Grace looked at DC Alec Davies, one of the younger members of his team. ‘Alec, I’m tasking you with finding out if Lucas Daly flew to Spain alone or was accompanied. Start with the airlines, like easyJet; they should be able to tell you if he was on his own or not.’
‘Yes, sir.’
He looked at Potting. ‘Norman, I’d like you to fly out to Marbella and see what you can find.’
‘Yes, chief.’ Potting’s eyes darted momentarily towards Bella, then back to Grace. ‘Should I take someone with me?’
‘Not with our current budget, I’m afraid.’
‘Don’t forget your bucket and spade, Norman,’ Guy Batchelor said. ‘Nice beaches there, I’m told.’
‘I got the shits last time I was in Spain,’ Potting replied. ‘From a dodgy paella.’
Grace’s phone, on silent, vibrated with an incoming call. He was about to kill the call, then thought better of it, and took it. ‘Roy Grace,’ he said quietly.
Two minutes later he ended the call, feeling a real buzz for the first time on this case. He looked at Potting. ‘Got your Holy Bible with you, Norman?’
A titter of laugher rippled through the assembled company of thirty-five police officers and civilian support staff.
‘Think I must have left it on my regular pew, chief,’ Potting replied with a grin.
Bibles were needed when a police officer requested a search warrant from a magistrate.
‘Lucky I keep one in my office, then,’ Grace said. ‘I think we’d better get a search warrant in case our friend isn’t in when we turn up to spin his drum.’
‘Whose drum is it, boss?’ Guy Batchelor asked.
Roy Grace smiled. ‘I’ll tell you whose it isn’t. It’s not Ringo Starr’s. So don’t bother bringing your autograph album. That was the Fingerprint Department calling me. A bronze statuette that was found in Lester Stork’s house, among his hoard of nicked goods, was identified by Gavin Daly as belonging to his sister.’
‘We’ve got a result?’
Grace grinned.
62
It was 10.35 p.m. by the time Roy Grace had all his ducks in a row. Norman Potting had sworn a search warrant in front of a magistrate called Juliet Smith, and had the document signed. Roy Grace, who wanted to be there himself, had assembled a group of police officers from the Local Support Team. One carried the ‘big yellow key’, as the battering ram was known, and another held the hydraulic ram for pushing out doorframes. Alongside them was a POLSA – a Police Search Advisor – Lorna Dennison-Wilkins, with her team of specialist search officers.
They climbed out of their vehicles in the Brighton Marina yacht basin, in front of the steep escarpment of the white chalk cliff. A strong breeze was blowing in off the English Channel. Rigging clacked and pinged, and there was a steady creak of mooring ropes and squeak of hulls against fenders from the dark, empty yachts moored a short distance away. In front of them was a modern, low-rise apartment building.
‘Flat 324, guv?’ said the Sergeant in charge of the LST.
‘Yep,’ Grace said, then looked at DS Potting for confirmation.
Potting checked his notepad and confirmed, ‘Three-two-four.’
There was a row of parking bays in front of the building. In number 324, Grace clocked a black Porsche cabriolet. He memorized the registration.
Their first task when raiding a flat in a block was to get into the building without being seen. With advanced planning, they could usually get a key or entry code from the caretaker, but tonight they’d not had sufficient time. Grace despatched three of his team to cover the fire-escape exits from the building, and the rear entrance to the block.
Norman Potting pressed a couple of buttons on the entry phone and waited. After some moments, he tried another two flats.
A young, cheery female voice responded to one of them. ‘Hello?’
‘FedEx delivery,’ Potting said.
‘FedEx?’
‘Flat 221?’
‘Yes. that’s me!’
‘I’ve a FedEx delivery.’
‘Ah – you from Amazon?’
‘Yes.’ Potting said.
There was a loud click. He pushed the door and they were in.
‘Is there a name on the package?’ the woman’s voice said. But she was history now.
The rest of the team of officers walked quickly along the corridor, ignoring the lift, and took the stairs. They assembled outside the front door on the third floor. There was a faint whiff of curry. All eyes turned to Roy Grace.
Grace was aware that he and Potting were the only officers not wearing body armour, or even a stab vest. So he kept Potting back with a restraining hand. ‘Go!’ he said.
One officer rang the doorbell, then waited. After thirty seconds, he rang again.
They waited for some moments, then, in unison, they shouted, ‘POLICE! THIS IS THE POLICE.’ They stepped aside as an officer put the door in with the bosher. Then, all of them, in a standard shock-and-awe tactic, shouting ‘POLICE’ at the tops of their voices, crashed into the apartment. Grace and Potting brought up the rear. It was a smart, minimally furnished modern flat, with a huge picture window looking onto a row of berthed yachts, barely illuminated in the darkness.
Moments later there was a shout from one of the LST. ‘Guv, in here!’
Grace ran in the direction of the voice, followed by Norman Potting, through an open-plan living and dining area and into a bedroom. Then stopped in his tracks.
A king-sized four-poster bed almost filled the softly lit room. Occupying the centre of the bed was the telesales man, Gareth Dupont. He was lying on his back, his hands and feet secured with silk ties to the bedposts. And he had an erection that, by any standards, Grace considered impressive. A gravelly, sultry female voice was singing in Italian on the sound system.
Standing beside Dupont, and holding a stick on the end of which was attached a bright red feather, was a woman wearing a sinister, black Venetian mask, naked except for a pair of shiny, wet-look thigh boots. She had an attractive body, Grace thought, but not in the first bloom of youth. In particular he noticed the bruises below her right collar bone.
A female member of the team handed her a dressing gown.
‘Tickling your fancy, is she?’ Norman Potting asked Gareth Dupont.
‘That’s not even funny,’ Gareth Dupont said. ‘She’s got nothing to do with this.’
Grace stared in growing disbelief at the bruises. He knew them, and he wished to hell he did not. Then, with difficulty, he focused his attention on the suspect.
‘Gareth Ricardo Dupont,’ Roy Grace said, ‘evidence has come to light, as a result of which I’m arresting you on suspicion of robbery and the murder of Mrs Aileen McWhirter. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Is that clear?’
‘You sure know how to pick your moment.’
‘It’s known as getting your comeuppance!’ Norman Potting said to Dupont. Then, unable to resist, staring pointedly down at the man’s rapidly shrinking member, he added, ‘Or in your case, more of a comedownance.’
Grace stared at the woman in the mask. He hoped she would keep it on, to preserve her anonymity and her dignity for just a little while longer. This was not about her.
But Sarah Courteney went ahead and removed it.
63
From an upstairs window of his new home, where he had set up an observation post and where he sat in darkness, Amis Smallbone waited for Roy Grace to arrive home. It was half past midnight.