Nemesis

(Inkerman and Lawson Book 4)

A Novel by

Michael Rolls

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Dedicated to the memory of my dear wife

Veronica Rolls

15th April 1943 to 23rd January 2018

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Contents

Chapter One 3rd March. .. .... .... ..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ... ..... .... ... .... ..... ... .... .... ..... .... .... .... .... ....2

Chapter Two 4th March.. .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... .... .... .... .... ..........5

Chapter Three 7th March. .. .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... .... .... .... . ... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ....10

Chapter Four 8th March. ..... .... .... .... .... .... . ... .... .... .... .... .... ... . .... .... .... .... .... ..... ... .... .... ..... .... .... ..17

Chapter Five 9th March. .. .... .... .... ... . .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... . ... .... .... .... .. .. .... .... .... ... . .... .... .... .... 23

Chapter Six 10th March. ... .... .... .... ..... .... .... .... ..... .... . .. .... ..... .... .... . .. ..... .... .... .... .. .. .... .... .... .... ...29

Chapter Seven 11th March. .. .... .... .... ..... .... .... .... .. .. .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ... . .... .... .... .... .... .... ..... ....38

Chapter Eight 12th March... .... .... .... .... ..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ........49

Chapter Nine 13th March. ..... .... .... ... ..... .... .... ..... .... .... .... ..... . .. .... .... .. .. .... .... .. .. .... .... .. .. .... .... ...59

Chapter Ten 14th March... .... .... .... .... ..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ......65

Chapter Eleven 15th March... .... .... .... .... ..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... .... .... .... .... .... ................73

Chapter Twelve 17th March. ..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... .... .... ..... .... .... .... ..... .... .... .... ..... .... .... .... 80

Chapter Thirteen – 18th March. .. .... .... .... .... .. .. .... .... .... ..... .. . .... .... . ... .... ... . .... .... . ... .... ... . .... .... .89

Chapter Fourteen – 19th March.. .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... ...............92

Epilogue. .... .... . ... .... .. .. .... ... . .... .... .... .... . .. .... ... . .... .... .... .... . ... .... .. .. .... ... . .... .... .... .... . .. .... ...97

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Chapter One 3rd March

Detective Chief Superintendent Harold Inkerman looked at his watch and decided that it was time to call it a day. It was Monday, the third of March , two thousand and fourteen, his fifty-fifth birthday. Only a few months earlier, it had been the day that he had expected to retire, but with the CID of Surrey police in something of a state of flux, he had been asked by the Chief Constable, the newly promoted George Bannerman, to extend his service by twelve months to allow time for the revised organisation to settle down a bit. After some soul searching, and discussing the idea at length with his wife Chrissie, Inkerman had finally agreed to do as the Chief asked. He turned off the light and made his way to the car park where his newly acquired indulgence – a classic Mk II Jaguar in shining scarlet paint, scathingly (but affectionately) described by Chrissie as earmarking him as an aging Inspector Morse wannabe – sat waiting for him.

He drove the short distance home and was pleasantly surprised to see an extra car in the drive. A Citroen Grand Picasso, it was the family transport for his son Ian, his wife Fiona and their three year old, Harry, already alternatively the apple of his parents’ and grandparents’ collective eyes, and a tiny devil incarnate when the mood took him.

Inkerman carefully drove the Jaguar past the Picasso and into the garage, where it resided next to the Range Rover which was the ‘serious’ transport for Chrissie and himself. Locking the Jaguar’s doors, he gave the vehicle an affectionate pat on the bonnet and closed the garage doors on it.

He crossed to the front door and was in the process of putting his key in the lock when the door was flung open to reveal Chrissie, Ian and Fiona, all with champagne flutes in their hands with Ian offering a second one towards him. As he reached out to take it to a chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’, Harry launched himself at his grandfather’s legs, yelling an excited welcome at the top of his not inconsiderable volume.

Inkerman happily let his family lead him into the house, carefully disentangling Harry’s little arms from round his legs as they did so.

It was a happy family evening, made all the more so by Fiona announcing that she was pregnant again and that she and Ian were fondly looking forward to a sister for Harry in late July.

Back at divisional HQ, Detective Chief Inspector Jane Lawson was also on the verge of packing up for the day. Wearily, she pushed her chair back from her desk and started to rise, but as she did so, the phone rang.

She slumped back into her chair and lifted the handset.

“Lawson.”

“It’s DS Sangster here, ma’am. Our team is on take over night this week.”

“I know that, Sergeant, what’s up?”

Jane instantly regretted her curtness – it had been unnecessary. Sangster, fifty-three years old and rapidly approaching retirement was a competent, if limited, officer, and was the DS on DI Len Parrott’s team.

“Sorry, ma’am – but I thought that you should know that I’m at a crime scene and the DI has just phoned to say that he has been in a car crash on his way here and is A&E at the Royal Surrey – looks as though he’s broken his arm so won’t make the scene.”

“So what’s the crime, Sergeant?”

There was a pause at the other end. A premonition hit Jane; this is going to be a bad one she surmised.

Sangster’s words virtually echoed her thoughts, as though he had read her mind.

“It’s a bad one, ma’am. A floater has just been pulled out of the River Wey, right opposite the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, but it doesn’t look as though he drowned – there are stab wounds and mutilations.”

Jane sighed, but only to herself. No way was she going to let Sangster realise just how much she did not want a mutilated corpse messing up her evening, when she had promised herself nothing more taxing than a microwaved meal, a bit of TV and an early night. The last couple of months since the reorganisation of Surrey CID had been hell, sheer bloody hell, and it was beginning to get to her. But that wasn’t for the troops to know, neither.

“Right, I’ll be with you in ten minutes or so – any way of identifying the victim?”

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“Not straight off, ma’am – he’s naked.”

“You’ve called forensics in, I suppose?”

“Yes, ma’am, right after the DI phoned me and right before I called you; they’re not here yet, but shouldn’t be long now.”

“Right, I’m on my way.”

It was nearer to fifteen minutes than ten before Jane got to the riverbank crime scene. She had had to call her husband to warn him of the change in plans, and she had debated whether or not to call DCS Inkerman, as overall supremo of CID, to let him know that a new, nasty, case which was sure to attract media interest had reared its ugly head, but on balance she decided to wait until she knew more before disturbing her boss.

She arrived at the riverside and cautiously made her way to where a small huddle of people were gathered by the bank, clearly absorbed by something on the ground. As she approached, one of the figures turned towards her and she recognised Sangster.

“Evening, Sergeant, what have we got?”

“Couple of uniforms – they actually pulled the body out of the river, and Dr. McCarthy – she’s confirmed death, not that there was any doubt, poor sod.”

“Thanks.”

Jane arrived at the group and the pathologist turned to her.

“Evening, Jane, you’ve got a nasty one here, I’m afraid.”

“Just what I need to spoil my evening – what can you tell me, Eileen?”

It had taken quite a while for the two women to get to first name terms, but for the last couple of years or more they had been easy acquaintances and had enjoyed the occasional social evening together, accompanied by their respective husbands.

“Well, I can’t be sure at this stage, but judging from the state of him, he’s been in the water for at least a day, possibly rather more – I’ll know more about that when I get him on the table. Cause of death – again not certain at this stage, but he has had a nasty bang on the head, several deep stab wounds and he’s been castrated. Any of those might have killed him – the bang on the head and the stabbings are bad enough to have been direct causes of death, the castration could have caused death indirectly from loss of blood and perhaps accompanying shock.”

Nice one, Jane thought - a real nice mess from the sound of things. She turned to Sangster.

“Do we know how he was actually found?”

The DS nodded his head.

“A couple walking along the towpath saw something, as they put it ‘odd’ floating in the water. It was already getting dark so they had a torch with them – shone that on the object and the rest, as they say, is history. The woman had hysterics, the man called 999 and the two uniforms responded in a matter of ten minutes or less and were able to use one of the life buoys and a length of rope to haul him in. The woman was still right in shock, so I put the pair of them into the patrol car for the time being until they could recover a bit.”

Jane nodded.

“Right – good thinking. Reckon that they are up to talking yet?”

“I haven’t looked in on them for ten minutes or more, ma’am, but when I did, the woman seemed to be getting herself together again – the man was always going to be OK.”

Nice bit of chauvinism there, Jane thought to herself, then regretted the thought. Odds were that Sangster was telling nothing but the truth, unvarnished.

“OK, I’ll try and have a quick word. Come with me.”

Followed by Sangster, she crossed quickly to the marked traffic car. Despite the cold of the March evening, all four windows were wound right down; by the light of the street lamp she could see the occupants, a man leaning towards a woman, the two apparently conversing. They both looked up as Jane opened the front passenger door and slid inside whilst Sangster rounded the front of the car and took the driver’s seat.

Jane withdrew her warrant card from her jacket pocket and held it in front of the couple.

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“Hello, I’m Detective Chief Inspector Jane Lawson and I’m in charge of the investigation into what has happened here. Do you feel up to answering a few questions for me, please?”

The man simply nodded; the woman made a noise half way between a gulp for breath and the word ‘Yes’.

“Thank you. For a start, could you let me know your names?”

The man spoke first.

“I’m David Leith and this is my wife Janet.”

“Right, thank you, Mr. Leith. Now, can you tell me what time you first noticed the man in the water?”

Leith thought for a moment or two before replying.

“We’d had a bite to eat in the restaurant at the Yvonne Arnaud,” he nodded towards the building on the opposite side of the river, its lights sparkling and glimmering as they reflected from the water’s surface.

“We left the restaurant at just after seven. I’d had a couple of glasses of wine, so Janet was going to drive us home, but we felt like stretching our legs for a few minutes, so we walked over the bridge to this side of the river, intending just to walk a few hundred yards and then return. The lights don’t carry very well to some parts of the footpath so I used the torch that I had taken from the car when we parked in the multi storey–

sometimes some of the lights there are out and it can be easy to catch your foot or the like. I was just sort of waving the torch beam idly in front of us, because the exact spot of the path where we were was quite well lit, but it didn’t carry to the surface of the water, and the beam caught something white and when I went to the edge and looked more closely it looked like a body, face down. I wasn’t sure – it could have been something like a tailor’s dummy or the like, but I thought it best to call it in.”

His wife spoke for the first time.

“So it really is a body then?” she asked tremulously.

“Yes, Mrs. Leith, I’m afraid that it is. I’d like to thank you and your husband for what you have done, as you can imagine, heaven knows how long it might have been before the poor person was discovered if you hadn’t.”

“Was it an accident, do you think, Inspector?” the woman asked, clearly still struggling to regain full control of herself.

“It’s too early to say at the moment, I’m afraid, but obviously we will be doing our level best to find out what happened as quickly as we can. Now, I know that it is a bit late, but would you feel up to one of my officers driving you to the station to give formal statements whilst everything is still fresh in your minds? For instance, did you see anyone else around whilst you were walking, hear anything, that sort of thing? It’ll only take a few minutes and the officer can drive you back to your car, or if you prefer he’ll drive you home and his colleague can drive your car for you.”

Mrs. Leith looked relieved.

“That would be very good of you, Inspector, I really don’t feel up to driving at the moment.”

“That’s quite all right, Mrs. Leith – we’ll do it that way.”

Jane turned to Sangster; she had always envied Inkerman his ability to recall names of people he met, an ability she failed to share, but Sangster’s Christian name popped into her head just as she started to open her mouth.

“Carl, would you arrange that with the uniforms, please?”

Bloody Hell, Sangster thought to himself, she said ‘Please’ – that must be a first. Keeping his thoughts to himself he hurried over to the car’s crew and made the necessary arrangements.

As he did so, Jane returned to where the body lay. Eileen McCarthy greeted her and waved in the direction of an ambulance which had arrived a few minutes before; its crew had disembarked and were now standing nearby.

“Jane, there’s nothing I can do here, and it’s not a crime scene, after all. OK for the paramedics to take him to the morgue?”

“Yes, of course. Any chance of doing the post mortem tomorrow?”

The doctor thought for a moment, then nodded.

“Yes, I can have a look at him first thing – sooner the better really – can you have a police presence for me at, say eight o’clock?”

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“No problem – I’ll detail Sergeant Sangster to be there.”

Sangster was less than delighted to learn that his first task on the morrow would be to watch the unknown dead man being carved up on an autopsy table, but it wouldn’t be for the first time, and probably not for the last., so he accepted the task with no outward sign of resentment.

Jane checked her watch and was shocked to discover that it was already nine o’clock. There was no need to protect nor guard the scene – as McCarthy had said, it wasn’t the actual crime scene, so she decided it was time to go home.

When she arrived she greeted with the appetising smell of a casserole, and Harry handing her a large glass of Chianti. She took a large gulp even before she sat down.

“Thanks, love, I needed that.”

“Tough day?”

“Not really, I suppose, but tough enough. We’ve got a murder on our hands, body dumped in the river Wey and found by the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, and Len Parrott, whose team are on take nights this week, has gone and got injured in a car crash – broken arm apparently – so I got dragged down to it.

“Actually, that’s no problem; the problem is this new set up of the Chief’s - it’s running me ragged. Before Sir James retired, Bannerman was keen to reorganise CID, but as the set up we had then had been Sir James’

doing back years ago when he was the ACC Crime, it was politic to wait until the old Chief retired in December before changing things.”

She reflected on the briefing she, in common with the other senior CID officers on the force, had received.

Bannerman had been very persuasive. CID, he proclaimed, had too many chiefs and not enough Indians and that the individual teams headed by the DIs were too small. It was a contention with which she totally agreed; as a DI she had headed a team of just four people, herself, her Detective Sergeant, and two DCs. She was forever having to call for help in sheer manpower numbers. Sir James, to his credit, had wanted to see a large number of DIs and DCIs, experienced officers who could be expected to demonstrate skills beyond those of their subordinates. It worked in that respect, but it also meant that those same senior officers spent a lot of time on tasks that should rightly have been delegated – except that there simply wasn’t anybody to delegate to.

To provide the funding to appoint more Detective Constables – the soldiers to do the donkey work –

Bannerman had, in Jane’s opinion, gone too far. Whereas her Divisional CID, under the previous set up, had been staffed with a Detective Superintendent, three DCIs and nine DIs and Detective Sergeants, with just eighteen DCs, it now comprised a DCI – herself – seven DIs and sergeants, and forty-nine DCs. The teams were now big enough to be able to cope far more easily without needing to call for manpower help from elsewhere. The crunch came at the top. When she had been told that she was to be head of Divisional CID

she had been delighted. The delight was somewhat tempered by the news that the post was now DCI rank, whereas before it had been held by a Detective Superintendent, and further tempered by the fact that the post now reported to a new appointment – that of overall head of CID for the whole county at Detective Chief Superintendent level, instead of direct to the ACC (Crime). Still, head of Divisional CID looked better on the CV than just head of a small group of small teams.

What she hadn’t realised at the time was the sheer grind of keeping tabs on seven teams instead of three and how far she was now removed from actual hands on detective work. She was now, as had been made plain to her and to the other two Divisional heads of CID, a manager first and foremost – and she was beginning to not much like the change. It was, she kept telling herself, early days – the new system had only come into force on the first of January, still only nine weeks or so ago. Perhaps things would get easier with experience.

Perhaps.

Chapter Two 4th March

It was ten thirty on the Tuesday morning when Eileen McCarthy phoned Jane.

“I’ve had a good look at him Jane. It’s not easy even to be certain of the cause of death – or rather which of several potential causes actually killed him. There would have been a tremendous loss of blood if the 7

castration had taken place before death, similarly, one of the stab wounds cut the femoral artery, but my judgement is that the sequence was that he was first hit over the head, the blow rendering him unconscious, so that there were no defence injuries against the stab wounds, of which there were sixteen scattered all over the body, and the castration then followed, with the castration effectively post mortem. He had been in the water over twenty four hours when found, less than three days, and the most likely time of death was during a ten hour window centred on ten o’clock Saturday night.”

“So some time between five in the evening on Saturday and three on Sunday morning?”

“That’s about it. The body wasn’t left lying undisturbed for any length of time – no lividity staining, and once he was in the water there wouldn’t be any chance of any, of course, because the body would be in constant motion – the current of the river would have seen to that.

“Looking at him as a whole, male, Caucasian, five feet eight inches tall, a bit overweight at twelve stone ten, but by no means obese. Age in the mid fifties and no signs of any serious illnesses lurking in his systems. If somebody hadn’t killed him, he’s have been good for many more years.”

“No convenient birthmarks, or anything like that I suppose?”

“Afraid not. A good few years ago – when he would have been about twelve years old, he suffered a broken arm, but it was a pretty minor break and well healed.”

“So, not a lot to help identifying him.”

“No, I’m afraid that from my point of view, he’s Mr. Anonymous. Oh, the knife. Blade about five inches long, three quarters of an inch wide at the widest and tapering to a point. Obviously sharp, judging from the castration wound – very cleanly cut flesh – and that’s about it. Sorry to be of no more help, Jane – I’ll send the full report over as soon as it has been typed up.”

“Thanks, Eileen, take care.”

“You too.”

Jane sat back in her chair, digesting what she had just been told. Sixteen stab wounds, all over the body, sounded like a knife being wielded in a frenzy. Castration – a sexual motive, or an attempt to make it seem so?

She picked up her phone and called Carl Sangster.

“Any news of DI Parrott, Carl?”

“Just been in touch with the hospital, ma’am. I’m afraid it’s a bit more serious than we thought at first – not just a broken arm, but ankle damage as well. Apparently he’s not going to be able to walk for at least a couple of weeks.”

Just great, Jane thought.

“OK, Carl, I’ll come and see you and your team in a bit. Any news on our murder victim?”

“Not so far, ma’am. No missing persons reports of someone like him and I’ve trawled through the incident reports for Saturday lunch time on to Sunday evening – nothing that looks as though it might have a bearing.”

Jane put down the phone and pondered over how to handle the murder case. She had three options. Just leave it in Sangster’s hands, having him report to her on a regular basis. She could hand it over to another team. Or she could effectively take it on herself, using Parrott’s team as though she were a DI again. She mentally reviewed the work load of the other six teams. In theory she could hand it over to any one of them – none of them were handling anything of comparable importance at the moment. On the other hand, leading Parrott’s team in the investigation would give her an opportunity for hands on investigation – something that she found that she was already missing. It would also give her a chance to see at first hand how well one of her teams could perform.

She had another idea – a sort of compromise. She picked up the phone again, this time to speak to Inkerman.

His secretary answered.

“Mr. Inkerman’s office.”

It’s DCI Lawson, Mrs. Hughes. Is the Chief Super there?”

“He’s at a meeting with the Chief Constable at the moment. He should be back after lunch, though. Can I take a message?”

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“No, it’s alright – I’ll E-mail him.”

Sitting in front of her computer, she quickly composed a message to Inkerman, telling him of the murder case, the current situation, and DI Parrott’s non-availability for the next several weeks. She also put forward an idea which had been kicking around at the back of her mind for several days.

When Inkerman had been the head of the Division’s CID as a Superintendent, he had had a secretary, but in the reorganisation, the post had been lost. Now, instead of a Superintendent, aided by a secretary, being the direct line manager of just three DCIs, she, without any secretarial assistance, had seven DIs reporting directly to her. It was not, her note respectfully suggested, a viable long term situation. She knew, from talking to them, that Shirley Lewis, her long time rival in the promotion stakes, and her opposite number in East Division, and Bill Francis, their equivalent in the North, felt precisely the same. The absence of DI Parrott, she pointed out, with his team engaged in a major enquiry, highlighted the problem. It was impractical, she claimed, for any Divisional CID head to take over the reins in such a case, thus compromising the essential management function of the post, whilst handing the responsibility to the relevant Detective Sergeant was scarcely a good way of presenting the force’s handling of a major case to the media and the public at large.

She proposed a solution; that the Divisional CID heads should each have a personal assistant – a serving officer of constable or sergeant rank, to do as much as possible of the routine paperwork that otherwise fell to the lot of the DCI.

She reviewed the note, made a few minor changes, and sent it off.

Two hours later Inkerman read the E-mail with a smile hovering around his lips. It was precisely the sort of thing that he had raised with Bannerman when the latter, still the Deputy at the time, had started talking about the reorganisation that he intended to implement. Bannerman had been receptive, but had persuaded Inkerman that the initial costings would look better without such posts, but that he would be very happy to review the position after a couple of months or so.

Inkerman had placed a mental bet with himself that it would be Jane Lawson who first came up with the idea. Shirley Lewis was a bit too gung-ho to be the first to admit to needing support in such a way, whilst Bill Francis in the North Division was a time server and would see putting forward such an idea as rocking the boat.

He sat back and thought for a few moments, then composed his own E-mail, without acknowledging the receipt of Jane’s missive.

‘Date: 4th March 2014. Time 14:32 hours

From: DCS Inkerman

To:

DCI Francis

DCI Lewis

DCI Lawson

Now that the reorganised structure has been in place for two months, I have reviewed the way in which it is working and have agreed with the Chief Constable that the Divisional heads of CID need some direct support in managing the administrative side of their duties, to enable them to ensure that ongoing investigations by the CID teams can receive a greater level of review than would otherwise be the case.

Would each of you therefore identify, within your existing structure a suitably experienced Detective Constable to be promoted to Detective Sergeant and act as your personal assistant. Please submit the names of the chosen officers to me by 17:00 hours Friday, 7th March 2014 for my approval.

Harold Inkerman, Detective Chief Superintendent

Head of CID Surrey Constabulary

Message Ends.’

Jane read her copy of the E-mail with scarcely concealed relief and satisfaction. She had been worried that her E-mail might have simply received a ‘No funds’ response – this was better than she had hoped for. Now all she had to do was to identify a suitable candidate.

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There was, she decided, an obvious person for the job. She picked up the phone again and made a call.

“DI Clarke.”

“Skull, it’s Lawson. Could you pop in for a moment please, now if you can.”

“On my way, boss.”

True to his word Clarke was in her office only a few minutes later. She handed him a hard copy of Inkerman’s E-mail and waited until he had finished reading it.

“Skull, I’d like Dave Cross for the job – what do you think – you’d get a replacement, of course.”

Clarke thought for a moment.

“Well, I’d be sorry to lose his experience, but we both know that he’s not the sharpest tool in the box when it comes to thinking out of that box, but he’s a stickler for detail. I think that he would be ideal for you, and I’ve already got my eye on a possible replacement.”

“Oh, who?”

“Don’t know if you know her – she’s in uniform at the moment. PC Sarah Hibberd. She got seconded to my team for a few weeks back in the autumn and I was very impressed.”

“OK, if you’re happy let me have a note and we’ll put her transfer in motion. When you get back, could you send Dave over to me, please?”A few minutes later Dave Cross, having tapped gently on her door, was sitting in front of her.

“Dave, I’ve got a problem.” The DC immediately started to look anxious and realising the ambiguity of what she had said, Jane hurried to correct any misunderstanding.

“No, the problem is nothing to do with you, but I’m hoping that you may be the solution.”

Anxiety was replaced by puzzlement.

“Dave, I am drowning in paper work – and so are DCIs Lewis and Francis over in East and North. Mr.

Inkerman has offered us a solution - we have each been allowed to choose an existing DC to act as our personal assistants, with the rank of Detective Sergeant. I’d like you to work with me – what do you say?”

Cross blinked a couple of times, clearly taken aback by the proposal.

“I’d like that very much, boss, if you think that I am suitable. What would I actually be doing?”

“That we’re going to have to work out as we go along. I’m afraid I can’t give you chapter and verse at this stage, because, as you know, the new structure is still evolving, but it gives you a step up.”

As the implications sank in, Cross gave a beaming smile.

“When do I start?”

“Mr. Inkerman wants our recommendations by Friday, so I would hope that it would be next week. I’ve already spoken with DI Clarke, and although he’ll be sorry to lose you, he thinks you would be ideally suited and wishes you well.”

A few minutes later Cross was on his way back to his team’s office, feeling as though he was floating on air.

At forty-four years of age, when the average DI in the Division was only about thirty-nine, he had long ago resigned himself to remaining a DC for the rest of his time in the force. Indeed, it wasn’t all that long ago that he and Jane Lawson had both been DCs, and now she was a DCI and still well under forty. He couldn’t wait to get home and tell Sheila, his wife, who like himself had resigned herself to him never progressing any further.

Once Cross had left her, Jane returned to the question of the anonymous murder victim. Sangster and the rest of the team had spent the day spreading the net further afield in their search for somebody who had gone missing and might possibly be their man, but so far without success, and without an identification, there was precious little progress to be made. She phoned Eileen McCarthy again.

“Eileen, it’s Jane. So far we’ve achieved bugger all in putting a name to the mystery man. If I don’t get anywhere by the end of tomorrow I want to launch a public appeal. Do you think he could be made presentable enough to be photographed for the papers and, hopefully, local TV?”

There was a long pause at the other end of the line.

“Well,” the pathologist began uncertainly, “I’ve seen the make-up people do some fantastic work, but this guy is in quite a mess. The bang on the skull was at the back of the head, so that won’t show, but the water 10

wasn’t kind to him and one of the knife wounds laid much of the right side of his cheek open to the bone.

Look, I’ll talk to them if you like and get them to have a look and see what they think – that OK?”

“That would be great if you don’t mind, Eileen – if they give it the thumbs down I’ll have a police artist come up with something that we can use – but hopefully, we won’t need it.”

She got up from her desk and made her way to the office which housed Parrott’s team. All the team members were present, all on the phones running down possible missing person reports from adjacent police forces.

From the general low intensity air in the room, it was clear that they were not having any success. She waited until Sangster, who was nearest the door, put down his phone and caught his attention.

“Carl, get everyone together, please.”

One by one, the others ended their calls and joined the group around her.

“Right,” she said when they had all gathered round, “as you all know, DI Parrott is out of action for at least a couple of weeks, so as far as this murder inquiry is concerned, I am taking his place. I’ve still got my normal job to do, so I can’t move in with you, so it will be DS Sangster’s job to keep me in the picture.

Anything you’ve got, go to him first just as normal. Now, if we can’t find out who our mystery man is by the end of play tomorrow I am going to put out his picture on the media in the hope that somebody who doesn’t realise that he is missing will come out of the woodwork. Carl, how’s the door to door going?”

“Total blank, ma’am. As you know there aren’t really any houses anywhere near the actual spot where he was found. We’ve tried the Yvonne Arnaud across the river, but it was dark. Nobody inside there could have seen anything. The pub down the road – again nothing. Those offices nearby – they were all closed of course. And above all, that’s where matey was found, but we’ve no idea where he actually went into the water except that it wasn’t there – he was floating downstream when spotted.”

“True enough, Carl, but it had to be done. OK, I’ll leave you all to it – Carl, would you come and see me at six and update me, please.”

Sangster nodded his head; he was pleased that the DCI hadn’t decided to camp out with them. Being left in charge on a temporary basis was nothing new and had she done so it might have implied a lack of faith in him.

Once the door closed behind the senior officer he turned back to his team.

“OK, back on the phones. Alice,” he turned to DC Alice Pratt, at twenty-six years of age the youngest and least experienced of the team, “how are we doing?”

Alice had been assigned the task of recording all the enquiries made and the results and allocating phone calls to everyone, including Sangster himself. She consulted her computer screen for a moment before replying.

“We’ve logged a hundred and twelve queries, sarge, all negative, either immediately or after a follow up.

We’re down to just another thirty possibles.”

Sangster looked at his watch.

“OK, so we should have then all tied up by a bit after five. Alice, when we’re done print out the spreadsheet so that I can take to the DCI for her to see if she wants.”

“Right, sarge.”

As she turned back to her computer, Sangster looked at the young woman. Only two years on CID, but she already had an aura about her of somebody who would go places – rather like the DCI, he told himself. Only a couple of years away from retirement himself and only a Detective Sergeant, it was hard not to be jealous of high flyers like the DCI and, he was sure in the near future, Alice Pratt. Her looks certainly wouldn’t hold her back – five feet five or so, slim but full busted, with short blonde hair that swung around her head as she moved, bright blue eyes, she could easily have been a Page Three girl rather than a promising copper.

Sadly, and feeling his age, Sangster turned away to his phone to make yet another call to yet another police force, doubtless to be as fruitless as all the rest.

Sangster presented himself at Jane’s office on the dot of six o’clock, the print-out of the team’s work in his hand.

“So, what have we got?”

11

“Nothing that helps, ma’am. We’ve chased up one hundred and forty two missing persons reports of males of the right age group who were reported missing in Surrey, Kent, Hampshire, Sussex and the Met areas since Saturday morning. On the possibility that our victim may have been held somewhere before being killed and dumped in the river, the next step is to extend the time frame back – I’d suggest for the previous week.”

Jane nodded; it made sense, but meant a lot more slog for the team and the chances of success were low.

“OK, start on that tomorrow, Carl. One piece of news – but another negative piece, I’m afraid. Dr. McCarthy took our man’s fingerprints and DNA and I’ve had those checked against the database, but no matches.”

“So, no record, then.”

Sangster furrowed his brow in thought.

“Looks as though we’re going to have to go public, doesn’t it, ma’am – and hope somebody recognises him.”

“I’m afraid so.”

After Sangster had left her office, Jane sat deep in thought. She had a murder case on her hands; murder cases always took priority, but until they knew who the victim was, there was no way forward, no way at all.

She determinedly put the matter out of her mind and turned back to the report on crime statistics for the division which she had been working on, looking forward eagerly to the time when Cross would start work with her and could take on some of the drudgery involved in this sort of task.

Chapter Three 7th March

As they had all feared, the slog of chasing up more missing person reports had lead nowhere, and on Friday the local papers carried a picture of the dead man. The make-up people had done a good enough job for the picture to be a photograph rather than an artist’s drawing; the picture had also appeared on local TV so it was now a case of sitting back and hoping.

In the event, the media coverage produced a result within twenty-four hours. Along with the usual mistaken identity calls – one woman claimed that it was her long lost husband, but as her spouse, then aged fifty-two, had walked out on her in 1970 and would therefore now be some ninety-five years old (she was herself eighty-seven) her call was one of the many that could be safely discounted. There was also outright cranks and time wasters, but one call fell into none of the categories.

Sangster had set up three dedicated phones in the team’s office and the detectives had taken it in turns to man them for two hours at a stretch.

It was nearing the end of the third afternoon session – from four until six – that Brenda Saunders’ phone rang. She picked it up.

“Surrey Police Incident room, DC Saunders speaking. Can I help you?”

There was a hesitation at the other end, then a man spoke.

“That picture of the man found in the river? Look, I’m not sure, but I think that it might be my father. He was away on business all of last week, but I would have expected him to be back by now – I’ve phoned his office and they haven’t seen him, and nobody answers at home.”

Brenda flicked a glance at the big wall clock and jotted down the time before responding to the caller.

“Could you give me your name, please sir, and that of your father?”

“Of course. My father is Hugh Grissom; I’m David Grissom. His address is Hollyfields, London Road, Guildford, and mine is 28a, Durrington Avenue, Wimbledon.”

“And phone numbers, Mr. Grissom?”

Grissom recited six numbers, three each for his father and himself, respectively office, home and mobile.

Brenda waved frantically at Sangster who rapidly crossed the room to her side.

“Mr. Grissom, would you mind talking to my boss, Detective Sergeant Sangster, please – he’s right here with me.”

“Yes, of course.”

Sangster looked enquiringly at Brenda as he took charge of the headset from her; she made an encouraging thumbs up sign to him, scrawling ‘FATHER?’ on her notepad as she did so and hit the button on the recording machine to ensure that nothing that would be said was going to be missed .

12

“Hello, Mr. Grissom, I’m DS Sangster and I’m in charge of trying to identify the man we found in the river on Monday evening. I understand that you believe that he might be your father?”

“Yes, I explained to your colleague that my father was away on business all last week but I would have expected him to back by now. I spoke to my mother on the phone just after breakfast on Saturday and she hadn’t heard from him then – he normally would phone when he’s been away to tell her when he expected to get back, but he had been up to Newcastle, so I assumed that he was taking Saturday off before returning.

I’ve tried phoning my mother before contacting you, but she doesn’t answer.”

“Mr. Grissom, I’d like to meet with you as soon as possible, where are you at the moment?”

“I’m still in my office, in town.”

“Do you think that you could come here to us at Guildford?”

“Yes – it’ll take me an hour or so, though.”

“Don’t worry about that, Mr. Grissom, we’ll still be here.”

Sangster returned the headset to Brenda Saunders and signalled Alice Pratt and Terry Wayne over to him.

“Right, I want you two to go to,” he glanced down at Brenda’s notepad, “Hollyfields, London Road. I want you to check if Mrs. Grissom is there, and if not, knock on the neighbour’s doors and ask if anyone has seen her recently.”

“What do we say to her if she is there, sarge?” That was Alice Pratt, ahead of him as usual.

“Tell her that her son has been trying to reach her because he can’t contact his father – no need to worry her, perhaps unnecessarily, at this stage.”

Sangster was beginning to get an uneasy feeling about the lack of telephone response from Mrs. Grissom when her son had called and felt t was imperative to check if the woman was alright.

Once the two constables had left the office, he phoned Jane and updated her.

“Thanks for the update, Carl – looks like this may be a kosher lead. Let me know what your DCs find at the house.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

Hollyfields proved to be a large, detached house set in about half an acre of nicely cared for gardens. Wayne rang the bell and the two young detectives waited. And waited. When they decided that nobody was going to answer, Wayne knocked on the door of the house to the left, Pratt on that to the right. It was a waste of time.

Although both houses were occupied, the large size of the plots and the high hedges all three boasted meant that casual observance of the next door neighbours was impossible.

Exhibiting due diligence, they crossed the road and enquired at the five houses opposite. None was directly opposite the entrance to Hollyfields, but each had a partial view of its entrance. Again, the exercise was fruitless.

“The Brigade of bloody Guards could have been in and out of that house without being noticed,” Wayne complained to his companion. Alice Pratt nodded her agreement, then, looking worried, voiced her dark thought.

“Terry, if it is Grissom we have in the morgue, well, we know it’s a murder, don’t we?”

Wayne nodded, realising where this conversation was going. The girl continued.

“Well, supposing he isn’t the only family member who’s got on the wrong side of the killer? Suppose the missus is lying in the house somewhere?”

“Yeah, that’s a thought, isn’t it?”

Wayne took out his mobile and called Sangster direct.

“Sarge, there’s no reply from the house. None of the neighbours have seen anything, but all these houses are really secluded – anything could happen in any of them and nobody would be any the wiser. We were thinking – suppose Mrs. Grissom is in there, dead or in need of help?”

Sangster thought furiously; if the woman was in there the sooner it was known the better. On the other hand, if he told the two DCs to break in and there was an innocent explanation, there could be hell to pay. He looked at his watch. Just past seven: David Grissom should be with him soon.

13

“Terry, the two of you hang on there. I’m going to get in touch with the son and get him to agree to us going in there.”

Wayne sighed inwardly; that was dear old Carl all over – cover your arse, never mind that things might be urgent.

“OK, sarge. We’ll wait to hear from you.”

He shrugged helplessly as he conveyed the message to Pratt. Alice frowned.

“I don’t fancy just hanging around outside – too bloody cold – and sitting in the car isn’t all that comfortable.

We passed a pub a few minutes back – what about a sarnie and a drink?”

“That, Detective Constable Pratt, is by far the best idea I’ve heard all bloody day – let’s go for it.”

The Rose and Crown, just a couple of roads away, proved to be a warm and convivial local pub and the two of them sat down with a decent looking sandwich and a pint of bitter for Wayne, and a similar sandwich and a half of shandy for Pratt, the driver of their car.

They had been there no more than fifteen minutes, but wondering if they had time for a second round, when Wayne’s mobile rang, with Sangster on the other end.

“Yes, sarge?”

“I’ve spoken to the son – he says go in, and if you need to break anything, that’s OK with him.”

“Right, sarge, I’ll phone back as soon as there is anything to report.”

They left the pub and, pausing only to take torches from their car, returned to Hollyfields. The front door was a solid wood affair, offering no means of easily forced entry, but round the back the kitchen door proved to be a weak point; with the glass panel shattered by a blow from Wayne’s torch, he was able to reach inside and turn the key in the lock so that they were able to let themselves in.

Their worst fears proved groundless; the house was empty and there was no sign of immediate occupancy.

The front door doormat offered up what looked like several days post, most of it junk, but with a few genuine letters amongst the dross.

Wayne phoned the lack of news through to Sangster, then looked around for some means of securing the premises, In the event the only solution with which he came up was to sellotape some card over the broken window in the back door to prevent the ingress of rain, and then leave by that door, locking it from the outside and dropping the keys through the letterbox. At least nobody would be able to duplicate his own feat of simply enabling themselves to put their arm through the pane and using the back door key to unlock it and the glass pane was much too small for anybody to climb through.

Jane and Sangster had met David Grissom and escorted him to the nearest office rather than the bleakness of an interview room. Jane started the proceedings.

“Mr. Grissom, I’m Detective Chief Inspector Jane Lawson, and my colleague here, whom you spoke to on the phone earlier, is Detective Sergeant Sangster. Thank you for coming to see us so quickly. Now, the first thing that we all need to establish is whether or not the gentleman whose body we recovered from the River Wey on Saturday is, in fact, your father. To do that, I’m afraid that we will have to go to the Royal Surrey County hospital – is that alright with you? We obviously need to identify the person and as, perhaps, his son, you would be the logical person to do that. How do you feel about it?”

David Grissom looked steadily back at her. Jane found herself looking at a self-possessed man, a bit under average height, a bit over average weight, expensively dressed and well groomed. He was, she estimated, in his late twenties or very early thirties, already showing signs of an over-indulgent life style, but clearly someone to be taken seriously. His was darkly visaged, with jet black hair slicked back over a highly domed skull. Glitteringly dark brown eyes surveyed his surroundings from beneath heavy eyebrows, eyebrows every bit as dark as his hair. Dark stubble demonstrated that shaving morning and evening would be a necessity if he was to be planning an evening out at any time. The suit had a silken sheen to it and fitted well enough to scream out made to measure, and by a very competent tailor, not something bought off the peg. A heavy gold watch adorned his left wrist, again something exuding extravagance. This man has money, Jane told herself, and knows how to use it – either that, or he lives beyond his means. He smiled sadly at her, and Jane felt that that smile was a potent sexual weapon whenever he cared to use it in that manner.

14

“By all means, Chief Inspector, as I am sure you realise, I want to know the truth as quickly as possible.”

Half an hour later, the three of them were sitting in another office, this time one in the Royal Surrey Hospital which the chief executive, a long time casual friend of Jane and Harry, had made available for them. David Grissom had been shown the corpse, covered in a crisp white sheet up to the chin, through a glass screen in the viewing room. He had gazed at it for a long time, his features unreadable. Finally he had turned away.

“Yes, Chief Inspector, that is my father, Hugh Grissom.”

“Thank you, Mr. Grissom. Are you ready to talk to us further about your father, please?”

“Yes, of course – do we have to drive back to your offices?”

“No, sir, the hospital have kindly arranged a room for us here.”

Grissom nodded in acknowledgment and a few minutes later the three of them were in the designated room.

Jane indicated the recording machine which sat on the desk.

“Mr. Grissom, first, please let me say how sorry I, and all my colleagues, are over the loss of your father. I also want to make it clear to you that we are treating this as a case of murder, and also to say that this is a purely informal discussion with you, just so that we can find out as much as possible about your father, which will hopefully lead us to find out who killed him as quickly as possible. Please rest assured that we will do everything in our power to find his killer or killers. Now, what can you tell us about him – oh, and before we go any further, would it be alright with you if we recorded this discussion?” she waved at the recorder, “it would make it much easier than if Sergeant Sangster had to write everything down so that we don’t forget or miss anything in the days ahead. The machine can produce two tapes, so if you agree to it being used, we will let you have a copy as well- is that OK?”

“That’s fine by me, Chief Inspector,” he settled back in his chair, “so, my father – where to begin? He’s,” he stopped and had to visibly pull himself together, “he was fifty-three years old. He’s what you might call a self made man. His father, my grandfather, was a local government officer. Worked hard all his life, finished up at mid-management level. Never really without money worries, retired at sixty-five and died before he was sixty-six. My grandmother never worked after she and my grandfather were married – dad was an only child, she had a terrible time with his birth and was never really a well woman from then on. She died when she was only forty-nine. When he saw how life had ground down his parents, decent, hard working folk who never really had a chance, dad determined that the same sort of thing was never going to happen to him or his family. He studied hard, worked even harder, and by the time he was twenty-nine he had his own company, Grissom Holdings. This was back in nineteen eighty – the Thatcher years. Dad went into financial services; he started off as a financial advisor, but he had a real flair for working with money. He was a millionaire by the time he was thirty-five and today,” he hesitated again, “or rather, when he died, he would have been worth around ten or eleven million.”

Jane pricked up her ears at the mention of so much money – who, she wondered, gets it now? She decided to leave that question for later, rather than interrupt David Grissom’s flow of words. The monologue continued.

“Dad married mum in nineteen eighty-four and they had me in nineteen eighty-six and my sister Pam in nineteen eighty-eight.” He broke off.

“Chief Inspector, have you found my mother? – I tried to reach her again before leaving to meet you, but again there was no reply.”

“We did check on her house, Mr. Grissom. She isn’t there at the moment, but I’m sure that there is an innocent explanation.”

Grissom looked worried.

“If you can’t find her, I wonder what has happened to her?”

“Is there anywhere that she might have gone – perhaps to get in touch with your father? Might she be with your sister?”

“I don’t think so, Pam and John – that’s her husband – were talking about going away for a bit of sunshine –

they have a place down in the South of France, near the coast, in Narbonne- Plage where there are a lot of holiday villas – because it has been such a miserable winter. That was when I spoke to her on the phone a couple of weeks ago. Mind you, I don’t know if they actually did.”

15

Jane realised that she was getting sidetracked.

“Can we get back to your father for a moment, Mr. Grissom. Can you think of anyone who might wish him enough harm for something like this?”

Grissom looked a bit uncomfortable as he considered the question.

“Chief Inspector, my father made his early money by buying and selling stocks and shares, but once he had got a good bit of money behind him – about ten years ago, I suppose, he made his big deals by buying and selling companies. Over the years there must have been quite a few people who found themselves out in the cold because of his dealings.”

“Anything recent?”

