Stop them dead, p.9
Stop Them Dead, page 9
‘It was dark as I said. Maybe a Range Rover, maybe a pickup – I’m not very good on cars.’
‘One more thing, Mrs Ruddle,’ Grace asked. ‘Had your puppies been microchipped?’
She nodded. ‘Last week – I took them to the vet.’
‘Game over!’ the voice on the sofa said.
Sharon Ruddle stood up, weeping. ‘I’d better get the children fed and bathed.’
Grace and Branson shot each other a glance, then also stood up – Grace just in time to catch her arm as she stumbled.
24
Thursday 25 March
Sunset wasn’t for another hour, but as Branson and Grace headed back from Old Homestead Farm towards the Police HQ at Lewes, beneath a tombstone sky and through an onslaught of pelting rain, it already felt pretty much like night.
Grace was upset by the grief Sharon Ruddle was suffering. The grief of victims always got to him, more so since he was still grieving Bruno. The darkness outside deepened his gloom, but he could feel the heat of anger burning away inside him. The anger he felt whenever some innocent person had been murdered for no other reason than pure greed, as seemed to be the case here. And he remembered the words of an old Icelandic detective he’d met some years ago when he and Sandy had been on a trip there to a conference. It had been November and even at midday it had felt like dusk. Sandy had asked the old guy how he coped with the lack of sunlight for so many months and he’d replied, ‘If you have a light inside you, everything is bright.’
‘Bummer, isn’t it?’ Branson, who was driving, sensed his mood.
‘Bummer,’ Grace repeated, almost absently, as he thought about the evening briefing ahead, and how he was going to handle the press conference arranged for tomorrow with the ACC. ‘Can you do me a favour, mate? Take over from me on Saturday afternoon – Cleo and I are going to see a puppy. You can have Sunday off – would that work?’
‘Sure.’ Then he added, ‘From a legit source, I presume?’
Grace gave him a smile. ‘Cleo’s sister told us about them and has done some pretty thorough research; the breeders look very genuine, a nice set-up. But to be honest, Cleo and I would prefer to get a rescue, and with what we’re seeing with this case, it makes me more certain a rescue would be better. We’re just going to take a look at them, it’s all good research for this investigation anyhow. I’m interested to see how it’s done.’
‘Yeah, I hear you, but be careful. Not many people just go and look at cute puppies and walk away!’
‘I know, no doubt they’ll suck us in. But we’ll try to be strong.’
Branson shot him a sideways look, grinning.
‘What?’
‘Strong – not when you see a cute little puppy, no way!’
Grace shrugged. ‘We’ve waited over a year since we first thought about a buddy for Humphrey, so we can wait a bit longer for the right dog. As I say, if nothing else it’ll be in our interests to hopefully meet a good breeder, someone who does it for all the right reasons. And a nice drive about with a purpose!’
‘Fair enough,’ Branson said. ‘God, I feel so sorry for Sharon Ruddle. I mean, like, what is that poor woman’s future? She and her husband bought that farm as their dream, away from all the shit of city life, and they had so many plans for it. Now it’s just her and the old farmhand to run it. And at some point she’s going to have to explain to her kids why their daddy’s never coming home again.’
‘All because of the greed of a bunch of scumbags,’ Grace said.
‘Let me ask you something.’
‘Go on,’ Grace said.
‘You know when you first joined the police – why did you join? Because your dad had been a copper, or for some other reason?’
He thought for some moments, before replying, watching the wipers clouting away the water, which blurred the screen almost instantly again. ‘I had a lot of conversations with my dad when he was dying of cancer in the Martlets hospice. We’d never really talked much before. I asked him why he’d become a police officer and he told me it was because he’d wanted to do a job that would make a difference to people – to the world, I guess.’ He fell silent for a short while. ‘I suppose that made me think, you know, about why we are here. About what life is all about.’
‘And you figured it out, right? You figured what life is all about?’
As Grace stared through the windscreen, now blurred even more by the spray of a lorry in front, and at the lights of oncoming vehicles, he said quietly, ‘Maybe.’
