‘Roy! Good to hear from you. I’ve been up for ages, bored out of my mind, if you want to know the truth. How can I help you?’
Grace told him. When he had finished the conversation, feeling very upbeat about his plan, he sat still, reflecting. Crisp had escaped from his cell somewhere between lock-up at 9 p.m., French time, last night and 7 a.m. their time this morning. All his possessions would have been taken from him, surely, when he had been booked into custody there? He would only have had the prison officer’s uniform and gun. Enough to have enabled him to hijack a car and flee the country. He could be in Switzerland or Italy or Germany by now. Or Austria, he thought, looking at the map of Europe on his wall.
God, they’d had the evil bastard. How the hell had he done it? How the hell had he pulled off his escape again? No doubt with the same cunning and planning he’d used to escape from his underground hideout in Brighton back in December. Now he was playing international hide and seek. One certainty, he knew, was that Sussex Police did not have the resources, however heinous Crisp’s crimes, to embark on an international manhunt. They would have to rely on Europol and Interpol for that.
Right now he had to focus on Operation Spider. If there really was a ‘black widow’ operating in the city, and the evidence pointed to it, he needed to stop her before another victim died. But the plan he had concocted during the night seemed fraught with problems. In a different era he could just have gone ahead with it on his own initiative. Now he had to seek permission, and jump through a whole bunch of potentially hostile hoops.
Which might have fatal consequences.
He needed to strengthen his evidence in every way that he could, and one thought had been going through his mind during the night on how he might possibly do that.
He googled ‘saw-scaled viper’, then leaned forward, peering closely at his screen as he scrolled through a wide range of information and links about the snake and its genus, Echis. He was looking for one very specific thing. Something that Jodie might have slipped up on. It was just a hunch, a long shot, but worth a few minutes of his time.
As he read what came up, he felt a beat of excitement. ‘Yes!’ he said, punching the air. He read it carefully again, then phoned Guy Batchelor, who was acting as the office manager for Operation Spider. ‘Guy, the venomous reptile expert from London Zoo who came down to accompany the team that searched Shelby Stonor’s home, Dr Rearden right?’
‘Yes, boss, he said if someone was needed to advise on the snake bite, we should contact the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, who are world-renowned experts.’
‘Liverpool, bugger, that’s quite a distance. Can you contact them as soon as you can and see if there’s anyone who could get down here today?’
As he ended the call, his phone rang. It was ACC Pewe. Grace took a deep breath.
Pewe was not as angry as he had expected, but he guessed the reason why. This was something Pewe would be able to bank and hold against him at a later date, however much it had not been his fault.
‘What a bloody mess, Roy,’ he whined down the phone.
‘Crisp? Yes, sir, I agree with you. But not Operation Spider. I have a strategy — I’d like to come and talk it through with you. Do you have any time free today?’
‘I’m free now,’ his boss replied. ‘I’ve one hour.’
81
Wednesday 11 March
At a few minutes before 7 a.m., the security guard at the barrier of Malling House, the sprawling Sussex Police Headquarters where Major Crimes was soon going to be housed, waved to Roy Grace as he passed through.
He drove his unmarked Mondeo up the steep hill, passing the car park to his right for the Road Policing Unit and the Call Centre, and pulled up at the entrance to the visitor car park. He held his access pass up against the electronic reader and the barrier rose.
He reversed into a bay in the almost empty car park, then went into the reception area of the prefab building and exchanged pleasantries with the duty receptionist, whom he had known for years.
He sent a text to Guy Batchelor telling him to delay the morning briefing until 9 a.m., then made his way through the back entrance into the grand Queen Anne building that housed the senior staff of Sussex Police. He greeted his old friend, Acting Superintendent Steve Curry, then switching his phone to silent, went up the stairs and into Cassian Pewe’s majestic office, with its view across the trim lawn below and one of the modern housing estates of the county town of Lewes beyond.
The ACC rose from behind his large desk to greet him. Dressed in immaculate uniform, he extended a delicate hand.
‘Good to see you, Roy,’ he said. He indicated a leather chair in front of the desk.
As Grace sat down, Pewe asked, ‘Tea or coffee?’
‘Black coffee would be good, sir, thank you.’
‘I see, a heavy night?’
‘No, sir,’ he said, always aware of Pewe’s hidden agenda in every question he asked. ‘An early night, actually, but that’s hard with a young baby.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Pewe spoke into his phone, ordering the coffee, then looked across the desk at Grace. ‘How is little Noah?’
‘Getting feistier by the day — and night.’
Pewe gave him a patronizing smile. ‘And do I understand you went to Munich for a couple of days?’
‘No, sir, just the one day. Sandy has surfaced, after ten bloody years. She’d been involved in a traffic accident out there — hit by a taxi.’
Pewe avoided eye contact. ‘She’s alive?’
‘Badly injured.’
He was dying to say to Pewe, So she wasn’t buried in my back garden after all, was she? Perhaps that was why the ACC wouldn’t meet his eye.
‘Oh? I’m sorry to hear that. And where does that leave you, Roy?’
‘I’ve moved on, sir. But I had to go and see her.’
‘Of course you had to.’
‘There’ll be a lot of legalities to resolve, but that’s for another day.’
There was an awkward silence for some moments. Pewe finally broke it. ‘So, Roy — you mentioned a strategy?’
The assistant brought in the coffee and a plate of shortbread biscuits.
‘Yes.’ He sipped the scalding coffee, waited until she had left the room, closing the door behind her, then talked the ACC through it.
When he had finished, Cassian Pewe stared at him in total silence, his expression impossible to read. Then he said, ‘This is insane, Roy.’
‘It’s a risk, sir, I agree with that.’
‘Have you thought about all the different ways it could backfire on us?’
‘Yes, I have. But in my view we are dealing with a monster potentially every bit as evil as Edward Crisp. It’s looking like she might have murdered three men, and we have no way of telling, at this moment, if there are any others before Bentley she may have killed. We’re currently searching the UK and internationally for potential matches. This might be a way to flush her out.’
‘Or to get one of our officers killed?’
‘Not if we risk assess it properly, sir.’
‘You mean the way Crisp’s confinement in the Lyon jail was risk assessed?’
‘That was out of our jurisdiction.’
‘Luckily for your career, Roy. What you’re proposing now isn’t. Before you even start to go there you need the Crown Prosecution Service on board. You’re putting an awful lot on a rather shaky assumption, don’t you think?’
‘Shaky? I have a suspect who appears to be using different identities, and targets rich older men. There are three that we know of and there could be more. Her first husband died after being bitten by a venomous snake — and I accept that he was an expert who worked with these creatures, so was at a higher risk than anyone else. Her most recent fiancé skied over a cliff in France.’