Peter James: Love You Dead

Grace smiled. ‘I’ve known for some time that when a person fiddles with their wedding ring, they’re probably guilty about something in their relationship. I could see her fiddling with the necklace during her interview. It made me curious.’

‘Nice one, I’ll remember that. Oh, and I do have one bit of positive news,’ Glenn said. ‘Yossarian.’

‘ Yossarian? ’ Grace said blankly.

‘The name Tooth kept repeating in hospital, yeah?’

‘Yossarian, yes. What news?’

‘Tooth apparently had a lucid moment yesterday afternoon. A nurse gleaned from him that he lives in the Turks and Caicos, on Providenciales Island. She called the Enquiry Team. Guy Batchelor remembered that Acting Superintendent Steve Curry is friendly with a guy called Neil Hall — known as Nobby — who joined Sussex Police a couple of years ago, and was formerly Deputy Chief of Police in the Turks and Caicos. Hall apparently remembers a strange character who used to bring his dog, called Yossarian, along to a bar there. Guy’s been in touch with the Governor’s office, who’s just emailed back that Tooth’s housekeeper is going to take care of the dog. And whilst we’re on that subject, Jodie’s cat is in a cattery, and her reptiles are now at London Zoo.’

‘Well, it’s great to know that we at least have a few problems solved,’ Grace said, and smiled thinly.

At 7 p.m. that evening, in the dry, chilly night air, under the beam of a torch Cleo held, Roy Grace dug a grave in the soft, damp earth beneath an oak tree in a corner of the garden. He went several feet deep, determined that no sodding fox was going to dig Marlon up.

He had wound gaffer tape round the sandwich box, sealing it completely, then placed it inside a jiffy bag, and sealed that with tape, also. He held it up in front of him. ‘Funny to think that all those years ago I brought you home in a plastic bag full of water from a funfair! You were never very chatty, were you? But you know what? For many years you were my mate.’

He stooped down and placed the little package at the bottom of the hole. ‘Goodbye, my friend,’ he said. ‘Maybe you’ll find the happy hunting ground you were searching for all those years of swimming round and round in your tank.’

Then he stood upright for some moments, leaning on the spade, staring down.

‘Goodbye, sweet Marlon,’ Cleo said.

It was strange, he reflected. In a few days they would be flying to Munich for Sandy’s funeral. But right now he felt more emotional about Marlon than he did about Sandy. Was it wrong to be feeling relief that the rollercoaster nightmare with Sandy was finally now at an end?

He shovelled the earth back, and they went inside.

For some reason the words of the previous Chief Constable, Tom Martinson, suddenly came into his head. Martinson had said them to him some years back in his blunt Midlands accent.

‘You know what I always tell my officers, Roy. Never try to be a copy of anyone else. Try always to be a better version of yourself.’

He’d never fully understood, then, what Martinson had meant. But now he did. Cleo had brought that home to him earlier this evening when he had shown her Sandy’s letter.

‘Something I’ve always believed in my heart, Roy, is the wagon train circle. That’s what true love is. It’s not about holding hands, or staring into each other’s eyes, or staring in the same direction together. It’s a bond of strength. A wall around you. When you decide to make a life with someone by marrying them or just living with them, you form a circle against the world. It becomes just the two of you, and for the rest of your lives you never let anything or anyone break that circle. From time to time you let certain people inside that circle with you, and they become part of you and part of that wall.’

She went over to the fridge and took out a bottle of wine. ‘Fancy a drink?’

He did.

ANPR— Automatic Number Plate Recognition. Roadside or mobile cameras which automatically capture the registration number of all cars that pass. It can be used to historically track which cars went past a certain camera and can also trigger alerts for cars which are stolen, have no insurance or have an alert attached to them.

ARV— Armed Response Vehicle.

CAD— Computer Aided Dispatch. The system where all calls from the public are logged and, if they require police attendance, the record of who attended and what the outcome was.

CCTV— Closed Circuit Television. Can be either publicly owned and monitored (e.g. by the police), or privately installed in people’s houses or businesses.

CIA— Central Intelligence Agency. The United States intelligence service.

CID— Criminal Investigation Department. Usually refers to the divisional detectives rather than the specialist squads.

CIM— Critical Incident Manager. Usually a Chief Inspector who takes control of critical incidents when they are assessed as being beyond the scope of Ops-1, either due to their seriousness or the complexity of the volume of other demands on Ops-1.

CITES— Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. An international agreement between governments, its aim being to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.

Commanders

Gold (or strategic) Commander — The gold commander sets the strategy and assumes and retains overall strategic command for the operation or incident.

Silver (or tactical) Commander — The silver commander commands and coordinates the overall tactical response in compliance with Gold’s strategy, and is the tactical commander of the incident.

Bronze (or operational) Commander — The bronze commander is responsible for the command of a group of resources, and carries out functional or geographical responsibilities to deliver the requirements set by Silver in their tactical plan.

CPS— Crown Prosecution Service. The public agency that conducts criminal prosecutions in England and Wales.

CSA— Command Secretarial Assistant. A secretary to senior officers.

CSI— was SOCO — Crime Scene Investigators (Scenes of Crime Officers). They are the people who attend crime scenes to search for fingerprints, DNA samples, etc.

DNA— Deoxyribonucleic Acid. A molecule that encodes the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and many viruses. Used in policing to identify the source of bodily samples left at crime scenes. Generally provides a 1:1-billion certainty of the source/person.

DVLA —Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority. The Government agency that registers motor vehicles and issues driving licences. An important source of intelligence in many enquiries.

Europol— The European Union law enforcement agency. Assists police and other enforcement bodies in EU member states in their fight against serious international organized crime and terrorism.

FBI— Federal Bureau of Investigation. The US national police agency, which has jurisdiction across all states for ‘federal’ offence investigation.

FLO— Family Liaison Officer. The trained and dedicated officer deployed to work with a bereaved family to provide support, information and to identify lines of enquiry.

FLUM— Flash Unsolicited Message. A direct short message sent between computer screens, mainly in the control room, to alert other controllers or supervisors to either a significant incident or an important update on an ongoing incident. It flashes up alerting the recipient to its content immediately.