Stop them dead, p.30
Stop Them Dead, page 30
The drone was high enough to be invisible in the hazy sky to anyone on the ground and pretty much out of earshot.
‘OK,’ Grace said. ‘It would appear that the series of outbuildings to the west of the farmhouse are the kennels.’
‘Stalag Luft Seven,’ Norman Potting said. ‘That’s what they look like – Nazi concentration camp buildings.’
‘Probably what it feels like for the poor dogs inside,’ E-J Boutwood said.
Acknowledging this with a nod, Grace said, ‘We believe, from the fragments recovered at the scene, that a Range Rover and a Ford Ranger pickup were the vehicles the offenders used in their raid on Old Homestead Farm, in which Tim Ruddle died. So far, from our trawl of spare parts suppliers, nothing has been ordered for either of these two particular models. I don’t think the offenders would be stupid enough to drive around in damaged vehicles – although we have got lucky in the past.’
‘Never underestimate the power of human stupidity,’ Potting said.
‘Quite,’ Grace replied.
‘You think the vehicles might be hidden, sir?’ Jack Alexander asked.
‘I think it’s a strong possibility, Jack, yes.’ Then he said, ‘Hello, who are you?’
All eyes focused on a male figure emerging from the front door of the farmhouse.
Grace issued an instruction over his radio and instantly the drone zoomed in tight on a muscular but pot-bellied, shaven-headed man, shirtless, in tracksuit bottoms, striding across the yard to one of the concrete outbuildings. There was something angry about the way he walked. There were some people, Grace knew, who were just born angry and never changed. Their anger got them what they wanted in life, but it also, eventually, did for them.
‘Well, well, that definitely looks like my old buddy, Terry Jim,’ Potting said.
‘Tell me about your past dealings with him,’ Grace said.
The DS nodded. ‘Yeah, evicted him from a travellers’ site at Beddingham, must be twenty years ago. He was small time, back then, stealing Ford Transits, dismantling them and selling the parts as spares in pubs around Sussex. Then one of his sons, Dallas, got into drugs – proper into the drugs trade – and bingo.’ He raised a hand in the air and rubbed his forefinger and thumb together. ‘Payola, big time. Terry had the rule of the roost for some years, until the Albanians started queering his pitch. Ended up owning farms as a way of laundering the cash. Looks like the lifestyle suits him judging by his size! I’d enjoy having a cosy reunion with him.’
‘Maybe we can arrange it,’ Grace smiled. On his instruction, the camera zoomed back out.
‘I’m sure Terry Jim talks highly of you, too, Norman,’ Polly Sweeney said.
Several of the team laughed. Then they almost instantly focused on a man who emerged from an outlying building and began walking over to the farmyard. He was followed by two more, and then a fourth.
One, the first to appear, walking with a slight limp, looked solidly overweight. The others were slighter built.
‘What have they all been doing in that building?’ Grace asked.
‘Having a crafty fag?’ Potting replied.
‘It was four people who carried out the attack on the Ruddles’ farm,’ Jack Alexander said. ‘These four?’
‘Twenty guesses for what might be in that building,’ Polly Sweeney said. ‘Two vehicles? A Range Rover and a Ford Ranger?’
‘Terry’s smart,’ Potting said. ‘He wouldn’t have the vehicles on his premises. They’ll be somewhere else.’
Focused on the screen, Grace radioed the drone operator, asking her to zoom in tight on each of the men in turn. As she complied, he captured and saved the videos on his computer terminal.
The men walked for several minutes across the farmland and headed over to the front door of the farmhouse. Grace could see the door was opened by Terry Jim, who must have returned there in the past few minutes, he thought. Jim ushered all four of them inside.
He would have given anything, at this moment, to have been a fly on the wall inside that house. Then, focusing on the computer screen, he sent each of the videos via WhatsApp to the Forensic Gait Analyst, Haydn Kelly, asking him to take a look at them and call him as soon as he had. Moments later his phone rang. It was Tom Cartwright.
‘Sir,’ the Rural Crimes Sergeant said. ‘I have some significant news to report – it looks very likely we have a case of rabies here in Sussex, a family called Fairfax in Hove.’
