‘Yep, it’s a bar and restaurant place. Classy. I’m splashing out – bit of a special bird. I would say join us, but, you know, two’s company and all that!’
She grinned. ‘Cheeky sod! And hey, who’s to say I don’t have a date myself tonight?’
‘Oh yes?’ he looked pleased for her. ‘Now, let me guess who.’
‘None of your business!’
‘Don’t suppose he works for the CID, does he?’
‘I said it’s none of your business!’
‘Then you shouldn’t snog him in the front office, should you?’ He winked.
‘What?’ she exclaimed.
‘Forget about the CCTV camera in there, did you?’
With a broad grin, he gave her a cheery wave and walked over to his car.
‘Peeping Tom!’ she called after him. ‘Voyeur! Perve!’
He turned as he opened the door of his small red Nissan. ‘Actually, if you want my opinion, you make quite a nice-looking couple!’
She flipped him the bird. Then added for good measure, ‘And don’t drink too much. Remember we’re on call tonight.’
‘You’re a fine one to talk!’
She was still grinning some minutes later as she drove around the gyratory system and into the covered car park of Sainsbury’s. Her mind was now on what she was going to give the CID officer she had snogged in the front office – as Darren had so crudely put it – to eat. As it was such a glorious evening, she decided to barbecue up on her roof terrace. Roy Grace liked seafood and fish.
Ahead of her she saw a parking space and manoeuvred in to it. She would go to the wet fish counter first and buy some uncooked prawns in their shells, if they had them, and tuna steaks. A couple of corn on the cobs. Some salad. And some sweet potatoes in their jackets, which were totally yummy on a barbecue. And a really nice bottle of rosé wine. Well, perhaps not just one bottle.
She was looking forward to this evening and hoped Grace would be able to escape from his investigation at a reasonable hour tonight. It seemed a long while since they had actually spent a proper evening together and it would be good to have a catch-up. She missed him, she realized, missed him all the time when he wasn’t around. But there was still the spectre of Sandy and his visit to Munich – she wanted the full lowdown on that.
She had learned from her last relationship that just when you thought everything was perfect, life could turn round and bite you.
96
‘His alibi,’ Grace said, slapping the palm of his left hand against his balled right fist. ‘We need to deal with it. I’ve said it before, it’s the elephant in the room.’
Paxton, Branson and Nicholl, still seated around the table in his office with him, were looking pensive. Jane topped up her beaker of water from a bottle. ‘Don’t you think we’ve got enough evidence now, Roy?’ she said. ‘You’re going to be cutting it fine for keeping Bishop in tomorrow, unless we apply to the court this evening for an extension.’
Grace considered this for some moments. The time that Bishop had been arrested yesterday, at eight p.m., was working against them. It meant they had to release him at eight tonight. They would be able to get a twelve-hour extension easily enough. But that would only take them to eight tomorrow morning. If they wanted to keep him beyond that, they would have to go before a magistrate in court with a Warrant of Further Detention application. And that would have to be arranged this evening if they wanted to avoid making phone calls at dawn and disturbing people who had every right to be left in peace to sleep.
He looked at his watch. It was five thirty-five. He picked up the phone and rang Kim Murphy.
‘Kim, you had one of the team interview Bishop’s financial adviser chap, Phil Taylor. I need Taylor’s number urgently. Can you get it for me? Or better still, get him on the phone and patch him through to me?’
While he was waiting, they discussed the ramifications of the latest evidence. Grace maintained his stance.
‘But what about the DNA evidence on Sophie Harrington, Roy?’ Nick Nicholl asked. ‘Surely that’s pretty conclusive?’
Roy was feeling impatient, but managed to hold his temper. ‘Nick, do you not get it? If Bishop’s alibi stands up, that he was in London at the time of his wife’s murder, it’s going to nix that DNA evidence – the defence will argue that somehow it got planted there. If we are too hasty in linking the murders together, we could get that DNA evidence thrown out also, on the same grounds.’
Justice, Grace had come to learn from bitter experience, was elusive, unpredictable and only occasionally actually done. Far too many things could go wrong in a court. Juries, which often consisted of people who were totally out of their depth in a court of law, could be led, swayed, bamboozled, seduced and confused; often they were prejudiced, or just plain stupid. Some judges were way past their sell-by dates; others seemed, at times, to have come from another planet. It wasn’t enough to have a watertight case, backed up with damning evidence. You still needed a lot of luck to get a conviction.
‘We have the witness who saw Bishop outside her home,’ Jane Paxton reassured him.
‘Yes?’ He was getting more irritable now by the minute. Was it the heat, he wondered? Or being so dog tired? Or having to put up with his bloody lodger? Or Sandy pressing on a raw nerve?
‘Well – I think that’s strong,’ she said, sounding defensive.
‘We need to go through a formal identification process with that witness and double-check the time-lines there before we can really make it stand up. And there may be some other evidence that comes to light over the next few days. If we’ve got Bishop inside on a charge, then for the moment the time pressure’s off on Ms Harrington. At least we’ll have thrown the press a bone.’
The phone rang. It was Kim, telling Grace that she had Phil Taylor on the line and was putting him through. Grace stepped away from the table and took the call on the phone on his desk.
When he finished, Grace stood up again. ‘He’s agreed to meet me tonight in London. Sounds a straightforward enough man.’ He looked at Branson. ‘We’ll apply for a twelve-hour extension for Bishop, then go up to London straight after the six-thirty briefing. I’d like you to come with me.’
Next he rang Norman Potting and asked him to contact the on-call PACE superintendent to make an application for a twelve-hour extension. Then he turned back to the trio in his office. ‘OK, I’ll see you all in the conference room at six thirty. Thanks very much, everyone.’
He sat back down at his desk. Now he had another task that was just as hard, in its own, very different way. How to explain to Cleo that he was going to have to go to London this evening and, with the best will in the world, was unlikely to be back down this side of midnight.
To his surprise, probably because she understood the twenty-four/seven nature of police work, she took it cheerfully.
‘That’s OK,’ she said. ‘I’m standing at the checkout in Sainsbury’s with a load of fresh prawns and scallops. Be a shame to waste them, so I’ll just have to eat them all myself.’
‘Shit, I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s OK. These murders are a lot more important than a few prawns. But you’d better hurry round when you get back down!’