Stop them dead, p.2
Stop Them Dead, page 2
‘Old Homestead Farm, Balcombe?’ He pulled over.
‘Do you know the location?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll give you the What3Words location.’ She read them out.
Eldhos repeated them, pulling his phone from his chest cradle and tapping the words into the app. Instantly the location came to life on a map. ‘OK, got it, I’m about five miles away.’
‘Please attend, Grade One. I’ll have backup for you but they are twenty minutes away.’
‘En route now.’ He entered an approximate address into the car’s satnav system. He hadn’t yet completed the pursuit driving course, but he held an amber ticket, which qualified him to drive to a scene on blue lights and siren. Excitedly, for only the third time since getting this permit, he leaned forward and punched a button on the dash-mounted control panel. Instantly, shards of blue strobed the dark country road around him. As he accelerated away hard, he debated whether to switch on the siren. Would it scare off the intruders? Would he have a better chance of catching them if he approached silently?
That was his decision, he realized, feeling apprehensive suddenly and wishing he had an experienced officer beside him. He decided against the siren. The countdown to the location reduced rapidly. Four minutes. Three. Two. Headlamps flared ahead of him then passed. The ANPR – Automatic Number Plate Recognition – cameras readout on his dash display gave the registration but did not indicate anything wrong with the BMW saloon. It was the same with a second vehicle, a Mazda, a few seconds later.
One minute.
He slowed right down, peering out at the narrow country lane. Again, he wished for a crewmate who could shine a torch. Shortly ahead he saw a small, tatty sign.
OLD HOMESTEAD FARM.
He turned into the driveway, a potholed cart track.
4
Thursday 25 March
Molly Elizabeth Margaret Grace was nearly sixteen months old and so far, unlike her three-and-a-half-year-old brother Noah, she was generally a good sleeper. Cleo breast-fed her last thing at night, and she would normally sleep through until 5 a.m., only very occasionally waking during the intervening hours.
Except tonight, when they were both woken repeatedly by her crying. Their deal was that Cleo got up for Molly, who slept in a cot in their bedroom, and Roy for Noah, who was in his bedroom along the landing of their cottage. And this week it hadn’t been such a great deal for Roy, who had been woken by the sound of Noah crying, on the monitor by his bed, twice during each night. Which entailed him getting up and heading through the cold air into Noah’s room, holding his hand and soothing him until he was asleep again.
It seemed only moments had passed since he’d drowsed off, after getting up for the second time for his son at 2.30 a.m., when the ringtone of his job phone snapped him awake again. He reached out a hand and answered quietly and groggily. ‘Roy Grace.’
To his dismay he heard the voice of one of his least favourite police officers, Andy Panicking Anakin, who made every incident sound like an Armageddon-category emergency. Anakin had recently been moved to the role of Detective Inspector for West Sussex Division. A classic example, in Grace’s view, of the Peter principle, which states that sooner or later, in every hierarchy, people get promoted to the level of their incompetence.
‘Roy!’ he shrieked. ‘We have an incident. Do you need a few minutes to wake up?’
‘I’m fine, I’m awake.’
As Head of Crime for the Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace had a team of four Senior Investigating Officers and a further four Deputy SIOs to deal with the average of twenty-four murders each year across the two counties. If needed during a particularly busy period, he had a further pool of four SIOs currently deployed in other areas that he could draft in. But he liked to remain hands-on, which was why, once every six weeks, he did a spell as the on-call SIO himself – which he was for this week.
From long experience in this role, he knew he was unlikely to get through many nights during these on-call weeks when his job phone did not ring. But mostly it would be something he could deal with without leaving home – last night it had been a case of the Duty DI at Brighton police station needing guidance on handling a death that had all the hallmarks of a tragic suicide.
‘Hold a sec, Andy,’ he said, slipping out of bed and, holding the phone to his ear, walked over to the ensuite bathroom, closed the door behind him and switched on the light. ‘Tell me?’
