Peter James - Dead Man's Grip

A POLICE OFFICER WILL SPEAK TO YOU ABOUT ADMITTING OTHER CRIMES YOU HAVE COMMITTED.

She listened numbly as PC Pattenden outlined the circumstances of her arrest. Then the shirt-sleeved man spoke directly to her, his voice earnest, almost as if he was doing her a favour.

‘I am Custody Sergeant Cornford. You have heard what has been said. I’m authorizing your detention for the purpose of securing and preserving evidence and to obtain evidence by questioning. Is that clear to you?’

Carly nodded.

He passed across the counter to her a folded yellow A4 sheet that was headed SUSSEX POLICE NOTICE OF RIGHTS AND ENTITLEMENTS.

‘You may find this helpful, Mrs Chase. You have the right to have someone informed of your arrest and to see a solicitor. Would you like us to provide you with a duty solicitor?’

‘I’m a solicitor,’ she said. ‘I’d like you to contact one of my colleagues, Ken Acott at Acott Arlington.’

Carly got some small satisfaction from seeing the frown that crossed his face. Ken Acott was widely regarded as the top criminal solicitor in the city.

‘May I have his number?’

Carly gave him the office number, hoping Ken was not in court today.

‘I will make that call,’ the Custody Sergeant said. ‘But I am required to inform you that although you have a right to see a solicitor, the drink-driving process may not be delayed. I am authorizing you to be searched.’ He then produced two green plastic trays and spoke into his intercom.

PC Pattenden handed Carly’s phone to the sergeant and stepped aside as a young uniformed woman police officer walked across, snapping on a pair of blue gloves. She studied Carly for a moment, expressionless, before beginning to pat her down, starting with her head and rummaging in each of her coat pockets. Then she asked her to remove her boots and socks, knelt down and searched between each of her toes.

Carly said nothing, feeling utterly humiliated. The woman then scanned her with a metal detector, put that instrument down and started emptying out her handbag. She placed Carly’s purse, her car keys, a packet of Kleenex, her lipstick and compact, chewing gum and then, to her embarrassment, as she saw PC Pattenden eyeing everything, a Tampax into one of the trays.

When the woman had finished, Carly signed a receipt, then PC Pattenden led her into a small side room, where she was fingerprinted by a cheery male officer, also in blue gloves. Finally he took a swab of her mouth for DNA.

Next, holding a yellow form, PC Pattenden escorted her out, past the console, up a step and into a narrow room that felt like a laboratory. There was a row of white kitchen units to her left, followed by a sink and a fridge, and a grey and blue machine at the far end, with a video monitor on the top. To her right was a wooden desk and two blue chairs. The walls were plastered in notices.

She read: NO MORE THAN ONE DETAINEE IN THIS ROOM AT A TIME, THANK YOU.

Then: YOU’LL COME BACK.

Next to that was a sign in red with white letters: WANT TO GO THROUGH THIS AGAIN?

PC Pattenden pointed at a wall-mounted camera. ‘OK, what I must tell you now is that everything seen and heard in this room is recorded. Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’

The officer then told her about the breath-test machine. He explained that he required her to give two breath specimens and that the lower of the readings would be taken. If the reading was above 40 but below 51 she would have the further option of providing a blood or urine sample.

She blew into the tube, desperately hoping that she was now below the limit and this nightmare – or at least this part of it – would be over.

‘I can’t believe it. I didn’t drink that much – really, I didn’t.’

‘Now blow again for the second test,’ he said calmly.

Some moments later he showed her the printout of the first test. To her horror it was 55. Then he showed her the second reading.

It was also 55.

Roy Grace’s phone rang in the hospital room. Releasing his grip on Cleo’s hand he tugged it out of his pocket and answered it.

It was Glenn Branson, sounding in work mode. ‘Yo, chief. How is she?’

‘OK, thanks. She’ll be fine.’

Cleo looked up at him and he stroked her forehead with his free hand. Then she suddenly winced.

He covered the mouthpiece, alarmed. ‘You OK?’

She nodded and smiled thinly. ‘Bump just kicked.’

Glenn Branson said, ‘We’ve had a call from Inspector James Biggs, Traffic. A fatal at Portland Road. Sound like a hit and run. They’re requesting assistance from Major Crime Branch as it looks like death by dangerous driving or possibly manslaughter.’

As the duty Senior Investigating Officer for the week, Roy Grace was in charge of any Major Crime inquiries that came in. This would be a good opportunity for Glenn, whom he considered his protégé, to show his abilities, he decided.

‘Are you free?’

‘Yes.’

‘OK, organize a Crime Scene Manager for them, then go down yourself and help the rats. See if they’ve got everything they need.’

Rats were known to eat their own young and traffic officers had long been known as the Black Rats . This dated back to the time when all police cars were black and was because of their reputation for booking other police officers and even members of their own family. Some of them today wore a black rat badge with pride.

‘I’m on my way.’

As Grace put his phone back in his pocket, Cleo took his hand.

‘I’m OK, darling. Go back to work,’ she said. ‘Really, I’m fine.’

He turned and looked at her dubiously, then kissed her on the forehead. ‘I love you.’

‘I love you too,’ she said.

‘I don’t want to leave you here.’

‘You have to get out there and catch bad guys. I want them all locked up before Bump is born!’

He smiled. She looked so frail, so vulnerable, lying in this bed. With their child inside her. Cleo’s life and the life of their unborn child hanging on a thread more slender than he wanted to think about. Cleo was such a strong and positive person. It was one of the thousands of qualities about her that he had fallen in love with. It seemed impossible that things could go wrong. That their child could be threatening her life. She would get through this. She would be fine. Somehow. Whatever it took.

It was Cleo who had given him his life back after the years of hell following Sandy’s disappearance. Surely she could not be taken away from him?

He stared at her face, her pale, soft complexion, her blue eyes, her exquisite snub nose, her long, graceful neck, her pursed-lip grin of defiance, and he knew, he absolutely knew , it was all going to be OK.

‘We’ll be fine, Bump and me!’ she said, squeezing his hand, as if reading his mind. ‘Just a few teething problems. Go back to your office and make the world a safer place for Bump and me!’

He stayed for another hour, waiting to get a chance to speak privately to Mr Holbein, the consultant gynaecologist, but the man was not able to add much to what he had already said. It was going to be a case of taking things one day at a time from now on.

After saying goodbye to Cleo and promising to return later in the day, he drove out of the hospital and down to Eastern Road. He should have turned left and headed around the outskirts of the city back to his office. But instead he turned right, towards Portland Road and the accident.

Like many colleagues in the Major Crime Branch, murders fascinated him. He’d long become immune to the most grisly of crime scenes, but road fatalities were different. They almost always disturbed him – a tad too close to home. But what he needed right now was the solace of his mate, Glenn Branson. Not that the DS, who was going through a marriage break-up from hell, was exactly a comfort zone much of the time at the moment, but he had at least been in a cheerier mood this morning than Grace had seen him in for a while.