Peter James - Dead Like You

Quite apart from the trauma to these poor victims, Roy Grace was feeling a different kind of trauma of his own, from the pressure to solve this and make an arrest. To compound matters, the head crime reporter of the Argus, Kevin Spinella, had now left three messages on his mobile phone asking him to call back urgently. Grace knew if he wanted the cooperation of his main local paper in this inquiry, rather than just a sensational headline in tomorrow’s edition, he was going to have to manage Spinella carefully. That would mean giving him an exclusive extra titbit to the information he would release at the midday press conference – and at the moment he didn’t have anything for the man. At least, nothing he wanted the public to know.

He gave the reporter a quick call back and got connected straight through to his voicemail. He left Spinella a message asking him to come to his office ten minutes before the press conference. He’d think of something for him.

And one day soon he was going to think of a suitable trap. Someone inside the police regularly leaked information to Spinella. The same person, Grace was sure, who had leaked every major crime story this past year to the sharp young crime reporter within minutes of the police being called to the scene. It had to be someone in either the Call Handling Centre or the IT department who had access to the minute-by-minute updated serials. It could be a detective, but he doubted that, because the leaked information was on every serious crime, and no one detective got early information on anything other than his own cases.

The only positive was that Kevin Spinella was savvy, a newspaper reporter with whom the police could do business. So far they had been lucky, but one day he might not be there, and a lot of damage could be done by someone less cooperative in his shoes.

‘Bloody Albion – what is going on with them?’ Michael Foreman strutted in, smartly suited as ever, with gleaming black Oxford shoes.

In the early stages of an inquiry, most detectives wore suits because they never knew when they might have to rush out to interview someone – particularly close relatives of a major crime victim, to whom they needed to show respect. Some, like Foreman, dressed sharply all the time.

‘That second goal!’ DC Nick Nicholl, who was normally quietly spoken, was talking animatedly, shaking his balled fists in the air. ‘Like, what was all that about? Hello!’

‘Yeah, well, Chelsea’s my team,’ said the HOLMES analyst, John Black. ‘Gave up on the Albion a long time ago. The day they left the Goldstone Ground.’

‘But when they move – the new stadium – that’ll be something, right!’ Michael Foreman said. ‘Give them a chance to settle into that – they’ll get their pride back.’

‘Gay Pride, that’s all they’re good for,’ grumbled Norman Potting, who shambled in last, shaking his head, reeking of pipe smoke.

He sat down heavily in a chair opposite Grace. ‘Sorry I’m late, Roy. Women! I tell you, I’ve had it. I’m not getting married again. That’s it. Four and out!’

‘Half the female population of the UK will be very relieved to hear that,’ Bella Moy murmured, loudly enough for everyone to hear.

Ignoring her, Potting stared gloomily at Grace. ‘You know that chat we had before Christmas, Roy?’

Grace nodded, not wanting to be distracted by the latest in the long saga of disasters of the Detective Sergeant’s love life.

‘I’d appreciate a bit more of your wisdom – some time over the next week or so, if that’s all right with you, Roy. When you’ve got a minute.’

When I’ve got a minute I want to spend it sleeping, Grace thought wearily. But he nodded at Potting and said, ‘Sure, Norman.’ Despite the fact that the DS frequently irritated him, he felt sorry for the man. Potting had remained in the force long past the age when he could have taken his pension, because, Grace suspected, his work was all he had in life that gave him purpose.

The last to enter the room was Dr Julius Proudfoot, a tan-leather man bag slung from his shoulder. The forensic psychologist – as behavioural analysts were now called – had worked on a large number of high-profile cases during the past two decades, including the original Shoe Man case. For the past decade he had been enjoying minor media celebrity status, and the spoils of a lucrative publishing deal. His four autobiographical books, charting his career to date, boasted of his achievements in playing a crucial role in bringing many of the UK’s worst criminals to justice.

A number of senior police officers had privately said the books should be on the fiction rather than non-fiction shelves in the bookshops. They believed he had wrongly taken the credit in several cases where he had actually only played a bit part – and then not always successfully.

Grace did not disagree, but felt that because of Proudfoot’s earlier involvement in the Shoe Man case, Operation Houdini, the man could bring something to the table on Operation Swordfish. The psychologist had aged in the twelve years since they had last met, and put on a considerable amount of weight, he thought, as he introduced him to his team members. Then he turned to his agenda.

‘First, I want to thank you all for giving up your weekends. Second, I’m pleased to report that we have no issues from the Crime Policy and Review Branch. They are satisfied to date with all aspects of our investigation.’ He looked down quickly at his agenda. ‘OK, it is 8.30 a.m., Monday 12 January. This is our sixth briefing of Operation Swordfish, the investigation into the stranger rape of two persons, Mrs Nicola Taylor and Mrs Roxy Pearce, and maybe now a third victim, Miss Mandy Thorpe.’

He pointed to one of the whiteboards, on which were stuck detailed descriptions of the three women. To protect their privacy, Grace chose not to display their photographs openly, which he felt would be disrespectful. Instead he said, ‘Victim photographs are available for who those who need them.’

Proudfoot raised a hand and wiggled his pudgy fingers. ‘Excuse me, Roy, why do you say maybe now a third victim? I don’t think there’s much doubt about Mandy Thorpe, from what I have on this.’

Grace looked across to the workstation where Proudfoot was seated.

‘The MO is significantly different,’ Roy Grace replied. ‘But I’ll come on to that a bit later, if that’s OK – it’s on the agenda.’

Proudfoot opened and closed his tiny rosebud lips a couple of times, fixing his beady eyes on the Detective Superintendent and looking disgruntled at being put back in his box.

Grace continued. ‘First, I want to review our progress to date into the rape of Nicola Taylor on New Year’s Eve, and of Roxy Pearce, last Thursday. We have six hundred and nineteen possible suspects at this moment. That number is made up of the staff of the Metro-pole Hotel and guests staying there that night, plus partygoers at the hotel on New Year’s Eve, including, as we know, several senior police officers. We also have names phoned in by the public, some directly to us, some through Crimestoppers. The suspects for the moment include all registered sex offenders in the Brighton and Hove area. And two different perverts who have been making nuisance calls to Brighton shoe shops, who have now been identified through phone records by the Outside Inquiry Team.’

He sipped some coffee.

‘One suspect on this list is particularly interesting. A local repeat burglar and small-time drugs dealer, Darren Spicer. I should think he’s known to a number of you here.’

‘That piece of shit!’ Norman Potting said. ‘I nicked him twenty years ago. Did a series of burglaries around Shirley Drive and Woodland Drive.’

‘He has one hundred and seventy-three previous,’ the Analyst, Ellen Zoratti, said. ‘A regular charmer. He’s out on licence after indecently assaulting a woman in a house in Hill Brow that he broke into. He tried to snog her.’