He said it was fine.
Where Goff had been deposited could of course have been sheer coincidence. But his body could have been dumped in any number of woods or lay-bys, or outside any of the 430,000 houses and apartment buildings in and around the city of Brighton and Hove and its neighbouring towns and villages.
But it had been dumped on the doorstep of the city’s most famous art forger.
Grace wasn’t a gambling man, but he understood odds. One and a half million people lived in the county of Sussex – East and West. The odds of Goff ending up on Hegarty’s doorstep by sheer chance were astronomical.
He spent the next twenty minutes of his walk, guided by his torch beam, up through the fields behind their house, using the time to call the key members of the new team he was assembling, asking them to attend an 8.30 a.m. briefing on Op Porcupine in the morning.
Before going back inside, he entered the hen run, checked on the birds, which were all in their shed, asleep on their perches, and retrieved four eggs – two dark brown, his favourites, one white and one blue. As an added precaution against foxes, he shut their door with a breezy, ‘Goodnight, girls and Billy!’
Then he went into the kitchen, said goodbye to Kaitlynn and used the date stamp Bruno had bought to mark each egg, then laid them at the back of the tray on the work surface. His son was always in his thoughts. Feeling pensive, he turned his attention to preparing supper, Humphrey sitting on the floor at his feet, looking up expectantly.
‘Still hungry, are you, boy? You’ve already been fed by Kaitlynn, you gannet! Are you ever not hungry?’ Grace asked. Cleo had told him after her last visit to the vet that the vet had said he was five pounds overweight.
But as he removed the cheeses from the fridge, unwrapping them and putting them on a wooden board, Humphrey continued staring up at him, making him feel guilty. He cut a few slivers off and slipped them to the dog, who swallowed them like he was inhaling them, and then looked up at his master for more.
‘Last slice, boy, OK? And don’t tell your mistress.’ He kneeled down and patted the dog, hard. ‘Fatty boom-boom, are you? Or is it all muscle tone?’
Down on his haunches, Humphrey barked at him. One sharp bark. Grace cut him one more slice – a large one. As he did so he heard the front door opening. Quickly, he slipped it into the dog’s jaws and immediately heard Cleo’s rebuke.
‘Hey, you, I saw that!’
Turning towards her, he grinned. ‘I had to – he was fifteen seconds away from dialling the RSPCA to complain we were starving him to death.’
‘Yeah yeah, you big softy!’ She stood there, in mock disapproval, in a leather jacket over a turtleneck sweater and jeans. ‘Overweight dogs are much more likely to get arthritis – no more cheese treats, OK?’
‘Understood.’ He went across and kissed her. ‘Long day, eh, my darling.’
She nodded. ‘How about a couple of Virgin Marys? I really crave one.’
‘Great idea, I’ll make them.’
She grinned and looked at the platter containing an array of cheeses, crackers, nuts, fruit and pickles. ‘I’m impressed.’
He mock-bowed, filling two glasses of cold water from the fridge dispenser and placing them on the kitchen table.
‘You have recently become quite the Domestic God, haven’t you?’ she said with an approving grin.
He grinned back. ‘Every team needs a water carrier.’
‘Is that in the Murder Manual?’
‘Page one! So, what was it you needed to go and check?’
‘Tell you over supper – I think you’ll be impressed. Maybe I should be a detective too!’
‘Oh?’
66
Sunday, 3 November
Cleo helped herself to slices from each of the cheeses, taking a particularly large chunk of the Manchego, then, after hungrily eating several mouthfuls of the cheese and biscuits, as well as a couple of grapes and a slice of cucumber, she said, ‘That gash behind Archie Goff’s ear, right?’
Grace frowned. ‘OK?’
‘Nadiuska said she thought it was made by an object with a sharp edge.’
‘She did, yes,’ he said, picking up a sourdough cracker and smearing some beetroot chutney on it.
‘It reminded me of something I’d seen before – it had really been bugging me all afternoon and I needed to go and check to see if I was right.’
‘Were you? Tell me.’
She popped another grape in her mouth, chewed and swallowed it, then looking decidedly pleased with herself, she said, ‘I think I might be. You’ve been reviewing the case of that art dealer who was murdered in Brighton a few years ago, right?’
‘Operation Canvas. It was one of Nick Sloan’s. His name was Charlie Porteous. Yes, we are reopening it, some significant new evidence has come to light.’
She ate a walnut, then another sliver of cheese. ‘So you’ve looked at the crime scene photographs?’
‘Of course.’
‘I remember it all very clearly: it was the first unsolved murder case I was involved with after joining the mortuary team. Charlie Porteous had a wound on the right side of his face, behind his ear, do you recall?’
Grace thought for a moment, it was coming back to him. ‘Yes, he did.’ He stopped eating, very curious now. Had he missed something?
‘I just looked up the postmortem report on our records – it took a while as it had been misfiled, somehow, when we changed our system. The postmortem was done by Frazer Theobald, and he had put in his notes that the wound was caused by something sharp. Do you see where I might be going?’
Grace looked at her excitedly. ‘Go on!’
She smiled. ‘From my examination, I think the wounds of Porteous and Goff are similar and may have been caused by some sort of ring with a stone. I’ve seen similar injuries on other bodies where they have been badly beaten. Maybe I should be on your team?’
‘Brilliant, Cleo! You are on the team!’ he said.
Humphrey nudged his master’s leg, hoping for another scrap but, deep in thought now, Grace ignored him. ‘You’re right, it could possibly be a link and, if so, a very significant one. Might be a long shot, but – hold on a sec.’ He jumped up from the table. ‘I’ll be back in a mo.’
He hurried upstairs to his den, and it was several minutes before he returned. ‘Sorry, darling, I had to look up the name of a specialist in identifying and matching wounds – I’ve got it. Dr Colin Duncton at Liverpool University Hospital – he’s developed some very smart software that can analyse damage to every skin and muscle cell and run a database search for matches. He’s been to the mortuary before to look at a wound on a case a while back. Talk me through this again, all you have found.’
Cleo showed him the paperwork and photographs and explained what she had identified, with the potential link between the two murders.
‘Darling, this is brilliant. You could be on to something here. I’ll have the team looking at it first thing tomorrow. If the doctor can positively link the injuries this could be a breakthrough!’
She smiled. ‘Good. Now we’ve solved that, how about next weekend, regardless of work, we take Noah to the petting zoo at Middle Farm? He’d love that – and it would do us both some good to at least have an afternoon out together as a family.’ She nestled her chin in her hands, her eyes looking up at him.
‘Love your face!’ he said.
‘I love yours too. I don’t get to see enough of it. So?’
‘You’re right, let’s do that. It’s a plan.’
She patted her tummy. ‘Bump agrees.’