89
Tuesday 30 March
Chris Fairfax walked away from the modern, single-storey complex of buildings housing the Airpets quarantine centre, near Heathrow Airport, with a heavy heart despite knowing it was the right decision. All he could see was Moose’s baleful look, her eyes such deep wells of sadness. Eyes that said, ‘I trusted you, I gave you unconditional love and now you’ve put me in this concrete and steel prison for four months. That’s two years in dog time. Thanks a lot, pal.’ But at least the lady who was taking charge of her, Charlotte Seaman, seemed genuinely caring.
Climbing into his car, he pulled the door shut and called Katy.
‘I’m just leaving the quarantine centre now. Moose is fine, honestly, and four months will whizz by.’
‘OK, sure,’ she replied sadly.
‘How is Bluebell?’
Her voice was bleak. ‘No change.’
‘I guess that’s a positive,’ he said, trying to sound upbeat. ‘Any more news on her diagnosis?’
‘Dr Shah said he’s still waiting for the results from London. They should be back sometime this evening or tomorrow morning. He – he said – that will tell us one way or the other – for sure. Shit, Chris. I keep googling rabies on my phone. It’s – it’s – just – the most horrible—’
‘Katy, darling, we’ve got to hope that it’s not. There’s other things it could be.’
There was a long silence before Katy replied, with a catch in her voice. ‘I had a long talk with Dr Shah and – and . . .’ She fell silent. Then he could hear her sobbing. And what sounded like her hyperventilating.
‘What – what, Katy, darling?’
He heard the catch in her voice as she tried to get the words out. But all he could hear again for some moments was sobbing. He waited, patiently and with anxiety, an icy chill of mounting terror spiralling through him. ‘What did he say, Katy?’ he prompted gently.
‘He – he – he – oh God.’ She sobbed again. ‘You know he said they might consider transferring her to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London – well they now say she may be too weak for that.’
‘What? Too weak to survive the journey?’
‘He said we need to prepare for the worst,’ she blurted. Then, sounding calm, she continued. ‘That Bluebell is going to die.’
‘No way,’ he replied. ‘That is not going to happen, don’t go there.’
‘If she has full-on developed rabies, Chris, she is going to die. It’s not survivable.’
‘Darling, hang on. That’s not completely true.’
‘Bluebell is going to die. She’s going to die. Don’t be in denial. Our daughter is going to die, and all because she wanted a puppy and we were stupid enough to agree to buy her one.’
‘Look, my love, we know what’s happened is nobody’s fault. But she is not going to die. She won’t die.’
‘Dr Shah knows all about rabies, he’s seen it in his home country. He’s seen many patients infected by rabid dogs and other animals and tried to treat them. Oh God, Chris, I can’t – I can’t—’ she sobbed again. It sounded to him as if she was crying her heart out.
Trying to keep composed, he reassured her. ‘I’m on my way. I’m heading off now, and I’ll be there as soon as I can, but it’s going to take me a while with the rush-hour traffic. I love you.’
He waited for a reply but all he could hear was the continued and increasingly hysterical sobbing.
Ending the call, he sat still for some moments. Twenty unvaccinated people in all of recorded medical history had apparently survived rabies. OK, so how had they done that?’
He opened Google and typed in Rabies survivors. And seconds later found a documentary on YouTube that transfixed him.
Fifteen minutes later he was still watching it, riveted to his phone screen, when Katy rang.
‘Where are you?’
‘Literally just about to leave,’ he said. ‘I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’
‘Please come soon, I need you.’
Ending the call, his heart torn to shreds, he focused back on the documentary. As soon as it had ended, he started the engine and drove as fast as the traffic would allow back towards Brighton, a spark of hope ignited inside him. A tiny spark.
90
Tuesday 30 March
After what felt like an even longer day than usual, Roy Grace decided, for once, to heed the advice Glenn Branson had given him when Noah had been born. Which was to make sure, as much as was possible, that he didn’t let work make him miss the magic of his kids growing up.
