Dead Man's Grip (8 page)

After saying goodbye to Cleo and promising to return later in the day, he drove out of the hospital and down to Eastern Road. He should have turned left and headed around the outskirts of the city back to his office. But instead he turned right, towards Portland Road and the accident.

Like many colleagues in the Major Crime Branch, murders fascinated him. He’d long become immune to the most grisly of crime scenes, but road fatalities were different. They almost always disturbed him – a tad too close to home. But what he needed right now was the solace of his mate, Glenn Branson. Not that the DS, who was going through a marriage break-up from hell, was exactly a comfort zone much of the time at the moment, but he had at least been in a cheerier mood this morning than Grace had seen him in for a while.

What’s more, Grace had a plan to lift him from his gloom. He wanted Glenn to try for promotion to Inspector this year. He had the ability and he possessed that most essential quality for all good coppers: a high degree of emotional intelligence. If he could just lift his friend out of his screwed-up mental state over his marriage, he was convinced he could get him there.

The mid-morning Brighton traffic was light and the rain had eased to a thin drizzle. Portland Road, with its shops and cafés, surrounded by large residential areas, was normally busy at most times of the day and night, but as Grace turned the silver Ford Focus into it, it was as quiet as a ghost town. A short distance ahead he saw a Road Policing Unit BMW estate parked sideways in the middle of the road, with crime scene tape beyond it, a uniformed PCSO scene guard with his log and a gaggle of rubberneckers, some snapping away with cameras and phones.

Beyond the tape was a hive of quiet, businesslike activity. He saw a large articulated lorry, its rear section screened off by a green tarpaulin. A black Audi convertible on the opposite side of the road against a café wall. A fire engine and the dark green coroner’s van, beside which he noticed the slim, youthful figure of Darren Wallace, Cleo’s Assistant Anatomical Pathology Technician, as the deputy chief mortician was known, and his colleague, Walter Hordern, a dapper, courteous man in his mid-forties. Both were smartly dressed in anoraks over their white shirts, black ties, black trousers and black shoes.

Further along was another tape across the road, a scene guard and another RPU vehicle parked sideways, with more rubberneckers just beyond. Alongside it were a VOSA – a Vehicle and Operator Services Agency – inspection van and a Collision Investigation Unit van.

He saw several police officers he recognized, including the uniformed Road Policing Unit Inspector, James Biggs, and a SOCO photographer, James Gartrell, working away methodically. Some of them were combing the road and one senior Road Collision Investigation Unit officer he knew well, Colin O’Neill, was walking the area and taking notes, while talking to Glenn Branson, to Tracy Stocker, the Major Crime Branch Crime Scene Manager, and to the Coroner’s Officer, Philip Keay. Unlike at most crime scenes, none of those present was wearing protective suits and overshoes. RTC sites were generally considered already too contaminated.

A buckled bicycle lay on the road, with a numbered yellow crime scene marker beside it. There was another marker next to some debris that looked like a broken bicycle lamp. A short distance behind the lorry he saw a fluorescent jacket covering something, with another marker beside that. More markers were dotted around.

Before he had a chance to hail Branson, suddenly, materializing out of the ether, as he seemed to do at every crime scene Grace attended these days, was Kevin Spinella, the young crime reporter from the local paper, the
Argus
. In his mid-twenties, with bright eyes and a thin face, he was chewing gum with small, sharp teeth that always reminded Grace of a rat. His short hair was matted to his head by the rain and he was wearing a dark mackintosh with the collar turned up, a loud tie with a massive knot and tasselled loafers.

‘Good morning, Detective Superintendent!’ he said. ‘A bit nasty, isn’t it?’

‘The weather?’ Grace said.

Spinella grinned, making a curious movement with his jaw, as if a piece of gum had got stuck in the wrong place.

‘Na! You know what I’m talking about. Sounds like it could be a murder from what I hear – is that what you think?’

Grace was guarded, but tried to avoid being openly rude to the man. The police needed the local media on their side as they could be immensely useful. But equally, he knew, they could at times bite you hard and painfully.

‘You tell me. I’ve only just arrived, so you probably know more than I do.’

