Peter James - Not Dead Enough

‘And she’s now formally identified him?’

‘Yes, this afternoon she came in and carried out an identification procedure. She is absolutely certain it was him.’

‘What clothes does she say Bishop was wearing?’ Grace asked.

‘She says he was in a dark tracksuit – a shell suit of some kind.’

Grace stared at the image of Bishop on the screen. ‘What does anyone think? Could that black blouson jacket and those dark blue chinos be mistaken for a tracksuit?’

Alfonso Zafferone said, ‘It was eight o’clock when she saw Bishop. Old people don’t see dark colours so well, in poor light. I think that blouson jacket could easily be mistaken for a tracksuit top, at that time of day.’

‘Or,’ Guy Batchelor said, ‘Bishop could have pulled on a tracksuit over his clothes, to protect them.’

‘Both good points,’ Grace said. Then he turned his mind back to the time-line. ‘He could have got from Kings Parade to Ms Harrington’s address in ten minutes by taxi.’

Duigan pressed the remote and a second image of Bishop appeared. Now he was down on the seafront itself, with part of the Arches clearly visible in the background, several kayaks on trestles outside the front of one.

Reading on, DC Corbin said, ‘Bishop was sighted again at eight fourteen by a CCTV camera in front of the Arches. The phone mast log indicates Bishop remained static in this area during the next forty-five minutes, and then headed back, west, to his hotel. Two staff members at a seafront bar, Pebbles, have confirmed that he was in their bar from approximately eight twenty to about eight fifty. They said he drank a beer and an espresso and seemed deeply distracted. On several occasions he got up and paced around, then returned and sat down again. They had been concerned he was going to walk off without paying.’

Bella Moy cut in when the DC paused. ‘Roy,’ she said, ‘it almost seems as if he was deliberately trying to get himself noticed.’

‘Yes,’ Grace said. ‘Could be. But equally it’s typical behaviour of someone in a highly agitated state.’

Duigan clicked the remote again. It was darker on the screen now. The image was a rear view of a man who strongly resembled Bishop, in the same place as the earlier photograph, passing along the Arches.

‘At eight fifty-four,’ DC Corbin read on, ‘Bishop was again recorded on the same CCTV camera as at eight fourteen, this time walking in the opposite direction. From the phone mast log we have the information that he headed west again, in the direction of the Lansdowne Place Hotel. A member of the hotel reception staff recalls that Bishop returned to the hotel at approximately nine twenty-five, when she gave him the message that Detective Superintendent Grace had left for him.’ She looked up at Grace. ‘He then rang you at nine thirty.’

‘Yes.’

‘Then he drove up to Sussex House, where Detective Superintendent Grace and DS Branson interviewed him, the interview commencing at ten twenty-two. According to the phone mast plot, Bishop did not leave the hotel until nine forty-nine.’

‘He’d have driven almost past Sophie Harrington’s door on his way from the hotel to here,’ Glenn Branson said.

‘The drive here would have been at least fifteen minutes – I only live half a dozen streets along from the Lansdowne,’ Grace replied. ‘I do the drive every day, at all times of the day and night. It always takes fifteen to twenty minutes. So that would have left him eighteen minutes to kill Sophie Harrington. Impossible, not with what was done to her, all those holes drilled in her back. He couldn’t have done that and cleaned himself up in that time frame.’

‘I agree,’ Duigan said.

‘Which means we have a problem,’ Grace said. ‘Either Bishop didn’t kill Sophie Harrington or he had an accomplice. Or . . .’

He fell silent.

106

Grace went straight from the briefing meeting, past his office, past the mostly empty desks and offices of the detectives’ room and put his head around the door of Brian Cook’s office. He was relieved to see the Scientific Support Branch Manager was still at work.

Cook was on the phone, making what sounded like a private call, but waved him in, cheerily told the person at the other end that he would hold him to that drink and hung up. ‘Roy, has John Pringle contacted you yet about Cleo Morey’s car?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘I put him on it today – told him to report to you.’

‘Thanks, Brian.’ Changing the subject, Grace said, ‘Tell me something, what do you know about the DNA of twins?’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘How close would the DNA of identical twins be?’

‘It would be identical.’

‘Completely?’

‘One hundred percent. The fingerprints would be different, interestingly. But the DNA would be an exact match.’

Grace thanked him and walked along to his own office. He went and closed the door, then sat quietly at his desk for some moments, planning what he was going to say very carefully before he rang the mobile number in front of him.

‘Leighton Lloyd,’ the man answered, his voice crisp and ready for a fight, as if he already knew who his caller was.

‘It’s Detective Superintendent Grace, Mr Lloyd. Can we have this conversation off the record?’

There was some surprise in the solicitor’s tone. ‘Yes. OK. We’re off the record. Do you have some new information?’

‘We have some concerns,’ Grace said, remaining guarded. He still didn’t trust the man. ‘Would you happen to know if your client has a twin?’

‘He hasn’t mentioned anything. Do you want to elaborate on this?’ Lloyd asked.

‘Not at this stage. It might be helpful to all of us if we could establish or eliminate this. Could you ask your client urgently?’

‘It’s after visiting hours. Can you authorize Lewes prison to let me speak to my client on the phone?’

‘Yes, I’ll get that done now.’

‘Would you like me to call you back tonight?’

‘I’d appreciate it.’

As Grace hung up, his phone rang again, almost immediately. ‘Roy Grace,’ he answered. The voice at the other end sounded very serious and pensive.

‘Detective Superintendent, it’s John Pringle. I’m with SOCO and I was asked to look at a fire-damaged MG motor car that was brought into the pound this morning. Brian Cook told me to report my findings to you.’

‘Yes, thank you. He said you’d be calling.’

‘I’ve just completed my examination of the vehicle, sir. Extensive fire damage to the interior has caused some of the wiring to melt, so I cannot give as complete a report as I would have liked.’

‘Understood.’

‘What I can say, sir, is that the fire wasn’t caused by anyone trying to steal the vehicle or by vandalism.’ There was a long silence.

Grace clamped the phone tighter to his ear and hunched over his desk. ‘I’m listening. What did cause it?’

‘The vehicle had been tampered with. Deliberate sabotage without any question. An extra set of fuel injectors had been added and positioned to spray petrol directly into the driver footwell when the ignition was switched on. A wiring loop had been connected from the starter motor so as to send out sparks into the footwell when it activated. Combined with that, although it is hard to be certain, because so much of the wiring has melted, it looks to me as if the wiring of the central door locking had been altered, so that once locked the doors could not be unlocked.’

Grace felt a cold prickle crawl down his spine.

‘This has been done by someone very clever, someone who knew exactly what they were doing. It wasn’t about harming the car, Detective Superintendent. In my view, they were intending to kill the driver.’