Want You Dead

72

  Friday, 1 November

  Roy Grace snapped open his eyes and stared into darkness. He was gulping down air and shivering. His pillow felt sodden, his hair wet. His whole body was damp with perspiration and the sheet was soaked. He stared around, bewildered and panic-stricken, and had no idea where he was. His mouth was parched and he had a sharp, pounding headache.

  Oh shit.

  Where the hell was he? The bed was narrow, hard and too short. He was in Glenn’s house, he remembered now. He put out a hand for the light switch, struck something hard, and an instant later heard the sound of breaking glass and gurgling water.

  Shit.

  He found his phone and pushed the command button on it. In the meagre glow from it, he found the bedside light and turned that on, and saw the broken glass lying on its side, water pooling around his watch and soaking his handkerchief.

  He was in a tiny room, with a row of teddy bears on the floor and a pink wardrobe. One of Glenn’s children’s rooms, he realized. The kids were staying over at Glenn’s sister’s house until Saturday. It was all coming back now.

  They’d gone to a private room at the Bohemia bar in Brighton last night. All his team had been assembled there. Then all the blokes had gone on to a lap-dancing club on North Street called Grace. Drunken, shaven-headed cops shoving tenners and twenty-pound notes down the front of leggy girls’ panties. Leching and leering. Endless drinks. What the hell was it about the human psyche that told you if you had one more brandy, you’d feel less shit the next day than if you didn’t have it?

  The clock on his phone told him it was 4.55 a.m.

  He needed water. Paracetamols. A piss.

  He wished he was home in bed with Cleo. He lay for some moments in the glow of the light, too tired to move, reflecting, feeling a deep sense of gloom. It had felt so real. Frighteningly real. Sandy standing there. What the hell was his mind trying to tell him?

  It was Friday morning. He was getting married tomorrow. And suddenly he felt really scared. What if Sandy was still out there somewhere? What if she really did turn up at their wedding?

  Come on, she’s been declared legally dead. She is dead.

  He was shaking.

  But the damned dream had felt so real.

  He scrolled to the flashlight app on his iPhone and switched it on. Then he climbed out of bed, padded into the corridor and, using the beam, found the bathroom. He switched on the light, urinated, then opened a cabinet and lucked into a packet of paracetamol. He popped two of them, slung them into his mouth, ran the cold tap and lowered his face under the spout, gulping down the pills with the cold, fresh water. Then he padded back into the bedroom, opened the window with some difficulty, and lay down again, naked, feeling the cooling night air on his face and his body.

  Before developing her interest in philosophy, Cleo had studied psychology, and a big part of that had been dream analysis. Shed told him a lot about that. That we all had unresolved problems presented to us in our dreams. That made sense to him. Sandy appearing at his wedding. Of course.

  He pushed the dream aside, and all the phantom thoughts that accompanied it. A dangerous creep, alias Bryce Laurent, was out there, a very real threat to Red Westwood. How many sodding aliases did the man have?

  Where was he now?

  73

  Friday, 1 November

  Last night had not been a good idea, Roy Grace thought, staring at the sea of tired faces gathered around the conference room table for the 8.30 a.m. morning briefing for Operation Aardvark. Half his Major Enquiry Team out drinking and then fooling around in a lap-dancing club into the small hours, in the middle of a homicide investigation and manhunt.

  Guy Batchelor, Jon Exton and Norman Potting all looked pretty bleary-eyed and useless this morning. The normally sharply dressed forensic podiatrist Haydn Kelly was looking like he’d slept the night in a hedge. The only two of his team who had stayed the course and who seemed remotely sparky today were Crime Scene Manager Dave Green and Glenn Branson; the latter, taking his best man duties seriously, had remained on soft drinks all night.

  Shit, he hoped Nicola Roigard, the Police and Crime Commissioner, did not get to hear of this; he knew she had strong views on behaviour and commitment to duty. And pernicious Cassian Pewe, who took over responsibility as his boss as the new Assistant Chief Constable next Monday, would have a field day if he found out; but no one had done anything wrong, so far as he knew.

