‘Whatever.’
Branson switched on the apparatus. ‘The time is three minutes past twelve p.m. Saturday 5 August. Detective Superintendent Grace and Detective Sergeant Branson interviewing Mr Brian Bishop.’
Grace took a sip of water, observing that Bishop was dressed in the same clothes as yesterday, apart from a different top – today a lime-green polo shirt. He was looking much more grief-stricken than yesterday, as if the reality of his loss had hit him. Perhaps yesterday he had been running on adrenaline from the shock, which sometimes happened. Grief affected everyone in different ways, but there were long-trodden stages most bereaved people went through. Shock. Denial. Anger. Sadness. Guilt. Loneliness. Despair. Gradual acceptance. And, Grace was aware, some of the coolest killers he had encountered had delivered Oscar-nominee performances of these.
He watched Bishop leaning forward in his chair, very intently stirring the coffee that Branson had brought him with a plastic paddle, and frowned as he clocked the sudden intense concentration on Bishop’s face. Was the man counting the number of times he stirred?
‘How’s your hand today?’ Grace asked.
Bishop raised his right hand until it was in plain view. Grace could see scabbing on the grazes. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘It’s better. Thank you.’
‘Are you normally an accident-prone person?’ Grace went on.
‘I don’t think so.’
Grace nodded, then fell silent. Branson shot him a quizzical glance which Grace ignored.
If Bishop had killed his wife, he could have incurred the wound in the process. Or he could have just injured his hand through clumsiness. Bishop did not look like a man who was normally clumsy. It was perfectly conceivable that, distraught with grief, he was making misjudgements, but there were other possible explanations for his injury. Most criminals became a bag of wired nerves in the hours following their crime.
Are you in a red mist, Mr Bishop?
‘What progress have you made?’ Brian Bishop suddenly asked in a croaky voice, looking at each of them in turn. ‘Have you any clue who might have done this?’
Yes, I have, and I’ve a feeling I’m looking at him, Grace thought, but ensured he did not let it show. ‘I’m afraid we’re not any further along than we were last night, sir. Have you had any more thoughts? Did you and Mrs Bishop have anyone you’d upset? Any enemies that you were aware of?’
‘No – not – not at all. Some people were jealous of us, I think.’
‘You think.’
‘Well, Katie and I – we – we are – were – you know – one of the city’s golden couples. I don’t mean that in a vulgar or boasting sense. Just a fact. Our lifestyle.’
‘Thrust upon you, was it?’ Grace couldn’t help himself saying, and caught Branson’s smirk.
Bishop gave him a humourless smile. ‘No, actually, it was our choice. Well – more Katie – she liked the limelight. Always had big social ambitions.’
A fly scudded erratically around the room. Grace followed its path for a few seconds before saying, ‘That rather distinctive Bentley you drive – was that your choice or did your wife choose it?’
Bishop shrugged. ‘My choice of car – but I think Katie had something to do with the colour – she really liked it.’
Grace smiled, trying to disarm him. ‘Very diplomatic of you, I’m sure. Women can get a bit negative about boys’ toys, if they’re not involved.’ He shot a pointed look. ‘And vice versa sometimes.’
The DS grimaced back at him.
Bishop scratched the back of his head. ‘Look – I – I need – I need some help from you – about – I need to make funeral arrangements – what do I do about that?’
Grace nodded sympathetically. ‘I’m afraid it will be up to the coroner when the body is released. But in the meantime it would be a good idea to engage an undertaker. Linda Buckley will be able to help you with that.’
Bishop stared down at his coffee, looking like a small, lost boy suddenly, as if talk of undertakers made it all too real for him to bear.
‘I just want to go back over a time sequence with you,’ Grace said, ‘to make sure I’ve got it right.’
‘Yes?’ Bishop gave him an almost pleading look.