‘Witnesses I’ve spoken to are talking about a white van that went through a red light and hit the cyclist, then accelerated off at high speed.’

‘You should be a detective,’ Grace said, seeing Glenn Branson making a beeline towards him.

‘Think I’ll stick to reporting. Anything you’d like to tell me?’

Yes. Fuck off, Grace thought. Instead, he replied pleasantly, ‘Anything we find out, you’ll be the first to know.’ He nearly added, You always are anyway, even if we don’t tell you.

It was an ongoing cause of irritation to Roy Grace that Spinella had a mole inside Sussex Police that enabled him always to get to the scene of any crime way ahead of the rest of the press pack. For the past year he had been quietly digging away to discover that person’s identity, but so far he had made no progress. One day, though, he promised himself, he would hang that creep out to dry.

He turned away, signed his name on the log and ducked under the tape to greet Glenn Branson. Then they both walked off towards the lorry, safely out of earshot of the reporter.

‘What have you got?’ Grace asked.

‘Young male under the lorry. They’ve found a student ID card. His name’s Anthony Revere, he’s at Brighton Uni. Someone’s gone there to get his full details and next of kin. From what the Collision Investigation Unit’s been able to piece together so far, seems like he came out of a side road – St Heliers Avenue – turned right, east, on the wrong side of Portland Road, causing that Audi travelling west to swerve on to the pavement. He was then hit by a white van that had gone through the red light, a Transit or similar, that was behind the Audi, also travelling west. The van flipped him across the road, under the wheels of the artic, which was travelling east. Then the van did a runner.’

Grace thought for a moment. ‘Anyone ID the driver?’

Branson shook his head. ‘There are a lot of witnesses. I’ve got a team covering the area for any CCTV footage. I’ve put an alert out to the RPU to stop any white van within two hours’ driving distance of here. But that’s kind of needle in a haystack territory.’

Grace nodded. ‘No registration?’

‘Not yet – but with luck we’ll get something from a CCTV.’

‘What about the drivers of the Audi and the lorry?’

‘Woman Audi driver’s in custody – failed a breath test. Lorry driver’s in shock. Colin O’Neill from the Collision Investigation Unit’s had a look at his tachometer – he’s way out of hours.’

‘Well, that’s all looking great, then,’ Grace said sarcastically. ‘A drunk driver in one vehicle, an exhausted one in another and a third who’s scarpered.’

‘We do have one piece of evidence so far,’ Branson said. ‘They’ve found part of a damaged wing mirror that looks like it’s from the van. It has a serial number on it.’

Grace nodded. ‘Good.’ Then he pointed along the road. ‘What’s under the fluorescent jacket?’

‘The cyclist’s right leg.’

Grace swallowed. ‘Glad I asked.’

Specially trained Family Liaison Officers were used whenever possible but, depending on circumstances and availability, any member of the police force could find themselves delivering a death message. It was the least popular duty, and officers of the Road Policing Unit tended, reluctantly, to get the lion’s share.

PC Tony Omotoso was a muscular, stocky black officer with ten years’ experience in the unit, who’d once had his own brush with death on a police motorcycle. Despite all the horrors he had seen, and experienced personally, he remained cheerful and positive, and was always courteous, even to the worst offenders he encountered.

His first task had been to make next-of-kin enquiries from the information that he’d found in the victim’s rucksack, which had been lying underneath the lorry. The most useful item in it had been the deceased’s student card from Brighton University.

A visit to the registrar’s office at the university had revealed that Tony Revere was a US citizen, twenty-one years old and cohabiting with another student, Susan Caplan, who was English, from Brighton. No one had seen her on campus today and she wasn’t due to attend any lectures until tomorrow, so it was likely that she was at home. The university had the contact details of Revere’s family in New York, but Omotoso and the registrar made the decision that Susan Caplan should be informed first. Hopefully she would have more details about him and would be able to formally identify his body.

As much for moral support as anything else, Omotoso drove back down to the incident scene and collected his regular shift partner, PC Ian Upperton. A tall, lean officer with fair hair cropped to a fuzz, Upperton had a young family. Bad accidents were a part of his everyday routine, but those involving youngsters, such as this, were the ones he took home with him, like most officers.

