Peter James - Dead Man's Grip

‘Did he genuinely know?’ asked Bella Moy.

Branson raised a finger, then tapped his keypad. ‘Every prisoner in a UK jail gets given a PIN code for the prison phone, right? And they have to nominate the numbers they will call – they can have a maximum of ten.’

‘I thought they all had mobile phones,’ Potting said with a sly grin.

Branson grinned back. It was a standard joke. Mobile phones were strictly forbidden in all prisons – and as a result they were an even more valuable currency than drugs.

‘Yeah, well, luckily for us, this fellow didn’t. Listen to this recording on the prison phone of a call made by Warren Tulley to Ewan Preece’s number.’

He tapped the keypad again, there was a loud crackle, then they heard a brief, hushed conversation, two scuzzy, low-life voices.

‘Ewan, where the fuck are you? You didn’t come back. What’s going on?’

‘Yeah, well, had a bit of a problem, you see.’

‘What kind of fucking problem? You owe me. It’s my money in this deal.’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, keep yer hair on. I just had a bit of an accident. You on the prison phone?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why don’t you use a private?’

‘Coz I ain’t got one, all right?’

‘Fuck. Fuck you. I’m lying low for a bit. All right? Don’t worry about it. I’ll see you right. Now fuck off.’

There was a clank and the call ended.

Branson looked at Roy Grace. ‘That was recorded at 6.25 p.m. last Thursday, the day following the accident. I’ve also checked the timing. Prisoners working on paid resettlement, which is what Preece was doing, are free to leave the prison from 6.30 a.m. and don’t have to be back until 10 p.m. That would have given him ample time to be driving in Portland Road around 9 a.m.’

‘ Lying low ,’ Grace said pensively. ‘You need someone you can trust to lie low.’ He stood up and went over to the whiteboard where Ewan Preece’s family tree was sketched out. Then he turned to Potting. ‘Norman, you know a fair bit about him. Any ideas who he was close to?’

‘I’ll speak to some of the neighbourhood teams, boss.’

‘My guess is, since the van seems to have disappeared in Southwick, that he’ll be there, with either a girlfriend or a relative.’ Grace looked at the names on the whiteboard.

As was typical with the child of a single, low-income parent, Preece had a plethora of half-brothers and sisters as well as stepbrothers and sisters, with many of the names well known to the police.

‘Chief,’ Duncan Crocker said, standing up. ‘I’ve already been doing work on this.’ He went over to the whiteboard. ‘Preece has three sisters. One, Mandy, emigrated to Perth, Australia, with her husband four years ago. The second, Amy, lives in Saltdean. I don’t know where the youngest, Evie, lives, but she and Preece were pretty thick as kids. They got nicked, when Preece was fourteen and she was ten, for breaking into a launderette. She was in his car later when he was done for joyriding. She’d be a good person to look for.’

‘And a real bonus if she just happens to be living in Southwick,’ Grace replied.

‘I know someone who’ll be able to tell us,’ Crocker said. ‘Her probation officer.’

‘What’s she on probation for?’ Branson asked.

‘Handling and receiving,’ Crocker said. ‘For her brother!’

‘Phone the probation officer now,’ Grace instructed.

Crocker went over to the far side of the room to make the call, while they carried on with the briefing. Two minutes later he returned with a big smile on his face.

‘Chief, Evie Preece lives in Southwick!’

Suddenly, from feeling despondent, Grace felt a surge of adrenalin. He thumped the worktop with glee. Yayyy!

‘Good work, Duncan,’ he said. ‘You have the actual address?’

‘Of course! Two hundred and nine Manor Hall Road.’

The rest of this briefing now seemed redundant.

Grace turned to Nick Nicholl. ‘We need a search warrant, PDQ, for two hundred and nine Manor Hall Road, Southwick.’

The DC nodded.

Grace turned back to Branson. ‘OK, let’s get the Local Support Team mobilized and go pay him a visit.’ He looked at his watch. ‘With a bit of luck, if the warrant comes through and we get there fast enough, we’ll be in time to bring him breakfast in bed!’

‘Don’t give him indigestion, chief,’ Norman Potting said.

‘I won’t, Norman,’ Grace replied. ‘I’ll tell them to be really gentle with him. Ask him how he likes his eggs and if we should cut the crusts off his toast. Ewan Preece is the kind of man who brings out the best in me. He brings out my inner Good Samaritan.’

An hour and a half later, Grace and Branson cruised slowly past 209 Manor Hall Road, Southwick. Branson was behind the wheel and Grace studied the house. Curtains were drawn, a good sign that the occupants were not up yet, or at least were inside. Garage door closed. With luck the van would be parked in there.

Grace radioed to the other vehicles in his team, while Branson stopped at their designated meeting point, one block to the south, and turned the car around. The only further intelligence that had come through on Evie Preece was that she was estranged from her common-law husband and apparently lived alone in the house. She was twenty-seven years old and had police markers going back years, for assault, street drinking, possession of stolen goods and handling drugs. She was currently under an ASBO banning her from entering the centre of Brighton for six months. All three of her children, by three different fathers, had been taken into care on the orders of the Social Services. She and her brother were two peas in a pod, Grace thought. They’d no doubt be getting plenty of lip from her when they went in.

‘So, old-timer, tell me, how was the concert last night? What did Cleo think of your sad old git band?’

‘She thought the Eagles were great, actually!’

Branson looked at him quizzically. ‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yeah!’

‘You sure she wasn’t just humouring you?’

‘She said she’d like to see them again. And she bought a CD afterwards.’

Branson tapped his head. ‘You know, love does make people go a bit crazy.’

‘Very funny!’

‘You probably had an old person’s nap in the middle of it. The band probably did too.’

‘You’re so full of shit. You are talking about one of the greatest bands of all time.’

‘And you going to London on Friday night to see Jersey Boys ?’ Glenn said.

‘Are you going to trash them, too?’

‘Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons – they’re all right.’

‘You actually like their music?’

‘Some of it. I don’t think all white music’s rubbish.’

Grace grinned and was about to say something to Glenn, but then he saw in the mirror the dog handler’s marked van pulling up behind them. After another few moments the unmarked white minibus, containing eight members of the Local Support Team, halted alongside them, momentarily blocking the road. Two other marked police cars reported they were now in position at the far end of the street.

Jason Hazzard, the Local Neighbourhood Team Inspector, looked in at them and Grace gave him the thumbs up, mouthing, ‘Rock ’n’ roll.’

Hazzard pulled his visor down and the three vehicles moved forward, accelerating sharply with a sense of urgency now, then braking to a halt outside the house. Everyone bundled out on to the pavement. Thanks to Google Earth they’d had a clear preview of the geography of the place.

Two sets of dog handlers ran up the side to cover the back garden. The members of the Local Support Team, in their blue suits, protective hard plastic knee pads, military-style helmets with visors lowered and heavy-duty black gloves, ran up to the front door. One of them carried a metal cylinder, the size of a large fire extinguisher – the battering ram, known colloquially as the Big Yellow Door Key . Two others, bringing up the rear, carried the back-up hydraulic ram and its power supply, in case the front door was reinforced. Two more stood outside the garage to prevent anyone escaping that way.