Grace leaned towards the table and flicked back a few pages in his notebook. ‘You spent Thursday night in London, then you drove down to Brighton to play golf early on Friday morning.’ Grace turned back another page and read carefully for a moment. ‘At half past six yesterday morning, your concierge, Oliver Dowler, helped you load your golf clubs and your luggage into your car, you told us. That’s correct, is it?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’d spent the night in London, after having dinner with your financial adviser, Mr Phil Taylor?’
‘Yes. He could vouch for that.’
‘He already has, Mr Bishop.’
‘Good.’
‘And your concierge has vouched that he helped you load your car at about six thirty in the morning.’
‘So he should.’
‘Indeed,’ Grace said. He studied his note pages again. ‘You are certain you didn’t go out anywhere in between having dinner with Mr Taylor and leaving in the morning?’
Brian Bishop hesitated, thinking about the bizarre phone conversation yesterday with Sophie, when she had been insisting that he slept with her after his dinner with Phil Taylor. That made no sense. There was no way on earth he could have driven an hour and a half down to her flat in Brighton, then back up to London again and not remembered.
Was there?
Looking at each police officer in turn, he said, ‘I didn’t. No. Absolutely not.’
Grace observed the man’s hesitation. Now wasn’t the moment to reveal the piece of information he had, that Bishop’s Bentley had been clocked by a camera heading towards Brighton at eleven forty-seven on Thursday night.
Grace had a number of detectives available to him in Sussex Police who were specifically trained in interviewing techniques and would put Bishop under pressure. He decided to hold back this nugget of information, so they could spring it on the man at the appropriate moment.
That interview process would begin when Grace decided to treat Bishop formally as a suspect. And he was fast approaching that decision.
�
47
On the two o’clock news on Southern Counties Radio, the murder of Katie Bishop remained the top story, as it had been on all of the bulletins he had caught throughout the past twenty-four hours. Each time he heard it, the story seemed a little more pepped up with carefully chosen words to make it increasingly glamorous. It was starting to sound like something from a soap opera, he thought.
Brighton socialite, Katie Bishop.
Wealthy businessman husband, Brian.
Millionaires’ row, Dyke Road Avenue.
The news presenter, whose name was Dick Dixon, sounded young, although he looked older in his photograph on the BBC website, craggier and very different from his voice. His picture was up on the screen now, quite mean-looking, like the actor Steve Buscemi in Reservoir Dogs. Not a person you’d want to mess with, though you’d never have guessed that from his friendly voice.
With the help of the editorial team behind him, Dick Dixon was trying his best to turn this bulletin, in which there were no fresh developments to report on the murder investigation, into one which gave the impression that a breakthrough was imminent. A sense of urgency was created by cutting to the taped voice of Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, from a press conference earlier today.
‘This is a particularly nasty crime,’ the Detective Superintendent said. ‘One in which the sanctity of a private home, protected by an elaborate alarm, was breached and a human life tragically and brutally destroyed. Mrs Bishop was a tireless worker for local charities and one of this city’s most popular citizens. We offer our deepest sympathy to her husband and all her family, and we will work around the clock to bring the evil creature who did this to justice.’
Evi
l creature.
As he listened to the officer, he sucked his hand. The pain was getting worse.
Evil creature.
There was noticeable swelling, he could see it clearly if he put his two hands together. And there was something else he did not like the look of: thin red lines seemed to be tracking out, away from the wound and up his wrist. He continued sucking hard, trying to draw out any poison that might be in there. A freshly brewed mug of tea sat on his desk. He stirred it, counting carefully.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
Dick Dixon was speaking again now, talking about a growing protest movement over a proposed third terminal at Gatwick airport. A local MP’s voice came on, launching a savage attack.
Evil creature.
He stood up, fuming, and stepped away from his workstation, threading his way across the basement floor through stacks of computer equipment, piles of motoring magazines and motor car workshop manuals, towards the grimy bay window that was protected by net curtains. No one could see in, but he could see out. Looking up from his lair, as he liked to call it, he saw a pair of shapely legs cross his eye-line, striding by on the pavement, along the railings. Long, bare, brown legs, firm and muscular, with a mini-skirt that barely covered her bits.