‘Maybe?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘You going to share it with me?’
‘It’s a little bit left-field.’
‘I do left-field.’
‘Probably why I like you.’
‘And not because I’m highly intelligent, handsome, charming and always have your back?’
‘Maybe that too. Because mediocrity recognizes nothing higher than itself, it takes talent to appreciate genius!’
Branson shook his head, grinning. ‘I agree, Mr Modesty!’
Grace glanced at his watch: 5.55 p.m. They would be at the headquarters in ten minutes.
‘I asked if you’d figured out life, like what life is about? As left-field as you like.’
Roy Grace shrugged. ‘OK. This is what I think – what I really think sometimes. You know those Escape Room places you can go and play games?’
Branson nodded. ‘Yeah, Siobhan’s friends, Dem and Jenn, had an Escape Room party. We all got locked in this room down on the seafront and we had to figure out a bunch of clues to get out.’
‘Exactly,’ Grace replied.
Branson shot him a glance. ‘Meaning?’
‘You know I’m not a religious believer. But sometimes, when I try to make sense of existence, I wonder if God – or whatever we want to call Him or Her – didn’t create life for us humans as a giant Escape Room. If you can figure out how to live forever, you win; if you die, you lose. So far, in the two hundred and fifty thousand years that humans have been on this planet, there’s not been one winner.’
Branson shook his head. ‘Seriously? That’s what you believe?’
‘Look at all these tech billionaires, like Musk and Bezos, all throwing their money at life extension. I read somewhere recently that scientists reckon the first person to live to 200 has already been born.’
‘And that’s what you’d like – to live forever?’
‘I’d like to live long enough to see forensics develop to the point where we can solve every murder. Where we can lock up people like the ones who’ve just destroyed Sharon Ruddle’s life and left her children without a father, within days. If I have a dream, that’s it. Do you have a dream?’
Branson looked wistful. ‘Not a dream – just an aspiration.’ He drove on in silence.
‘Tell me?’
‘Sammy and Remi think I’m a better person than I really am.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m constantly trying to improve myself, in order to cushion their eventual disappointment.’
Grace smiled. He hadn’t seen Glenn’s kids in a while. Then he patted his friend’s leg. ‘I think you’re succeeding. Don’t ever stop trying.’
‘Yeah,’ Branson said, and fell silent again.
25
Thursday 25 March
Aerial footage from a drone camera was playing on the wall-mounted monitor in the conference room, at the evening briefing. It was moving across the Old Homestead Farm and environs, over the ramshackle outbuildings and the fields of cows and sheep. Next to the monitor was a small-scale Ordnance Survey map, pinned to a whiteboard, showing the farm’s perimeter marked in red, and the surrounding five-mile radius. The minor roads on the map were highlighted in blue, and the only major road in orange.
Jack Alexander, standing close but out of the way so everyone in the evening briefing could see both clearly, mirrored what the drone was showing with the beam of his laser pen on the map. He indicated the two neighbouring farms, the local villages of Twineham, Bolney and Handcross and the minor and major roads, including the A23 London–Brighton main artery. Two ANPR cameras sited on this section of the road, one northbound, the other southbound, were marked on the map with green crosses.
‘We don’t know where the offenders came from, nor which roads they took after they left Old Homestead Farm,’ Jack said. ‘Earlier today I put in a request to the ANPR team to run a check for any vehicles travelling in close proximity to each other between the hours of 12.30 and 2.30 this morning, and they’ve come up with something that may be of interest.’ He pointed the laser beam at the green cross on the A23.
‘At approximately 1.10 a.m. – tallying with our time frame – two vehicles were clocked on this northbound camera. One was the registration plate of a 2011 Range Rover and the other, following no more than a hundred yards behind, was the plate of a 2014 Ford Ranger pickup. These same two vehicles were clocked at 1.55 a.m. on the southbound camera at almost the same location on the A23. And again, they were clocked at 2.24 a.m. on the A22 road away from Eastbourne. There were no further sightings of them.’
