Peter James - Not Dead Enough

‘I have pieced together the movements of Brian Bishop during the afternoon and evening of Friday 4 August from information supplied to me by family liaison officer WPC Buckley, from a Hove Streamline taxi driver, Mr Mark Tuckwell, from CCTV footage obtained from Brighton Police Monitoring, as well as from civilian sources, Bishop’s mobile phone call records and from a plot of mobile phone cell masts, provided by British Telecom, indicating the geographical movements of Bishop’s phone.’

She stopped, blushing and perspiring heavily. Grace felt sorry for her. Being a good detective did not mean you were necessarily a confident public speaker. She turned back a page in her notes, as if checking something, then continued, ‘Of interest to Operation Chameleon will be the report that there was no activity from Bishop’s mobile phone from eleven twenty p.m. on Thursday 3 August until six thirty-six a.m. on Friday 4 August.’

‘Can we extrapolate from the information whether it was because Bishop didn’t move during that time period, or, if he did, he had left the phone behind, or that it was switched off?’ Grace asked.

‘I understand that if a phone is on stand-by or in use, it exchanges constant signals with the nearest base station – basically it talks to it, telling the base station where it is. There were a series of signals received from Bishop’s phone from masts sited in London, indicating he was travelling from Piccadilly back to Notting Hill, from approximately eleven to eleven fifteen that night. The last signal was at eleven twenty, from a base station at a mast in Bayswater, west London, close to Notting Hill. The next signals were exchanged at six thirty-six a.m., from the same base station, sir.’

Although that fitted with the times given by Phil Taylor for when Bishop left the Wolseley restaurant, it wasn’t helpful information, Grace realized. Bishop could have turned the phone off, so that his journey to Brighton and back in the middle of the night wouldn’t be plotted on the phone masts; and he could easily argue that he’d switched it off in order to get a night’s sleep without being disturbed. But it was what DC Corbin said next that made him sit up.

‘The movements of Bishop’s phone during Friday 4 August, up until six forty-five p.m., correspond with his story, and what we ourselves know. They show he came straight down from London to the North Brighton Golf Club, and from there he travelled directly to Sussex House. They also plot his journey from here to the Hotel du Vin. Then it appears he switched off his phone between twelve twenty-eight and two seventeen. This coincides with a period of time in which he was reported missing from the Hotel du Vin by WPC Buckley.’

She paused, looking around the silent room. Everyone was watching her, concentrating hard, with notes being taken. Grace gave her a smile of encouragement. She ploughed on.

‘During this same time period, Bishop was sighted on three CCTV cameras. One at the junction of Dukes Lane and Ship Street, just up the road from the Hotel du Vin, one opposite St Peter’s Church in the London Road, and one on Kings Parade, opposite Brighton Pier. The reason he gave for his absence was that he went out for some air.’

‘Seems a bit odd to me,’ Norman Potting said, ‘that both times Bishop does a disappearing act, he switches his phone off.’

Grace nodded, thinking, then signalled for her to continue.

‘From two seventeen until six forty-seven on Friday 4 August, the phone signals remained static, indicating that Bishop stayed in his hotel room. This is consistent with family liaison officer WPC Linda Buckley’s report that Bishop returned to the hotel at around two twenty and was in his room each time she checked up on him, using the house phone, the last time being at six forty-five. Then the phone plot shows that Bishop moved one and a half miles west, which tallies with information obtained by DC Pamela Buckley from taxi driver Mark Tuckwell, who claims he drove Bishop to the Lansdowne Place Hotel at that time. I understand that Hove Streamline Taxis have confirmed this from their log.’ She looked at the female detective constable.

‘Yes, that is correct,’ Pamela Buckley said.

Corbin turned to the next page. ‘Bishop checked into the Lansdowne Place Hotel at five past seven – just over three hours after a member of the hotel reception staff received a phone call from an unidentified male making a reservation for a room for several nights, in Bishop’s name,’ she read.

Grace quickly turned back through his own notes. ‘Bishop claimed that he received a call from a CID officer informing him that he was being moved to a different hotel and that a taxi had been arranged to collect him, from a back entrance. This was so he could leave the hotel without being seen by the press, who were staking the hotel out. He gave the name of this officer as DS Canning – but we have checked and there is no officer called Canning in the Sussex police force.’

‘And is it correct, Adrienne, that there’s no record of any phone call to the Lansdowne Place Hotel being made on Bishop’s mobile phone?’ DCI Duigan asked.

‘That is correct, sir.’ Then she added, ‘The Hotel du Vin have also confirmed that there were no calls made by any of their internal phones to the Lansdowne Place during the time Bishop was there.’

‘When he was out!’ Norman Potting said suddenly, excitedly. ‘When he went on his lunchtime walkabout, he could have bought one of them pay-as-you-go phones and disposed of it later. He could have bought it specifically to make those calls – and others we might not know about.’

‘An interesting thought,’ Grace conceded. ‘A good point, Norman.’

‘The Lansdowne Place Hotel is closer to Sophie Harrington’s home than the Hotel du Vin,’ Duigan said. ‘That might be significant.’

‘I’d like to add one more thought here,’ Grace said. ‘It’s possible that Bishop had an accomplice helping him with his alibi for the night of Mrs Bishop’s murder. The same accomplice could have been responsible for this switch of hotels.’

DCI Duigan said, ‘Roy, we can see the attraction for an accomplice with the murder of Mrs Bishop and the substantial life-insurance policy. Do we have any grounds yet for believing there would have been an accomplice for Bishop in the murder of Sophie Harrington?’

‘No. But it’s early days.’

Duigan nodded and noted something down.

Adrienne Corbin continued with her time-line report. ‘Bishop was observed by staff leaving the hotel at approximately seven thirty. His phone mast plot shows that he then headed west. This was confirmed by a sighting of him on a CCTV camera at the junction of West Street and Kings Parade at five to eight.’

Grace stared at her in shock, for a moment thinking he had misheard. ‘Bishop headed away from the Lansdowne Place Hotel, back in the direction of the Hotel du Vin? A completely different direction from the one he would have had to take to get to Sophie Harrington’s home?’ he grilled her.

‘Yes, sir,’ she replied.

Duigan then stood up and switched on the video monitor. ‘I think everyone should see these,’ he said.

The first showed a colour image of Brian Bishop in Kings Parade, with several people behind him and a bus passing. There was no mistaking his face. He was wearing the clothes Grace remembered from when he interviewed him later that same night – a black blouson jacket over a white shirt and blue trousers. And the sticking plaster on his right hand.

‘What time did your witness reckon she saw Bishop outside Sophie Harrington’s house?’ Grace asked.

Duigan replied, ‘Eight o’clock almost exactly. She knew because a television programme she wanted to watch was just starting.’