61

‘The time is 8.30 a.m. Wednesday 5 May,’ Roy Grace read from his notes to his team in MIR-1. ‘This is the twenty-sixth briefing of Operation Violin.’ And we’re not making any sodding progress, he felt like adding, but he refrained. There were flat spots like this in almost every inquiry.

He was in a bad and worried mood. His biggest worry was Cleo. She had almost fainted stepping out of the shower this morning. She insisted it was purely because the water had been too hot, but he had wanted to take her straight to hospital. She’d refused, saying that she felt fine, right as rain; they were short-handed at the mortuary and she needed to be there.

He was worried about this case, too. This was a full-on murder inquiry, yet he sensed a spark was missing. Although he had most of his trusted regulars in his team, there didn’t seem to be the air of commitment and focus that he was used to feeling. He knew the reason. It was the wrong reason, but it was human nature. It was because the murder victim was Ewan Preece.

Despite the horrific nature of his death, no one from Sussex Police was going to be shedding a tear at Preece’s funeral – although he would send a couple of undercover officers along, to keep an eye on who turned up, or lurked nearby.

But regardless of however undesirable a character Preece was, he had been murdered. And Grace’s job was not to be judgemental, but to find the killer and lock him up. To do that, he needed to get his team better motivated.

‘Before we go through your individual reports,’ he said, ‘I want to recap on our lines of enquiry.’ He stood up and pointed to the whiteboard, on which there were three numbered headings, each written in caps in red. ‘In the first, we look into the possibility that there is no link between Preece’s killing and the death of cyclist Tony Revere, clear? Preece was a man who made enemies naturally. We could be looking at a drugs turf war or something like a double-crossing. He could have just screwed the wrong person.’

Duncan Crocker put up his hand. ‘The camera’s the thing that bothers me with that line of enquiry, chief. Why wouldn’t they just kill him? Why chuck away an expensive camera like that?’

‘There are plenty of sadists out there,’ Grace replied. ‘But I agree with your point about the camera. We’ll come back to that. OK, right, the second line of enquiry is that Preece was killed by someone who was after the reward money.’

‘Doesn’t the same apply with the camera, boss?’ asked Bella Moy. ‘If they’re after the reward, why chuck away a camera of that value?’

‘It would be a good idea to remind ourselves of the wording of the reward, Bella,’ Grace replied. ‘It’s not the usual, for information leading to the arrest and conviction.’ He looked down at his notes for a moment and searched through a few pages. Then he read, ‘This reward is for information leading to the identity of the van driver responsible for the death of her son.’ He looked up. ‘That’s a big difference.’

‘Do you think something might have gone wrong, Roy?’ Nick Nicholl asked. ‘Perhaps the killer was planning to get Preece to fess up into the camera and it didn’t happen.’

‘Maybe it did happen,’ Glenn Branson said. ‘The camera transmits – we don’t know what was said or transmitted to whom.’

‘He probably didn’t say too much underwater,’ Norman Potting butted in, and chortled.

Several of the others stifled grins.

‘I can’t speculate on whether anything went wrong, Nick,’ Grace replied to DC Nicholl. Then he pointed at the whiteboard again. ‘Our third line of enquiry is whether, bearing in mind Revere’s family’s connection with organized crime, this was a professional revenge killing – a hit. So far, from initial enquiries I’ve made to connections I have in the US, there is no intelligence of any contract of any kind that’s been put out regarding this, but we need to look at the US more closely.’ He turned to Crocker. ‘Duncan, I’m tasking you with getting further and better information on the Revere family and their connections.’

‘Yes, boss,’ the DS said, and made a note.

‘I have a 3.30 p.m. meeting with the ACC. I need to take him something to show that we’re not all sodding asleep here.’

At that moment his phone rang. Raising a hand apologetically, Roy Grace answered it. Kevin Spinella was on the other end and what the reporter from the Argus told him suddenly made his bad mood a whole lot worse.