On a blue video monitor screen, set into the face of the counter, just below his eye level, Bishop read:
BRIGHTON DETAINEE HANDLING CENTRE
DON’T LET PAST OFFENCES COME BACK TO HAUNT YOU. A POLICE OFFICER WILL SPEAK TO YOU ABOUT ADMITTING OTHER CRIMES YOU HAVE COMMITTED.
Branson outlined to the custody officer the circumstances of Bishop’s arrest. Then the shirt-sleeved man was speaking directly, from his elevated seating position, down at him, in a flat voice devoid of emotion. ‘Mr Bishop, I am the custody officer. You have heard what has been said. I’m satisfied that your arrest is lawful and necessary. I am authorizing your detention for the purpose of securing and preserving evidence and so you can be interviewed regarding the allegation.’
Bishop nodded, lost for the moment for a reply.
The custody officer handed him a folded yellow A4 sheet, headed, SUSSEX POLICE, Notice of Rights and Entitlements.
‘You may find this helpful, sir. You have the right to have someone informed of your arrest, and to see a solicitor. Would you like us to provide you with a duty solicitor or do you have your own?’
‘Can you please phone Mr Glenn Mishon and tell him that I won’t be able to come to dinner tonight?’
‘May I have his number?’
Bishop gave it to him. Then he said, ‘I would like to speak to my own solicitor, Robert Vernon, at Ellis, Cherril and Ansell.’
‘I will make those calls,’ the custody officer said. ‘In the meantime, I am authorizing your arresting officer, Detective Sergeant Branson, to search you.’ The custody officer then produced two green plastic trays.
To his horror, Bishop saw DS Branson pulling on a pair of latex surgical gloves. Branson began patting him down, starting with his head. From Bishop’s breast pocket, the DS removed his reading glasses and placed them in one tray.
‘Hey! I need those – I can’t read without them!’ Bishop said.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ Branson replied. ‘I have to remove these for your own safety.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’
‘It may be at a later stage that the custody officer will allow you to keep them with you, but for now they need to go into your property bag,’ Branson replied.
‘Don’t be fucking stupid! I’m not about to kill myself! And how the hell am I supposed to read this document without them?’ he said, flapping the A4 sheet at him.
‘If you have reading difficulties, I’ll arrange for someone to read it aloud to you, sir.’
‘Look, come on, let’s be reasonable about this!’
Ignoring Bishop’s repeated pleas to have his glasses returned, Branson removed the man’s hotel key, wallet, mobile phone and BlackBerry, placing each object in turn in a tray. The custody officer noted each item, counting the amount of cash in the wallet and writing that down separately.
Branson removed Bishop’s wedding band, his Marc Jacobs wristwatch and a copper bracelet from his right wrist, and placed those in a tray also.
Then the custody officer handed Bishop a form, listing his possessions, and a biro to sign with.
‘Look,’ Bishop said, signing with clear reluctance, ‘I’m happy to come in here and help you with your inquiries. But this is ridiculous. You’ve got to leave me with the tools of my trade. I must have email and my phone and my glasses, for God’s sake!’
Ignoring him, Glenn Branson said to the custody officer, ‘In view of the gravity of the offence and the suspect’s potential involvement, we are asking to seize this person’s clothing.’
‘Yes, I authorize that,’ the custody officer said.
‘What the fuck?’ Bishop shouted. ‘What do you—’
With each of them holding one of his arms, Branson and Nicholl escorted him away from the console and out through yet another dark green door. They walked up a sloping floor, with dark cream walls on either side, and a red panic strip running the whole length on the left, past a yellow bollard printed with a warning triangle showing a figure falling over, and in large letters the words Cleaning in Progress. Then they rounded a corner into the corridor containing the custody cells.
And now as he saw the row of cell doors, Bishop began to panic. ‘I – I’m claustrophobic. I—’
‘There’ll be someone to keep an eye on you round the clock, sir,’ Nick Nicholl said gently.
