In addition, he sensed that all was not right in their marriage. Despite her charity and Rotary interests, Katie was resenting the increasing amount of time she was left alone. He had tried to tell her that he would not be working at this pace forever – within a couple of years they might float the business or sell out, with enough money never to have to work again. Then she reminded him he had said that two years ago. And a further two years before then.
She had told him very recently, and quite angrily, that he would always be a workaholic, because he didn’t really have any interests outside his business. Lamely, he had argued back that his baby, the 1962 Jaguar he had lovingly restored, was an interest. Until she had responded, scathingly, that she couldn’t recall the last time he had taken it out of the garage. And, he was forced to admit to himself, nor could he.
He remembered, during the break up of his marriage to Zoë, when he had found himself barely able to cope, his doctor had suggested he check into a psychiatric clinic for a couple of weeks. He’d rejected that, and somehow got through everything. But he had that same low and sometimes muddled feeling now that he’d had then. And he was picking up from Katie some of those same kinds of vibes he’d experienced with Zoë, before he’d discovered she was having an affair. Maybe it was just in his mind.
Maybe his mind just wasn’t working that well right now.
29
The camera panned slowly, and a little jerkily, around the Bishops’ bedroom at 97 Dyke Road Avenue. It stopped for some moments on the naked body of Katie Bishop, lying spread-eagled, her wrists tied to the rather fancy wooden bedposts, ligature mark on her neck, gas mask lying beside her.
‘The gas mask was on her face when she was found,’ Roy Grace said to his team, which had now increased to twenty, assembled in the conference room of the Major Incident Suite and watching the SOCO video of the crime scene.
The room could hold, at a pinch, twenty-five people seated on the hard, red chairs around the rectangular table, and another thirty, if necessary, standing. One of its uses was for major crime briefings for press conferences, and it was for this reason that there stood, at the far end opposite the video screen, a curved, two-tone blue board, six feet high and ten feet wide, boldly carrying the Sussex Police website address, plus the Crimestoppers legend and phone number. All press and media statements were given by officers against this backdrop.
‘Who removed it, Roy?’ Detective Inspector Kim Murphy asked, in an amiable but very direct voice.
Grace had worked with Kim before, on bringing a Brighton landlord to trial for conspiracy to murder, with a recently successful conclusion, and it had been a good experience. He had requested her for this inquiry as his deputy SIO. She was a sparky, ferociously intelligent DI in her mid-thirties and he liked her a lot. She was also very attractive, with neat, shoulder-length fair hair streaked with highlights, a wide, open face and an almost constant, beguiling smile, which masked, very effectively – to many a villain’s surprise and regret – a surprisingly tough, don’t-mess-with-me, streetwise character. Despite her senior rank, there was something of a tomboy about her. It was accentuated this evening by the sporty, quite butch beige linen jacket with epaulettes that she wore over a white T-shirt and trousers. Most days she turned up to work on a Harley-Davidson, which she maintained herself.
‘The cleaning lady,’ he said. ‘And God only knows what other evidence she trampled over.’
He was struggling this evening. Really struggling. He was supposed to be the Senior Investigating Officer on a murder inquiry, with all the responsibilities that entailed. But however much he tried to concentrate, part of him was in another place, another city, another investigation altogether. Sandy. And, he just realized, he’d completely forgotten to call Cleo, to tell her what time he thought he might be through tonight. He would try to sneak a text to her during this briefing.
He was feeling confused about his relationship with Cleo suddenly. What if Sandy really was in Munich? What would happen if he met her?
There were just too many imponderables. Here at this moment, seated at the workstation in the real world of MIR One, expectant faces were staring at him. Was it his imagination or were they looking at him strangely?
Pull yourself together!
‘The time is six thirty, Friday 4 August,’ he read out from his briefing notes. He had removed his suit jacket, pulled his tie to half-mast and popped open his top two shirt buttons against the sweltering heat.
‘This is our first briefing of Operation Chameleon,’ he went on. ‘The investigation into the murder of a thirty-five-year-old female person identified as Mrs Katherine Margaret Bishop – known as Katie – of 97 Dyke Road Avenue, Hove, East Sussex, conducted on day one following the discovery of her body at eight thirty this morning. I will now summarize the incident.’
For some minutes, Grace reviewed the events leading up to the discovery of Katie’s body. When he got to the gas mask, true to form, Norman Potting interrupted him.
‘Maybe he had chronic wind, Roy. Gave her the gas mask out of kindness.’ Potting looked around with a grin. But no one smiled.
Inwardly, Grace groaned. ‘Thank you, Norman,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a lot to get through. We can do without the humour.’
Potting continued to look around, grinning irrepressibly at his audience, unfazed by their blank faces.
‘We can also do without the gas mask being leaked anywhere,’ Grace added. ‘I want absolute silence on that. Understood, everyone?’
It was common practice to withhold key pieces of information discovered at a crime scene from the public. This way, if anyone rang in and mentioned a gas mask, the investigating team would know immediately that the caller was almost certainly for real.
Grace began reviewing the tasks for each person. Katie Bishop’s family tree needed to be established, the names of all the people she associated with, plus backgrounds on them. This was being worked on by the FLOs, and he had assigned supervision of the task to Bella Moy earlier in the day.
Bella read from a printout of notes in front of her. ‘I don’t have much so far,’ she said. ‘Katie Bishop was born Katherine Margaret Denton, the only child of parents living in Brighton. She married Brian Bishop five years ago – her third marriage, his second. No children.’
‘Any idea why not?’ Grace asked.
‘No.’ Bella seemed a little surprised by the question. ‘Bishop has two by his first marriage.’
Grace made a note on his pad. ‘OK.’
‘She spends her weeks mostly in Brighton – usually goes up to London for one night. Brian Bishop has a flat in London, where he stays Monday to Fridays.’
‘His knocking shop?’ ventured Norman Potting.
Grace didn’t respond. But Potting had a point. No children after five years of marriage, and substantially separate lives, did not indicate a particularly close relationship. Although he and Sandy had been married nine years, and they hadn’t had children – but there were reasons for that. Medical ones. He made another note.
Alfonso Zafferone, chewing gum, with his usual insolent expression, had been detailed to work with the HOLMES analyst to plot the sequence of events, list the suspects – in this case, one so far, her husband. A full time-line needed to be run on Brian Bishop to establish if he could have been present within the period that Katie was murdered. Were there any similar murders in this county, or in others, recently? Anything involving a gas mask? Zafferone leaned back in his chair; he had shoulders so massive he must have worked on them, Grace thought. And like all the men in the room, he had removed his jacket. Flashy rhinestone cufflinks and gold armbands glinted on the sleeves of his sharp, black shirt.