‘You think this is all a ruse to make us think he’s gone away?’ Batchelor said.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s not back here already,’ Grace said. ‘And I think we’d be wise to presume he is.’
75
Friday, 1 November
His beard itched in the warm fug of the transport cafe. The false beard he had glued on, in his rental Toyota, in the darkness of the public car park near to the Eurostar station in Calais.
He had googled it in advance and learned from conversation threads online that the car park was free and had no CCTV surveillance. Hundreds of people parked there for their visits on the train to England, so it was likely to be a long time before anyone took any interest in the car, many weeks with luck. By then his job would be done and he would be well gone.
The warmth in here felt good, and the second mug of strong builder’s tea was helping his body to thaw and dry out. He’d had a long, cold vigil up on the freezing deck of the ferry, where he had remained throughout the voyage to avoid any risk of being seen. Then his traipse on foot through early morning Dover in the pelting rain. No one would be expecting him to return to England so soon, but even so he had taken every precaution not to be noticed entering the ferry port, or on the ferry, or leaving it.
Wearing a hoodie over his bobble hat, he sat hunched over the tired Formica tabletop, ignored by the handful of other men in here, eating his fry-up, sipping his scalding tea, and making a pretence of reading the Daily Mail. The headlines were a spat between the Mail and the Labour leader. Politics had never interested him at the best of times. And right now he had plenty of things that interested him much more. Such a busy weekend ahead, so much to do.
Starting with the wedding!
Just how would Red Westwood feel when the detective in charge of hunting him down was felled with a crossbow bolt through his right eye in front of the church where he had just got married? He could just picture the scene. The smiling groom, the radiant bride, all the relatives and friends gathered around. The limousines outside with their white ribbons fluttering. Then . . .
THWANG!
No one would even hear it. It would arc over their heads. The dum-dummed tip slicing through the ball of jelly that was his eye, then piercing his brain and disintegrating into fragments, still at high velocity. Then the screaming would begin!
But it wasn’t the screaming at the wedding that he looked forward to hearing. It was the silent screaming inside Red Westwood’s head and heart when she realized that no one, not even the county’s top detective, was capable of protecting her.
And there would be plenty more screaming from her vocal cords when he had her back in his possession, which was going to happen very soon now. So much screaming and pleading for mercy that she was not going to get. Mercy that was just not going to happen. He was looking forward to that moment. That very long moment that had been a long time coming. It was all he lived for. All he had to live for now.
Soon, baby!
76
Friday, 1 November
Red Westwood sat in the morning management meeting at Mishon Mackay, trying to focus on work but distracted by the strange call she had received on her way here from Detective Superintendent Roy Grace asking her whether Bryce smoked and liked whisky. Why did he need to know that?
Geoff Brady, their gung-ho manager, a burly man in a chalk-striped suit, was pointing at the whiteboard on the wall. At the top was written in purple handwriting the word COUNTDOWN and the figure £146,900, the amount remaining for their commission target for the year to be achieved with just two months to go. Below was a chart titled, NEW INSTRUCTIONS, HOT PROPERTIES, with prices ranging from £179,950 up to £3,500,000.
This was a crucial month, Brady was saying. Still time for people to purchase new homes in time for Christmas. He was urging them all to go for it. Make sure they hit their viewing targets of fifteen per day. They could do it!
She listened to the jargon that shed had to learn. PTS, which was preparing to sell. NOM – not on market. U/O – under offer. FTB – first-time buyer. BTL – buy to let.
He held up the thick handwritten ledger in which all instructions and viewings were recorded. Although they were highly computerized, they still kept handwritten information as backup. Each of the agents contributed their updates.
