Not Dead Enough (35 page)

Some of the windows in here actually opened, but even so, with sunlight beating through the blinds, it was stiflingly hot. Someone made a quip about the Black Hole of Calcutta, while the press officer, flamboyantly but slightly shabbily dressed Dennis Ponds, squeezed his way around the table to join the trio, muttering an excuse for being late.

Ponds started by leaning too closely to the microphone, so that his first words were almost lost in squawk-back. ‘Good morning,’ he said, starting again, his rather unctuous, ingratiating voice clearer this time. ‘This press conference will start with Detective Superintendent Grace running through the investigations into the deaths of Mrs Katherine Bishop and Miss Sophie Harrington. Then Assistant Chief Constable Vosper and Chief Superintendent Brickhill, Divisional Commander of Brighton Police, will talk about the community and the public at large.’ He handed over to Grace with a theatrical sweep of his arm and stepped away.

Flashbulbs strobed for some moments, as Roy Grace outlined the details of the investigation so far. He of course didn’t tell them everything, but kept to the facts on times and events, confirming a lot of information that they already knew. He appealed in respect of both investigations for witnesses to come forward, particularly anyone who knew either woman and had seen her in the last few days. He stated, also, that he was keen to talk to anyone who had seen anything suspicious near either murder scene.

Having concluded all he wanted to say about the murders at this stage, Grace then asked those present if they had any questions.

A female voice, someone at the back whom Grace could not see, shouted out, ‘We understand there is a serial killer at large. Can you reassure us that the people of Brighton and Hove are safe, Detective Superintendent?’

Grace had the usual problem of what to do with his hands, well aware that his body language was as important as what he said. Resisting the temptation to clasp his hands in front him, he dropped them firmly to his sides, and leaned into the microphone. ‘At present there is nothing to indicate that this is a serial killer. But people should take care and be a little more vigilant than usual.’

‘How can you say this isn’t a serial killer, when two women have been murdered within twenty-four hours of each other?’ demanded a squeaky-voiced old stringer for a bunch of provincial papers. ‘Detective Superintendent Grace, can you give an assurance to young women living in Brighton that they are safe?’

A bead of perspiration dropped, stinging, into Grace’s right eye. ‘I think it best now that my colleagues, who are here to talk about community issues, respond to that,’ he said, looking first at Alison Vosper and then at Ken Brickhill.

They nodded and the Chief Superintendent then said, in his no-nonsense voice, ‘No one can ever give a 100 percent guarantee like that in a modern city. But police and local community leaders are doing everything they can, with additional resources, to catch the killer – or killers.’

‘So it might be one person responsible for both killings?’ the reporter persisted.

Evasively, Brickhill replied, ‘If anyone has concerns they should contact the police. Police patrols are going to be increased. Anyone who sees anything suspicious should contact us. We don’t want the public to panic. A lot of resources have been allocated to the investigation and we are doing everything to ensure the citizens of Brighton and Hove are safe.’

Then Kevin Spinella, who was standing a short distance away, at the front of the pack, said, ‘Are you not going to admit, Detective Superintendent, that there is a crazed serial killer at large in Brighton somewhere?’

Grace responded calmly by reiterating the overview from both murder scenes. Then he continued by adding, ‘We are still in the early stages of our investigation, but there would appear to be some similarities between the two cases, yes.’

‘Detective Superintendent, do you have a prime suspect?’ asked a young reporter from the Mid-Sussex Times.

‘We are following a number of lines of inquiry and every day we are getting more information in. We would like to thank the public for all the information they have supplied so far. At this moment our teams are sifting through a large volume of phone calls and we are waiting for forensic results back from the labs. We have detectives working around the clock to identify who is responsible and bring them to justice.’

‘So what you are saying,’ Kevin Spinella said, in a loud, important voice, ‘is that people in Brighton and Hove should lock themselves in their houses and not go out until the killer has been caught.’

‘No,’ Grace retorted, ‘that’s not what we are saying. The police have no idea who or where the killer of either woman is, and all women must be at risk. But that does not mean anyone needs to panic.’ He turned to his chief. ‘I’ll let Assistant Chief Constable Vosper respond to that in more detail.’