“Well, the most recent big deal concerned a company called Lucas Engineering. They had a place in Newcastle; they were running into financial difficulties and dad bought the company – this was back in August or September – and closed it down. He’d lined up a deal with a French company looking for those sort of premises and equipment and Lucas Engineering met their needs. Most of the staff were reemployed by the French, but the CEO, Thomas Lucas, was very unhappy. He’d expected dad to effectively re-finance the company, not to effectively sell it out from under him. But that scarcely seems a motive for murder, surely?”

Jane wondered; in her time in the police she had come across murders committed for far less serious reasons, but they had all been spur of the moment things. Was this? And what about the mutilation – something that she had not told Grissom about.

She shook her head.

“I wouldn’t have thought so, Mr. Grissom, but one can never be sure. Anybody else that you can think of with a really deep grudge against your father?”

He hesitated again before speaking with clear reluctance.

“Look, you’ll find this out anyway. In two thousand and eight a girl, Linda Harris, accused dad of raping her at a party. In the event, she later admitted that she was very drunk at the time and although she continued to claim that somebody had raped her, she couldn’t really say who. She didn’t make the accusation until over a week after the party took place so there were none of the usual tests able to be taken. She couldn’t even identify dad in a line-up that he insisted on undergoing and the whole thing, as far as we were concerned, blew over.”

That was something that needed following up. If Grissom senior had been arrested for the alleged rape there would be a record of it, although as it had never come to court, although his fingerprints and DNA sample had surely been taken at the time, they would have had to have been destroyed within two years, which would explain why the database had no match for him when Eileen McCarthy had taken samples from his body at post mortem.

“What did your father say about the woman’s claim?”

“The party was at a hotel in Woking. It was thrown by a company that dad was thinking of buying –

although in the end he didn’t do so – and he went expecting it to be a businessmen’s networking sort of do.

In fact, it was nothing of the sort – a lot of people, many of them young, a lot of noise – not really his scene at all, so he stayed for an hour or so, then left. As far as he could remember, he never even saw Linda Harris, although other people confirmed that she was there. She was one of the youngsters – she was only about nineteen or twenty at the time – and apparently a friend of a friend of a friend of somebody sort of thing.

Several people confirmed that she got very drunk during the evening. She claimed that whoever raped her took her to a hotel room to do it, but nobody ever admitted to having seen her leave the party with anybody, least of all with dad.”

“Do you know what happened to her?”

“No, once the accusation was dropped we never heard of her again.”

“Is there anything else that you can tell me that might explain why your father seems to have gone missing last week?”

Grissom looked decidedly uncomfortable.

16

“Well, he’s got,” he stumbled over the words, “he had, a girlfriend. He might possibly have been with her, I suppose.”

“Who is she?”

“Her name is Yvonne Raymond. She works for a company called Craig Holdings – she’s the PA to the CEO, Ken Craig. Dad met her because his is a major shareholder in the company. To be honest, Craig Holdings is one of the ways in which dad identified companies that might be suitable targets for him – companies go to Craig Holdings to arrange finance when they can’t get it through their normal banks, so that means that there is a chance that they are vulnerable to someone like dad.”

“Do you know how long the affair has been going on?”

“Quite a while – Yvonne is about thirty-five or six and they would have first met over ten years ago when dad first acquired his shareholding in the company.”

“Does your mother know of the affair?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t think so. I only found out by chance about three years ago. I work in London, live in Wimbledon, so I only see the rest of the family on the odd occasion, normally keep in touch with them by phone. I’m a junior partner now, but back then I was still an assistant and my partner sent me to take some documents to a company in Reading and answer any queries the people there might have. It was a rather complex renting agreement involving three different companies and a bit difficult to follow unless you had been involved all the way through, as I had. As it happened, the managing director was delayed – he had been in Glasgow on business and there was some hold up, so we didn’t finish our discussions until about ten o’clock. I decided that I didn’t fancy driving home at that late hour so booked into the nearest hotel.

“You can imagine my amazement when, as I was having breakfast the next morning, into the dining room comes my father accompanied by a woman. They both saw me straight away, so there was no chance for any if us to pretend that we hadn’t seen the other.

“Dad sat his companion down and came over to me. He was quite open about it all. Mum, he explained, hadn’t really shown any interest in sex for a long time, so Yvonne was the result. He told me who she was and how they met and said that mum didn’t know about her and he wanted to keep it that way, so I promised not to tell her – and I never have. I asked him if Pam knew and he said that she didn’t, so I never told her either.”

“Do you know if the affair started before or after the accusation of rape against your father?”

Grissom shook his head.

“I’m afraid not – it could have been either before or after.”

Jane sat back, thinking hard. Of one thing she was sure; the more she heard about the late Hugh Grissom, the less she liked him. A financial predator responsible, apparently, for quite a few people losing their jobs, a man who cheated on his wife, one who had been accused of raping a drunken young woman – just because that had never come to court didn’t mean that it never happened. No, not someone she would have liked to have met in life, but regardless of all that, she was duty bound to try and bring his killer or killers to justice.

She looked at her watch and was surprised to see that it was gone nine o’clock.

“Just for the record, Mr. Grissom, can you tell me what your movements were over that weekend?”

Grissom frowned.

“I hope you’re not implying anything, Chief Inspector?”

“I’m not implying anything, Mr. Grissom; as a solicitor, I’m sure you’ll realise that it is a question I have to ask.”

He gave a sort of shrug and shook his head,

“I’m sorry, Chief Inspector, of course it is. Let me see. As I said, I phoned my mother just after breakfast, then I went out for a paper and did a bit of shopping, got back to my flat about half eleven or so, I suppose.

Didn’t really do anything during the afternoon – read a bit, fixed a snack lunch about two or so, then in the evening I had dinner with a friend, took her back to her place and stayed the night, left the next morning around ten, spent the rest of Sunday just really mooching around the flat.”

“What time was your dinner? And who is the friend?”

17

“We were quite late – I booked the table for nine and we left the restaurant a bit before eleven. The friend is Julie Summers; she lives in Richmond, 11 Coombe Crescent. I hope that you won’t feel it necessary to contact her?”

“I wouldn’t imagine so, but thank you for the information. Is there anything else that you feel might be helpful to us, Mr. Grissom?”

He shook his head.

“I can’t think of anything else, Chief Inspector.”

“In that case I suggest that we call it a night. Are you driving home?”

In his turn, Grissom looked at his own watch and then shook his head.

“No, it’s a bit late and I’ve had a long day. I’ll book into an hotel – I’ve stayed at The Posting House in Guildford High Street before so I’ll go there.”

Quarter of an hour later, after Grissom had left them, Jane and Sangster were seated in the latter’s team office. The only other occupants were DCs Alice Pratt and Terry Wayne and Sangster tasked the two of them to follow up in the morning everything that they could find on Hugh Grissom, his family members, the alleged rape victim Linda Harris, Yvonne Raymond and, just for good measure, Grissom’s various financial dealings. The two young detectives looked aghast at the sheer volume of work involved; Sangster chuckled.

“Don’t worry – I’ll have the whole team on it, but first thing tomorrow I want you two to draft out for me just who is where, who we can get in here, who we will have to go to – you know the score.”

Looking more happy, the two DCs took their leave. Jane looked at her watch; it was now getting on for ten.

“That’s enough for today, Carl. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Jane got home tired and feeling down. Somehow, she had a premonition that this case would prove to be thoroughly unpleasant. Although David Grissom had, on the face of it, seemed thoroughly cooperative, deep down she felt that she couldn’t trust him. She resolved that everything he had said would need to be checked and double checked. And, where was Mrs. Grissom? Why had her own son been unable to contact her and why had he seemed pretty unworried by that fact?

Harry greeted her with a smile and a glass of wine and she slumped into an easy chair, kicked off her shoes, and sighed wearily.

“Another hard day, love?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Not really, I suppose, just long. We’ve identified our murder victim, who sounds a right nasty piece of work, to be honest.”

She briefly outlined the day’s happening whilst Harry listened intently. When she had finished he shook his head slowly,

“To my mind, whoever took him out seems to have probably done the rest of us a favour.”

“Yes, but I’m not even allowed to think on those lines - murder has been done and my job is to catch the murderer. Anyway, enough about me – how has your day been?”

“Less interesting than yours, but we’ve landed a nice contract out in Saudi – you remember that I took over from Nick Ferris because he had landed a plum contract in Saudi?” she nodded, “well, there is a spin-off from his job and Nick has pushed it my way.”

“Will you have to go out there?”

“No, I can manage our end of it from here – it’s a computer based analysis of employees that the company he has the contract with send abroad. Apparently they reckon somebody in their employ is passing on confidential information to their competitors whilst on business trips abroad and they – and Nick – reckon that if they put such a search into place over there in the company itself, or even in Nick’s company, which is seen as virtually a subsidiary, whoever is responsible would be warned off. So, one of Nick’s people feeds our pet computer geek with travel details, hotel reservations, that sort of thing and our bloke checks with the records of hotels, etc., to pin down likely correlations.”

Jane arched an eyebrow.

“Data Protection Act?”

18

“Exactly – we couldn’t do that sort of thing in the UK without an awful lot of red tape, if we could do it at all, so our chap is going over to Saudi itself, but having no physical contact either with Nick’s company nor the parent company.”

“I’m glad it’s not being done here – I honestly think that you, or your company, would be breaking the law over data protection.”

“I know, that’s why it is going to be done over there.”

Globalisation, Jane thought to herself. As far as she could see, what Harry – or his company and its computer expert – would be doing, if carried out in the UK would be definitely illegal, but apparently not in Saudi. Of course, there were lots of instances were something perfectly legal in one country was illegal in another. A case in point was the European Arrest Warrant. It was a useful tool in chasing down criminals who skipped from one country to another, but there was no doubt that it could be, if not exactly abused, then used to hound people in a way for which it had never been intended.

Chapter Four 8th March

“Murder investigations have no respect for weekends,” Jane observed to the assembled team. All the members of what was normally Len Parrott’s team were in the office. It was four in the afternoon and the day had been spent checking as many details as possible of the various people they knew about and who had had close contact with Hugh Grissom.

“Right, DC Pratt, you’ve been collating the murder book – summarise the players please.”

Alice Pratt laid the all important murder book – a large, loose leaf binder in which had already been entered a lot of information, and which would grow ever bulkier as the days went on. She cleared her throat and began.

“The victim. Hugh Grissom, date of birth thirteenth of January nineteen sixty one. Home address Hollyfields, London Road, Guildford. Discovered floating in the River Wey opposite the Yvonne Arnaud theatre on Monday, the third of March at approximately nineteen ten hours by Mr. and Mrs. Leith of 13, Weydown Road, Haslemere. Life was pronounced extinct at nineteen thirty-five hours by Dr. McCarthy, forensic pathologist, who also performed the post mortem examination of the deceased at oh eight hundred hours Tuesday fourth of March, post mortem attended by and witnessed by DS Sangster. Fingerprints and DNA samples taken during the post mortem examination failed to find any match in the Central Criminal Database. Cause of death multiple stab wounds, sixteen in number, following the victim being rendered unconscious by a blow on the back of the head. Post mortem the victim was castrated. The murder weapon has not been found, but was a sharp knife with a blade five inches long and three quarters of an inch wide at its widest, the blade tapering to a point.

“Deceased formally identified, following a media appeal, at the morgue of the Royal Surrey County Hospital by his son, David Grissom, on Friday, eight of March at nineteen hundred hours in the presence of DCI Lawson and DS Sangster.

“The deceased was the CEO of Grissom Holdings, a company specialising in arranging recapitalisation and/or takeover and subsequent sale, of companies with financial difficulties. The company has an annual turnover of approximately two hundred million pounds and a profit margin of between ten and fifteen million pounds. Mr. Grissom’s personal wealth has been estimated at between ten and eleven million pounds, but bank searches show a total of all discoverable bank assets of under two million pounds. Further investigation of possible off shore accounts is pending. To date there has been no face to face contact with any members of Grissom Holdings.

“The deceased was married to Louise Grissom, née Jordan, date of birth nineteenth of September nineteen sixty-four. To date Mrs. Grissom’s location is unknown; her address is the same as that of her husband. The couple had two children, David Grissom, date of birth third of February nineteen eighty-six, address 28a, Durrington Avenue, Wimbledon, who identified the body of the decease. Mr. Grissom is a solicitor, practising in London, and on interview by DCI Lawson and DS Sangster provided information which I will expand later, and Pamela Grissom, date of birth twelfth of May nineteen eighty-eight and married to John 19

Paice, date of birth fifteenth of November nineteen eighty three. The couple live at eleven, Weydown Road, Haslemere and are currently childless, No contact so far with either.

“Yvonne Raymond, date of birth twelfth of August, nineteen seventy-seven, address 5, Hayes Court, Woking. According to David Grissom Raymond has been having an affair with Hugh Grissom for some years, exact length of time unknown. Again according to David Grissom neither Mrs. Grissom nor Grissom’s daughter are aware of the affair. No contact as yet.

“Linda Harris, date of birth ninth of January nineteen eighty-eight, address forty-seven, Oriental Road, Woking. David Grissom claimed that Harris accused Hugh Grissom of raping her in 2008 at a party thrown by a company, unnamed by Mr. Grissom, at a hotel in Woking but that the accusation was later withdrawn.

Checking the relevant records show that on Wednesday, the tenth of September two thousand and eight, Ms.

Harris went to Woking police station where she formally accused Hugh Grissom of raping her in the Holiday Inn, Woking on Saturday, the thirtieth of August. Grissom was interviewed under caution on Friday, the twelfth of September. He denied the charge and Harris was unable to identify him in a subsequent identity parade on Wednesday, the seventeenth of September. Under rules of evidence, fingerprints and DNA samples taken from Grissom were destroyed after two years. No contact as yet.

“Thomas Lucas, date of birth ninth of September, nineteen seventy, address one hundred and twelve, Epsom road, Guildford. Again according to David Grissom, Lucas has reason to bear a grudge against Hugh Grissom who allegedly ruined Lucas’ company, making a substantial profit for himself and throwing Lucas out of work. No contact as yet.”

Alice Pratt straightened up.

“That is the summary of the individuals so far identified as of interest, ma’am.”

“Thank you, Constable.” Jane looked round the room. “Any questions regarding that summary?”

The room was silent.

“Right, next step is to interview all of those people and, at the same time, find out what has happened to Mrs.

Grissom. We also need to get in touch with the daughter – Grissom junior thinks that she and her husband may have gone to France for a winter break. They live in Haslemere.” She turned to Sangster, “Sergeant, you organise your team to chase up on locating Mrs. Grissom and her daughter and interview the various people except for Ms. Harris – I’ll see her myself and in view of the seriousness of the complaint that she lodged, even though it was subsequently withdrawn, I’ll take someone with me.”

She looked briefly round the room, although in fact her mind was already made up. She felt that it would be best not to have a male officer involved in an interview with the victim of an alleged rape, which gave her the choice of the three female DCs, Brenda Saunders, Linda Ball or Alice Pratt. Saunders and Ball were both stockily built women, both with an air of determination about them. Even on a Saturday Saunders and Ball were both wearing professional looking trouser suits and had a formidable look to them. Pratt, on the other hand, was wearing soft cotton jeans of a washed out blue colour and a white blouse, over which she had a black cotton waistcoat, worn unbuttoned, giving an altogether softer, more feminine look which was enhanced by her softly styled shoulder length blonde hair and generally youthful appearance.

“DC Pratt, you’ll accompany me – we’ll talk to Ms. Harris at her home, so arrange it for as soon as possible, please, today if at all possible.”

She turned to Sangster.

“Sergeant, until DI Parrott is back with us, I suggest that you take over his office.”

So saying, she ushered him into it and joined him, closing the door behind her.

“Right, Carl, thoughts so far?”

The Sergeant frowned in concentration.

“I’m worried about Mrs. Grissom, ma’am. I think finding her must be the top priority. The interviews should take second place to that, although they must be done. For all we know the wife might be a victim as well and again, as far as we know, she doesn’t even know that her husband is dead and has been for a week or so,”

Jane nodded. She agreed with Sangster’s view, but had wanted to hear him express it without any prompting from her, which was why she had not emphasised it when addressing the whole team.

20

“So, how do we find her? And what about the daughter?”

“I spoke with David Grissom this morning and agreed with him that he would tell his sister about their father’s death so she will know about it by now – I felt that it was best coming from him, rather than the first she knew was us knocking on her door. As for finding Mrs. Grissom, I asked the son if there were any friends we could contact, but he was useless. He clearly doesn’t really keep in touch either with her, his sister, nor when he was alive, his father.”

Jane nodded thoughtfully.

“Better organise a search of the house to see what clues we can find.”

“I’ve got David Grissom’s agreement to going through the house and I was intending to do that myself with one of the DCs as soon as we have finished up here.”

“OK, you do that and let’s have the team back in first thing tomorrow morning for a progress report.”

Jane made her way back to her own office; she had only just entered when the phone went.

“Lawson”

“DC Pratt, ma’am. I’ve contacted Linda Harris and she’s willing to talk to us at seven this evening – I said that would be OK.”

Jane looked at her watch. Quarter past six.

“OK, pick me up at twenty to, you drive.”

“Right, ma’am.”

Promptly at seven o’clock, Alice Pratt parked outside a neat semi-detached house in the Oriental Road, Woking, so named after the fact that in the nineteenth century the area had been home to a large number of Chinese labourers working on laying the railway tracks – a snippet of useless information that Jane had learned somewhere, sometime and been unable to expunge from her memory whenever she passed through the area.

The front door opened in response to Alice’s pressing of the door bell and a young woman appeared before them. Linda Harris, for it was she, was tall, perhaps five feet seven or eight and slimly built. She was dressed in a simple, figure hugging woollen dress of a deep ochre colour which set off her red hair and green eyes, eyes which gazed at the two detectives from a flawlessly made-up face. By comparison, Jane felt herself to be positively dowdy, but resolutely suppressed the feeling. It made her think that choosing the visually non-threatening Alice Pratt as her companion was an unnecessary move; she could not see Linda Harris being over-awed by anyone.

“Ms. Harris? I’m Detective Chief Inspector Lawson and this is my colleague Detective Constable Pratt. May we come in?”

“Yes, of course. Please come through.”

Linda Harris led the way into a surprisingly spacious living room which featured a picture window looking out onto a small, but neatly maintained back garden. Facing the window was a three piece settee, with two easy chairs arranged at right angles to it. Their hostess waved Jane and Alice into the two chairs and sat herself down in the middle of the large settee.

“So, Chief Inspector, how can I help? Your colleague was a bit reticent on the phone.”

“Ms. Harris, back in two thousand and eight you lodged, but subsequently withdrew, a complaint against a Hugh Grissom.”

The young woman’s face clouded over.

“Why drag all that up again? It’s all over long ago and I’ve tried to forget that night ever since it happened.”

“I can understand that, Ms. Harris, but events have made it necessary for us to speak to you again. Mr.

Grissom is dead – murdered – and we are looking into everyone who may have come into conflict with him in the past.”

Linda Harris’ face registered shock, shock that Jane was quite sure was genuine, unless Harris was a very good actress indeed.

“Oh, my God – surely you don’t think that I could have had anything - ” clearly thrown by the news, Harris searched for words and , “but how? And when?”

21

“Mr. Grissom was found dead on Monday evening. I’m sure that you will appreciate that I can’t go into any more detail at this stage, but I would be grateful if you could confirm your whereabouts for Monday and the previous weekend, say from mid-morning Saturday.”

“That’s easy. I was visiting my brother and his wife and children over the weekend. They live in Coventry. I drove up first thing Saturday morning, got there about ten, and returned Sunday evening, left a bit after eight and got home about half past ten. Monday, we had a late presentation at the H.G. Wells conference centre here in Woking. I work for Dalton Associates, we’re a PR advisory company and we gave a presentation to a local company – Galbraith Engineering. They specialise in small run, high precision engineering work and wanted to coordinate their website and other media advertising in specialist engineering magazines. The presentation started at eight o’clock but we, that’s my boss, Clive Mitchell, our web designer, David Melrose, and me, were there setting up the presentation up from just after six. The presentation ended at half nine, there was a bit of general chit-chat afterwards and we got away about half ten. Oh, and before we went to do the presentation, I was in our offices from eight in the morning until the three of us left for the conference centre.”

So Linda Harris could be scratched off the list for any time on Monday, but Jane needed to confirm her whereabouts at the weekend.

“I suppose that your brother and his family can confirm that you were with them over the weekend?”

“Of course,” she hesitated, “but then, I suppose that they would, anyway – they’re family after all.”

“You and they were together all weekend, then?”

“Yes, no – I tell a lie. George was out Saturday afternoon and early evening – he’d got a ticket to watch Leicester Tigers play and although he offered to stay, both Helen and I told him to go and see the game.”

She sat, apparently in thought, then her face brightened.

“I stopped for petrol on both days, paid by credit card, so I’ve kept the receipts to check against the statement when it comes.”

She rose to her feet, automatically smoothing the woollen dress over her thighs as she did so, and crossed to a sideboard upon which rested a large handbag. She opened it, rummaged inside and triumphantly produced two slips of paper which she handed to Jane; they were indeed filling station receipts for petrol purchased on the Saturday and Sunday.

“Thank you, Ms. Harris – I’d like to keep these for the moment – DC Pratt will give you a receipt for them.”

Whilst Alice was scribbling out the necessary piece of paper, Jane studied Linda Harris carefully. She seemed to be at ease, not worried about the fact that she was being interviewed by two police officers.

“Ms. Harris, I’m sorry to have to revisit what must be painful for you, but I really need to have you tell me what happened on the thirtieth of August, two thousand and eight.”

Harris looked uneasy – hardly surprising.

“Is it really necessary, Chief Inspector? I told the police everything that happened at the time.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Harris, but I am afraid that it is. I am, after all, investigating a murder and the person murdered was apparently know to you and you accused him of raping you.”

Harris took a deep breath, exhaled, and began speaking.

“It was a party held in one of the conference rooms of the Holiday Inn here in Woking. The party was thrown by the father of a friend of a friend of mine to celebrate his company’s twenty fifth anniversary.

Apparently, his daughter – the friend of a friend – persuaded him to invite a whole bunch of people of her generation – she was at university at the time. There was plenty of free drink and quite a few of the younger lot had too much of it. I’m afraid that I was one of the over-indulgers. I was so drunk that when a man suggested that I ought to lie down somewhere, I let him take me to one of the bedrooms, where he raped me.

When he’d had me he just left me there, I was more or less out of it at the time, but after a while – I’ve no idea how long, I got myself together, was violently sick all over the bathroom, and left by myself.”

“How did you get home?”

“The hotel isn’t much over half a mile from here – I walked.”

“You lived here than as well?”

22

“This was our family home and I was still living with my mother – my father died when I was twelve years old. Mum died two years ago so the house became mine.”

“Why did you wait a week or more before reporting the rape?”

“I was ashamed. Ashamed that I had made such a fool of myself. I was twenty, nearly twenty-one and like all twenty year olds thought that I knew the lot. Getting pissed out of my mind, letting some guy I didn’t know take me to a bedroom – I mean, how bloody stupid can you get, even at twenty?”

“And how was it you first claimed that the rapist was Hugh Grissom, but then changed your mind?”

“One of my friends had taken some photos of us at the party and in one of the pictures I could see Hugh Grissom standing behind a group of us who were sitting at a table and I thought he was the man.”

“How did you know his name?”

“I asked Jill – that’s Jill Gordon, whose father was throwing the party – and she told me. She said that he had been to the house a few days earlier to talk business with her dad and she’d been introduced to him. Said she thought that he was a bit creepy, like ‘he’d have your knickers off soon as look at you’ was how she described him.”

“But it wasn’t him”

She shook her head.

“No, the police did one of those identity parade things and I couldn’t believe it – I just couldn’t recognise him for sure. There were three men in that line-up, any of whom could have been the man who had me. I felt the world’s biggest fool, believe me.”

I wonder, Jane thought to herself. Then she changed the subject.

“Thank you for all that, Ms. Harris, I realise that it can’t have been easy for you. Oh, one last thing – your brother, what does he do.”

A frown crossed the immaculate features.

“That’s a sore point. At the moment, nothing. He was wounded in Afghanistan and invalided out of the Army just before Christmas and so far hasn’t been able to find anything.”

“That must be hard for him.”

“Yes,” she said bitterly, “and for Helen his wife and the two little ones.”

“What did he do in the Army?”

“He was a Paratrooper – a Captain –his promotion had only been through a few weeks when he was wounded.”

The two detectives took their leave of Linda Harris and as they were about to drive away Jane asked her subordinate for the petrol receipts that Linda Harris had given them. She studied them closely before speaking.

“So, Constable, what did you think of Linda Harris?”

“She seemed very cool, calm and collected. I was surprised that she wasn’t more anxious – or at least didn’t appear to be more anxious. I mean, we drop in on her almost out of the blue, tell her a bloke she once accused of raping her has been murdered, get her to account for her movements. No, I don’t think that she was worried enough.”

“I agree – she was too smooth by far. Don’t suppose that she could have done it herself, but a disgruntled brother – see what you can find out about ex-Captain Harris of the Paras – although you probably won’t be able to get anything sensible out of the MoD until Monday. One other thing – those petrol receipts. You saw the car in the drive?”

Alice nodded her head.

“Yes, Honda CR-V, my dad’s got one.”

“Yes, well so has DCI Francis – he gave me a lift in it a week or two back. He’s only had it a month or two and is still like a dog with two tails over it. One thing he said sticks in my mind – it’s got an enormous bloody tank, giving it a range of over four hundred miles – so why the need to fill up twice during a round trip of about two hundred and fifty tops? And when you look at those receipts – she didn’t buy anything like a full tank full on either occasion, so she was presumably topping up a tank that was already nearly full. And 23

the story about the rape. Perhaps she was raped, perhaps it was consensual, perhaps she made it all up, but it doesn’t ring true to me. She waits over a week, she fingers a man known to be wealthy, nobody interviewed by the investigating officers ever admitted to seeing them together,. About the only thing that can be proved about that evening is that both of them were there, and some of her friends said that she seemed pretty drunk.

I think that she may have tried it on with Grissom and either been bought off or warned off. No, I don’t think that we can ignore la Harris yet.”

They got back to the station and Jane looked at her watch.

“Eight thirty – that’s enough for one day. Go on home – I’m just going to pop upstairs and check nothing has happened in our absence, than I’m for home as well.”

Jane watched as the young detective drove away; she was quite impressed with DC Pratt. She turned into the building and mounted the stairs to CID, bypassing her own office and making straight to the Parrott team room. Inside she found just Sangster, who started to rise as she entered. She waved him down.

“Time for home, Carl. Anything happen whilst I’ve been out.”

“Nothing much, ma’am. As you can see, I’ve sent the troops home; they’ll all be back in for eight in the morning. I’ve done a quick search of the Grissom house – took DC Saunders with me – we were careful not to disturb anything that might help forensics, although at first sight it all looks as clean as a whistle.

Something a bit odd thought – there was a small room that looked to have been used as an office. It has a big desk in it and a filing cabinet, and the drawers of the desk and of the filing cabinet were completely empty.

We did find an old fashioned address book, but there’s precious little in it. Trouble is, nowadays folk tend to keep all their friends, family and the like numbers on their mobile and on a computer. There was a computer there – looked pretty ancient, but we didn’t touch it, again to avoid the of risk jeopardising what forensics might find. We’ve already phoned the numbers that looked hopeful in the book and contacted a couple of her friends, but they had no idea where she might be. On the interview front, I’ve arranged for the Raymond woman to be seen tomorrow – do you want to be in on that one?”

Jane thought about it – ideally she would want to be in on all the interviews, but with her other duties as the leader of six other teams as well as this one, it was unlikely to be practical, so she decided that she would have to prioritise.

“Yes, I’ll do that one, but that’s all. You lead on the others, Carl.”

The DS nodded.

“Right you are, ma’am, that’s how we’ll play it. I’ve arranged for her to be seen at home – is that OK with you?”

“Yes, and I’ll take DC Merville with me – I don’t want the team to start think that this is an all girl effort and I hardly know him, so it will be a chance to put that right.”

“OK; I’ve also arranged to see Thomas Lucas, the man David Grissom reckons was effectively ruined by his father, and Kenneth Craig as a close business associate of Grissom senior, tomorrow.”

“Good work - the sooner we can talk to as many of these folk as possible, the better the picture we’ll have.”

Jane returned to her own office, sat down at her desk and composed a succinct report for Inkerman and Emailed it to him so that he would see it first thing on Monday. She sat back and thought of how the case was going. Considering that it was only just over twenty-four hours since the victim had been identified, quite reasonable progress had been made. The absence of the wife really worried her. The last known contact with her had been when David Grissom had spoken to her a week earlier. According to the son she had made no mention of going away anywhere, so where was she?

Wearily, she got up from her desk and made her way to the car park, got into her recently acquired Mazda MX-5 and drove home. For once she was home before Harry, but only by a matter of ten minutes or so.

As he entered, she held out a glass of wine to him, exclaiming “Surprise!” He took the proffered glass with a smile.

“Better day?”

“On balance, yes – making a bit of progress on the case, which is always cheering.”

“Right, well I’ve made some progress, as well. Remember the contract I told you about?”

“The cloak and dagger stuff? Of course!”

24

“Well, it’s all signed, sealed and delivered. My chap flies to Saudi on Monday, and Nick managed to arrange a payment in advance for us – my share is five thousand!”

“Bloody hell! As a poor little copper I am really envious!”

“Well, I know that while this case is going on you won’t be able to get away, but as this money has come through much more quickly that I expected – I thought that it would be at least six months before we saw our contract settled – I reckon a holiday is called for!”

“Sounds great to me – I honestly don’t know when I’ll be able to take time off, but as soon as I can – lead me to it!”

Chapter Five 9th March

Sunday was not a day of rest. Rather, it was a day of interviews. Sangster, accompanied by Brenda Saunders, saw Thomas Lucas in the man’s home at ten o’clock that morning. The door was answered by a woman, presumably Mrs. Lucas. On the short and plump side, she wore an expensive looking twinset, with a rope of pearls at her neck. Grey hair was shaped to minimise the plumpness of her face, from which brown eyes looked at the two detectives enquiringly.

“Mrs. Lucas?” the woman nodded, “Good morning, madam. I am Detective Sergeant Sangster and this is my colleague Detective Constable Saunders. We arranged yesterday to meet your husband today.”

“Oh, yes, Sergeant – please come through, Thomas is in the conservatory.”

She led the two police officers through a hallway with doors off it, all closed, to a glass door opening into a large, clearly expensive, conservatory furnished with cane chairs and occasional tables. Thomas Lucas rose from one of the chairs to greet them as Sangster repeated the introductions, and ushered them into chairs.

Sangster examined the man closely. Thomas Lucas was, he knew fifty-three years old but looked in good health and younger than his years, unlike his wife. Dressed in slacks and a sweater, both of which looked expensive, he had very dark, virtually black, hair, neatly cut and combed, with the first traces of grey only now beginning to show at his temples. The healthy look came from a light sun-tan, surprising for early March in England, and clear blue eyes under heavy brows. Looking at the apparel of the man, and of his wife, not to mention the house, it was difficult to believe that the man had been, as David Grissom contended, virtually ruined financially. Before Sangster could open his mouth, their host spoke.

“Now, Sergeant, I was very intrigued by yesterday’s phone call – I understand that you want to talk to me about Hugh Grissom – why? What’s he done?”

Sangster decided to be direct, brutally direct.

“He’s dead, Mr. Thomas, murdered. That’s why we’re here. We need to talk to everyone who might have held a grudge against him, and I understand that he caused you a considerable financial loss.”

Thomas blinked in surprise, but there was no other reaction. Certainly no trace of guilt in his expression.

“Murdered? But that’s awful - what happened?”

“He was found in the River Wey on Monday evening. He was identified by his son only on Friday evening which is why it has taken us so long to get round to talking to you. Tell me, Mr. Lucas, what was your relationship with Mr. Grissom? What was your reaction to him closing down your company?”

Lucas was clearly taken aback by the news and by Sangster’s approach.

“Well, to be honest, I was furious with him at the time. He misled me – he gave me the impression that he would be able to arrange supportive finance for me which would enable me to keep the company going until it got back on its feet. I ran a company which specialised in small runs of highly specialised machined castings, and also complex machining from raw metal – for example, one of the things we did a while back was a run of just twelve cylinder heads for pre-war Norton motorcycles. As you probably know, there are quite a few people who, usually more or less as a hobby, but sometimes as a commercial undertaking, restore old cars, motor cycles, even aircraft. Sometimes original parts are damaged beyond repair, or even missing altogether. That’s where a company like mine could help. With any luck we could reproduce what is needed, either from reverse engineering from an original, or from old drawings. Well, such work doesn’t come cheap, as you can probably imagine. When the recession hit our work didn’t dry up completely, but it did fall 25

off a lot. Then we had an order for a run of two hundred water pumps from a company that was a sub-contractor for a company running an irrigation contract in South Africa. It was quite a bit out of our normal line of work, but the unit cost would be a bit over three thousand pounds – three quarters of a million in all, and we had the skills to actually do the work. For a small company like mine, that was a big order and a life-line if the recession continued to cut into our normal work. So, we set up for the job, completed it inside both time and budget – and never got paid. The sub-contractor went bust and the main company didn’t want to know.

“That was when I met Hugh Grissom. I had gone to our bank and they offered sympathy, but no money. I had heard of Craig Holdings, a local finance company and went to them. Kenneth Craig, the CEO, said that they couldn’t help, but that my plight was the sort of situation in which Grissom Holdings specialised.

Grissom was optimistic when we talked, but in the end effectively sold me down the river. He bought the company from under me – it was sell or go totally bust – closed it down, and then sold the site at a profit.”

“How did that leave you financially, Mr. Lucas?”

“Well, I had the sale money. After I’d paid off the company’s debts and made redundancy payments to my people, there wasn’t much left, but I’d bought this house when things were good and even in the current market it is worth over two million. When I bought it, I was advised by my solicitor to put the house in my wife’s name to keep it totally safe should I ever have business difficulties. It was the best advice I ever had.

My wife is a little older than myself, so we were able to arrange one of these capital release schemes against the value of the house, the money from which will tide us over nicely for a while. I’ve already got a couple of irons in the fire with offers to run a couple of engineering firms – a bit different from what my own company specialised in, but not a million miles away from it. so, a long answer to your question, Sergeant.

As I said – I was furious with Grissom first off, but things are working out OK for us, so I don’t hold any real grudge. To be honest – it was business, and he proved himself a better business man than me – had the positions been reversed, I would probably have done just the same as he did.”

Sangster was beginning to believe that, whoever had murdered Grissom, it wasn’t Thomas Lucas. There was, however, one question that still had to be asked.

“For the record, Mr. Lucas, could you account for me your movements from last Saturday morning through to Monday evening?”

“No problem, Sergeant. Vera – my wife – and I were in our villa in the South of France. We have a little place in Saint Marie – that’s a small town near Perpignan, right on the Mediterranean coast and our place is in the Avenue de la Méditerranée, only a few hundred yards from the sea itself. We went down three weeks ago, spent a fortnight there, and only came back last Tuesday. Over the previous weekend, the one you are interested in, we were at a party. One of our neighbours was celebrating his sixtieth birthday – the party started at eight in the evening and went on until about three on Sunday morning.”

That stay in France, Sangster thought enviously, explained the tan.

“Do you still have your airline tickets and the like, Mr. Lucas?”

“No, afraid not. Once I’d checked them on-line against my credit card records, I shredded them.”

Another indicator of innocence, thought Sangster; if Lucas had been anxious to establish his alibi he would surely have kept the proof. No, this was a dead end, but at least Lucas could be removed from the list of possibles. Just one more thing occurred to him.

“Oh, one point, Mr. Lucas. You live down here, but your company was based in Newcastle; wasn’t that a bit inconvenient?”

Lucas looked a little – embarrassed perhaps?

“When I set up the company – it was before Vera and I were married – I lived up in Newcastle. Then, when I met Vera, who had recently been divorced from her first husband, she made it plain that she had had enough of the North-East and wanted to move back to Surrey, where she had lived before meeting and marrying John Deedes – her first husband. I had the business to run, so we compromised. For the first few years we stayed in Newcastle, but then, when an aunt died and left Vera some money, and my company was doing well, we bought this place and I stayed in Newcastle Monday to Thursday nights, came down here on 26

Fridays and returned to Newcastle on Mondays. It was a lot of travelling, but it was worth it. There was no way I could move my business down here, and the arrangement suited both Vera and myself.”

Now there’s an odd set up, Sangster thought to himself. Might just warrant looking into further of all else dries up, but only as a very last resort; he still saw Lucas as an effective dead end for the murder of Hugh Grissom.

Sangster and Saunders left the Lucas household. As Saunders drove away, Sangster used his mobile phone to check how things were going back at the office. Nothing to require any change in plans, so he instructed the DC to drive to their next appointment.

Kenneth Craig, the CEO of Craig Holdings, of which the late Hugh Grissom had been a major shareholder, lived in a relatively modest detached bungalow on the outskirts of the village of Ripley, one of several Surrey villages that had once straddled the A3 but which had now long since been by-passed when that major traffic route had been improved.

The door was answered by the man himself, who ushered the two detectives into a deceptively large lounge with a huge picture window looking out over an immaculate garden taking up one entire wall, whilst the wall opposite featured an open fire place almost big enough to roast an ox in. Several comfortable looking chairs were scattered around the room, offering the room’s inhabitants a choice of views; the garden, the fireplace, or a fifty inch plasma TV.

Sangster, fresh from the opulence of the Lucas dwelling place, and now faced with this ‘design for living’

home, reflected sadly on his own three bedroomed semi.

Craig was, Sangster knew, only thirty-eight years old, but unlike Lucas, who could easily have passed for at least five years, possibly even ten, younger than his actual age, Craig easily looked a good ten years older.

About five feet six inches tall, sparsely built, with a stoop to his stance that spoke of a less than athletic life style, Craig exuded an air of diffidence which seemed odd for a man who was, according to Alice Pratt’s quick research, the boss of a small but thriving finance company specialising in high risk, high cost, high return loans to businesses throughout the home counties. His sparse frame was topped by a long, narrow skull almost entirely bereft of hair, with just a few strands of grey hair combed awkwardly across from right to left, and eyebrows that were almost invisible surmounting eye that, like the rest of the man, were grey.

“So, gentlemen, how can I help you? I understand that you want to talk to me about Hugh Grissom, is that right?”

Sangster, once again, was blunt.

“Yes, Mr. Craig. You see, Mr, Grissom is dead – murdered – so we are talking to as many people as possible who knew him.”

Craig sat motionless; only by a slight flicker of the eyelids did the news register with him.

“Hugh is dead? Oh, dear. How did it happen?”

“I’m afraid that I can’t go into details at this stage, Mr. Craig, as I am sure that you will appreciate. What I would like to know from you is whether you are aware of anyone who might bear Mr. Grissom such a grudge as to want to kill him.”

Craig leant back in his chair for what seemed an interminable length of time before replying.

“I’m sorry, Sergeant. Hugh was a hard driver of a business deal, but something to get him killed?” he shook his head. “No, I can’t see that at all.”

Then a frown crossed his face.

“Does Yvonne Raymond, my PA, know? She and Hugh were very close.”

Sangster looked at his watch.

“One of my female colleagues should be with her about now to break the news.”

He switched back to questioning Craig.

“Tell me, Mr. Craig, I believe that Mr. Grissom was a shareholder in your own business – is that correct?”

“Yes, Hugh held a twenty per cent share in the business – when I set the business up ten years ago I needed more capital than I could raise myself. A mutual acquaintance introduced us, Hugh liked my business plan, so put up some of his own money . At the time he put up fifty percent of the start up capital, but we had an agreement that enabled me to buy him out, either all at once or, as has been happening, a bit at a time. The 27

arrangement suited us both. In view of his death, it’s just as well that I have bought some of his shares back –

I’ve no idea who inherits his remaining holding.”

This, thought Brenda Saunders, is a pretty cool customer. Sangster throws the death of his business partner at him right out of the blue and he scarcely bats an eyelid. Now he’s thinking not about Grissom, but how the man’s death might have affected his own business.

“So, might Mr. Grissom’s death adversely affect your business?”

Craig thought for a while before answering.

“Well, if whoever inherits his shares insists on me buying them back straightaway, I would have to raise the money to do so; I don’t have it lying around, as it were, but I think that I could buy them back without too much of a problem.”

“So, his death isn’t a real problem – in business terms that is –for you?”

Craig thought for a moment, then shook his head slowly; does this man do nothing spontaneously, Saunders asked herself.

“No, not really.”

“And personally?”

“Well, Hugh and I got on well enough, and I’m very sorry to hear what has happened to him, but we weren’t great friends, if that is what you mean. We seldom saw each other apart from business, didn’t meet up for a meal or the like.”

And that was all they gleaned from Kenneth Craig. As they drove away, Sangster put it into words.

“Nothing doing there – and he’s a cold fish, is Craig, and Grissom was killed in what looks like a frenzied attack.”

“Or was meant to look like one,” Saunders suggested. Sangster furrowed his brow in concentration.

“No, I don’t think so – lots of stab wound to mislead us? Fair enough. But to cut the man’s balls out? Too much of a good thing. If it’s an attempt to deceive, the stab wounds would be easily enough to simulate frenzy – how many of them were there?”

Saunders searched her memory.

“Sixteen.”

“Well then, either a genuine frenzy or a convincing attempt to simulate one. If the latter, the castration was over-egging the pudding in trying to convince us.”

It was just about the same time that Jane and Lucas Merville drew up outside Yvonne Raymond’s block of flats. The five story building looked relatively new and well maintained, forming a hollow square round a central lawn area. It stood on stilts, with the open area thus formed underneath the building providing car parking spaces for the residents. Judging by the almost total dominance of Mercedes, BMWs and Jaguars, the flats were pricy.

The drive from Guildford had given Jane the opportunity to assess Merville a little more than had previously been possible. As she had said to Sangster, she scarcely knew the Detective Constable other than the basics.

He was thirty-six, had joined the police at thirty years of age after twelve years in the Army, and had been in CID for just over two years.