After the meeting ended, Brady arranged for the team to go out for a drink together after work. This was customary on a Friday, their perk for the week before the biggest day of all, Saturday, when they would all be flat out. Red returned to her desk. She looked through her diary at today’s booked viewings, and checked her messages, annoyed at the number of cancellations that had come in – over twenty per cent of her bookings. Then she ran her eye down the list of new instructions, noting the ones that might be of interest to clients with whom she had developed a rapport, whom she considered her own, and started making calls to them, following up the successful calls by emailing details and ensuring printed copies were mailed out to them that day.
She was glad of the distraction of work, but equally she was aware she was not firing on all cylinders and that inside she was shaking, and conscious that she was not sounding her usual confident, enthusiastic self. Which of course, she knew, was exactly what Bryce wanted.
And she was determined not to be beaten.
But Christ, it was hard today. She looked over to her right, through the large window onto the street and at the Tesco superstore across the road. A bus went past, then a taxi, and a line of cars. Then a yellow ambulance wailed by. A cyclist, in a yellow sou’wester, pedalled miserably past in the heavy rain. Rain as heavy as her heart.
Her parents had lost their home. She and her sister had lost it, too. All their childhood memories gone. Their childhood photographs turned to ash. Her parents had aged a decade yesterday. All her fault.
Her phone rang and she grabbed the receiver. ‘Red Westwood,’ she answered, hoping, desperately hoping, that it was Detective Inspector Branson or PC Spofford calling to tell her that Bryce Laurent had been arrested and was in custody. But it wasn’t. It was a man with an American accent enquiring about one of their most expensive properties, a secluded house in prestigious Tongdean Avenue, whose owners spent most of their time at another of their homes in Naples, Florida.
‘They’re asking £3.5 million?’ he said.
‘That’s correct, sir, yes,’ she replied politely, her enthusiasm rising a tad, sensing a possible opportunity here. This would be a huge commission for her.
‘It’s been on the market for several months, I see?’
‘It’s a fabulous property. We do have a lot of interest,’ she fibbed.
‘This would suit my family very well – my wife Michele, our son, Brad, and me. I’m a cash buyer but the asking price is a bit of a stretch. Do you think they might be open to offers?’
‘I’d strongly recommend a viewing, sir. This is one of the finest residential properties in the city of Brighton and Hove. I’m sure the owners would be prepared to consider an offer.’
She was fibbing again. The owners had left firm instructions that they were in no hurry to sell, and would not budge from the asking price. But this man sounded a real prospect, and if he saw the house, perhaps he would fall in love with it.
‘I’m tied up this weekend. What about Monday?’
‘What time Monday would suit you, sir? The owners are away so we are flexible on time.’
‘Midday?’
‘Perfect. My name’s Red Westwood. Would you like me to email you or pop the brochure in the post?’
‘No, I have everything, thank you.’
‘Okay, good, I will meet you there. May I have your name and mobile phone number, please, sir?’
‘Andrew Austin,’ he replied, and gave her the number.
‘I look forward to meeting you, Mr Austin.’
‘I look forward to meeting you, too, Ms Westwood.’
And he was looking forward to it. She had not recognized his
voice! Bryce Laurent, standing outside, the awning of the cafe providing him with scant shelter against the driving rain, was really looking forward to it.
So was Red Westwood. She was required to enter Andrew Austin’s name on the computer, his contact details, and the price range he was interested in, so that the other agents could approach him with any new instructions that came in that might suit him. But even though she had only been with Mishon Mackay a short while, she had already started picking up the tricks. So she did enter his details, but she deliberately transposed two of the digits in his phone number. Then she smiled. The sale of a £3.5 million property would be a shit-load of commission. And she intended to make sure she got it.
77
Friday, 1 November
THWANG!
Through the cross hairs of the telescopic sight on his Legacy 225 carbon-fibre crossbow, Bryce Laurent watched the flight of the lead-tipped aluminium bolt, flying at 265 feet per second towards the grinning, bright orange pumpkin on a stake in the middle of the field, eighty yards away. The bolt arced several feet over the top and planted itself, with a faint thud, into the wild grass some way beyond.