They stepped to one side to allow a woman pushing a trolley laden with dog-eared paperbacks to pass, then stopped outside a cell door that was partially open.
Glenn Branson pushed it wider open and went through. Nicholl, holding Bishop’s arm firmly, followed.
The first thing that struck Bishop as he entered was the overpowering, sickly smell of disinfectant. He stared around the small, oblong room, bewildered. Stared at the cream walls, the brown floor, the same hard bench as in the holding room, topped in the same fake granite surface as in the pod outside, and a thin blue mattress on top of that. He stared at the barred, borrowed-light window with no view at all, at the observation mirror, out of reach on the ceiling, that was angled towards the door, and at the CCTV camera, also out of reach, pointing down at him as if he was a participant in Big Brother.
There was a modern-looking lavatory, with more fake granite for the seat and a flush button on the wall, and a surprisingly modern-looking washbasin, finished in the same speckled material. He noticed an intercom speaker grille with two control knobs, an air vent covered in mesh, the glass panel in the door.
Christ. He felt a lump in his throat.
DC Nicholl was holding a bundle in his arm, which he began to unfold. Bishop saw it was a blue paper jump-suit. A young man in his twenties, dressed in a white shirt bearing the Reliance Security emblem and black trousers, came to the doorway holding a clutch of brown evidence bags, which he handed to DS Branson. Then Branson closed the cell door.
‘Mr Bishop,’ he said, ‘please remove all your clothes, including your socks and underwear.’
‘I want my solicitor.’
‘He is being contacted.’ He pointed at the intercom grille. ‘As soon as the custody officer reaches him, he’ll be patched through to you here.’
Bishop began stripping. DC Nicholl placed each item inside a separate evidence bag; even each sock had its own bag. When he was stark naked, Branson handed him the paper jump-suit and a pair of black, slip-on plimsolls.
Just as he got the jump-suit on and buttoned up, the intercom crackled sharply into life and he heard the calm, assured but concerned voice of Robert Vernon.
With a mixture of relief and embarrassment, Bishop padded over in his bare feet. ‘Robert!’ he said. ‘Thanks for calling me. Thank you so much.’
‘Are you all right?’ his solicitor asked.
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Look, Brian, I imagine this is very distressing for you. I’ve had a little bit of a briefing from the custody officer, but obviously I don’t have all the facts.’
‘Can you get me out of here?’
‘I’ll do everything I can for you as your friend, but I’m not an expert in this area of law and you must have an expert. We don’t really have anyone in my firm. The best chap down here is someone I know. His name’s Leighton Lloyd. Very good reputation.’
‘How quickly can you get hold of him, Robert?’ Bishop was suddenly aware that he was alone in the cell and the door had been closed.
‘I’m going to try right away and hope he’s not on holiday. The police want to start interviewing you tonight. So far, they’ve just brought you in for questioning, so they can only hold you for twenty-four hours, I think it is, with another possible twelve-hour extension. Don’t speak to anyone or do or say anything until Leighton gets to you.’
‘What happens if he’s away?’ he asked, panicky.
‘There are some other good people. Don’t worry.’
‘I want the best, Robert. The very best. Money’s no object. It’s ridiculous. I shouldn’t be here. It’s absolutely insane. I don’t know what the hell’s going on.’
/> ‘I’d better jump off the line, Brian,’ the solicitor said, a little tersely. ‘I need to get cracking for you.’
‘Of course.’ Bishop thanked him, then the intercom fell silent. He realized he was alone now and the door had been shut.
The cell was completely silent, as if he were in a soundproof box.
He sat down on the blue mattress and pushed his feet into the plimsolls. They were too tight and pinched his toes. Something was bothering him about Robert Vernon. Why wasn’t the man sounding more sympathetic? From his tone just now, it was almost as if he had been expecting this to happen.
Why?