During the drive she had also learned that he was married, with seven year old twins, the appearance of whom had played a major part in his decision to leave the Army after a particularly unpleasant tour of Afghanistan. He had been a sergeant in the Army and made no secret of the fact that he wanted to attain the same rank in the police force as soon as possible.

“Trouble is, ma’am,” he had told her, “there aren’t all that many sergeants’ posts on the whole so if I want to get on, and I do, I’ll probably have to leave Surrey for another force.”

That, reflected Jane, was another consequence of the reorganisation – there were now fewer Detective Inspector and Detective Sergeant posts in the establishment. Still, the recent agreement of DCS Inkerman to the appointment of personal assistants to the Divisional CID heads proved that the bosses were listening –

perhaps a bit of refinement to the new structure might be possible.

28

The various flats were reached via a ground floor entrance hall, access to which had to be gained by calling a resident on an intercom panel. Jane pressed the button marked ‘Raymond’ and a disembodied voice sounded.

“Who is it?”

“It’s the police Ms. Raymond, DCI Lawson and DC Merville.”

“Please hold your warrant card up to the camera.”

For the first time Jane realised that there was a camera lens at the top of the intercom panel. She took her warrant card out of her jacket pocket and held it up; after a brief pause there was a buzzing sound and the door opened an inch or so. Jane pushed the door fully open and the two detectives walked into the entrance hall which simply boasted two lifts and a staircase, the latter clearly a fire escape and not openable from the hall. The lifts had none of the normal buttons, one for each floor; instead each had a similar intercom box to that outside, except that the lifts had five names rather than the ten outside, with a button against each name.

Jane pressed that marked ‘Raymond’ and heard the whirring of the lift mechanism. A moment later the lift doors opened and they stepped inside. She looked in vain for any further controls; instead, the doors closed automatically and the lift progressed upwards in almost total silence. These flats were not only pricy, Jane told herself, but had a very sophisticated entry and security system. Obviously a visitor could only reach a given flat if the resident wished to be visited. How, Jane wondered, could the PA to the CEO of a fairly small company possibly afford such a location?

The lift glided to a halt and the doors again opened automatically; they stepped out into a small foyer, perhaps seven feet square. Directly in front of them was a door with a peephole; as Jane watched, the peephole momentarily darkened as somebody clearly put their eye to it to check that only those expected had actually arrived. Then the door opened and Yvonne Raymond stood before them. The woman was, Jane knew, thirty-six years old, just a year younger than herself, but Jane reluctantly admitted to herself that someone seeing the two of them side by side would have put the age gap as being considerably greater.

Yvonne Raymond was tall, probably five feet eight or nine, her height accentuated by high heeled shoes and slim line black jeans. Above the jeans was a soft white sweater, floppy in fit and, Jane guessed, expensive enough to be out of the reach of your average PA. Above the sweater was an oval face framed by jet black hair cut to reach the jaw line, sweeping forward to almost, but not quite, conceal the ears, from which dangled small, discreet gold ear-rings. The complexion was perfection and the eyes which examined the two of them seemed as black as the hair – never before had Jane seen irises so dark that they were virtually indistinguishable from the pupils.

Merville, doing his best not to stare too obviously, found himself envying the late Hugh Grissom in his choice of mistress.

“Won’t you come in, please?” The voice went with the appearance, low, husky and expensive.

Raymond led the way into a large lounge, carpeted in a deep pile cream colour, the black leather settee and chairs providing a dramatic contrast. Apart from the settee and chairs, the only other items of furniture in the room were low occasional tables, again black; not even a TV nor radio was in sight. Raymond indicated a couple of the chairs and herself sank gracefully onto the settee. Jane looked at her, knowing that, for this woman, things were about to change, and not for the better, of that she was sure.

“Ms. Raymond, I understand that you know Mr. Hugh Grissom?”

The first intimation of what this might all be about were clearly beginning to occur to Yvonne Raymond.

“What’s happened to Hugh?”

“I’m very sorry to have to tell you, Ms. Raymond, but I’m afraid that Mr. Grissom is dead. He has been murdered...”

She got no further; Yvonne Raymond’s face turned a chalky white and she slumped back against the arm of the settee .Her hands went up to her mouth.

“No, no, it can’t be.”

“I’m afraid that it is, Ms. Raymond and I want you to help us in catching whoever killed him.”

Yvonne looked up, her eyes filled with tears.

“What happened to him? We were due to meet yesterday, but he never came, and when you phoned to ask to come and see me, I guessed something was wrong, but never this.”

29

At that point she broke down and, with her face buried in her hands, wept uncontrollably. Jane and Merville waited helplessly until, after some minutes, the wracking sobs moderated and she dropped her hands to her lap. She looked totally distraught and both Jane and Merville, long experienced in witnessing the grief of the newly bereaved, were convinced that they were seeing the genuine article, not an act for their benefit.

At last, after a succession of deep, shuddering breaths, Yvonne Raymond got herself under some sort of control.

“I’m sorry – but I loved him. I knew that he would never leave his wife for me, that no matter how much I tried to own him, that it would never be. His wife has always had a hold over him of some sort – not just that they are man and wife, something else, but I don’t know what. Have you met her?”

Jane decided honesty was called for.

“No, in fact she seems to have missing. She hasn’t been in their home for several days at least and neither her son nor her daughter know where she might be. I don’t suppose that you would have any idea if where she might go?”

The woman shook her head.

“I’ve never even spoken to her – I have seen her a couple of times, but only from a distance. Once when Hugh had called on Ken – that’s Ken Craig, my boss, she came to pick him up because his car had picked up a puncture, and he didn’t have time to change the wheel himself as they were going out somewhere. The other time I called at Hugh’s office to deliver some stuff for Ken and she was already there in the waiting room, presumably waiting for him for some reason. I just left the stuff with Hugh’s secretary and made my escape as quickly as I could.”

“Can I ask you, when did you last see Mr. Grissom?”

“Friday evening of last week. He called for me at about seven thirty and we had dinner together at Latino’s here in Woking – we both like,” she stumbled over the ward and tears welled up in her eyes again. Angrily, she brushed then away with the back of her hand.-, “Hugh liked Italian food and so do I. We left a bit after ten and came back here. Hugh’s wife was away, so he spent the night and didn’t leave until about ten thirty Saturday morning.”

And not too many hours later, the man was dead, Jane thought to herself.

“Do you know where Mr. Grissom was going once he had left you?”

She shook her head.

“Not really, although I don’t think that he was going straight home. As he was leaving he said something about hoping the M25 wouldn’t be too busy. To get to his home from here he wouldn’t need to go anywhere near the M25 – he’d go straight down the A325.”

That was interesting, Jane thought. So, where might Grissom have been headed? Wherever it was, chances were that he met his killer there. At least now she had something to work with. The M25 was festooned with cameras, speed cameras, number plate recognition cameras, and for all she knew, cameras set up by little green men from Mars.

“What did you do, once Mr. Grissom had left?”

“I stayed in that day – I had brought some paperwork back on Friday and dealt with it once Hugh had left –

took me a couple of hours, I suppose, then I watched a DVD – Gone with the Wind for the umpteenth time –

and had an early night.”

“Ms. Raymond, you have been very helpful. One last question – can you think of anybody who would wish Mr. Grissom harm to this level of violence?”

Again she shook her head.

“No, nobody – oh WHY?”

“Ms. Raymond, we must leave now – is there anybody we can get to come and stay with you?”

Raymond sat there, clearly irresolute. Then she spoke.

“No, it’s alright – my mother lives in Farnham – she’ll come over.”

As they left the distraught woman, Jane used her mobile to contact Sangster. Briefly, she explained that Grissom had left Yvonne Raymond mid-morning on the Saturday, possible heading for the M25 and told him to get people working on trying to check his car’s movements on CCTV and traffic cameras. The task 30

was made easier than might have been the case because Grissom was driving a fairly noticeable car – a black Bentley Continental with a vanity number plate – HG 999. Another thought – now that they knew Grissom had used his car on that Saturday – where was the vehicle?

By the time they got back to the station the search for Grissom’s car was underway. Alice Pratt and David Collyer had drawn the short straws and had been sent to traffic central control to review the various cameras recording motorway and main road traffic, including the town centres Grissom might have driven through –

to start with, Woking and Guildford.

Jane was in a quandary. Grissom’s murder was the highest profile crime currently on the Division’s plate, but she couldn’t devote her full time to it as she would have wished. Monday morning would see her weekly meeting with her DIs, followed by her meeting with Inkerman, the other two heads of Divisional CID and the specialist units – Drugs and Vice, and Special Branch – which also reported to the DCS. Before the reorganisation, when she had only been responsible for three DI led teams, she had met with the DIs as a group every morning, exigencies allowing. With just the four of them in the room the meetings had seldom lasted more than fifteen minutes. Now, with a group of eight including herself, an hour was more usual, so she had dropped the idea of a daily get together and replaced it with a weekly meeting, relying on the individual DIs to let her know of anything that needed to come to her attention on an as and when basis. The system worked OK, but it did lessen the quick spread of information through the teams – something which had, in the past, proved useful.

The upshot of the pressures on her time was that she would have to drop out of the direct involvement in the Grissom case, at least for Monday, so the next task was to agree with Sangster what needed to be done in the short term. She simply put the task to Sangster as they sat in his temporary office.

“Well, ma’am, we need to track the movements of Grissom’s car if we possibly can. Again, if possible, it would be good to actually find the car – no telling what forensics might find. We also need to find Mrs.

Grissom – her absence is beginning to really concern me. Then, we need to talk to Grissom’s works colleagues, and I want to have another talk to the son and daughter. They stand to inherit a lot of money and until they can convince me to the contrary, I’ll be keeping them on my list of suspects – and at the moment, it’s a pretty short list, with only them, the girlfriend and the Harris woman and perhaps her brother on it.”

“Linda Harris has a cast iron alibi” Jane pointed out. The Sergeant waved a hand dismissively.

“Oh, I’m sure that she couldn’t be the actual killer, but with the only real motive for wishing Grissom harm –

unless the kids are after his money – she might have arranged it.”

Jane was less than convinced – unless, as seemed pretty unlikely, Linda had persuaded her brother to do the killing, how would she have found someone to carry it out – and how would she have persuaded them?

Money? She didn’t strike Jane as wealthy and a professional killer, besides being very hard to find, would also be expensive.

One final lack of progress for the day; the Grissom’s daughter and her husband were not at their Haslemere home, and a neighbour had advised DC Linda Ball that they were apparently taking a gentle tour through southern France, with no fixed itinerary and that the neighbour had no idea if the couple had a mobile phone with them, nor, if they did, what its number might be. On that note she left to enjoy what little was left of the Sunday.

Chapter Six 10th March

Jane’s Monday morning meetings had thrown up nothing dramatic on the investigatory front, although the meeting, along with the other DCIs and the heads of Special Branch and Drugs and Vice, with Inkerman had been interesting. After receiving a brief résumé of what was happening in the Divisions and the specialist units, Inkerman had leaned back in his chair and closely examined each of his colleagues in turn.

“On Friday,” he began, “I had a meeting with Mr. Graham about the way CID has been reorganised. As you all know, the current Divisional set-up is very much the idea of the Chief Constable, which he formulated whilst he was still the Deputy. Whilst he was still drawing his thoughts on the matter together, he spoke a lot with Mr. Graham as the ACC (Crime) and myself and the other divisional heads. We were all agreed that 31

there was an urgent need for more people at DC level – there simply weren’t enough hands to man the pumps. To achieve that, savings had to be made and the structure we now have was the result.

“He knew, as did we all, that it wasn’t ideal; that to get the number of DCs we wanted we were cutting too deeply into the higher ranks, but it was the only way that the whole package could be sold to the police authority at the time. What he didn’t come clean with to the authority was his intention to take a very close look at the totality of staffing – and therefore costs – throughout the entire force. That exercise is ongoing; it is unlikely to be completed before the end of April at the earliest, more likely – this is my own estimate as I am not directly involved in all of it – early June, but once it is completed the Chief confidently expects that there will be enough slack in the budget to strengthen the top echelons of CID again. For the moment, don’t mention or discuss this with anyone outside this room, but what I am plugging for is the reinstatement of Divisional CID heads as Superintendents, each with two DCIs – not unlike what we had before but with much stronger teams below DCI level. The heads of Special Branch and Vice and Drugs have always been at DCI level, but in my view those teams are important enough to be at the same level as the Divisions – so Superintendent.

“It is dependent on all this coming about, and it is not yet a certainty, but the Chief and Mr. Blake, whose people are doing the donkey work on all of this, are about eighty percent confident at this stage. Originally, they had told me to keep quiet about all this until they could be sure that it would come about, but I persuaded them to let me let you all into what is being aimed at to at least assure the divisional heads that there is light at the end of the tunnel. I know that things aren’t easy at the moment for the three of you, and there is one word of caution – the posts, I am sure, will have to be opened to competition. I can’t see us getting away with simple internal promotions at this level, although as far as I am concerned as the incumbent heads you will have a big advantage in any competitive exercise.”

Jane’s mind was reeling under the impact of what Inkerman had said, and she had no doubt that the others felt the same. Michael Blake, the ACC(Admin) had a very high reputation within the force for his ability to streamline the various elements, and the way in which, over the years, he had found ways of trimming the force’s strength of dead wood. If this was his baby then, judging by what he had achieved in the past, it was virtually certain to come about. The only possible fly in the ointment was the question of competition – in effect having to apply for the job that she was already doing, with the danger that somebody from outside might be appointed over her – an effective demotion.

In the CID team room Carl Sangster was reviewing the progress that had been made on investigating the murder of Hugh Grissom. It wasn’t earth shattering, but given that it was still only a bit over forty-eight hours since the man had been identified, it would be hard for anyone to accuse the team of being slow. At least he hoped so. With Len Parrott off sick, and the DCI only practising oversight rather than real involvement, he felt exposed. He had worked on numerous murder cases – and other high profile cases for that matter – in his thirty years on the force, but this was the first time that he had been the effective lead officer on such a case. He wasn’t enjoying it. He knew that the likes of DCI Lawson relished this sort of task and had a record of success that was enviable, but he had always seen himself as a support player, not the leading man. He got up from his desk – no, the DI’s desk, he corrected himself, and went into the main room. He crossed to Brenda Saunder’s desk. He had set her the task of contacting the Ministry of Defence to find out as much as possible about former Captain George Harris of the Parachute Regiment.

“Brenda, any joy with the MoD?”

“Yes, but it’s pretty basic.” She referred to the notepad beside her telephone. “Captain George Harris, enlisted eighteenth of January two thousand – that was his eighteenth birthday. Accepted for officer training, commissioned into the Parachute Regiment, fourth of October two thousand and one as a second lieutenant, promote to first lieutenant first of November two thousand and four, promoted to captain twentieth of September two thousand and thirteen, injured by a roadside bomb tenth of October, medically discharged fifteenth of December.”

“That was fast,” Sangster mused, “must have been seriously injured for them to decide to be shot of him that quickly. Did they say what his injuries were?”

“Apparently he lost his left foot.”

32

“Oh, I can see why the quick decision then, Look, he’d better be interviewed, although I can’t see an amputee really being in the frame for what was done to Grissom. Set it up, will you, Brenda – and let the locals know that we’ll be on their patch – don’t want to risk ruffling any feathers.”

She nodded her head.

“OK, sarge, right on it.”

It was at that point that the case moved forward. As Sangster turned away from Saunder’s desk, Alice Pratt and David Collyer virtually burst into the room. They had been sent to traffic central to try and track down Grissom’s car and from the expressions on their faces they obviously had news to impart.

“We’ve found his car, sarge.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Saturday morning last week, just as Raymond said, the Bentley was picked up on a traffic camera a few minutes away from her flat. Then it was picked up on M25 cameras until it turned off onto the A3113 –

which took it to Heathrow’s Terminal Four.”

“Terminal Four?”

Alice nodded her head.

“Yes, the Mickey Mouse terminal for odds and sods of international traffic. A quick check – flights all over the place, but not by any of the big airlines. But it gets better – the cameras at Heathrow show it entering a long stay car park – and it must still be there, because they don’t show it leaving!”

Sangster thought for a moment.

“Right, we need that car lifted so that forensics can give it a going over – we’ll need to clear that with the Met and I reckon they won’t be too impressed by a DC or DS doing the asking, so I’ll ask the DCI – need to let her know, anyway.”

Collyer interrupted his flow.

“One other thing, Sarge – the car isn’t owned by Grissom himself, despite the fancy number plate – it’s owned by his company, so that’s why no papers about it were found when his house was searched.”

One small mystery solved, then, Sangster said to himself as he phoned Jane and asked to see her.

Jane listened to his news with satisfaction, although when he asked if she would clear matters with the Met, she was a little disappointed, although not really surprised, that Sangster hadn’t already done so himself. This reluctance to take responsibility was one of the reasons why, even after thirty year, Sangster was still a sergeant and would never go any higher.

“No, Carl – you can do that – tell whoever you talk to that you’re calling on my behalf if you like. Tell the DCs well done on being so quick in tracking down the Bentley – they must have given themselves square eyeballs!”

After Sangster had left her office, Jane sat back in her chair and thought about what she had just been told.

Late Saturday morning Grissom leaves his girlfriend’s flat, drives to Heathrow and parks his car. A few hours later, perhaps as few as four or five, he is murdered. At some time after he is murdered, his naked body is dumped in the River Wey. So, why did he go to Heathrow? Was he intending to fly somewhere – the obvious conclusion – and if so, where and why? And what happened to make him change his mind, because he obviously didn’t fly anywhere – the timing of his parking his car and meeting his death just didn’t allow it. The post mortem had established that he had been in the water over twenty four hours, so he had been put in the river not later than Sunday afternoon – but surely it was more likely that he had gone in during the hours of darkness? Whoever had killed him was hardly likely to have rolled up at the river bank somewhere in broad daylight? That meant that he must have been dumped before daybreak Sunday morning, and after nightfall Saturday night. She looked blankly at the large scale map of Surrey which adorned one of her office walls. The River Wey snaked through the county; which bit of it had seen Grissom’s entry? She thought for a moment, then, as an idea struck her, she thumbed through the telephone entries on her mobile until she found the one she wanted.

Charlie Ellis was one of those ‘useful contacts’ that she liked to keep in touch with from time to time. He worked for the County Council and had something to do – she was never quite sure what – with the rivers and canals throughout Surrey. She had met him years ago when a severe case of river pollution had become a 33

police matter when the source had been identified as an illicit drug processing centre – a small operation but a nasty one, which had seen a couple of PCs injured in making the arrests.

“Ellis.”

“Harry, Jane Lawson here, remember me?”

“Of course I do, Jane – how’s my favourite copper?”

“I’m fine thanks – Harry, I’d like to pick your brains, please.”

“If you can find any, you’re welcome – how can I help?”

“Harry, we’re investigating a murder – you may have seen it in the papers last week – bloke fished out of the Wey opposite the Yvonne Arnaud. Harry, please keep this to yourself, as it isn’t public knowledge, but our pathologist says he was in the water for at least twenty four hours before he was found. If he’d spent all that time drifting in the river, how far might he have travelled?”

There was a low whistle at the other end.

“If he really was drifting all that time, a good long way. We’ve had a pretty wet winter, so all the rivers are pretty full. When was he found?”

“Monday evening last week.”

“H’mm, no rain over the previous couple of days as I remember. At the moment the Wey, by its standards, is flowing quite fast – between two and three knots, so your bloke could have gone in as far as seventy or eighty miles away – but I don’t believe it, not for a moment. For a start the whole river is only eighty-seven miles long and lot of it is shallow and meandering. There are a lot of angling clubs along its length – if a body had been gaily floating along most of the weekend it is very hard to believe that it wouldn’t have been seen, or, just as likely, snagged up somewhere. No, I don’t buy into a long river trip for your chap, because over and above all that, he’d somehow have to get through the locks; no way could that have happened.

What I reckon must have happened is that when he went into the river in the dark, or soon afterwards, he snagged up on something, then around dark on Monday something disturbed him, quite possibly the wake from a passing boat, and he broke free to be spotted not long afterwards. At the most he would have gone in just the Guildford side of Godalming locks – say five miles give or take.”

“Thanks, Harry – that makes good sense to me. See you.”

“Bye, Jane, take care.”

Yvonne Raymond wandered listlessly around her flat, wondering what the future held for her. As Jane Lawson had surmised, the rent of such a place was far beyond what she could afford on her PA’s salary.

Hugh had provided the place for her and she knew that it was not, in fact, rented, but owned outright by Hugh’s company, so whether she could stay in it would presumably depend on whoever took over the company. She had told the police officers that she would get her mother to come over to be with her, but at the last moment had changed her mind. Her mother meant well, but she was a smothering fusspot and at the moment all Yvonne wanted was to be left alone with her thoughts.

Sangster was back in the DI’s office, planning what had to be done, and determining which tasks should be afforded priority. Grissom’s car had to be brought back from Heathrow for examination. Grissom’s work colleagues had to be interviewed. George Harris had to be seen. Mrs. Grissom was still nowhere to be found; should he expend resources on trying to find her?

Bitterly regretting the absence of Len Parrott, he wondered which of the various interviews he could delegate, but after a few minutes thought he glumly decided that he would have to do them himself, otherwise there would be no continuity and if anything major came out of any of them, he would surely be criticised for entrusting such a task to a DC.

So, which ones first? Harris was in Coventry – something like a hundred and twenty miles away, say a round trip, allowing for the actual interview, of five hours or so, half a day spent on an interview that was likely to be totally unproductive – the man was an amputee, how could he possibly be their murderer? Could he do it by telephone and save himself the journey? Sangster had a mistrust of trying to get important information from an interviewee over the phone; he was a great believer in looking into the eyes of the person you were 34

interviewing. Perhaps, after all, this was one interview he could entrust to a couple of his DCs. With a start, he remembered that he had already told Brenda Saunders to set up an interview with Harris – the finding of the car had made him forget the fact.

He hurried over to her.

“Brenda, about the Harris interview...”

“All done, Sarge – I’ve arranged it for tomorrow mid-day – plenty of time to get there, see him and get back mid-afternoon.”

Sangster thought quickly.

“Well done – should have said before – I want you to do this one- take Alice with you.”

Pleased to be entrusted with the task – and for the chance to get out of the office for a while – she nodded happily.

“OK, Sarge – we’ll be as quick on it as poss.”

Sangster returned to the DI’s office and set about advising the Met that Surrey Police wanted to lift a vehicle from a Heathrow car park. He knew that the policing of Heathrow was undertaken by Aviation Security which, in spite of the ambiguous name, was actually an operational unit of the Metropolitan Police. He found himself explaining what he wanted to an Inspector Haigh, who not only agreed to the request, but also promised to have Grissom’s Bentley located to save time and inconvenience to other car park users when the transporter arrived. Pleasantly surprised at the level of easy cooperation, Sangster thanked the Inspector profusely and rang off. He looked at the wall clock – shit! It was already well past lunch time and he realised that he was starving and there was still a lot to do if the day was to be seen as successful. He looked into the main office and the first person he saw was James Johnstone.

“Jim, do me a favour, will you? Will you nip down to the canteen and get me a sandwich – I’m bloody starving.”

“Sure, Sarge – anything particular?”

“No, anything they’ve still got.”

He returned to the DI’s office and looked at a note that Alice Pratt had left for him. She had arranged for the staff at Grissom Holdings to expect a police visit around four o’clock. Wisely, she had not specified whom the company could expect to see. Sangster thought for a while. He was anxious to share the load around the DCs as much as possible, so he settled on Johnstone, and as he made his decision, the man himself returned bearing a beef and horseradish sandwich for his sergeant.

“Thanks, Jim, you’re a life saver, and as a special reward you’ll come with me when I go to see Grissom’s work people. You drive; pick me up at three forty-five, they’re in the Stoughton Road area somewhere.”

Next task, Sangster told himself, was to review the murder book. He had no worries about it being up to date, he had seen Alice working hard at it only minutes before, so he called her in to review it.

The first thing to look at was the list of tasks which he had compiled for the day. One item still worried him

– where was Mrs. Grissom? So far he had allocated no resources to finding her; should he do so? It was now over a week since anybody had had any contact with her, that being when her son had spoken to her on the telephone on the Saturday before Grissom had been found in the river. Another task not yet touched –

Grissom’s will; who benefitted financially from the man’s death.

Sangster felt himself beginning to flounder under the sheer bulk of tasks to be coped with. Alice Pratt looked at her superior with unexpressed sympathy. Poor old Carl, she thought to herself – he’s really not up to all this. She wondered how best to offer help and advice to a man clearly needing it, but a man thirty years or so older than herself and her superior officer into the bargain. The will, she thought to herself. Until just this minute he had obviously forgotten it totally.

“Do you want me to try and start on the will yet, Sarge?”

Sangster seized on the thought eagerly.

“Yes, Alice, now that the book is up to date for the moment, make that your next task.”

Alice left Sangster to himself and hurried back to her desk; once there, she looked in the phone log, found David Grissom’s mobile number and phoned him. It was answered at the third ring.

35

“Mr. Grissom, this is DC Pratt from Surrey Police. We haven’t anything new to report as yet, I’m afraid, but I wonder if you know who your father’s solicitor’s are?”

“Yes, of course. They are Miles and Bewley in Guildford. My father has relied on them for years.”

“Have you heard from your mother at all?”

“No – I would have told you, or got her to get in touch with you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Grissom.”

Once she broke the connection, Alice immediately looked up Miles and Bewley and a few minutes later was speaking to a Giles Corrigan, who had introduced himself as the partner who dealt with the affairs of Hugh Grissom. He had been unaware of his client’s death, and the news came as a shock to him.

“Does your firm have Mr. Grissom’s will, Mr. Corrigan?”

There was a long pause at the other end.

“I’m not sure that I should be divulging that information, Constable.”

“It’s actually Detective Constable, Mr. Corrigan, and we are in the middle of a murder investigation. It is important – no, vital, that we know who stands to gain from Mr. Grissom’s death. Now, we can obviously get a court order requiring you to release the will to us, but it would be extremely helpful if we could short circuit that – as I’m sure you appreciate, in the early stage of an investigation, speed is very much of the essence.”

There was an even longer pause before Corrigan spoke again.

“Obviously I do not have the details from memory. I will need to reread it and phone you back. What number can I reach you on?”

“To reassure you, Mr. Corrigan, that I am who I say I am, please phone through our main switchboard and ask for me by name.”

It was over twenty minutes before Corrigan phoned back.

“I have looked at Mr. Grissom’s will, Detective Constable,” there was the slightest condescension about his pronunciation of the word ‘Detective’ but Jane ignored it, “and it is quite complex, as one would expect from a man with such wealth. Basically, however, everything is left to his wife or, should she predecease him, to be split equally between his two children.”

“Do you have any idea of his total worth?”

“Not at the moment – I would have to consult with his accountants, but at a rough estimate of what I am aware of at the moment, probably in the region of ten to twelve million pounds. Oh, there is one specific exclusion to the generality of the bequest. His shares in Craig Holdings go straight to his son; I don’t have any idea of their worth, but it would seem that he wanted to ensure that Craig Holdings would not be adversely affected by uncertainty over whatever his legatees might decide to do in the future.”

“Mr. Corrigan – assuming that Mrs. Grissom doesn’t predecease her husband – do you have her will? Can you tell me who would then benefit?”

“There I’m afraid that I cannot help you, Detective Constable. My firm doesn’t act for Mrs. Grissom and I don’t know who does.”

Alice thanked the man for his cooperation, resisting the temptation to be curt to him, and hurried to Sangster to report.

“So,” Sangster mused, “Mrs. Grissom is going to be a very rich lady in her own right – so where the hell is she?”

Alice shrugged her shoulders; they were both unaware of the fact that the very germane question was going to be answered in the very near future.

Sangster looked at the wall clock again; it was nearly time to go with Johnstone to Grissom Holdings and he was about to rise from the desk when the phone rang. He looked at it in a quandary of indecision – he really needed to get to Grissom Holdings, but supposing it was important? He looked around; Alice Pratt was nearest to the phone.

“Alice, I have to be at Grissom’s company; take that please.”

So saying, he was out of the door and on his way.

Alice picked up the phone.

36

“DI Parrott’s office, DC Pratt speaking.”

“It’s Inspector Haigh from Aviation Security here. I was talking to DS Sangster earlier – is he there!”

Oh dear, thought Alice, sounds like Sarge shouldn’t have scarpered.

“I’m afraid that you’ve just missed him, sir- he left to interview some people on a current case. Can I help?”

“I think that I had better talk to whoever he reports to – who would that be?”

“At the moment that is DCI Lawson, sir.”

“I’d better speak to him, then, could you transfer me, please.”

“Yes sir, oh – the DCI is a female officer. Transferring you now.”

Jane’s phone rang, interrupting her line of thought as she wondered just where Grissom might have been dumped in the Wey in such a manner as to agree with the timescale. She picked up the handset.

“Lawson.”

“Is that DCI Lawson?”

“Speaking.”

“It’s Inspector Haigh from Aviation security here, ma’am. I was speaking to a DS Sangster earlier about lifting a vehicle from a Heathrow car park, but he’s not in his office at the moment, so I thought that I had better talk to you as his reporting officer.”

“Yes, Inspector, I know of the request. DS Sangster briefed me before calling you.”

“Right. Thing is ma’am, we’ve located the car in the car park OK, but I don’t think that it should just be lifted.”

“Why, what’s the problem?”

“Well, the lads who found it gave me a call to let me know and I went over to have a look to see how difficult it might be to get a transporter to it, or whether it might need a bit of manhandling. When I got to the car I was aware of a bit of a smell coming from the boot. That boot must be pretty close fitting, but even so the smell was evident – I think that there is a dead body inside that boot – I’ve smelled them before, as I’m sure you must have.”

Just what I need, Jane thought despondently.

“Oh dear, I see what you mean, Inspector. I’d better arrange for a pathologist to get there.”

“Could I make a suggestion, ma’am?”

“Please do, Inspector.”

“Well, I’ve had a quick word with my Super. He agreed with me that although the car is on our patch, if there is a body inside then he, or she, must have been placed there before the car was driven into the car park, so as it is a vehicle you are after, it seems clear that it belongs to you. Now, I could be wrong – after all, I suppose it might turn out to be a dead dog or cat in there, which would be a big waste of your doctor’s time.

Would you be happy if we opened the boot and I had one of the airport doctors – they’re all registered police surgeons, to confirm that life is extinct, but otherwise not to touch the body so that your pathologist and SOCO people have an undisturbed scene to work on?”

“Inspector, that would be extremely helpful. Thank you very much. I’ll let our transporter continue on its way to you and I’ll get a message to them to bring it straight to the compound and have the necessary people waiting for it.”

“Right you are, ma’am. It’ll only take ten minutes or a bit more to rustle up a doctor. I’ll phone you back to let you know what we find.”

“Right, I’ll wait to hear from you – and thanks again for the help.”

“My pleasure, ma’am.”

True to his word, the London policeman was on the line less than twenty minutes later.

“We’ve opened the boot of the car ma’am. There is a body in it. A middle-aged woman, and from the state of her, our doctor reckons she’s been there ever since the car was parked a week ago Saturday.”

“Thanks, Inspector. I’ll have our people standing by.”

Jane phoned the SOCO team and Eileen McCarthy; with the doctor she had more than just a brief conversation.

37

“Eileen, I can’t help wondering about Grissom and his time in the water. Somehow he must have been caught up on something either deliberately or by chance. Thing is, the longer before he was discovered, the better it would be for the killer.”

“Yes, I’ve been thinking about that as well. I did wonder if he might have been weighed down in some way, but he was naked. If weights or the like had been tied to him, the flesh would have been marked and it wasn’t. I’ve even had a second look at him in case I missed something, but I hadn’t, of that I’m quite sure.

Another thing occurred, though. Could he have been in some sort of stagnant area for a while and then somehow his location was disturbed and out he floated? Alternatively, but seems really bizarre, could he have been in some sort of container or bag, open to the river, obviously, but somehow the body escaped from it?”

Unaware of what was happening back at the station, Sangster and Johnstone had spent a fruitless two hours talking to Grissom Holdings employees. When he had heard the size of the company’s turnover, Sangster had been expecting a huge organisation. To his amazement, the whole company numbered just ten people, ten people now all worried about what would happen about their jobs with the death of the company’s founder and head man.

Most worried was the man who had been Grissom’s effective deputy. Miles Dawlish was a man nearing sixty, overweight and short, with almost no hair on his head, who made no secret of the fact that although he deputised for Grissom on the odd occasion, decisions about the company’s actions rested with the boss and Dawlish was there to tidy up the paperwork.

The picture that the two detectives gained from their interviews was of a man who was uncannily capable of scenting out companies in trouble and turning that trouble to the advantage of himself and his firm. With Grissom gone, none of those left had anything remotely like the same ability, and in Sangster’s opinion the company was finished unless a new talent emerged – perhaps the son, David? The trouble with that was that, assuming she turned up, it was Mrs. Grissom who inherited the firm – was she any sort of business woman?

From what the Grissom Holdings people had told him, she had no function within the company whatsoever, so it seemed unlikely that she would attempt to take up the reins.

There was one odd thing that intrigued Sangster. He had asked Dawlish how the company operated and what assets it held. Much of the explanation of the former had been over his head – the nuances of capital acquisitions and disposal was not his metier – but on the former there was something that caused him to take notice. The company owned two flats. One was in Hays Court, Woking, which he remembered was the address of Yvonne Raymond. The other was in Epsom, in East Street. When he asked Dawlish to purpose of the flats, the man looked vaguely embarrassed and said that they were for Mr. Grissom to ‘entertain clients’.

Knowing that the Woking flat was where Grissom had kept his mistress, Sangster wondered about the Epsom flat and determined to check it out when he had a moment, or when he could spare somebody to do it for him; he noted that it had only been acquired a few months previously – to be exact, in September of two thousand and thirteen.

He asked just why Grissom had gone to Newcastle; after all the acquisition of the Lucas company was over and done with and the site and its contents sold on.

Dawlish looked puzzled.

“I don’t honestly know, Sergeant. When Mr. Grissom bought out the Lucas operation, he went up to Newcastle on several occasions, but there has been no need for him to return there that I am aware of. I have asked his secretary if he told her to arrange any meetings whilst he was up there, but apparently not. Why he should have gone up there is a mystery to all of us here, but then, Mr. Grissom often played things very close to his chest, so it may well be that when he was up there over the Lucas business he sniffed out another opportunity, and that whatever it might be was the cause of his trip, but I’m afraid that we are truly in the dark over it.”

“Another thing, Mr. Dawlish – why did you not report Mr. Grissom as missing when he didn’t turn up on Monday?”

38

“Well, he wasn’t really missing. When we opened up on Monday, there was an E-mail from him to his secretary saying that his movements for the next few days would be fluid, so until we heard the dreadful news we weren’t worried about him.”

“Did he often do that sort of thing?”

“Quite often. You must realise, Sergeant, that he was a very secretive man where new business was concerned. Often the first thing anyone here would know about a new project was when he announced it as a done deal.”

On that unsatisfactory note Sangster and Johnstone took their leave of the Grissom Holdings people; when they arrived back at base they found the place buzzing with the news that Mrs. Grissom – because although there was at yet no formal identification everybody was sure that she was the body in the Bentley – had been found and that a transporter was at that moment only minutes away from delivering its grisly cargo. Sangster reported to Jane with, effectively, a nil report, a report which she mentally noted but held of little, if any, significance in solving what was now a double murder.

The arrival of the transporter was the cause of frenzied activity. Numerous photos were taken of the corpse before it was moved. It was, as Haigh had said, that of a woman of middle age, dressed in a skirt and blouse, both, to Jane’s eye, looking expensive, though now hardly in pristine condition. Eileen McCarthy, on first examination, agreed with the tentative diagnosis of the Heathrow doctor; the woman had been in the car boot for a week or more.

“Cause of death? Well, until I get her on the table I can’t be positive, but look here,” she indicated a discoloured mark around the woman’s neck, “sparing a heart attack or the like, I’d say that she has been strangled with a ligature.”

Jane nodded thoughtfully, and gave permission for the body to be removed from the car boot, leaving the SOCO team to scour the vehicle for any evidence it might offer up, whilst the remains of Mrs. Grissom, for it must surely be her, were conveyed to the morgue by ambulance.

Eileen looked at her watch.

“Jane, I’ll do the post mortem first thing on the morning – can you have a police presence for eight for me?”

“No problem,” she turned to Sangster, “Carl, would you arrange it, please.”

The Detective Sergeant nodded his acquiescence and turned to Johnstone who, like his sergeant, had hurried to the reception area.

“Jim, one for you, please.”

Johnstone nodded, although not best pleased. He had attended previous post mortems and found them just about the most unpleasant task he had ever had to perform. Somehow, the sheer clinical detachment of the process made it even worse than dealing with the results of vicious murders or horrific traffic accidents.

Jane arrived home, to find Harry already there, already with a glass of wine for her.

“Back to normal, then?” he greeted her, as they sat down in the lounge.

“Fraid so – and it’s getting worse. We’ve got another body, the wife of the first victim.”

Harry raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“Same killer, you think?”

“No, this man Grissom is some operator. Would you believe he spent Friday night happily shagging his girl friend, then drives away and leaves his car in a Heathrow car park – and all the time his wife’s body is in the boot?”

Harry looked at her sceptically.

“And you believe that?”

Jane looked at him.

“Come again?”

“Jane, if someone came to you and said that Grissom murders his wife – for what other explanation can there be for her body being in the boot of the car that he is driving? – drives off, leaves the car where it won’t attract notice for at least a few days, and then a few hours later is murdered himself – would you believe it?”

Jane stared at her husband as the implications of what he had just said started to mesh into place.

39

“Oh, my God! You’ve just stood this whole fucking investigation on its head. Of course I wouldn’t. I’d think it was the work of a killer or killers covering their tracks. Why on earth didn’t I think of this? Why didn’t any of us?”

She sat back and thought furiously. Easy enough to say that the sheer volume of work facing her had blinded her mind to the thought of an alternative scenario to her original one, but that was no excuse. She was in charge, or supposed to be, of the Division’s CID. She resolved that the morrow would see a change in things, not just in the investigating of the Grissom murders, but in her own approach to the job.

Chapter Seven 11th March

The team room was already crowded when Jane made her entrance just after eight o’clock.

“Morning, everybody. Now, as I am sure you all have realised already, finding the body of Mrs. Grissom in the boot of her husband’s Bentley puts a different complexion on the whole case. Up to now we have been looking at a single murder and we had been led to believe that it was Hugh Grissom who drove his car to Heathrow. Now we have to ask ourselves just how credible that now is.

“First, the body in the boot. I said that it is that of Mrs. Grissom; we have not yet had the body formally identified, but we are sure it is her from the photos in her house. Now, how she was killed and when. This is subject to confirmation by post mortem, but first indications are that she was strangled with a ligature not later than Saturday the first, the day the Bentley was parked at Heathrow.

“Now, we were told by Yvonne Raymond that Hugh Grissom spent the Friday night with her before driving off, to where she knew not, after breakfast on the Saturday. If what she told us is true, then Grissom spent the night with her whilst his wife’s dead body lay in his car and, still with the body in the car, he drove off on the Saturday morning. Then he dumps the car, still with Mrs. Grissom inside the boot and vanishes, until he turns up in the River Wey on Monday evening, having somehow got himself murdered in the interim. Now does that sound convincing? Possible, yes, but likely? It would almost certainly mean that we are expected to believe that Grissom murdered his wife – or had someone else do it but agreed to dispose of the body – and then was himself murdered.

“A question, which is more likely – that we are looking at two separate murders and two separate murderers, or that one person – or more than one person, acting together – did both killings?”

She had intended the question to be purely rhetorical, but Alice Pratt took it as calling for an answer.

“Both killed by the same person or persons is far more likely, surely, ma’am?”

“That’s my feeling as well, Alice, and until and unless something happens to persuade me otherwise, that’s my working hypothesis at this time.”

She ran her eye over the assembled team, wondering if anyone had twigged just how easily she had been led down the wrong path until last night. Impossible to tell, but at least they all looked truly interested.

“Right,” she said, “we thought that Grissom drove from Raymond’s place to Heathrow because Raymond told us so. Was she telling the truth? If we accept the one killer or killers scenario, how could she have been?

It would mean that after Grissom left her, somebody else took over the car, either with Mrs. Grissom’s body already in it, or somehow put her in there after taking over the car.

“Now, if Raymond lied to us – why? We know from CCTV coverage in the area, even though there is none covering her actual block of flats itself, that the Bentley approached her place at just after seven thirty Friday evening. It didn’t appear again until around ten thirty Saturday morning. If it wasn’t parked at the flats, where else could it have been?

“Two things straight away. I want Raymond brought in for questioning and I want any possible places that Bentley might have been hidden looked for. Carl, would you arrange that please.”

“Yes, ma’am – one other thing.”

“Yes?”

“I had arranged for DCs Saunders and Pratt to go up to Leicester later this morning to interview George Harris, the brother of Linda. Do you still want that done?”

“Yes please. The more we know about all the players in the set up, and the sooner we know it, the better.”

Jane returned to her office and had just sat down when there was a tap on the door.

40

“Come in.”

To her surprise, Dave Cross came in, looking diffident.

“Is it OK to come in, boss?”

“Yes, Dave, come on in – what can I do for you?”

“I hope it’s what I can do for you, boss. DI Clarke feels that his team are under a bit less pressure than usual at the moment and he knows that with DI Parrott away and the murder to investigate, he wondered if you would like me to start as your PA before the official paperwork comes through.”

“Dave, that’s the best bit of news I have had today – you couldn’t have come at a better time. First task –

let’s set you up with an office. When DSi Inkerman, and Mr. Graham before him, had this office that outer room you’ve come through held a secretary – it’s now your office, so anyone coming to see me comes through you first, so you will always know who I’m seeing. Sometimes I’ll ask you to sit it to take notes of action required and to chase it up if necessary. First thing, though – go along to DI Parrott’s team and have a quick read through their murder book. It’s the highest profile case the Division is handling at the moment and there is sure to be more coming my way – and therefore your way – about it.”

Once Cross had left her again, Jane thought more about the inter-relationships of the victims and the other players in the case. One thing stuck her as needing checking. They knew who inherited Hugh Grissom’s assets – his wife. But if his wife died after her husband, then it would be her will that was the significant one

– and they had no idea what her will said.

