‘I feel like doing something different. They’ll train me. There’s nothing to it. It’s mostly dealing with stuff on the computer.’
Giving you the opportunity to stay on eBay all day long, Tom thought, but said nothing. He took a gulp of his drink and started doing some mental calculations. If Kellie could earn enough just to cover her purchases that would be a considerable help. But three thousand pounds off her credit card today for the damned monster barbecue… It would take her months to earn that. Meantime he was going to have to fund it. Then his mobile phone, which he had left in his den, began to ring.
They caught each other’s eyes. He saw the flash of fear in Kellie’s, and wondered if she saw it in his own, also.
He hurried upstairs, and saw with relief on the caller display it was Chris Webb.
‘Hi, Chris,’ he said. ‘Have you found out anything from the disc?’
The techie’s voice was sour. ‘No, and it doesn’t look like I’m going to.’
‘How come?’
‘I got home and my whole place has been ransacked. Someone’s been through everything, and I mean everything. It’ll take a week to sort this lot out.’
‘Christ. Have you had much taken?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I haven’t.’ There was a long pause during which Tom heard the click of what sounded like a cigarette lighter and a sharp inhalation. ‘In fact there seems to be only one damned thing missing.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Your CD.’
23
Alison Vosper, the Assistant Chief Constable, was the boss to whom Roy Grace ultimately had to answer. She possessed a mercurial temper, turning her from sweetness and light one moment to very sour the next. Some years back she had been given the sobriquet No. 27 by a wag in the force, naming her after a sweet-and-sour dish at a local Chinese takeaway. It had stuck, although it seemed to Grace it was probably time to change it, as he could not remember the last time she had actually been in a sweet mood.
And she most certainly was not in one today.
Nine o’clock on this Friday morning found him standing on the deep pile carpet of Vosper’s office, in front of her desk, with that same sick feeling in the pit of his stomach he used to get when told to report to the headmaster’s office at school. It was ridiculous for a man of his age to be nervous of a superior, but Alison Vosper had that effect on him, as indeed she did on everyone, whether they cared to admit it or not.
He had been summoned here ostensibly to give her a private briefing in advance of the daily press conference, but there wasn’t a whole lot to say. Nearly forty-eight hours on, they did not know who the victim was and they had no suspect.
One thing Grace had learned in his years as a police officer was how much importance senior officers attached to letting the public feel they were getting results. From the standpoint of trying to make the great unwashed feel all warm and fuzzy about the police, Grace had the feeling that the superiors sometimes considered on balance that it was better to bang somebody into custody, however innocent they might be, and at least show they were doing something, than to have to admit lamely to a room full of journalists trying to flog column inches that they hadn’t a clue.
Unlike the modern, soulless building of the CID headquarters at Sussex House where he was now based, the big cheeses were all housed in this handsome Queen Anne mansion, at the centre of the untidy cluster of buildings that comprised Sussex Police headquarters, on the edge of the ancient county town of Lewes.
The building’s fine original features had been left intact in most of the grander offices, in particular the delicate stucco work and the ornate ceilings. Alison Vosper’s was a fine example. Her ground-floor room was immaculate, with a fine view out over a manicured lawn, and it was furnished with elegant antiques which gave a sense of both authority and permanence.
The centrepiece was a large expanse of polished rosewood desk on which sat a black-edged blotter, a slim crystal vase containing three purple tulips, framed photographs of her husband – a police officer several years older but three ranks her junior – and her two children, a boy and a girl, immaculate in their school uniforms, an ammonite pen holder, and as always a stack of the morning’s papers fanned out. Mercifully Grace did not feature on any of the front pages.
Assistant Chief Constable Alison Vosper was not only sour this morning, she was extremely frosty, an effect enhanced by her starchy-looking high-necked blouse the colour of ice, cinched at the front by an equally icy-looking diamanté brooch. Even her perfume had an acidic tang to it.
As usual Vosper did not invite him to sit down – a technique she had long used on all juniors as a way of keeping meetings short and to the point. Grace informed her of everything that had happened since yesterday’s very late briefing. The only visible reaction he got was when he came to the beetle – enough revulsion to show that beneath her hard carapace Alison Vosper was still human.
‘So we have three possibles among the women reported missing in the past few days?’ she said. Her accent was a flat Midlands Brummie, which made her sound even harder.
‘Yes, and we’ve couriered material collected from their homes up to Huntingdon for DNA analysis – I’ve called in a favour there. We’ll get a match sometime today.’
‘And if there is no match?’
‘We’ll have to go wider.’
Her phone rang. She pressed a button, held it down and snapped, ‘I’m busy.’ Then she looked up at the Detective Superintendent again. ‘You know there’s a lot riding on this for you, Roy?’
He shrugged. ‘More than any other case?’
She gave him a long, hard, silent look. ‘I think we both know that.’
Grace frowned, unsure what was coming next and uncomfortable at her words.
She twisted her gold wedding band around on her finger for a moment, and it seemed to soften her. ‘You’ve been lucky, spending your career so far in one area, Roy. A lot of police officers have to move around, constantly, if they want to get promotion. Like me. Birmingham’s my home, but I’ve spent just three years in my whole career in Brum. I’ve been all over the place – Northumberland, Ipswich, Bristol, Southampton. It’s different to your dad’s day. He spent all his career with the force in Brighton, didn’t he?’
‘If you include Worthing as well.’
She gave a thin smile. Worthing was only a few miles down the coast. Then her demeanour hardened again. ‘Your father was a well-loved and respected man, so I am told. But it doesn’t seem to many people that you are your father’s son.’
She left the words hanging in the air. Roy felt them like a sting in his heart. It was as if he had been lanced and his energy was now leaking out. He stared back at her, confused and suddenly feeling very vulnerable indeed. ‘I – I know I have my critics,’ he said, and he was aware, too late, how lame that sounded.
She shook her head, then this time pulled her wedding band right off, holding it out in front of her, as if symbolizing that nothing was permanent, that she could flick him out of her life as easily as she could flick the gold band into a bin. ‘It’s not your critics I’m worried about, Roy. The Chief is worried about the damage you’ve done to Sussex Police. You nearly caused a mistrial a couple of weeks ago by taking a piece of evidence to a medium – and you got splashed all over the nation’s headlines as a result, making you and us a laughing stock. You’ve lost a lot of respect among colleagues for dabbling in the supernatural. Then you allowed two suspects to get killed during a pursuit.’
Grace tried to interrupt, thinking she was being totally unreasonable, but she raised a hand, blocking him.
‘Now we’re forty-eight hours into a murder enquiry, you can’t name the victim, you don’t have a suspect; all you have is the life history of a damned beetle found at the scene.’