Then he added another, more because it, too, was an audience pleaser.
Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution.
It was coming up to 3 p.m. He dutifully stood to do his hourly stretches, as his chiropractor had instructed. Then he left his tiny den, which was little more than a cupboard with no door, and went down into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. As the kettle came to the boil he heard, through the overhead Sonos speakers, the familiar jingle of the Radio Sussex theme tune heralding the news. He only half listened to yet another dreary item about more overrunning engineering works on Southern Rail. But as he poured water onto the teabag in the mug, he froze as he heard the words:
‘Sussex Police have confirmed they now believe the death of a woman found dead in her house in Hove, last Tuesday, is suspicious. Susan Driver, aged fifty-five, was the widow of the well-known Brighton antiques dealer and charitable benefactor, Raymond Driver, who died four years ago.’
Dead? Murdered?
By who — why?
He felt gripped by a sudden terrible sense of dread. Who would have killed her? Why?
The female newsreader said, ‘We talked to the Senior Investigating Officer, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace of Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team, just a few minutes ago.’
A man came on the radio, talking with a straightforward, blunt voice. ‘We would like to hear from any members of the public who were in the vicinity of St Ann’s Well Gardens or Somerhill Avenue over the weekend of the 29th and 30th of September and saw anything unusual or suspicious — in particular an unfamiliar vehicle. If they would please call the Incident Room on 0800 747 3651 or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 445 6000.’
The news moved on to sport and an important football fixture this evening for Brighton and Hove Albion.
Ignoring his tea, Toby hurried back up to his den and logged on to the Argus newspaper’s online site to see what up-to-the-minute news they had of Suzy Driver. A photograph of her came up immediately. The one she had sent him only a short while ago. Her pleasant, warm face, with large blue eyes — a hint of sadness in them.
WEALTHY BRIGHTON WIDOW’S DEATH SUSPICIOUS
Dead.
He’d spoken to her less than a fortnight ago.
He read the article. It was an elaboration of what he had just heard on the radio, with further comments from the investigating officer and his request for witnesses to come forward. But the detective gave no clue how she had died, other than to say she was found dead in her own home. The article said, as he remembered Suzy telling him, that her husband had been one of the city’s most prominent antiques dealers.
Did they have some priceless gems in the house that a gang knew about? Or cash, Toby wondered?
Or?
Was it possible there was any connection to the request for money from her determined, fraudulent online ‘lover’? Should he tell the police about that or would they already know? He debated for some minutes, then picked up his phone and dialled the number, at the bottom of the Argus column, for the Incident Room.
As he waited for it to connect, he wondered if he should also call his friend, Danny Pike, presenter of the Radio Sussex morning show. Danny was always interested in issues, and Suzy’s targeting by a fraudster in the months before her death was a story in the public interest, a salutary warning about the perils of internet dating.
Had he known the consequences that were to follow, he would never have picked the damned phone up.
42
Monday 8 October
Roy Grace sat with his assembled team in the first-floor conference room of the Major Crime suite. There were seven detectives including a new member of the team, DS John Camping, who had been seconded to them from the City of London Economic Crimes Unit, and three civilian staff — an analyst, an indexer and the Crime Scene Manager.
Grace rested his elbows on the oval table, feeling tired and with two days’ growth of stubble. He’d spent most of the weekend here, apart from a few hours at home each night snatching some sleep. His shirt was crumpled, the sleeves rolled up and the top button undone, his tie slack. He tasted some of the tepid, stewed coffee in a mug stencilled SHERIFF that Glenn Branson had given him for his birthday, wrinkled his nose at it and put it down. A light bulb was buzzing and flickering above his head, annoying him, but he let it ride, trying to keep his focus on the case. Driven as much by a desire to show Cassian Pewe just how wrong he had been, as he was to deliver justice to Suzy Driver and her family.
Next to the wall-mounted monitor behind the conference table were three whiteboards on easels. On one were crime scene photographs of Suzy Driver’s hanging body in her bedroom, as well as a couple of her taken when she was alive. On another was a family tree of both her and her sister, Lena Welch. On the third was an association chart. One section of that contained the names, along with photographs, of six different men Suzy Driver had had contact with on the internet dating site. These had been recovered from her phone and iPad by the Digital Forensics Team. Five of the photographs were small, the sixth, of a man with silver hair, much larger. There was a second photograph of the same man, but with a different hairstyle, next to it.
Grace stifled a yawn and swallowed a guarana pill from the bottle Cleo had got him, to try to help him cut down on his coffee intake. ‘OK, everyone, this is the seventh briefing of Operation Lisbon, the enquiry into the suspicious death of Suzy Adele Driver, so we will be running through all the information to date. With new members of the team, we need to bring everyone up to speed. What we know at this juncture is that Suzy had joined PerfectPartners.net in the hope of finding a soulmate to share the latter years of her life with. She engaged in online dialogues with six different men, five of whom have now been contacted and eliminated from our enquiries, but we’ve drawn a blank on the sixth.’ He pointed at the large photograph. ‘This person gave his name to Suzy Driver as Dr Norbert Petersen. He told her he was a Norwegian geologist from Oslo, working in the petrochemical industry in Bahrain. But so far he hasn’t been traced. A double-check at the Norwegian Embassy confirms Petersen is not a real person. They have no one of that name working either in the petrochemical industry or in Bahrain — or anywhere. This might chime with recent information that’s just come in from our media appeal, right, Simon?’ He looked over at DS Snape.
‘Very much so, sir. This afternoon I took a call from a Brighton resident, Toby Seward, a professional motivational speaker. He said Mrs Driver had contacted him out of the blue on September 26th, telling him his photograph was being used for what she believed to be an internet scam. He said she’d told him that eleven different women, including herself, thought they were in love with him.’
‘Lucky him!’ Norman Potting said.
‘I don’t think so,’ Snape, who was not a Potting fan, retorted. ‘Toby Seward is gay.’
‘He could pass these ladies on to me, then!’
‘Thank you, Norman,’ Grace said, sharply.
Snape went over to the whiteboard and pointed at the larger photographs. ‘These two are of Toby Seward. On the left is one he emailed me this afternoon. The one on the right is the online profile photograph with the name Dr Norbert Petersen.’ He paused to let this sink in.
‘Do all the other women Suzy traced have this same name and identity of Petersen, Simon?’ Kevin Hall asked.
‘All different,’ said the newly promoted Detective Sergeant Jack Alexander, who was running the Outside Enquiry Team. ‘According to Mr Seward, who I went over to see with Arnie. He’d subsequently spoken to Suzy Driver on several occasions and she’d given him pretty much chapter and verse.’