She mentally ran through the sequence of events for perhaps the hundredth time. Friday, Grissom sees Raymond. That week he had been in Newcastle – or had he? Had anyone actually checked? Presuming that he been in Newcastle, how and when had he returned?

Saturday, according to Raymond, Grissom leaves her mid-morning. His car is traced to Heathrow where it is left in a car park for Terminal Four. No sight of Grissom from that moment on until his body is discovered in the River Wey the following Monday evening. Pathology indicates that he was killed that Saturday afternoon, early evening and put in the river. Where were the possible suspects over that weekend? Linda Harris was in Coventry, as was her brother George, although the latter was on his own for the afternoon and early evening – but surely he couldn’t have got down to London and back in the time available? Very hard to see either of the Harris siblings as being involved, at least not directly. Yvonne Raymond? No alibi, said she stayed in during Saturday after Grissom left, doing paperwork and watching a DVD. Anyway, why should she want Grissom dead? He was clearly a financial support to her – she could never have afforded that superb flat without a lot of help.

Suppose the motive was Grissom’s money? First beneficiary would have been his wife – but she was dead.

Next in line were the son and daughter – unless it was adjudged that the wife had died after her husband and there was something in her will that excluded them. David Grissom had no alibi until the late evening when he had dinner with one Julie Summers, spent the night with her, and returned home Sunday morning. Clearly he could have been around at the appropriate time when his father was murdered, which made her uneasy.

She could recall, very easily, her initial reaction to the man, that there was something about him that made her wary of accepting on face value anything that he said.

On the question of Mrs. Grissom’s will, they would have to ask David Grissom where it was – and they couldn’t do that without revealing that they had found her body. It was still the case that they had not had Mrs. Grissom formally identified. To do that they would have ask David Grissom to do it.

Her thought processes were interrupted by the ringing of the phone. It was Eileen McCarthy with an update for her.

“I’ve had a good look at Mrs, Grissom, Jane. As we all assumed when we first saw her, cause of death was strangulation by a ligature. The ligature was something quite thick, not wire nor thin cord, and rather soft judging by the fact that although it caused extensive crushing and bruising, it scarcely cut into the skin at all.

There were a few fibres in the wound, enough to show that it was dark blue in colour and a mix of cotton and wool. It’s the sort of thing that might be used for a dressing gown cord or a tie belt to a dress.

“That’s the easy bit. Time of death is much more difficult, although I would go along with the obvious conclusion that she was already dead inside the boot of that car when it was left in the car park. The problem 41

is deciding just how long she had been dead at that point. The conditions in which the body was kept make me very unhappy at saying any more other than that death occurred at least twenty four hours earlier, and quite possibly as much as sixty hours earlier. Sorry I can’t be more precise, Jane.”

“Win some, lose some - thanks, Eileen.”

Jane put the phone down, thinking over what the pathologist had just told her. Hugh Grissom, according to Yvonne Raymond, had left her flat a bit after ten thirty. The Bentley had been picked up on a traffic camera situated just two or three minutes driving time away at ten thirty-nine and had entered the Heathrow car park at eleven eighteen - too soon afterwards for Grissom to have been involved in anything complicated in the interim. Dependent upon the traffic conditions he might have had a few minutes leeway, but that was all.

More likely he had driven straight there, making the best time that he could.

It was time, Jane decided, to break the news to David Grissom that they had found his mother and that, for the second time in less than eighty-four hours he was going to asked to formally identify the corpse of one of his parents. First, however, she warned Sangster of her intention and asked him to make himself available when Grissom arrived. Then she phoned the now orphaned solicitor at the office number that he had given her when they had met the previous Friday evening. A smooth sounding receptionist answered.

“Lloyd and Cameron, how may I help you?”

“I’d like to speak to David Grissom, please.”

“One moment, please.”

A few seconds later, Grissom’s voice sounded.

“Grissom.”

“Mr. Grissom, it’s DCI Lawson. I’m afraid that I think I have some very bad news for you.”

“You’ve found my mother, haven’t you?”

“We have found the body of a lady who seems to resemble the photographs of your mother on her house, but I must ask you if you would be kind enough to come down here and formally identify her.”

There was a long silence at the other end of the line.

“Mr. Grissom?”

“I’m sorry, Chief Inspector – this is something of a shock. What is happening? Who is doing this to my family? Are Pam and I in danger?”

“I’m afraid that I have no answer to your questions at the moment, Mr. Grissom, but as a first step I do need to be sure that it is your mother that we have found.”

“Yes, of course. I’ll leave straight away – I can be with you in an hour or so – where shall I meet you?”

“Please come to the station again, Mr. Grissom. We will take you to the hospital.”

“Very well, I’ll be with you as quick as I can.”

Jane put the phone down, thinking how much she would have liked to give Grissom the news face to face that they had found his mother. She would dearly have liked to have watched his reaction, but it just had not been possible short of driving up to town to confront him with the news, and she simply didn’t have the time available. She could have sent somebody else, but there was nobody in Parrott’s team that she knew well enough to feel comfortable in relying on a second hand account of Grissom’s reaction.

As she looked up from her phone, the door to her office opened and Cross entered.

“I’ve had a quick browse of the murder book, boss, and I wondered if there is anything you want me to do before I sit down and really go through it in detail?”

“No, Dave – not for the moment. It’s more important that you are au fait with the Grissom case before I lumber you with paper work.”

The newly minted Detective Sergeant nodded his head and withdrew, leaving Jane alone again.

At the same time, Alice Pratt was bringing her car to a halt outside the home of George Harris in Coventry, and she and Brenda Saunders got out and surveyed the building. It was a neat, well maintained semi in a road of similar properties. They opened the wrought iron front gate and walked up a short path, with small, 42

closely mown grass areas either side, and rang the door bell. After a moment’s wait the door was opened and the two women found themselves face to face with George Harris.

Perhaps not quite face to face; with the advantage of standing at a doorway two steps up from the level on which they stood, Harris, who was, Alice estimated, about six feet four or so, towered over them.

Instinctively she glanced down to his left foot, which she knew to be prosthetic. He correctly interpreted her gaze and smiled grimly.

“I’m not exactly Oscar Pistorius, but I’m not Stephen Hawkings, either. Won’t you both come in?”

Alice coloured with embarrassment as she and Brenda followed their host into a medium sized living room where he waved then towards easy chairs facing a large, switched off, television.

Alice looked more closely at the man. He wasn’t just pretty tall; he was heavily built as well. He was wearing blue jeans and a black, short sleeved tee-shirt which was a tight fit, clearly delineating the musculature of the flesh beneath it, whilst the short sleeves struggled to contain biceps which looked almost as big as her own thighs. Harris had blonde, almost white, hair cut en brosse and his eyebrows, similarly light in colour, stood out in contrast against a face which still bore the traces of a tan created by the sun of Afghanistan. The eyes themselves were pale blue and unwinking as he surveyed his two visitors.

The two detectives had agreed beforehand that Brenda would take the lead in their questioning of the man, but he spoke before she could start.

“Can I offer you ladies a cup of tea or anything?”

Brenda was about to refuse, but Alice forestalled her.

“That would be very kind of you, Mr. Harris – it’s been quite a long drive.”

The big man turned and left the room and Brenda turned to her, her eyebrows raised questioningly. Alice simply shrugged, unwilling to put into words her relief at seeing this dangerous looking man involved in something as mundane as making cups of tea.

Harris returned moments later, carrying a tray on which were three mugs of tea and a plate of chocolate biscuits. He handed round the cups, then seated himself in a chair facing the two police officers obliquely.

“So, ladies, how can I help you?”

Brenda launched into her first question.

“Mr. Harris, we are investigating the murder of Hugh Grissom, a man whom your sister once accused of raping her, even though she subsequently withdrew the accusation. What is your view on that?”

He thought for a moment before replying. Not easily rattled, Brenda thought to herself; her question had been intended to come out of left field, but was being easily handled.

“Well, I never met the man. At the time we are talking about I was in Afghanistan on my first tour there and I heard nothing about it all until I came home on leave a couple of months after it was all over.”

“Do you think it is at all likely that your sister was mistaken in her accusation? To be frank with you, although I wasn’t involved in the original investigation, I have read the file most carefully and I find it hard to believe that a woman who has been raped would subsequently be unable to identify her attacker – unless he was masked or something, of course, which is not the case here.”

“I would tend to agree with you, but Linda says that she was so drunk at the time that she was really only about semi-conscious, so I suppose that it is possible. Surely the clincher was the identity parade? Linda tells me that there were three chaps in that parade who, if she had seen them individually, she might have identified as the rapist.”

“Was your sister in the habit of getting drunk, Mr. Harris?”

The big shoulders were shrugged.

“I don’t know – I wasn’t around. You know that our father had died some years previously?”

The girls both nodded.

“I was in the Army, and couldn’t get home very often, but I kept in touch by phone with my mother as much as I could and, to a lesser extent, with Linda. At the time Linda regarded herself – as did quite a few of her friends, I believe –as a ‘wild child’, and soldiering was just too, too boring. Personally, I thought that she was in an extended childhood and that the sooner she grew out of it, the better. Mum never mentioned any real worries about Linda to me, although, like me she thought that she was being a bit of a silly little girl 43

more than a young woman. Going to a party and getting totally blotto? Well, I would have been disappointed, but I wouldn’t have been all that surprised; it wouldn’t have been totally out of character.”

“Do you think that it might have been a case of rape in that she was incapable of giving consent, rather than being taken forcibly against her will?”

“How can I know? I was thousands of miles away at the time.”

“Very well, Mr. Harris – now, the weekend of the first and second of March. I understand that your sister spent it with you and your family?”

“Yes, that’s right. She got here about ten Saturday morning and left around eight on the Sunday evening.”

“Were you here all the time?”

“No. Before we knew that Linda was coming up to see us, I had bought myself a ticket for the Leicester Tigers home game against Harlequins. I did offer to stay, but both Linda and Helen, my wife, urged me not to waste the money that I had spent on the ticket, so I went – I was away from about one forty-five until about seven or a bit before.”

“Did you think it was a good match?” enquired Alice, speaking for the first time.

“A bit scrappy to be honest – but hardly surprising in the weather conditions – most of the game was played on heavy rain. Still, Leicester won, which was the main thing.”

“You a keen Rugby fan, Mr. Harris?”

“Not actively – I don’t go to every game or anything like that, but I do enjoy the game –used to play a bit of it myself, first at school, then in the Army. That’s in the past now, of course.” He indicated his left foot.

What was the point of all that, Brenda wondered. She brought the questioning back on track.

“So she was, effectively, here all weekend then?”

“Absolutely.”

But were you here all weekend, Brenda wondered.

They took their leave of Harris and once they were in the car Brenda asked, “Well?”

“I reckon that if he put his mind to it, George Harris could have snuffed out Grissom in an instant – but he didn’t do it. The timing just doesn’t work for him – unless, of course, all three of them are lying and he wasn’t in the house for a lot longer than he claims.”

“H’mm. Tell me – do you think Grissom screwed Linda Harris?”

“Yes – no doubt in my mind, although I’m not necessarily sure that it was rape – and between making the complaint and dropping it, she was either bought off or warned off.”

The older woman nodded her head in agreement.

“Yes, that’s my feeling as well – but I wonder which?”

“Well, Grissom was a very rich man – buying would surely be easier than threatening.”

“Easier, yes – but how effective. If it was you, which would get to you more – somebody saying ‘look, here’s a few grand if you keep your mouth shut’ or some heavy saying ‘one word out of you, you silly little bitch and you’ll get a face full of acid’?”

Alice concentrated just on her driving for a moment whilst she tried to put herself, mentally, in the skin of a twenty year old who was trying to turn the screw on a rich, powerful man.

“I’d be scared shitless of an acid threat – I’d have seen the occasional picture in the media of some poor girl attacked in just that way for some reason and I think I’d be wetting myself at the thought of it happening to me.”

“Me too. Doesn’t mean that it wasn’t money, of course – but that sort of threat – just doesn’t bear thinking about, especially if you are young, pretty, and not really very mentally tough.”

“So, how do we find out which?”

“Well, I suppose that it is down to Sarge or the DCI, but I’d want to have a good look at Linda Harris’ bank returns back then.”

“Do they keep them that long? Isn’t it a seven year cut-off for tax, in which case nobody bothers to keep anything older?”

“Dunno – but if we don’t ask, we certainly won’t find out.”

Alice drove the two of them back to the station, where they reported to Sangster.

44

“So,” he said when they had finished, “what do you think?”

It was Alice who responded, quicker on the uptake than Brenda, despite her considerably lesser experience in CID.

“I think Linda got her silly self good and shagged at that party –and I reckon it was by Grissom – we know that his wife isn’t the only light of his life, so if some pretty little youngster is on offer – why not have her away? I’m guessing, but I think it was a case of the girl being too drunk to care one way or the other rather than a genuine case of rape. Afterwards, I reckon that Linda found out just how well heeled Grissom was and told him that she would like a little financial recompense for his fun and games or she would scream ‘rape’.

First up, he tells her to get lost, so she lodges the complaint –which would explain the time lag. Then he realises that he has to make this go away, so he either offers her money or has her threatened with something nasty if she doesn’t drop the complaint.”

Sangster nodded.

“Yes, that makes sense. But – does it have any bearing on his murder? I mean – why wait eight years?”

“Well, there is the fact that her brother has just been discharged from the Army. Now, I know that he is an amputee, but believe me, Sarge, this is one big, tough bugger – if he wanted to do anything now that he is home for good, I can’t see a little creep like Grissom having any chance against him – no way.”

Sangster turned over in his mind what he had been told. Like his subordinates, he felt that it was unlikely that George Harris was their murdered. He had the ability, of that there could be no doubt, and a sort of motive in the rape – if it had ever happened – of his sister, but the thought that he had left Coventry that Saturday and come down south to Heathrow, there to meet, abduct and kill Grissom – no it just didn’t gel.

He turned his mind to another aspect of the case. At his instruction DC Linda Ball had checked the electoral roll to find out who lived in the second flat owned by Grissom Holdings, the one in East Street, Epsom. The check revealed that it was occupied by just one person, a Louise Chamberlain. So far there had been no opportunity to speak to the woman and discover her precise relationship with Grissom, although Sangster had a pretty good idea what that relationship would turn out to be.

Jane Lawson was deep in identifying just what paperwork she could delegate to Cross when her phone rang again.

“Lawson”

“Jane, it’s Eileen. I’ve been thinking.”

“That sounds ominous.”

There was a chuckle at the other end of the line.

“Maybe yes, maybe no. Look, Grissom was in water from sometime Saturday until he was fished out of the Wey on Monday evening. That’s a certainty. The deterioration of the body caused by the effects of the water are easily identified and give us a reasonably accurate time scale. What I find really difficult to buy into is the thought of him being in that stretch of river all that time without being seen. We’ve assumed that he was snagged up somewhere, then somehow broke free, but I’ve realised that there is another possibility.”

Jane sat up straighter in her chair.

“What would that be?”

“That the water he went into on Saturday wasn’t the Wey, but was somewhere else and that he was subsequently moved – because by then whoever killed him wanted him to be found. The thing is, he was dead before he went into the water, so he didn’t drown, so there was no water in his lungs. There was a bit of water in his mouth, larynx and nasal passages – unavoidable if you are floating around dead, and I kept that as a sample. I’ve just checked it against a sample from the river itself and it’s near enough the same, but not near enough for me to swear on oath that it is only water from the Wey. On the other hand, it’s now over a week since he was found – the composition of the river water isn’t going to remain absolutely identical over such a period, so I can’t swear one way or the other. It might only be water from the Wey, but it might be a mix of water from the Wey and water from somewhere else.”

“That is very interesting, Eileen – it certainly offers a solution as to why he wasn’t found earlier, which has been bugging me as well.”

45

She had scarcely put down the phone when it rang once more.

“Lawson.”

“Jane, it’s Sarah Cunningham. We’ve finished going over the Grissom house and I’ll e-mail the report to you as soon as it’s been finally written up. We found nothing to indicate anything out of the ordinary had happened in the house, but it was interesting what we didn’t find. No copies of correspondence, no details of insurances, household bills, nothing of that sort. But no other evidence of burglary, either. Expensive items untouched, Mrs. Grissom’s jewellery box untouched. The computer is just about out of the Ark; my guess is that it was used simply as a file back-up machine, but I can’t prove it – the hard drive has been removed.

And one, perhaps two odd things; firstly there is no safe – I would have thought that a man like Grissom would have had a safe, and secondly, there’s no deep freeze in the house. There’s a big fridge in the kitchen, but no space in the room where a deep freeze might have been. I can’t believe that a middle class household like that doesn’t have a deep freeze, not in this day and age. The garage has an interconnecting door into the kitchen, so I expected to find a deep freeze in there but nothing.”

Jane put the phone down after the senior SOCO officer had finished. It built on what Sangster had told her.

Clearly somebody had been in the house and taken away papers. That was understandable; no knowing what the papers in the house might have to offer to whoever took them. But to remove a freezer? It didn’t make sense, although a vague suspicion started to form in her mind.

It was shortly after three o’clock before David Grissom arrived, to be ushered into Jane’s office where they were quickly joined by Sangster. Understandably, Grissom looked a worried man, and the worried ambience was increased after he had been taken to the morgue.

Louise Grissom’s features had received the attention of the make-up specialists to hide the worst of the visual effects of decomposition that they had suffered, but she was still not what one would want a loving family member to see. Grissom had swallowed nervously before his late mother’s face had been uncovered; he had, Jane observed, shown far more emotion than had been the case when he had identified his father. He had looked only briefly, then turned away from the viewing window.

“Yes, that’s my mother, Louise Grissom, Chief Inspector,” had been all that he had said.

Now the three of them were seated in Jane’s office, and Jane studied her visitor closely. He appeared considerably ill at ease, whereas when she had spoken with him after he had identified Hugh Grissom’s body he had been very calm and collected. He looked at her and Sangster in turn.

“What is going on, Chief Inspector? First my father, now my mother – who is doing this to us? Where did you find her?”

Jane had deliberately not given the man any details of how his mother had been found; that was something she was determined to reveal only when she had Grissom seated before her, as was now the case.

“We found her in the boot of your father’s Bentley, parked at Heathrow. The pathologist estimates that she had been dead since at least the previous Saturday – the Saturday that your father was killed.”

Grissom stared at her, his face a mask of horror.

“Somebody killed both of them, put my mother’s body in the car boot, threw my father in the river? But why?”

“There is, of course, another interpretation, Mr. Grissom.”

“What?”

“That your father killed your mother and that somebody killed him in turn – possibly because he had killed your mother.”

Grissom shook his head in disbelief.

“No, this is ridiculous – somebody is after the family.”

He stopped in mid-sentence.

“Have you managed to contact Pam? I keep phoning her, but her mobile isn’t switched on. I’ve left messages on her voice mail, but she hasn’t got back to me.”

“I’m afraid not – we understand from a neighbour that she and her husband are touring the south of France, but with no fixed itinerary. We checked with the local French police in Narbonne-Plage, but they aren’t at their villa, at least not as of Monday and the French have put a note through the door asking her to contact us.”

46

Grissom continued to look worried.

“Suppose something has happened to them?”

“We’ve no reason to assume that, Mr. Grissom.”

“But with both our parents murdered, how can you be so blasé about it?”

“I’m not being blasé, Mr. Grissom, just saying it as I see it. Your sister and her husband, according the neighbour with whom my officer spoke, left for France on Monday the 24th of February. At that time both your parents were still alive. If they have no fixed itinerary, even supposing that somebody is after them, how could they be found?”

Grissom refused to be placated.

“That’s easy for you to say – it’s not your sister in danger. And come to that – am I in danger?”

“Mr. Grissom, if somebody was after your whole family, then surely they have had ample opportunity to strike at you – and they haven’t.”

Grissom looked, if possible, more worried than ever. The self assured, rather predatory man that Jane had seen in their first meeting had been replaced by a frightened potential victim. Or had he? Jane was beginning to feel that Grissom was perhaps over doing the anxiety. It might or might not – and on balance she felt not –

be justified, but she found it hard to believe that the man she had first seen on the previous Friday would go to pieces quite so quickly.

“Mr. Grissom, we have had a scene of crime team go through your parent’s house looking for anything that might help us to track down their killer or killers. Something that has puzzled us – no papers were the house, no household bills, no copies of anything like insurance policies, nothing. Also – there was no freezer, neither in the kitchen nor in the garage. Have you any idea what might have been in the house in the form of papers that might be useful to whoever was responsible for your parents’ deaths? And was there a freezer in the house?”

“About the freezer – I’m sure my mother had one, but that’s all I could tell you. Where it was kept I just don’t know and I really don’t see the relevance. On the question of papers – my father had an office in the house and he always kept those sort of things in there, either in his desk or in a filing cabinet that he had.

Really important stuff, though, he either deposited with his solicitors or in the bank – he had a safety deposit box with the local branch of Lloyds and he kept things like insurance policies and the like in it – he always said what was the use of an insurance policy against fire and theft, for example, if the house got burned down or burgled and the papers lost.”

“Did your father not have a safe in the house?”

Grissom shook his head.

“No, he didn’t trust the sort of safe you’d have in a house – he reckoned that they just identified to any burglar where the things worth stealing were located. He had a very sophisticated safe at his company offices, but not at home.”

“What about your mother – did she make a will, do you know?”

“Yes; there would have been a copy of it in the office, but the original would be with her solicitors –

Jamieson’s in Guildford.”

“Your parents didn’t use the same solicitors?”

“No, before my parents were married my mother had been using Jamieson’s and dad had been using Miles and Bewley and they saw no reason to change things.”

“Do you happen to know the terms of your parents’ wills?”

“Well unless they have changed them recently, and I know of no reason why they should have done so, they each left everything to the other and on second death everything to be shared equally between Pam and me, with the exception of dad’s holding in Ken Craig’s company coming straight to me if dad died first so that Craig could be reassured of continuity.”

At that stage Jane decided that there was nothing more that she could obtain from Grissom and thanked him for his time and help. Still clearly shaken, the lawyer departed.

Sangster had set DC Chris Caldwell the task of checking Hugh Grissom’s movements in the days before his death and was now listening to the result.

“It’s all pretty straightforward, sarge. He flew to Newcastle on the Monday and stayed at the Vermont Hotel, a four star establishment in the centre of the city. I spoke to the assistant manager there; Grissom has used the place before on several occasions, but this was the first time that they had seen him in over six months.

I’d previously checked with Grissom’s secretary at Grissom Holdings just in case they had worked out why he had gone to Newcastle since you asked them yesterday, but nothing new. Now the interesting bit.

Grissom’s hotel bill shows that he wasn’t alone for the Tuesday and Wednesday nights. The bill showed 47

dinner for two on both those evening and two breakfasts on the following mornings. I had the assistant manager check with his dining room staff for me. Grissom had a woman with him from Tuesday dinner to after breakfast on Thursday.”

“Any idea who?”

Caldwell shook his head.

“Not a clue, I’m afraid. She was never booked into the hotel, it charges by the room, not per person, so no need for them to have had a record of her.”

“Any description of her?”

“Not really; one of the waiters on duty on the Thursday morning thought that he remembered Grissom with a companion at breakfast and thought that the woman was in her thirties with long fair hair, but that’s it –

and he might be wrong anyway.”

Sangster ran his fingers through his thinning hair.

“Our chap certainly puts it about a bit. There’s the Raymond woman and I reckon that when we get a chance to check up, we’ll find that the woman in the flat in Epsom is another of his bits on the side. He flew back on the Friday, right?”

“Yes – and I did wonder why he only had the woman with him until Thursday morning.”

“Could be a hundred reasons, I suppose.”

Caldwell nodded again.

“Finally, I checked that he really did fly back on Friday. British Airways confirmed that he took his seat on their fifteen twenty-five flight which got to Heathrow at sixteen forty. Grissom’s credit card details show that he left a car in the long stay parking from the Monday morning until the Friday afternoon – oh, and it wouldn’t have been the Bentley. When I spoke to Grissom’s secretary she said that he never left the Bentley in long term car parks – worried it might be nicked or vandalised. Instead, when he needed to, he used another of the company’s cars – they have several on their books. That week he used a Vauxhall Vectra and I was able to check its movements at Heathrow. It arrived at nine thirty on the Monday and left just after five thirty.”

“So where is the Vectra now?”

“Nobody knows. He never returned it to the company car park and it isn’t at his home.”

Sangster furrowed his brow in concentration, trying to remember what Yvonne Raymond had told him and Lawson when they had interviewed her .

“Raymond told us that Grissom arrived with her around seven thirty and we’ve seen CCTV footage of the surrounding area which bears out that timing. So, Grissom flies back to Heathrow, drives away in the Vectra, leaves it somewhere, but we don’t know where, then takes his Bentley to visit Raymond, stays overnight, leaves her around ten thirty, drives back to Heathrow and leaves the Bentley in a long stay car park –

something his secretary said he never would do, then gets himself killed somewhere.”

A thought struck him.

“Where was the Bentley whilst Grissom was in Newcastle?”

“No idea, sarge – it wasn’t in the office car park – I asked. Obvious place for it to have been is at the Grissom house, but I’ve not been able to verify that – the house can’t be seen from any of the neighbouring properties, so the Bentley might have been there, it might not.”

Terry Wayne drew up outside a block of flats in East Street, Epsom. It was, he reckoned, a block in the upper middle range, price-wise, and he got out of his car and went to the front door, a heavy glass device with an entry phone, complete with a CCTV lens, set in the wall beside it. Sangster would have preferred to send two officers to check the place out, and would, even more, have preferred that one of those two officers would have been himself, but the pressure on the team precluded that. Wayne scanned the list of twelve name plates and pressed the button against that marked ‘Chamberlain’. Nothing. He pressed again with the same lack of result. With a sigh, he pressed a name at random and was rewarded with the sound of a female voice.

“Who is it?”

He checked the name again.

“It’s the police, Ms. Jordan. I’m trying to call on Ms. Chamberlain, but she isn’t answering her call bell.

Could you let me into the building please?”

“Hold your ID up to the camera, please.”

Wayne fished in his jacket pocket and did as requested, reflecting as he did so, not for the first time, that most folk still thought of it as a ‘warrant card’ whereas in fact it was quite a smart fold-over wallet, with his laminated ID, showing his photo, rank and name, on one side, and the Surry Police crest on the other. There was a short pause, then a buzz as the door opened an inch or two.

He pushed it fully open and found himself in an entrance hall containing two lifts and two doors unopenable 48

from the hall, presumably of fire escapes. He went to the nearest lift; from the flat numbers on the outside entry system it looked as though the ‘Chamberlain’ and ‘Jordan’ flats were both on the third floor, so that was the button he pressed.

The lift deposited him in a communal hall with two front doors and he knocked on that showing the Chamberlain name, noticing that there was no keyhole, but instead a numeric entry pad, but once again with no result. As he stepped back in frustration, the second front door was opened behind him and the same female voice spoke.

“Can I help you, officer?”

He turned to find himself facing a middle-aged woman, smartly dressed in slacks and sweater, respectively black and cream, with a single row of pearls at her throat. Grey hair was neatly styled and her face was unlined. All in all, the woman looked worth a bob or two, Wayne reflected.

He produced his ID once more.

“Good evening, madam. I’m Detective Constable Wayne of Surrey Police. I’m trying to contact Ms.

Chamberlain as we feel that she may be a witness in a case we are working on.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t seen Louise for several days, Mr. Wayne. She’s normally in and out a lot – she’s a nurse in the local hospital and works a sort of shift pattern, so we’re used to her coming and going, but I haven’t seen her since,” she paused for a moment and furrowed her brow in thought, “it must have been Monday of last week. Certainly no later than Monday – it might possibly have been Sunday, now that I think about it.”

Wayne thought for a moment, then, acting on impulse, took the photo of Hugh Grissom that all the team had been issued, and showed it to Mrs. Jordan – clearly ‘Mrs.’ Rather than ‘Ms.’ Judging by her age and the rings on her fingers.

“You don’t happen to recognise this man do you, madam?”

She peered closely at the picture.

“Oh, yes – I don’t know his name, but I saw him in the evening a couple of weeks ago – he was calling on Louise and we met in the hall as he was coming out of the lift and John, my husband, and I were waiting to go down in it. He must have been calling on her, because as you can see, there are only two flats per floor and he certainly wasn’t calling on us.”

She studied the picture more closely for a moment, then lifted her eyes to look at Wayne.

“Isn’t that the man who was murdered? Whose picture was in the papers last week?”

“Yes, I’m afraid that it is – that’s why I want to talk to Ms. Chamberlain. I’ve tried phoning her, but there is no answer.”

“Have you tried her mobile?”

“No, I only know her landline number – got that from directory enquiries.”

“Well, I have her mobile number – just a minute.”

She vanished back into her flat, leaving the door open behind her, to re-emerge a moment later with a mobile phone in her hand, She pressed buttons as she scrolled through the phone’s memory, then stabbed the ‘Send’

button and handed the phone to Wayne. He held it to his ear and listened to the ringing tone which continued for several seconds before the voice mail invitation cut in. He rang off, shaking his head in frustration and was about to return the phone when he saw that Mrs. Jordan was staring fixedly at Louise Chamberlain’s front door.

“I think that I could hear a phone ringing in there,” she said, “ring again.”

As Wayne did as he was bid, she crossed to the door and pressed her ear to it. A moment later, she turned to him.

“Yes, I can definitely hear a phone in there.”

Wayne was in a quandary; he could hardly claim that he had grounds for breaking the flat door down, but on the other hand he was beginning to feel a sense of dread over what might have happened to Louise Chamberlain. He turned to Mrs. Jordan.

“Who do I get in touch with to get into Ms. Chamberlain’s flat? I’m worried that something might have happened to her.”

“I can let you in.”

He looked at her in surprise.

“When Louise moved in we introduced ourselves – I’m a retired nurse myself, so we had something in common - and she had only been in the flat a week or so when she had a nasty fall – fell off a chair trying to lift a heavy suitcase down off the wardrobe. Poor girl couldn’t walk for a couple of days – but the thing is that immediately after the fall she managed to crawl to her telephone and ring me for help – and gave me her entry code so that I could get in. Do you think that it would be alright if I let you in?”

“I’m sure that it would, Mrs. Jordan – thank you.”

49

She turned to the numeric pad and punched in a four digit number, then opened the door and stepped back.

“There you are, Mr. Wayne.”

Wayne stepped inside the flat; the first thing that struck him was how cold it was. Clearly the heating wasn’t on. No wonder the place felt like the inside of a fridge.

The last door was that to the bathroom, and as he entered, he discovered why Louise Chamberlain had not been answering her phone. The bath was full, so full that copious amounts of water had slopped over the rim and stood in puddles on the vinyl flooring. In the bath, under the surface, lay the naked body of a young woman, a young woman who could surely only be Louise Chamberlain.

He backed carefully out of the small room, careful not to touch anything and possibly disturb any evidence, and retraced his steps to the hall, where Mrs. Jordan took a long, searching look at him before speaking.

“Oh dear,” she said, “she’s in there, isn’t she?”

Wayne nodded sadly.

“Yes, I’m afraid so, Mrs. Jordan. Look, I’ll have to call in our people; I don’t want to stay in Ms.

Chamberlain’s flat for fear of disturbing any evidence should this prove to be a suspicious death – might I come into your flat to make my calls?”

“Yes of course- and I’ll put the kettle on – I think that we could both do with a cup of tea.”

Wayne closed the flat door behind him – he could just imagine the problems that might be raised should there be a court case at some time in the future and it was revealed that he had left that door open so that anyone could walk in whilst he was in the Jordan’s flat – and followed her into her living room, which was a surprisingly large room, tastefully furnished and equipped.

Mrs. Jordan tactfully left him alone in the room whilst he phoned Sangster and reported what he had found.

At the other end of the line Sangster cursed savagely; as if things weren’t already bad enough, and now this!

Twenty minutes later, after Wayne and Mrs. Jordan had filled the interval with desultory chat, in the course of which Wayne ascertained that his hostess had not only been a nurse in her professional life but had been a member of the Territorial Army, a Captain in the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps - the police team arrived, headed by Eileen McCarthy, the pathologist and Sarah Cunningham, the senior SOCO officer.

They were accompanied by Sangster and, to the DC’s surprise, Jane Lawson, and finding himself surplus to requirements, and after have given his two superiors a full verbal report and introduced them to Mrs. Jordan, he thankfully made his escape.

Jane, Eileen and Sangster conferred after they had all viewed the body, Eileen had formally declared life to be extinct, and they had left the scene of crime team to their preliminary work including photographing every inch of the flat for later.

“So,” Jane asked, looking at Eileen, “natural causes?”

The pathologist shook her head.

“Possible, but I doubt it. I’ll be more positive after I’ve had a proper look at her, but even now I could see that there is a bruise on her jaw and another just below her sternum – those look as though she was punched, and punched pretty hard. The back of her head also has a bruise and I think that we are supposed to assume that she got into the bath, slipped, fell back, hit her head on the bath and slipped beneath the water. My take is that she answered the door, got thumped and rendered unconscious or at least semi-conscious, stripped to support the ‘accident in the bath’ scenario, and then held under the water until she drowned. The killer, for I’m just about sure that we are looking for a killer, turned the central heating off, presumably in an attempt to make it difficult to ascertain when she died – big mistake. Who’s have their heating off in this weather?”

Jane nodded – what Eileen was saying agreed with her own initial feelings. She turned to Sangster.

“Right, Carl, liaise with the SOCO team - once they are finished for the night have the flat sealed off. Mrs.

Jordan has the entry code, so for her to be seen as squeaky clean, find out how to change it to something that she doesn’t know, OK?”

Sangster nodded and watched the other two as they left via the lift. This was turning into a nightmare. Three murders – and it was just about impossible to think that the murder of Louise Chamberlain wasn’t connected to those of the Grissoms, and he was stuck right in the middle of it all, carrying the can..

As she drove back to the station, Sangster’s feelings were echoed by Jane’s. This is getting out of hand, she told herself. It just wasn’t on to have a DS heading up something this serious; she was going to have to take a more hands on role in the future and she phoned ahead to Cross and told him to arrange a meeting with all her DIs for first thing the following morning.

When she got back she was pleased to see that Inkerman was still in the building and he agreed to see her urgently. Five minutes later and she was taking the visitor’s chair in his office.

“Right, Jane, what’s up?”

50

“A third murder, sir and it’s just about certain that it is connected to the murders of Mr. and Mrs. Grissom.”

Quickly she outlined the latest developments, then moved on to what was of most concern to her.

“OK, thanks to the reorganisation, we have enough hands in the team to cope with the day to day, but I cannot accept that a DS should be in charge of so high profile an investigation. Tomorrow I am telling my DIs that I am devoting myself full time to this investigation and that they will have to keep me informed of anything that they feel that I ought to know about in their own work via Dave Cross. He’s sensible enough to act as a filter for me, but all this does show that the new system needs beefing up at the top, just as you were saying the other day.”

Inkerman thought over what was being said to him.

“Fair comment, Jane – although it is also fair comment to question how often we are likely to be investigating a triple murder case – and a triple murder case in the hands of a team whose DI is off sick?”

Jane had to admit that the current situation was, to say the least, unusual, but it still had to coped with.

“OK, I’ll talk to Mr. Graham – and what I will propose to him is that we jump the gun a bit on what we are thinking about, and that you act up as a Detective Superintendent and that one of you DIs acts up as DCI, effectively taking the day to day from the other teams off your shoulders. No other changes and this will be acting with no guarantee of automatic permanency, but it will be an indication to the public and the media of how seriously we are treating this case. How’s that – and who would you have as acting DCI?”

This was better than she had hoped for and she had no hesitation in replying.

“That would be great, sir. As for acting DCI – ‘Skull’ Clarke is my choice. He’s got the experience and he thinks out of the box – and he’s also one of the hardest workers that I have ever known.”

“OK – that’s how we’ll play it. When are you meeting your DIs?”

“I asked Dave to set it up for first thing - eight o’clock.”

“Put it back two hours to give me a chance to clear things with Mr. Graham, then you should be able to give them the news of the temporary changes.”

“Right, sir.”

As soon as she left Inkerman’s office, Jane phoned each of her DIs, apologised for the change and reorganised her meeting with them for ten o’clock the following day.

As she drove home, she could not suppress a feeling of satisfaction – DSi at thirty-seven, even if only acting, was pretty good going. She could hardly wait to tell Harry the good news.

When she arrived her husband was delighted to hear of her temporary promotion; they both felt that, when the permanent position was being filled, her time acting up was sure to be a big plus point. Harry also had good news of his own; the Saudi investigation he had set up had already born fruit – a senior member of the company concerned had been identified as the source of the leaks of confidential information and in gratitude for the speed in which Harry’s company had completed their work there had been an additional bonus to add to the couple’s holiday fund.

Chapter Eight 12th March

Eileen McCarthy had promised Jane that she would undertake the post mortem of Louise Chamberlain as her first task in the morning, and shortly after nine thirty she was on the phone.

“Jane, it was murder. No doubt in my mind. The blow to the back of the head was a clumsy attempt to make it look like an accident, but examining the site of the wound, it wasn’t caused by the edge of the bath, but by something hard and about three-quarters of an inch in diameter. There are microscopic traces of lead in the wound. Our victim was hit by something like a piece of lead pipe. As for time of death – sometime in the afternoon of last Thursday, say between two and seven. The bath water and the lack of heating in the flat meant that the body was in a stable environment, unlike poor Mrs. Grissom in that car boot, so I am confident as to the timing.”

Jane put down the phone, happy at the definite information she had been given. She had already instructed Sangster to instigate a search for Louise Chamberlain’s next of kin so that the bad news could be conveyed and the girl’s body formally identified.

She looked at her watch – just over ten minutes before she was due to meet with her DIs and she hadn’t yet heard from Inkerman. As if the thought was parent to the action, the phone rang again.

“Lawson”

“Inkerman, Jane. I cleared things with Mr. Graham and the Deputy. You can announce the acting arrangements to your people.”

51

“Thanks very much, sir.”

With seven officers involved, as she had not invited Carl Sangster to stand in for the missing Len Parrott, Jane’s own office was too small to hold the meeting, so it was in a small conference room that the team convened. Jane looked round the six DIs.

It always surprised her at how close they all were in age. Only the missing Len Parrott, was over forty-five, with the next oldest being Oliver Manson at forty-three and Larry Parsons at forty-one. The others were all under forty – Kate Keiver was thirty-nine, Peter Corke and ‘Skull’ Clarke were both thirty-six whilst the youngest, Terry Laine, was thirty-five. It was a far cry from her early days in CID when the average DI was over forty, with several in their fifties. Of that tranche of senior officers, only Inkerman now remained, and he was only still with the force because he had been persuaded to stay on for a year past normal retirement age to oversee the CID reorganisation.

“Right, thanks for all coming on time – sorry that I had to put the meeting back at short notice, but I had to clear something with the powers that be. No secret that the CID reorganisation is seen as still in its teething stages, and that we will be seeing further strengthening of the structure in the near future. However, DI Parrott’s injuries and consequent absence on sick leave have made it necessary to put in place a couple of temporary changes. Len’s team is handling the biggest case that the Division currently has on its books and it’s not reasonable to expect DS Sangster to take the strain and any flack that might result. So, as from now I am going to take direct charge of the case. It is important enough, and complex enough, to demand my full time input, so my role as co-ordinator and manager of your teams will be handled by DI Clarke, with the acting rank of DCI. At the same time, as I am ultimately responsible for CID in the Division, I’m acting DSi.

“So, that’s the picture. DI Clarke, would you stay behind for a minute, please. The rest of you, meeting’s over, thanks for your time.”

As the others filed out of the room, Jane watched them closely. There was no obvious sign of dissatisfaction from any of them, although she expected that Manson and Parsons, both of whom had been DIs for considerably longer that Clarke, were probably feeling aggrieved that it was he, and not one of them, who had been given the acting promotion.

Clarke moved to a chair nearer to her and looked at her expectantly.

“Right, Skull. First things first – congratulations on the promotion, even although it is on an acting basis and unlikely to last very long. No false modesty – I see you as the best of my DIs and fully deserving of this.”

“Thanks, boss – I’ll do my best to keep the Division day to day ticking over for you. When you say temporary, any idea for how long?”

Jane shook her head.

“Depends on how this murder enquiry pans out. Might be as little as a week or two if we strike lucky and tie it up quickly, so don’t bother making long term plans. As you know, I’ve got Dave Cross as my PA and the two of us can use him as a two way conduit when and as needed. Between the two of you I’m looking for the routine paperwork to be sorted, only needing my final approval –that will free up a good bit of my time to actually lead the hunt for the killer.”

As the newly acting DCI left her, Jane hurriedly made her way back to Len Parrott’s team room and gathered them all together.

“Right folks, now that we have three murders on our hands, I’ve decided that I must devote more time to contributing to the team’s work. From now on I’ll be with you just about full time and will take over as team leader. This in no way infers any dissatisfaction in the work that DS Sangster has been putting in; he, and the rest of you, have been doing a first rate job. It’s just that in something this important, it’s only fair that somebody senior is seen as responsible for what happens, whether good or, perish the thought, bad and carries the can as a result. Right – now to work. Any news on tracing Louise Chamberlain’s next of kin? And have we found out anything more about her?”

Alice Pratt responded.

52

“I’ve checked with the hospital, ma’am. Her personnel records give her parents as next of kin. They live in Portsmouth and I have been in touch with them. They are coming up to see us and to formally identify her body. They should be here,” she looked at her watch, “in about half an hour.”

“Right, I’ll greet them when they arrive so make sure that I am informed the moment that they get here.

What about the girl herself?”

Alice looked at her notebook.

“Louise Chamberlain, date of birth fourteenth of December nineteen eighty-nine, so she was twenty-four when she was killed. She qualified as a post-registration nurse just eighteen months ago and her job at the Epsom General was her first job since qualifying. She didn’t train there, though – she trained in Portsmouth at the Queen Alexandra hospital and the university there. She was working in the orthopaedic department at Epsom.”

“Any ideas as to how she came to be living in a fairly expensive flat owned by Grissom’s firm?”

“Not yet, ma’am – Grissom Holding acquired the flat in late October and Louise moved in straightaway.

