Grace shook his head pensively.
‘Let’s hypothesize for a moment,’ Glenn Branson said. ‘He murders his wife on Thursday night and then plays a charade of a day out at Parham House, ending up with her disappearing at a Tesco store on the way home, apparently going in to buy cat litter. Would he be dumb enough to think we wouldn’t check her phone activity?’
‘You’ve met him,’ Grace replied with a sideways glance. ‘I’m not the world’s leading authority on tattoos, but did you see the one on his arm of the grim reaper?’
Branson grinned. ‘Yeah, let’s hope he’s not acted that out.’
‘I agree,’ Grace said. ‘For one of my birthdays, Sandy got me a voucher from a tattoo parlour as a present.’
‘Yeah?’
‘I was never brave enough to have it done. She wanted me to have my name and her name with a heart between on my arm.’
‘Lucky you didn’t. Cleo would have been mightily impressed — not!’
Grace grinned. ‘You could say that.’ Then, serious again, he said, ‘It seems that Eden is a successful woman, hard-working, in the prime of her life, with a close circle of friends and work colleagues. It doesn’t make sense that she has just disappeared and we have found no social media activity since her disappearance. Do you agree?’
Glenn Branson nodded his head.
At that moment, Grace’s phone rang again. It was Aiden Gilbert and he sounded puzzled. ‘Can I clarify something, Roy?’ he asked, the phone on loudspeaker.
‘Tell me?’
‘That photograph of the woman in front of the lake you sent me? You said it was taken yesterday, early afternoon?’
‘Yes, correct — from what I was told.’
‘Not according to the digital date stamp, Roy. On first examination, it wasn’t taken yesterday, it was taken at 1.50 p.m. on Saturday August the twenty-fourth. Over a week before.’
‘You are certain, Aiden?’
‘Completely, Roy.’
Ending the call, Grace called Cleo to tell her that they were going to have to postpone the hen husbandry course tomorrow.
24
‘It is 6.30 p.m., Monday September the second,’ Roy Grace announced to his freshly assembled team. ‘This is the first briefing meeting of Operation Lagoon, the investigation into the disappearance of Mrs Eden Paternoster, last seen according to the questionable information given by her husband, Niall, shortly after 3.15 p.m. yesterday, Sunday September the first, in the car park of the Tesco Holmbush superstore, pictured behind me. I’m sure some of you are already familiar with that store and use it?’
He noted a few nods.
On one whiteboard behind Grace was pinned the two photographs of Eden Paternoster, the one in front of a Christmas tree and the one in front of the Parham House lake. They were accompanied by several more photographs of her, sent in by her husband.
One was of Eden with Niall, their arms around each other, a couple who seemingly could not be more in love, in front of the beautiful ruins of moated Bodiam Castle. Another was in front of Hangleton church, Niall in a suit, sporting a red carnation and beaming, and Eden in a long wedding dress, holding a bouquet, smiling radiantly.
On the second whiteboard was a sequence of photographs of the interior and exterior of the Tesco superstore, taken by Crime Scene Photographer James Gartrell. Each was labelled. Various angles of the car park, the public front entrance, the staff entrance and the goods receiving bay. The ones of the interior of the store showed the manned and unmanned checkout tills, several aisles and each of the CCTV camera locations. Beneath them was the poor-resolution image of Niall Paternoster in denim shorts and T-shirt, taken from the CCTV, in the entrance to the store at 3.50 p.m. yesterday.
On the third whiteboard were two association charts, one showing Eden Paternoster’s family tree, the other her and her husband’s friends and colleagues. These were a work-in-progress, with more names and details yet to be filled in.
‘All routine procedures regarding a misper have been followed, with photographs of the missing lady circulated,’ Roy Grace said, addressing his team seated around the long, oval table in the Major Crime suite conference room. ‘However, we have reason to suspect we may be looking at something more than a standard missing person enquiry. The purpose of this briefing is to update you on our enquiries so far, and to establish lines of command and duties, together with roles and responsibilities. I will be acting as Senior Investigating Officer, with Glenn Branson as my Deputy.’ He nodded at the DI, to his left, who held his pen poised above his Policy Book. ‘Jack Alexander will run the enquiry as Action Manager and Allocator, linking into the HOLMES team, and will also manage the Outside Enquiry teams.’ HOLMES — or correctly HOLMES 2 — was the acronym for the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System.
The tall young DS beside Glenn Branson acknowledged this. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘The Intelligence Analyst will be Luke Stanstead.’ Grace smiled at the young man, who was in a wheelchair pulled up to the table, sitting lower down than the rest of the team. The popular officer had been paralysed in a swimming pool accident a few years earlier. Grace admired the man for his resilience. Away from work, Stanstead had become a front runner and leading light in wheelchair rugby. The HOLMES Supervisor would be joining the team tomorrow, back from her day off. The other HOLMES roles would also be filled during the next few hours.
Grace went on to name his Exhibits and Disclosure Officers, his go-to Financial Investigations Officer, Emily Denyer, the almost impossibly young-looking Crime Scene Manager, Chris Gee, and Sergeant Lorna Dennison-Wilkins as POLSA — Police Search Adviser — as and when needed, to manage any searches.
Checking his notes, he continued. ‘Our Outside Enquiry Team will consist of DS Potting and DC Wilde, DCs Soper and Hall, and the third pair of DS Exton and Polly.’ Investigating Officer Pauline Sweeney, known to everyone as Polly, had just retired as a police officer but immediately rejoined the team as a civilian in an identical role. ‘I’ve appointed Emma-Jane Boutwood as FLO — she has attended at the Paternosters’ home but Eden’s husband told her, at present, he wants to be alone. I will keep this situation under review.’
FLOs — Family Liaison Officers — were allocated to the immediate family members of any Major Crime victim. Their role was twofold, the first being to provide a dedicated officer to act as a conduit between the family and the investigation, obtaining any information and evidence from them and also passing information from the SIO back to the family. A secondary role was to provide a presence and emotional support, from conversation to preparing meals and doing essential shopping. Emma-Jane’s rejection by Niall Paternoster might be further grounds for suspicion, Grace felt.
Detective Sergeant Martyn Stratford would run the Enquiry Intelligence Cell as the Intel Manager supported by their own staff.
Grace went on to detail the situation leading to the purported disappearance of Eden Paternoster, his and Branson’s subsequent visit to the Tesco store earlier, followed by their interview with her husband at the family home on Nevill Road. And then the bombshell, from Aiden Gilbert, about the time and date on the photograph Niall Paternoster had claimed had been taken yesterday afternoon, but which in fact had been taken over a week earlier on Saturday 24 August.