‘We’re working with the local Sussex branch on this,’ Branson said.
Roberts nodded. ‘It needs to be nationwide.’ He shrugged. ‘Suzy Driver. I don’t know how she died and I understand you gentlemen aren’t able to tell me at this moment. But I tell you this, you should be treating anyone who dies after being scammed online as murder victims, whether they take their own lives or not. Scamming an elderly person out of their life savings is tantamount to killing them. I’ve had three clients who got wiped out, who eventually took their own lives. What’s left for people in their seventies or eighties, who’ve always been used to having a little money, who are suddenly facing losing their home? They’re not going to be able to go out and start earning — at least nothing other than pin money, you know?’
The two detectives shot an uncomfortable glance at each other. ‘I hear what you’re saying, Mr Roberts,’ Grace said.
‘I’ll give you one piece of advice. You’d better act fast and hard on this. Otherwise you’re going to find vigilantes doing your job for you.’
‘Really?’
Roberts gave him a strange look he could not read.
Grace and Branson stood up to leave. As Roberts shook their hands, he said, ‘Guys, I know a lot of police officers are currently pretty disenchanted with their lot — several have joined my team. If you ever decide to quit the police, my door will always be open. And I pay a lot better.’
‘We’ll bear that in mind,’ Grace said.
‘You do that, gentlemen. The pleasure will be all mine.’
After the two detectives had left, Jack Roberts opened a file on his computer.
It was titled: LYNDA MERRILL — DAUGHTER, ELIZABETH FOSTER. SCAM. He had an idea that was steadily taking shape.
38
Tuesday 2 October
Johnny Fordwater dialled the number Gerry had given him.
It was answered almost immediately, in a brusque, businesslike, American voice. ‘Sheriff’s office.’
‘Is it possible to speak to Matthew Sorokin?’
‘Completely possible, you got him now.’
‘Ah, right, hello. My name is John Fordwater. I was given your number by our mutual friend, Gerald — Gerry — Ronson.’
‘That son of a bitch?’
It wasn’t the response Johnny had been expecting. He wasn’t sure if it was humour or anger in Sorokin’s voice.
‘You know what I would do to Gerry if I had him in range?’ Sorokin said, ending Johnny’s uncertainty. ‘I’d squeeze his scrotum so tight his testicles flew out hard and fast enough to win me a coconut. OK?’
‘OK,’ Johnny echoed, uncertainly. ‘Should we talk?’
‘We sure should. How much you been suckered for?’
‘Close to 500,000 dollars, in your currency. You, er... Matt?’
‘A lot less, but all my savings.’ He hesitated then he said, ‘Ninety thousand give or take. I’ve been a goddam fool.’
‘I think you and I are members of a very big club.’
‘Tell me about it. So what’s your story? Apart from having the same misfortune as me to know Gerry.’
Johnny told him. Sorokin listened in silence until he had finished. Then he said, ‘You and I — we’re in the same deep brown stuff. I’m down a little less than you but that don’t make the pain any easier. Thing is, John, I don’t take crap lying down. You don’t strike me, from your background, as a guy who does either. Are you in my boat?’
Johnny Fordwater didn’t know the expression. But he had a good idea what it meant.
‘I’m in your boat,’ he replied.
‘An old colleague, Pat Lanigan, is still working in law enforcement in New York. He has connections, know what I’m saying?’
‘What kind of connections?’
‘You got enough dough left to buy yourself an air ticket to New York?’
‘Just about.’
‘Good. We have a plan. I’ll meet you there. Next Monday too soon?’
‘Not soon enough.’
39
Thursday 4 October
Roy Grace stood in front of Assistant Chief Constable Cassian Pewe’s absurdly large desk — which he was about to lose, Grace thought with some satisfaction, due to austerity forcing more and more senior officers to have to share office space. The ACC, still seated, was daintily sipping from a china cup of coffee. He offered Grace neither a seat nor a drink, pretty much par for the course. The time to be worried, Grace knew, was when he did.
Pewe, perfectly groomed as always, was, in Roy Grace’s opinion, sailing close to a nervous breakdown. The sooner the better, he thought. The man had been on a management training course earlier in the year, and ever since, at their twice-weekly morning meetings, had been spouting unintelligible gobbledygook.
Pewe gave him an unnaturally warm — near-dementedly warm — smile, staring at him intently. The look reminded Grace of an expression he had always liked: The eagle eye of the inefficient. Then, the ACC’s voice, half snide, half patronizing, asked, ‘So, Roy, are all your spreadsheets green?’
‘I actually wouldn’t know, sir.’ The sir came out with the reluctance of a dental extraction.
‘You are aware, are you not, Roy, that I’m an advocate of the multi-systems approach?’
‘Completely.’
‘Good. So may I enquire why, in midst of preparing for three important murder trials, you’ve decided to take time out to waste your valuable energies — doing nothing to move the needle on our homicide statistics and stretching police financial resources on what is clearly no more than an unfortunate suicide?’
‘I beg your pardon, sir?’
‘You know exactly what I’m referring to, Roy. You are allowing yourself to be distracted from your important trial work out of sheer hubris.’
‘Hubris?’
‘Yes, hubris. You always need to be at the forefront of any major investigation, don’t you, in order to see your name in the papers?’
‘In my role as Head of Major Crime for the county I’d be derelict in my duties if I wasn’t involved in an overseeing capacity in our major investigations, sir.’
‘Perhaps it would help you focus if I removed you from that role?’
Struggling to contain his anger, and thinking to himself, I once saved your life, more fool me, Grace replied, tersely, ‘That would be your prerogative. But I cannot agree with you that Suzy Driver’s death is suicide. You’ve seen the pathologist’s initial report, that she had suffered a blow to the back of her head from a blunt instrument prior to hanging — or rather, being hung.’
‘A blow to the back of her head that matched marks and hair found on her carpet by the CSIs which indicated she might have fallen over backwards sometime before her death. Old people do fall over sometimes.’
‘She was not an old lady, sir, she was only in her mid-fifties.’
‘I don’t care, Roy, I don’t see enough evidence here to launch a murder enquiry. You are aware of our tight budgets these days, aren’t you? The average cost of a murder enquiry currently stands at £3.2 million.’
‘What about the emotional cost to a victim’s loved ones? Have the bean-counters calculated that, too?’
‘Everything has a cost, Roy, unlike the dreamland where your head seems to spend most of its time.’
‘Fine, sir. So from now on you want me to tell the families of murder victims that we’re not going to be investigating them because we can’t afford to?’
‘That’s not what I’m saying at all. We just have to be absolutely certain before we launch any investigation and start incurring costs.’
Grace was struggling to keep his temper. ‘Is it really that you don’t want to spend the money on an investigation, or is the truth that you are mindful of massaging your crime statistics and we are already over our murder rate for the year?’