If looks could kill, Vosper’s smile would have sliced Grace open and then disembowelled him.

A solidly built earth mother standing near the back called out loudly, ‘Assistant Chief Constable, will you be allowing Detective Superintendent Grace to consult a medium?’

There was a titter of laughter. The woman had touched a raw nerve. Maintaining a poker face, Grace smiled inwardly, watching Alison Vosper’s sudden discomfort and really quite enjoying it. He had been pilloried over a previous case, a few months back, when it had come out in court that he had taken a shoe, a key piece of evidence in a murder trial, to a medium. The press had had a field day. And so had Vosper – with him.

‘It is not normal practice for the police to follow such a line of inquiry,’ she replied sharply. ‘That said, we listen to anyone who can provide us with information, and then assess how it may progress the investigation.’

‘So you don’t rule it out?’ the reporter persisted.

‘I think I’ve already given you my answer.’ Then she looked around the room. ‘Any more questions?’

At the end of the conference, as Grace was leaving, Alison Vosper collared him and they stepped into a vacant office.

‘We’ve got the whole eyes of the city on us, Roy. If you are planning to go and see any of your psychics, please discuss it with me first.’

‘I don’t have any plans, not at this stage.’

‘Good!’ she said, with the gusto of someone praising a puppy for urinating in the right place. For a moment he thought she was going to pat him on the head and give him a biscuit.

75

Half an hour later, Grace stood in the cramped changing room at the mortuary, fumbling with the tapes on the green gown, then stepping into a pair of white gumboots. As he did so a very hung-over, gowned-up Cleo popped her head around the door and gave him a look he could not read.

‘Sorry about last night!’ she said. ‘Didn’t mean to pass out on you, honest!’

He smiled back. ‘Do you always get that wrecked when you go out with your sister?’

‘She’s just been dumped by her dickhead boyfriend and wanted to get smashed. It seemed rude not to join her.’

‘Quite. How are you feeling?’

‘Only marginally better than Sophie Harrington looks. I had the roundabouts earlier!’

‘Coca-Cola, full strength – the best thing,’ he said.

‘I’ve already drunk two cans.’ She again gave him a look he could not read. ‘I don’t think I asked you how Germany went. Did you find your wife? Have a cosy reunion?’

‘You did ask, about five times.’

She looked astonished. ‘And you told me?’

‘How about we have a meal tonight and I’ll give you the full low down.’

She looked hard at him again and, for a sudden, panicky moment, he thought she was going to tell him to get lost. Then she gave him a thin smile – but with no warmth. ‘Come over to me. I’ll cook something very simple and non-alcoholic. Comfort food. I think we need to talk.’

‘I’ll come over as soon as I can after the evening briefing.’ He took a step towards her and gave her a quick kiss.

At first she pulled away sharply. ‘I’m very hurt and I’m very angry with you, Roy.’

‘I like it when you are angry,’ he said.

Suddenly she melted a little. ‘Bastard,’ she said and grinned.

He gave her another quick kiss, which turned into a longer kiss. Their gowns rustled as they held each other tighter, Grace keeping one eye on the door in case anyone came in.

Then Cleo broke away and looked down at herself, grinning again. ‘We’re not meant to be doing this. I’m still angry with you. Turns you on, this gear, does it?’

‘Even more than black silk underwear!’

‘Better get back in and do some work, Detective Superintendent. A centre-spread in the Argus that you got caught shagging in the mortuary changing room wouldn’t be the best thing for your image.’

He followed her down the tiled corridor, his mind a maelstrom of thoughts, about Cleo, about Sandy and about work. The press had given them a rough ride this morning and he could understand where they were coming from. One murder of an attractive young woman could be an isolated incident, something personal. Two could put a city, or an entire county, into a state of panic. If the press got hold of the information on the gas mask there would be a feeding frenzy.

He hadn’t released the information that Sophie Harrington had made a call to Brian Bishop, the prime suspect in Katie Bishop’s murder. And that Brian Bishop, behind his veneer of respectability as a successful businessman, respected citizen of Brighton and Hove, golf club committee member and charity benefactor, whose equally outwardly respectable Rotarian wife had been having an affair, had a deeply unpleasant criminal record.