He felt a prick of lust, then immediately felt bad about that.
Terrible.
Evil creature.
He knelt down on the spot, on the thin, faded carpet that smelled of dust, cupped his face in his hands and recited the Lord’s Prayer. When he had reached the end, he continued with a further prayer: ‘Dear God, please forgive my lustful thoughts. Please do not let them stand in my way. Please don’t let me squander all the time you have graciously given me on these thoughts.’
He continued to pray for some minutes, then, finally, stood up, feeling refreshed, energized, happy that God was with him in the room now. He walked back over to his workstation and drank some tea. Someone on the radio was explaining how to fly a kite. He had never flown a kite in his life, and it had never, before, occurred to him to try. But maybe he should. Perhaps it would take his mind off things. Might be a good way to spend some of that time that was piling up in his account.
Yes, a kite.
Good.
Where did you buy one? In a sports shop? A toyshop? Or the internet, of course!
Not too big a kite, because he was tight on space in the flat. He liked it here, and the place was ideal for him, because it had three entrances – or, more importantly, three exits.
Perfect for an evil creature.
The flat was on the busy thoroughfare of Sackville Road, close to the junction with Portland Road, and there were always vehicles passing by, day and night. It was a downmarket area, this end. A quarter of a mile to the south, closer to the sea, it became rapidly smarter. But here, close to an industrial estate, with a railway bridge running overhead and a few grime-fronted shops, it was a ragbag of unloved, modest-sized Victorian and Edwardian terraced houses, all of them split up into rooming houses, bedsits, cheap flats or offices.
There were always people around. Mostly students, as well as some transients and dossers, and the occasional dealer or two. Just sometimes, a few of Hove’s elderly, gentrified, blue-rinse ladies could be seen out and about in daylight, waiting at the bus stop or waddling to a shop. It was a place where you could come and go, twenty-four/seven, without attracting attention.
Which made it perfect for his purposes. Apart from the damp, the inadequate storage heaters and the leaking cistern which he kept fixing, over and over. He did all the maintenance down here himself. He didn’t want workmen coming in. Not a good idea.
Not a good idea at all.
One exit was up the front steps. Another was out the back, through a garden belonging to the ground-floor flat, above him. The owner, a wasted-looking guy with straggly hair, grew rust and weeds in it very successfully. The third exit was for Doomsday, when it finally came. It was concealed behind a false, plywood wall, carefully and seamlessly covered in the same drab floral paper as the rest of the room. Over it, like over most of the wall space down here, he had stuck cuttings from newspapers, photographs and parts of family trees.
One photograph was brand new – he had added it just a quarter of an hour ago. It was a grainy head and shoulders of Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, from today’s Argus, which he had scanned into his computer, blown up, and then printed.
He was staring at the policeman now. Staring at his sharp eyes, at the quiet determination in his expression. You’re going to be a problem for me, Detective Superintendent Grace. You are in my face. We’re going to have to do something about you. Teach you a lesson. Nobody calls me an evil creature.
Then suddenly he shouted out aloud, ‘No one calls me an EVIL CREATURE, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace of Sussex CID. Do you understand me? I will make you sorry you called me an evil creature. I know who you love.’
He stood, hyperventilating, closing and opening his left hand. Then he paced around the room a couple of times, treading a careful path through the magazines, manuals and entrails of the computers that he was building on the floor, then returned to the photograph again, aware that circumstances had changed. There had been a call on his bank; he could no longer luxuriate in being a time billionaire. The stuff was running out.
�
48
Just before four o’clock, Holly Richardson stood at the till of Brighton’s coolest new boutique, paying for the insanely expensive, seriously skimpy black dress, edged with diamant� that she had decided she totally could not go to the party tonight without. She was buying it courtesy of a Virgin credit card that had conveniently landed on her doormat, followed by the pin code, just a few days ago. Her Barclay-card was already maxed out, and by her calculations, on her current rate of outgoings, her earnings from the Esporta fitness centre at Falmer, where she worked as a receptionist, would enable her to pay it off fully around the time of her ninety-fifth birthday.
