‘I noticed a small screw on the floor in the bathroom,’ the officer said. ‘I checked and saw it had come from a wall access panel, so I removed the other screws and found this hidden in the cavity.’
‘Oh God,’ Grace said. ‘If that’s—’
The officer looked at Grace and pointed to the bag. ‘I think that’s blood, sir, and do you see the tear there in the material?’
29
Joseph Rattigan had a poker face beneath spiky grey hair, a gut straining the buttons of his pale-blue shirt and a sloppily knotted tie. He was dressed in a chalk-striped suit that might have been made-to-measure, but not for him.
There had been a time when this Legal Aid solicitor, younger and fresher-faced, had been the bane of any officer with a newly arrested suspect, but now in his late fifties, the lousy pay and tough hours had worn him down, blunted his passion. The fire that had once raged in his belly had been doused by too much beer and junk food. His voice these days was bland and flat, as if he didn’t care, was ready to accept defeat because, sod it, no client was worth dying in a ditch for.
Just before 10.30 p.m. Niall Paternoster and Joseph Rattigan had completed their private conference ahead of his initial police interview at Brighton custody centre.
This would be the first of several interviews to be carried out over the next couple of days, following a strategy Norman Potting and Jon Exton had agreed with a tier five interview adviser, DC Alec Butler. The adviser’s role was to agree the strategy with the SIO and deal with not only the questioning of the suspect but also those that required special consideration or were deemed to be significant witnesses — sigwits.
Potting and Exton led Paternoster and his solicitor into the interview room. For the next forty-five minutes, they first went over in detail Paternoster’s initial account of his version of what had happened the previous day. Then they covered the couple’s background, relationship, financial status and current domestic situation.
The interview concluded with Potting leaning across the table towards the suspect. ‘Mr Paternoster, we’ve taken note of all you’ve said. The purpose of this initial interview has been to enable you to give a full account and your version of events prior to your wife’s disappearance. But you need to know that police officers have checked the CCTV at the Tesco Holmbush store, both inside and out, as well as showing your wife’s photograph to every staff member who was working there. There is no sign on any CCTV footage of your wife being in the store and no member of staff recalls seeing her.’
Paternoster turned, bewildered, to his solicitor. ‘This is crazy! It just can’t be — it doesn’t make any sense.’
Rattigan nodded, eyes wide open and vacant, like a zombie that wasn’t home.
‘We will continue with our second interview at 9.45 a.m. tomorrow,’ Potting said. Then, speaking to the mic, he added, ‘First interview with Niall Paternoster terminated at 11.22 p.m.’ He stopped the recording.
30
Roy Grace arrived home just before midnight, but despite being tired, his brain was buzzing. He now had more than enough to put a sock — or rather a blood-spotted T-shirt — in Cassian Pewe’s mouth tomorrow. And he dearly wished he’d have the opportunity to shove that torch right up his jacksie.
Humphrey greeted him at the front door with a chewed-up pink unicorn in his mouth, stuffing tumbling from its ripped-open midriff all over the floor. He let him out into the balmy, warm air and the light of a near-full moon, and took him for a short walk along the cart track that was their drive. As he walked and the dog ran off after a scent, Grace breathed in the delicious, sweet smells of freshly mown grass and of the surrounding countryside that he loved so much. Strange to think, as he did this time each year, that the nights were starting to draw in and autumn was on its way.
A bat flitted overhead. He could hear the distant baa-ing and bleating of sheep. He really fancied a drink and suddenly a cigarette, too — which he hadn’t had for ages — but decided against both. He needed to get some sleep, as tomorrow, with all they’d found tonight at the Paternosters’ house, promised to be a long day. But he hoped the brief walk might be enough to settle both Humphrey and himself.
Ten minutes later, he opened the front door, knelt and scooped up the bits of the unicorn’s white fluffy innards, then led the dog through into the kitchen, and opened the treats tin. He took a bone-shaped one out and held it up. Obediently, Humphrey jumped into his basket and Grace gave him his biscuit. ‘Night, boy!’ Then he turned the light out and headed upstairs as quietly as he could.
As he switched the landing light off outside their bedroom, he turned on his phone torch at the same time in the hope of not waking Cleo. But he could see she was awake.
‘Hi, darling!’ she said as he crept into the room, her voice only very slightly sleepy. An instant later her bedside light came on and she peered at him, blinking.
‘Sorry to wake you, darling,’ he said.
‘You didn’t, don’t worry, I’ve only just come to bed.’
‘You stayed up late. Everything OK?’
‘Not really. Some issues with Bruno — tell you tomorrow.’
He sat down on the bed and kissed her. ‘You can tell me now, if you want?’
Looking down ruefully at her swollen midriff, she said, ‘What I really want is a glass of wine. Or two. Or three.’
Alarmed, he said, ‘Why, what’s happened?’
‘Your sweet little boy.’
Grace had noticed over the past months that whenever Bruno was well-behaved, Cleo referred to him as our son. But when he’d behaved like a little shit, he suddenly became your boy.
‘Tell me?’
‘I had a crazy day in the mortuary, didn’t get home until nearly 7 p.m. Kaitlynn collected him from school much earlier. You’ll never guess what he did?’
‘Try me?’
‘He’d let out all the hens.’
‘He always does that.’
‘Yes, in the garden. But this evening he’d let them out into the field — he said he’d decided it was cruel to keep them cooped up in such a small garden as ours. It must have been that fox, the one we’ve seen in the garden, right? It got Bella while they were out there.’
‘Bella?’
She nodded.
‘No, not poor Bella.’ He felt really upset.
Bella was their favourite hen, named after one of Roy’s team, Bella Moy, Norman’s fiancée, who had sadly lost her life two years ago. She was the smallest and the most affectionate of all the hens they had, always coming running towards them and the only one that would let them pick her up and cuddle her.
Cleo had tears in her eyes. Grace kissed her again. ‘How bloody stupid of him. What did he say?’
She shook her head, signalling disbelief. ‘That it would be wrong to blame the fox. That it was probably hungry.’
‘He didn’t accept any blame himself?’
‘I don’t think he knows the concept of blame.’
Before he could respond, she went on. ‘That’s not all. I had Mr Hartwell on the phone for half an hour.’
Hartwell was the headmaster.
‘What did he say?’
‘He’s a nice man and he really wants to help, but he said they’re at their wits’ end with Bruno. Apparently his behaviour hasn’t improved over the summer: he still won’t engage with any of his fellow pupils and has already been rude to all his teachers, and it’s only the first day back. Mr Hartwell says that unless Bruno’s attitude improves before the end of this term, he is very sorry but he won’t be able to return next year.’