Dead Man's Grip (12 page)

Cleo was asleep in the hospital bed. The sleeve of her blue hospital gown had slipped up over her elbow and Grace, who had been sitting beside her for the past hour, stared at her face, then at the downy fair hairs of her slender arm, thinking how lovely she looked when she was asleep. Then his eyes fell on the grey plastic tag around her wrist and another coil of fear rose inside him.

Wires taped to her abdomen were feeding a constant flow of information into a computer at the end of the bed, but he did not know what the stuff on the screen meant. All he could hope was that everything was OK. In the weak, stark light and flickering glow of the television she looked so pale and vulnerable, he thought.

He was scared. Sick with fear for her.

He listened to her steady breathing. Then the mournful sound of a siren cut the air as an ambulance approached somewhere below. Cleo was so strong and healthy. She looked after herself, ate the right stuff, worked out and kept fit. Sure, before she had become pregnant she liked a drink in the evening, but the moment she knew she was expecting, she had reduced it right down to just the occasional glass, and during the past few weeks she’d dutifully cut even that out completely.

One of the things he so loved about her was her positive attitude, the way she always saw the good side of people, looked for the best aspects of any situation. He believed she would be a wonderful mother. The possibility that they might lose their baby struck him harder each time he thought about it.

Even worse was the unthinkable idea that, as the consultant had warned, Cleo might die.

On his lap lay a document listing all the files needed for the prosecution case against the snuff-movie creep Carl Venner. For the past hour he’d been trying to concentrate on it – he had to read through it tonight, to check nothing had been omitted, before a meeting with Emily Curtis, a financial investigator, in the morning, to finalize the confiscation documentation – but his mind was all over the place. He reminded himself that he must ask Emily about her dog, Bobby. Besotted with him, she was always talking about Bobby and showing Grace pictures of him.

It was 9.10 p.m. A new crime show was on television, with the volume turned right down. Like most police officers, Grace rarely watched cop shows because the inaccuracies he invariably found drove him to distraction, and he’d given up on the first episode of this one last week, after just fifteen minutes, when the central character, supposedly an experienced detective, trampled all over a murder scene in his ordinary clothes.

His mind returned to the fatal accident this morning. He’d heard summaries of the first accounts from eyewitnesses. The cyclist was on the wrong side of the road, but that was not unusual – idiots did often ride on the wrong side. If it was a planned hit, then the cyclist had given the van the perfect opportunity. But how would the van have known that he was going to be on the wrong side of the road? That theory didn’t fit together at all and he wasn’t happy with it, even though the van had gone through a red light.

But the New York crime family connection bothered him, for reasons he could not define. He just had a really bad feeling about that.

Plenty of people said that the Italian Mafia, as portrayed in movies like
The Godfather
, was today a busted flush. But Grace knew otherwise. Six years ago he had done a short course at the FBI training centre at Quantico, in Virginia, and become friendly with one particular Brooklyn-based detective whose field of expertise was the Mafia.

Yes, it was a different organization from in its heyday. During Prohibition, the crime families of the US Mafia grew from strength to strength. By the mid-1930s, with command structures modelled on Roman legions, their influence touched almost everyone in America in some way. Many major unions were under their control. They were involved with the garment industry, the construction industry, all rolling stock, the New York docks, cigarettes, gambling, nightclubs, prostitution, extortion through protection rackets of thousands of businesses and premises, and loan-sharking.

Today the traditional established crime families were less visible, but no less wealthy, despite some competition from the growing so-called Russian Mafia. A major portion of their income now came from narcotics, once a taboo area for them, fake designer goods and pirated films, while large inroads had been made into online piracy.

Before leaving the office this evening he had Googled
Sal Giordino
and what he found did not make comfortable reading. Although Sal Giordino was languishing in jail, his extensive crew were highly active. They seemed to be above the law and as ruthless as any crime families before them in eliminating their rivals.

Could their tentacles have reached Brighton?