  He looked at his watch. Nearly four hours since he had last taken two paracetamols, so it would be safe to take another couple now, he reckoned. He popped them from the blister pack, and gulped them down with a glass of water. Nothing so far was relieving his splitting headache. And he had a deep dread inside him, as if something terrible was about to happen at any moment. Not even the massive, greasy, sizzling fried egg and bacon bap from Trudie’s burger van parked a short distance away, which he had forced down, along with a Coke, which normally served as an instant hangover remedy, was having any effect – at least so far.

  Christ, man, pull yourself together, he thought. You’re getting married tomorrow to the woman you love.

  He stared down at his notes for the meeting and opened his policy book. A copy of today’s Argus newspaper lay beside them. The frontpage headline shouted, MANHUNT FOR BRIGHTON ARSONIST.

  Bryce Laurent’s photograph and the list of his known aliases were there on the front page, and the story had also appeared on the morning TV news apparently. Hopefully some member of the public would recognize him soon.

  ‘As I informed you yesterday, until I return from honeymoon at the end of next week, I’ve appointed DI Branson to temporarily take over as SIO on Operation Aardvark, and he will run today’s meeting.’ He nodded at his colleague.

  Glenn Branson said, ‘Yeah, right, team, okay.’ He paused to look down at his notes. ‘Right, last night, following intelligence information from the High Tech Crime Unit, we executed a raid on premises in Westbourne Terrace, Hove, occupied by Bryce Laurent, which we have subsequently been informed he rented under one of his aliases. When we entered it became evident he had cleared out and left – I’m delegating the Outside Enquiry Team to talk to all residents in the area to see if they noticed anyone loading a vehicle either yesterday or any previous days. After making a death threat against Red Westwood’s parents, her family home burned down yesterday – it would seem very likely Laurent is the perpetrator. We have to find this man very quickly. Red Westwood is aware of the danger she is in, but is determined to carry on with her daily life. She’s refusing to let Bryce Laurent win, as she sees it. The one advantage of this from our standpoint is that by remaining visible, she is a magnet for Laurent. It may provide an opportunity to set a trap for him, but we will deal with that outside of this meeting. I don’t think it is remotely likely that Laurent has gone away, but it is possible he’s lying low for a bit. One thing is for sure, he has expensive tastes. Wherever he is hiding, he’ll be spending money on something. And if he’s using credit cards, he’ll be leaving a trail.’

  He turned to the financial investigator, Gordon Graham. ‘Do you have anything to report, Gordon?’

  ‘Yes, I do, sir.’ Graham pointed up at the whiteboard showing photographs of both Red Westwood and Bryce Laurent, and the date of their separation in red ink. ‘Approximately two months later, Bryce Laurent began withdrawing large cash amounts from his bank account with HSBC in Ditchling Road, Brighton. This money had come from his mother’s estate – mostly from the sale of her house. The manager became alarmed and spoke to him about the withdrawals – a professional courtesy – to try to find out if he was being blackmailed or was the victim of a confidence trick, or perhaps a gambling addiction. Laurent told him to mind his own business. By 9 September, he had withdrawn a total of over seven hundred and fifty thousand quid, cleaning out the account, which he then closed down.’

  ‘Did he deposit this money anywhere else, do we know?’ Grace asked.

  ‘So far we haven’t found
anything. We’ve been running checks on all banks, building societies and post offices across the UK to see which of them have received large cash deposits during this period – and after – and so far no dice.’

  ‘Why would someone withdraw that amount of cash?’ DS Batchelor asked, stifling a yawn. ‘If it came from his mother’s estate, it can’t be any form of money laundering.’

  ‘Drugs, sir?’ ventured DC Alec Davies.

  ‘Drugs, gambling, blackmail, smuggling it into some country where foreign currency is at a premium,’ Graham replied. ‘Or to be able to live and travel around without leaving a financial trail. Which so far Laurent seems to have done very successfully. I’ve been in contact with the City of London Police, who run the biggest financial database in the country, sir,’ he said. ‘I worked with their Commissioner, Adrian Leppard, when he was a chief officer in Kent. They’ve been given all Laurent’s aliases. All credit card purchases and cash withdrawals made in the name of any of his aliases are being investigated. But it’s a mammoth task. Almost all his aliases are common names.’

