70

Wednesday 14 January

‘I’m all ears,’ Roy Grace said.

The next words from Jim Doyle stunned him. Totally stunned him. After they had fully sunk in, he said, ‘You’re not serious, Jim.’

‘Absolutely I am.’

In his nineteen years in the police force to date, Roy Grace had found his fellow officers tended to be good, decent people and, for the most part, people whose company he enjoyed both at work and socially. Sure there were a few prats: some, like Norman Potting, who at least had the redeeming feature of being a good detective, and others, very occasionally, who were a total waste of space. But there were only two people he could really genuinely say that he did not like.

The first was his acerbic former ACC, Alison Vosper, who seemed to have made her mind up from the start that she and Grace were not going to get on; the second was a London Metropolitan Police detective who’d had a brief sojourn here last year, and had tried very hard to stick the boot into him. His name was Cassian Pewe.

Grace excused himself and stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him.

‘Cassian Pewe? Are you serious, Jim? You’re saying that Cassian Pewe was the last person to sign that file out?’

‘Detective Superintendent Cassian Pewe. He was working here in the autumn, wasn’t he?’ Doyle said. ‘Hadn’t he moved here from the Met, to help you out on cold cases?’

‘Not to help me out, Jim, to take over from me – and not just on cold cases, but on everything. That was his plan, courtesy of Alison Vosper! He was out to eat my sodding lunch!’

‘I heard there was a bit of friction.’

‘You could call it that.’

Grace had first met Pewe a few years ago, when the man was a detective inspector. The Met had sent in reinforcements to help police Brighton during the Labour Party Conference, Pewe being one of them. Grace had had a big run-in with him and found him supremely arrogant. Then, to his utter dismay, last year Pewe had moved down to Sussex CID with the rank of detective superintendent, and Alison Vosper had given him Grace’s cold-case workload – plus the clear signal that the former Met officer would be taking over more and more of Grace’s duties.

Cassian Pewe fancied himself as a ladies’ man. He had golden hair, angelic blue eyes and a permanent tan. He preened and strutted, exuding a natural air of authority, always acting as if he was in charge, even when he wasn’t. Working secretly, behind Grace’s back, Pewe had taken it upon himself to ruin Grace’s career by trying to reopen investigations into Sandy’s disappearance – and point suspicion at him. Returning from a trip to New York last October, Grace found, to his utter incredulity, that Pewe had assembled a Police Search Unit team to scan and dig up his garden for Sandy’s suspected remains.

Fortunately, that had proved a step too far. Pewe left Sussex CID and returned to the Met not long after, with his tail between his legs.

After a few more questions to Jim Doyle, Grace hung up and then stood thinking for some moments. There was no way, at this stage, he could mention anything openly to his team. Questioning another officer as high-ranking as Pewe as a suspect would have to be done discreetly, regardless of his personal feelings towards the man.

He would do this himself and it would be a pleasure.