‘Yes, sir. There’s no sign of her there.’
‘ So, working back to her last known sighting, which was with – ’ He paused to look down at his notes. ‘A Mr and Mrs Morley. They have subsequently been spoken to, correct?’ He looked at DC Jack Alexander.
‘Yes, sir, I met Mr John Morley at his office, a firm of independent financial advisers, early this afternoon. He said they had arrived late for the viewing because of having gone to the wrong address first, and that Ms Westwood seemed in a slightly agitated state because they had made her late for her next appointment. But she showed them round, was pleasant and helpful.’
‘Anything suspicious about him?’ Grace quizzed.
‘No, sir. He dropped his wife back at Seaford for an amateur dramatic rehearsal at ten past twelve. I checked this out and he was telling me the truth.’
‘And what about Morley’s movements after then?’
‘He had lunch with a client at Topolino’s restaurant in Hove. I spoke to one of the owners who confirmed he had arrived shortly after 1 p.m.’
‘Good work,’ Grace said.
‘Ms Westwood’s manager at Mishon Mackay informed me that her next appointment, the last before she was due to return to the office, was for midday, at a house in Tongdean Avenue called Tongdean Lodge. The appointment was with a Mr Andrew Austin. He was a new client, with a wife and son, looking for a prestigious property, and she had noted down the phone number on the log she had written in the ledger and entered on the computer. This is a procedure carried out by all estate agents ever since the disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh.’
Suzy Lamplugh was an estate agent who went missing, presumed murdered, in south London in 1986. She had gone to show a client, who had given his name as Mr Kipper, around a secluded property, and was never seen again.
‘Has someone phoned Mr Austin?’ Grace asked.
‘Yes, sir. The manager tried the number, and I tried it also. It’s answered by an elderly man on holiday in Tenerife in the Canary Isles. I contacted the phone provider, O2, and they’ve confirmed his name as the subscriber, and I’ve phoned the hotel where he claimed to be staying and they’ve confirmed he and his wife are there.’
‘Tongdean Lodge is on for three and a half million pounds, sir,’ DC Alexander said.
Grace was pensive for some moments. ‘Andrew Austin. Someone who can afford a house of that value has to be pretty seriously wealthy. Have you tried Googling him? Looking him up on Wikipedia?’
‘Both, sir,’ Alexander replied. ‘There are hundreds of them.’
‘What about the owners of Tongdean Lodge?’
‘They’re away at a second home they own in Florida.’ Jack Alexander checked his notes. ‘They have a couple who clean, called Mark and Debbie Brown, but they were not there today. The gardener comes on a Friday. There would not have been anyone at the property.’
Grace looked down at some jottings he had made on his pad. ‘So Red was last seen apparently on her way to meet a man who might not exist, who gave a false phone number?’ He looked around the grimly silent sea of faces. ‘I don’t like the sound of this. Not one bit.’
‘Presumably someone has checked again that she’s not lying somewhere in the grounds?’ Guy Batchelor asked.
‘Yes,’ Alexander replied. ‘The grounds have been searched and she’s not there.’
Grace looked back down at his pad. This day, which he thought could not possibly get any worse, had suddenly got a whole lot worse.
96
Monday, 4 November
Red had a splitting headache, made worse by the smell of exhaust fumes and the jolting of the vehicle. Her mouth and throat were parched and she was desperate for water. And the pounding inside her head was making it hard for her to think clearly. She should be afraid, she knew, but instead she was angry. Angry at herself for having walked into this trap.
Angry at Bryce.
She tried yet again to move her numb arms and then her legs, but he’d done a good job on them, and she could not even bring her legs together; she felt like a manacled animal. And she desperately needed to pee. She was not going to be able to hold on much longer. The vehicle, presumably the white van she had seen at the house, lurched again over something – a rut or a rock.
‘Guess you must be thirsty? Need the loo? You could never go very long without needing to pee, could you, Red? Using the facilities, as you always so delicately called them. You’ll be needing the facilities now, I’ll bet, eh?’