The door opened and he was led into a room where he was photographed, his fingerprints were taken on an electronic pad and a DNA swab was taken from the inside of his mouth. Then he was returned to his cell.
And his bewildered thoughts.
�
85
For some officers, a career in the police force meant a constant, not always predictable series of changes. You could be moved from a uniform beat patrol one day to the Local Support Unit the next, executing arrest warrants and dealing with riots, then into plain clothes as a covert drug squad officer, then out at Gatwick airport, seconded to baggage crimes. Others found their niche, the way a snake finds its hole, or a squid finds its crevice in a sea wall, and stayed put in it all the way through their thirty years to retirement and, the bait on the hook, a very decent pension, thank you.
Detective Sergeant Jane Paxton was one of those who had found their niche and stayed in it. She was a large, plain-faced woman of forty, with lank brown hair and a brusque, no nonsense attitude, who worked as an interview coordinator.
She had endeared herself to the entire female staff of Sussex House some years ago, legend had it, when she slapped Norman Potting on the face. Depending on who you talked to, there were half a dozen versions of what had happened. The one that Grace had heard was that Potting had put his hand on her thigh under the table during a meeting with the previous Chief Constable.
DS Paxton was now sitting opposite Grace at the round table in his office, wearing a loose-fitting blouse so voluminous it gave the appearance that her head was sticking out of the top of a tent. On either side of her sat Nick Nicholl and Glenn Branson. DS Paxton was drinking water. The three men were drinking coffee. It was eight thirty on Monday evening and all four of them knew they would be lucky to get out of the CID headquarters before midnight.
While Brian Bishop was alone, contemplating his navel in his custody block cell, awaiting the arrival of his solicitor, the team were creating their interview policy for Bishop’s interrogation. Branson and Nicholl, who had both received specialist training in interviewing techniques, would carry out the series of interviews. Roy Grace and Jane Paxton would watch from an observation room.
The textbook procedure was to put suspects through three consecutive, strategized interviews within the twenty-four-hour period they could hold the person in custody. The first, which would take place tonight after the suspect’s solicitor had arrived, would be mostly Bishop talking, setting down his facts. He would be encouraged to establish his story, his family background, and give an account of his movements during the twenty-four hours immediately before his wife’s death.
In the second interview, which would take place in the morning, there would be specific questions on all that Bishop had said in the first interview. The tone would be kept courteous and constructive, while all the time the officers would be making notes of any inconsistencies. It was not until the third interview, which would follow later in the day, after Bishop and the team had had a break – and the team had had a chance to assess everything – that the gloves would come off. In that third interview, any inconsistencies or suspected lies would be challenged.
The hope was that by the end of that third interview, information extracted from the suspect, combined with whatever evidence they already had – such as the DNA in this instance – would give them enough for one of the Crown Prosecution solicitors, who operated from an office in the CPS headquarters in Dyke Road, to agree there was sufficient evidence to potentially secure a conviction, and to sanction the suspect being formally charged.
Key to any successful interrogation were the questions that needed to be asked and, very importantly, what information should be held back. They were all agreed that the sighting of Bishop’s Bentley heading towards Brighton shortly before Mrs Bishop’s murder should be held back to the third interview.
Then they debated for some time when to raise the question of the life insurance policy. Grace pointed out that since Bishop had already been questioned about this, and had denied all knowledge of the policy, it should be revisited as part of the first interview, to see if he had changed his story at all.
It was agreed to spring the gas mask on him during the second interview. Jane Paxton suggested it be raised as part of a series of specific questions about Bishop’s sex life with his wife. The others agreed.
Grace asked Branson and Nicholl for a detailed account of how Bishop had behaved under arrest and his attitude generally.
‘He’s a bit of a cold fish,’ Branson said. ‘I couldn’t believe it when me and Nick went to break the news about his wife being found dead.’ He looked for confirmation to Nicholl, who nodded. Branson continued, ‘Yeah, OK, he did the grief bit to start with, but do you know what he said next?’ He looked at Grace, then Paxton. ‘He said, “This is really not a good time – I’m halfway through a golf tournament.” Can you believe it?’