  Dave Green raised his hand, and Glenn nodded at him. ‘If Laurent has left his accommodation, and is remaining local, then he has to be staying somewhere, boss.’

  ‘Quite right,’ Roy Grace said. ‘This morning we need to draft in more uniform officers to visit every hotel, boarding house and letting agency in the city and surrounding area with Laurent’s photograph and see if we get a hit on any of the aliases. I have this in hand – Superintendent Watson at John Street is on the case for us. But hearing what you’ve said, we need to also check out any residents who pay in cash.’

  A mobile phone rang. The James Bond theme tune. Blushing, Norman Potting fumbled in his pocket and silenced it.

  Then Roy Grace’s phone rang. He looked at the screen and saw it was the Control Room. ‘Roy Grace,’ he answered, as quietly as he could.

  ‘Sir, I have a member of the public urgently wanting to speak to someone about Operation Aardvark. He says he read about it in the Argus and may have some important information for you.’

  Grace stepped away as she patched the caller through, and slipped out of the door, closing it behind him, speaking into the receiver.

  ‘Detective Superintendent Grace, I’m the Senior Investigating Officer. How can I help you?’

  The man’s voice sounded confident, and a tad smug. ‘I know who your arsonist is, Detective Superintendent,’ he said.

  ‘You do?’ Roy Grace asked sceptically, not liking the man’s voice at all.

  ‘Trust me, I know.’

  ‘What is your name, sir?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. I suggest you take a look at a firefighter at Worthing fire station. Matt Wainwright. He’s your man.’

  ‘Tell me more.’

  But the line had gone dead.

  Grace called the controller back and asked if she had the man’s number. But, no surprise, the number was withheld.

  He thought for a moment. Tip-offs could be highly valuable, but as often as not they were crank calls that proved to be a huge waste of police resources. It was always hard to gauge whether one was real or not. He hadn’t liked the man’s voice; there was something deeply unpleasant about it. Could he have been a colleague of the firefighter with a grudge?

  The door opened, and Glenn Branson came out. ‘You okay, old timer?’

  Grace nodded.

  ‘You look green as hell. I think you should go back to bed.’

  ‘I’ll be okay.’ He held up his phone. ‘Just had a response from the Argus piece this morning. We’ve been given a name. A fire officer in Worthing. But the caller sounded odd.’

  ‘Bryce Laurent was a firefighter once.’

  ‘Is there anything Laurent hasn’t sodding been?’ Grace said. ‘Do we know where?’

  They went back into the conference room and Grace tasked DC Jack Alexander with contacting Worthing Fire and Rescue to see if they had a Matt Wainwright working there, and a researcher, Becky Davies, to find out if Bryce Laurent had ever worked for the Fire and Rescue Service and, if so, when and where.

  As Glenn Branson looked down at his notes to move on to the next item, an internal phone warbled insistently. Guy Batchelor looked at Branson for a nod, then picked up the receiver. ‘DS Batchelor, Operation Aardvark.’

  There was a moment of silence as all eyes were on the Detective Sergeant, as if sensing from his body language that the call was significant.

  It was.

  He thanked the caller and replaced the receiver, then turned to Glenn Branson, his eyes moving from him to Roy Grace and back. ‘That was an officer called Gwen Barry, from the UK Border Agency at the Eurostar Channel Tunnel terminal in Folkestone. She’s got a sighting of Bryce Laurent, using one of his known aliases, Paul Riley, on CCTV footage. He was spotted in the duty-free shop yesterday evening at 11.25 p.m., picking up whisky and cigarettes, then he drove a Toyota, index Golf Victor Zero Six Kilo Bravo November, and boarded a train to Calais.’

  ‘Who’s the car registered to?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Avis rental. It was picked up from their depot at Gatwick four days ago.’

  ‘Let’s see if we can get his ID confirmed from some of the staff there.’

  Branson nodded and made a note.

  Eurostar last night, Grace thought to himself. 11.25. France was an hour ahead, so with the half-hour crossing time the train would have arrived around 1 a.m. Time enough for Bryce Laurent to be anywhere in Europe by now. Or indeed, if he had gone to an airport, anywhere in the world.

  But why?