He left the office soon after the evening briefing had ended and now, at just 6.45 p.m., drove his Alfa slowly up the cart track towards home. Thanks to the clocks having gone forward it was still daylight, but there was a swirl of darkness inside him.
Rabies.
A seven-year-old girl. He didn’t have all the details yet but he’d left a message for the family to contact him. He did, however, already have enough to be worried about, to look around the countryside with different eyes, as he drove between the hedgerow on his left and the rail-and-post fence on his right. A rabbit darted urgently across in front of him. Despite having always been a townie prior to moving here, he’d never regretted it for a single moment, and he knew Cleo didn’t either. It always felt like an oasis away from the grimness of both their jobs. Was it now going to be sullied by the threat of rabies lurking anywhere and everywhere?
He’d called her before he left work, telling her he hoped Noah and Molly might still be up, and she had teased him saying they might have a surprise for him. Despite his concerns about the disease, he smiled in anticipation as he rounded the final bend, wondering just what that surprise might be, as the gorgeous, ramshackle exterior of the remote cottage he loved so much came into view and he could see the intense pink and crimson colours of the tulips that Cleo had recently planted in the front garden glowing in the falling dusk. Then his job phone rang.
Answering on the hands-free, he said, ‘Roy Grace.’ And heard DS Taylor’s voice.
‘The Gecko has landed.’
‘Number 18?’
‘Number 18, sir,’ the surveillance officer said. ‘Touching reunion with his missus on the doorstep – proper lovebirds.’
‘Brilliant, Mark. What vehicle did he arrive in?’
‘A white Ford Transit panel van, marked up with AP Builders insignia. I’ve run the registration through the PNC – it’s taxed and insured and owned by a company called Yelbourne Holdings.’
‘Yelbourne Holdings?’ Grace said, thinking for a moment. ‘That’s the same company the van Gecko was seen driving in Goldstone Crescent was registered to – but then it was liveried as Jason Plunkett Pumps and Drains, which also did not exist.’ He was suddenly feeling the excitement he always got when they were closing in on a suspect. The thrill of the chase, the adrenaline rush that was one of the parts of his job he loved so much. ‘Do you have anything on AP Builders, Mark?’
‘From a quick Google search, there are only two companies with that name in the British Isles, sir,’ Taylor said. ‘One in Newcastle and one in the Channel Isles.’
‘Ask Vanessa Blackmore to contact them both and check they don’t have a van currently in Brighton,’ Grace said. Although he was pretty certain of the answer. ‘I need you to keep eyes on the house all night, and then follow Gecko when he leaves.’
‘I have a full team ready around the clock, sir. I’ll update you when the target is next on the move.’
Thanking him, Roy Grace pulled up behind Cleo’s Kia Sportage. As he climbed out of his Alfa, he heard a strange sound and stopped to listen for a moment. A cacophony of vaguely musical noise was coming from the cottage. Reaching the front door, the sound was momentarily drowned out by Humphrey’s barking.
Then, going inside, fending off Humphrey jumping up at him, and stroking him at the same time, his heart gave a flip of joy as he saw the source of the din.
Noah, in his dinosaur pyjamas, squatting on the carpeted floor, was strumming his peppermint-coloured ukulele which he held flat across his knees, while singing a song about a little, little cow. He was accompanied by sixteen-month-old Molly, in her Peter Rabbit Babygro, crouched intently over a xylophone, running a plastic spatula back and forth across the coloured keys as if it was the most important task in the world.
Cleo, on the edge of the sofa, was watching them proudly.
‘Whey-heyyyyy!’ Grace clapped loudly.
Noah looked up at him. ‘Would you like another song, Daddy?’
‘I would! What are you going to play?’
‘Ummm.’
‘I think it’s bath time, then maybe Daddy will read you a story!’ Cleo interrupted, seeing how shattered Roy looked.
He winked at her gratefully.
‘Awwww!’ Noah said. ‘One more song?’
‘Tomorrow, darling,’ she said, scooping him in her arms and carrying him upstairs. Grace kneeled and looked quizzically at Molly. ‘Going to play for Daddy?’