‘If anything, I think that comment works the other way,’ Grace replied.
All of them looked at the Detective Superintendent with interest.
‘What other way?’ Branson asked.
‘From what I’ve seen of him, Bishop’s too smart to have made such a callous, potentially incriminating remark,’ Grace replied. ‘It’s more the kind of remark of someone who is totally bewildered. Which would indicate the shock was genuine.’
‘You’re saying you think he’s innocent?’ Jane Paxton asked.
‘No, what I’m saying is we have some strong evidence against this man. Let’s stick to the hard facts for the moment. A comment like that could be useful during the trial – the prosecuting counsel could use it to help sway the jury against Bishop. We should keep it back, not bring it up in any of the interviews, because he’ll probably say you’ve misunderstood him, and then you’ve blown its surprise value.’
‘Good point,’ Nick Nicholl said, and yawned, apologizing immediately.
Grace knew it was harsh, keeping Nicholl here until late, with his young baby at home, but that wasn’t his problem. Nicholl was exactly the right soft-man foil to Branson’s hard man for this series of interviews.
‘The next item on my list,’ Jane Paxton said, ‘is Bishop’s relationship with Sophie Harrington.’
‘Definitely the third interview,’ Grace said.
‘No, I think we should bring it up in the second,’ Branson replied. ‘We could ask him again whether he knew her and if so what their relationship was. It would give us a good steer on how truthful he is, whether or not he still denies knowing her. Right?’
‘It’s a good point,’ Grace said. ‘But he’ll know that we’re analysing all his phone calls, so he’d have to be pretty stupid to deny knowing her.’
‘Yeah, but I think it’s worth asking him in the second interview,’ Branson persisted. ‘My reasoning is this: we got that witness opposite Sophie Harrington’s house, who has positively identified him at around the time of her murder. Depending on how he answers the phone question in the second interview, we can spring that on him in the third.’
Grace looked at Jane Paxton. She was nodding in agreement.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Good plan.’
His internal phone rang. He stepped away from the table and over to his desk to answer it. ‘Roy Grace?’ He listened for some moments, then said, ‘Fine. OK. Thanks. We’ll be ready.’
He r
eplaced the phone and joined them back at the round table. ‘Bishop’s solicitor will be here at half past nine.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Forty-five minutes.’
‘Who is it?’ Jane Paxton asked.
‘Leighton Lloyd.’
‘Yeah, well.’ Branson shrugged. ‘Who else?’
They turned their focus on exactly what Lloyd would be told and what at this stage would be held back from him. Then the four of them left the building and walked briskly to the ASDA supermarket, taking a short cut through the bushes at the back, to grab a quick sandwich for their evening meal.
Ten minutes later they crossed back over the road. Branson and Nicholl walked through the side gate and up towards the custody block. Inside, they were taken to an interview room, where they would outline to Bishop’s solicitor the background, and why Bishop had been arrested, without Bishop present. Then he would be brought into the room, too, for an interview.
Jane Paxton and Grace went back to their respective offices, Grace intending to use the next half-hour to catch up on some emails. He sat at his desk and rang Cleo, and discovered she was still at work at the mortuary.
‘Hi, you!’ she said, sounding pleased to hear from him.
‘How are you?’ he said.
‘I’m shattered. But it’s nice that you rang.’
‘I like your voice when you’re tired. It goes sort of croaky – it’s sweet!’
‘You wouldn’t think that if you saw me. I feel about a hundred. And you? What’s happening?’
He filled her in briefly, telling her he wouldn’t be finished until around midnight, and asked if she’d like him to come over then.
‘I would love to see you, my darling, but as soon as I’m out of here I’m going to fall into a bath and then crash. Why don’t you come over tomorrow?’