‘I see.’ In his mind, Roy Grace intended to make his first priority to look for any evidence that might implicate Terence Gready orchestrating the attack on Stuie Starr. He would have known where to find him.
EJ continued. ‘Apparently the two brothers kept a very low profile. They have one neighbour, an elderly lady, who regularly kept an eye on Stuie whenever Mickey was away. She looked in on him yesterday morning around 9 a.m. before going out for the day. She may well have been the last person to see him alive.’
‘Away for the day, of course she was,’ Grace said, sounding more cynical than he had intended. But throughout his career in homicide investigation, it seemed that a gremlin was constantly at work, ensuring that the one key potential witness was always otherwise engaged at the crucial moment. He smiled, not wanting to give the impression to the team that he was a tired old cynic.
And hoping, privately, that he really wasn’t.
‘I plan to hold a press conference tomorrow and make a public appeal for any witnesses to come forward. I will make sure they understand the vulnerability of the victim and the truly horrendous nature of this crime.’
‘Playing the emotional card, are we, chief?’
‘Yes, Norman, the bastards who did this to poor Stuie didn’t hold anything back. Neither will I.’
36
Friday 10 May
In the tenth-floor office of the building in Hoxton, with venetian blinds permanently angled so no one could see in from any of the buildings opposite, twelve whiteboards lined the walls.
Attached to them now were photographs of each of the jurors in Terence Gready’s trial, along with growing details of their home and workplace addresses, a brief bio, names of close family members and known associates, interests and details of car driven, if any.
The whiteboards were getting increasingly covered in names and information as more research results came in from the team of Rio Zambrano, the former Met detective, Paul Constantinidi, and the two techies.
Constantinidi glanced at his watch. Coming up to midday. So far there had been no activity involving the jurors since they’d been sworn in. The prosecution and defence counsel were locked in legal dispute.
At close of play yesterday, the judge had sent them home for the weekend so the counsels for the prosecution and defence could clear the deck of any legal arguments. The trial would start in earnest on Monday.
It gave Constantinidi and his team useful extra time and they were making the best of it, assembling very detailed information. He read through the whiteboards, checking for any updates he might have missed.
Juror no. 1: Sophie Eaton. A streaky blonde, thirty-six-year-old specialist nurse. Quite a thoughtful-looking young woman.
Difficult to read this one and he had already decided Juror no. 1 could be too principled and dangerous. A large black cross had been marked on the board.
Juror no. 2: Hugo Pink. A portly, self-assured-looking man in his late forties, with a foppish hairstyle much too young for him. Married twenty-three years. Two children, late teens. His only social media presence appeared to be a Facebook page in the name of his company, Pink Solar Systems.
A former mobile phone salesman, Pink had cashed in on the growing demand for solar energy. His sales patter was obliging his customers to help save the world. Their research showed the company was in dire straits and was heading for bankruptcy. Terence Gready would gladly bankroll them out of trouble. Definite potential. A tick was on his board.
Juror no. 3: Megan Magellan. Definite potential also. Currently top of his list. The forty-two-year-old widow. Nice-looking, too, not that there was a huge chance she was going to jump in the sack with him. But there was more work to be done, more due diligence on Meg Magellan — and she was not the only one with potential. He just needed to be beyond 100 per cent certain that when they made their move on any of them, they would capitulate. There would be no second chance.
If they misjudged the integrity of a juror and that person either informed the clerk of the court or sent a note to the judge, it would be game over. Any attempt at nobbling a juror that came to the judge’s attention would result, instantly, in one of two situations, both equally bad. The first would be a new jury which would be sequestered at nights and weekends in a hotel, under close guard and scrutiny for the duration of the trial, and with no communication with the outside world. The second, if the prosecution counsel could make a suitably convincing case, would be that the trial be heard by the judge alone without a jury.
Juror no. 4: Maisy Waller. Miss Drabby, Paul Constantinidi thought. A timid creature, fifty-four years old, with thin, tight lips. Lived alone in the Portslade area of Brighton and Hove with her elderly mother who was suffering from dementia. Worked as a payroll clerk for a local insurance company. No social media engagement. Member of a book group. A volunteer at a charity for the homeless. A question mark on her board.
Juror no. 5: Rory O’Brien. Thirty years old. Born in Ireland. Single. Geeky-looking with shouty glasses, wearing a blue jumper over a grey shirt and chinos. Project manager. Marathon runner. Member of a happy-clappy charismatic church. On a variety of social media, regularly posting contrary political views. Trouble written all over him. A black cross against his name.
Juror no. 6: Harold Trout. Seventy-one years old. Married thirty-seven years. Four children. Seven grandchildren. Resided in Hove. Retired insurance actuary. Rotarian. Former local golf club captain. Weakness: limited at this stage.
Juror no. 7: Mike Roberts. The retired, silver-haired, distinguished former Hampshire Police Detective Superintendent, who he had already studied with some interest, as a potentially aggrieved former cop, like himself. But risky. All the same, he warranted a question mark.
He continued on through the list, which included an actor called Toby DeWinter, a posh middle-class do-gooder, an Uber driver called Mark Adams, an Indian chef, and finally the property developer Edmond O’Reilly Hyland. All of them needing more research. By late afternoon he had come up with a plan. Five names of potentials that he would discuss this evening when he met up for dinner with Nick Fox, in a secluded room they had booked in a private members’ club in Mayfair. Fox had briefed him at the start that among the jurors they needed to find one who was a sure-fire banker.
He was pretty confident he had identified just that person.
37
Friday 10 May
A briefing room at Chichester police station was being used for the press conference. Roy Grace sat in the centre of a row of chairs that had been placed facing the healthy turnout of local media that he had anticipated, flanked on his right by the local district commander, Chief Inspector Emily Souders, and on his left, PC Kerry Foy, the community officer; to her left sat Tony Morgan from the Sussex Police comms team.
In the two rows of chairs facing them were Siobhan Sheldrake from the Argus, as well as reporters he recognized from the West Sussex Gazette, the Chichester Observer, the Bognor Regis Post, Radio Sussex and Radio Solent, a camera operator and presenter from Meridian TV, and a student reporter from the Southampton media school.
Some police officers, in Grace’s experience, viewed all press and media with suspicion and hostility. But he had always found that if you handled them in the right way, far from being the enemy they could be not only a good ally, but could play a key role in getting that vital public engagement. And right now, when all their investigations had so far drawn a blank on Operation Canoe, hopefully today’s conference might just lead to a member of the public coming forward with a piece of information that could unlock the puzzle.