Not Dead Enough

  ‘If I answer it, laddie, it’s going straight up yer rectum, so fekkin’ far ye’ll have ter stick yer fingers down yer tonsils ter find it.’

  Skunk opened his other eye as well, then shut it again as blinding morning sunlight lasered into it, through his brain, through the back of his skull and deep into the Earth’s core, pinning his head to his sodden, lumpy pillow like a pin through a fly. He closed his eye and made an effort to sit up, which was rewarded by a hard crack on his head from the Luton roof above him.

  ‘Fuck! Shit!’

  This was the gratitude he got for letting fucking useless tossers crash in his home! Wide awake now, on the verge of throwing up, he reached out an arm that felt totally disembodied from the rest of him, as if someone had attached it to his shoulder by a few threads during the night. Numb fingers fumbled around on the floor until they found the phone.

  He lifted it up, hand shaking, his whole body shaking, thumbed the green button and brought it to his ear. ‘Urr?’ he said.

  ‘Where the hell have you been, you piece of shit?’

  It was Barry Spiker.

  And suddenly he was really wide awake, a whole bunch of confused thoughts colliding inside his brain.

  ‘It’s the middle of the fucking night,’ he said sullenly.

  ‘Maybe on your planet, shitface. On mine it’s eleven in the morning. Missed holy communion again, have you?’

  And then it came to Skunk. Paul Packer. Detective Constable Paul Packer!

  Suddenly, his morning was feeling a bit better. Recollections of a deal he had made with DC Packer were now surfacing through the foggy, drug-starved maelstrom of pain that was his mind. He was on a promise to Packer. To let him know the next time Barry Spiker gave him a job. It would be cutting his nose off to spite his face, to shop Spiker. But the pleasure the thought gave him overrode that. Spiker had stiffed him on their last deal. Packer had promised him a payment.

  Cash payments from the police were crap. But if he was really smart, he could do a deal, get paid by Spiker and the police. That would be cool!

  Ching. Ching. Ching.

  Al, his hamster, was busy on his treadmill, going round and round, as usual, despite his paw in its splint. Al needed another visit to the vet. He owed money to Beth. Two birds with one stone! Spiker and DC Packer. Al and Beth! It was a done deal!

  ‘Just got back from mass, actually,’ he said.

  ‘Good. I’ve a job for you.’

  ‘I’m all ears.’

  ‘That’s your fucking problem. All ears, no brains.’

  ‘So what you got for me?’

  Spiker briefed him. ‘I need it tonight,’ he said. ‘Any time. I’ll be there all night. One-fifty if you get the spec right this time. Are you capable of it?’

  ‘I’m fit.’

  ‘Don’t fuck up.’

  The phone went dead.

  Skunk sat up in excitement. And nearly split his skull open, again, on the roof.

  ‘Fuck!’ he said.

  ‘Fek you, Jimmy!’ came the voice from the far end of his van.

  �

  94

  Glenn Branson terminated the second interview with Brian Bishop at twelve twenty p.m. Then, leaving Bishop alone with his solicitor in the interview room for a lunch break, the interviewing team regrouped in Grace’s office.

  Branson had kept to the script. They had held back, as planned, the really big questions for the third interview, this afternoon.

  As they sat down at the small round table in Grace’s office, the Detective Superintendent gave Branson a pat on the back. ‘Well done, Glenn, good stuff. OK, now, as I see it –’ and he used a phrase of Alison Vosper’s which he rather liked – ‘here’s the elephant in the room.’

  All three of them looked at him expectantly.

  ‘Bishop’s alibi. His evening meal at the Wolseley restaurant in London with this Phil Taylor character. That’s the elephant in the room.’

  ‘Surely the DNA result kicks his alibi into touch,’ Nicholl said.

  ‘I’m thinking about a jury,’ Grace replied. ‘Depends how credible this Taylor man is. You can be sure Bishop’s going to have a top brief. He’ll milk the alibi for all it’s worth. An honest citizen versus the vagaries of science? Probably with evidence from British Telecom, showing the time Bishop booked his alarm call, to back his timeframe up?’

