‘Thanks, boss.’
Grace let Humphrey out on to the patio and watched him pee. Then he went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. Upstairs he heard the sound of the loo flushing and wondered, for a moment, if Cleo was going to come down and join him. But instead he heard the bedroom door slam – a little too loudly.
Sandy used to slam the bedroom door when she was angry about a late-night phone call that had disturbed her. Cleo was a lot more tolerant, but he could sense her pregnancy getting to her. It was getting to both of them. Most of the time it was a shared joy, or a shared anxiety, but just occasionally it seemed like a growing wedge between them and she had been in a really grumpy mood last night.
He made a phone call, apologetically waking Crime Scene Manager Tracy Stocker and bringing her up to speed. He asked her to send a SOCO team up to Newport Pagnell – about a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Brighton – to be there ready to start at dawn. At the same time, in light of the latest development, he discussed the joint strategy she would need with the POLSA – the Police Search Advisor – and search team.
Then he spooned instant coffee into a mug, poured boiling water on to it, stirred it and carried it out into the living room. He felt chilly, but he could not be bothered to put on any more clothes.
He sat down on the sofa with his laptop, bleary-eyed, stirring the coffee again and staring at the laptop as it powered up. Humphrey found a chew and started a life or death tussle with it on the floor. Grace smiled at him, envying him his uncomplicated life. Maybe if he got the chance to choose, when he died he’d come back as a dog. So long as he got to pick his owners.
He Googled Newport Pagnell Services. M oments later he had a full listing of what was there, but that did not help him. He opened Google Earth and again he entered Newport Pagnell Services.
When the globe appeared, he zoomed in. Within moments he saw a close-up of the M1 motorway and the surrounding area. He stared at it, sipping his hot coffee and thinking hard.
Ferguson must have continued on down to Sussex in another vehicle. His assailant’s? So how had he met his assailant?
Was it someone he knew and had arranged to rendezvous with in the car park? Possible, he thought. But to his mind, it was more probable that the assailant had been following him, looking for a suitable opportunity. And if this assumption was right, it meant that the assailant could not have been more than a few vehicles behind Ferguson’s lorry.
He put his coffee down and started suddenly, pacing around the room. Humphrey jumped up at him again, wanting to play.
‘Down!’ he hissed, and then he dialled MIR-1, relieved when DS Crocker answered almost immediately. ‘Sorry, another task for you, Duncan. We need the indexes of the vehicles either side of Ferguson’s lorry on the motorway immediately before Newport Pagnell Services,’ he said. ‘Get everything up to five vehicles in front and twenty back. I want to know every one of the vehicles that went into the services at the same time as him and where they went when they left afterwards. It’s very likely that Ferguson was in one of those. Willingly or otherwise. I think it is highly likely to be a rental car, so we’re looking, primarily, for late-model small to medium saloons.’
‘I’ll get what I can, but it may take me a while to check out every vehicle. Is the morning briefing meeting soon enough?’
No, it wasn’t soon enough, Grace thought. But he needed to be realistic and Crocker sounded exhausted.
‘Yes, that’s fine. Do what you can, then get some sleep.’
Deciding to follow his own advice, he climbed back upstairs, followed by Humphrey, and went back to bed, trying not to disturb Cleo. At midday he was holding a press conference to announce that the police were treating the death of Stuart Ferguson as murder now. But although he had discussed it at length with ACC Rigg and the whole of the Sussex Police media team, he had not decided on the way he wanted to slant the conference. He wanted to make it clear that the police knew the two murders were linked, and the direction in which they were looking, but above all he needed witnesses to come forward. However, if he played up the Mafia link and the hit-man hypothesis, that might, he worried, actually do more harm than good, by scaring people into silence.
The only small positive was that Spinella seemed to have been as duped as the rest of the press into believing, to date, that Ferguson’s death was an industrial accident. That gave him some small satisfaction.
Finally, he fell into a troubled sleep, to be woken an hour later by Cleo going to the loo.
83
Carly sat in the back of the limousine as they drove through the gates of the Revere home. A few yards on she could see Detective Investigator Lanigan standing by his car and told her driver to stop.
‘So?’ he asked with an inquisitive but sympathetic stare.
‘You were right,’ she said, and gave a helpless shrug. She was still in shock from the way Lou Revere had spoken to her.
‘It didn’t go like you planned it?’
‘No.’
‘What’s with Mrs Revere driving off like that? She was pissed at you?’
Carly fumbled in her handbag, pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, inhaling deeply.
‘She was drunk. She wasn’t in a rational state of mind. I have to try again,’ she said. ‘Maybe I could come back in the morning when she’s sobered up.’
He dragged on his cigar and blew the smoke out pensively. ‘Lady, you’ve got guts, I’ll give you that.’ He smiled. ‘You look like you could use a drink.’
Carly nodded. Then she said, ‘What’s your advice? What do you think I should do – you know – how can I deal with these people? There must some way – there always is.’
‘Let’s get you to your hotel. We’ll have a drink and you can talk me through what happened in there. Before we leave, is there any point in me trying to speak to Mr Revere?’
‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Not tonight. No.’
‘OK. Your driver knows where to go?’
‘The Sheraton JFK Airport Hotel.’
‘I’ll follow you. I’ll be right behind.’
She took two more rapid drags on her cigarette, crushed it, then got back into the limousine and gave the driver her instructions.
She sat perched on the edge of her seat, replaying the events of the past ten minutes in her mind, as they drove away down the lane, then made a left turn, heading away from the town. Inside she was jangling, with nerves and tiredness. The bad dream just seemed to keep getting worse.
She closed her eyes and prayed, a short silent prayer. She asked the God she had not spoken to in years to give her some strength and a clear mind. Then she rummaged in her bag for her handkerchief and dabbed away the tears that were streaming down her cheeks.
Darkness slid by on either side of the car. For several minutes it did not occur to her that it was strange that no headlights were coming in the opposite direction. She looked at her watch: 9.25 p.m. New York time, 2.25 a.m. in England. Too late to call Detective Sergeant Branson and give him an update. She would do that in the morning. Hopefully after she had made a revised plan with Detective Investigator Lanigan later this evening.
She yawned. Ahead, through the windscreen, she saw red flashing lights and the bright tail lights of traffic braking and backing up. Moments later the limousine slowed, braking increasingly sharply, and they came to a halt behind a line of stationary vehicles.
The driver ended yet another of the constant calls he was on and turned his head towards her. ‘Looks like an accident up ahead.’
She nodded silently. Then she heard a rap on her window and saw Detective Investigator Lanigan standing there. She pressed the button and lowered the window.