‘Good work, Jack,’ Grace said. ‘So if these are the offenders’ vehicles – and it is only an if – it indicates their destination might have been somewhere in East Sussex.’
‘There’s more, sir,’ Jack added. ‘The Range Rover has been identified as belonging to a retired Sussex Police officer, Andy Batten.’
Grace frowned. ‘What? Andy? I remember him when I was a DC – he was on the Antiques Squad a very long time ago – he’s been retired for years.’
Alexander nodded. ‘We’ve eliminated him, sir – his Range Rover has been in a garage at Forest Row, with its engine out, since Tuesday of this week.’
‘Cloned plates?’ Nick Nicholl questioned.
‘Looks like it, Nick,’ Jack replied.
‘Well, I’ll be doggone!’ Norman Potting quipped.
There were a few grins and a couple of head shakes.
‘And the Ford Ranger, Jack?’ Grace asked.
‘We have the same thing – it belongs to a builder called Neil Wakeling, who we’ve confirmed is currently at his holiday home in Como, Italy, with his wife.’
Alexander turned to another, larger-scale OS map on another whiteboard to his right. Almost the entire area of the map was encircled in red. ‘I extended the time to 4 a.m. for the ANPR team. If the offenders were heading any further east or north, there is at least one camera they would have almost certainly pinged in either direction, so in my view this puts them within this radius.’ He tracked the red circle with his pen beam.
‘That’s a pretty big area, Jack,’ Grace said.
‘It is, sir – approximately six hundred square miles.’
‘Grid it out,’ Grace said. ‘And continue with the drone search – see if we can find a pairing of these two vehicles anywhere within that area.’
‘I’ve already started, sir, and will continue at first light tomorrow.’
‘Good work.’ Grace turned to the Rural Crimes Sergeant, Tom Cartwright. ‘Do you have any intel of crime around dogs in that area?’ He pointed at the large-scale map.
Cartwright looked like the kind of man who was more at home in the country than in a city. Burly and rugged, in his late thirties, he had an amiable face framed with an unruly mop of dark brown hair. He nodded. ‘I do, sir. In case none of the team are familiar with Operation Rake, it’s the Sussex Police dedicated response to dog theft and illegal dog breeding, which I am currently running.’
‘I think most members of the team here are aware of it to some degree, Tom,’ Grace said and looked around. There were several nods of confirmation.
Continuing, Cartwright said, ‘Among the dogs currently most valuable to thieves are French bulldogs – the breed stolen from Old Homestead Farm earlier today. We have seven reported incidents across the county in the past two months of dog owners being physically assaulted and their dogs – all popular breeds or cross-breeds – taken. The most recent of which was in Hove Park this morning, when a woman’s dog was taken, although I understand the lady has now been reunited with her dog.’ He looked at Grace for confirmation.
The Detective Superintendent nodded. ‘I spoke to this lady earlier this afternoon, Mrs Sara Gurner. Her dog is a labradoodle and their established mix of poodle and Labrador has become very popular. She acquired it as a rescue from the Brighton RSPCA.’
Cartwright looked pensive. ‘Was this lady certain her dog was stolen, and not simply found wandering on a street by someone?’
‘From speaking to her, I’m pretty certain it was stolen, Tom,’ Grace replied. ‘She told me the man who snatched him knew she was calling after him and definitely intended to take the dog.’
‘In which case it might have been discarded subsequently, when the thieves realized it wasn’t what they wanted. Maybe they were after a pure-bred poodle to use as a stud – it does have strong poodle characteristics. Those might fetch more money.’ He looked again at the large-scale map on the whiteboard.
‘Those of you familiar with Operation Rake will already be aware of the raid on a caravan in a car park in Eastbourne, a week ago. It contained forty-three puppies, dehydrated and starving, many of them diseased, which we believe came through the Eurotunnel. Four of them have subsequently died from parvovirus, but I’m informed that thanks to the fast work of the RSPCA the rest are doing well. Some are at the Dogs Trust kennels in Shoreham and some temporarily rehomed with foster parent families. From the intel we have, we believe these puppies were illegally imported from Europe.’