At the age of fifteen, according to the information on the PNC – the Police National Computer database – Bishop had been sentenced to two years in a young offenders’ institute for raping a fourteen-year-old girl at his school. Then, at the age of twenty-one, he was given two years’ probation for violently assaulting a woman, causing her grievous bodily harm.

It seemed that the deeper his team dug into Bishop’s life, the stronger the evidence against the man was becoming. Earlier today Alison Vosper had talked about his alibi in London being the elephant in the room. But there was another elephant in the same room at this moment. And that was Bishop’s vehement denial of any knowledge of the insurance policy taken out on his wife’s life. Because he appeared to be telling the truth about that, and that was bothering Grace.

Still, it was equally clear that Brian Bishop was a sharp operator. Not many people achieved his level of financial success by being a nice guy, in Grace’s view – something now borne out by the man’s ugly, violent past. And he knew he shouldn’t read too much into Bishop’s ignorance – or feigned ignorance – of the life insurance policy.

The complexities were starting to hurt his brain. He wanted to go somewhere and sit in a quiet, dark corner and run through every element of the Bishop and Harrington cases. The SOCO team would be in the Bishops’ house for a good few days yet, and Grace was glad about that. He wanted the man to be uncomfortable, out of his natural habitat. In a hotel room, like a caged animal, he would be insecure and therefore would respond better to questioning.

They were definitely stacking up material against Bishop, but it was too early to arrest the man. If they did that, they could only keep him inside for twenty-four hours – with an extension of a further twelve hours – without charging him. There wasn’t enough hard evidence yet, and although the man’s alibi wasn’t watertight, there was enough room for doubt. Two independent witnesses to say he had been in London either side of the time of the murder, against one Automatic Number Plate Recognition camera, which said he hadn’t. There had been far too many cases of villains using copied number plates – particularly these days, to avoid speeding fines from cameras; a clever brief could easily sow doubt in a jury’s mind about whether this number plate was real or a fake.

He was also very interested in the artist that Katie Bishop had been seeing. At this point the man was a potential suspect, for sure.

Deep in thought, he entered the stark, bright glare of the post-mortem room. Sophie Harrington’s body was obscured from his view, crowded by green-gowned figures peering intently, like students in a classroom, as Nadiuska De Sancha pointed out something.

In the room, in addition to the pathologist, Cleo and Darren, were DCI Duigan and the lean figure of the Coroner’s Officer, Ronnie Pearson, a retired police officer in his early fifties.

Grace walked over to the pathologist’s side, and experienced the same uncomfortable surprise he got every time he saw a cadaver in here or anywhere else. They always looked almost ethereal, the skin of Caucasians – except for burnt or badly decomposed victims – a ghostly alabaster colour. It was as if the process of death made them appear in black and white, while everything around them remained in colour.

Sophie Harrington had been turned over on to her stomach. Nadiuska was pointing her latex-gloved finger at dozens of tiny dark crimson holes on the dead woman’s back. It was like a tattoo all the way down her torso, covering much of the skin.

‘Can you all read what it spells out?’ she asked.

As he looked closer, all Grace could see at first was an indecipherable pattern.

‘I would say, from the neatness and consistency of the holes, that it has been done with something like a power drill,’ the pathologist continued.

‘While the victim was alive?’ DI Murphy asked. ‘Or after she was dead?’

‘I would say post-mortem,’ Nadiuska responded, leaning over and peering closely at a section of the dead woman’s back. ‘These are deep holes and there’s very little bleeding. Her heart wasn’t pumping when they were made.’

Some small mercy for the poor woman, Grace thought. Then, like suddenly being able to read the hidden writing inside a visual puzzle, he could see the words clearly, now.

Because You Love Her.

76

The grumpy cleaning woman left Cleo Morey’s house just after twelve thirty. The Time Billionaire made a note of this, from behind the wheel of his Toyota Prius. It was good timing, just minutes before his parking voucher expired. As she stomped off up the hill, talking angrily into her mobile phone, he wondered if she had spent the whole of the last three and a half hours on the phone. He was sure Cleo Morey would be interested to know what she was getting for the money she paid this woman. Although of course that wasn’t really his business.