Sundays were never ordinary. As the duty DS at Hove I worked every other weekend, which could be gruelling, but never dull. Sundays could start in a myriad of ways. It might be clearing up the many and varied prisoners from the excesses of the night before, waking up the ‘never at home’ suspects with a very early morning knock (never rely on a Sunday lie-in if you are wanted by the police) or using a rare lull in demand to plough through mountains of tedious paperwork accumulated during more frantic weeks. Sundays were never a day of rest.
This particular one started with all the signs of being an opportunity to clear the decks so, in true CID style, I took my team for breakfast to the ever-popular Carats Cafe at Shoreham Harbour. This jewel of a diner is hidden from the rest of the world by Shoreham Power Station and the lock gates, the place where, in Dead Man’s Grip, young Tyler nearly met a very grisly end and through which Tooth executed his Houdini-like escape.
Carats doesn’t do mediocre, either in quality or quantity. Neither do detectives with a rare hour away from the grind, so we gorged ourselves on a gut-busting full English before making our way back for our Q day. Some hope.
Having abandoned the rusty CID car in the last free parking bay in the police station back yard I was met by Sergeant Russ Bagley who was just on his way out.
‘Don’t go far, Graham, I may need you.’
‘Oh no! You dare ruin my plans for the day!’ I threatened. ‘What have you got?’
‘My lot have just found a body in a camper van. Seems the poor fella’s dog had been pining outside.’
Russ was a recently promoted patrol sergeant but had previously been an experienced DC. As described at the discovery of Ralph Meeks’ corpse in Dead Man’s Time, policy was that if a death was potentially suspicious, then a DS had to attend and ‘call’ it as such. I trusted that Russ would only ask for me if genuinely needed although I never minded helping even the more cautious sergeants.
It’s very lonely being the one who has to decide whether or not a death is natural. The relatives expect us to get it right. If we are suspicious then the balloon goes up and a whole machine akin to that described in all the Grace books kicks in. If not it’s quite low-key. At times we all need a second opinion, and I would never deny that to a colleague. I came to wish that I had someone to consult that day.
I sloped back to the office, reluctant to settle in to anything that I couldn’t drop. Something told me I would soon be back in the car again.
Sure enough the call came. ‘Seems an odd one, Graham,’ reported Russ. ‘The van’s all locked up. We had to force our way in. The poor chap appears to have fallen over but the bizarre thing is there’s a small window that’s broken but no glass around and we can’t find the keys.’
‘What about the window? Couldn’t someone have got in through there?’
‘Not unless they were an Oompa-Loompa. The window’s too small and in the wrong place, also there’s no sign of a disturbance. I’m just not happy with it. Can you pop down?’
Glad of any excuse to leave those reports for another day, DC Lee Taylor and I hopped back into the CID car and drove the short distance to First Avenue, which runs off Hove Seafront.
Parked at the back of the monolithic King’s House, the HQ of Brighton and Hove City Council, the tatty VW camper van was guarded by uniformed officers and encircled by blue and white ‘Police’ tape. Other than its ‘For Sale’ sign in the window and the shattered pane there was nothing to set it apart from any other vehicle among those belonging to day trippers enjoying time at the beach.
Lee and I wasted no time in establishing the story. A whippet, whimpering around the van, had caused passers-by to become curious so they called the police. The first officers to arrive were sceptical that this was a police matter. Then their sixth sense caused them to agree with the concerned bystanders. There was more to this than a stray dog. They tried and failed to find a way into the van so, using their batons, they forced an entry. Inside was a sight they had hoped they wouldn’t see.
Slumped in the cramped floor space was a shabbily dressed man, probably in his early sixties. His head was resting against a blue body board. There was no doubt he was dead, but his eyes held a startled expression. A closer examination revealed the faintest abrasion on his left temple but no other obvious signs of injury. Unusually, there was no sign of alcohol or drug misuse and the putrid aroma of decomposition was yet to arrive. As Russ indicated, even from the broken window there was no internal or external debris and the van was tidy. This was a really tricky scene to read.
Sadly it’s not uncommon to find people having died alone and in squalid circumstances — but this one didn’t seem right. I couldn’t put my finger on it. There was no sign of a fight or broken glass from the shattered window; the van was locked but the keys could not be found. All these facts, singly and collectively, were calling out their importance as I tried to fathom out what they were telling me.
Recognizing that this might indeed be suspicious, I gave the order to seal off the street and treat the immediate area as a crime scene. Never an easy decision given the chaos that causes, but necessary under such circumstances. The impact on the public of me shutting off a busy thoroughfare, and on police in tying up scarce officers to protect the area, meant that I was probably the least popular person in Hove that morning.
I called out the duty Senior SOCO and Police Surgeon. They were with me in no time. Dressed head-to-toe in white forensic paper suits, together we gingerly ventured further into the van. We took in what we saw, considered its meaning and tried to understand what it was telling us.
There is no perfect checklist for suspicious deaths, so experience, judgement and hope supplement knowledge.
After as much examination as we dared in such an open setting, we were still unable to determine what had happened. We needed more. Surely the body itself and any minute forensic traces in the van would unlock the story for us?
I summoned the mortuary team to take the body away, and the low loader to remove the van to a forensically secure yard. I called a POLSA to start a fingertip search of the immediate area and arranged for an early post mortem. In the meantime our reflective Sunday changed tack and pace and my team and I slogged on to identify and understand our tragic victim.
We quickly worked out who he was. Anthony Robinson was a local man, a popular chap, who was well known in the close-knit community around the chic Norfolk Square in central Brighton. Once a cheap rental area, described by Grace in Not Dead Enough as the abode of students, transients, hookers and the impoverished elderly, this part of the city had undergone a transformation. Anthony was the proprietor of the successful Spectrum Copy Shop and known for being always cheery and on hand to help local people and businesses with that last-minute printing or typesetting.
Home was a well-appointed flat a couple of miles away on the blustery Hove seafront, which he shared with his faithful whippet Bonzo. He loved surfing and would regularly pack himself and Bonzo off to Devon and ride the West Country waves. His VW camper van, while entirely in tune with his surfing lifestyle, was getting old and tired and he needed to sell it. It had attracted little interest and he was apparently getting concerned he would be stuck with it.
Nothing we unearthed that day gave any clue to how and why he died. And in hindsight neither could it have. You couldn’t make up what really happened — unless your name is Peter James.
It was only at the post mortem at Cleo’s Brighton and Hove Mortuary the following day that the truth started to emerge. The slight abrasion we had all seen was, unbelievably, an exit wound from a tiny .22 bullet, its track through his head only shown up by X-ray. This stunned everyone. No-one had spotted the even smaller entry wound on the opposite side of his head under the hairline.