‘By whom, Tom?’ DC Nick Nicholl asked.
‘It’s my suspicion this caravan is linked to Polegate and Hailsham, where there is known criminal activity, and which is within that radius on your larger-scale map.’
The Sergeant continued, ‘We’ve recently secured poaching convictions on two men residing in a smallholding in Hailsham. They were arrested in possession of an air rifle with a scope, hunting knives, catapults and ball bearings, along with several dead pheasants. My officers conducting the searches reported they heard a lot of barking coming from a number of buildings at the location – indicating a very large quantity of dogs, way beyond what would be normal for domestic pets. I reported their observation to the Sussex RSPCA. Subsequently, the inspector we’ve been working with, Kirsty Withnall, attempted to visit but was refused access. She has so far been unable to provide grounds for a search warrant.’
‘What grounds would she need?’ Velvet Wilde asked.
Cartwright replied, ‘Evidence either that they are trading in dogs without a licence, or that the animals are being kept in substandard conditions. Past activity at this location includes theft of agricultural machinery, trade in stolen auto parts, as well as various other scams. The weather forecast for tomorrow is clear, and I’ve requested drone surveillance. It will be carried out at high altitude, so they won’t be aware they’re being filmed. I’m going to be watching the footage in real time with Kirsty Withnall to see if it is linked to our investigation.’
‘Thanks, Tom,’ Grace said. ‘Anything else to add context for those not up to speed?’
‘Yes, a little,’ Cartwright replied. ‘Breeders are resorting to every trick in the book to fool buyers into thinking they’re buying properly cared-for, vaccinated dogs with Kennel Club approved breeder certificates.’ He paused to let this sink in.
‘The reality is,’ he continued, ‘that many of these dogs are either illegal imports or bred in appalling conditions, and being sold with all kinds of exaggerated features, diseases and health issues. They are often dirty and malnourished. A lot of people who are conned into buying them suffer their dogs dying, or horrific vet bills – often running into the thousands – and just as often find themselves with animals that have not been socialized and will forever be problem dogs. I only have ten officers and six PCSOs and it’s an impossible task to follow up every complaint we get.’
‘Where do all these dogs come from, Tom?’ Grace asked. ‘You said some are illegal imports from Europe, and some from rogue breeders here.’
Cartwright nodded. ‘Some are stolen – as already mentioned, we’ve had a number of reports of dog walkers being mugged. And there has been an explosion of unscrupulous breeders in Wales, for some reason, mostly around the Carmarthen region. Over half the police forces in England have less than two officers dedicated to rural crime, and when they do make arrests, the sentences are a joke. Conspiracy to smuggle or trade illegally is the only offence that carries a punitive jail term – and it’s a hard one to prove.’
‘Tom,’ EJ asked. ‘What do you think is likely to happen to the dogs taken from Old Homestead Farm?’
‘From what we know, the puppies will be advertised for sale on the popular sites like Facebook, Gumtree and Pets4Homes. The adult male and female will be retained for breeding – they could produce two more litters in the next twelve months.’
‘So we should be closely monitoring these sites over the next few days for any French bulldog puppies coming up for sale, Tom?’ Grace asked.
‘Definitely worth keeping an eye on them – I can give you a full list of all the popular sites – but the problem is these are selling dogs right across the UK, it will be quite a major resourcing task, sir, and will require the Authorizing Officer’s authority.’
Grace made a note.
‘I’m right that these puppies had all been microchipped?’ Cartwright asked.
‘Mrs Ruddle said they had – last week,’ Glenn Branson replied.
‘That’s possibly helpful,’ the Rural Crimes Sergeant said and turned to Grace. ‘You could put out a request to all vets to scan the chip of any French bulldog puppy brought in for the first time. But, as we know, the professionals in the game – and it sounds like these people are – have the kit to put in a second chip above the original – and the scanner may only pick up the top one.’