As he listened to Anakin relate the still sketchy details of the unfolding story, he felt the familiar rush of adrenaline. It was the same that all SIOs he’d ever talked to got, when they had to drop everything. The buzz. But tainted with the knowledge that their best days at work would all too often be the worst day of someone’s life.
All need of sleep forgotten, he told the DI he would be there in about an hour. Five minutes later, dressed and ready, he hurried down into the kitchen to make himself a quick double espresso and checked on his laptop for the log of the call handler who had answered the 999 call. He requested the call to be downloaded right away so he could listen to both the caller and the handler, to get chapter and verse of the situation.
Sipping the hot coffee, he pulled up Google Earth and had a quick look at the location and the topography. As soon as he had done that he gave the Control Room a series of urgent actions relating to resourcing, cordoning off roads and vehicle stop-checks. Then he called his colleague – and close friend – Glenn Branson.
The DI answered, clearly as sleepy as Grace had felt five minutes ago. ‘What’s up? You suffering from insomnia?’
‘Yep, thought I’d share it with you.’
‘You’re all heart.’
‘Meet me in the car park of The Plough at Pyecombe in twenty minutes.’
‘We going somewhere nice?’
‘We’re going farming.’
‘Arable or dairy?’
5
Thursday 25 March
‘So, how’s life as a country bumpkin this week then with your herd of hens?’ Glenn Branson said, driving the unmarked Mondeo. They were heading north on the A23 shortly after 3.50 a.m.
‘It’s a brood of hens,’ Roy Grace corrected him. ‘Best eggs ever,’ he added.
The DI kept just under the 70 mph speed limit, wipers clouting away the fine drizzle, the headlights picking out the road ahead. The satnav indicated to take the slip road coming up.
‘Now listen,’ Grace continued. ‘I had an update yesterday from Alison Vosper, she said our old friend Cassian Pewe’s trial should be coming up at the Old Bailey sometime this summer. She also tried to tap me up again to join her in the Met as a Commander, but I like what we’re doing too much.’
‘Perhaps at last Pewe will get what he deserves,’ Branson replied.
‘He’ll never get what he deserves, but anything will be a bonus,’ Grace said with a trace of bitterness.
They bantered in between the constant calls Grace was making to the 24/7 intel team, to check all traffic movement in the surrounding area through the National ANPR Service – NAS – and to alert the media team of a potential major crime investigation. Additionally, he made sure Hannah Robinson, the ACC, was updated so she wouldn’t hear the news as a surprise from another source.
‘What’s going to be next, Farmer Roy? Pigs, geese, horses?’
‘A dog.’
‘Really? A baby and another dog? You’re a glutton for punishment.’
‘We know what we’re up against! Anyhow, we already have Humphrey so one more won’t make much difference. It’ll be good for Noah to have a younger dog that he can help train – a dog of his own. We want the kids being brought up comfortable with animals, and Humphrey will love a playmate – help keep him young and all that.’ Humphrey was Cleo’s rescue six-year-old Labrador cross – and Roy Grace’s regular early morning jogging companion.
‘Getting another rescue?’
‘That’s what we are thinking. Maybe some type of spaniel.’
‘They’re gun dogs, aren’t they?’ Branson grinned. ‘See, you’re getting all rural, all hunting, shooting, fishing. Get you!’
‘They have a nice nature,’ Grace replied. ‘They’re very gentle dogs.’
‘Unless you happen to be a pheasant.’
Grace did not respond for some moments, he was concentrating on the task in hand as they headed along a twisting country lane, their destination just two miles away now. Then he turned to Branson and said, ‘Why are you smiling so much at this hour of the morning?’
After Glenn’s long on–off engagement to Siobhan Sheldrake, a reporter on the local newspaper, the Argus, and with all their plans for a big local wedding with Grace as best man put on hold, in the end the couple had jetted off to Las Vegas over Christmas and married on a whim in a wedding chapel there.
‘I’m living the dream, Roy! No, seriously, I do wake up happy these days. I try to be grateful and enjoy my life, we both know how life can be turned in a flash. We have a lot to be thankful for, right? Do you feel that, even after Bruno’s death? It must be hard some days when everyone else has moved on and you still feel sad.’