Then he picked up her mobile phone from the passenger seat. ‘I’d so love to switch this on, Red. Your phone I’m holding! I had to switch it off, same as I did mine, because phones give out a location position, even when they’re idle. Be nice to switch it on, though, and see who’s been missing you. Your mummy and daddy, I’ll bet. Wonder what she would say if she could see the two of us now, eh? The happy couple. We would have been, we both know that, if she hadn’t meddled so much. She just didn’t get it, did she? She didn’t get us. She was all obsessed about my past. Hey, who hasn’t bigged themselves up just a little? We’ve all told little porkies – do you think there’s a politician in the world who hasn’t? That’s all I did, and she destroyed us for that. You heard all those texts you sent me. They were from your heart, Red. Surely, you meant all you said in them? Because you loved me for what I was, not all the shit I had once been. If only your mother could have seen that, everything would be so very different now.’
He smiled and looked in the mirror, although he could see only darkness reflected in it. ‘We’re nearly there. I’ll take your gag off and your blindfold and we’ll see what you have to say for yourself. I do keep thinking that maybe I should give you one more chance – if you’re willing to give it a go. But then I realize all the bad stuff I’ve done just recently, that’s going to catch up with me, and where’s that going to leave us? Me in prison, knowing you are out there screwing a new man? It’s one hell of a dilemma, eh, Red?’
He halted the van outside the cluster of farm buildings, climbed out, leaving the engine running, and jerked open the two barn doors of the old grain store beside his workshop, drove in, and stopped, then switched off the engine and lights. Then he opened his door. The hot engine ticked and pinged noisily in the silence. The barn was cold and smelled of old straw and, at this moment, exhaust fumes from the van.
He turned his head to gaze at his prisoner, in the weak glow of the roof light. ‘Oh, Red, how different it could have been, eh? How very different. I’m quite sad, really. This is not what I had planned for you, all that time back, on our first date. It really isn’t. I’m sure this isn’t how either of us wanted to end up, is it?’
She lay motionless.
‘Red?’ he said. Then he became alarmed. ‘Red? Red?’
He ran around to the rear of the van, opened the doors and climbed in. ‘Red?’
She lay as still as a corpse.
97
Monday, 4 November
Roy Grace’s mother used to look at the clock on their kitchen wall at home and say, ‘How’s the enemy?’
Time was always the enemy to her, to the end, finally running out on her in the cancer ward at the Royal Sussex County Hospital. Time was everyone’s enemy, he thought more acutely than ever at this moment, checking his watch in the conference room of Sussex House. It was 6.45 p.m. Right now the enquiry was in ‘fast time’, where every second counted. If Red Westwood had been taken at the house, by the mysterious Andrew Austin, that would have been shortly after midday. Over six hours ago.
It was a grim fact that most victims of abductions were murdered within three hours. But if Andrew Austin was indeed Bryce Laurent, which seemed the most likely scenario, then there was a good chance she was still alive. Grace had no real idea what Laurent would want with her, or hope to gain by abducting her, and a number of dark scenarios crossed his mind.
Normally his team were sparking with thoughts and ideas at briefings, but this evening they were all so damned quiet. He suddenl
y clapped his hands together, really loudly. ‘Listen, everyone! I know we’re all in shock, but that’s not going to help save Red Westwood’s life if, I just hope to hell, she is still alive now. Okay? Right now, forget Bella, however tough that is for all of us. We have a very serious and urgent job to do.’
He looked around at his team and was greeted by nods. They understood; he sensed the distinct sudden mood change in the room. As if something had been unblocked, and everyone had got their energy supply back.
‘We had a number of sightings of Bryce Laurent called in following our appeals in the press and media,’ Becky Davies, the researcher, said. ‘We’ve had a response from a bed and breakfast hotel called Strawberry Fields, saying they had a long-stay guest who checked out suddenly, yesterday, who they say looks like Bryce Laurent. His name was Paul Millet and they have a credit card imprint in his name as, fortunately for us, they insist on payment by credit card.’
