Peter James - Dead Man's Grip

‘This is my home. This is our life here. Our friends are here. Tyler’s already lost his dad. Now you want him to lose all his friends? You seriously want me to go into hiding, with my son, tonight? To consider quitting my job? And what if we do move house – and then county? If these people are for real, don’t you think they’re going to be able to find us? I’m going to spend the rest of my life in fear of a knock on the door, or a creak in the house, or the crack of a twig out in the garden?’

‘We’re not forcing you to move out, Carly,’ Bella Moy said. ‘We’re just saying that would be the best option in our view.’

‘If your decision is to stay we will give you protection,’ Glenn Branson said. ‘We’ll provide CCTV and a Close Protection Unit, but it will be for a limited period of two weeks.’

‘Two weeks?’ Carly retorted. ‘Why’s that – because of your budget?’

Branson raised his hands expansively. ‘These are really your best two options.’ Then he picked up the envelope and removed a document from it. ‘I need you to read and sign this, please.’

Carly looked down at it. Seeing it in print sent an even deeper chill swirling through her.

APPENDIX F – SUSSEX POLICE

‘Osman’ Warning

Notice of Threat to Personal Safety

Mrs Carly Chase

37 Hove Park Avenue

Hove

BN3 6LN

East Sussex

Dear Mrs Chase

I am in receipt of the following information, which suggests that your personal safety is now in danger.

I stress that I will not under any circumstances disclose to you the identity of the source of this information and whilst I cannot comment on the reliability or otherwise of the source or the content of this information, I have no reason to disbelieve the account as provided. I am not in receipt of any other information in relation to this matter nor do I have any direct involvement in this case.

I have reason to believe, following the deaths of Ewan Preece, the driver of the van which collided with cyclist Tony Revere, and Stuart Ferguson, driver of the lorry which also collided with Tony Revere, that your own life is in immediate and present danger from revenge killings ordered by person or persons unknown and carried out by person or persons currently unknown.

Although Sussex Police will take what steps it can to minimize the risk, the Police cannot protect you from this threat on a day-by-day, hour-by-hour basis.

I also stress that the passing of this information by me in no way authorizes you to take any action which would place you in contravention of the law (e.g. carrying weapons for defence, assault on others, breaches of public order) and should you be found to be so committing you will be dealt with accordingly.

I therefore suggest that you take such action as you see fit to increase your own safety measures (e.g. house burglar alarms, change of daily routines etc.). It may even be that you decide that it is more appropriate for you to leave the area for the foreseeable future. That is a matter for you to decide.

If you wish to provide me with full details of the address at which you will be resident I will ensure that the necessary surveys can be undertaken by police staff to advise you regarding the above safety measures.

I would also ask that you contact the Police regarding any suspicious incidents associated with this threat.

Signed Detective Superintendent Roy Grace

Time/Date 5.35 p.m. Wednesday 5 May

I… acknowledge that at… hrs on… 20…

the above notice was read out to me by…

of Sussex Police

Signed…

Signed by Officer reading notice to…

Time/Date…

Signed by Officer witnessing reading…

Time/Date…

Carly read it through. When she had finished she looked up at the two officers.

‘Let me understand something. Are you saying that if I don’t agree to move, that’s it, I’m on my own?’

Bella Moy shook her head. ‘No, Carly. As DS Branson explained, we would provide you with a round-the-clock police guard for a period of time – two weeks. And we would put in CCTV surveillance for you. But we cannot guarantee your safety, Carly. We can just do our best.’

‘You want me to sign?’

Bella nodded.

‘This isn’t for me, is it, this signature? It’s to protect your backsides. If I get killed, you can show you did your best – is that about the size of it?’

‘Look, you’re an intelligent person,’ Glenn Branson said. ‘All of us at Sussex Police will do what we can to protect you. But if you don’t want to move away, and I can understand that, and I imagine you don’t want to be locked away in a secure panic room, then what we can do is limited. We’ll have to try to work together.’ He placed his card in front of Carly on a coffee table. ‘Detective Sergeant Moy will be your immediate contact, but feel free to call me twenty-four-seven.’

Carly picked up her pen. ‘Great,’ she said, as she signed it, sick with fear, trying hard to think straight.

Roy Grace lay in bed beside Cleo, tossing and turning, wide awake, totally wired. He’d been at the mortuary until 2 a.m., when the postmortem on the lorry driver was finally completed. At least he’d managed to persuade Cleo to go home early, so she’d left shortly before midnight. He now lived in constant fear that Cleo would have another bleed at any moment. Potentially a life-threatening one, for herself and for their baby.

Nadiuska De Sancha had been unavailable and they’d been saddled with the pedantic Home Office pathologist Dr Frazer Theobald for the post-mortem. But although slow, Theobald was thorough, and he had provided some good, immediate information regarding the unfortunate victim’s death.

The bright blue dial on the clock radio, inches from Grace’s eyes, flicked from 3.58 a.m. to 3.59 a.m., then after what seemed an interminable time to 4.00 a.m.

Shit.

He faced a long, hard day in front of him, during which he would need to be on peak form to manage his expanding inquiry team, to cope with the inevitable quizzing from Peter Rigg and to make important decisions on a revised press strategy. But most importantly of all, the absolute number one priority, he had to safeguard a woman who could be in imminent life-threatening danger.

He looked at the clock radio again: 4.01.

The first streaks of dawn were breaking over the city. But there was a deepening darkness inside him. How the hell could you fully protect someone, short of locking them away in a cell, or walling them up in a panic room? She wasn’t willing to leave her home, which would have been the best option, and he could understand her reasons. But the buck stopped with him to make sure she was safe.

He thought again about the sight of Ewan Preece in the van. And the grisly spectre of Stuart Ferguson on the hook. But it was those cameras he was thinking about most. Particularly the second one.

The transmission range was only a few hundred yards. Which meant that the killer had to have been waiting nearby with a receiving device – almost certainly in a vehicle. Grace could understand it would have been difficult to retrieve the camera in the van, but surely he could have gone back for the second one? The two cameras, waterproof and with night vision, were worth a good thousand pounds each. A lot of money to throw away.

Who was this killer? He was clever, cunning and organized. In all of his career, Grace had never come across anything quite like this.

The filming reminded him of a case he had worked on the previous summer, involving a sick, snuff-movie ring, and it had crossed his mind he could be in the same terrain here, but he doubted it. This was about revenge for Tony Revere’s death. The driver with his lorryload of frozen seafood being executed in the smokery left little room for doubt.