  Okay, he had a grudge against Red Westwood’s parents, but they were a sideshow compared to his grudge against Red herself, surely? Leaving the country made no sense.

  Then he had a thought. Turning to Branson, he said, ‘Glenn.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘Get Red Westwood on the phone.’

  Less than a minute later Branson handed Grace his iPhone.

  ‘Ms Westwood?’ he asked.

  ‘Sorry to bother you, but this is urgent. It might seem a strange question, but is Bryce Laurent a smoker?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Emphatically not. He has a pathological hatred of smoking.’

  Grace frowned. ‘Okay, what about whisky?’

  ‘Whisky? Like in Scotch?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘No, he hates that too. Champagne and fine white wines are all he will touch.’

  ‘Okay, thanks, that’s really helpful.’ He ended the call and turned to his colleagues, who were frowning.

  ‘Guy, get the Border Agency woman back. I want to know what their CCTV cameras cover, and I want all footage they have of Laurent sent here right away, like now. I want all the footage with him and without him, everything from every camera in and around the duty-free shop from the time he was first sighted. Get on to Kent; ask them to send it to us digitally as soon as possible.’

  74

  Friday, 1 November

  At 10.50 Guy Batchelor phoned Roy Grace, who was in his office trying to clear his email inbox of everything that needed an urgent answer before he left at the end of his final day, to tell him the CCTV footage from Folkestone had come through.

  Ten minutes later, Grace sat with Glenn Branson, Guy Batchelor and Ray Packham in a small viewing room in the CID HQ, and Packham started the footage running. The first thing they saw, in reasonable-quality colour, was Bryce Laurent, casually dressed in a leather bomber jacket, slacks and boots, walking across a car park at a leisurely pace towards the Eurostar Terminal and the DUTY FREE shopping sign. Laurent paused to look around, turning one way, then another. Not like a shopper getting his bearings, Grace thought, more like someone posing.

  ‘Definitely him?’ Batchelor asked.

  ‘From all the pictures I’ve seen, yes,’ Grace said, and looked at Branson for confirmation.

  The DS nodded. ‘It’s him.’

  Then Laurent did a strange thing; he turned a full, slow, three hundred and sixty degrees,
then carried on, still at his slow pace, as if he had all the time in the world, towards the doors of the building.

  ‘What was all that about?’ Branson said. ‘The pirouette.’

  ‘I’ll tell you, if my hunch is right,’ Grace replied.

  The next section of footage was from a grainier camera inside the building. After a few moments it picked up Laurent, from the rear, pulling two cartons of cigarettes from a shelf and placing them in a wire shopping basket. He turned slowly around, then back and walked out of shot. Next they saw him, picked up by another camera, again from the rear. He was looking at a selection of whiskies. He made a choice, pulled two bottles out and also placed them in his basket. Then he turned right around again, before once more walking out of sight.

  Grace noted down the time showing on the video. 23.33. Then he turned to Packham. ‘Ray, can you find the camera covering the checkout desks?’

  They saw several other views of the interior of the duty-free shopping area, as Packham scrolled through the cameras. Then a clear view of the checkout tills. Grace looked at the clock. 23.32. He sat for several minutes watching, until 23.38, then said to Packham, ‘Okay, Ray, now show me the exterior shot of the duty-free terminal. Pick it up from 23.32.’

  A few moments later the camera view came up. 23.32. Then 23.33; 23.34; 23.35. Then at 23.36 Laurent strode out, and walked across the car park. He was empty-handed.

  ‘What’s he done with his purchases?’ Guy Batchelor asked.

  Grace shook his head. ‘He didn’t buy anything. He doesn’t smoke and he doesn’t like whisky.’

  ‘Are we missing something here?’ Glenn Branson said.

  ‘I don’t think we are,’ Grace replied. ‘No. He just wanted to make sure the cameras saw him. He wanted to make sure we knew he was at Eurostar, leaving the country. Because, in my view, he wants us to believe he’s gone.’

  ‘But he has, hasn’t he?’ the DI said. ‘There’s footage of him driving onto the train.’

  ‘Yep,’ Grace said. ‘He went to France last night, all right. But I wouldn’t be too sure he’s still there this morning.’