‘Yeah, it is hard, he’s forever there in my thoughts. I’m not sure you ever get over the death of a child. Hey, I’m glad to hear you are enjoying life though, you deserve it,’ Grace replied. And he was genuinely glad for this big-hearted and brilliant detective who had in recent years become his closest friend.
‘I keep meaning to ask, have you done anything about that last text message to Bruno – do you know who sent it or if it’s of any significance?’
‘No, there was no subscriber to that number and I haven’t bothered to follow it up, just doesn’t seem any point.’
The satnav announced they would arrive at their destination in half a mile. Both detectives fell silent, and Roy Grace wondered if Glenn Branson was feeling the same niggling apprehension he always felt approaching a crime scene. About what you were going to find and the responsibility of making all the right decisions once you got there. Making the most of the so-called Golden Hour. That crucial time period for securing evidence, gathering witnesses, and sometimes sealing off as wide an area as you could justify with roadblocks. But along with advice from colleagues he’d already ruled out the latter, after studying a map of the area around the reported crime scene and calculating the time.
The 999 call from the farmer’s wife had been logged at 1.27 a.m. It was now coming up to 4 a.m. The suspects could be anywhere by now, and besides they had only sketchy descriptions of them, and equally of their vehicles, possibly a Ford Ranger pickup and an old model Range Rover with possibly a J and a 2 in its registration plate.
Fortunately, the drizzle was subsiding, not turning into pelting rain – the enemy of forensics, as it reduced the chance of getting identifiable footprints and washed away hair and clothing fibres. The forty-something-year-old male victim had been certified dead by a First Responder at 2.15 a.m.
As Glenn turned into an adjacent field next to the sign for Old Homestead Farm, which was designated a holding area for police vehicles, to avoid them driving over the offenders’ tracks and risking destroying evidence, Grace was thinking about his next wave of priority actions. He was already satisfied enough from Anakin’s report that he had a murder enquiry on his hands and had arranged for calls to be made to the key members of his team to assemble at the Major Crime Team conference room at 8 a.m. ready for the 8.30 a.m. briefing.
They pulled out the protective white suits and wormed their way into them, pulling up the hoods, then pushed their feet into the overshoes and each grabbed a torch and approached the farmyard on foot along the common-approach path that the Crime Scene Manager had established. Beyond them there was a line of blue and white crime scene tape across the track, with a uniformed police officer, on duty as scene guard, standing steadfast in front, accompanied by a very young officer.
The scene guard, PC Dave Simmons, who Roy knew, walked towards them, holding a clipboard. ‘Hello, gentlemen,’ he said breezily.
Roy Grace remembered from his own experience in his early days as a uniformed probationer that guarding a crime scene was sometimes one of the shittiest jobs you could land. Especially in winter, at night, in the rain, although at least the rain had stopped. Hours of unremitting boredom, but from the broad smile on his face this officer wasn’t showing it.
‘What do you have?’ Grace asked.
‘This officer was first on scene here,’ Simmons replied. The two detectives turned towards him.
‘I’m a Response officer, PC Eldhos Matthew. When I saw the victim, I immediately asked for a tarpaulin, as large as possible, which I laid over him to preserve as much of the scene as I could, then I instructed everyone who has come subsequently to walk in one single line to and from the body.’
‘Nice work,’ Grace said.
The young officer said, ‘You are Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, Head of Major Crime?’
‘I am, yes.’
‘Not the right time, I know, but I would love one day to serve under you. I’m applying to be a detective. If there is ever a chance to work with your team, please think of me. I would work very hard for you and I think you’d find me potentially a good detective, sir.’
Grace smiled, impressed by the young man. ‘I will, you seem to have initiative.’ He mentally noted the ID on his uniform.
‘Oh yes, sir, thank you. I promise you I have initiative.’
‘So what exactly did you find?’