Grace turned to the HOLMES analyst, Keely Scanlan. ‘Give that name to the financial investigators, see what it throws up.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Jon Exton raised a hand. ‘I took a call earlier this morning from the manager of Cuba Libre restaurant, who’d seen the photograph of Bryce Laurent. He’s convinced that he was working for him on the day of the fire.’
‘Bryce Laurent? Working in the restaurant?’ Grace said.
‘Yes, as a busboy. He’d started there three days earlier.’
Grace frowned. ‘Under what name?’
‘Jason Benfield.’
Grace looked up at the whiteboard on which all of Laurent’s known aliases were listed. ‘I don’t see this one there, but that doesn’t mean a thing. Do we have any idea yet of the cause of that fire?’
Tony Gurr, the Chief Fire Investigator, said, ‘Yes, Roy. It looks to us that it was caused by stacking tea towels and other kitchen laundry items.’
The detective superintendent gave him a quizzical look. ‘Stacking tea towels?’
‘Cotton laundry,’ Gurr explained, ‘such as chefs’ whites, aprons, tea towels and cloths are normally contaminated with organic cooking oils. These can self-combust – spontaneously – if they are taken out of the tumble dryer and stacked before they’ve had a chance to cool first.’
‘Do many people know this?’
‘Someone working in the catering trade should. And a fire officer should know – most will have attended fires started this way.’
‘Bryce Laurent was in the fire brigade for a short time,’ Glenn Branson said.
‘Seems a bit too coincidental for him to be working there,’ DS Batchelor said. ‘Particularly to have just started working there. Three days. Enough time for him to have become familiar with how everything worked.’
Grace nodded. ‘Yes, I agree.’ He made a note. It was more evidence of Bryce’s obsession and determination to ruin everything to do with Red Westwood’s life.
‘Is there any job this guy has not done?’ said a new recruit to the team, DC Danielle Goodman. ‘I had a call this morning from a man called Paul Davison, who runs a headhunting agency called SLM Search and Selection – the full name is Shortlist-Me. They’re based in Leeds, but operate nationwide. He told me he recognized Laurent from the photograph – he had worked for his company for a brief while, under his alias of Paul Millet. I went to talk to him at his Brighton office earlier this afternoon.’
‘He worked as a headhunter?’ Grace asked.
‘Yes, sir. Mr Davison told me he recognized him as a narcissist right away, and someone with a serious lack of empathy – a sociopath, in other words. But he took him because he had an extremely impressive CV and references. Davison said he was quite a successful head-hunter because he was never emotionally attached to his clients but ultimately grew concerned because he became too manipulative – manoeuvring his clients like pawns on a chessboard – in his words.’
‘How long did Laurent – sorry, Millet – work for Shortlist-Me?’ Grace asked.
‘Just over three months. Paul Davison started noticing anger management issues, especially when anyone tried asking him too many questions about his past. That made Davison suspicious, so he began looking more deeply into the references Millet had provided. He also looked in his briefcase one day.’
‘In his briefcase?’ Glenn Branson said, with a frown. ‘Was he nicking things from the office?’
‘No, sir,’ DC Goodman said. ‘Apparently Millet used to come into the office every day with a really swanky briefcase – when he really had no need for one at all. Davison said he looked in it one time when Millet was in a meeting with a client and found it contained a hairdryer, foundation, toothbrush, toothpaste, different coloured contact lenses, hair gel, and a book on how to become a top sales person.’
‘I’ve always wondered what was in your bag, Glenn,’ Guy Batchelor ribbed him. ‘Does that all sound familiar?’
There was a ripple of laughter, and Grace was glad to hear it. Even Glenn Branson grinned. Laughter was a major coping mechanism for all police officers when confronted with horror. The day you couldn’t laugh, no matter how grim the situation, was a dangerous day for your mental state. ‘Okay, the picture I’m getting more and more clearly of Bryce Laurent is that of a highly intelligent man, a chameleon, with anger issues and the inability to hold down a job. But none of this is helping us with what we urgently need right now, which is to find him. We need to know his vehicle, and then start looking at what ANPR cameras he’s pinged, or what CCTV footage of it there might be.’