He greeted PC Omotoso’s request to join him with a resigned shrug. In the Road Policing Unit you learned to get on with the job, however grim. And once a week, on average, it would be really grim. Last Sunday afternoon, he had found himself sweeping up the body parts of a motorcyclist. Three days later he was now heading off to deliver a death message.

If you allowed it to get to you, you were sunk, so he tried as hard as he could never to let it. But sometimes, like now, he just couldn’t help it. Particularly as he himself had recently bought a bicycle.

They were both silent as Tony Omotoso drove the marked police car slowly down Westbourne Villas, a wide street that ran south from New Church Road to the seafront. Both of them peered out at the numbers on the large detached and semi-detached Victorian properties. Every few seconds the wipers made a sudden
clunk-clunk
against the light drizzle, then fell silent. Ahead of them, beyond the end of the street, the restless waters of the English Channel were a dark, ominous grey.

Like their hearts.

‘Coming up on the right,’ Upperton said.

They parked the car outside a semi-detached house that looked surprisingly smart for student accommodation, then walked along the black and white tiled path to the front door, tugging on their caps. Both of them looked at the Entryphone panel with its list of names. Number 8 read:
Caplan/Revere
.

PC Omotoso pressed the button.

Both of them were secretly hoping there would be no answer.

There wasn’t.

He pressed the buzzer again. Give it a few more tries, then they could leave and with any luck it might become someone else’s problem.

But to his dismay there was a crackle of static, followed by a sleepy-sounding voice.

‘Hello?’

‘Susan Caplan?’ he asked.

‘Yes. Who is it?’

‘Sussex Police. May we come in, please?’

There was a silence lasting a couple of seconds but felt much longer. Then, ‘Police, did you say?’

Omotoso and Upperton shot each other a glance. They were both experienced enough to know that a knock on the door from the police was something that was rarely welcomed.

‘Yes. We’d like to speak to you, please,’ Omotoso said pleasantly but firmly.

‘Uh – yuh. Come up to the second floor, door at the top. Are you calling about my handbag?’

‘Your handbag?’ he said, thrown by the question.

Moments later there was a rasping buzz, followed by a sharp click. Omotoso pushed the door open and they went into a hallway which smelled of last night’s cooking – something involving boiled vegetables – and a faint hint of old wood and old carpet. Two bicycles leaned against the wall. There was a crude rack of pigeonhole mail boxes and several advertising leaflets for local takeaways were lying on the floor. The exterior might look smart, but the common parts inside looked tired.

They walked up the manky, threadbare stair carpet and, as they reached the top of the second flight, a door with flaking paintwork directly in front of them opened. A pretty girl, about twenty, Omotoso estimated, parcelled in a large white bath towel and barefoot, greeted them with a sleepy smile. Her shoulder-length dark hair was in need of some attention.

‘Don’t tell me you’ve found it!’ she said. ‘That would be amazing!’

Both men courteously removed their caps. As they entered the narrow hallway of the flat, there was a smell of brewing coffee and a tinge of masculine cologne in the air.

Tony Omotoso said, ‘Found what?’

‘My handbag?’ She squinted at them quizzically.

‘Handbag?’

‘Yes. The one some shit stole at Escape Two while we were dancing on Saturday night.’

It was a nice flat, he clocked, walking into the open-plan living area, but untidy and sparsely furnished, in typical student fashion. It had polished bare oak flooring, a big flat-screen television, expensive-looking hi-fi and minimalistic but tatty dark brown leather furniture. A laptop on a desk near the window overlooking the street was switched on, showing a Facebook homepage. Strewn haphazardly around the floor were a pair of trainers, a screwed-up cardigan, female panties, a single white sock, piles of paperwork, a half-empty coffee mug, several DVDs, an iPod with earphones plugged in and the remains of a Chinese takeaway.

It had been Ian Upperton who’d had to break the news last time they had done this, so they had agreed between them that today it was Omotoso’s turn. Every officer had their own way of doing it and Omotoso favoured the gentle but direct approach.