  ‘I think we should be able to nail Bishop in this third interview, Roy,’ Jane Paxton said. ‘We’ve got a lot to hit him with.’

  Grace nodded, thinking hard, not yet convinced they had everything they needed.

  They started again shortly after two. Roy Grace was conscious, as he sat back down in the slightly unstable chair in the observation room, that they had just six hours left before they would have to release Brian Bishop, unless they applied for an extension or charged him. They could of course go to court for a Warrant of Further Detention, but Grace did not want to do that unless it was absolutely necessary.

  Alison Vosper had already rung him to find out how close they were to charging Bishop. When he related the facts to date to her, she sounded pleased. Still in sweet mode.

  The fact that a man had been arrested so quickly after Katie Bishop’s murder was making the force look good in the eyes of the media, and it was reassuring for the citizens of Brighton and Hove. Now they needed to charge him. That, of course, would do Grace’s career prospects no harm at all. And with the positive DNA results, they had sufficient evidence to secure consent from the Crown Prosecution Service to charge Bishop. But it wasn’t just charging the man that Grace needed. He needed to ensure a conviction.

  He knew he should be elated at the way it was all going, but something was worrying him, and he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.

  Suddenly, Glenn Branson’s voice sounded loud and clear, followed an instant later by the image of the four men in the interview room appearing back on the monitor. Brian Bishop was sipping a glass of water, looking sick as a parrot.

  ‘It is three minutes past two p.m., Tuesday 8 August,’ Branson was saying. ‘Present at this interview, interview number 3, are Mr Brian Bishop, Mr Leighton Lloyd, DC Nicholl and myself, DS Branson.’ He then looked directly at Bishop.

  ‘Mr Bishop,’ he said. ‘You’ve told us that you and your wife were happily married and that you made a great team. Were you aware that Mrs Bishop was having an affair? A sexual relationship with another man?’

  Grace watched Bishop’s eyes intently. They moved to the left. From his memory of last watching Bishop, this was to truth mode.

  Bishop shot a glance at his lawyer, as if wondering whether he should say anything, then looked back at Branson.

  ‘You’re not obliged to answer,’ Lloyd said.

  Bishop was pensive for some moments. Then he spoke, the words coming out heavily. ‘I suspected she might have been. Was it this artist fellow in Lewes?’

  Branson nodded, giving Bishop a sympathetic smile, aware the man was hurting.

  Bishop sank his face into his hands and was silent.

  ‘Do you want to take a break?’ his solicitor asked.

  Bishop shook his head, then removed his hands. He was crying. ‘I’m OK. I’m OK. Let’s just get on with all this bloody stuff. Jesus.’ He shrugged, staring miserably down at the table, dabbing his tears with the back of his hand. ‘Katie was the loveliest person but there was something inside driving her. Like a demon that always made her dissatisfied with everything. I thought I could give her what she wanted.’ He started crying again.

  ‘I think we should take a break, gentlemen,’ Leighton Lloyd said.

  They all stepped out, leaving Bishop alone, then resumed the interview after ten minutes. Nick Nicholl, playing good cop, asked the first question.

  ‘Mr Bishop, could you tell us how you felt when you first suspected your wife was being unfaithful?’

  Bishop looked at the DC sardonically. ‘Do you mean, did I want to kill her?’

  ‘You said that, sir, not us,
’ Branson slammed in.

  Grace was interested to see Bishop’s display of emotion. Perhaps they were just crocodile tears for the benefit of the interviewing team.

  In a faltering voice Bishop said, ‘I loved her, I never wanted to kill her. People have affairs, it’s the way of the world. When Katie and I first met, we were both married to other people. We had an affair. I think I knew in my heart then that if we did marry, she would probably end up doing the same to me.’

  ‘Is that why you were unfaithful to her?’ Nicholl asked.

  Bishop took his time to respond. ‘Are you referring to Sophie Harrington?’

  ‘I am.’

  His eyes moved left again. ‘We’d been having a flirtation. Nice for my ego, but that’s as far as it’s gone. I never slept with her, although she seems – seemed,’ he corrected, ‘to enjoy fantasizing that it had happened.’

  ‘You have never slept with Miss Harrington? Not once?’

