Peter James - Dead at First Sight

Grace frowned at him. ‘“Biometrics” is one word, Glenn. “Bang to rights” is three.’

‘Three words, long sentence,’ he replied.

Grace smiled.

‘What do you think, chief?’ Norman Potting said. ‘Give Quack-Quack a little time to reflect after talking to his brief? Let him dwell on his potential sentence?’

Mindful of Cassian Pewe being on his back like an aggressive limpet, Grace said, ‘What a little scumbag. He’s clearly guilty, but I want to belt-and-braces this. And we need his accomplice.’

He checked his watch, calculating. A suspect could be held for thirty-six hours without being charged. Beyond that, an extension needed to be granted by a magistrate. Ogwang had been arrested at 7.30 p.m. last night, which meant their charging deadline was 7.30 a.m. tomorrow. ‘We need to play him to reel the other in. We may need to go for a magistrate’s extension to give us time to confirm his victim’s blood on the machete, but with luck we’ll get the DNA report from the lab before then. In the meantime we can undertake further interviews and carry out the ID procedures.’

Branson agreed.

‘And while that’s happening,’ Grace said, ‘I’ll talk to the Crown Prosecution Service about charging him. We’ll let him stew for a while. Give him time to preen. Think about his life as a millionaire internet scammer, compared to twenty years in a British slammer. Then we’ll talk to him again later in the day, see if we can get him to squeal on his colleague. We’re lucky with that Legal Aid brief — she doesn’t seem particularly engaged.’

‘I hope she never gets to defend me!’ Potting said. ‘Ugly cow.’

‘I doubt she’d even want to represent you — ever!’ Grace retorted.

Potting gave him a sideways look. ‘I was talking about her attitude. But I’ll tell you this, Roy. The day I can’t say a woman — or a man — is plug ugly, that’s the day I want to be taken out and shot.’

‘That day’s been here a while, Norman.’

‘Just use a dumdum bullet, so it takes my brain clean out and doesn’t leave me a vegetable. Promise me that one thing, chief.’

Grace put his arm on his shoulder. ‘Norman, my dad always told me a person could choose to be offended — or not. It seems to me the world is in a strange place where everyone chooses to be offended all the time. First it was too far the other way. In my dad’s time the police were institutionally racist, homophobic, sexist, you name it. That’s all changed and for the better. Yes, I agree with you the pendulum’s swung too far the other way, but that’s the world we currently inhabit. It is what it is.’

Potting blinked and sighed. ‘Sometimes I’m glad I’m not a young man today, Roy, with all this crap in front of me — and probably going to get worse. At least we had fun in my day, right?’

Grace looked at him. Four failed marriages, each of the women fleecing him, his Thai bride the worst of all. Potting’s idea of fun?

Just as he was about to enter the observation room again, Grace saw the tall figure of Jack Alexander hurrying towards him. ‘Sir, one of my team has come up with CCTV footage from Withdean Road, from last night — outside the house next door to Withdean Place. The timing fits with the car that was spotted parked there.’

Grace hovered in the door, anxious not to miss the interview that was about to restart, but his interest piqued.

‘Tell me?’

‘It’s very dark and blurry, sir, but distinct enough to make out a figure walking along past it. I thought it worth sending to Haydn Kelly. He came back very quickly — and very definitively — with a match from the person’s gait.’

‘OK? Someone known to us?’

‘I’m not sure whether you are going to like this or not, sir.’

‘Stop playing games, Jack. A match with who?’

‘Your old pal, Mr Tooth.’

Grace’s mind flashed back to the description from the woman at Budget. His wild thought then that it fitted the elusive Tooth, who had made a mockery of everyone in Sussex Police but, fortunately, most of all of Cassian Pewe, after escaping from hospital.

But still he could barely believe it. ‘Tooth?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Haydn’s sure?’

‘He says he’s as certain as if he had a one hundred per cent DNA match.’

Grace’s brain was spinning. Tooth had first appeared on his radar after two murders in Sussex that followed the death of a cyclist in a road traffic collision. The unfortunate victim had turned out to be the son of a New York Mafia capo, and the murders of two of the parties involved were the result of a vendetta by the dead boy’s parents. Tooth was the suspected hitman, who was later presumed drowned after disappearing in Shoreham Harbour. But he had then turned up months later on another killing spree. He’d been less lucky that time. He had been hospitalized, under arrest, after being bitten by a deadly snake as well as several other venomous creatures. But then, Houdini-like, he had once more escaped. He was like one of those bugs that wouldn’t die, no matter what you sprayed at it, Grace thought.

He remembered intel from the FBI on Tooth’s first appearance in Brighton. The man was a former US military sniper and commanded a fee of one million dollars, all paid upfront. He was, in the hitman world, a class act. Apparently considered the first choice for all the New York crime families. A man who delivered. Always.

And from his own experience when Tooth had been his prisoner, subsequently escaping, thanks to Cassian Pewe refusing to sanction a 24/7 guard on him, a very wily creature.

Could he really be back again?

One million dollars was big money in anyone’s language. You would only pay that if much more was at stake.

Thirty million pounds had been scammed out of Sussex residents by internet-based romance frauds last year. There were forty-eight counties in England alone.

Multiply that thirty million by forty-eight and Tooth was looking cheap. Very cheap. The Macy’s bargain basement of hitmen. And in his experience of the man, Haydn Kelly was never wrong.

‘Jack,’ he said. ‘Get someone to contact Budget and see if they have CCTV inside or outside — and if so to get the footage around the time of Mr “Jones” renting the Polo — let’s see if we can confirm a positive ident on him.’

Although he was already pretty certain. Tooth was a master of disguise, but you couldn’t disguise your height too much. The manager at the rental company had said Mr Jones was short and had an American accent. Tooth was short and American. He had been seen in Withdean Road last night around the same time the Polo was seen parked. Almost certainly it was Tooth’s car.

If so, why was he here? What was he doing prowling around outside the house linked to the suspect who was being interviewed? Had Tooth been sent to kill him? Or the man who had made the phone call — or both?

‘Interview with Dunstan Ogwang recommenced at 10.22 a.m., Wednesday 10 October, in the presence of his solicitor, Alison Watts, Detective Sergeant Potting and Detective Inspector Branson,’ Glenn Branson announced to the camera. He turned to the suspect.

‘Mr Ogwang, we are entitled to hold you in police custody for thirty-six hours without charging you,’ Branson informed him. ‘I don’t know how much you know about the British custody system, so I suggest you have a chat with your brief here. What we’re going to do now is give you some time to reflect on everything, then we’ll have another chat a bit later on.’ He gave him a big, humourless stare. ‘OK?’

There was no response.

‘The evidence against you so far relates to the identity and description of the two men at the shop, coupled together with the information from the victim, Toby Seward. In addition, we have your arrest and the recovery of the machete. We are also waiting for the DNA results and the identification procedures. All of this evidence is stacked against you and I would suggest that you need to think very carefully about your position.’