Drugs were a major factor in this city. For nine years running, Brighton had held the unwelcome title of Injecting Drug Death Capital of the UK. It was big business supplying the local addicts, but recreational drugs like cocaine were an even bigger business. The current police initiative in this sphere,
Operation Reduction
, had been extremely effective in busting several major rings, but no matter how many people were arrested, there were always new players waiting in the wings to step into their shoes. The Force Intelligence Bureau had not to date established links to any US crime families, but could that be about to change?

Suddenly his phone rang.

He stepped out of the room as he answered, not wanting to risk waking Cleo. The consultant had told him she needed all the rest she could get at this moment.

It was Norman Potting, still diligently at work in the Incident Room. Grace knew the sad reason, which was that Potting had such a terrible home life, he preferred to stay late at his desk, in an environment where at least he was wanted.

‘Boss, I’ve just had a phone call from Interpol in New York. The parents of the deceased young cyclist, Tony Revere, are on their way over in a private jet. They are due into Gatwick at 6 a.m. Thought you should know. They’ve booked a room at the Metropole in Brighton. Road Policing have arranged a Family Liaison Officer to take them to the mortuary a bit later in the morning, but I thought you might want to send someone from Major Crime as well.’

‘Smart thinking, Norman,’ Grace said, and thanked him.

After he had hung up, he thought hard. He would have liked to meet and assess the parents himself. But he did not want to alert them to any possible police suspicions at this stage and they might just think it odd that an officer of his rank turned up. It wasn’t worth the risk, he decided. If there was anything to be gained from meeting the parents, it would be best achieved by keeping things low key. So it would be better to send a more junior policeman – that way it would simply appear to be respect.

He dialled a number and moments later Glenn Branson answered. In the background, Grace could hear a theme tune he recognized from an old Clint Eastwood movie,
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
. Branson’s passion was old movies.

He could picture his friend lounging on the sofa in his – Grace’s – house, where he had been lodging for months now since his wife had thrown him out. But not for much longer, as Grace had recently put the place on the market.

‘Yo, old-timer!’ Branson said, sounding as if he had been drinking.

He’d never been much of a drinker before the collapse of his marriage, but these days Branson was drinking enough to make Grace worry about him.

‘How was the postmortem?’

‘It hasn’t revealed anything unexpected so far. There was white paint on the boy’s anorak on the right shoulder, consistent with abrasions on his skin – probably where the Transit van struck him. Death from multiple internal injuries. Blood and other fluid samples have been sent off for drug testing.’

‘All the witness statements say he was on the wrong side of road.’

‘He was American. Early morning. Might have been tired and confused. Or just a typical mad cyclist. There’s no CCTV of the actual impact.’

Changing the subject, Grace asked, ‘Did you remember to feed Marlon?’ He had to remind Branson daily to feed his goldfish.

‘Yeah, took him to Jamie Oliver’s. He had three courses, including dessert.’

Grace grinned.

Then Branson said, ‘He looks sad, you know. He needs a mate.’

So do you, badly, Grace thought, before explaining, ‘I’ve tried, but he always bloody eats every mate.’

‘Sounds like Ari.’

Ignoring Branson’s barb about his wife, he said, ‘Hope you weren’t planning a lie-in tomorrow?’

‘Why’s that?’

‘I need you back on parade at the mortuary.’

At 7.15 a.m., just twelve hours after he had left the place, Glenn Branson parked the unmarked silver Hyundai Getz in the deserted visitors’ parking area at the rear of the Brighton and Hove City Mortuary. He switched off the engine, then dug his fingers hard into his temples, trying to relieve the searing pain across the front of his head. His mouth was dry and his throat felt parched, despite having drunk a couple of pints of water, and the two paracetamols he’d taken an hour ago, when he’d woken up, had not yet kicked in. He wasn’t feeling confident that they were going to kick in at all.