Because the flat is owned by the company, not rented, there are no payment records, landlord repairs or anything like that, so apart from her neighbours, the Jordans, nobody knows anything about her.”

“Who spoke to the Jordans? I only paid a fleeting visit to the scene.”

Sangster spoke for the first time. He had heard that Jane was now going to take overall charge on a day-today basis with mixed emotions. The main one was relief; he had no illusions as to the harsh glare of publicity that these killings were going to suffer and he was glad that Jane would be the target in the firing line over any problems, perceived or genuine. On the other hand, after the work that he had already put in, it was something of a disappointment to be effectively relegated to a straightforward subordinate role.

“Nobody’s formally interviewed them, ma’am – DC Wayne spoke to Mrs. Jordan after reporting finding the victim.”

Jane’s attention turned to the detective constable.

“What did you find out, Terry?”

Surprised that the acting DSi even knew his Christian name, Wayne gathered his thoughts quickly.

“Mrs. Jordan didn’t know much about the woman, ma’am. She’d introduced herself when Chamberlain arrived in September last year. She got to know her a bit better when Chamberlain had an accident in the flat a few days later – fell whilst lifting down a heavy suitcase from on top of a wardrobe and couldn’t walk for a couple of days and Mrs. Jordan helped her out. Mrs, Jordan is herself a retired nurse – worked at the Royal Surrey here in Guildford in orthopaedics and she was also a Territorial Army nurse – a Captain. Mr. Jordan was out when I discovered the body and I never saw him.

“About the victim, Mrs, Jordan said that she was a very pleasant girl, keen to make a go of her career. She trained in Portsmouth, where her parents live, but wanted to get away from home, hence the move to Epsom.

She moved to the flat in September of last year; prior to that she had been living in hospital accommodation.

Mrs. Jordan was a bit surprised that a young, recently qualified, nurse could afford such a flat but assumed that her parents were helping her. Apparently her father is a consultant surgeon in Portsmouth and still working, so the family presumably are reasonably well off. ”

“Any evidence of boyfriends?”

“Apart from recognising the picture of Grissom, whom Mrs. Jordan said she saw arriving a few weeks ago, none. However, the layout of those flats mean that folk could come and go to one flat without the occupant of the other flat – there are only two flats per floor – necessarily being aware of them.”

“OK, now we know that the flat is owned by Grissom Holdings – presumably bought so that Grissom could install Chamberlain there – but how does a fifty plus man living in Guildford come across a twenty-four year old nurse working and living in Epsom and, presumably, start a serious enough affair with her to set her up in quite an expensive flat?”

Nobody answered because nobody had the remotest idea as to how so unlikely a pair could have got together. Jane thought hard.

53

“We are going to have to talk to Chamberlain’s colleagues at Epsom General. Somehow those two did get together and we need to find out how, where and when. Terry, you and Linda handle that – get over there today and see what you can find.”

DCs Wayne and Ball nodded their acceptance of the task.

“Anything interesting found at the flat in the way of possessions, papers, whatever?”

Alice studied her notes,

“Nothing out of the ordinary, ma’am. She banked with the TSB, a current account into which her salary was paid and which she used for normal household shopping. No record of large regular payments for rent or the likes – but given what we believe about her relationship with Grissom, that’s not surprising. Key ring had just the a car key and what looks like a key for a locker at the hospital – she’d change into uniform when she got there – and a car key. Didn’t have door keys because of the numeric pad system on the door. She had a driving licence and TSB debit and credit cards in her handbag. Her current account is in credit to just over four hundred pounds and she had just paid off her credit card – two hundred and twenty pounds and no big purchases on it. The registration and insurance documents for her car – a Mini Cooper – were in her desk”

“Have we found her car?”

“Oh, yes. The flat has its own parking area reached through a card operated barrier. Her Mini in parked in an allocated space.”

At that moment the telephone rang and Sangster, who was nearest, answered it. He listened briefly, then replaced the handset and turned to Jane.

“Louise Chamberlain’s parents are here, ma’am.”

Jane looked round the room, wanting a sympathetic face to accompany her and settled on Alice Pratt.

“Alice, you come with me.”

She lead the way to the reception desk where, as seemed inevitable, George O’Kelly was on duty.

“Hello, ma’am,” he said, formal in the presence of others, “this is Professor Clive Chamberlain and Doctor Helen Chamberlain.”

Jane held out her hand, which the man took. Professor Chamberlain was nothing like Jane had expected a professor of surgery to look like. Not remotely like James Robertson Justice in his Sir Lancelot Spratt persona. She was looking at a man in his late forties, tall and well built, perhaps six feet four or five and seventeen stone or so, but seventeen stone containing very little fat. He still had a good head of sandy coloured hair, with only traces of grey beginning to show. Blue eyes surveyed her appraisingly and he shook her proffered hand, applying only gentle pressure from a hand almost and big, and probably almost as powerful, as those of her husband Harry.

He released her hand as she made the introductions.

“Hello, I’m Detective Superintendent Jane Lawson, and this is my colleague, Detective Constable Alice Pratt. Would you come this way, please?”

She led the couple through the swing-doors into the main area of the station, studying the wife as she did so.

Doctor Chamberlain was perhaps a year or so younger than her husband; like him she looked fit and energetic, although at the moment she exuded an understandable air of concern. About Jane’s own height of five feet six, she had dark brown, shoulder length hair, matching similarly coloured eyes.

She ushered her visitors into a small conference room and all four of them sat round the table. Jane started speaking straight away.

“Thank you, Professor and Doctor Chamberlain for coming so quickly. I only wish the circumstances were happier, but I have to tell you that we have found the body of a young woman in the flat that your daughter occupies and, sadly, we really do thing that it is her. We do need definite identification, though and I don’t know if you both want to accompany us to the hospital?”

She hesitated at that point and it was the wife, rather than the husband, who answered.

“Superintendent, if indeed this is our daughter, we owe it to her to see her together.”

“Thank you, Doctor – DC Pratt will drive us all to the hospital – it’s only a few minutes drives away.”

Thirty minutes later, the formalities of identifying the body as being that of Louise Chamberlain having been completed, the four of them were once more seated in the conference room.

54

The father and mother looked understandably shaken at having to identify their daughter’s dead body, but already there was, Jane felt, a growing sense of anger within the couple. She asked the first, most pertinent –

as she saw it – question, the question that was to change completely her take on the case.

“Does the name Hugh Grissom mean anything to either of you?”

Professor Chamberlain looked mildly surprised.

“Hugh? Yes, of course. He found the flat for Louise – no, that’s not quite right – he had bought it for his company and made it available to her.”

“Why was that, Professor?”

“Well, I knew that he had contacts in property around here, and the place that Louise was living in was, quite frankly, a bit of a dump, so I asked him if he could help. He told me that he had just bought this place, so we agreed that I would pay his company the rent for it – I mean, on what she earned, Louise couldn’t have come anywhere near to being able to afford it.”

“How did you come to know Mr. Grissom?”

“Well, you know that I am an orthopaedic surgeon?”

Jane nodded.

“Well, I have an interest in a small company in Portsmouth that makes replacement joints for surgery. They have used me over the years as an advisor and I have a small share in the company – all declared to my lords and masters, the accountants. Well, about four years ago, James Welby, the MD, came up with a new artificial knee joint. We’re not talking about prosthetics, here, you understand, but a man made joint to replace a failing natural one in an otherwise healthy limb. To make it on a commercial level, however, required capital to invest in some very high tech machinery – and at the time the banks were still in a state of shock over the credit crisis and just weren’t interested in lending to such a venture being undertaken by so small a firm. James knew that the new joint would sell well, not just to the NHS, but abroad as well, so he refused to take no for an answer and tried a variety of alternative sources, which eventually led him to Hugh.

Hugh was very helpful; he wouldn’t just cough up with a loan on the prospect of future business, but in return for a share in the business, he made the necessary funds available.

“I suppose it would be fair to say that Hugh is a pretty sharp business man, and I have heard of people who felt that he was too sharp at times, but speak as you find – he always played square with James and myself and without his help the new knee joint would never have been marketed. I’m pleased to be able to say that thanks to Hugh’s original investment, the firm has done very well in the last few years. we, that’s James and I, have a meeting with him a couple of times a year- the next one is due in a couple of months, and when I wanted somewhere better for Louise I gave Hugh a ring.”

“Is there any reason why Louise moved away from Portsmouth?”

“Two reasons, really. She wants,” for the first time the man hesitated, and Jane could see the pain in his face,

“she wanted, to specialise in orthopaedic nursing and we both felt that for her to stay in Portsmouth with that as her aim, when her own father was the senior consultant in the department, might smack of nepotism, hence the move to Epsom. Her boyfriend – she had been living with him in Portsmouth, is an airline pilot and away a lot, so they both felt that her moving to Epsom, when most of his flights are out of Gatwick, was actually no disadvantage, although as it happens, these last three weeks he has been out of action. His taxi was involved in a nasty accident with a lorry in Canada and he is still in hospital over there.”

He stopped in mid-flow.

“My God, Keith will have to be told what has happened.”

“We can arrange for the local police to do that, Professor. What hospital is he in?”

“The Montreal General – it’s a first rate place – I spoke with Keith’s consultant only last week – they expect to discharge him in a few more days, but no – I must break the news to him myself.”

Jane nodded her acquiescence and realised that she needed to rethink her – and the team’s – assumptions about Louise Chamberlain. The fact that the girl had been living in a flat owned by Grissom Holdings, the second such flat occupied by a single woman, had made them all assume that Louise and Grissom were having an affair, just as Grissom and Yvonne Raymond were, but this new information meant that their 55

assumption, whilst not necessarily out of the window – after all Louise might have been two-timing both men – would have to be looked at more closely.

“How long had Louise and Keith - ?”

“Keith Harmon.”

“- Keith Harmon, been together?”

It was the wife who answered this time.

“They met just over two years ago. Keith is a pilot – a second officer with British Airways – and he and Louise met at a party thrown by a mutual acquaintance – one of the junior doctors at Epsom General. He and Keith had been at university together. Keith and Louise hit it off straight away and about a month or so later she moved in with him in his flat in Portsmouth. I say Portsmouth, but it is actually well out of the city itself, almost into Waterlooville, so it is very convenient for the A3 up to London and Heathrow, or the A27 and the M27 to link up to the road to Gatwick. Then, when Louise qualified, she moved up to Epsom – as Clive,” she indicated her husband, “explained, she didn’t want to work at the Queen Alexandra – too much opportunity for people to say any advances she might make would be thanks to her father’s influence. The hospital accommodation she had allocated to her was a bit grim, and anyway only temporary, so when Hugh’s flat became available, we jumped at it.”

“Louise has a car. We’ll need to examine it – but we although we found her insurance documents and the like, there was no trace of a hire purchase agreement, or any other purchase documents?”

“The car – it’s a Mini-Cooper –was a present from us for her twenty-first. At that age it was very expensive to insure, so we actually paid her premiums – part of the present.”

Jane looked at both parents.

“Tell me, do you know of anyone, anyone at all, who might have wished Louise harm?”

Both shook their heads, but then Doctor Chamberlain changed her mind.

“Well, I can’t believe that it has any bearing, but before Louise and Keith got together, she had been seeing someone else on a regular basis and she did say that he had been a bit of a pain over her dropping him in favour of Keith – but surely not? I mean, it was over two years ago.”

“Who was it?”

“Someone that she met at university when she was doing her degree element of her registration course. His name was Collis – George Collis. He was reading mathematics and Louise thought that he was nice in a bit of an unworldly sort of way. I think that she was almost certainly his first serious girl friend, but I know that she was beginning to tire of him – apparently he was getting very jealous, and after she broke up with him he kept pestering her for some weeks afterwards, but he seemed to finally get the message and I’ve not heard Louise mention his name for a long time, not since she and Keith had been together for perhaps a couple of months or so.”

“You wouldn’t know where Mr. Collis lives now, would you, Doctor?”

Helen Chamberlain shook her head.

“I’m afraid I have no idea. I know that he originally came from the Coventry area, but when Louise knew him he was, of course, in student accommodation in Portsmouth, so he may still be around, or he may have gone back to the Midlands, I just don’t know.”

“Don’t worry, Doctor. We’ll find him. I’m sure that you are right and that it is very unlikely that he had anything to do with Louise’s death, but we will need to talk to him, if only for the purposes of elimination.”

Coventry, Jane thought to herself. Linda Harris’ brother lived in Coventry – but surely it was just a coincidence? However, as a matter of faith, she never assumed that coincidences were nothing more than just coincidences – it would have to be checked out. The fact that there had been no papers about the flat itself, no rent records, no utility bills, no community charge had led the team to assume that the lack of such papers merely reflected the idea that the place was a love nest and Grissom or his company would have had the household bills and records. Now it didn’t seem so clear cut; with Chamberlain paying the rental for the place straight to Grissom Holdings that could explain the lack of papers about the flat itself. The presence of a boyfriend, even one currently on the other side of the Atlantic, presumably made the ‘love nest’ assumption 56

invalid, so was her killing really connected to that of Grissom, or was the fact that she was living in a flat owned by the man’s company just another coincidence? She still didn’t like coincidences.

The professor looked quizzically at her.

“Superintendent, you started off asking about Hugh Grissom – why was that?”

“I’m sorry to have to say that Mr. Grissom is dead – he was murdered a few days before your daughter was.”

Shock registered on the faces of both her visitors.

“But that’s awful,” Chamberlain protested, “do you think that whoever killed Louise also killed Hugh?”

“Honestly, I don’t know, Professor, but it is one possibility that we have to keep in mind, although other than the fact that Mr. Grissom’s company owned the flat your daughter lived in, it’s difficult to see what link there could between them that could possibly have such a result.”

The news had clearly come as a shock to both the Chamberlains; no reason why they should have known before, the news of Grissom’s murder hadn’t made much of a news splash at national level, whether in the papers or on TV, although it had featured locally, of course. She decided that she had gleaned as much information from the couple as she was likely to and decided to end the interview.

“Thank you both for all that you have told us. Will you be staying in Guildford or returning home?”

Chamberlain looked at his wife and an unspoken agreement was reached between them.

“I don’t think that we want to stay in an hotel, Superintendent, so we’ll go home. Tell me, do you have any idea when Louise’s body can be released for burial?”

“I don’t know, Professor, but I will be talking to the coroner shortly. A lot will depend on how quickly we can find her killer as it may be that the defence lawyers may ask for their own medical people to examine her, but I would hope that would not be necessary and I will try and get the coroner to agree. I’ll get back to you both as soon as I can.”

“Thank you, Superintendent.”

As the couple left the room, Jane reflected on the fact that David Grissom had not been in touch to ask about being able to bury his parents. Wasn’t that a bit odd?

It was still only mid-afternoon, so after discussing priorities with Jane, Sangster allocated tasks to the team members. One person it was vital to talk to was Keith Harmon, Louise’s boyfriend, but Jane felt that it was politic to let the Chamberlains break the bad news to him before he found himself talking to the police. One thing was certain; as he had spent the last three weeks in a hospital bed over three thousand miles away, he couldn’t possibly be a suspect. One who might be, though, however remotely, was the previous boyfriend, George Collis and Sangster gave the task of tracking the man down to Chris Caldwell, after Alice Pratt the youngest and least experienced team member. ‘Looking for a needle in a haystack’ the DC had muttered under his breath, but in fact, the task had proved ridiculously easy. His first check had struck gold. George Collis was on the national database. Just three months earlier he had been convicted of possession of a controlled sentence and been given a suspended sentence of six months, plus one hundred hours of community service. His address at the time had been given as being in Cosham High Street, so he was clearly within striking distance of Epsom – just sixty miles from Louise Chamberlain’s flat, say an hour and a half or so drive. A quick check via Google Maps showed the address on file to be a flat over a shop – one of a row of five such. He passed the news of his success on to Sangster, to be rewarded with a ‘well done’

and further tasked with going and interviewing the man.

“Take Alice with you; seeing this guy has form I don’t want just a single officer talking to him.”

“Right, sarge – when do you want us to go?”

Sangster looked at his watch.

“Nothing wrong with now. I’ll give the local nick a bell and let them know what is going on – make sure that you have your mobile on just in case they come up with something that means we should back off. Given the guy’s record, I’d hate to find that we have blundered into a drugs surveillance or the like.”

“Right, sarge.”

Just under two hours later, Alice Pratt brought her car to a halt outside a line of shops, comprising a single large building, in Cosham High Street. Each shop had a flat above it and, once more gleaned via Google 57

Maps, the two detectives knew that behind the shops was an area for deliveries and for parking. The picture also showed that each flat was reached by an external staircase from that area, so they got out of their vehicle and made their way behind the building on foot. Another check that they had performed before leaving Guildford was to discover that Collis drove a dark blue five year old Vauxhall Vectra and they were gratified to see that it was one of the private cars in the parking area.

“Looks as though our boy is home.” Caldwell observed.

They mounted the staircase, which was an open iron affair with a handrail, something that would have raised the eyebrows of a modern planning authority – for too easy to fall down or even through.

Alice knocked on the door, holding up her ID as she did so. The man who opened the door was dark haired, unshaven, dressed in jeans and a heavy leather jacket, worn open over a thin sweater. His head was shaved, but with enough of a stubble appearing to show that his hair was dark in colour, matched by dark eyes and eyebrows; he was clearly George Collis, matching precisely the picture in his police file. His reaction to the sight of Alice’s ID was instant. He punched her in the stomach and as she stumbled, grasping desperately to the handrail to avoid falling to the concrete fifteen feet below, he attempted to push past her. It was possible that, in his obvious panic, he had not even realised that Alice was not alone, because he barged into Caldwell with no attempt at finesse.

It was a big mistake. Chris Caldwell was no oil painting and his size – six feet five tall and heavily built –

made him look slow and clumsy. He was neither; a big right fist crashed into Collis’ midriff, sending him staggering back to catch his heel on the threshold of the door and fall backwards into the hall. After a quick glance to Alice to satisfy himself that she was in no danger of falling, Caldwell stepped through the doorway, bent down and, grasping Collis by the lapels of his jacket, hauled him to his feet and slammed him against the wall with enough force to drive out what little breath could have remained in his lungs after the punch.

Caldwell released his hold and the man slid down the wall until he was propped up by it, his legs splayed out in front of him.

Caldwell turned to his colleague.

“Alice, you OK?”

Alice fought to control her breathing before replying.

“I’ll live – but no thanks to that bugger – I might have gone over the handrail.”

Caldwell turned back to the semi-prostrate Collis.

“Right, sunshine – you are in trouble. On your feet.”

As Collis made no attempt to move, Caldwell bent down again and hauled him once more to his feet and propelled him out of the hallway and through the open door of what was clearly the living room. Once inside, with Alice close behind, he stopped and looked in surprise at a table upon which were perhaps a dozen packages of white powder wrapped in clear plastic.

“Well, well, well – and what do we have here? No wonder you were in a hurry to leave the scene, George.

Now, let’s all sit down and have a nice quiet chat, shall we?”

So saying, he dumped Collis bodily onto a small settee, the springs of which protested noisily at the sudden arrival of the man’s weight.

Collis looked up at the two detectives, his face a picture of fear and anxiety. Alice, still shaky from the punch, subsided gratefully into an easy chair, but Caldwell remained standing, glaring down at Collis.

Caldwell’s glare, Alice reflected, was something to avoid if one could. Even the big DC’s mother would have been hard put to describe him as good looking; his face was all craggy planes and angles, as though hacked from reluctant stone by an unskilled sculptor. Not for the first time, she thought that Chris Caldwell’s features made, by comparison, the late Charles Bronson look like an angelic choirboy.

“George, I have a question for you before we talk about those little packages on your table. If I don’t like your answer, if I think that you are bull-shitting me, well, it’s quiet out the back of en evening –nobody to see if you were to lose your footing at the head of your stairs . Going down all those sharp iron steps – I reckon that would hurt quite a bit, don’t you, George?”

Collis ran his tongue over his lips.

“You can’t do that!”

58

“George, you attacked my colleague and caused her actual injury. Now, I don’t like that, I don’t like it at all.

Do you really think that I will let you get away with it? Believe me, you going down those stairs head first would be just one of those things. You hit DC Pratt, I hit you, and down you went. On the other hand, tell us what we want to know and I’ll do no more than hand you over to the locals for possession.”

By now Collis was clearly very worried indeed.

“What do you want to know?”

“First thing, George, where were you all day on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of last week?”

Collis furrowed his brow in concentration.

“Wednesday, Thursday, Friday? That’s easy. I was doing community service – at the old folks’ home. I finished my time Friday. It was part of my sentence back in December. Been at the place Monday to Friday eight until six thirty every bloody day for weeks.”

That looks a pretty good alibi, thought Alice. With Louise Chamberlain’s time of death placed by the post mortem at between two and seven o’clock on the Thursday, and the very earliest – assuming that he was telling the truth – that Collis could have got to the Epsom area being around eight thirty or so, it was just about certain he wasn’t the killer.

Caldwell had the same thoughts, but Collis’ alibi needed to be checked out.

“So, George, what’s the name and phone number of this old folks home?”

Collis pointed to the mantelshelf over the fireplace, a fireplace containing an imitation coal fire. There was a business card giving the information he had asked for. He crossed over and picked up the card, keeping a careful eye on Collis with his peripheral vision, but the man made no move to cause trouble.

Alice stretched out her hand and took the card, examined it, and phoned the number it gave. Five minutes conversation with the home manager was enough to confirm that Collis had been where he had said he had.

She thanked the manager and rang off.

“Mr. Collis was at the home until just after six thirty on all three days.”

She turned at looked at the man.

“So, what about later on in the evenings on those days?”

He shrugged; clearly he was pulling himself together after Caldwell’s rough handling.

“I’m a mini-cab driver – Pompey Cabs. Work eight thirty to midnight at the moment.”

“Not a very long working week.”

“Blame this community service rubbish. I used to do a forty hour week for them, and I hope to again now my time is my own once more, but they say that I’ll have to wait, that they can’t fit me back in because they had to make arrangements to cover the hours I used to work whilst I unavailable.”

Caldwell turned back to Collis and took up the questioning.

“So, George, when did you last talk to Louise Chamberlain?”

Collis looked blank for a moment.

“Don’t know – must be two years or more. Why?”

“I’m asking the questions, George, not you. OK – so when did you last see her? Or write, or exchange Emails or texts?”

“Look, I don’t know what you are on about. We went together for a while at Uni, but I haven’t had anything to do with her in two years or more. We broke up and never got in touch again.”

“Why did you break up?”

Collis shrugged.

“Just one of those things.”

“How did you feel about the break up?”

Another shrug.

“Wasn’t happy at the time, but I got over it. But what is this all about – what’s up?”

“I don’t suppose that it made the local news, but Miss Chamberlain is dead – she was murdered last week.”

Watching his reaction, both detectives were convinced that the news came as a total shock to him. He was silent for several moments before speaking again.

59

“Look, I’m sure that her folks, and perhaps others, will say that I was pretty angry when we broke up – she effectively chucked me for somebody else and I wasn’t happy about it – but that’s all over and done with. I haven’t seen her, or been in contact with her in any way from that day to this, and as far as I am concerned, she means nothing to me anymore. I’m sorry to hear what happened to her – we had some good times together – and I hope you catch whoever killed her, but it wasn’t me.”

Caldwell and Alice looked at each other, an unspoken agreement reached between them. This time it was Alice who spoke.

“OK, Mr. Collis, I think that we are finished with you – now it’s just the matter of those packages on your table.”

She gave him a wintry smile as she dialled Sangster and quickly brought the DS up to speed.

“Right,” he said, “well done you two. I spoke with a DI Davis at the local nick. Get in touch with him and I’m sure he’ll want to send somebody round to take Collis off your hands.”

Alice phoned the number that Sangster gave her and moments later was speaking to the DI Davis he had mentioned.

“It’s DC Pratt from Surry police here, sir. I believe our sergeant, DS Sangster spoke to you earlier to say that we wanted to speak with a Mr. George Collis in Cosham?”

“Yes, that’s right. Why are you phoning me - has something gone wrong?”

“No, sir. We wanted to speak to Mr. Collis to eliminate him from our enquiries and I think that we have done that, but when we knocked on his door he struck me and attempted to leave the premises. My colleague, DC

Caldwell, stopped him and we found the apparent reason for his panic. On the table in his living room there are twelve plastic bags contained what looks like cocaine, so DS Sangster told me to advise you of what we have found.”

There was a short silence on the other end of the line before Davis spoke again.

“Right, Constable, thanks for that; in view of the time I’ll come over myself and based on what you have just said, I expect to arrest Davis. Hold there until I reach you.”

“Very well, sir, we’ll await your arrival.”

It was nearly twenty minutes before a marked police car, siren and flashing blue lights very much in evidence, arrived in the parking area behind the shops and DI Davis, accompanied by a burly uniformed constable mounted the stairs.

He introduced himself to the two Surry officers, then looked around the room.

“Have either of you touched anything?”

Caldwell answered.

“Only Mr. Collis, sir – he was violent and I had to restrain him after he attacked DC Pratt.”

“Right – we’ll need your fingerprints for elimination, but I’ve got a kit with me, so as soon as we’ve printed you, you can get off home. Just E-mail me your statements – the morning will be fine – and thanks for what you’ve done here.”

It was Alice who spoke.

“It was just luck really, sir.”

“Never look Lady Luck in the face, Constable – just be grateful on the odd occasion that she is on your side.”

Alice smiled at him.

“Yes, sir – I’ll remember that.”

Davis, a heavily built five feet eight, who looked to be about fifty years old, responded to the smile with one of his own.

“Let’s hope you two continue to be lucky.”

As they were driving back to Guildford, Alice asked Caldwell a question that had been preying on her mind.

“Chris, would you really have thrown Collis down those stairs?”

The big man chuckled.

“Of course not – we’re not the bloody Sweeny, are we? But he wasn’t to know that.”

Alice wondered uneasily if she had actually been told the truth.

60

Chapter Nine 13th March

The next morning Jane held her team briefing at eight. The first update was from Alice Pratt.

“We checked out Collis, ma’am, and we think that he is in the clear. He was working until six thirty on the Thursday and then again from eight thirty until midnight. To get from where he was to the Chamberlain flat is at least an hour and a half, and in the early evening more near to two hours. To get there and back he would have needed a window of at least four hours – and he never had one. He was seen by the manager of the old folks’ home signing out in her office at six thirty and seen by the mini-cab manager signing in at eight thirty. The only way that he could be the killer would be if he had somehow managed to slip away from the old folks home for four hours before six thirty. That means that he would have been killing Louise Chamberlain around four thirty, which fits in with the time of death according to the post mortem, but the manager there says it just didn’t happen. He was working as a sort of general dogsbody – helping hand out meals, cleaning things, those sort of jobs and she says he was there doing those sort of things all day.”

“Could she be lying?” This came from Sangster, eager to demonstrate that every possibility was being considered.

Alice furrowed her brow.

“Why should she?”

Sangster shrugged.

“To protect him.”

“Bur would she want to do that, sarge?”

“Usual reasons are money or sex.”

Caldwell broke in.

“I Googled the home, sarge. The website gives details of the place, including details of the manager. She’s Mrs. Lorraine Williams, aged sixty-two, married to a consultant oncologist at the Queen Alexandra, with three adult children. Collis is twenty-four. Also he is pretty poorly off – since his sentence of community service stopped him working full time he only has a few hours paid work a week.”

Sangster nodded.

“OK – that seems pretty conclusive.”

After listening to the various other reports, Jane quickly summarised what she saw as the up to date position.

“Right. It looks as though we can discount Collis of having any involvement with the killing of Louise Chamberlain – his alibi looks pretty convincing. Our original suspicion that she and Hugh Grissom were having an affair also looks shaky – her parents paid market rate for the flat rental and she got the flat through her father’s connections with Grissom, not by any direct contact between her and Grissom. So, is the Chamberlain killing related to the Grissom killings, or is it a coincidence?

“If it is coincidence, what was the motive? The flat wasn’t burgled – there were still things like the TV, her credit cards, an expensive watch. Her keys were there so a burglar could have taken her car after killing her –

not straight away assuming he was on his own and had his own vehicle, but if he had an accomplice the accomplice could have taken it, or if he was alone he could have come back a little later. She was a nurse; she was home at that time presumably because she was off shift, although that needs to be checked. Would a burglar have expected the flat to be occupied? Also, if this was someone who broke in – the method is all wrong. Why put her in the bath? Dr. McCarthy feels that putting Louise in that bath was an attempt to confuse us about the time of death, an attempt which actually failed. We have both the Grissoms killed in ways that also look to confuse us as to when the killings actually happened. No, on balance, I think that the three killings are connected and that we just haven’t found the connection yet.”

She turned to Sangster.

“What’s organised for today, sergeant?”

“Interviewing Louise Chamberlain’s workmates at the hospital to see if anyone can contribute anything useful. Further digging into Hugh Grissom’s financial affairs – I think we still have more to find out there. A bit more digging into finding out what Grissom was doing in Newcastle in days before he was killed, and in particular trying to find out more about the woman who was with him for part of that time.”

“Right, I’ll leave you all to it – if you need me I will be in my office.”

61

A few minutes later she was closeted with Clarke, in his role as acting DCI, reviewing the overall picture of the Division’s work. Satisfied that there was nothing brewing that would take her attention away from the triple murders, she thanked her deputy and called Cross in to review her commitments for the rest of the week. Again, nothing to divert her attention from the deaths of Louise Chamberlain and the Grissoms. Cross was already proving his worth in his new role, taking a lot of the routine paperwork off her plate.

When the newly minted DS returned to his own room, she pushed her chair back from the desk and simply sat there thinking, turning over in her mind everything that she knew about the murders. The thing that really nagged at her was the death of Louise Chamberlain. Why? She was convinced, as she had told the team, that there was a connection between all three deaths, but what on earth could it be?

One factor kept coming back to worry her. Hugh Grissom had been a very wealthy man. With him dead and also his wife, his son and daughter stood to inherit a lot of money. Money was often a motive for murder, and it would be by no means the first time parents had been murdered by their offspring to hasten an inheritance. Could that be the case here?

Talking – or rather thinking – of which, what had happened to Pamela Paice and her husband? Were they still touring France, blissfully unaware of the fate of Pamela’s parents, or was there some other reason for their non-appearance? She checked her notebook – a far less detailed record of the investigation than the murder book, with all the major points all jotted down in chronological order. It was only the day before yesterday that the French police had left the note at the Paice’s holiday home, asking them to contact her, but David Grissom had been trying to contact them by mobile phone for a week now and the police had also tried the mobile numbers Grissom junior had given them without success. The phones of both husband and wife were apparently switched off. Perhaps they just wanted to have a holiday free from interruptions, but suppose there was another explanation?

She came to a decision and lifted the phone for Dave Cross.

“Dave, would you try and get Commandant Le Bon – that’s about an Inspector in our terms - for me. He’s based in Perpignan and it was his people who left the note at the Paice’s villa for them to contact us. I think that it is about time we asked if the French authorities can find them for us.”

“Right, boss.”

It took quite a while to track down the Commandant – Jane wanted to talk to him in person, because his English was better than her French, which was pretty rusty through lack of practice. It was Le Bon whom she had contacted two days previously when asking for the Paice’s holiday home to be checked and the note left for them.

At last the connection was made.

“M’sieu le Commandant, it’s Jane Lawson again from Surrey.”

“Ah, my friend, what can I do for you? And the name – it is Henri.”

“Merci, Henri, je m’appelle Jane – and that’s about the limit of my French nowadays, I’m afraid. Henri, I’m getting concerned that that English couple, Mr. and Mrs. Paice still haven’t been in touch. There may well be a perfectly good explanation, but I would hate it to be thought that I have not tried as vigorously as I should to find them. Would it be possible to put out a request for the French police to stop their vehicle and get them to contact me?”

“My dear Jane, leave it with me. If they are in France they will be found within forty-eight hours at the most, almost certainly less.”

Jane put down the phone, glad that she had set the wheels in motion. When David Grissom had asked if he and his sister might be in danger she had thought not. Now, however, with the couple’s continued non-appearance, and a third murder, she was no longer so sure.

The task of talking to Louise Chamberlain’s workmates had fallen to Lucas Merville and James Johnstone.

Their first port of call had been at the hospital itself and, working separately to speed things up, they had soon spoken to all the staff on duty on the ward where Louise had worked. The picture they gained was of a friendly, out-going girl, very good at her job and expected to do well in her chosen profession. Nobody had the remotest idea as to who might have wished her harm. Amongst the dross of normality, there was, 62

however, one interesting nugget. It was gleaned by Johnstone; he had asked Susan Wells, one of the Staff Nurses on the ward – as he had asked everyone else to whom he had spoken – if she knew anything about Louise’s possible boyfriends.

“Not really,” had come the reply, “although I did see something that surprised me about three weeks ago.

We were both on the early shift – starts at eight in the morning – and I was just coming in the front entrance when I saw Louise being dropped off by somebody. Normally she drives her own car – a Mini – but this time she had been given a lift. I couldn’t see the driver – whoever it was just dropped her at the front and drove off, but it was the car that I really noticed. It was a big dark blue Bentley – a new one. I did wonder if it might have been her father – you know that he’s a consultant orthopaedic surgeon in Portsmouth?”

Johnstone nodded his head.

“Well, you have to have a few bob to run a car like that, don’t you? - and a senior consultant certainly fits that bill. So – I didn’t really think any more of it at the time, but you did ask if there was anything out of the ordinary, and that is the only time that I remember Louise not coming in her own car. Obviously I didn’t see her arrive every day, but we’ve had the same shift pattern for the last three months, so we have arrived just about together quite often.”

Johnstone did his best to keep his features neutral, but this was really interesting. The only Bentley that had come to light during the investigation was that belonging to the late Hugh Grissom, the man who had arranged the flat for Louise Chamberlain. There might be an innocent explanation for him dropping off the young woman at her place of work at eight in the morning, but given the circumstances, an innocent explanation seemed, to say the least, unlikely.

“Do you remember the date?”

Susan thought briefly, then shook her head regretfully.

“No, sorry, I don’t. I know it wasn’t the weekend, it was definitely during the week, but that’s all I am sure about.”

Once they had finished at the hospital, the two DCs spent the rest of the day trying, with only partial success, to track down and talk to staff who were off duty and who would have come into contact with Louise Chamberlain. More than half of them were not at home, and those to whom they did speak added nothing new to what was already known.

It was just after three o’clock that Jane received the phone call that, once again, changed things. The phone rang and she picked up the handset.

“Lawson.”

A man’s voice answered.

“Is that Detective Superintendent Lawson?”

“Speaking.”

“Superintendent, this is Keith Harmon.”

Jane’s interest immediately quickened.

“Yes, Mr. Harmon, how can I help?”

“Well, Clive – Louise’s father - has told me the terrible news and there is something that I feel you should know straight away.”

“What is that, Mr. Harmon?”

“Well, Clive and Helen don’t know this yet, but Louise and I were breaking up. Nothing acrimonious or anything – we just found that we were drifting apart. It was fine when we lived together up until she moved to Epsom, but after that we just seemed to see less and less of each other. Clive and Helen have long expected that we would eventually get married, so we wanted to wait until I was back home before we told them together about the break up.”

“I see,” she hesitated, “Mr. Harmon, this is a difficult question and I apologise for it in advance seeing the loss that you have suffered, but do you know if there is a chance that Louise was seeing anybody else?”

There was silence at the other end of the line for a moment or two.

63

“I don’t know for absolute certain, but I think that there is. Nothing that she has specifically said, but the last time we saw each other – about a week before I had my accident over here – there was something about her, as though we weren’t just breaking up, but that she was already moving on. It’s difficult to put into words, it was more an impression than anything else, but we got to know each other pretty well over the last two years, and I got the impression that, so far as Louise was concerned, I was already somebody in her past.”

He hesitated again.

“It was the first time since we were living together that I stayed overnight and we didn’t have sex. She said that it was just because she was very tired after a hard day on the ward, but I could tell that that was just an excuse to protect my feelings. The truth was that she didn’t want me.”

“Thank you for being so honest with me, Mr. Harmon.” Before Jane could continue, Harmon interrupted her.

“Do you have any idea who killed her, Superintendent? I know that it was finished between us, but I still care’ he broke off for a moment, “I still cared for her, and I want her killer punished. She was a grand girl and whoever did this to her deserves to rot in Hell.”

“We don’t have a suspect as yet, Mr. Harmon, but I have a lot of officers working flat out to find whoever did this to her and I promise you that we won’t rest until we have caught him. Tell me, Mr. Harmon, when do you expect to be back in the UK?”

“My consultant saw me first thing this morning and is happy for me to leave tomorrow. I’ll spend the rest of today arranging a flight home; hopefully, I will be back some time on Saturday.”

“Once you’re back in the UK, Mr. Harmon, I’d be grateful if you would come and see me. It is very important that we get as complete a picture of Louise as possible.”

“I’ll be in touch as soon as I get back”

“Thank you, Mr. Harmon.”

After she put the phone down, Jane leant back in her chair and digested what she had just been told. Perhaps initial appearances were right after all; perhaps that Epsom flat was a love nest for Grissom and Louise. She was dropped off at the hospital by someone driving a new, dark blue Bentley (because Johnstone had Emailed that information in as soon as he learned of it) – a description which fitted Grissom’s car perfectly.

She and her long term boyfriend were breaking up. But why, why, WHY was she killed? Was it because of her assumed relationship with Grissom? If so, who would stand to profit from her death? Unless Grissom had intended to alter his will, all his fortune would devolve to his children. His acknowledged mistress, Yvonne Raymond wasn’t mentioned in his will – hardly surprising. It was, of course, quite possible that he had made some sort of arrangements for her which didn’t appear in that document. Did Raymond know about Chamberlain? If so, could it be that she feared being supplanted by a younger rival? But even if that were the case and provided a motive for Raymond to kill Louise Chamberlain – or have her killed – how could that tie in with the death of the Grissoms? And thinking about the Grissoms, would Henri le Bon be able to deliver on his promise to find them?

The various aspects of the case whirled around in her mind, but no pattern emerged. First principle – back to basics. Who profited from the deaths? David Grissom and his sister benefitted from the deaths of their parents – but who benefitted from the death of Louise Chamberlain. The possibility of it being the work of a jealous lover could be discounted – Collis, who was in any case long in the past, had a cast iron alibi, as did Keith Harmon.

She cast her mind back to a case when she was a newly promoted DS and Inkerman was her DI. They had sat down when everyone else had gone home, everybody equally frustrated by a case that was going nowhere.

Inkerman had asked her to stay behind with him to, as he had put it, review things.

“Suppose,” he had said, “we assume that everybody is lying to us? How would that change how we look at things?”

And that was what they had done. At last, after several hours, they had spotted a small lie – and once they had discovered it, they had been led to a bigger lie and the whole case had unravelled before their eyes.

Just suppose, she said to herself, I look at all the evidence we have so far and assume everyone is lying unless we can prove that they are telling the truth?

64

She thought about it, then looked at her watch. It was still only five o’clock and she buzzed the bell in Dave Cross’ office. He was in within a matter of seconds.

“Yes, boss?”

“Dave, have you managed to work your way through all the stuff on the Grissom case yet?”

“Just about. I haven’t seen what had come in this afternoon, but apart from that, I reckon I’m up to speed.”

“Right. Next question. Got anything planned for this evening?”

“No, just dinner and evening in front of the TV.”

“Reckon Sheila can spare you for a few hours?”

“If I give her a bell – she can always keep something in the oven for me.”

“Right – cringe to her for me and say we’ll be a while. What I want to do is try a trick Mr. Inkerman taught me – to go through all the stuff we have so far and assume all our witnesses are lying unless there is cast iron evidence that they aren’t.”

The two of them sat down – after Cross had called his wife – and went through every statement that they had to date.

“Right – first statement we has was the couple who saw Hugh Grissom in the river. Can we believe them?”

Cross frowned.

“Well, he was certainly in the water – but could they have been lying about anything – could they be the ones who actually put him in the water? We don’t believe that he was in the River Wey from Saturday through to Monday evening – just not believable. Dr. McCarthy reckons he could have been kept in water somewhere else. However, we have their receipt for the meal they had at the Yvonne Arnaud – timed at seven ten. They called 999 at seven seventeen – not much time to do anything. We also have proof that their car was in the multi-storey at the time, having entered at five fifty – and stayed there until one of our traffic cars took the Leiths home whilst one of our folk drove their car for them – the wife would have been driving but didn’t feel up to it. That mean that they would have had to carry Grissom’s body from the car park after they had paid for their meal and dumped him in the river, then called us, all in the space of seven minutes.

Not possible.”

Jane nodded agreement.

“You’re right, Dave. They told the truth. Now, next up, David Grissom. He told us that his father had a mistress. We’ve spoken to her and she confirmed the relationship. I saw her along with DC Merville and unless she is a very good actress, she was totally devastated by the news of Grissom’s death and had no foreknowledge. Now, she said that Grissom was with her on the Friday night and left Saturday morning.

CCTV shows his Bentley in the vicinity of her flat at times that make her statement credible.”

“Provided he was driving it, boss. If we assume that she was lying – could someone else have been driving it?”

Jane looked at him thoughtfully.

“Go on.”

“Well, our take on Grissoms movements is that he flew back from Newcastle on the Friday. That’s been verified with the airline. Then we have him driving in the Bentley to Raymond’s place. OK – but according to his secretary he never left the Bentley in long stay car parks and that the car he used – and which we have verified was in the Heathrow car park – was a company Vectra. We’ve tracked the Vectra as arriving at Heathrow on the Monday and being driven away on the Friday. And then it disappears. It’s not been seen since. Now, we know that Grissom was on the flight from Newcastle. We know he drove to Heathrow in the Vectra on the Monday. Surely it is safe to assume that it was Grissom who drove away in the Vectra on the Friday?”

“I reckon so. Go on, Dave.”

Cross was warming to the task.

“OK. So Grissom leaves Heathrow in the Vectra a bit after five thirty. A bit less than two hours later the Bentley is seen on CCTV approaching Yvonne Raymond’s place. Now, where was the Bentley before that?

We know that he normally kept it at home, and the timing allows for him to leave Heathrow, drive home, swap cars and drive to Raymond’s. Half past five on a Friday – it’s only twenty-five miles or so for him from 65

Heathrow to home, but it would take a good forty-five minutes, possibly rather more, in Friday rush hour traffic. So he gets home around six twenty to six thirty, giving him an hour or a little under to get to Raymond, for a journey that will only take thirty minutes at the most even in rush hour traffic. No problem.