  Grace watched the man’s eyes intently. They went left again.

  ‘Absolutely. Never.’ Bishop smiled nervously. ‘I’m not saying I wouldn’t have liked to. But I have a moral code. I was stupid, I was flattered by her interest in me, enjoyed her company – but you have to remember, I’ve been down that road before. You sleep with someone and if you’re lucky, it’s a crap experience. But if you are unlucky, it’s a gosh-wow experience and you are smitten. And then you are in big trouble. That’s what happened to Katie and me – we were smitten with each other.’

  ‘So you never slept with Ms Harrington?’ Glenn Branson pressed.

  ‘Never. I wanted to try to make my marriage work.’

  ‘So you thought kinky sex might be a way to achieve that?’ Branson asked.

  ‘Pardon? What do you mean?’

  Branson looked at his notes. ‘One of our team spoke yesterday to a Mrs Diane Rand. We understand from her that she was one of your wife’s best friends, is that correct?’

  ‘They spoke to each other about four times a day. God knows what they had to say to each other!’

  ‘Plenty, I think,’ Branson responded humourlessly. ‘Mrs Rand told our officer, a WPC, that your wife had been expressing concerns recently over your increasingly kinky sexual demands on her. Would you like to elaborate on this?’

  Leighton Lloyd interjected quickly and firmly. ‘No, my client would not.’

  ‘I have one significant question on this issue,’ Branson said, addressing the lawyer. Lloyd gestured for him to ask it.

  ‘Mr Bishop,’ Branson said, ‘do you possess a replica Second World War gas mask?’

  ‘What is the relevance of that question?’ Lloyd asked the DS.

  ‘It’s extremely relevant, sir,’ Branson said.

  Grace watched Bishop’s eyes intently. They shot to the right. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Is it something you and Mrs Bishop used in your sex life?’

  ‘I’m not allowing my client to answer.’

  Bishop raised a pacifying hand at his solicitor. ‘It’s OK. Yes, I bought it.’ He shrugged, blushing. ‘We were experimenting. I – I read a book about how to keep your love life going – you know? It sort of flags after a while between two people, when the initial excitement – novelty of the relationship – is over. I got stuff for us to try out.’ His face was the colour of beetroot.

  Branson turned his focus on to Bishop’s dinner with his financial adviser, Phil Taylor. ‘Mr Bishop, it’s correct, isn’t it, that one of the cars you own is a Bentley Continental, in a dark red colour?’

  ‘Umbrian red, yes.’

  ‘Registration number Lima Juliet Zero Four November Whiskey Sierra?’

  Unused to the phonetic alphabet, Bishop had to think for a moment. Then he nodded.

  ‘At eleven forty-seven last Thursday night, this vehicle was photographed by an Automatic Number Plate Recognition camera, on the south-bound carriageway of the M23 motorway, in the vicinity of Gatwick airport. Can you explain why it was there and who was driving it?’

  Bishop looked at his solicitor.

  ‘Do you have the photograph?’ Leighton Lloyd asked.

  ‘No, but I can let you have a copy,’ Branson said.

  Lloyd made a note in his book.

  ‘There’s a mistake,’ Bishop said. ‘There must be.’

  ‘Did you lend your car to anyone that evening?’ Branson asked.

  ‘I never lend it. I had it in London that night because I needed to drive down to the golf club in the morning.’

  ‘Could anyone have borrowed it without your permission – or your knowledge?’

  ‘No. Well, I don’t think so. It’s extremely unlikely.’

  ‘Who else has keys to the vehicle, apart from you, sir?’

  ‘No one. We’ve had some problems in the underground car park – beneath my flat. Some cars broken into.’

  ‘Could joyriders have taken it out for a spin?’ Leighton Lloyd interjected.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Bishop said.

  ‘When joyriders take a car they don’t usually bring it back,’ Grace said. He watched Lloyd making a note in his book. The lawyer would have a field day with that.

  Next, Glenn Branson said, ‘Mr Bishop, we have already mentioned to you that during the course of a search of your house at 97 Dyke Road Avenue, a life insurance policy with the Southern Star Assurance Company was found. The policy is on your wife’s life, with a value of three million pounds. You are named as the sole beneficiary.’

