He couldn’t help it. Every time he came into this office his confidence ebbed away, as it used to when, as a child, he was summoned to the headmaster’s study. And the fact that she continued to ignore him, still reading, made him more nervous with each passing second. He listened to the swish . . . swish . . . swish of the sprinkler outside. Then two rings of a mobile phone, faint, in another room.
Munich was going to be the first point of Alison Vosper’s attack, and he had his – admittedly somewhat lame – defence ready. But when she finally looked up at him, while not exactly beaming with joy, she gave him a pleasant smile.
‘Apologies, Roy,’ she said. ‘Been reading this bloody EU directive on standardization of the treatment of asylum seekers who commit crimes. Didn’t want to lose my thread. What bloody rubbish this is!’ she went on. ‘I can’t believe how much taxpayers’ money – yours and mine – is wasted on stuff like this.’
‘Absolutely!’ Grace said, agreeing perhaps a little too earnestly, waiting warily for her expression to change and whatever nuke she had ready to land on him.
She raised a fist in the air. ‘You wouldn’t believe how much of my time I have to waste reading things like this – when I should be getting on with my job of helping to police Sussex. I’m starting to really hate the EU. Here’s an interesting statistic: you know the Gettysburg Address?’
‘Yes. What’s more, I can probably quote it completely – I learned it at school for a project.’
She barely took that in. Instead, she splayed her hands out on her desk, as if to anchor herself. ‘When Abraham Lincoln gave that speech, it led to the most sacrosanct principles in the world, freedom and democracy, becoming enshrined in the American Constitution.’ She paused and drank some water. ‘That speech was less than three hundred words long. Do you know how long the European directive on the size of cabbages is?’
‘I don’t.’
‘Sixty-five thousand words long!’
Grace grinned, shaking his head.
She smiled back, more warmly than he could remember her ever smiling before. He wondered if she was on some kind of happy pill. Then, abruptly changing the subject, but still good-humoured, she asked, ‘So how was Munich?’
Wary suddenly, his guard up again, Roy said, ‘Well, actually it was a bit of a Norwegian lobster.’
She frowned. ‘I beg your pardon? Did you say Norwegian lobster ?’
‘It’s an expression I use for when something is less than you’ve been expecting.’
She cocked her head, still frowning. ‘I’m lost.’
‘A couple of years ago I was in a restaurant in a pub at Lancing. There was something on the menu described as Norwegian lobster. I ordered it, looking forward to a nice bit of lobster. But what I in fact got were three small prawns, about the size of my little finger.’
‘You complained?’
‘Yes, and I was then confronted by Sussex’s own Basil Fawlty, who produced an ancient cookbook which said these particular prawns were sometimes called Norwegian lobsters.’
‘Sounds like a good restaurant to avoid.’
‘Unless you feel in particular need of going out for a disappointment.’
‘Quite.’ She smiled again, a little less warmly, as if realizing that she and this particular man would always be on different planets. ‘So, I take it you didn’t find your wife in Munich?’
Wondering how she knew that this had been his mission, he shook his head.
‘How long has it been now?’
‘Just over nine years.’
She seemed to be about to say something further, but instead she refilled her glass. ‘Do you want any water? Tea? Coffee?’
‘I’m OK, thanks. How was your weekend?’ he said, anxious to move the subject on from Sandy, and still wondering why he had been summoned here.
‘I was at an ACC’s conference in Basingstoke on the subject of improving police performance – or rather, public perceptions of police performance. Another of Tony Blair’s cosmetic tinkerings. A bunch of slick marketing gurus telling us how to leverage our results and how to strategize and drive that process.’ She shrugged.
‘What’s the secret?’ Grace asked.
‘To go after the low-hanging fruit first.’ Her mobile phone rang. She glanced at the display and abruptly terminated the call. ‘Anyhow, for the moment murders are still a priority. What progress? And by the way, I’m going to come to this morning’s press conference.’
‘You are?’ Grace was pleasantly surprised, and relieved that he wasn’t going to be carrying it all on his shoulders. He had a feeling that with the news of the second murder the conference, which was scheduled for eleven, was going to be a tough one.
‘Can you bring me up to speed on where we’re at?’ she asked. ‘Any bones we can throw to them? Do we have any suspects? And what about the body found yesterday? Do you have enough staff on your team, Roy? Are there any extra resources you need?’
The relief he felt now that she appeared to be letting Munich drop was almost palpable. In brief summary, he brought the Assistant Chief Constable up to speed. After telling her that Brian Bishop’s Bentley had been picked up by a camera heading to Brighton at eleven forty-seven on Thursday night, and then giving her details about the life insurance policy, she raised a hand, stopping him.
‘You’ve got enough right there, Roy.’
‘Two people have provided him with pretty strong alibis. His financial adviser, with whom he had dinner, was interviewed and can distinctly remember the timeframe – which is not helpful to us. If he is telling the truth, Bishop could not have reached that camera at eleven forty-seven. And the second person is the concierge at his London flat, a Mr Oliver Dowler, who has been interviewed and confirms that he was up early that morning and helped Bishop load his golfing equipment into his car at around half-past six.’
Vosper was silent for some moments, thinking, absorbing this. Then she said, ‘That’s the elephant in the room.’
Grace smiled, grimly.
Suddenly her phone rang. Raising an apologetic finger, she answered it.
Moments later his mobile phone rang. The words private number on the display indicated it was probably work. He stood up and stepped away from the desk to answer it. ‘Roy Grace.’
It was DS Guy Batchelor. ‘I think we have something significant, Roy. I’ve just had a call from a Sandra Taylor, an analyst at the Force Intelligence Unit, who’s been allocated to this case. Did you know that Brian Bishop has a criminal record?’
73
Paul Packer sat at a table outside the Ha! Ha! bar in Pavilion Parade, in front of the entrance gates to Brighton’s Royal Pavilion, sipping a latte and watching the world go by. He had a smile on his face. At ten thirty on a hot, sunny August Monday morning, there were a lot worse places to be in the world than here, he reckoned. And this sure as hell beat working! Which was a private joke to himself, because, of course, he was working.
Not that it looked that way to the waitress, or to the people passing by. All they saw was a figure in his twenties, short and burly, with a shaven head and goatee beard, scruffily dressed in a shapeless grey T-shirt, with an exercise book open in front of him, in which he appeared to be jotting down notes, just one of the scores of students hanging out in cafés all over the city.