Although Spinella irritated him, Grace was beginning to develop a grudging respect for the young journalist. He could see that Spinella was a hard worker, like himself, and after an encounter on a previous case, when Spinella had honoured a promise to withhold some important information, he had shown himself to be a reporter the police could do business with. Some police officers viewed all press as vermin, but Grace felt differently. Almost every major crime relied on witnesses, on members of the public coming forward, on memories being jogged. If you handled the press correctly you could get them to do quite a bit of your work for you.
With little information to give out this morning, Grace concentrated on getting a few key messages across. The age and as much description of the woman as they could give out, and an estimate of how many years she might have been down that storm drain, in the hope that a family member or friend might come forward with details of a person who had gone missing within that time frame.
Grace had added that although the cause of death was unknown, strangulation was a possibility, and that whoever had murdered her would probably have had good local knowledge of Brighton and Hove.
As he left the conference room, shortly before 12.30, he heard his name being called.
Irritatingly, Kevin Spinella had taken to waylaying Grace after press conferences, cornering him in the corridor, out of earshot of the other journalists.
‘Detective Superintendent Grace, could I have a quick word?’
Roy wondered for a moment if perhaps Spinella had heard about his promotion. It should have been impossible for him to find out this quickly, but for some time now he had suspected that Spinella had an informer somewhere inside Sussex Police. He always seemed to know of any incident ahead of everyone else. At some point Roy was determined to get to the bottom of it, but that was no easy thing to do. When you started digging below the surface, you risked alienating a lot of your colleagues.
The young reporter, as ever in a suit, shirt and tie, was looking sharper and more spruce than at his rain-soaked appearance at the site on Saturday morning.
‘Nothing to do with this,’ Spinella said, his teeth working on a piece of gum. ‘Just something I thought I ought to mention to you. On Saturday evening I got a call from a contact in the fire brigade – they were going into a flat in Kemp Town to rescue someone stuck in a lift.’
‘Boy, do you have an exciting life!’ Grace ribbed him.
‘Yeah, all go,’ Spinella replied earnestly, missing the barb, or deliberately ignoring it. ‘The thing is, this woman…’ He hesitated and tapped the side of his nose. ‘You got a copper’s nose, right?’
Grace shrugged. He was always careful what he said to Spi-nella. ‘That’s what people say about police officers.’
Spinella tapped his own nose. ‘Yeah, well, I got it too. A nose for a good story – know what I mean?’
‘Yes.’ Grace looked at his watch. ‘I’m in a rush-’
‘Yeah, OK, I won’t keep you. Just wanted to alert you, that’s all. This woman they freed – late twenties, very pretty – I felt something wasn’t right.’
‘In what way?’
‘She was very agitated.’
‘Not surprising if she’d been stuck in a lift.’
Spinella shook his head. ‘Not that kind of agitated.’
Grace looked at him for a moment. One thing he knew about local newspaper reporters was the range of stories they got sent to cover. Sudden deaths, road crashes, mugging victims, burglary victims, families of missing persons. Reporters like Spinella met agitated people all day long. Even at his relatively young age and experience, Spinella probably had learned to recognize different types of agitation. ‘OK, what kind?’
‘She was frightened about something. Refused to answer the door the next day when the paper sent a photographer round. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was in hiding.’
Grace nodded. A few thoughts went through his mind. ‘What nationality?’
‘English. White – if I’m allowed to say that.’ He smirked.
Ignoring the comment, Grace decided that ruled out her being an imprisoned sex slave – they were mostly from Eastern Europe and Africa. There were all kinds of possibilities. A million things could make you agitated. But being agitated wasn’t enough reason for the police to pay a call on someone.
‘What’s her name and address?’ he asked, then dutifully wrote down Katherine Jennings and the flat number and address on his pad. He would get someone to run it through PNC and see if the name got flagged. Other than that, all he could do was wait to see if the name appeared again.
Then, as Roy pressed his card against the security panel to step through into the Major Incident Suite, Spinella called after him again. ‘Oh – and Detective Superintendent?’
He turned, irritably now. ‘Yes?’
‘Congratulations on your promotion!’
44
Ronnie stood in the sunshine on the empty boardwalk and checked once again that his mobile phone was switched off. Very definitely switched off. He stared ahead, past the benches and the beachfront railing, beyong the deserted golden sand, out across the expanse of rippling ocean, at the distant pall of black and grey and orange smoke that was steadily staining the sky, turning it the colour of rust.
He barely took any of it in. He had just realized that he had left his passport in the room safe back at his hotel. But perhaps that could be helpful. He was thinking. Thinking. Thinking. His brain was all jammed up with thoughts. Somehow he needed to clear his head. Some exercise might do it. Or a stiff drink.
To his left the boardwalk stretched out as far as he could see. In the distance, to his right, he could see the silhouettes of the rides in the amusement park at Coney Island. Nearer, there was a messy-looking apartment building, covered in scaffolding, about six storeys high. A black dude in a leather jacket was engaged in a discussion with an Oriental-looking guy in a bomber jacket. They kept turning their heads, as if checking they weren’t being watched, and they kept looking at him. Maybe they were doing a drugs deal and thought he might be a cop. Maybe they were talking about football, or baseball, or the fucking weather. Maybe they were the only people on the fucking planet who didn’t know something had happened to the World Trade Center this morning.
Ronnie didn’t give a shit about them. So long as they didn’t mug him they could stand there all day and talk. They could stand there until the world ended, which might be pretty damned soon, judging by the events of today so far.
Shit. Fuck. What a day this was. What a fuck of a day to pick to be here. And he didn’t even have Donald Hatcook’s mobile phone number.
And. And. And. He tried to shut that thought out, but it kept knocking on his door until he had to open up and let it in.
Donald Hatcook might be dead.
An awful lot of people might be fucking dead.
There was a parade of shops, all with Russian signs on them, to his right, lining the boardwalk. He began walking towards them, towing his bag behind him, and then stopped when he reached a large sign in a green metal frame with an arched top, framing one of those YOU ARE HERE! maps. It was headed:
RIEGELMANN WALKWAY. BRIGHTON BEACH. BRIGHTON 2ND STREET.
Despite all that was going through his mind, he stopped and smiled wryly. Home from home. Sort of! It would have been fun to have someone take his photograph beside it. Lorraine would be amused. On another day, under different circumstances.
He sat down on the bench beside the sign and leaned back in the seat, unfastened his tie, coiled it and put in his pocket. Then he opened the top button of his shirt. The air felt good on his neck. He needed it. He was shaking. Palpitating. His heart was thumping. He looked at his watch. Nearly midday. He began patting dust out of his hair and clothes and felt in need of a drink. He never normally drank in the daytime, well, not until lunchtime anyhow – most days. But a stiff whisky would slip down nicely. Or a brandy. Or even, he thought, thinking about those Russian signs, a vodka.