Peter James: Dead Man's Grip

What’s more, Grace had a plan to lift him from his gloom. He wanted Glenn to try for promotion to Inspector this year. He had the ability and he possessed that most essential quality for all good coppers: a high degree of emotional intelligence. If he could just lift his friend out of his screwed-up mental state over his marriage, he was convinced he could get him there.

The mid-morning Brighton traffic was light and the rain had eased to a thin drizzle. Portland Road, with its shops and cafés, surrounded by large residential areas, was normally busy at most times of the day and night, but as Grace turned the silver Ford Focus into it, it was as quiet as a ghost town. A short distance ahead he saw a Road Policing Unit BMW estate parked sideways in the middle of the road, with crime scene tape beyond it, a uniformed PCSO scene guard with his log and a gaggle of rubberneckers, some snapping away with cameras and phones.

Beyond the tape was a hive of quiet, businesslike activity. He saw a large articulated lorry, its rear section screened off by a green tarpaulin. A black Audi convertible on the opposite side of the road against a café wall. A fire engine and the dark green coroner’s van, beside which he noticed the slim, youthful figure of Darren Wallace, Cleo’s Assistant Anatomical Pathology Technician, as the deputy chief mortician was known, and his colleague, Walter Hordern, a dapper, courteous man in his mid-forties. Both were smartly dressed in anoraks over their white shirts, black ties, black trousers and black shoes.

Further along was another tape across the road, a scene guard and another RPU vehicle parked sideways, with more rubberneckers just beyond. Alongside it were a VOSA – a Vehicle and Operator Services Agency – inspection van and a Collision Investigation Unit van.

He saw several police officers he recognized, including the uniformed Road Policing Unit Inspector, James Biggs, and a SOCO photographer, James Gartrell, working away methodically. Some of them were combing the road and one senior Road Collision Investigation Unit officer he knew well, Colin O’Neill, was walking the area and taking notes, while talking to Glenn Branson, to Tracy Stocker, the Major Crime Branch Crime Scene Manager, and to the Coroner’s Officer, Philip Keay. Unlike at most crime scenes, none of those present was wearing protective suits and overshoes. RTC sites were generally considered already too contaminated.

A buckled bicycle lay on the road, with a numbered yellow crime scene marker beside it. There was another marker next to some debris that looked like a broken bicycle lamp. A short distance behind the lorry he saw a fluorescent jacket covering something, with another marker beside that. More markers were dotted around.

Before he had a chance to hail Branson, suddenly, materializing out of the ether, as he seemed to do at every crime scene Grace attended these days, was Kevin Spinella, the young crime reporter from the local paper, the Argus . In his mid-twenties, with bright eyes and a thin face, he was chewing gum with small, sharp teeth that always reminded Grace of a rat. His short hair was matted to his head by the rain and he was wearing a dark mackintosh with the collar turned up, a loud tie with a massive knot and tasselled loafers.

‘Good morning, Detective Superintendent!’ he said. ‘A bit nasty, isn’t it?’

‘The weather?’ Grace said.

Spinella grinned, making a curious movement with his jaw, as if a piece of gum had got stuck in the wrong place.

‘Na! You know what I’m talking about. Sounds like it could be a murder from what I hear – is that what you think?’

Grace was guarded, but tried to avoid being openly rude to the man. The police needed the local media on their side as they could be immensely useful. But equally, he knew, they could at times bite you hard and painfully.

‘You tell me. I’ve only just arrived, so you probably know more than I do.’

‘Witnesses I’ve spoken to are talking about a white van that went through a red light and hit the cyclist, then accelerated off at high speed.’

‘You should be a detective,’ Grace said, seeing Glenn Branson making a beeline towards him.

‘Think I’ll stick to reporting. Anything you’d like to tell me?’

Yes. Fuck off, Grace thought. Instead, he replied pleasantly, ‘Anything we find out, you’ll be the first to know.’ He nearly added, You always are anyway, even if we don’t tell you.

It was an ongoing cause of irritation to Roy Grace that Spinella had a mole inside Sussex Police that enabled him always to get to the scene of any crime way ahead of the rest of the press pack. For the past year he had been quietly digging away to discover that person’s identity, but so far he had made no progress. One day, though, he promised himself, he would hang that creep out to dry.

He turned away, signed his name on the log and ducked under the tape to greet Glenn Branson. Then they both walked off towards the lorry, safely out of earshot of the reporter.

‘What have you got?’ Grace asked.

‘Young male under the lorry. They’ve found a student ID card. His name’s Anthony Revere, he’s at Brighton Uni. Someone’s gone there to get his full details and next of kin. From what the Collision Investigation Unit’s been able to piece together so far, seems like he came out of a side road – St Heliers Avenue – turned right, east, on the wrong side of Portland Road, causing that Audi travelling west to swerve on to the pavement. He was then hit by a white van that had gone through the red light, a Transit or similar, that was behind the Audi, also travelling west. The van flipped him across the road, under the wheels of the artic, which was travelling east. Then the van did a runner.’

Grace thought for a moment. ‘Anyone ID the driver?’

Branson shook his head. ‘There are a lot of witnesses. I’ve got a team covering the area for any CCTV footage. I’ve put an alert out to the RPU to stop any white van within two hours’ driving distance of here. But that’s kind of needle in a haystack territory.’

Grace nodded. ‘No registration?’

‘Not yet – but with luck we’ll get something from a CCTV.’

‘What about the drivers of the Audi and the lorry?’

‘Woman Audi driver’s in custody – failed a breath test. Lorry driver’s in shock. Colin O’Neill from the Collision Investigation Unit’s had a look at his tachometer – he’s way out of hours.’

‘Well, that’s all looking great, then,’ Grace said sarcastically. ‘A drunk driver in one vehicle, an exhausted one in another and a third who’s scarpered.’

‘We do have one piece of evidence so far,’ Branson said. ‘They’ve found part of a damaged wing mirror that looks like it’s from the van. It has a serial number on it.’

Grace nodded. ‘Good.’ Then he pointed along the road. ‘What’s under the fluorescent jacket?’

‘The cyclist’s right leg.’

Grace swallowed. ‘Glad I asked.’

Specially trained Family Liaison Officers were used whenever possible but, depending on circumstances and availability, any member of the police force could find themselves delivering a death message. It was the least popular duty, and officers of the Road Policing Unit tended, reluctantly, to get the lion’s share.

PC Tony Omotoso was a muscular, stocky black officer with ten years’ experience in the unit, who’d once had his own brush with death on a police motorcycle. Despite all the horrors he had seen, and experienced personally, he remained cheerful and positive, and was always courteous, even to the worst offenders he encountered.

His first task had been to make next-of-kin enquiries from the information that he’d found in the victim’s rucksack, which had been lying underneath the lorry. The most useful item in it had been the deceased’s student card from Brighton University.