But what did he do with the Vectra? And why? It just makes no sense that he would go to the trouble of driving home in it, but then leave it somewhere else, now does it?”

Jane had to agree; it just didn’t make sense. She added her own contribution.

“You’re right – it doesn’t. Tomorrow I’ll set the troops on tracking the movements of that Vectra. After all, it must be somewhere. Now, if Raymond is lying to us, who drove the Bentley to her place on Friday evening and stayed over to Saturday morning – and don’t forget, we know that whoever it was drove the Bentley to Heathrow with Mrs. Grissom’s body already in the boot unless – very unlikely – he stopped and picked her up, dead or alive, somewhere on route. If dead, her body had to have been hidden somewhere. If alive, he promptly killed her and stuffed her in the boot. Neither seems very likely. I think our original idea that she was already in the Bentley’s boot on Friday evening is correct.

“Now,” she continued, “if it wasn’t Hugh Grissom driving the Bentley, who was it? Who do we have as possible suspects? Mrs. Grissom would have had access to the car at home. Her time of death is uncertain, but she was quite probably already dead. If she wasn’t, why would she drive to Raymond’s? A confrontation that got her killed? In that case who drove the Bentley away on Saturday morning? Raymond? According to her evidence, she stayed in her flat on the Saturday doing office paperwork – but we have no corroboration of that. It could have been her in the Bentley – but in that case, where was Grissom? We know he was killed on the Saturday, kept in water somewhere – for I am sure that Dr. McCarthy is right – and dumped in the Wey on Monday. But what was he doing on Friday after leaving Heathrow?

“OK, let’s leave that for a moment. Now, what about David Grissom? He approached us after his father’s picture appeared in the media. He stands to inherit a very great deal of money. It wouldn’t be the first time that a parent has been murdered by their offspring for financial gain – often for far less than we are talking about here. He has no real alibi for the time his father was killed, only for later that day when he took a girlfriend – Julie Summers – to dinner and stayed the night with her. What was he doing on the Friday? We never asked him when we spoke to him. Make a note, Dave, to have him spoken to again.”

The DS nodded and scribbled in his notebook.

“Now, who else? What about that alleged rape? Can’t say that I fancy the girl, Linda Harris, herself, although she only has her family as an alibi, as does her brother. One thing that continues to bother me about the Harris girl, though – she used a petrol station on both Saturday and Sunday to fill up a car with a range of four hundred miles or so. Now why should she do that? Those receipts prove where she was at specific times on both days – it’s almost as though she wanted to have such proof, as though she knew that it might be needed.

“Which takes us to her brother. Ex-Army and despite being an amputee, a pretty tough character according to Saunders and Pratt. Whilst his sister is visiting for the weekend he goes off to watch a Rugby match and is out of sight for several hours. Not long enough to go to the Guildford area and kill Grissom, but if we assume everybody is lying, it could be a very different tale. He could have been nowhere near his home all weekend.

What about Monday, though? We know now that Grissom didn’t actually go into the river until sometime on Monday afternoon or, more likely, early evening, and that in the interim he had been kept in water somewhere. How could Harris have managed that? And where was he on Monday? Needs checking.”

Cross made another note.

“Who’s left? Anybody?”

“Louise Chamberlain.”

“Yes, but I can’t see her killing the Grissoms and then being topped herself. Doesn’t make any sense at all.

But who killed her? I can’t believe that the killings aren’t all connected in some way, but what? And why?”

Cross looked at her and made the suggestion that was to start a new line of thought.

“Jealousy? We are assuming from what Keith Gorman told us, she had started a new affair with somebody else. She was living in a flat owned by Grissom, even if her father was actually paying the rent, but suppose it was Grissom?”

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“That is what I have been thinking, certainly.”

Jane sat back in her chair as a possible scenario started to unreel in her mind.

“Suppose Raymond found out about Chamberlain and didn’t like the sound of it? She’s been Grissom’s mistress for perhaps as long as ten years; now there is another woman, a good bit younger, on the scene.

Might she not be very unhappy?”

She warmed to the thought.

“If Raymond is unhappy with the idea of Grissom and Chamberlain together, what might she do? Just getting rid of Chamberlain would probably make things worse between her and Grissom – if he was already thinking of dropping her and moving on, that wouldn’t help at all, now would it? We also have a lot of money floating around – and one element of the money is Raymond’s occupation of that very expensive flat. If Grissom decided to drop her in favour of Chamberlain, would he also put her out of that flat?”

“You’ve met her, boss, I haven’t. Could she have physically done to Grissom what happened to him?”

Jane shook her head.

“Can’t see it. If she was involved in acting against Grissom and Chamberlain she wasn’t alone. Somebody else would have to have been involved. And in any case – Chamberlain was killed after Grissom. If Raymond wanted Chamberlain out of the way that wouldn’t make sense, would it?”

Cross shook his head before replying.

“Not on the face of it. One other thought, boss. David Grissom knows about Raymond, doesn’t he?”

“By his own account, yes. I can’t see him lying about knowing about her, but just suppose....”

Her voice tailed off as her mind raced ahead.

“Dave, we need to talk to David Grissom again, I want to know what he was doing on the Friday before his father was killed – the day Grissom senior flew back from Newcastle. We also need to talk to Raymond again – when I saw her with Merville I was convinced that I was seeing genuine shock and distress, but perhaps she is just a really good actress. The important thing is – did she know about Chamberlain?”

She looked at her watch again.

“Right, Dave, I think that will do for tonight – give Sheila my apologies for keeping you – see you in the morning.”

“Night, boss.”

As she drive home, Jane reflected on the events of the day. She had a feeling, although that was all that it was, that she was getting near to the truth behind the three murders.

Chapter Ten 14th March

Jane had intended to hold the day’s briefing at eight o’clock, but a few minutes before eight her phone rang.

“Lawson”

“Is that Superintendent Lawson?” queried a female voice.

“Yes, speaking, who is this, please?”

“Superintendent, this is Pamela Paice. We were driving towards Perpignan and the French police pulled us over and asked us to phone you as a matter of urgency.”

“Mrs. Paice, where are you? Are you parked at the moment?”

“We were on the N116 headed east towards Perpignan when the police stopped us, so we’ve pulled off the main road onto the D16A at Saint Feliu d’Avall and we’re parked in a lay-by just outside the town itself.”

“Is your husband with you?”

“Yes. Superintendent, what is all this about?”

“Mrs. Paice, I’m afraid that I have some very bad news for you. There is no easy way to say this; your parents are both dead. They were murdered the weekend before last. We, and your brother, have been trying to reach you ever since we found out.”

There was a gasp of horror at the other end.

“No, there must be some mistake.”

“I’m afraid there is no mistake, Mrs. Paice. Your brother David has identified them both.”

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“What can we do? We must get back – my God, we had our phones off because we wanted a quiet couple of weeks – John’s being having a very hectic time and this was going to be a time to relax.”

She stopped in mid flow and Jane could hear sobbing, then a man’s voice cut in.

“This is John Paice – what’s going on?”

“Mr. Paice, this is Detective Superintendent Lawson from the Surrey police. I’m afraid that your father and mother-in-law have both been murdered and I have had to break the news to your wife.”

“My God! Are you sure that it is them? What happened?”

“I’m afraid that the details are distressing and I would prefer not to go into them on the phone. How soon can you and Mrs, Paice return to the UK?”

“We should be able to get back today. I know that there is a flight from Perpignan to London, via Paris – I’ve done it in the past. Look, I need to get things moving here. We’ll drive to Perpignan and I’ll ring you again when I have something fixed.”

Jane finished the call and joined the team for the morning’s briefing. There was relief that the Paices had been found at long last and the hope that further interviewing of David Grissom and Yvonne Raymond might move the case on; to this end, Jane instructed Sangster to arrange for the two to attend at the station. It was, Jane felt, time to become more formal with both of the two vital witnesses, witnesses whom she had a feeling might just possible become suspects if her burgeoning suspicion was to prove fruitful.

Just under an hour late John Paice, as promised, phoned her back.

“I’ve arranged a flight for us, Superintendent. We’ll leave the campervan in the long stay car park here and worry about it later; we leave Perpignan at fourteen fifteen local, change at Orly, and arrive at London City airport at six o’clock local.”

“Right, Mr. Paice, I’ll send a car to meet you.”

“That’s very kind of you, Superintendent – to be honest, neither of us feels much like driving at the moment.”

The instant that Paice rang off, Jane was back on the phone, this time to Inspector Haigh of Aviation Security, who had been so helpful over the recovery of Grissom’s Bentley, with its grisly cargo, from the Heathrow car park. She explained her problem, and once again the Met officer came up trumps.

“Right, ma’am, no problem. I’ll talk to my opposite number at London City – he’s Inspector Ken Markham.

He’ll arrange for the Paices to be ushered through the VIP route to minimise stress on them and get them through as quickly as possible. I suggest that you send a marked car for them, and if your driver asks for Markham, he’ll sort out the rest.”

“Thanks, Inspector, that’s really helpful of you. I’ll make sure that we have a marked car at the airport by six.”

She was about to land the task on Carl Sangster, when she realised that it would be simpler to get Dave Cross to do the donkey work and leave Sangster to continue organising the efforts of the team.

“Dave, get onto uniform. I want a marked car at London City airport for six o’clock this evening.” Another thought struck her. “Dave, I think that it would be a good idea if you went as well; it’s going to be a pretty unpleasant ride for Mr. and Mrs. Paice, without them being driven by a copper who doesn’t know the first thing about the case. Be circumspect, but try to keep them from freaking out over it. John Paice sounds pretty level headed over the phone, but I’m not so sure about his missus.”

“OK, boss, I’m on it.”

It was shortly after lunch that Jane and Sangster interviewed Yvonne Raymond. Looking at the woman, Jane felt that she looked less self-possessed in the anonymity of the interview room than she had been in her own flat the previous Sunday. Was it really, Jane marvelled to herself, still less than a week ago?

Raymond had been advised before attending that she would be interviewed under caution and therefore had the right, if she so wished, to have a legal representative present. It was impressed upon her that she was not under arrest, nor was she being accused of any crime, but in view of further developments since she had spoken to Jane and DC Merville the previous Sunday, it was important that she be interviewed further. She had said that she didn’t feel the need to have a legal representative, so it was just the three of them in the interview room.

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“Thank you for attending this interview under caution, Ms. Raymond. I must first ask to confirm both that you understand the caution that has been read to you and that you are happy to be interviewed without legal representation.”

Yvonne Raymond nodded, then cleared her throat.

“Yes, I confirm both those points.”

“Thank you. Now, the reason for interviewing you again is that since DC Merville and I saw you last Sunday there have been further developments which link to the murder of Hugh Grissom. As you have probably gathered from reports in the media, the Monday after DC Merville and I spoke with you, Mr. Grissom’s Bentley was found in a car park at Heathrow and the body of Mrs. Grissom was found in the boot of the vehicle. We are currently working on the assumption that both husband and wife were killed by the same person or persons. Now, you had been having a relationship with Mr. Grissom for some years, so are clearly an important witness into what his state of mind might have been towards his wife. For the record, when did your relationship with Mr, Grissom commence?”

“In January two thousand and six. Hugh had been a constant visitor to my boss, Ken Craig and I knew him quite well as a result. In January of that year Ken and I attended a meeting at a hotel in Birmingham with the CEO and a couple of the directors of a company which had approached us over funding they wanted to enable them to expand their premises. Ken had already spoken with Hugh about the company as they seemed a suitable target for a take-over and as a result Hugh was also at the meeting. It didn’t go very well; although the CEO was willing to consider the idea of accepting a take-over, the other two were bitterly opposed to any such move and after a hour or so it was clear that we were wasting our time so the meeting broke up. Ken, Hugh and I were all booked into the hotel for the night, but with the meeting finishing so much earlier than expected, Ken decided to leave for home. I had driven up with him, but Hugh offered to run me home the next morning and Ken told me to take advantage of the offer rather than arrive home to an empty flat on a miserable winter’s night. So, Hugh and I had dinner together, I had a bit more to drink than usual and one thing led to another.

“The next morning Hugh made it very clear that he wanted to see me again and I was happy to go along with the idea. I had not long broken up with a boyfriend that I had been living with for a couple of years and I suppose I was happy to move on to pastures new, even though Hugh was a good bit older than myself. At the time I had a grotty little flat in the centre of Woking and Hugh used to come there, but soon said that I deserved somewhere better, so he arranged to buy the flat that I am now living in.”

“When was that, Ms. Raymond?”

“It was in May of the same year.”

Nice going, Jane thought to herself; living rent-free and probably cost-free in a really upmarket apartment for nearly eight years now. She resumed her questioning.

“So, you were in a relationship for a bit over eight years, so you must have known Mr. Grissom very well indeed. What did you know about his wife?”

“As I told you on Sunday, I didn’t know her at all – never even met her, not really, just saw her on those two occasions that I told you about. Hugh never had any intention of leaving her, that was something he made very clear all the time, and to be honest, I had no interest in him doing so. I was happy with our relationship and had no desire to see things change.”

She hesitated, looked down at the table, then back up at the two police officers.

“I did love him, you know – but I didn’t want to possess him. It was clear that he was bored with his wife –

he said that the number of times they had sex a year could probably have been counted on the fingers of one hand – but that she was a good housekeeper! Hardly a ringing endorsement, was it? And I didn’t want to see the same thing happening to me if he were to divorce Louise and marry me – not that it was going to happen, mind you.”

Time to change the subject, Jane decided.

“Now, you were in a relationship from two thousand and six – so it was ongoing at the time Mr. Grissom was accused of rape in January two thousand and eight. How did that affect you?”

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She shrugged her shoulders; rather an elegant shrug Sangster thought as he continued to play the silent partner in the interview.

“Hugh screwed her – no doubt about that. He told me as much, and she wasn’t the only casual one-nighter.

Trouble with this one was that she claimed that she had been raped and went to the police over it.”

“And was she?”

Raymond shook her head.

“No way – but she was really, really drunk by all accounts. My guess is that had she been sober she wouldn’t have been interested in a bloke old enough to be her father, and when she realised what had happened she decided to try and cash in.”

“So what happened?”

“A couple of days after the party she phoned Hugh and told him that she wanted money or she would go to the police. Hugh foolishly didn’t believe her – thought that she wouldn’t have the nerve, but she did. When the police came calling he was in an absolute panic. He denied everything, of course, and as soon as he was alone he got back to Linda Harris and got her to agree to fail to identify him.”

“How did he do that?”

“Combination of bribery and threats. He had somebody, I don’t know who and never wanted to, visit her.

Whoever it was paid her off, but also knocked her about a bit; nothing too damaging, but enough to demonstrate seriousness – and promised that if she didn’t drop the charge a lot worse would happen to her.

Hugh was quite smug about it all – reckoned that it was a feather on his cap, really. Said that two grand was an expensive night’s shag, but worth it in the end.”

“Didn’t you do anything about it all?”

The woman looked at Jane in surprise.

“Me? What should I have done? The little slapper got herself two thousand pounds for ten minutes on her back and a couple of bruises. She did well out of it in my opinion.”

Jane found herself disliking the late Hugh Grissom more and more – and the sympathy that she had initially felt for Yvonne Raymond was also dissipating rapidly.

“But you were in a regular relationship with him – weren’t you unhappy with him?”

“Like I said, she wasn’t his only casual one night stand. I don’t suppose that I even knew about all of them –

it wasn’t as though Hugh boasted about it or anything. It was just my take on when he had been away overnight from home and not with me.”

Time for another change of tack.

“What about Louise Chamberlain?”

Yvonne Raymond frowned.

“What about her? I read about her murder in the papers and it was on local TV, but I’ve never heard of her other than for that.”

“So it would be news to you to learn that Ms. Chamberlain was living, as you are, in a flat owned by Grissom Holdings?”

Raymond looked surprised; or did she? Jane was beginning to wonder uneasily if perhaps she was in the presence of a truly consummate actress. Somehow, the more she studied the woman, the more she felt that she was beginning to understand her, and the expression of surprise somehow didn’t ring absolutely true.

“Yes, Mr. Grissom moved her into a very flat in Epsom some months back. Being totally brutal about the matter, isn’t it possible that she might be a rival to you for his long term affection? She is, or rather she was, a good bit younger than you, and the Linda Harris episode surely demonstrated that Mr. Grissom wasn’t averse to younger women.”

Raymond shook her head.

“No, Hugh wouldn’t have done that to me. I know he was pretty casual, but we’ve been together for eight years or so. No, he wouldn’t have dropped me for her, although I wouldn’t have put it past him to keep both of us on the go, the randy old bugger. ‘More is better’ always was his motto.”

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“Perhaps you are right, Ms. Raymond, but we’ll never know, will we? Now, we understand from his son and from his company that Mr. Grissom was in Newcastle the week leading up to his murder. Do you have any idea why he might have gone there?”

Raymond gave another expressive shrug.

“No idea, but knowing Hugh it would almost certainly have been on business. He wasn’t much of a one for tourism. I do know that he had been involved with a company up there earlier – he boasted to me at the time that he had made quite a killing on that undertaking. Perhaps it was a follow-up of some sort over that, but that’s just a guess - I honestly don’t know.”

“Thank you. Now can we turn to your own movements on the days around the date of Mr. Grissom’s murder, please? What were your movements from Wednesday the twenty-sixth of February through to Friday, the seventh of March?”

“Good Lord, I’d have to think about that.”

She reached down to the large handbag lying beside her chair, rummaged in it and withdrew a small tablet computer which she switched on. She waited for a moment, then ran an application, from her next words obviously her diary.

“Right, let’s see. Wednesday the twenty-sixth, you say? I was in Carlisle going through the books of a company we – that’s Craig Holdings – have invested money in. I flew up to Manchester airport on the Tuesday morning, hired a car at the airport, and flew back down on the Friday morning.”

She broke off and scrutinised the faces of the two police officers closely.

“Ah – my job description. I’m Ken’s PA – but I’m not just the bimbo in the office making the coffee and keeping his diary up to date, you know. I’ve a degree in accountancy and Ken quite often sends me out on that sort of job, especially if it means being away from the office for a few days – he doesn’t like to be away from the centre of things more than absolutely necessary.”

Jane realised that she had underestimated Yvonne Raymond’s importance within her company –

underestimated it quite badly. What else, she wondered uneasily, might she have underestimated about the woman?

“You can let us have details of the hire company?”

“Yes, of course – it was Hertz.”

She pulled a small notebook from the handbag which she opened and then scribbled in. She tore of the sheet of paper and handed it across to Sangster, who was sitting slightly the nearer to her.

“It was a Mercedes E-Class – helps not to arrive looking like a cheapskate, you know.”

Of course not, Sangster thought to himself as he took in the details on the sheet of paper. He quickly reviewed the geography in his mind.

“Why fly to Manchester, Ms. Raymond and then drive to Carlisle? Surely it would have been better to fly to Newcastle? From memory, it’s about a hundred and twenty miles from Manchester to Carlisle, but only about sixty or so from Newcastle to Carlisle.”

For the first time Raymond seemed to hesitate before responding.

“I got a last minute cheap flight – and anyway I enjoy driving in the north – so much less crowded than down here.”

Jane took up the point.

“Did you just drive straight to Carlisle on the Tuesday and back to Manchester on the Friday? Oh, and where did you stay in Carlisle?”

Again that fractional hesitation.

“ I stayed at the Hallmark Hotel in the centre. I’ve stayed there before and enjoyed the place. As for what I did whilst I was up there, I spent the Tuesday afternoon and evening with the company, but I had Wednesday to myself as they had to work on some details for me, so that day I drove around the Lake District. Then on the Thursday I went back to them, worked through what they had prepared for me. That took me through to the evening, so I had dinner at my hotel and left Friday after breakfast.”

Jane sat silent for a moment, a long moment which she felt was at last having an effect on the woman opposite.

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“One last question, Ms. Raymond. What was the name of the company you visited and when was your visit arranged?”

“It was arranged a bit over four weeks ago – the company is Reynolds Housing – I’ve got their card here.”

Again the handbag was rummaged, this time disgorging a smart black leather wallet, from which Raymond produced a business card which she slid across the table.

“Right, thank for that, Ms. Raymond. That’s all for now, although we may need to speak again in the future.

In the meantime, here is your copy of the recording of this interview.”

Jane looked at her watch and spoke for the benefit of the tape.

“Interview completed at fifteen ten, Friday the fourteenth of March, two thousand and fourteen.”

She switched off the recorder, extracted both tapes and handed one to Raymond.

Once the woman had gone Jane turned to Sangster.

“Well, Carl, what do you think.”

“I think she’s lying about her trip up north, boss – I think that she’s the woman who spent Tuesday night through to Thursday morning with Grissom in Newcastle. The tale about driving around the Lake District is to have a reason for the mileage she clocked up on the hire car.”

“I’m sure your right, but let’s do a bit more checking. Have Hertz contacted to check the car she hired and the mileage she did in it and check with that company – Reynolds Housing – that her timing works out with what she has told us. Have her hotel contacted as well to see what they say about her stay there.

“There is one thing..”

“Boss?”

“I reckon we are right and that she is lying to us about driving around – she was with Grissom. But why does she feel it necessary to lie? She is quite open about being Grissom’s mistress – or perhaps one of them – so why not admit to being with him in Newcastle? Even flying to Manchester, rather than Newcastle, which would, as you brought up with her, be more convenient for Carlisle? There’s something fishy there, Carl.”

“One other thought, boss,” thank goodness he’s stopped calling me ‘ma’am’, Jane thought to herself – made me sound either like Helen Mirren or the Queen herself, or some old dowager, “what about talking to Craig about those trips up north? Raymond works for him, Grissom was effectively in partnership with him –

perhaps he knows something?”

“Good thought, Carl - have a word when we’re through here, will you please?”

“OK”

The two detectives returned to their own offices and once there Jane called in Dave Cross.

“Dave, something that is bugging me. Nobody knows why Grissom went to Newcastle for the week before he was killed – or if they do, they’re not saying. It’s just dawned on me that we haven’t asked Ken Craig, who worked pretty closely with Grissom from time to time. Also, Yvonne Raymond is Craig’s PA – and as Carl and I discovered when we interviewed her this afternoon, she is a more senior member of the company, judging by what she is trusted to do, that just being a PA would imply. Have a word and see if he can throw any light on the matter,”

“OK, boss – I’ll do it straight away – and while I’m doing it, here are the overtime returns for the division for you to sign.”

“Thanks a bunch.”

Jane pulled the proffered heap of returns to her with an air of resignation, but a quick glance showed that Cross had done an excellent job of checking and summarising them and they did indeed merely need her signature – completing in moments a task that the previous month had taken her several hours.

Cross returned to his own office, thumbed quickly through his contact list and phoned Craig Holdings, asking to be put through to the man himself.

“Ken Craig.”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Craig. I’m Detective Sergeant Cross from Surrey police – I’m working with Detective Superintendent Lawson on the murder of Mr. Hugh Grissom, and I wonder if you can help me with a question that has cropped up.”

“If I can, Sergeant – what’s the question?”

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“In the week immediately prior to his death, Mr. Grissom went up to Newcastle, going up there on the Monday and returning on the Friday. The thing is, nobody seems to know why he went up there. Nobody in his company knows, his son doesn’t know, Ms. Raymond, who, I believe you know was very close to Mr.

Grissom, doesn’t know. It’s a mystery, and whilst in may have absolutely no bearing on who killed him and why, we can’t afford to ignore it. Can you help me?”

There was a brief pause at the other end.

“Yes, I think that I can, Sergeant. The thing is, the sort of deals that Hugh pulled off often depended on a very high degree of confidentiality. If his competitors got wind of the fact that he was interested in a company, there would be an immediate assumption that the company concerned might be ripe for the plucking and others would start sniffing around – which would often have the result of pushing up what Hugh might have to pay to achieve what he wanted.

“Have you heard of Lucas Engineering?”

“Yes, Mr, Craig – we have actually spoken with Mr. Lucas as somebody affected by Mr. Grissom’s actions.”

“Ah, good. Well, whilst Hugh was pulling off the Lucas deal he had a general look around the geographic area just to see if there was anything else that might be of interest to him. There was; a company dealing in computer software development, called Graphix Illustrated. It’s a small concern, just half a dozen people, run by a chap called Richard Collinson. Now, unlike the typical stereotype computer expert as being some spotty teenage geek, Collinson is over sixty and was looking to retire gracefully, but he has a son, one Christopher Collinson, who has a half share in the business, even though he apparently doesn’t know one end of a computer programme from the other. He was, however, perfectly aware that the company lived or died on the back of his father’s expertise and was determined to keep him in harness for as long as possible. At the time Hugh was sorting out the Lucas affair, that was just interesting information, with nothing to be gained by getting involved. A month or so back, however, Richard Collinson had a heart attack, a pretty bad one. He pulled through, but is under strict medical instruction to pack up work and take things easy. This effectively puts the company in limbo; without Collinson senior at the helm the company is headed for the rocks – fast.

Collinson junior could see his investment in a going concern in danger of becoming worthless in very short order so he contacted Hugh – whom he had met when he was up there earlier – Hugh was brilliant at making contacts wherever he went - to see if he could come up with a solution. I know all this because Hugh felt that the best asset the company possessed wasn’t the brilliance of Richard Collinson, nor their ongoing order book – which was all short term stuff anyway – but the actual potential value of their property, which could be redeveloped into a residential complex. Compared to his normal deals this was pretty small stuff, and he was reluctant to tap any of his big contacts for the initial capital that would be needed for the redevelopment, but it is right up the street of some of the finance people I deal with, so we agreed a deal, but the deal was dependent on Hugh talking Collinson junior round to selling up. That’s why he went up to Newcastle and why nobody else knew why, not even Yvonne – that’s Yvonne Raymond, my PA.”

“Thank you for all that, Mr. Craig. It fills a gap in our knowledge, although to be honest, I can’t see that it has any bearing on Mr. Grissom’s murder.”

Cross reported what he been told to Jane and the two of them mulled over this latest information. Finally, Jane shook her head.

“I’m sure that you are right, Dave - all very interesting but of no direct help. It does raise one point though.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, Craig told you that Raymond didn’t know what Grissom was up to - but we know that she met Grissom up there, so she at least knew where he was, even if she didn’t know what he was doing there.”

“She might have been interested in what he was up there for, just a chance for the two of them to meet up?”

“Could be, of course. However, I think it might be worthwhile having a quick word with this company –

Graphix Illustrated? – just to make sure that really was why Grissom was up there.”

Cross nodded in acquiescence; quarter of an hour later he was back in her office.

“Spoke to them, boss – got hold of the son, Christopher. They had been waiting to hear from Grissom –

apparently he had promised to be in touch by the end of next week by the latest, so to be told Grissom is dead came as quite a shock. However, he did confirm that Grissom met with him and his father on the 73

Tuesday and Wednesday – and that on the Wednesday Grissom was accompanied by a woman who seemed to know all about the deal being discussed. I E-mailed him a picture of Yvonne Raymond and he confirmed that she was the woman with Grissom.”

“Now that’s interesting. Why didn’t she tell her boss? As far as Craig knows she was in ignorance of the deal, but clearly not so.”

“When do we confront Raymond with the fact that we know that she is lying?”

“Not yet; I want to talk to David Grissom before we do that – and perhaps Linda Harris as well. After all, she lied to the police over that rape claim, and I’m still puzzled as to why she had to fill her car’s tank twice on successive days.”

She looked at her watch.

“H’mm, nearly five o’clock. Too late to do anything about David Grissom – I want a fair amount of time with him, and the Paices should be with us a bit before seven. Time to have another talk with Linda Harris, though. Dave, phone her at work and offer her the choice of talking to me either there or here.”

Five minutes later he was back.

“No go, boss. She’s out of the office. She’s part of a team doing an advertising video in Oxford. They’ll be back in the office tomorrow. I’ve told them to give her a message to contact me first thing tomorrow morning.”

“OK, Dave. Get the interview tape with Raymond transcribed please and call it a day – no need to hang around for the Paices – I’ll deal with them.”

It was a little after seven when Pamela and John Paice were shown into Jane’s office. She rose to greet them, taking them in as she did so. Pamela Paice bore no resemblance to either of her parents, not to her brother, as far as Jane could make out. A tall, slim – virtually skinny – woman with wispy fair hair than seemed to lack substance, she was possessed of an oval face with no dominant features. She was, Jane felt, the sort of person who would pass unnoticed in any gathering, a face that was instantly forgettable. Her husband was a little below average height, but heavily built with a square, craggy face – a young Charles Bronson look alike. It was he who took the lead, whilst his wife shrank back into her chair, as though trying to make herself invisible, as if by so doing she could refute the terrible news she had so recently received.

It was John Paice who spoke.

“Thank you for seeing us so quickly, Superintendent.”

“Not at all, Mr. Paice, I am only so sorry that we should meet in such circumstances. Is there anything that I can offer you, tea, coffee, perhaps?”

Both visitors declined; instead Paice one again spoke.

“What can you tell us about what happened to Hugh and Louise, Superintendent?”

“Mr. Grissom’s body was found floating in the river Wey on Monday of last week. From injuries on his body it was clear that he had been murdered. Our pathologist determined that he was actually killed the previous Saturday, sometime in the afternoon. Mrs. Grissom’s body was discovered in suspicious circumstances in a car park at Heathrow airport. It has been more difficult to decide when she was killed, but it must have been sometime between the Wednesday the twenty-sixth of February and Friday the twenty-eight. Tell me, please, when were either of you last in contact with Mr. or Mrs. Grissom?”

Pamela Paice spoke for the first time.

“I spoke to mum on the Wednesday in the evening, about seven o’clock. We had our mobiles off for a bit of peace and quiet for most of the time, but I did switch mine on just to give her a ring and let her know that we having a fine time.”

Her voice tailed off and a few tears rolled silently down her cheeks.

Well, Jane thought to herself, we’ve narrowed the time of death down a little. Not earlier than seven on the Wednesday. A thought struck her.

“When you say seven, Mrs. Paice do you mean seven here or seven in France?”

“Oh, seven here – it was just on eight over there and we had stopped in a village for the night – it had one of these parking places for campervans and there was a nice looking restaurant which we had decided to try out, so at eight local time we were just about to get ready to go out.”

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“Thank you. When was the last time either of you spoke with Mr. Paice?”

This time the husband answered.

“I spoke with Hugh the previous week – it must have been the Monday from memory, although I would like to check my diary to be absolutely sure that it wasn’t the Tuesday. He was going up to Newcastle the next week and he asked me if I would be able to draw up a legal agreement with a firm that he was visiting if things went the way he hoped – it’s something that I have done quite often for him in the past, but this time I had to decline as Pam and I were about to go off to France.”

“Mrs. Paice, have you spoken to your brother at all – he was trying to reach you as well as us after what happened was known.”

“Yes I phoned him after the French police told us to get in touch with you, and spoke to him. He confirmed what you had told me, of course, and said that he would come down to us tomorrow first thing.”

Jane absorbed what she was being told; apart from setting an earliest possible time of death for Mrs.

Grissom, it took her no further forward, but she had one more question to ask.

“One thing that surprised me – there is no freezer in the Grissom house – did they ever have one?”

Pamela Paice looked at her in surprise.

“Of course they did! Mum had a big chest freezer in the garage.”

“Well it’s not there now.”

“But it was there just over a week before we went across to France – mum and I went up to town to do some shopping. I drove over to her and we went from Guildford station – I parked there and when we got back I took mum back and we had a quick bit to eat before I set off home. It was a quiche from the freezer.”

Something else to add to the mystery, Jane told herself.

“Could it have gone wrong and been taken away?” Pamela shook her head.

“I spoke to mum immediately before we left for France and, as I said, again on the Wednesday – I’m sure that she would have said about anything like that happening – a freezer is so important nowadays.”

“Thank you Mrs. Paice – for the time being we are puzzled as to why it has, apparently, been removed. It wasn’t alone in that – the room that your father used as a home office had been gone through and every piece of paper that you would expect to find – household bills at the very least – was gone. Tell me, can you think of anyone who might have so serious an enmity towards Mr. Grissom that they would do something like this?”

Two heads were shaken in negation. Then Pamela Paice spoke again.

“I want to see my parents, Superintendent – where are they?”

“They are in the hospital morgue, Mrs. Paice. Of course you can see them; I can arrange it for tomorrow morning if that would suit you?”

“Yes, Superintendent, what sort of time?”

“Suppose we say eleven o’clock? Oh, and do you have transport at home?”

“Oh yes – we were in the motorhome in France – we’ve both got cars at home.”

The couple looked at each other, then at Jane and John Paice spoke.

“If there is nothing more, Superintendent, we’d like to get home.”

“Of course, Mr. Paice – I’ll arrange a car for you.”

“Thank you, that’s very kind of you.”

After the Paices had left, Jane jotted down her recollections of what had been said. She found it impossible to believe that either of her visitors had anything to do with the Grissom murders, but at some time they would have to be asked for formal statements, but that could wait. Wearily, she rose from her chair and left for home.

Chapter Eleven 15th March

“The Ides of March” Jane said to herself as she parked her car “wonder if anything dramatic will happen?”

As it was Saturday, she hadn’t programmed any morning meetings, so she made her way to her office, passing through the outer office on her way. Cross was already in, working through some papers that had the look of bureaucratic rubbish all over them.

“Morning, Dave, anything in over night?”

“No, boss – but Linda Harris has already been on the phone – she obviously took ‘first thing’ seriously. As the Paices are coming in at eleven, I’ve asked her to come in for ten - that OK?”

“Yes, that’s fine. Who is here from DI Parrott’s team?”

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“Carl is in, plus DCs Merville and Saunders.”

Jane nodded; with a full blown murder enquiry underway she would have expected the whole team to be in, but the Grissom investigation was past that point now. The donkey work had all been done; it was a matter of trying to fit everything together, which no longer needed a large number of hands to the pumps.

She sat down at her desk, picked up her phone and called Sangster.

“Carl, can you pop in, please.”

“On my way, boss.”

Moments later the DS was seated opposite her; Jane looked closely at him. Sangster looked tired, not surprising considering the hours that he had been putting in. Ever since his DI had gone off sick with a broken leg the very day that Hugh Grissom’s body had been found in the River Wey, Sangster had been first in, last away, of his team. It was beginning to show. It also dawned on her that Dave Cross was also in on a Saturday; she hadn’t asked him to come in, but he was clearly well employed at the moment.

“Carl, I’ve got Linda Harris coming it at ten for a second interview, this time under caution. Dave Cross spoke with her, told her that she was entitled to legal representation , but she declined the opportunity. As it is under caution, I’ll need somebody with me – I’ll use Dave unless you want to be in on it?”

“Yes please, boss – I want to try and keep as much involved as possible.”

“OK – ten o’clock then. Now, DI Parson’s team is on take this weekend, so once we’ve seen the Harris woman take the rest of the weekend off and tell your DCs to do the same.”

“If you’re sure, boss.”

“I’m sure.”

At ten o’clock Jane and Sangster walked into the small interview where Linda Harris was already waiting.

Jane explained that, as Cross had told her over the phone, she was entitled to legal representation if she so wished, but she repeated her earlier rejection of the need.

“Right, Ms. Harris. Really there a only a couple or so of questions that I would like to put to you. The first concerns the weekend that Mr. Grissom was murdered. You spent the weekend with your brother and his wife – is that correct?”

“Yes – I already told you that.”

“Yes, I know, Ms. Harris, but this interview, as you are aware, is being recorded and the tapes, one of which we will give to you at the end of this interview, and the transcript of the recording will form part of the official record of our investigation. Now, what intrigues me is that you were able to produce till receipts for petrol bought on both the Saturday and the Sunday.”

She looked closely at the young woman who was beginning to appear puzzled.

“Yes, that’s right – what of it?”

“You drive a Honda CR-V, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Well, those cars have a range of something like four hundred miles on a full tank. Why did you need to fill up on two days running? Had you driven anywhere between the two stops for petrol, other than to your brother’s house?”

Linda Harris frowned for a moment, then suddenly her brow cleared.

“Oh, I see why you are puzzled – it’s a green thing.”

“Green thing?”

“Yes. The Honda originally belonged to my brother, but after he lost his foot he decided that he wanted an automatic, so he sold the Honda to me cheaply. It was just about in time, because my old Corsa was just about ready to give up the ghost. Thing is, it’s much bigger than I really need, and also a bit on the thirsty side, so I try to drive as efficiently as possible in it, and one of the things that improves fuel consumption is to have as little unnecessary weight in the car as possible. That includes the fuel – filling that tank to the brim represents quite a bit of weight, so I never have it more than half full – and normally less than that.”

Jane kept her features as non-committal as possible at so mundane an explanation of something that had really been puzzling her.

“Thank you for explaining that, Ms. Harris. Another thing that I would like you to help us with. Can you give me a description of the man who, on or about the fifteenth of January two thousand and eight, paid you two thousand pounds but who, in the words of a witness, also ‘knocked you about a bit’ to persuade you to drop your charge of rape against Mr. Grissom?”

Linda Harris visibly paled before responding.

“Nobody did anything like that.”

“We have reliable testimony to the fact, Ms. Harris. We have also accessed Mr. Grissom’s bank records, which show a withdrawal of two thousand pounds in cash on the fourteenth of January. Now, I could consider charging you with wasting police time, possibly obstructing the police in the execution of their duty 76

– they were, after all, investigating a serious crime – an alleged rape – at your instigation, and you thwarted that investigation. It could also be construed as blackmail, a crime the courts take a very serious view of.

However, all that was six years ago and the alleged rapist is dead, so all I am really interested in is the truth.

Now, I know that you lied to the police back then, so why should I believe anything that you tell me now. It is now up to you to convince me that neither you, nor your brother, played any part in the death of Hugh Grissom.”

Linda Harris ran her tongue nervously over her lips and sat in silence for several moments.

“Yes, it’s true. It was Grissom who did me on the night of that party. As I said before, I was pretty drunk; if I’d been sober I wouldn’t have looked at him – I mean, he was old enough to be my father. However, I was drunk enough to really need to lie down somewhere and Grissom said he could find me somewhere quiet to rest up for a while until I felt better. I don’t know if he had already booked a room, or whether he did it when he saw the state that I was in, but whatever, he took me away from the party to one of the bedrooms. Once I was lying down he took my tights and knickers off and screwed me. I didn’t really have much idea what was going on and didn’t really care one way or the other; all I wanted to do was rest. After he’d finished he left me there and, again as I said before, I threw up all over the bathroom. I laid down again and after about an hour or so I felt recovered enough to walk home – the fresh air helped as well.

“Now, I reckon that was rape, even if I was too far gone to put up any struggle – not that I was really fussed, anyway, but a few days later I found out who he was and that he was rich, so I decided that it was only fair that he should pay for his fun. I phoned him up and told him that I wanted two thousand pounds or I’d go to the police. He laughed at me and told me to get lost. I reckon he thought that I wouldn’t carry out my threat, but I did. That got his attention all right. After he’d been visited by the police he obviously decided it was worth the money to him to get me to drop it, because a few nights later a man came round to the house. Mum was out and he arrived only a few minutes later – he must have been watching.

“I’d never seen him before and I’ve never seen him since. He wasn’t very big – but a good bit bigger than me

– and when I opened the door he didn’t say anything first off- just punched me in the stomach. No warning, just punched me. It hurt a lot and I sort of doubled over and he pushed me back into the hall. He pulled me into the living room and threw me into a chair – I can tell you, I was terrified. Then he took an envelope out of his pocket and tossed it onto the floor in front of me, and spoke for the first time. ‘That’s just a taster, Linda’ he said. ‘Drop the case against Grissom or I’ll be back. Now there’s money in that envelope. You can take it or leave it, but I’d advise you to take it and keep your mouth shut. Grissom has insisted on taking part in an identity parade. You’ll look at the men on view and say you can’t identify any of them. Have you got that?’ I was too frightened to say anything, so he grabbed me by the chin and stared into my eyes from just a few inches. ‘I asked you if you’ve got that,,’ he said, shaking my head. I said that I had and he just turned round and walked out of the door.”

“What did he look like?”

“He was about five feet eight or so, I would say. He was young – about my age or a bit older but somehow he didn’t act young, if you follow me. He had very dark hair and dark eyes, but that’s all I really remember –

I was too frightened by him to try and take in any more about him.”

She hesitated as a thought clearly struck her.

“You said two thousand pounds – there was only one thousand in that envelope.”

Now that is interesting, Jane thought to herself. Yvonne Raymond mentioned two thousand and there was definitely two thousand withdrawn from the bank – looks like the frightener helped himself to a grand for his trouble. A thought was forming at the back of her mind.

“Would you recognise the man if you saw him again?”

Harris looked doubtful.

“It was six years ago and I only saw him for a few minutes – minutes that I was scared to death. I might, but I can’t promise to be sure.”

“Did you tell your brother any of this?”

“No, George was in Afghanistan, and didn’t get home until a couple of months afterwards. We, that’s mum and me, only told him what had happened when he came home on leave, and I never told either of them about the money and the threat from that man.”

“Right. Well, you have settled some points for us and I don’t intend to take any immediate action about your misleading the police in two thousand and eight, so you can go now, but be very careful what you do in the future. Your actions in two thousand and eight haven’t been forgotten – they will stay on file. Sergeant Sangster will see you out.”

The young woman could scarcely wait to escape from the room; a few moments later Sangster was back and the two police officers thought about what they had learned.

“Well, Carl, what do you think about Ms. Harris?”

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“I think that we’ve finally got the truth out of her, but that it doesn’t help us much, if at all.”

“You’re probably right, but I do wonder who it was who was sent to put the frighteners on her.”

“Well, whoever he was, he did a pretty good job on her.”

“Yes, well, that’s it for today – and tomorrow. Go home and tell Lucas and Brenda to do the same – I’ll see you all on Monday.”

After the DS had left, Jane returned to her office and sat at her desk, slowly going over the case in her mind.

In all the evidence that they had accumulated so far there were a couple of things that she was beginning to doubt, and if her doubts were correct, the crime they were investigating was even more unpleasant, if that were possible, than it appeared on the surface.