In The Day of the Jackal, one of his favourite films, which he had watched repeatedly in recent weeks, the Jackal, played by Edward Fox, had practised shooting the French President in the head by firing at a watermelon. But with Halloween just over, pumpkins were more readily obtainable. And easier to shape into a face with a Stanley knife.
The face of Detective Superintendent Roy Grace.
Who was getting married tomorrow.
He reloaded, winding the bow back, adjusted the sight, and lined Roy Grace up again in the cross hairs. Centre of his forehead. ‘How about this one, Detective Superintendent Grace, Senior Investigating Officer of Operation Aardvark?’ He squeezed the trigger, and the powerful weapon kicked in his hands. He kept the cross hairs locked on his target. An instant later, there was an orange blur as it tore through the very top of the pumpkin.
Bryce Laurent grinned with satisfaction. How nice would it be to see the top of Detective Superintendent Roy Grace’s scalp fly off, just as he was standing outside the porch of the church tomorrow afternoon, posing for the wedding photographs with his bride? Just like all those images of John F. Kennedy in the back of the Lincoln convertible in Dallas when the sniper’s bullet took off the top of his scalp with a little bit of hair.
But there was an image that he liked even better. It was a colour picture in a history book when he was at school, illustrating a scene from the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The scene of the English king, Harold, with an arrow in his right eye. The arrow from an archer that had pierced his brain.
Bryce Laurent reloaded again. He made a small adjustment, then aimed at the slit he had cut to the right of Detective Superintendent Grace’s nose. His right eye. He held the cross hairs on it for several moments. He felt so steady. So calm. As if this was part of his destiny.
Gently, as he had been instructed, he squeezed the trigger, taking up the slack. Then a little more. More. More.
THWANG!
The bolt flew. For an instant, in the kick of the weapon, he lost sight of the target. But he found it again almost instantly. Just in time to see it explode, as if a bomb had detonated inside it.
Cutting the front off the lead tips on the arrows had worked, he thought. That made them just as deadly as dum-dum bullets. He smiled, pleased with himself. Incredibly pleased. Actually, beyond pleased.
The pumpkin had disintegrated into a thousand fragments. He’d struck it where he’d aimed from a range of eighty yards. He had already measured out the distance from his intended hiding place to the church porch in Rottingdean. It was only sixty-seven yards. So he could be even more accurate still!
He walked across to his Land Rover and took another pumpkin from the rear and spiked it on the stake. Until the light failed, on the remote farmland close to his firework factory, he practised on pumpkins. Until he could hit each one in the right eye every time.
78
Friday, 1 November
‘The time is 6.30 p.m., Friday, 1 November,’ Glenn Branson said to the thirty-five assembled people in the conference room of the Major Crime Suite at Sussex House. ‘This is our evening briefing on Operation Aardvark, the investigation into the murder of Dr Karl Murphy, combined with the investigation into a number of arson attacks in and around the city in the past few days, which may be linked.’ He shot a glance at Roy Grace.
His mate looked nervous, Grace thought, handling his first briefing on his own. But he was confident in the man. And he was feeling a lot better than this morning, his hangover finally gone, vanquished by a greasy burger and fries, and washed down with another Coke from Trudie’s at lunchtime. He was feeling happy and positive about his wedding tomorrow, and his bad dream about Sandy had now faded away. He was fully focused, at this moment, on the investigation, and eager to see how Glenn handled this meeting; he was also excited by the developments of today. Grace gave Branson a reassuring smile and the DI continued after glancing down at his notes.
‘At 4 p.m. this afternoon I held a press conference at which I announced we have a suspect in custody.’
There was a quietly raucous cheer from almost the entire assembled company.
