Then Grace picked up a velvet jewellery box and popped open the lid. Inside were some delicate amethyst earrings, a silver charm bracelet, a gold necklace, and a signet ring with an embossed crest. He closed the lid and held on to the box.
After fifteen minutes they went back downstairs. Derek Stretton did not seem to have moved from his chair, and he had not touched his tea.
Grace held up the box and opened the lid, showing Janie’s father the contents. ‘Mr Stretton, are all these your daughter’s?’
He peered at them and nodded.
‘May I borrow one of the items? Something that she might have worn recently?’ He ignored the strange look that Glenn Branson gave him.
‘The signet ring’s probably the best,’ he said. ‘It’s our family crest. She used to wear it all the time until quite recently.’
Grace removed a small plastic evidence bag from his pocket, which he had brought with him for this purpose, and, lifting the ring out of the box with his handkerchief, carefully placed it in the bag.
‘Mr Stretton, is there anyone you can think of who might have had any reason to harm your daughter?’ Grace asked.
‘No one,’ he whispered.
Sitting back down opposite Derek Stretton and leaning towards him, Grace cradled his chin on his hands and asked, ‘Did she have a boyfriend?’
Staring at the carpet, Derek Stretton said, ‘Not – not anyone special.’
‘But she had a current fellow?’
He looked up at Grace, seeming to regain some composure. ‘She was a fine-looking girl with a great personality. She was never short of admirers. But she took the law very seriously – I don’t think she wanted too many distractions.’
‘She’s a lawyer?’
‘A law student. She did a law degree here at Southampton University, and she’s been studying for the past few years at Guildford Law School. Currently she’s articled – or a trainee – or whatever they call it nowadays – with a firm of solicitors in Brighton.’
‘And you’ve been supporting her during her studies.’
‘As best I can. It’s been a little tight these past months. Bit of a struggle. I…’
Grace nodded sympathetically. ‘Can we just go back to the boyfriends, sir. Do you know the name of her most recent boyfriend?’
Derek Stretton seemed to have aged twenty years in the last twenty minutes. He was pensive for some moments. ‘Justin Remington – she went out with him about a year or so ago. Very charming young man. He – she brought him down here a few times. Develops property in London. I quite liked him, but I don’t think he had a big enough intellect for her.’ He smiled with a faraway look. ‘She has a – had a remarkable brain. Couldn’t get near her at Scrabble from the time she was about nine.’
‘Would you know where I could get hold of this Justin Remington?’
There was a silence as Stretton sat thinking, then furrowing his eyebrows he said, ‘He was into real tennis. I don’t think there are that many players. I know he played in London – I believe it was Queens,’ he said.
It was rapidly becoming clear to Roy Grace that he was going to get very little more from the man. ‘Is there someone you can phone?’ he asked him. ‘A relative or a friend who could come over?’
After some moments, Derek Stretton said meekly, ‘My sister. Lucy. She’s not very far away. I’ll give her a call. She’ll be devastated.’
‘Why don’t you make the call while we’re still here, sir?’ Branson urged, as gently as he could.
The pair of them waited while he made the call, retreating as discreetly as they could to the far end of the room. Grace heard him sobbing; then he went out of the room for a while. Finally he came back in and walked over to join them, holding a brown envelope. ‘I’ve put some photographs of Janie together for you. I’d appreciate them back.’
‘Of course,’ Grace said, knowing the poor man would probably have to make half a dozen calls over the coming months to get them back – they would inevitably get misfiled somewhere in the system.
‘Lucy’s on her way – my sister. She’ll be here in about half an hour.’
‘Would you like us to wait?’ Grace asked.
‘No, I’ll be OK. I need some time to think. I… Can – can I see Janie?’
Grace shot a glance at Branson. ‘I don’t think it would be advisable, sir.’
‘I’d really like to see her one more time. You know? To say goodbye?’ He put out a hand and gripped Grace’s firmly.
Grace realized he had not absorbed from the newspapers that Janie’s head was missing. This was not the moment to tell him. He decided to leave that to the two FLOs. Vanessa Ritchie and Maggie Campbell were about to earn their keep and give some payback for the massive investment in their training.
‘There are two women detectives who will be along to see you shortly, from our Family Liaison Unit. They’ll be able to guide you on that.’
‘Thank you. It would mean a lot to me.’ Then he gave a sad little laugh. ‘You know, officers, I – I never discussed death with Janie. I have no idea whether she wanted to be buried or cremated.’ Wild-eyed he added, ‘And her cat, of course.’ He scratched the back of his head. ‘Bins! She used to bring Bins here before she went away. I – don’t know… it’s all so…’
‘They’ll be able to help you with everything; that’s what they are here for.’
‘It never occurred to me that she might die, you see.’
Grace and Branson walked back out to the car in a deeply uncomfortable silence.
27
A community support officer, barely distinguishable from a uniformed constable, stood outside the front door of the building in Kemp Town where Janie Stretton had rented her flat, with a clipboard, logging all the people who entered and left the building. By contrast with the – albeit faded – grandeur of her father’s house, this street with its run-down terraced houses, kaleidoscope of estate agents’ boards, overstuffed rubbish bins, modest cars and vans, was real student bedsit land.
In the nineteenth century, Kemp Town had been aloof from Brighton, a posh Regency enclave of grand houses, built on a hill crested by the racecourse, with fine views out across the Channel. But gradually, during the latter half of the following century, with the construction of council estates and tower blocks and an increasing blurring of the boundary, Kemp Town became infected by the same seedy, tatty aura that had long corroded Brighton.
Parked at the far end of the street and sticking out much too much, Grace could see the tall, square, truck-sized hulk of the Major Incident Vehicle. He squeezed his Alfa Romeo into a space between two cars just past it, then walked back along the street with Branson, both men carrying their holdalls.
It was just before three o’clock, and Grace had stomach ache from having gobbled down two prawn sandwiches, a Mars bar and a Coke in the car on the way back from Janie’s father. He’d been surprised he’d had any appetite at all after delivering the grim news, and even more so that he had actually felt ravenous – as if somehow in eating he was reaffirming life. Now the food was biting back.
A blustery, salty wind was blowing and the sky was clouding over. Gulls circled overhead, cawing and wailing; a Mishon Mackay for sale board rocked in a gust as he walked by. This was a part of Brighton he had always liked, close to the sea, with fine old terraced villas. If you closed your eyes, imagined the agency boards gone, the plastic entryphone boxes gone and a lick of fresh white paint on the buildings, you could picture wealthy London folk a hundred years ago, emerging from the front doors in their finery and swaggering off, maybe down to a bathing machine at the water’s edge, or to a grand cafe, or for a leisurely stroll along the promenade, to enjoy the delights of the town and its elegant seafront.