She looked at her watch – it was nearly eleven o’clock, when the Paices were due to arrive. She got up and walked into Cross’ office.

“Dave, as you’ve already met the Paices, I’d like you with me when I meet them and take them to the mortuary. OK with you?”

“Yes, of course boss. Want me to drive us over to the hospital?”

“Please.”

The Paices arrived a few minutes early, Pamela Paice looking haggard, with every evidence of a sleepless night behind her. Her husband looked more composed but no happier.

There was little conversation after the initial greetings; Cross drove to the mortuary where the two Paices spent some minutes with the bodies of Hugh and Louise Grissom, before Cross ferried them back to the police station.

They gathered in Jane’s office which was just big enough to accommodate four people on reasonable comfort and lacked the barrenness of an interview or conference room. Cross had arranged for coffee to be available and the Paices accepted the offered beverage gratefully.

Jane broke the silence.

“I cannot begin to imagine what a shock this has been to both of you. I do want to assure you that we are doing all we can to discover who killed Mr. and Mrs. Grissom.”

“How far have you got, Superintendent?” John Paice asked dully.

“We know that Mr. Grissom was killed some time in the afternoon or early evening of Saturday the first of March. The time of death for Mrs. Grissom is less certain; at this stage all we know is that it was at some time between when you, Mrs. Paice, last spoke to her on the evening of Wednesday the twenty-sixth of February, and Saturday the first of March.”

“Do you have any suspects?”

“Not as yet.”

Paice looked unimpressed; his wife just looked vacant, as though everything about her was unreal.

“Mrs. Paice, you said yesterday that your brother would be coming down to you this morning – I thought that he would be with you.

“No, I can’t understand it. We were expecting him this morning but he didn’t turn up. I’ve tried several times to ring both his flat and his mobile, but both phones just go to voicemail.”

This was a worrying development. Dave Cross had also been trying to contact David Grissom, with similar lack of success. It seemed inconceivable that he should have dropped off the radar at such a time and Jane began to worry uneasily; was somebody after the remaining Grissoms? She determined to have him traced as quickly as possible. She turned her mind back to the present.

“I know that I have already asked you both this, but is there anybody, anybody at all, who may have come to mind since last night who might have wished to harm Mr. and Mrs. Grissom?”

Once again, both the Paices shook their heads. It was John Paice who replied.

“No, as I’m sure that you can imagine, we have been racking our brains ever since we heard the news. Hugh was a pretty ruthless businessman, but not to the extent of somebody wanting to kill him – and even if that had been the case – what about Louise – who would want to kill her? Why should they?”

There was nothing more to be gained from the Paices – Jane went through their movements and was presented with a casual itinerary of an unplanned wander through France, starting off at Calais and heading generally southwards towards their holiday home until Jane’s message reached them courtesy of the French police the previous day.

Once they had gone she decided that enough was enough for the day and was about to pack up and leave for home when her phone rang. For a second, but only for a second, she considered ignoring it. After all, five more minutes and she would have been on her way. She couldn’t do it; she shrugged and picked up the handset.

“Lawson.”

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“Switchboard here, ma’am. I have a man on the line who won’t give his name, but says that you will want to talk to him about Mr. Grissom.”

“OK, put him through.”

If this is a reporter, Jane told herself savagely, I’ll tear his bloody ears off.

“Lawson.”

“Superintendent, this is David Grissom. Somebody tried to kill me last night and I’m in hiding.”

Jane was flabbergasted. Grissom junior’s failure to meet up with his sister and her husband as he had promised had concerned he. If he was being accurate, as opposed to hysterical, she was right to be concerned.

“Mr. Grissom, where are you? I can have you under police protection.”

“I’m on my way to Guildford – I can be there in half an hour or so – can I come straight to you?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”

“I’ll be here, Mr. Grissom.”

Jane put down the phone and frowned. What was going on? She called Cross in and recounted the strange conversation to him.

Grissom must have been in a hurry; it was only just over twenty minutes before a call from reception announced his arrival. Cross fetched him up to Jane’s office and the solicitor took the proffered visitor’s chair with relief.

“Now, Mr. Grissom, what has happened?”

“I don’t know if, when you spoke with Pam and her husband, they mentioned that I was going to go down to them this morning?”

“Yes – they were surprised that you didn’t turn up.”

“Well, I had intended to do. My flat is in a big old house, converted into three flats – one on each floor. They have converted rather well, with a shared garden but one thing that they do not have is any parking. There are some spaces in the local roads for folk with resident permits to park, but not nearly enough to go round, so it’s a matter of pot luck where you actually end up. Last night I parked just round the corner, no more than three minutes walk or so, and this morning I left the house at just about nine so as to drive to Pam and John in plenty of time to come here with them.

“To get to my car I walked along the pavement of my road, turned left into the next road, but then had to cross over to where my car was. I was not quite in the middle of the road when a car suddenly accelerated away from the opposite kerb and came straight at me. Somehow, don’t ask me how, I managed to dodge out of the way. The car hit the kerb a glancing blow, just missed a parked car and sped away. It only had a hundred yards or so to cover before reaching the tee-junction, where it turned left, taking it away from my flat. I was pretty shaken, I must say, and when I got into my car I just sat there for quite a while, trying to get over the shock. I was about to start the car when I realised that I had left my mobile in the flat, so I had to go back for it; I can tell you that I was very careful in crossing the road, but I didn’t see any further sign of the car that had tried to run me down. By now it must have been nearly nine-thirty and I should have phoned Pam to say that I would meet them here as time was running short, but I was so shaken that it never crossed my mind. I’d driven down the A3 as far as Kingston before I thought about it, and I was about to pull over and phoned them, but as I was slowing up, in my rear view mirror I thought that I saw the car that had tried to run me down. I can’t be sure it was the same car – I never caught the number of the first one, but like that one, this was a dark blue Astra. I didn’t fancy driving on down the A3 and perhaps be run off the road, nor did I want to lead the car to Pam and John, so I turned back into central Kingston and after a few changes of direction the car had disappeared. As I say, I can’t be sure that it was the same car, but if it was he must have realised that I was onto him and decided to give up – at least for the moment. Then, when I was sure that the coast was clear I stopped and phoned Pam, but by now they must have started out to meet with you because there was no answer. I drove around a bit more to make absolutely sure that nobody was following me, then I stopped at a pub off the A3 – The Anchor, in Ripley, because I remembered that its car park can’t be seen from the road – and phoned you.”

Jane’s head was spinning. Was this really evidence of an all out vendetta against the Grissom family, or was David Grissom prey to paranoid delusions?

“Are you sure that the car was being aimed at you? It couldn’t have been someone’s foot slipping on the pedals?”

Grissom shook his head defiantly.

“No way. You had to have been there – that sod was driving straight at me. I’m lucky to be alive.”

“Did you get the number of the Astra you thought might have been following you?”

“No, he was never near enough to read in the mirror.”

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“Is there any CCTV around the area the attack happened?”

“No, the nearest cameras are on the main road nearly half a mile away – there are several side streets before you reach that road and I suppose he could have gone up any of them.”

“Well, we’ll have a word with the local police and see if anything has been reported about a car being left, that sort of thing, because I doubt whoever it was would have used their own vehicle. The logical thing would be for them to steal a car, use it in the attempt on you, and then dump it as quickly as possible. What do you intend to do now?”

“Well, I don’t fancy going back to my flat for a day or two, so I’ll book into an hotel until I’m sure that my place isn’t being targeted. I can’t imagine that whoever it is will want to hang around there for days waiting for me.”

“What about your work?”

“Oh, in view of my parents murders I’ve arranged to have a couple of weeks or so off, so I’m not going into the office at the moment.”

“Right. Now, Mr. Grissom, I can understand why you think that this attack is linked with the murders of your parents, but is it possible that it is somehow not so connected, that it is someone with a personal grudge against you?”

“Well, obviously I have thought about that, but I can’t think of anyone. I’m a solicitor, as you know, but ours isn’t a criminal practice, so there are no villains with a grudge because I failed to get them off, or anything like that.”

“Well, we will keep looking for whoever killed your parents and when we find them hopefully all will become clear.”

“You are sure that you will find whoever it is, Superintendent?”

“Oh yes. This isn’t my first murder case and I’ve never failed to catch a killer yet. I have no intention of letting whoever killed your parents spoil that record.”

Jane was watching Grissom closely as she made her boast; her words didn’t seem to reassure him. Instead there was the faintest flicker of – what? apprehension? – across his features.

“Well, that sounds as though you should be safe enough, Mr. Grissom, but if at any time you are suspicious that somebody is stalking you, anything like that, don’t hesitate to get in touch. Now, I’d like to ask you a few more questions about the murder of you parents. Because of some new, and rather disturbing evidence that has come to light, this will be an interview under caution, so of course, as you know, you are entitled to have a legal representative present and the interview will be recorded,” she indicated the recorder, currently switched off, on her desk, “and you will be given a copy of that recording immediately after the interview is concluded.”

Grissom looked back at her, a frown creasing his brow.

“This sounds very serious, Superintendent. As it is an interview under caution, as we are both aware, I do not have to answer any questions and can leave at any time, correct?”

Jane nodded her head.

“Absolutely right, Mr. Grissom.”

“OK, well on that basis I am happy to forego legal representation at this stage, but reserve the right to change my mind should I feel it necessary>”

“That is understood. Shall we begin?”

Grissom nodded and Cross started the recorder. They each identified themselves for the tape, and Jane launched into her first question.

“Mr. Grissom, are you aware of the relationship between your late father and Miss Louise Chamberlain?”

Grissom hesitated before replying.

“That’s the girl who was murdered in Epsom, isn’t it? It was in the papers a couple of days ago.”

“That is correct, but would you please answer my question.”

“No, I’m not aware that there was a relationship between them, but on the other hand if you say that there was such a relationship, then I’m not surprised.”

Jane arched her eyebrows in surprise.

“Why is that, Mr. Grissom?”

“Well, I knew that dad had found a flat for her; he mentioned it over dinner one evening a few months back.

I never met her, but he described her as the daughter of someone he had had business dealings with.

Knowing dad, if there was an opportunity there, he’d probably take it, but he never actually said anything about her. The subject only came up because we were moaning about the way property prices keep going up despite the recession and he mentioned what he – or to be exact, his company – had recently paid for a flat, which turned out to be the one for this girl.”

“Why didn’t you mention this to us when you read about the murder?”

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“To be honest, until you brought it up now, I didn’t really connect it – I had other things on my mind – still have, for that matter.”

“So you know nothing about Louise Chamberlain other than that she lived in a flat owned by your father’s company?”

“That’s right.”

“Alright, now I would like to move to another of your late father’s relationships, that with Ms. Linda Harris.”

“That’s old history, Superintendent, and anyway it has been established that there was no ‘relationship’

between my father and that young woman.”

“We have new evidence, Mr. Grissom. Your father did have sex with Ms. Harris on that night in two thousand and eight and she only withdrew her accusation of rape because your father both bribed and threatened her.”

“That’s ridiculous. From what you have just said your new evidence can only have come from the girl herself, so one way or another she is a self confessed liar. With my father now dead I can’t see any way in which such a claim could come before a court, but if it were possible it would be torn to shreds.”

“We have a description of a man who threatened Ms. Harris on the fifteenth of January, two thousand and eight. He not only threatened her; he also assaulted her and bribed her with a substantial sum of money.

Now, the description we have fits yourself, so, please tell me, Mr. Grissom, were you that man?”

“No, of course not. I realise that you are only following up on what you have been told, but I must say that I resent in the strongest possible terms any such suggestion. I was aware of Linda Harris’ accusation at the time – an accusation that she subsequently withdrew when she could not identify my father as her alleged rapist – if in fact rape ever occurred – but that is all I know about her and all I wish to know about her. Do you have any more questions for me, Superintendent? Because if they in any way allege that I was involved with the woman I will have to reserve my position until I am legally represented.”

Jane nodded her head in acquiescence.

“No, Mr. Grissom, that’s all I have to ask you about Ms. Harris. I would, however, like to know your movements for Friday the twenty-eighth of February through to Thursday the sixth of March.”

“I’d have to look at my diary,” he reached into his inside pocket and brought out one of the more complicated smart phones and fiddled with it for a minute or so.

“Right. On the Friday I was in the office all day; my last meeting was not until five thirty so I would have left getting on for seven. After work, as far as I can remember I just went home, watched some TV, listened to some music, then went to bed. On the Saturday, as I said when we met before,, I phoned my mother just after breakfast, did some shopping, got back to my flat about half eleven or so. In the afternoon – read a bit, fixed lunch about two, then in the evening I had dinner and stayed the night with Julie Summers, left the next morning around ten, spent the rest of the day in the flat.

“Monday, in the office – left a bit earlier, about five, stayed in the flat all evening. Tuesday and Wednesday, the same really. Thursday I had a meeting with clients in the City – started eleven in the morning, finished just about four – had a working lunch with them. Again, stayed in the flat in the evening. Friday was the day I saw my father’s picture in the paper and contacted you and, of course, met up with you in the evening and identified his body.”

“Thank you, Mr. Grissom. So, apart from the Saturday evening, when you were with Ms. Summers, there is nobody who can vouch for you location any of the evenings, not much of Saturday and virtually all Sunday?”

“That is correct, Superintendent, but so what? Why do you feel that I need any alibis for those evenings?”

“Let us be very clear, Mr. Grissom. The deaths of your parents make you a very wealthy man and I need to be satisfied that you are above suspicion in those deaths. Now, if that offends you, I can well understand.

However, as a lawyer yourself, I am sure that you appreciate that this is a course of enquiry that I am duty bound to follow.”

Grissom stared back at her for a long, measured moment before replying.

“Yes, I can understand that, Superintendent, but I must emphasise that of you are going to treat me as a suspect in the deaths of my parents, then I am not going to answer any more questions without legal representation.”

Jane sat back in her chair whilst she considered what Grissom had said. He had already effectively confirmed that he had no real alibi for the times his parents and Louise Chamberlain had been killed. Questioning him further, with or without a lawyer present, couldn’t be expected to achieve anything.

“Very well, Mr. Grissom; I understand your position. Oh, one last question though. When you spoke with your mother on the phone that Saturday, did she make any mention of her freezer?”

There was a momentary pause; confusion? He shook his head.

“No, Superintendent. It was just a catch up call – the ‘how are you, I’m fine’ sort of thing.”

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“Right, thank you, Mr. Grissom, that’s all I have to ask for now.”

“That’s all very well, but what are you going to do about the attempt on my life?”

“Rest assured, Mr. Grissom, I regard that as a very serious matter and it will be fully investigated. Now, you said that you were reluctant to return to your flat – have you decided where you will be staying? If not, please let us have a contact number in due course.”

“You already have my mobile number, Superintendent – I always have my phone on, so you can reach me on it if you need to.”

“Thank you. DS Cross will see you out.”

After Cross returned Jane pondered at her next course of action.

“Dave, we have to look into Grissom’s claim that somebody tried to kill him, although I do wonder if he isn’t imagining it, and it was just a case of a bit of careless, even dangerous, driving, but nothing more than that. One thing we must check; what vehicles do the various folk have?”

“It’s in the murder book, boss; I’ll check.”

As well as its physical entity, everything that was entered in the book in the form of text or pictures was also on the computer file for the case. Only physical items – such as any items taken from a scene or the like, weren’t able to be put on the computer file and even with these there would usually be photographs, so Cross was quickly able to bring up the requisite information on the computer screen.

“Right, boss, here we are. Hugh Grissom had his Bentley, and when he went to Newcastle he used a Vauxhall Vectra belong in to the company. That car disappeared after he left Heathrow on the Friday morning and has never been seen since. Louise Grissom had a Ford Focus which is still at the family home.

David Grissom drives a Jaguar, a two thousand and nine XF. Yvonne Raymond has a nearly new Vauxhall Astra,”

Jane lifted her head in interest.

“An Astra? What colour?”

Cross shook his head.

“Not dark blue, boss – it’s silver.”

“Ah, right, go on.”

“Louise Chamberlain had a Mini, two thousand and six vintage. Linda Harris has a Honda CR-V, five years old and her brother George has a Ford Mondeo, two years old. So, no dark blue Astras amongst them.”

“No, well, if it really was an attempt on Grissom’s live whoever it was would hardly use their own car.

Right, Dave, I think that’s enough for this week. Make a note for first thing Monday – we’ll need to do a house to house where Grissom claims someone tried to run him down and we’ll need to let the local Met station know we’ll be on their patch.”

Cross duly made a note and the two detectives went their separate ways for what was left of the weekend.

Chapter Twelve 17th March

On the Monday morning, having spent the Sunday doing her level best to expunge from her mind all thought of the murder enquiry, Jane gathered the team together for a run through of progress and theories. After a brief recounting of the facts and the chronology, delivered by Alice Pratt from the murder book, Jane turned to the thought that, despite her efforts to clear her mind on the Sunday, had nevertheless intruded.

“I want us to think about the movements of Hugh Grissom when he returned from Newcastle on Friday, the twenty-eighth of February. We know that he flew to Heathrow from Newcastle and that his flight landed at sixteen-forty. We know that the Vectra he was using left the car park shortly after and we are assuming that it was Grissom driving it. About two hours later his Bentley arrives at Yvonne Raymond’s flat. For this to work he has to have driven home in the Vectra, then taken the Bentley. There was plenty of time for him to have done all that except for one thing. Where is that bloody Vectra? We’ve been looking for it for days now. We’ve circulated all car parks and garages within a ten mile radius – it’s unreasonable to expect it to be further way if Grissom drove it somewhere, or he wouldn’t have had time to get to Raymond in the Bentley.

And don’t forget that Mrs. Grissom’s body is in the boot of the Bentley. Conclusions?”

It was Lucas Merville who answered.

“It doesn’t work, boss,” another one dropping the ‘ma’am’, Jane thought gratefully.

“Why not?”

“Grissom leaves Heathrow about five, perhaps a bit later. He ostensibly drives home in the Vectra, but doesn’t leave it there. So, he either leaves it somewhere en route and completes his journey on foot or by bus or by taxi or by being picked up by somebody. Alternatively, he drives home in it and somebody else takes it away – and for my money, that’s what happened. I don’t see that Vectra being left anywhere close and us not 82

having found it. It’s got to be either well away or well hidden. In either case, it must have been somebody other than Grissom who hid it.”

“So where does that leave us?”

It was Alice Pratt who spoke next.

“Ma’am,” she said hesitantly (oh well, can’t win them all, Jane thought), “are we sure that it was Grissom who drove the Bentley to Raymond’s place?”

“Why wouldn’t it be, and if it wasn’t him, who was it and where was Grissom?”

“Well, we only have Raymond’s word that it was him – and we know that she lied about meeting Grissom in Newcastle, so perhaps she’s lying about this as well.”

Jane was pleased to hear someone else voice the thoughts that had intruded in her own mind over the weekend.

“Yes, in fact on Saturday the DS and I did a bit of thinking about what might be the scenario if we assumed that we were being lied to – and that is one of the possibilities. Any favourite suspects?”

This time it was Sangster who spoke.

“It’s got to be the son, surely. Who else would have access to the Bentley?”

“So, if that is the case – where was Hugh Grissom?”

Alice Pratt spoke again.

“He had a new girl friend – Louse Chamberlain – perhaps he went to her on the Friday.”

“And now she’s dead as well – very convenient for somebody. OK, here’s a working hypothesis. David Grissom and Yvonne Raymond are in this together. Hugh Grissom flies back from Newcastle and visits Louise Chamberlain. His son, or Raymond, but more likely the son, knows of this and plants the red herring by driving to Raymond’s in the Bentley and stays there overnight. In the morning he drives to Heathrow in it and leaves it there. We know that Raymond didn’t drive away from her flat – we’d have seen her on CCTV

if she had. What we don’t know – none of the CCTV images are clear enough – is whether she actually stayed at home or was in the Bentley with David Grissom. All this time Mrs. Grissom’s body is in the boot of the Bentley. Now, there must have been a car planted in the Heathrow car park for Grissom, perhaps accompanied by Raymond, perhaps not, to drive away in. Without knowing what that car was there is no way of tracking it – far too many movements in and out of Heathrow to make scanning CCTV practical.

Whatever, Grissom drives to his parents house where he meets and kills his father. Any problems so far?”

David Collyer spoke up.

“According to David Grissom, he spoke to his mother on the phone on the Saturday morning – but we reckon she was already dead by then for the theory to work.”

“He lied,” Alice Pratt said flatly, “don’t forget that we never found Mrs. Grissom’s mobile. OK, the phone records we obtained do show that her mobile was phoned from David Grissom’s mobile on the Saturday morning, but that doesn’t prove she was on the end of the call. Nothing to prevent David Grissom having taken her phone away and simply phoned from one mobile to the other in his own flat or, for that matter, anywhere else.”

Jane was pleased to hear the whole team contributing to the theory; up until now they had tended to be working on isolated pieces of the case; Jim Johnston was the next contributor.

“What about this attempt on Grissom’s life? Do we believe him?”

“No way,” replied Brenda Saunders, “it either never happened or it was a put up job.”

Jane cut in.

“Right, we feel that the most likely scenario is that David Grissom and an accomplice are what we are looking for – anybody other than Yvonne Raymond as a suspect for the accomplice?”

There was a general shaking of heads.

“Right – so what’s the motive?”

“Money,” came from several voices simultaneously.

“I see that for Grissom – but what about Raymond?”

“It’s got to be a share in the proceeds, surely,” Sangster offered.

“Seems the most likely reason – so, how do we prove all this?”

There was a long drawn out silence; as so often in police work, knowing was one thing. Proving was something else entirely.

“Well, one thing we can do is have taps on both their phones,” Jane said. “I’ll bring Mr. Inkerman up to speed on all this and get the taps organised. Carl,” she turned to Sangster, “Let the local Met people where Grissom reckons that attempt on him was made know that we’ll be doing a house to house there later today –

and put folk on it. The rest of you – good work. One more thing; we still haven’t found that Vectra – it could be important. Have another scout round car parks, garages, you know what to do.”

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She and Cross left the room and once back in her own office she phoned Inkerman’s secretary and was invited to come and see him straight away.

Inkerman listened with interest as Jane outlines the progress made and the theory that David Grissom and Yvonne Raymond were the perpetrators of all three murders.

“Why was the Chamberlain girl killed?”

“Because if we are right, she could destroy Yvonne Raymond’s testimony that Hugh Grissom spent that Friday night with her.”

Inkerman nodded in agreement.

“So, what next?”

“Well, I’m arranging for their phones to be tapped, although if they have any sense that isn’t likely to help much. We’re checking for witnesses to the alleged attempt by someone to run Grissom junior down, and I’ve ordered a more thorough check of the Chamberlain flat. The first SOCO investigation didn’t come up with anything helpful, but now that we believe that Hugh Grissom was there on the Friday night, they are going to really go to town on the place in the hope of finding something, no matter how small, that ties Grissom senior into the place.”

“But even if they do find something, that doesn’t prove he was there that particular night, does it?”

“No, but it’s another building block – always assuming that we do find something.”

“What about the Paices? Pamela Paice stands to benefit financially from her parents’ deaths just as much as does her brother.”

“That’s true, but they were in France over the whole of the relevant period. It’s possible, of course, that they knew what was planned, but it seems very unlikely. David Grissom doesn’t strike me as the trusting type, and to let his sister in on the plan would require an enormous amount of trust on his part, especially when she’s not contributing anything.”

“What do you think of Yvonne Raymond’s chances of living to a ripe old age?”

Jane was stopped in her tracks. The thought that, assuming that she was Grissom’s accomplice, that he might want to get rid of her at some future date hadn’t crossed her mind.

“Well, it’s possible, I suppose, but she is surely safe for the time being – and for more than just the time being if we can get her put away.”

Neither of them knew that the case was about to take a major step forward.

Early the previous evening, Sunday, Henry Kilner, returning from a round of golf which had been less than satisfactory. swore angrily as his Jaguar just clipped the poorly parked Vauxhall Vectra. The bloody thing had been there, without moving, for a fortnight or so now, and every time he needed to use the Jaguar he had had to manoeuvre his own car with the greatest of care between the pillar supporting the roof to the underground car park – and the offices and flats above, of course, and the Vectra which had been left at an angle so that it overlapped the front of his own reserved space by a few inches, forcing him to stop the Jaguar a little short of the front of the space. Now, despite his care, he had touched the wretched thing. Wearily, he opened his car door and climbed out to inspect the damage. To his relief it was very slight – just a faint paint mark from his car to the Vectra and another faint mark from the Vectra onto his own bodywork. He decided that it wasn’t worth bothering about – it would polish out easily. On the other hand, enough was enough. He crossed the car park to the lift which led to the floors above, but instead of pressing the button for his own fifth storey flat, he only went as far as the ground floor. The ground floor was an open area dominated by the reception desk, behind which sat a very large black man. As Kilner approached the black man smiled at him, a smile which transformed an otherwise intimidating visage.

“Evening, Mr. Kilner, how are doing?”

“Fine, thanks, Jamie. Jamie, do you know who the Vectra parked in bay C5 belongs to? It’s overlapping my space a bit making it a right pain for me to get the motor in and out.”

Jamie frowned.

“That’s an odd one, Mr. Kilner. C5 belongs to one of the offices, not a flat at all – it used to be that financial company – the Fielder Associates – you remember them?”

“Yes, but didn’t they shut up shop about six months ago?”

“That’s right, but when I did my rounds two weeks back, there was that Vectra there and it’s been there ever since. I guess it must belong to one of the Fielder people and he still had an entry card to the car park. I reported it to Mr. Blair, and I know he tried to track it down, but I never heard any more about it.”

“Thanks, Jamie – do you have a number for him – I’ll give him a chase.”

Jamie picked up a business card and handed it over and Kilner made his way to his flat. As he opened the door, his wife greeted him with her inevitable Sunday question.

“Hello, darling, how did the golf go?”

84

“Don’t ask,” Kilner growled, “and to make the day perfect, I touched that bloody Vectra whilst trying to get into our space.”

“Oh dear, is there much damage?”

“No, but no thanks to the inconsiderate sod who left it. I’m going to chase up Blair – you know, the managing agent chap for the block, and ask what’s going to happen about it being left there like that.”

“You won’t get him on a Sunday, you know.”

Having been retired for several years, Kilner tended to forget that working people mostly tended to have weekends.

“Damn,” he muttered, “have to wait until tomorrow.”

“Not necessarily – there’s a site on the net where you can find out who owns a car – why not try that?”

Ten minutes later Kilner stared at the computer screen.

“Got it – it’s owned by a company, though – Grissom Holdings. Never heard of ‘em. Wonder what one of their cars is doing in our car park?”

“Get onto them in the morning – if you leave it to that man Blair heaven knows when he will’ get round to it’.”

“Yes, I’ll do that.”

True to his word, just after nine o’clock on Monday morning, Kilner was on the phone to Grissom Holdings and was amazed at the excitement his call generated. Ten minutes later Sangster received a call from Dawlish at Grissom Holdings. A little over an hour later the Vectra was being examined in situ by Sarah Cunningham and her SOCO team, whilst Sangster spoke with Henry Kilner and his wife, Helen, in their flat.

Sangster, who was accompanied by Lucas Merville, was relieved that at last some sort of progress was able to be made.

“Mr. Kilner,” he began, “can you remember which day the Vectra was first parked in that space?”

“Oh yes, Sergeant. It was Saturday the first of March. I play golf on Saturdays and Sundays and on Saturdays I have a standing arrangement with three friend to play a four ball, teeing off at ten, so I leave here a little before half nine. I know it was that particular Saturday because David Wilson, one of our regular foursome, had to cry off and we had to play as individuals. We also routinely book a table for two o’clock at the club and break up about three thirty or a bit later. When I got home – must have been a bit after four - the Vectra was there.”

“Thank you, Mr. Kilner – that is most helpful. As I am sure that you must realise we have been looking for that car in connection with a serious crime we are investigating. Tell me, can anyone drive into the car park?”

“Oh no, Sergeant. You have to have an entry card.” He took out his wallet and produced a credit card sized piece of plastic.

“Each flat has one of these and a designated space in the park. You have to insert this card into the entry barrier control and the barrier then rises. Oh, as I said, each flat has such a card but so do the offices. In fact I think that some of the offices, perhaps all of them, have more than one card, but you’d have to check with Mr. Blair, the managing agent for the exact position.”

At that, Sangster and Merville took their leave and hunted down Blair, who turned out to work in an office in Leatherhead High Street, about ten minutes drive away.

Leonard Blair turned out to be a short, tubby man with thinning black hair plastered across a highly domed skull, wearing a grey suit that had seen better days and a garish tie which clashed horribly both with the suit and Blair’s overall persona. ‘Looks like Humpty-Dumpty’ Merville thought to himself and the man fussily led them into his office and invited them to be seated.

“So, gentlemen,” he said, “what can I do for you?”

Sangster took up the questioning.

“Mr. Blair, we have discovered in Carrington Tower building a car which is connected to a serious crime that we are investigating. We have learned from one of your residents that the car has been there since the first of March; what we urgently need to discover is who left it there. Now, can you help us?”

The little man pursed his lips.

“Yes, I’d heard about that car from Mr. Kilner via our security chap. The bay in which it was parked was allocated to one of the offices in the block which was occupied by a firm called Fielder Associates. They described themselves as ‘financial services’, whatever that means, but they packed up shop nearly six months ago. They had two parking spaces allocated to them, C5 – which is where the car in which you are interested was left – and D1. I don’t know if you’ve actually visited the car park?”

“Only briefly.”

85

“Well C5 is the end bay in that row, and D1, a few yards away, is the first bay in the next row. The company was issued with two entry cards, but it appears that only one was returned when they left the premises. I’m afraid that it does sometimes happen, but has never really caused any problems in the past.”

“Right, Mr. Blair – do you have a contact number for the company?”

“Well, they did leave a forwarding address and number, but when I phoned a few weeks after they left to request the return of the entry card I just got a recorded message. I left a message but they never got back to me. At that point I stopped bothering – the loss of one of the entry cards isn’t exactly unique and I had more important things to deal with – a block the size of Carrington Tower doesn’t run itself, you know, and I have several other properties to look after.”

“You didn’t write to the address they gave you?”

“No, Sergeant, the loss of a card wasn’t worth that much effort.”

A thought struck Sangster.

“Have you lost any more cards since then, Mr. Blair?”

“Not that has been brought to my notice, no.”

“Right – one more thing – would you please let us have a list of all the current occupants, please, both private and commercial?”

“Oh course.”

He turned to the computer on his desk, typed briefly on the keyboard, and moments later the attached printer delivered a single sheet of A4 paper which he handed to Sangster.

“Thank you, Mr. Blair.”

As the two detectives left Blair’s office, Sangster turned to Merville.

“Right, Lucas, back to Carrington Tower – I want to know if anyone there saw anything on that Saturday.

I’m going back to the nick, but I’ll send one of the others to help out and bring you back.”

“Right, sarge.”

Sangster dropped his DC off back at the entrance to Carrington Tower and drove back to Guildford, turning over in his mind what had been learned so far about the Vectra’s movements. One thing really puzzled him.

Why had the Vectra been driven away from the Grissom house at all? They were being led to believe that Grissom had driven the car to Heathrow prior to flying to Newcastle and on his return on the Friday had gone home and picked up the Bentley which he had then driven to Yvonne Raymond’s place. In which case the Vectra should have been left at the house, surely? Only if, for some weird reason, he had abandoned the Vectra somewhere – where it was found? – would it not have been at Guildford, and if he had abandoned it, then how did he get to Guildford to pick up the Bentley?

Much the same thoughts were going through Jane’s mind as she updated Inkerman on the team’s efforts.

“What I cannot understand, sir, is the goings on with the cars. We are just about convinced that the murders were undertaken by David Grissom, with Yvonne Raymond assisting him. The motive is simply greed – with the death of both parents Grissom junior is now a very wealthy man. His sister benefits to much the same degree, of course, but I can’t see her as being in the frame at all. She and her husband were in France all through the relevant time – and indeed before – and even if they knew what was planned and were out of the way deliberately, I can’t see David Grissom being happy at letting any more people know what was going on than absolutely necessary.”

“What do you see as being Raymond’s motive?”

“A share in the proceeds. I did wonder if it was also jealousy at probably being replaced by someone younger, but with Grissom dead that can’t be it – so the other possibility is that Hugh Grissom visited Chamberlain on that Friday and if left alive she could blow Raymond’s story that he was with her out of the water, but this messing about with the cars is really puzzling me. What did it achieve?”

Inkerman frowned in concentration.

“How was the Vectra found again?”

“It had been badly parked, intruding into the adjoining bay. If Mr. Kilner used his car more often he would doubtless have moaned about it earlier. As it is, however, most weeks he only uses the car on Saturday and Sunday when he plays golf. Once a month he and his wife do a big shop, but the rest of the time they are in easy walking distance of shops with all they tend to need during the week - paper, milk, that sort of thing.”

“But whoever left the Vectra presumably wouldn’t know that – if Kilner was somebody using his car every day he’d soon complain.”

The same thought struck them both.

“Suppose,” they began together; Inkerman nodded at his subordinate to continue, “suppose it was meant to be found?”

“How would that help the killers – for there must be two people involved at least in these murders?”

86

“We know that access to that car park is controlled – you can only get in if you have an entry card.”

“What happens if somebody forgets to take their card with them? Such barriers normally let you out automatically.”

“Not this one – you have to use your card going out as well as coming in. If you get to the barrier and realise you’ve forgotten your card you have to pull aside and go and fetch it.”

“Do you think that it is simply an attempt to confuse us? A red herring?”

“Well it’s certainly confused me – I mean, there’s no sense to it, is there?”

Inkerman shrugged his shoulders in an almost Gallic expression of uncertainty.

On that unsatisfactory note, Jane returned to her office. She had scarcely sat down before Sangster and Cross entered. One look at their faces and Jane knew that there was news to impart.

“What’s up, guys?”

Sangster answered.

“The house to house where Grissom reckons someone tried to run him down – we’ve got two witnesses. I sent Reynolds over there with a couple of uniforms and they found two folk who happened to be looking out of their windows at the critical moment. Both saw Grissom walk into the road and then stop and a car pull away from the kerb a few yards away and drive at him – and he jumped back just as he said. The car drove on, touched the kerb with a front wheel and drove away.”

“So he was telling the truth.” Jane frowned, she had been sure that the ‘attempt’ was a red herring. Sangster smiled at her.

“Only some of the truth, boss. Both witnesses reckon that he was never in any danger at all – that he had jumped back well before the car came anywhere near to him.”

Back in business, Jane told herself – it was a red herring, as she had suspected.

“Good work, Carl – pass it on to Reynolds.”

“Will do, boss.”

“And there’s more,” Cross interjected. “That Vectra – prints all over it, mostly Hugh Grissom’s, but several unknowns, which will probably turn out to be other members of his company, but the really interesting thing is that somebody in Carrington House saw it arrive!”

“They did? Who?”

“One of the residents – a Mrs. Hartley. Merville just phoned in – Carl was on the phone so he got himself put through to me. As the Vectra was parked there on a Saturday, he decided to start with the flats rather than the offices and knocked on all the doors. On that Saturday Mrs. Hartley had just driven out of the car park, got a few yards down the road when she realised that she had left her mobile phone in the flat, so stopped and waited for a couple of cars to pass in both directions before she could do a U-turn and drive back in. One of the cars for which she had to wait was the Vectra and she saw it drive into the car park. She didn’t recognise it, but that didn’t mean anything to her as there are quite a few comings and goings of cars belonging to the office people, but what she did think odd was how badly it was parked – and she saw that the driver was a woman who was in the act of leaving the car park, not by the lift to the rest of the block, but by a fire escape door which leads onto the pavement outside the block . She reckons that the driver didn’t see her, because she was having a bit of a struggle with the door – apparently it’s pretty heavy – and didn’t look back into the car park before disappearing. Merville showed her the picture of Raymond, and whilst she couldn’t positively identify her, she did think that it was probably Raymond that she saw – but remember that she only got a fairly brief glimpse, and it was over a fortnight ago.”

“Well at least that is something – do we have a time?”

“Yes, about four o’clock or a bit earlier.”

“Right,” she turned to Sangster, “Carl, get somebody to check any CCTV near to Carrington House and its surrounds for sight of the Vectra – and hopefully madam Raymond as well. I don’t suppose for one moment that she walked back to Guildford from there – she must have been picked up somewhere nearby, surely.”

Sangster nodded and left to put things in motion.

It was too much to hope that surveying CCTV near Carrington House would have an instant result, and so it proved. No camera covered the area immediately around where the fire escape door gave onto the pavement, so there was no sight of Raymond, always assuming that it was her – but who else could it be? – leaving the building.

Whilst the mind-numbing task of reviewing the images of the nearest cameras was underway, Sangster set about trying to track down Fielder Associates, the company which had been the beneficial users of the parking bay in which the Vectra had been found and whose missing entry card might have been used to allow the entry of the Vectra. The telephone number which Blair had provided proved to be that of a 87

discontinued line, but a search of the Internet was more forthcoming. There was still a website on-line, even though an attempt to use the ‘contact us’ details proved no more successful than the telephone number had been – indeed, one of the ‘contact us’ elements was that very telephone number – but the website gave the names and brief life histories of the members of the firm. There were just three of them. James Fielder, after whom the company had been named, and who was described as forty-five years old, a graduate of the LSE

and living in the Leatherhead area, married with three children of school age and keen on golf in his spare time. The senior – assuming that the names were appearing in order of seniority – associate was Helen Mockridge, like Fielder a graduate of LSE and of an age with her boss. No family was mentioned, and she lived in the Guildford area, with particular expertise in company refinancing, and an out of hours interest in chess and bridge tournaments. The last name was one Kenneth Carter, aged just thirty-two. Again he was a graduate, but in his case of Durham University, where he had read Economics, and alone of the three, held a further qualification – a Master’s degree, again in Economics, gained at the University of East Anglia. He was described as married and living, like Fielder, in the Leatherhead area; like Mockridge, he was claimed to have special expertise in re-financing.

That was an interesting little company, Sangster mused. Business re-financing, although presumably on a much bigger scale, was Hugh Grissom’s area of interest. Might the two have crossed paths?

Then the thought struck. It wasn’t only Grissom’s company that was into re-financing. In a rather smaller way, so was Craig Holdings. Who was PA to the CEO of Craig Holdings? Yvonne Raymond. Who was assumed to have parked the Vectra? Yvonne Raymond. Surely it was more, far more, than mere coincidence?

He decided to keep the thought to himself until he could follow up on it a little; the first thing, surely, was to track down James Fielder. As a precautionary measure his first port of call was the police database. Fielder did not appear on it; no criminal record. For the sake of completeness, he also ran the names of Mockridge and Carter, with similar negative results.

A simple search of the telephone directory proved more successful. Fielder was to be discovered at an address just off the Epsom Road and calling the listed telephone number resulted in a discussion with the man himself.

“Mt. Fielder, I am Detective Sergeant Sangster of the Surrey police and I think that you may be able to help me in an investigation we have under way.”

There was a long moment of silence at the other end of the phone before Fielder spoke.

“How can I help you, Sergeant?”

“I understand that until a few months ago you rented premises in Carrington House in Leatherhead?”

“Yes, that’s right – but we left some six months ago. Why?”

“A car which of interest to us was parked in one of your designated spaces just over two weeks ago – it is very important that we find out who parked it there and how they gained access to the car park.”

“I’ve no idea, Sergeant. I haven’t been back to the building since we shut up shop.”

“I understand that the car park is accessed by a card and that your company had two cards allocated?”

“Yes, that’s right, but I still don’t understand.”

“Well, I understand from the building manager that you only returned one of those cards – would that be right?”

“I really don’t know – my secretary would have seen to that. She went over the building with the manager when we surrendered the lease.”

“Where can I find her, sir?”

“I’m afraid that I haven’t kept in touch. When I wound the company up I believe that she got a job locally, but I don’t know who with – I had several requests for references for her and I’ve no idea which company finally employed her, if indeed any of them did.”

This was turning into a bloody paper chase, Sangster told himself despairingly.

“Do you have a record of the companies which asked for references?”

“I’m afraid not – once I’d replied I just binned the lot.”

“Well, what is her name?”

“Helen Philips.”

“Do you have an address for Ms. Philips?”

“No – apart from anything I need to keep for the tax man, I dumped all records – but I do have a telephone number.”

He recited the number and five minutes later Sangster was listening to a recorded message inviting him to leave his number and ‘Helen or Michael will get back to you’.

Seething with impatience, he suddenly had a thought and phoned Fielder again.

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“DS Sangster here. Sorry to bother you again – I haven’t been able to contact Ms. Philips yet, but one further thought did occur to me. Did your company ever have any dealings with either Grissom Holdings or Craig Holdings?”

There was a long pause at the other end before Fielder responded.

“I’ve heard of Grissom Holdings but never had any dealings with them. We did deal briefly with Craig Holdings – much to our detriment.”

Sangster felt a stirring of interest.

“Why do you say that, sir?”

“Ken Carter suggested that we contact them over a deal we were trying to broker to get a small company in Dorking out of trouble. What I didn’t know was that he had already contacted them through a mutual contact and before I knew what had happened they had head-hunted him away from me. That was when I decided to wind up the company – I just couldn’t be bothered at having to sort out another newbie – he’s only been with me under a year.”

Sangster reported back to Jane on his progress to date.

“I’ve also used the reverse directory, boss, so I’ve got an address for this Philips woman. Hopefully she’ll be more use than Fielder was – looks like he’s tried to eradicate just about everything to do with his company –

oh, and I also checked with Company House – Fielder Associates was formally wound up last October. It didn’t go bankrupt or anything – just wound itself up –but what I think is really interesting is that we have a link between Fielder’s firm and Craig’s – which means that Carter and Raymond must know each other, and it could be how Raymond got a car park entry card for Carrington House.”

“Sounds very likely, Carl – good work. Now we know that, hardly seems worth chasing up the Philips woman, but I suppose that it should be done for the sale of completeness. In the meantime, however, have a word with this Carter fellow – better do it at his home – don’t want Raymond to realise that we know about him.”

As a result, it was into the evening that Sangster, accompanied by Brenda Saunders, met with Carter in his Leatherhead home, a spacious four bedroomed detached house which was, Sangster reflected sadly, well out of a Detective Sergeant’s reach. Forty thousand a year wouldn’t meet the mortgage on a place like Carter’s –

and the man was only thirty-two years old.

