‘He’s safe, back with his family.’
‘The kidnappers did not get any ransom?’
‘They got some — part of it.’
Bruno nodded, approvingly. ‘That is good.’
‘Good? Good that they only got part of it?’
‘No, Dad, good that they got some money. Won’t they be disappointed they did not get the rest?’
Grace frowned. ‘Why do you say that, Bruno?’
Two names appeared on the screen, Erik and Bruno.
‘Why do you say that, Bruno?’ he repeated.
‘I have to concentrate now.’
Grace looked at the screen. It looked like a medieval fort, from the point-of-view of the camera. A man dashed across a gap at the end. Bruno hit a button and yelled out, in frustration, ‘No! I missed!’
Grace pulled the control box from his son’s hands, in fury. ‘Listen to me. I just asked you a question and I expect you to answer. Right?’
‘You are going to let Erik win this game?’ Bruno retorted.
‘No, Bruno, let’s get something straight. It is you who is going to let Erik win by not answering me. I’m asking you a question. Why did you say it’s good that the kidnappers got some money — and would be disappointed by not getting the rest?’
His son gave him a sullen look. ‘They took a risk, don’t they deserve some reward, surely?’
Some minutes later, Grace went back downstairs. It was the second time this weekend that Bruno had made a very odd remark. Just what kind of upbringing had Sandy given him? One with a very strange, skewed moral compass, it seemed. Or maybe it was a rebellious phase he was going through, still unhappy about being displaced, taken away from what he had always considered home?
But he was too tired to think about it any more.
116
Monday 14 August
The first floor of the handsome Queen Anne mansion was where the top brass had their offices. Pewe’s assistant, who had escorted Roy Grace up here, knocked on the door and opened it. From the tone of the ACC’s text last night, Roy Grace figured the man wasn’t about to greet him with a bunch of flowers.
He was right.
‘Roy,’ he said, ‘so good of you to be able to spare your time to see me. Do come in, take a seat, have a quick read of this.’
As Grace perched on one of a pair of L-shaped sofas around a mahogany coffee table, the ACC literally threw down a copy of the morning’s Argus newspaper. The headline was stark and clear.
‘I have to step out for five minutes to see someone in Corporate Comms. Have a good read through, see what a great job you’re doing as Head of Major Crime.’
Pewe walked out, slamming the door behind him.
Since a few months ago, due to further budget cuts reducing the number of police buildings, the senior officers at Sussex Police HQ were required to make do with much smaller work spaces. They had to accommodate, as well as other police officers, the recent arrival of the East Sussex Fire Brigade command team. The Chief Constable had led the way by having her once-imposing office reduced in size by over a half. Yet, somehow, Pewe had so far retained his own large office in its entirety. Word around the force was that his ego wouldn’t fit into anything smaller.
Grace speed-read the alarmist front page of the newspaper, and coverage of the grim events of the weekend on subsequent pages, with photographs of some of the victims as well as of police cars, crime scene tape and CSIs in their oversuits. There was speculation regarding the three dead men found at Boden Court, that this was an internal Albanian settlement of scores.
He was relieved by one thing, that in all the seeming mayhem, the coverage of the bomb hoax at the Amex amounted to only a few column inches towards the centre of the paper. After a quieter weekend he’d have probably been the front-page splash, with an embarrassing photograph of him running with the camera.
He looked up the paper’s online pages on his phone to see if there were any updates reported.
Among the new headlines there was one that caught his eye.
He read the short article. The crew of a private sailing yacht crossing the Channel had radioed the Coastguard shortly after 9.30 p.m. yesterday, reporting a large explosion a few nautical miles south of Newhaven. The paper reported that a search of the area had been carried out by the lifeboat and the Coastguard helicopter into the night, after debris had been sighted in the approximate area. Early this morning, the Newhaven lifeboat had recovered a lifebelt stencilled with the name Sweet Suzie. It belonged to a deep-sea fishing boat permanently berthed at Newhaven Harbour that had last been seen heading out to sea earlier the previous evening.
Was there any connection, he wondered, noting down the boat’s name. He would get a check on the owner. As he did so, Pewe came back into the office, closing the door firmly, and stood over him.
Grace looked up. ‘A quick update on the kidnap, sir. The original kidnap turned out to be a plan by two teenage boys — the victim himself and his friend, the son of Jorgji Dervishi, a major Albanian crime boss in Brighton — to extort money from the victim’s father. Our enquiries revealed that the plans changed, and other Albanian gang members hijacked the original kidnap plot, because they became greedy. Finally, it appears, Dervishi himself saw an opportunity to get in on the act.’
Pewe stared at him, glassily. Grace went on. ‘Although we believe that Dervishi was also behind the bomb threat and extortion attempt at the Amex, we are confident that these were not linked, but coincidental.’
Pewe continued staring at him, his face tense. ‘Roy, taking a helicopter view of this past weekend, we seem to have moved the Major Crime needle somewhat. I’d say we’ve been pretty much thrown under the bus. What is your elevator pitch on events?’
Grace stared back at the ACC, trying to interpret his latest corporate-speak.
‘It’s been a bit shit, sir.’
‘A bit shit? Really? Perhaps we need to dive deeper on this issue? Open the kimono?’
‘You’ve lost me, sir,’ Grace said, politely.
‘I’ve lost you? I’m so sorry. Let me jog your mind by winding the clock back over the last forty-eight hours. We’ve had a bomb threat at the Amex. A teenage boy kidnapped. A female drugs mule dead at Gatwick Airport. Body parts showing evidence of torture found at a crusher site at Shoreham Harbour. The crusher operator dead under suspicious circumstances in the Sussex County. Three people shot dead in a flat in Hove, yesterday. An explosion on an industrial estate outside Lewes, at what might have been a bomb factory, with two separate sets of body parts identified so far. Not bad for one weekend, wouldn’t you say?’
‘We recovered the kidnap victim, which was my case and my priority, sir.’
‘Really? Jolly well done. From 40,000 feet that looks good. But once you get into the weeds, it all looks a little different. Would you like to explain everything else to me? Sussex has an average of twelve murders a year. In just this past weekend we have had eight — and counting.’
Grace, feeling in need of a strong coffee, was about to respond when the Chief Constable, Lesley Manning, entered.
‘Roy!’ she said. ‘I heard you were in. I just want to congratulate you on your bravery this weekend.’
He jumped to his feet. ‘Thank you, ma’am!’
‘Excuse me, ma’am,’ Pewe interrupted. ‘Detective Superintendent Grace broke every rule in the book yesterday. He behaved in a reckless manner over a bomb threat at the Amex. And he subsequently ignored all Health and Safety guidelines in the way he recovered a kidnap victim.’