His hangovers were getting worse. Probably, he reasoned, because his drinking was getting heavier. This time he had a bottle of a special-offer red wine he’d bought in ASDA to thank. He’d only intended to have one glass with his microwaved chicken casserole, in front of the telly, last night, but somehow he’d drained it.

Drowning his anger.

Trying to numb that terrible hurt inside his heart. The constant yearning for his kids, the sharp twist in his guts each time he thought about the new man who was living with his wife, playing with his kids, bathing them, God damn it. Some smarmy personal trainer he was extremely close to killing. And on top of that, all her lies in the divorce papers. They lay beside him, inside the white envelope on the passenger seat.

He had a meeting with his solicitor scheduled for this afternoon to deal with the divorce papers, and to take further advice about the financial repercussions and his contact with the children.

Everything seemed so unfair. While the police busted a gut and risked their lives to prevent crime and to lock up villains, all the moral codes had been thrown out of the window. Your wife didn’t have to be faithful. She could go off and shag whoever she wanted, throw you out of the house and move her lover in.

He climbed out despondently into the light drizzle and popped open his umbrella. His clothes weren’t helping his mood. He was attired in a navy raincoat over his dark suit, an unusually sombre tie and the plainest pair of black shoes he possessed, polished, like all his footwear, to a mirror shine. One of the few sartorial tips that he had ever been given by Roy Grace, that he actually took notice of, was how to dress respectfully on occasions like this.

With the fresh air reviving him a little, he stared uncomfortably at the closed door of the receiving bay. This place gave him the heebie-jeebies each time he came here, and it was even worse with a hangover.

The building looked greyer, darker. From the front it resembled a long suburban bungalow, with pebbledash walls and opaque windows. At the rear it looked more like a warehouse, with drive-through doors at each end, for the delivery and collection of corpses away from public view. It was situated off the busy Lewes Road gyratory system in the centre of Brighton, shielded from a row of houses next door by a high wall, and had the leafy silence of Woodvale Cemetery rising up the steep hill behind it.

He waited as he heard a car approaching. Moments later Bella Moy drove around the corner in her purple Nissan Micra and parked beside him. She was here at Roy Grace’s suggestion because, in addition to being a detective with the Major Crime Branch, she was also a trained and experienced Family Liaison Officer.

Politely, Glenn opened her door and held the umbrella over her as she climbed out.

She thanked him, then gave him a wan smile. ‘You OK?’

He grimaced and nodded. ‘Thanks, yep. Bearing up.’

He was conscious of her blue eyes looking searchingly at his and wondered if she was noticing they were bloodshot. He was out of shape, that was for sure. It had been a couple of months since he had been to the gym and for the first time in his life his six-pack had been replaced by the slight hint of a belly. Wondering if she could smell alcohol on his breath, he dug his hands into his pocket and pulled out a packet of peppermint gum. He offered it to her, but she shook her head politely. Then he popped a piece in his mouth and began to chew.

He felt sad for his colleague. Bella was a fine detective but a total fashion disaster. She had a nice face, but it was framed by shapeless hair, and she was dressed as messily as usual today, in a bulky red puffa over an old-fashioned bottle-green two-piece and clumsy black ankle boots. Everything about her lacked style, from her dull Swatch with its worn webbing strap down to her choice of wheels – a real old person’s car, in his view.

It was as if, at the age of thirty-five, she had resigned herself to a life divided between work and caring for her elderly mother, and didn’t give a damn how she looked. If he had the courage to give her a makeover, the way he had modernized Roy Grace, he could transform her into a beautiful woman, he often thought. But how could he say that to her? And besides, in today’s politically correct world, you had to walk on eggshells all the time. She might fly back at him and accuse him of being sexist.

Both of them turned at the sound of another car. A blue Ford Mondeo swung into view, pulling up next to them. Branson recognized the driver, PC Dan Pattenden from the Road Policing Unit. Beside him, hunched forward, sat an arrogant-looking man in his early fifties, with slicked-back silver hair and a suspicious expression. As he turned his head, he reminded Branson of a badger. A woman sat behind him.