‘Addy! she said and ran the spatula along the keys. ‘Addy!’
And as he watched her, his heart almost bursting with love for this tiny, gorgeous creature, all his worries about work just fell away. He and his former wife, Sandy, had never been able to have children – at least so they’d thought for many years. During all that time he’d never been able to fully comprehend the gooey-eyed adoration friends and colleagues had for their offspring. The same adoration he had now, the knowledge that he would do anything for Noah and Molly. Absolutely anything. He would take a bullet for either of them without a second’s hesitation. He often felt sad when he reflected that he never had this time with Bruno.
He reached out a hand and ran his fingernail along the xylophone keys, and Molly giggled. He did it again and she giggled even louder.
Then his job phone rang again.
Part of him was tempted to ignore it, he was loving this moment too much to want it to end. He glanced at the display. Caller unknown. He answered it, thinking it was probably Taylor again. And heard the voice of the Forensic Gait Analyst, Haydn Kelly, sounding even more tired than Grace was feeling.
‘Hi, Roy, sorry to be so long getting back to you, I’m in South Korea.’
‘What time is it with you?’ Grace asked.
‘2.50 a.m.’ Then Kelly momentarily put on a cod East End accent. ‘But don’t worry, me old China – good old jet lag eh! Has its benefits – as I can’t sleep, I’ve been taking a look at the drone videos you sent and running them through my software. You got some good hi-res images, sixty frames per second as I asked. And some directly from above, of four men, without parallax distortion. I’ve gone for the low-hanging fruit first – the large guy with the limp. There’s a match with one of the impressions I took at the Old Homestead Farm crime scene, no question.’
‘You’re certain, Haydn? You’d say this in court?’
‘One hundred per cent.’
Back in 1993, Haydn Kelly had secured the world’s first ever conviction based on forensic gait analysis. Since then his technology, viewed with suspicion by many criminal justice systems around the world which eschewed modern technology, had played a significant part in putting a number of offenders behind bars. Two of the recent murders Grace had investigated had resulted in successful prosecution and conviction of the offenders, in no small part thanks to Kelly. Which was why he took him so seriously.
Kelly’s forensic gait evidence, linking the man with the limp to Tim Ruddle’s murder and to Appletree Farm, would be sufficient to get him the crucial search warrants he needed for raids on both Appletree and Long Acre farms.
‘You’re brilliant!’ Grace said.
‘Yeah, I know,’ Haydn Kelly replied, and after a second added, ‘Me old China.’
91
Tuesday 30 March
It felt to Chris Fairfax, alone in his car in the falling darkness, smarting with anger at Terry Jim, his nose hurting like hell, and desperately worried about Bluebell, that everything was against them. The stop–go of the M25 had not eased after he had turned south onto the M23 Merstham interchange, thanks to a broken-down lorry, and then a five-vehicle accident a few miles on.
It was approaching 7.15 p.m. when he finally reached the car park at the rear of the hospital, and climbed, stiffly, out of the Audi. Then he broke into a run along the labyrinth of corridors, dutifully tugging on a face mask, ignored the lift and negotiated the staircase. Confused by the array of signs, he asked an orderly, wheeling an elderly, white-haired woman on a trolley, for directions. He followed them along another maze of corridors, until he finally reached the locked door of the Intensive Care Unit and rang the bell.
A few moments later he was led through to the curtained-off bay by a friendly but harassed-looking nurse. Bluebell, eyes shut, looked more like she was in a spaceship than a hospital bed. She was surrounded by technology – dials, gauges, LED graphs, electrodes taped on her head, chest, arms and legs, and cannulated. She looked terrifyingly pale beneath a forest of drip lines and stands. The colour of death, he thought, with a sudden shiver. The only signs that she was still alive came from the occasional twitch or shudder from her body, or moan from her dry lips, and the jigging, spiking, flickering readouts on the dials and gauges on the racks of monitoring equipment on the wall beside her. She barely looked like his daughter. It was as if she was a shell, an empty vessel, and the real Bluebell was somewhere else. Only the pale plastic tag around her wrist confirmed it was her.