  Grace swung his eyes from Bishop to the lawyer. Lloyd’s expression barely changed, but his shoulders sank a little. Brian Bishop’s eyes were all over the place and his composure seemed suddenly to have deserted him.

  ‘Look, I told you – I – I already told you – I know nothing about this! Absolutely nothing!’

  ‘Do you think your wife took this policy out herself, secretly, from the goodness of her heart?’ Branson pressed him.

  Grace smiled at this, proud of the way his colleague, to whom he had given so much guidance over the past few years, because he adored him and believed in him, was really growing in stature.

  Bishop raised his hands, then let them flop down on to the table. His eyes were all over the place still. ‘Please believe me, I don’t know anything about this.’

  ‘On three million pounds, I imagine there’d be a hefty premium,’ Branson said. ‘Presumably we’d be able to see from your bank account – or indeed Mrs Bishop’s – how this was paid? Or perhaps you have a mystery benefactor?’

  Leighton Lloyd was now scribbling fast in his book, his expression continuing to give nothing away. He turned to Bishop. ‘You don’t have to answer that unless you want to.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about it.’ Bishop’s tone had become imploring. Heartfelt. ‘I really don’t!’

  ‘We seem to be stacking up quite a few things you claim not to know anything about, Mr Bishop,’ Glenn Branson continued. ‘You don’t know anything about your car being driven towards Brighton shortly before your wife was murdered. You don’t know anything about a three-million-pound life insurance policy, taken out on your wife just six months before she was murdered.’ He paused, checked his own notes, then drank some water. ‘In your account last night, you said that the last time you and your wife had sexual intercourse was on the morning of Sunday 30 July. Have I got that correct?’

  Bishop nodded, looking a little embarrassed.

  ‘Then can you explain the presence of a quantity of your semen that was found in Mrs Bishop’s vagina during her post-mortem on the morning of Friday 4 August?’

  ‘There’s no way!’ Bishop said. ‘Absolutely not possible!’

  ‘Are you saying, sir, that you did not have sexual intercourse with Mrs Bishop on the night of Thursday 3 August?’

  Bishop’s eyes swung resolutely left. ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I am saying. I was in London, for God’s sake!’ He turned to look at his solicitor. ‘It isn’t possible! It isn’t bloody possible!’

  Roy Grace had seen ma
ny solicitors’ expressions over the years, as one client after another had clearly told yet another barefaced lie to them. Leighton Lloyd’s face remained inscrutable. The man would make a good poker player, he thought.

  At ten past five, after Glenn Branson had gone doggedly back over Bishop’s statement from last night’s interview, the questions that had been put to him in the second interview, this morning, and challenged virtually every single word that Bishop had said, he judged that they had got as much from the man as they were going to get at this stage.

  Bishop was not budging on the three key elements: his London alibi, the life insurance policy and the last time he had had sex with his wife. But Branson was satisfied – and more than a little drained.

  Bishop was led back to his cell, leaving the solicitor alone with the two police officers.

  Lloyd pointedly looked at his watch, then addressed the two men. ‘I presume you are aware that you will have to release my client in just under three hours’ time, unless you are planning to charge him.’

  ‘Where are you going to be?’ Branson asked him.

  ‘I’m going to my office.’

  ‘We’ll call you.’

  Then the detectives went back over to Sussex House, up to Roy Grace’s office, and sat at the round table.

  ‘Well done, Glenn, you did well,’ Grace said again.

  ‘Extremely well,’ Nick Nicholl added.

  Jane Paxton looked pensive. She wasn’t one for handing out praise. ‘So we need to consider our next step.’

  Then the door opened and Eleanor Hodgson came in, holding a thin wodge of papers, clipped together. Addressing Grace, she said, ‘Excuse me interrupting, Roy, I thought you would want to see this – it just came back from the Huntington lab.’

  It was two DNA analysis reports. One was on the semen that had been found present in Sophie Harrington’s vagina; the other was on the minute fleck of what had looked like human flesh that Nadiuska De Sancha had removed from under the dead woman’s toenail.