They were met at the door by Carter himself, who ushered them into a small lounge at the back of the house, bypassing a larger room where a woman, presumably his wife, was watching a huge TV.

Carter was a little below average height, perhaps five feet six or seven and, despite his relative youth, exuded an air of pomposity, an air reinforced by his plump frame and self-satisfied expression. Thinning fair hair was brushed across his scalp and dark blue eyes viewed the two detectives suspiciously.

“So, Sergeant, what is all this about?”

Butter him up thought Brenda, who, like Sangster, had taken an instant dislike to the man.

Sangster smiled.

“We’re looking for your help, sir.”

“Oh, what in?”

“We are investigating a triple murder case and think that you may unknowingly have information that can assist us.”

That took the wind out of your sails, mister, Brenda thought happily.

“Murder? Me knowing something?”

“Yes, sir – perhaps I can explain.”

“I think that you had better do so, Sergeant.”

“Yes, well, that is what I am trying to do. Now, until recently you worked for Fielder Associates?”

“I was one of the associates, Sergeant, not an employee.”

“Oh, how did that work?”

“James – that’s James Fielder, Helen Mockridge and myself all brought our own clients to the firm and we had an agreed method of sharing fees, so that the person whose client it was took fifty percent of the fees gained and the other two took twenty-five percent each. It worked pretty well, but it was hard work.”

“Why did the firm close down?”

“Quite simple – we had a couple of really good deals and all three of us decided – it was a mutual agreement

– that we had made enough not to have to go on slogging our guts out, so we closed the firm down. James and Helen, have, I believe, both decided to take a sabbatical – indeed, Helen and her partner were talking about taking a cruise in the West Indies.

“I, on the other hand, decided that I didn’t want to just put my feet up, so I bought into Craig Holdings, doing much the same sort of thing as before, but at a lower level of intensity – but what has all this got to do with murder investigations?”

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“When you were with Fielder’s you were based at Carrington House in Leatherhead?”

“That’s correct.”

“Whilst the company used that building you all had, I understand, use of the underground car park there?”

“Yes.”

“Now, when the firm closed down, I am given to understand that only one of the two car park entry cards you were allocated was returned to the building manager?”

A frown crossed Carter’s forehead.

“Yes, as it happens, I inadvertently hung on to one of them. On the last day there – the offices were let with basic furniture, so only our own files and the like needed to be removed – I was the last to leave and it never dawned on me until later that I had kept the card- you need to use it to leave the car park, so I simply drove off without giving it a thought – but again, Sergeant, what on earth has all this to do with your enquiries?”

“A vehicle in which we are interested was found parked at Carrington House. It doesn’t belong to any of the residents, nor to any of the firms from the offices and in view of the need for an entry card, we want to know how it got there and whose card was used.”

Carter’s brow furrowed momentarily, then cleared.

“This is about Grissom, isn’t it? My God – you’re after Yvonne Raymond.”

Clearly Kenneth Carter was no fool, Sangster reflected. He didn’t need to press the matter, because Carter was in full flow.

“I lent that card to her a couple of weeks or so ago– but she returned it a couple of days later. She had been moaning about parking in Leatherhead – she’s right there, it’s diabolical – and how a couple of days earlier she had to drive round for an age before finding a place miles away from the dress shop she wanted to go to.

Apparently it was raining and she got pretty wet walking to the shop – and wetter still walking back, so I told her to let me know when she was next going there and I would lend her the card – Carrington House is only a couple of minutes walk from the dress shop.”

“Would Ms. Raymond have known about the card before you offered to lend it to her?”

A moment passed as Carter furrowed his brow in concentration.

“Yes, she would have. Parking in Guildford is just as bad as Leatherhead, if not worse, and I was moaning about it in the office one day and mentioned how convenient the set-up at Carrington House had been. I remember that she picked up on it and told Craig that it was something worth looking into, although I don’t know if either of them ever did so.”

Sangster thanked Carter for his help and the two of them left to return to the station. Whilst they were travelling, Sangster mused over what they had been told by Carter. One immediate point of interest. Carter’s description of how Fielder Associates had come to be wound up differed markedly from what Fielder himself had told them. According to Fielder, Carter had gone behind his back and been enticed away.

According to Carter all had been sweetness and light at the dissolution.

Whilst Sangster and Reynolds had been interviewing Carter, Alice Pratt had knocked diffidently on Jane’s door.

“Can you spare a minute, ma’am.”

“Yes, Alice, come in – what is it?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about why the Vectra was moved, and I have a theory about it.”

“Go on.”

“Well, we know that it had to have been driven by Hugh Grissom when he got back to Heathrow on the Friday and that, whilst we can’t prove it, he drove it to Louise Chamberlain’s place that day and left her sometime on the Saturday.”

Jane nodded in agreement and the young DC took a deep breath before continuing.

“We also know that his firm weren’t expecting to see him during the week, but that he didn’t say anything definite – just that his movements would be ‘fluid’. Well, if the Vectra had been left at his house from that Saturday until after he was found on the Monday – and even more likely until his son identified his body on the Friday, having the Vectra there would have been a puzzle had anyone called at the house. I’ve just spoken with his secretary and she confirmed that he was a bit paranoid about the Bentley and seldom used it when he was driving around to new places, as when chasing up business or the like – in those circumstances he was almost sure to use one of the company cars such as the Vectra. Had anyone from the firm – after all, it’s only ten minutes or so drive away, had cause to go to the house – perhaps to drop off mail that had arrived for him at the office but which they thought he ought to see, if the Vectra had been there it would have been an automatic assumption that Grissom was home, whereas if no car was there and no answer to the door, they would just have thought he was out somewhere.”

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Jane pondered on what Alice had just said, and decided that it was the most likely explanation for the puzzle

– it if it wasn’t like that going through the killers minds, what other reason could there have been?

“I think that you have hit the nail on the head, Alice – well done.”

The girl flushed with pride, but Jane hadn’t finished.

“Check with Grissom’s secretary again – a thought strikes me. It seems odd for a very hands on man like Grissom to just float off like that – I know that DS Sangster was told by Dawlish, Grissom’s deputy, that he did that sort of thing, but see if it really happened like that, or whether, even when floating around, he made any sort of contact. If this occasion was out of pattern for him, perhaps we need to look at the possibility of someone in his firm being involved – extremely unlikely, but it’s the sort of base we need to cover.”

“Right, ma’am.”

The rest of the day passed uneventfully enough, but Jane was quietly satisfied that the case against David Grissom and Yvonne Raymond was building up nicely but for one thing – nothing that looked like strong enough evidence to stand up in court. It looked as though the only realistic hope for a conviction would lie in obtaining, somehow or other, a confession from one or the other of them. The problem was that both were clearly highly intelligent and strongly motivated characters. Trying to break either of them would be far from easy.

It was just before six, and Jane was about to call it a day, when Alice Pratt knocked on her door.

“Something for me, Alice?”

“Yes, ma’am. I spoke with Grissom’s secretary, a Mrs. Bonner. She had a slightly different tale to tell. Yes, Grissom frequently went swanning off without warning, but he did tend to send her an E-mail from time to time. To hear nothing at all wasn’t totally unheard of, but it was a bit less likely than not. She did mention to Dawlish that it was a bit out of the ordinary, but he dismissed it out of hand. I get the very strong impression that the two of them don’t get on too well – they both seem to see themselves as Grissom’s main contact within the firm and although Dawlish is ostensibly the deputy, he doesn’t really carry terribly much clout.”

“So, not much to go on, then.”

“Not really, ma’am.”

“Ah well, it had to be checked. Get along home with you – you’ve done enough for today.”

After the girl had left her, Jane mulled over what she had been told. On the face of it, it added nothing to the investigation, but, as she had told Alice Pratt, it was something that had had to be checked.

Chapter Thirteen – 18th March

After a quick team briefing the next day, Jane spent much of the next morning in a budget meeting with Inkerman and CS Halliday, the Divisional Commander. On her return to her own office she was met by Cross in a clear state of suppressed excitement.

“What’s up, Dave?”

“The freezer from Grissom’s house has been found!”

Jane gaped at him in astonishment.

“How on earth did that come about?”

“A combination of civic pride, local government bureaucracy and blind luck. I’ve just had a call from a man called Coombes who in charge of one of the waste disposal depots – he actually works in the town hall, not the depot itself, but apparently what happened is that a concerned citizen saw it being dumped, reckoned it spoilt the landscape and wrote to the council to complain Normally that would have been it – the thing would have been lifted and gone to landfill or whatever they with things that big, but it actually has Grissom’s address on it – and as fly tipping is a prosecutable offence, the council tried to follow it up, then this chap recognised the address and phoned us – got me as you were away from the office.”

“Right, let’s go and talk to him – come with me, Dave, time you got out of the office for a bit.”

Half an hour later, the two of them were seated opposite George Coombes in his cramped office, listening in fascination to his story.

“Last week we got a letter from a lady who lives in Shalford. She was walking her dog on a footpath which is a bit higher than, and overlooks, a lane leading away from the village when she saw a car stop in the lane, a man and a woman get out, and drag a big freezer out of the car and dump it beside the lane. As it was still there the next day she wrote to us – and she quoted the car’s registration number. As fly tipping is an offence I had the number checked, but it was a hire car so I would have given up at that point, but when a couple of our chaps went to uplift it yesterday they found that stuck to the bottom of the freezer was a copy of the original delivery note. They let me know and I was about to start things rolling for a possible prosecution when I recognised the address and phoned yourselves.”

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“Mr. Coombes, this is really important – that freezer might have important evidence for us – where is it now?”

“It’s at our Merrow depot – I thought it might possibly be important to you so it is under cover.”

“Was it empty?”

“No, there were a number of black bin liners inside, each with food in them – food which was pretty off by then. I’m afraid that the bags went straight to the incinerator – rotting food is a bit of a health hazard, after all.”

“Right – in view of its adventures, I don’t think that there is any point in having it examined in situ, so I’ll have it uplifted and taken back for our forensic people to give it a going over. In the meantime, I’d also like to talk to the lady who saw it being dumped.”

“Yes, of course – here’s her letter.”

Coombes passed over a piece of A5 notepaper, upon which, in elegant copperplate handwriting, was the message of which he had already given her the gist. The paper was of high quality and the letter was signed

‘Audrey James (Mrs.)’.

One telephone call and twenty minutes later, Jane and Cross were knocking on the front door of a small bungalow on the outskirts of the village of Shalford.

The knock was answered by a small, neatly dressed woman of perhaps seventy years of age, who greeted them politely and ushered them into a small living room dominated by a live wood fire, in front of which lay a recumbent golden retriever who raised one sleepy eye-lid, briefly inspected the visitors, closed the eye-lid and snored gently.

As she beckoned them into a pair of matching easy chairs, she seated herself in a third, arranged so that the three of them were equidistant from the fire, the dog and each other.

“Thank you for agreeing to see us at such short notice, Mrs. James.”

“Well, when I heard that a Detective Superintendent wanted to talk to me, I could not believe that it would be about anything trivial, so I am t your disposal. How can I help you?”

“As I am sure that you will have surmised, it concerns the abandoned freezer you wrote to the council about.

I’d like to know as much detail as you can recall about the event, as it could be an important piece of evidence in a major crime that we are investigating.”

“Well, Superintendent, as I stated in my letter, it was Wednesday the fifth. I walk Hector,” she indicated the snoring retriever, “ most days if it isn’t too inclement, and on most of our walks we use a footpath that climbs to the wood behind us and which runs parallel to, and rather higher than, the lane. It’s a bit steep, but we are both getting on a bit and the exercise is good for us both. We had almost reached the wood when I heard a car stopping in the lane. It’s not totally unknown to see a car there, but it is rather unusual, so I stopped to look at it and whilst I was watching a man and a woman got out. It was a big car, an estate, and they went to the back of it, opened the tailgate and dragged out this big white box affair. As they manhandled it to the side of the lane I realised that it was a rather large chest freezer. They opened the lid, took some black plastic bags from the car, tossed them into the freezer, closed the lid, got back into the car and drove off. The whole thing couldn’t have taken as much as five minutes.

“I have to say that I was quite incensed at such behaviour. Had I been nearer I would have been tempted to take them to task, but then, one reads of such unpleasant people acting in anti-social ways nowadays that perhaps it is just as well that I was too far away to approach them.”

“You were able to make out the car’s number – how was that, Mrs. James?”

“I’m a keen bird watcher, so even when just taking a walk with Hector the hound I nearly always have my binoculars with me. Fortunately, that Wednesday was just such a day. My binoculars are very good quality –

a present from George, my late husband for my sixtieth birthday back in nineteen ninety-nine – so I had no difficulty in making out the number. It’s just a pity that I didn’t also have my camera with me – when I go bird watching as opposed to just walking the dog with the off chance of seeing something interesting, I take a camera with a powerful telephoto lens – I could have given you pictures of the couple.”

A shame indeed, thought Jane, but what they were getting was pretty good. She asked the vital question.

“I suppose that with your binoculars you were able to get a pretty good view of the man and the woman?”

“Oh yes.”

“Would you recognise them if you were to see them again?”

Mrs. James hesitated for a thoughtful moment or two.

“Yes, I am fairly confident. The light was good, my binoculars meant that I was viewing them from the equivalent of about thirty feet. There was nothing exceptional about the man – not particularly tall nor short, fat nor thin, but the young woman was virtually as tall as he was. She was wearing a heavy anorak type of jacket – it was quite a cold morning – but she was bare-headed and she had jet black hair. Oh, and the man also had black hair, not long, but not particularly short. Yes, I am confident that I would recognise them if I 92

were to see them again .”

“Could you describe for me just what they did?”

“They got out of the car – it was a big estate car – and opened the tailgate, then between them they dragged out this big freezer. They had quite a struggle- it must have been quite heavy – and then they heaved it onto the verge of the lane. They returned to the car and brought out several black bin liner type plastic bags, clearly full of something, and placed them inside the freezer. They then returned to the car and drove off.”

“Mrs. James, you have been extremely helpful. I believe that the couple that you saw were our main suspects for a very serious crime. It might be that a little while later that I can arrange for them to appear in identity parades – but in the meantime, could I ask you to come to the station and look at some photos?”

“Yes of course, Superintendent.”

“When would be convenient for you?”

“Why not now? I’ve nothing to do that can’t wait.”

“That really would be great.”

Mrs. James disappeared for a few moments, returning wearing a overcoat, clearly old but of good quality.

“Right, Superintendent – ready when you are.”

As they vacated the room, she turned back.

“Hector,” she said firmly, “stay!”

That, Jane reflected to herself, was probably the most unnecessary command to a canine that she had ever heard, as Hector continued to snore gently.

Once they arrived at the station, Mrs. James carefully examined a random group of pictures that, in response to Jane’s phone call from the car, Sangster had had assembled. For pictures of Grissom junior and Raymond Jane was relying on pictures she had taken from the websites of their respective companies.. Such pictures might not be admissible in court, but they served well enough for the present exercise. To her concealed delight, Mrs. James had no hesitation on picking out Grissom and Raymond as the man and the woman that she had seen dump the freezer. The net, Jane told herself happily, is closing, as she ushered Mrs. James out to be driven home by Dave Cross.

There was more good news late in the day; she was finalising some paperwork that Cross had prepared for her when there was a knock on the door and Sarah Cunningham, the senior SOCO, poked her head round it.

“Got a few minutes, Jane?”

“Yes, of course – come in.”

Sarah seated herself across the desk and smile happily.

“I bring glad tidings, “ she announced.

“Tell me more.”

“Well, we’ve finished going over that freezer. Nothing of any help on the outside – hardly surprising after it stood out in the open for the best part of two weeks, but the inside is a gold mine. Just four sets of prints –

oh, and I’ve checked with the council people – their folk wore heavy work gloves all the time they were moving the thing and looking inside it, so no confusion there. Right, the four sets of prints. Two of them belong to Mr. and Mrs. Grissom respectively – no surprise there. A third set, a man’s – presumably belong to David Grissom as Mrs. James, I understand, identified him as one of the dumpers. The really interesting set, however, are a woman’s and, again going by Mrs. James’ identification, they are those of Raymond – but it gets better. When we printed the Grissom house we found, as you would expect, plenty of prints, mostly those of Mr. and Mrs. Grissom. We also found some, clearly belonging to a man which I now can provisionally identify as those of David Grissom. Again, no surprise. However, the real nugget is those prints in the freezer which I believe to belong to Yvonne Raymond –because they match a couple of prints we found in the garage of the Grissom house. One was on the light switch, the other on the power point – it’s one of those box power points which stick out from the wall, and the print was of a thumb on the underside, where you expect it if somebody had pulled a power plug out of the socket. Now, as I understand it, Raymond has never been to that house – or so we are led to believe. Hardly surprising since she was the lord and master’s mistress. So, how come her prints are there? We’ve placed her – subject to officially taking her prints for comparison – at the scene of the murder of Hugh Grissom, and perhaps that of Louise Grissom as well.

“And there is still more. I think we all reckon that the mystery of Hugh Grissom being killed on Saturday but not appearing in the river until Monday evening is because he was kept in that freezer, in water, until it was time to dump him in the Wey. What our killers failed to realise that there is a small amount of damage in one of the internal walls of the freezer – not easy to see, but it is there. Not a problem when the freezer was being used for its intended purpose, nor when it was switched off and filled with water – but it did mean that a small amount of water seeped into the insulation that sits between the internal and external walls of the freezer. We got the sample to Corrine Fowler for checking and she has confirmed that it wasn’t just plain 93

water – it had traces of blood in it. The traces were too dilute and too contaminated for her to make a one hundred per cent match, but she says that she was able to get enough of a DNA sample from her to be able to say that there is a better than eighty per cent chance that the blood was that of Hugh Grissom.”

“This is beginning to sound like Christmas has arrived early this year. Any more surprises?”

“Don’t be greedy – surely this is enough to make your day?”

“Oh, it’s done that alright. Thanks, Sarah, you and your folk have really given us light at the end of the tunnel on this one.”

Once Sarah Cunningham had left her office, Jane reviewed her options. Did she now have enough to justify arresting Grissom and Raymond? If she did, was her evidence strong enough to persuade the Crown Prosecution Service to proceed? Was there anything more she could do, any more nails she could drive into the metaphorical coffins of her two suspects?

She could demonstrate motive and opportunity for Grissom – but could the opportunity be proven beyond reasonable doubt? She had visions of an impassioned defence counsel persuading a jury by rhetoric to ignore the less than total factual evidence. What else could she do?

A confession would be nice, she mused to herself, but what chance was there of that? Neither Raymond nor Grissom seemed the confessing kind, especially not Grissom. He struck her as a cold, cruel, calculating character. She wondered if Yvonne Raymond could look forward to a peaceful old age with Grissom knowing that she had the power to destroy him, albeit at the price of her own involvement in the consequences of a betrayal.

Was that perhaps the way forward? Could she play one off against the other?

That evening she went through the case with her husband. Harry had one of the most analytical minds she had ever known and she often used him as a sounding box. He was especially good at highlighting weaknesses in a chain of evidence – the sort of chain that, if one link failed to hold up, saw the whole chain collapse.

“What about the actual dumping of Grissom’s body in the river? When, where and how was that done?”

“We know when – not long before he was seen floating in the river a bit after seven in the evening.”

“But what about how and where?”

“At the moment, no idea.”

“How much mileage could a defence counsel make out of that? Have either Grissom or Raymond offered an alibi for what would have been the critical time? And what about the time that the freezer was dumped?

What time was it, by the way?”

“Grissom claims to have been alone in his flat in the evening, working in his office in the morning; according to Mrs. James the freezer was dumped just after eight forty.”

“Can his presence in the office be proven one way or the other?”

Jane bit her lip in frustration.

“It’s not something that we’ve followed up on.”

“I think that you ought to – and what about the woman Raymond?”

“Well, she works in Guildford – leaving Shalford around eight forty, she could be at her office at a reasonable hour. For the evening – again home alone is the tale.”

Harry closed his eyes in concentration for several minutes before speaking again.

“Try this for size. Counsel gets up on his hind feet and says ‘my client – doesn’t matter if this is the guy appearing for Raymond or Grissom, it could work either way’ has admitted to being less than totally truthful with the police out of a desire to avoid an embarrassing admission which he/she felt had no bearing on the murder of Mr. Grissom. Now that questions are being asked as to his/her movements on Wednesday the fifth of March and Monday the third he/she has to confess that on the evening of the third he/she was with some character who will provide ‘proof’ – don’t forget there is an awful lot of money involved here; it could be quite easy to buy a witness. Indeed, they might even say – although it wouldn’t go down as well with a jury –

that they were with each other that evening. As for the morning – if either of them got to the office at a reasonable time they can just flatly deny everything and rely on counsel shredding Mrs. James’ evidence –

dear old ,well meaning lady but eyesight isn’t what it was, etc.”

Jane frowned; it was, she had to admit, a line of defence that might just throw enough confusion into a jury’s collective mind to prevent a ‘guilty’ verdict sitting easily with them.

Chapter Fourteen – 19th March

Jane decided that her best strategy was to attack Yvonne Raymond’s story first and she sent Sangster, accompanied by Lucas Merville to make a heavy handed visit to Craig Holdings, making it obvious that Raymond was being checked out. They were back before eleven with their results.

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“I think we’ve rattled her, boss,” Sangster reported. “I spoke to Craig and Raymond herself, whilst Lucas spoke to the rest of the staff individually. One thing became clear; on Wednesday the fifth she didn’t get into the office until nine thirty – later than her usual time, and with no explanation at the time – nobody asked for one so she didn’t offer. So, she could easily have been at Shalford as Mrs. James says and then got to her office. Then, like you said, I told her that she was to report here at two thirty and that she would be well advised to have a solicitor with her. She started to object, so I told her if she didn’t come of her own accord we’d send a marked car and uniformed officers to pick her up, which took the wind right out of her sails –

she’ll be here!”

“Right, Carl, I’ll see her with you when she comes. Good work, you two.”

Promptly at two thirty Jane, accompanied by Sangster, walked into the interview room to find Yvonne Raymond, accompanied by a woman, presumably her solicitor, who was a stranger to Jane. Sangster made an ostentatious performance of switching on the dual deck tape recorder and the two detectives settled themselves into the chairs across from the interviewee and her companion. The companion opened her mouth but before she could speak, Jane held her hand up and spoke across her.

“For the purposes of the tape, this is a record of an interview held at Guildford Police Station at two thirty on Wednesday, the nineteenth of March two thousand and fourteen. Present are Detective Superintendent Lawson, accompanied by,” she inclined her hand to Sangster who spoke “Detective Sergeant Sangster” Jan continued, interviewing,” she nodded at Raymond, who cleared her throat nervously before speaking

“Yvonne Raymond,” Jane continued “who is accompanied by,” she nodded to the lawyer who frowned and spoke “Helen Marshall of Cope, Nichols representing Me. Raymond.”

Jane sat back in her chair.

“Right, now that we have all been identified for the tape, I want to make it clear that this is an interview under caution at this stage but that I may, depending upon what is said here, decide to arrest you, Ms.

Raymond, on a variety of possible charges ranging from obstructing the police in the execution of their duty to possibly conspiracy to commit murder and being an accessory both before and after the fact.”

The reaction of the two women opposite was interesting. Yvonne Raymond looked ill at ease, in fact very ill at ease. Her solicitor looked surprised; clearly her client had been less than open with her. It was the solicitor who spoke.

“Superintendent, these possible charges that you have intimated are very serious. Neither my client nor I have any idea on what you are basing your threats and I must advise her to remain silent for the moment, until you have laid out the foundation for your threats.”

“Oh, I will do that, Ms. Marshall.”

“Good, now – in whose murder is my client supposed to be implicated?”

“Not murder, Ms. Marshall, but murders, plural. The murders in question are those of Hugh Grissom on or about the first of March of this year, that of his wife, Louise Grissom on or around the same date, and Miss Louse Chamberlain, on or around Thursday the sixth of March.”

The solicitor looked even more surprised, but made no further comment.

“Right,” Jane continued, “my first question, Ms. Raymond, concerns your trip to Carlisle in February when in the course of your interview here on the fourteenth of March you said that you met with people from,”

Jane made a point of consulting her notes, “Reynolds Housing on Tuesday the twenty-fifth of February and on Thursday the twenty-seventh, but that you had Wednesday the twenty-sixth free and spent it sight-seeing in the Lake District. That is what you told us, is it not?”

Yvonne Raymond was looking more uncomfortable by the minute and there was a long drawn out silence.

Jane pressed her.

“That is what you said, isn’t it, Ms. Raymond?”

She looked at her solicitor for guidance and was met with a frown and a nod.

“Yes.”

“Thank you. In that case, Ms. Raymond, how is it that the staff of Graphix Illustrated, the firm Hugh Grissom was holding discussions that week, positively identified a picture of yourself, taken from your company’s website, as being that of a woman who had accompanied Mr. Grissom that Wednesday?

Additionally, that the staff of Mr. Grissom’s hotel confirm that he had a female companion, a woman matching your description, at dinner on Tuesday and Wednesday and breakfast on the Wednesday and Thursday? Oh, and that your hotel confirms that your bed wasn’t slept in on the Tuesday and Wednesday and that you didn’t take breakfast on the Wednesday and Thursday.”

Helen Marshall was looking less than happy – clearly this was all news to hear – and for a moment Jane thought that she would intervene, but then Raymond started to reply and the moment passed.

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“Look, I’m sorry about misleading you last time, but I didn’t want Ken Craig to know what I was up to. You see, Hugh had offered me a post with Grissom Holdings at a substantial increase in salary and a more responsible position that that I have with Craig. By the time I spoke with you, Hugh was already dead and that offer died with him, so I wanted to keep quiet about it.”

Not bad, Jane conceded reluctantly, as Helen Marshall relaxed visibly.

“I can understand that, Ms. Raymond. I am sure that, in turn, your revised statement establishes that you have already lied to us once.”

“Well, if you want to put it that way..”

“Oh, but I do, Ms. Raymond, I do. It is very important for us to establish how much what you tell us can be accepted as true and how much may need to be examined in depth. Now, my second question. As I am sure that you are away, before their deaths, Mr. and Mrs. Grissom lived at ‘Hollyfields’ in the London Road, Guildford. For the purposes of the tape, can you confirm that, please?”

“Yes, I was aware of Hugh’s address.”

“Good – I think that we can all accept that as a truthful statement. Now, a corollary. Have you ever been inside any part of the house, any part at all?”

“No, why would I want to?”

“Well, I wouldn’t wish to speculate at what you might or might not want to do. However, you have now stated, quite categorically, that you have never been inside any part of the house. Have you ever been in the garden, or the large greenhouse at the back of the house?”

“No, never – what is this?”

Helen Marshall chipped in.

“I must agree with my client, Superintendent, she has already said that she hasn’t been in the house – why this flogging of the question?”

“A good point, Ms. Marshall. I have been ‘flogging the question’ as you put it because, in view of what she has just told us, I would be grateful if she could explain how fingerprints which, by a process of elimination we have determined can only be hers, have been found in two different places inside the garage of Hollyfields?”

Raymond briefly looked horrified, but quickly recovered her composure.

“There must be some mistake – I have never been inside that garage. Anyway, I’ve never had my fingerprints taken so how can you claim that you have found mine? They must belong to somebody else.”

“We have established that the prints must be yours because we have been able to identify all but one set of prints at a location where we know you to have been present, prints which match those found in the garage.

As you say, you have not yet been fingerprinted, but that will be done at the conclusion of this interview, either because you voluntarily allow us to take them, or because I will have arrested you, in which case you will have no option in the matter. That process will show beyond all shadow of doubt that you have been inside the garage at Hollyfields, so I have to chalk that up as the second time that you have lied to me.”

Raymond turned to her solicitor and spoke in a despairing tone of voice.

“Do I have to answer these questions?”

Instead of replying, Helen Marshall turned to Jane.

“Superintendent, I would like to have a brief consultation with my client before any more questions are put to her.”

“Very well, Ms. Marshall; there will be a uniformed officer outside the door. Please let him know when you are ready for the interview to continue.” She looked at her watch. “Interview suspended at fifteen oh seven; Superintendent Lawson and Sergeant Sangster leave the room.”

She rose from her chair, switched off the recorder, and, closely followed by Sangster, left the room and headed back to her office with Sangster in tow.

She waved Sangster into the vacant visitor’s chair and seated herself.

“Well, Carl, what do you think?”

“She’s on the run boss. She’s kept her brief in the dark and I reckon that there is a very interesting discussion going on in there right this minute. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Marshall woman washes her hands of her.”

“That might be indicative if she does.”

It didn’t happen; perhaps fifteen minutes later there was a knock on the office door and they were advised that Marshall and Raymond were ready for them again.

The two detectives deliberately waited a few more minutes; no harm in letting Raymond sweat a little. They walked back into the interview room; Jane looked once more her watch and started the recorder again.

“Interview recommenced at fifteen twenty-six, Superintendent Lawson and DS Sangster enter the room.”

She sat down and looked at the two women opposite. Helen Marshall frowned at her before speaking.

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“Superintendent, I have advised my client that she does not have to answer any further questions, but that it would be in her best interests to hear what else you have to say. She does, of course, reserve her right to silence in response to anything that you might put to her.”

Jane nodded her head.

“That is clearly understood, Ms. Marshall.” She turned to Raymond. “Now, Ms. Raymond, Moving on to my next question – Grissom Holdings own several vehicles which Mr. Grissom was in the habit of using. Have you ever travelled in any of them?”

“Yes, Hugh frequently used different cars and drove me to meals out and the like in them from time to time.”

“Did he always do the driving?”

Raymond paused for thought.

“No, not always – on one or two occasions he felt that he was possibly over the limit after we had dined out and I drove us back to my place, he’d sleep it off and drive home later.”

Damn, thought Jane, she’s worked out that we know about the Vectra and is worried that we might have found her prints in the driver’s area.

“Do you recall the most recent occasion on which that happened?”

“Not exactly – probably a couple of months or so ago.”

“Do you recall if it might have been Vauxhall Vectra KV 60 773? For clarification, that is one of the vehicles owned by Grissom Holdings and one frequently used by the late Mr. Grissom.”

“It might have been, but I couldn’t honestly swear to it one way or the other. What particular car we happened to be in didn’t matter to me very much.”

“Did you ever use one of the company’s cars without Mr. Grissom being in it as well?”

“No – that would mean having to turn up at his office either to collect it or return it and giving rise to wagging tongues.”

“So the woman seen parking that Vectra in an underground car park in Leatherhead on the first of March couldn’t have been you?”

“No, of course, not – anyway that was after Hugh was killed, so it couldn’t possibly have been me, could it?”

“Well, only if you had been involved in his death –and our witness will almost certainly be able to identify you when we put you in an identity parade.”

“As it wasn’t be she will either be unable to identify me or, if she does, she will be mistaken,”

The first real mistake, Jane thought to herself. She must have seen Mrs. Kilner as the woman drove in.

“You said she – I didn’t mention the sex of our eyewitness. Why did you say ‘she’?”

Raymond looked flustered.

“You must have given me that impression.”

Jane shook her head.

“No, I’m afraid not. Would you like me to rewind the tape and play back the relevant section?”

Raymond shook her head.

“Let the tape record that Ms. Raymond has shaken her head in negation. Would you like to answer for the tape, please, Ms. Raymond.”

“No, there’s no need to rewind – I must have misunderstood you.”

“Very well, let’s move on. You arrived at your office rather later than usual on Wednesday, the fifth of March. Why was that? ”

“That’s a couple of weeks ago – I can’t remember. Perhaps I overslept.”

“Then it wasn’t because at approximately eight forty that morning you were dumping a freezer in the lane outside Shalford?”

Raymond was clearly nigh on panicking. She shook her head vehemently.

“No, what freezer?”

“The freezer in which you and David Grissom had kept the body of his father from Saturday the first of March through to Monday the third. Again we have an eyewitness who saw you and a man who would appear to have been David Grissom remove the freezer from the back of a large estate car and leave it at the roadside. Oh, and before you say anything, perhaps I should mention that not only can we prove that the freezer came from Hollyfields, but there was also traces of Hugh Grissom’s DNA inside it and also your fingerprints.”

Raymond looked in despair at her solicitor, who interceded.

“Superintendent, I need a few more minutes alone with my client.”

“Very well, Ms. Marshall – the same arrangements as before. For the record, interview suspended at fifteen forty. Superintendent Lawson and DS Sangster leave the room.”

She switched off the recorder and she and Sangster rose and exited the room.

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This time their wait was longer; it was the best part of half an hour before Raymond and Marshall were ready to resume. Once again the recorder was switched on and once again Jane announced the re-entry of Sangster and herself. It was obvious that the two women had been having a serious disagreement; from the body language it was equally clear that Marshall’s view had prevailed and it was she who spoke.

“Superintendent, my client wishes to make a full statement regarding the activities of herself and Mr. David Grissom since Friday the twenty-eighth of February of this year.”

She turned to Yvonne Raymond and prompted her.

“Yvonne?”

Raymond cleared her throat, swallowing nervously, and began in a low, listless monotone.

“It really started a few weeks earlier; unknown to Hugh, I had been meeting David Grissom from time to time for over a year. I felt that Hugh was tiring of me and I had discovered the existence of Louise Chamberlain. I felt that it was only a matter of time before I found myself out in the cold and I complained about it to David one night back in January. He told me not to worry; he had an idea that would ensure my future, and his, once and for all. At the time I had no idea what he meant, but when I was up in Carlisle he phoned me and asked me to find out from Hugh what flight he would be taking to return home. That is why I went across to Newcastle; there never really was a job offer from Hugh.

“Hugh was pleased to see me – chance of a couple of good nights’ entertainment – but didn’t seem overjoyed and it was then that I realised that I really was on the way out. He took me to the meeting with Graphix –

don’t really know why, but I have a suspicion that it was just so that he could parade this young woman he was screwing and instil a bit of jealousy and one-upmanship – he was always looking for a psychological advantage in his dealings with people.

“Anyway, he told me which flight that he would be on that Friday and I phoned David and let him know. At the time I honestly had not the slightest idea of what David was planning, and it was a surprise to me when that Friday evening the Bentley drove up but it was David, not Hugh, driving it. He told me that Hugh was with Louise Chamberlain and that it was time to sort everything out. I asked him what he meant and he said that he had evidence that his father had been on the fiddle over his taxes – that he had cheated the taxman out of hundreds of thousands of pounds a year for years, and that unless Hugh agreed to drop Louise Chamberlain and treat me decently, or alternatively pay me off handsomely, including keeping the flat, and unless he made over to David a substantial portion of his fortune, then the authorities would be informed.

“It sounded ideal to me. It would have given me security at a time when the future was beginning to look pretty bleak, and I had no qualms about David screwing money out of Hugh that his father was cheating the taxman over anyway. I had absolutely no idea what David was really planning.

“That Saturday morning, quite early, he phoned his father’s mobile and told him that he heard that somebody in Hugh’s firm was in trouble with the taxman over his income tax and that David was worried that this person – he didn’t say whether it was a man or a woman – might blow the whistle on Hugh to cut a deal for themselves. I don’t know how he was supposed to have discovered all this, but from his end of the conversation Hugh seemed to believe him – result of a guilty conscience, I expect. They agreed that David would come to Hollyfields to let Hugh have information that might enable him to spike this possible whistleblower’s guns, but not to get there before around one o’clock at the earliest as David had to pick something up on the way. In fact, we left straight away – it was about ten thirty by then, and drove to Heathrow where David left the Bentley and we drove to Hollyfields in two cars that he had previously hired and left there. I couldn’t understand what this was all about and David was too uptight to make any sense –

he just kept saying ‘you’ll see soon enough, stop going on’. I wouldn’t have gone had I thought that Mrs.

Grissom might have been there, but David assured me that she was away visiting his sister.

“When we got to Hollyfields we put one of the hired cars in the garage along with Mrs. Grissom’s Ford Focus, shut the garage up and went into the house to wait. It was about an hour before Hugh arrived, driving the Vectra that he had used to go to and from Heathrow. We had been waiting in the house, but Hugh went to the garage – I still don’t know why, because as far as he would have known it should have been full of the Bentley and Mrs. Grissom’s car. David swore and followed, telling me to stay where I was.

“It must have been a good twenty minutes before he returned, looking very grim. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘it’s all done. Come with me.’ I followed him into the garage and to my horror, there was Hugh lying on the ground, a big plastic sheet under him. It was immediately obvious that he was dead – he had been stripped naked and there were a lot of cuts on his body.

“I screamed and backed away, but David grabbed me by the arm and dragged me over to where Hugh lay.

‘What have you done?’ I asked him. His reply chilled me with horror. ‘Never mind him – do as I tell you or you’ll join him.’ I was terrified and I obeyed him as he ordered me to empty the freezer of its contents and switch it off. Then we put Hugh in it and filled it with water – there’s a tap in the garage and it took loads of bucketfuls before he was satisfied.

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“It was then that I remembered Mrs. Grissom, and I asked about her. ‘Don’t worry’ he said, ‘she’s in the Bentley.’ I started to say that she couldn’t be, as we had been driving in it only two hours or so earlier, when I realised what he meant – she had to be in the boot, which meant that she had to be dead as well.

“I didn’t know what to do – I really believed that he would kill me as well if I didn’t do what he told me. He said that we had to move the Vectra – if anybody came to visit, its presence would look odd, so I drove it to Leatherhead and parked it at Carrington Court – I had borrowed a parking ticket for the car park there and it was the only place that I could think of. David agreed and after I parked it, he picked me up and brought me back to Hollyfields. It’s a wonder I didn’t have an accident on the way to Leatherhead, I was trembling so much with fright and horror. Ever since then I have lived a nightmare. On the Monday evening we took Hugh out of the freezer and drove to a closed warehouse beside the Wey – we were able to drive round the back so that we were hidden from view – and rolled him into the river. On the Wednesday he phoned me and said that we had to get rid of the freezer – he was worried that the forensic people might find some trace of Hugh having been in it.

“He wanted to deflect any suspicion from either of us, which is why we staged what was supposed to look like an attempt on his by running him over near his flat. All this time I went along with what he wanted, because I was sure that if I didn’t he really would kill me.

“And I think that is about all I can tell you – please make sure that he can’t get at me, won’t you?”

That, thought Jane to herself, deserves the old Morecombe and Wise routine – ‘what do you think of it so far?’ – ‘Rubbish!’. The question was, should she go along with it? It gave her an opportunity to arrest David Grissom immediately, which was a plus. On the debit side, she could see an attempt by Raymond to build a wall between herself and Grissom and leave the latter as the main culprit and herself as a terrified victim acting only in fear of her life. If she accepted Raymond’s fairy story, what would happen to the woman? She couldn’t be allowed to escape scot free. She could still remember vividly how completely she had been deceived when she had, as she had thought at the time, broken to news of Hugh Grissom’s death to Raymond. She had, in her career to date, interviewed literally hundreds of people under all sorts of circumstances and she had been fooled – totally and utterly fooled – by Raymond’s performance. She slowly came to a decision.

“Well, Ms Raymond, that certainly fills in our case against David Grissom. I assume that you will be willing to give evidence against him in the witness box?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Right, well in the meantime I am arresting you as being an accomplice both before and after the fact in the murders of Hugh and Louise Grissom. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand this caution?”

Raymond lowered her head.

“Yes, I understand.”

“Right, now I do have one more specific question for you at this time. Why was Louse Chamberlain murdered?”

“David was concerned that if she told anybody that Hugh was with her, not me, on that Friday night then his whole plan could unravel. I didn’t know anything about it until after he had killed her.”

“Right,” she turned to Sangster, “Sergeant would you arrange for a female officer to accompany Ms.

Raymond to the holding cells.”

As Sangster left, Jane made the final announcement for the tape.

“DS Sangster leaves the room, interview terminated at seventeen oh five.”

She switched off the recorder and took out the tapes and after signing and dating the cases handed one to Helen Marshall.

Once back in her office, she set things in motion for the arrest of David Grissom who, upon answering his flat door at just after seven that evening was unpleasantly surprised to find himself confronted by Sangster and Merville, backed up by a SOCO team.

Epilogue

Jane left the courtroom with a sense of satisfaction. After herself pleading guilty to being an accessory to murder and receiving a ten year sentence, Yvonne Raymond had been the principal prosecution witness in the trial of David Grissom. Despite his plea of not guilty and a determined, but fruitless, attempt by defence 99

counsel to dismiss Raymond’s evidence as the ravings of scorned woman, the jury had taken less than half an hour to return a verdict of guilty and Grissom had been sentenced to life.

That night Jane voiced her opinion of the case to her husband.

“I still wish that we had been able to get Raymond sent down for murder, rather than just as an accessory. I know that story she fed us was as full of holes as a Gruyere cheese, but it gave us something that was cast iron against Grissom – and he was the driving force in the killings with Raymond quite happy to go along with it all. The person I feel really sorry for in all this is Pamela Paice – just imagine it, your parents murdered by your brother. Oh, and poor Louise Chamberlain – snuffed out because she could have shown Grissom’s plan as the sham that it was. I saw her parents after the trial – and her erstwhile fiancé who is blaming himself for what happened to her. Lives ruined forever due to Grissom’s greed – and the most ironic thing of all has only just come to light.”

“What’s that?” Harry queried.

“When Dawlish, Hugh Grissom’s deputy, went through papers that were in Grissom’s desk, he found a letter to a firm of solicitors, a firm with which he was unfamiliar, so he got in touch with them. Unknown to anybody, Hugh Grissom had decided that he was rich enough and that it was time to retire. He fully intended to capitalise his assets, wind up his company, and split the proceeds between his two children.. Had David Grissom waited another five or six months he would have received something like five million pounds.

Instead he’s got fifteen years or more in prison. God, life can be cruel – three people murdered, five lives ruined, seven if you count David Grissom and Yvonne Raymond – and all for nothing.”

The End

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Table of Contents

Chapter Two 4th March

Chapter Three 7th March

Chapter Four 8th March

Chapter Five 9th March

Chapter Six 10th March

Chapter Seven 11th March

Chapter Eight 12th March

Chapter Ten 14th March

Chapter Eleven 15th March

Chapter Twelve 17th March

Epilogue