‘It’s nasty, sir. A husband and wife, Timothy and Sharon Ruddle, are the farmers. From what Mrs Ruddle told me, they were woken at around 1.15 a.m. by the sound of their dogs barking – they had five French bulldog puppies, all sold and waiting for another week before going to their new owners – and saw two vehicles and a bunch of strangers in the farmyard apparently trying to steal the puppies and the parent dogs. Mr Ruddle went down to confront them, along with their farmhand, Norris Denning.
‘When I arrived, I saw a man – Mr Ruddle – lying in the farmyard in a Barbour jacket, bleeding from his mouth, nose and midriff, with his wife kneeling beside him, in a hysterical state. Mr Denning was on the phone to the ambulance service, receiving directions on CPR, but from the gentleman’s injuries I was pretty sure he was dead. This was confirmed by the medic who arrived ahead of the ambulance. That was when I asked Mr Denning for a tarpaulin to protect the victim and area around him as much as possible from the weather.’
‘Good,’ Grace said, again impressed. Not every officer who was first on the scene of a murder had such presence of mind. ‘Eldhos Matthew?’ he said, checking.
He nodded. ‘Yes, sir. I’m waiting to take my detective’s exams.’
‘When you’ve passed, let me know, OK?’
Eldhos beamed with delight. ‘I will, sir, Detective Superintendent. I will absolutely!’
‘So, who is here?’
‘This is the outer cordon, sir. I thought I should protect as big an area as possible. There is the second cordon two hundred yards up the track. At the present time there is DI Anakin, my supervisor, a second scene guard and two CSIs, with more due to arrive shortly. I should tell you, sir, that DI Anakin was not impressed I would not let him drive up to the scene. And that I had to remind him to put on a forensic suit.’
It was the duty of the first police officer at the location of a murder to protect that scene. They were empowered to let no one through, not even the Chief Constable, without wearing protective clothing – both to avoid contaminating the area and to restrict the number of people. Grace grinned at the thought of this spirited young officer standing his ground with Anakin. ‘Excellent!’ he said. ‘Is the paramedic still here?’
‘No, sir, he was called away to an RTC.’
Two minutes later, they were greeted in the shadowy darkness by the identically clad figure of Anakin. ‘It’s not looking good, boss, not good at all.’
Deaths generally didn’t look good, Grace thought, but didn’t say. Instead he asked, ‘Tell me what we have?’
6
Thursday 25 March
‘I don’t know how to put it, Mr Fairfax,’ the meek sixty-seven-year-old man said in a small voice, and blushed. He sat on his chair, hunched, like a dormouse in a human frame, the solicitor thought.
‘I’m a family lawyer,’ Chris Fairfax replied. ‘You can tell me anything.’ And he meant it. There was nothing, absolutely nothing he hadn’t heard, in his office at Fairfax Law in Brighton’s Ship Street, a wedding ring’s throw from the seafront. All the things that demented people say about their partners, often little more than annoying habits which corroded and ultimately destroyed their relationships. And the acts of bitterness that followed – fights over child custody being among the worst. Heartbreaks over adoptions that didn’t work out. Harsh pre-nups leaving one of the loving couple in tears. Bitterness and greed over wills. As Chris had once remarked wryly to his wife, ‘Where there’s a will there’s a lawyer.’
‘I heard Graham Norton on the radio – I like his show,’ Noel Dudley said, and wrung his bony hands. ‘Last Saturday he commented that he would prefer to live alone than with someone who folded the towels the wrong way. That’s what Deirdre does. She folds them the wrong blooming way!’ He held his clenched fists in the air, his eyes gleaming with an almost messianic fervour – and rage. Real rage.
The forty-year-old solicitor was neatly suited, lean and tall, with a shock of dark curly hair and round tortoiseshell glasses. A good listener, he exuded empathy, with a warm smile that made all his clients feel that he cared about them – which he genuinely did. He was still youthful enough not to have become jaded by the endless procession of people that came through the door of his family legal practice, which he and his wife, Katy, had established nine years ago as joint partners, to share the private details of their family with them.
Although it was only a couple of nights ago, over a glass of wine with their evening meal, after a particularly grim day, he’d complained to Katy that not many clients ever came to them because they were happy.
