellectual thought after his death. He believed in taking a razor to cut to the core of any conundrum. That the simplest and most obvious explanation was usually the right one. It was a principle that Roy Grace used frequently.

‘So,’ Glenn Branson said. ‘Louise Masters, last on the Brander’s hit list, has disappeared. Isn’t the simplest explanation that we are looking in the wrong direction with Crisp? Surely now we’ve found this mobile home belonging to Hunter with all that stuff in?’

Grace nodded. ‘While we’ve been sitting here, I’ve been thinking. Crisp and Hunter may be far more connected than we’d originally thought — I think they might well be the same person.’ He had been wondering if he’d fallen foul of his own rule, earlier, that the danger of having a credible suspect was the temptation to focus on them and ignore everything else. But he felt he had sidestepped that trap.

Was there anything else he had ignored? Something that was staring him in the face?

He pictured in his mind the claustrophobic walls of the mobile home. The photographs of the Brander’s possible victims. Was he mistaken about these? About the offender? Now he had a new boss who inherently disliked him. And he knew fine well that Pewe was waiting in the wings of this operation for him to screw up.

Where the hell are you, Louise Masters?

Then his phone rang. ‘Roy Grace,’ he answered immediately. And heard the instantly recognizable West Country accent of Norman Potting.

‘Boss, I have some information for you that I think you’re going to like.’

‘Tell me?’

‘I’ve just got back to MIR-1 from The Cloisters school and there was an urgent message from the lab. I’d sent them the Post-it note on which I had Dr Crisp write his mobile phone number for fingerprint and DNA analysis.’

‘Yes?’

‘I called the lab. The DNA is a strong match with the blood found at Freya Northrop’s house on Thursday.’

‘How strong — close?’ Grace felt a surge of adrenaline.

‘There’s a lot of figures and calculations I need to have explained to me,’ Potting said. ‘But the summary is pretty conclusive. One billion to one chance of it not being Crisp. That conclusive enough?’

‘It’ll do!’ Roy Grace said, a huge grin breaking out on his face. He thanked Potting then instantly rang the Critical Incident Manager.