Dave Green raised his hand. ‘Boss,’ he said to Roy. ‘I’ve had the result of the analysis on the petrol in the can found at Haywards Heath Golf Club. It is one produced by BP – the regular unleaded. There are dozens and dozens of BP filling stations across the county; wed need to look at CCTV from each one of them, going back weeks, in the hope of spotting Bryce Laurent.’
Grace thought about it for a moment, wrote BP on his pad, and made a circle around it. ‘If we can’t find this bastard any other way, we may have to resort to this, Dave. But it’s a massive task and one that will take days, if not weeks. That’s not going to help us save Red Westwood.’
Another DC, Martha Ritchie, raised her hand. ‘I’ve spoken to the charity Rise, for abused women, where Red went during her relationship with Laurent. They gave me the name of her counsellor, Juddith Biddlestone, who I called this afternoon to see if she might have any idea, from what Red told her, where Bryce Laurent might be located. Apparently he had a secret location where he went to practise some of his conjuring tricks, particularly the ones involving fire and explosives.’
Glenn Branson responded. ‘We know that under his alias Pat Tolley he was granted a fireworks licence and operated for a time out of a farm building in Suffolk. But he has long vacated those premises, and we haven’t been able to establish from where he is currently operating that business, if he still is at all.’
The door opened, and Ray Packham from the High Tech Crime Unit entered. ‘I’m sorry I’m late, chief,’ he said. ‘But I have something that might be of interest.’
‘Yes? Tell us,’ Roy Grace said.
Packham had a wry smile on his face. ‘Would the words Geotec or IrfanView mean anything to anyone here?’
The Crime Scene Manager raised his hand. ‘Something to do with locating coordinates of places in photographs.’
‘Exactly,’ Ray Packham said. ‘Last week, Ms Westwood received a cartoon, through email, of sharks circling around the hull of a yacht. It was sent as a JPEG file, which I identified at the time as having been taken from a camera phone – which is very helpful. You see, as I explained before, unless the location option is switched off when a digital camera takes a photograph, it embeds in the photograph the exact time it was taken, as well as the compass coordinates, which are accurate to within fifty feet.’ He hesitated.
‘And?’ Grace said.
‘Further research reveals that the phone used has been in a static position for several days since
then. Triangulation from mobile phone masts gives us a position approximately half a mile south of the Dyke Golf Club.’
They all looked at one whiteboard, to which was pinned a large-scale map of the county of Sussex.
Grace stood up and went over to the map. He looked at the scale indicator, then ran his finger over a section of green, on which was marked a cluster of buildings. ‘In here?’ he said.
‘That’s where the photograph was taken, sir,’ Packham said.
‘How sure are you?’ Grace asked.
‘One hundred per cent.’
Grace picked up the phone to the Silver commander and updated him with the information. The Silver commander then rang Andy Kille, the duty Ops-1, and requested the helicopter NPAS 15. He read out the coordinates that Roy Grace had given him, requested cars to get close to the scene, with a fast but silent approach, and to stand by but remain as inconspicuous as possible in that area. He wanted to begin to tighten the net around the location that was looking good for where Bryce was holding his victim. He also updated Gold, who was running the suspected abduction operation, with this new information.
98
Monday, 4 November
In the back of the van, with the rear doors open, Bryce shook Red. ‘Are you okay? Red? My love! Are you okay? Red! Red!’
She still did not move.
He stared down at the ligature around her throat. Had he made it too tight? Had she choked or strangled to death? Oh shit, no, please God, no. Please, no.
‘Red!’ he shouted, shaking her hard.
There was no response.
‘Red!’
Nothing.
Christ.
He tried to think clearly, to think back. To slugging her on the head at Tongdean. Oh shit, had he hit her too hard? Caused a haemorrhage? No. It was just a tap, surely just a tap, hard enough to knock her out, but that was all. Surely?
Surely?