117

Monday 19 January

Glenn Branson was already waiting for Roy Grace in an unmarked car at the entrance to the industrial estate. He had the signed search warrants in his pocket.

The map they had studied earlier, in their hasty plan for this operation, showed there were only two possible routes in or out for vehicles visiting Garry Starling’s headquarters here for his two companies, Sussex Security Systems and Sussex Remote Monitoring Services. Tucked discreetly out of sight, at this moment, were the vehicles of the team he had organized to carry out the arrest – when and if Starling turned up.

He already had four covert officers in place on the estate, in casual clothes. Parked up a side street, and ready to move in the moment Starling returned, were two dog-handler units to cover the exits to his office building. He had one of the Local Support Team vans, with six officers in body armour waiting inside it, plus four plain cars covering access to the network of roads linking into the industrial estate should Starling try to make a run for it.

Grace left his unmarked car parked in the next street along and climbed into Glenn Branson’s. He felt tense. Relieved, yet hurting from the confirmation of Rachael Ryan’s death. Thinking through the plan now. Plenty worried him.

‘Rock ’n’ roll?’

Grace nodded distractedly. The Shoe Man had never left DNA traces. His victims reported he had been unable to maintain an erection. Did this mean Garry Starling was not the Shoe Man? Or that killing Rachael Ryan – assuming he was the killer – had turned him on enough to ejaculate?

Why was he not in his office this morning?

If he had sex with a woman twelve years ago who was then found dead, how were they going to prove Starling was the killer? If indeed he was. What view would the Crown Prosecution Service take?

A million unanswered questions.

Just a growing certainty in his mind that the man who had murdered Rachael Ryan was the man who had abducted Jessie Sheldon. He desperately hoped he could do a better job of finding her alive – if there was still a chance – than he had done of finding Rachael Ryan. And that he would not be disinterring her from a grave in another twelve years’ time.

As they drove up to the smart front entrance of Sussex Security Systems and Sussex Remote Monitoring Services, he noticed the cars parked in allotted bays, and the empty one marked CEO. But what he was looking at more was the row of white vans bearing the companies’ joint logo.

It had been a white van that had driven off at speed from the car park on Thursday after the failed attack on Dee Burchmore. And a white van in which Rachael Ryan had been abducted twelve years ago.

They climbed out of the car and walked in through the front door. A middle-aged receptionist sat behind a curved desk with the two logos emblazoned on the front. To their right was a small seating area, with copies of Sussex Life and several of today’s papers, including the Argus, laid out.

Grace thought grimly that they probably wouldn’t be laying out tomorrow’s Argus, with the kind of headline it was likely to contain.

‘Can I help you, gentlemen?’

Grace showed his warrant card. ‘Has Mr Starling come in yet?’

‘No – er, no, not yet,’ she said, looking flustered.

‘Would you say that’s unusual?’

‘Well, normally, on a normal Monday morning, he’s the first one in.’

Grace held the search warrant up and gave her a few seconds to read it. ‘We have a warrant to search these premises. I’d be grateful if you could find someone to show us around.’

‘I’ll – I’ll get the manager, sir.’

‘Fine. We’ll start. Tell him to find us.’

‘Yes – right – yes, I will. When Mr Starling turns up, shall I let you know?’

‘It’s OK,’ Grace replied. ‘We’ll know.’

She looked lost for an answer.

‘Where do we find your CCTV monitoring section?’ Grace asked.

‘That’s on the first floor. I’ll page Mr Addenberry and he can take you along.’

Glenn pointed at the door to the stairs. ‘First floor.’

‘Yes, you turn right. Keep going down the corridor, into the accounts department and then the call-handling and you’ll come to it.’

Both detectives loped up the stairs. Just as they reached the end of a corridor, with offices on either side, a short, nervous-looking and balding man in his early forties, in a grey suit with a row of pens in the top pocket, scuttled up to them.

‘Hello, gentlemen. How can I help you? I’m John Addenberry, the General Manager.’ He had a slightly smarmy voice.

When Grace explained who they were and about the search warrant, Addenberry started to look as if he was standing on a live electrical wire.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Right. Of course. We do a lot of work for Sussex Police. CID HQ are important customers. Very.’

He led the way through into the CCTV control room. Seated at a chair in front of a bank of twenty television monitors was a enormously overweight character, dressed in an ill-fitting uniform and greasy hair, and looking far too old to be sporting bum-fluff on his lip, Grace thought. A large Coca-Cola and a giant-size packet of Doritos sat on a table in front of him, next to a microphone and a small control panel, and a computer keyboard.

‘This is Dunstan Christmas,’ Addenberry said. ‘He’s the duty controller.’

But Grace had turned his attention away to the bank of monitors. And he frowned as he stared at one in particular. The front of a smart, ultra-modern house. Then he pointed. ‘No. 7 – is that 76 The Droveway, the home of Mr and Mrs Pearce?’

‘Yep,’ Christmas said. ‘She was raped, wasn’t she?’

‘I didn’t see any cameras when I was there.’

Christmas chewed a nail as he spoke. ‘No, you wouldn’t. I think in that house they’re all hidden.’

‘Why’s no one told me? There might be evidence on this from her attack,’ Grace said angrily.

Christmas shook his head. ‘No, wasn’t working that night. It was down from mid-afternoon. Didn’t go back up until the next morning.’

Grace stared at him hard and saw Branson doing the same thing. Was he hiding something? Or guileless? Then he stared back at the screen. The image had changed to the rear garden.

Down on the night she was attacked. The company was owned by their new prime suspect.

The coincidence was too much.

‘Do these often go down?’

Christmas shook his head and chewed on his nail again. ‘No. Very rarely. It’s a good system and there’s normally backup.’

‘But the backup wasn’t working on the night Mrs Pearce was attacked?’

‘That’s what I was told.’

‘What about that one there?’ Glenn Branson said, pointing at the blank screen numbered 20.

Grace nodded his head. ‘Yes, I was going to ask the same.’

‘Yep, that’s down at the moment.’

‘What’s the property that’s being covered?’

‘The old cement works at Shoreham,’ Christmas replied.