Marrying someone rich was not an option, it was a necessity.
And maybe tonight Mr Seriously Gorgeous Very Rich Who Likes Curly Dark Haired Girls With Very Slightly Big Noses might just be at that party she and Sophie were going to. The guy throwing it was a successful music producer. The house was a stunning Moorish pad right on the beach, just a couple of doors along from the one Paul McCartney had bought his ex-beloved Heather.
And, oh shit! She just remembered that she had promised to call Sophie back yesterday, when she was out of the hairdresser’s, and it had completely slipped her mind.
Carrying her extremely expensive purchase by the rope handles of the store’s swanky carrier bag, she went out into busy East Street, dug her tiny, latest-model Nokia out of her handbag and dialled Sophie’s. It went straight to voicemail. She left an apologetic message, suggested they meet for a drink about seven thirty, then share a taxi to the party. When she finished, she then dialled the landline in Sophie’s flat. But that went to voicemail too.
She left a second message there.
�
49
Roy Grace didn’t leave a message. He had already left one earlier on Cleo’s home phone, as well as on her mobile, and he’d also left one on the mortuary’s answering machine. Now he was listening to her breezy voicemail intro on her mobile for the third time today. He hung up. She was clearly avoiding him, still in her strop over Sandy.
Shit, shit, shit.
He was angry with himself for handling it so bloody clumsily. For lying to Cleo and breaking her trust in him. OK, it was a white lie, yadda yadda yadda. But that question she asked, that one simple question, was one he just could not answer, not to her, not to himself. Always the killer question.
What happens if you find her?
And the truth was he really did not know. There were so many imponderables. So many different reasons why people disappeared, and he knew most of them. He had been over this ground so many times with the team at the Missing Persons Helpline, an
d the shrink he had been seeing on and off for years. In his heart he clung to the slim hope that, if Sandy was alive, she was suffering from amnesia. That had been a realistic possibility in those first days and weeks after she had disappeared, but now, with so many years gone by, it was a straw almost too thin to clutch.
A pink-faced Swatch wristwatch with white letters and a white strap dangled in front of his face. ‘I got my nine-year-old one of these. She was over the moon, like, totally wow, know what I mean?’ the shop assistant said helpfully. He was a pale Afro-Caribbean, in his early thirties, smartly dressed and friendly, with hair that looked like a bunch of broken watch springs.
Grace focused back on his task. His sister had suggested he buy his goddaughter a watch for her birthday tomorrow, and he had phoned her mother to check they were not giving her one. There were ten laid out on the glass counter. His problem was that he had no idea what a nine-year-old would consider cool or horrid. Memories of the disappointment of opening dreary presents thrust on him by his own well-meaning godparents haunted him. Socks, a dressing gown, a jumper, a wooden replica of a 1920s Harrods delivery van where the wheels wouldn’t even turn.
All the watches were different. The pink with the white face was the prettiest, the most delicate. ‘I don’t know what’s in and out with watches – would a nine-year-old girl consider this one cool?’
‘This one rocks, man. Totally. This is what they’re all wearing. You ever see that show on Saturday morning, Channel Four?’
Grace shook his head.
‘There was a kid on it last week wearing one of these. My daughter went mental!’
‘How much is it?’
‘Thirty quid. Comes in a nice box.’
Grace nodded, pulling out his wallet. At least that was one problem solved. Albeit, the smallest of the current crop.
There were some much bigger problems presented to him at the six-thirty briefing in the conference room at Sussex House that evening, the stifling heat in the room being the least of them. All twenty-two of the team present had their jackets off, and most of the men, like Grace, wore short-sleeved shirts. They kept the door open, creating the illusion that cooler air was wafting in from the corridor, and two electric fans whirred away noisily and uselessly. Everyone in the room was perspiring. Just as the last of them sat down, there was a rumble of thunder in the darkening sky.