Glenn Branson beamed. ‘Matt Wainwright, a firefighter at Worthing Fire and Rescue. He was arrested following a tip-off from an anonymous member of the public, and there are a number of elements linking him to our investigation. The first being a cigarette butt found by one of the Crime Scene Investigators yesterday at the scene of a fire in Henfield, at the home of Red Westwood’s parents. Wainwright’s DNA was fast-track matched to this cigarette.’ He paused to let this sink in. ‘And we know he is a smoker.’
DS Exton raised his hand. ‘And we’ve had it established that Bryce Laurent was a non-smoker, sir.’
‘Yes, exactly,’ Branson responded. ‘The second element is that a number of shoe prints found at the scene of Dr Karl Murphy’s murder match exactly the tread on a pair of boots found in Wainwright’s car, which the suspect admitted were one of his two pairs of uniform-issue fire-fighting boots, and which he says had been missing for a fortnight. He had reported their loss, fearing an intruder had taken them, and security had subsequently investigated. But he can’t explain how they came to be in his car. He claimed that when on duty, his boots would be placed right next to the appliance he would be riding in, by seat position, and when not on duty they would be kept in the changing room by all the pegs. He has no recollection of putting them in his car, nor can he give any reason why they should be there.’
‘Perhaps they walked there by themselves,’ Norman Potting said. ‘These boots were made for walking . . .’ he chortled, then looked around. But met only stony stares back.
Branson turned towards the forensic podiatrist. ‘Haydn Kelly is going to be running these through his gait analysis software, and that should give us further confirmation.’ He paused again to look down at his notes.
‘The third element is traces of petrol found in the boot of the suspect’s car. Tests are currently being carried out on this to see if it can be linked to the murder scene – I understand that every batch of petrol has a unique identifier, kind of like DNA.’
‘Fuelling suspicion?’ Potting said, unhelpfully, with another grin.
Branson ignored him. ‘There’s another aspect. In addition to being a firefighter, Wainwright is also a professional close magician, and from talking to some of his colleagues today, it appears he harbours an ambition to become a full-time magician. Among Bryce Laurent’s numerous apparent careers, he is also a professional close magician. Early intelligence tells us there has been considerable professional competition between them. Which gives us a motive.’
‘Stronger than Bryce Laurent’s motive to avenge being jilted by Red Westwood?’ Grace asked.
‘I can only work on the facts we have, boss,’ Branson answered him. ‘Didn’t you once say, Assumptions are the
mother and father of all fuck-ups?’
There was a titter of laughter. Even Roy Grace himself grinned. ‘I did, yes, but go on. Tell us yours.’
‘My supposition – and it is only a supposition – is that Bryce Laurent maybe a red herring. At this stage we have been assuming it is Laurent behind the murder of Dr Karl Murphy, the fire that destroyed Red Westwood’s car, the smoking-out of the convenience store and the burning of her parents’ house.’
‘What about the cartoon that was sent, of her parents’ yacht exploding?’ asked DS Exton.
Branson looked at Ray Packham. ‘What more have you been able to establish about the sender of that cartoon, Ray?’
‘We know the photograph was taken at Laurent’s flat, although we’ve not been able to trace the sender of it. But we are still working on that. Whoever sent it has good knowledge of how to use anonymous email. I’m not sure we will be able to trace it.’
‘So it’s possible that Wainwright was responsible for it, as part of a plan to set up his magic rival, Laurent. He would have known about Red Margot from when the pair worked together at Worthing fire station,’ Branson said. ‘His personal computer has been seized from his home and your team are working on it. Have you found anything yet?’
‘No, we haven’t,’ Packham said. ‘But he could have sent it from anywhere – an internet cafe is one possibility, or his workplace. We’re checking those computers now.’
Branson turned to DS Moy. ‘Bella, I’m giving you an action to have an outside enquiry team take Matt Wainwright’s photograph to all internet cafes in Worthing and the area where he lives to see if anyone recognizes him.’
She nodded and made a note.
Guy Batchelor raised a hand. ‘Does Wainwright have any history to indicate he might do something like this?’