‘At my last company. Ransom Richman.’
‘In the office?’
Both detectives noticed the brief hesitation. ‘No, I was at home. Do a lot of my work from home. Early evening’s a good time to catch the householder in – and before they’ve settled down for the evening.’
‘At 7 p.m. you made a phone call from your mobile to this number,’ Batchelor said, and handed him a slip of paper.
Dupont looked at it. ‘A Brighton number, yeah, could have – well, that code covers a big area I’d been working.’
‘Would you remember anything about this particular number?’ Roy Grace asked.
The salesman shot a glance at both of them, hesitating, before shaking his head. ‘No, sorry, I make dozens and dozens of cold calls every day and night. I remember the names, of course, of anyone who becomes a prospect.’
‘Might you remember the name Aileen McWhirter?’ he asked, watching the man’s face intently again.
‘Aileen McWhirter?’
‘Yes.’
He shook his head a little too quickly, Grace thought. Then he raised a finger in the air. ‘Wait a sec – she’s been in the news, right? A nasty robbery at her home?’
‘Very nasty,’ Grace said. ‘She died.’
‘Yeah, I read that, that’s why I recognize the name.’
Grace pointed down at the piece of paper bearing the phone number, lying on the table. ‘You ought to recognize that number. You phoned her the evening she was attacked.’
‘I did?’
‘She was in pretty poor shape,’ Grace said, ‘but she told officers it was about 7 p.m., Tuesday, August the 21st. The records show you phoned her at that time. Quite coincidental, wouldn’t you say?’
‘I – I dunno what to say.’
‘You claim you were at home, Mr Dupont?’ Guy Batchelor cut in. ‘Why didn’t you phone on a landline?’
‘Coz it’s cheaper on my mobile. I got one of those deals with O2, one thousand free minutes per month. In the office I use a landline; at home it’s cheaper on my mobile.’
‘Can anyone vouch for where you were at 7 on the evening of Tuesday, August the 21st?’ Grace asked.
‘I was home alone. I guess God could.’
‘God?’ Grace smiled at him.
Dupont shrugged.
‘You could get an affidavit from Him, could you?’
Dupont looked down at his watch. ‘I’ve told you all I can – I really need to get back to work.’
‘Of course. We’re sorry to have bothered you.’ Grace smiled again. ‘It’s just that on a murder enquiry we have to check out everything, so we can eliminate people. I hope you understand that?’
‘I do – perfectly. I hope you catch the bastards who did it.’
‘Oh, we will, Mr Dupont. You needn’t worry about that. We will.’ He gave him a confident smile. ‘By the way, what car do you drive?’
He hesitated for a moment, then replied, ‘A Golf GTI.’
‘Nice car,’ Grace said. ‘I don’t suppose you remember the registration?’
‘Just one moment.’ Dupont left the room, then returned a minute later holding a set of keys, with the registration tag attached. He handed them to Grace.
‘Almost brand new,’ Grace said.
‘Much less grief, having a car under warranty,’ Dupont said.
‘And who wants, grief, eh?’ Grace said, handing him the keys back.
As the two detectives left, Gareth Dupont sauntered back into the open-plan office, looking more carefree than he felt, and handed the keys back to a colleague whose car it was. ‘Thanks mate,’ he said. ‘I owe you one.’
45
The two detectives said nothing until they had left the building and climbed back into Roy Grace’s work car, the standard silver Ford Focus estate issued to all superintendents. As they buckled up, Grace turned to his colleague and said, ‘So, what do you think?’
‘The little shit was squirming.’
‘He lied about working at home. He lied about not recognizing the number. He lied about not recognizing her name – then quickly covered his tracks.’
‘I don’t remember seeing a Bulgari watch on the inventory of stuff that was taken, Roy?’
‘There wasn’t one.’ He started the engine. ‘I just wanted to rattle his cage a little – and then watch his eye movements on something he didn’t need to lie about.’
‘Don’t you think we’ve enough to arrest him?’
‘We need something to place him at the crime scene,’ Grace said, driving off. He headed out of the industrial estate, and down towards the coast road back to Brighton. ‘Dupont’s involved, for sure. You saw that scab on his knuckle?’
‘Yes.’
‘Maybe he left some blood at the scene. If SOCO find it, and we get a match, then we’ll have him banged to rights. And I’ve a feeling he could lead us to the other perps. He looks a slimeball who’d sell anything, especially his colleagues, for a reduced sentence. If he’s left just one drop of blood there, however tiny, those two SOCOs will find it.’
‘Dunno if I’m putting two and two together and getting five, Roy, but—’
‘That would be a lot more than we have on anything at the moment, Guy,’ Grace said with a grin.
Batchelor grinned back. ‘I’m thinking about Bella’s report of her interview with Smallbone.’
‘I’ve been thinking about it, too.’
‘He had a black eye, and was missing some of his front teeth. Bella said it seemed to be hurting him to walk. He claimed he’d walked into his fridge door after a glass or two too many.’
‘Oh yes? What was the fridge’s name?’
‘Exactly.’
‘The day after Aileen McWhirter is found, Ricky Moore is beaten up – tortured. A few days later, Amis Smallbone is beaten up. Maybe tortured too.’
‘Moore is linked to Aileen McWhirter’s house, and Smallbone has previous for this kind of crime,’ Grace said. ‘As does our slimy friend Gareth Dupont.’
‘What’s your hypothesis at this point, guv?’
‘Historic knocker-boy modus operandi is for them to case a place and if it’s got value higher than they can handle, they sell it on to someone for a cut. I’d say at this stage it’s possible Ricky Moore passed the information to either Smallbone or Dupont. Old man Daly, Aileen’s brother, saw that leaflet. He might have taken the law into his own hands, had Moore tortured for names – and was given Smallbone. So he had him tortured for names next.’
The Detective Sergeant nodded. ‘I think we’re both on the same page, guv.’
*
Many things about policing these days really irked Roy Grace. High among them was parking. It used to be that on a major enquiry, you could park anywhere in the city. Not any more. You had to park, like anyone else, legally. Which meant driving around until you found a car park with vacancies, and paying an exorbitant amount to leave the car there. What the cost was to the taxpayer, in terms of parking fees, and police time, he had, in despair, long given up thinking about.
He emerged with DS Batchelor from the Bartholomews seafront car park, and headed into the Lanes. They zig-zagged through the narrow alleyways, passing one landmark, the jewellery store of Derek le-Warde. Then they reached the large shop, filled with a wide range of antiques including a stuffed ostrich, a George III writing desk, a gilded chandelier, and a display of Chinese vases, the gilded sign above the door proclaiming: GAVIN DALY AND SON.
They entered. Seated behind a glass display shelf in the centre of the room containing a range of tiny ornaments was a man in a wheelchair, with a short ponytail, tiny oval glasses, his head tilted back, which gave him a hint of arrogance. He was dressed in a baggy Hawaiian shirt, with even baggier cavalry twill trousers.
‘Hello, gentlemen. Can I help you?’ His accent was Southern Irish.
Grace showed him his warrant card. ‘Detective Superintendent Grace and Detective Sergeant Batchelor. We’d like to have a word with your proprietor, please. Mr Lucas Daly.’