‘Helen Middleton’s starting tomorrow. She’s going to look at the foot pedals in Niall Paternoster’s car, plus his shoes which we’ve taken, and see if we can link him to the clothes we found at the deposition site. And we’ve arranged for the forensic archaeologist Lucy Sibun to attend. Lucy’s in court tomorrow giving evidence at the big drugs trial, but she’ll be at the site as soon as she can. Meanwhile, her junior colleague, Simon Davy, has made a start and will be carrying on first thing in the morning.’
Branson continued, ‘In addition, boss, knowing that we still have the Paternoster car, there is a chance he may hire another vehicle, so we’ve put out an alert with local hire companies.’
‘Nice work.’
‘See, boss? You don’t need to be here, just leave it all to me.’
‘Yeah, thanks. That trial... that’s the Kosmos Papadopoulos one, right?’
‘It is, and it’s not looking good for him.’
‘What a shame.’
In the past year there had been two very large drug network busts in Sussex, one from a fake classic car that had come into Newhaven Port packed with several million pounds’ worth of cocaine. The other had been an equally sophisticated operation, which involved drugs being dropped into the English Channel attached to floats marked by lobster pot buoys and collected by a fishing boat, concealing them at the bottom of its huge cargo of dead mackerel, sole and other fish.
This ring had been masterminded by Kosmos Papadopoulos, a nasty, violent Greek Cypriot known to the police for a long time, who always laundered his money through a string of small but legitimate cash businesses in Brighton and in several other seaside towns in the county. But, as fortunately happened with many successful villains, Papadopoulos had grown overconfident and let down his guard, trying to hire an undercover police officer to arrange a severe beating for a drug-dealing rival in a turf war. The case was high profile, making the local news most days.
There was a silence.
‘But, seriously,’ Branson said, ‘I just want you to know how sorry I am — and Siobhan, who sends her love. If you want to chat, any time, bell me.’
‘I will, thanks.’
‘Don’t worry about anything, it’s all in hand. OK?’
Suddenly, Grace’s voice stalled. He could barely utter his reply. ‘Thanks. Appreciate — it.’
Ending the call, he stood up and went out into the garden, accompanied by a solemn-looking Humphrey who had clearly picked up on their sadness. He walked over to the hen house. Unhooking the door, he entered, closing it behind him to keep out the dog.
As Cleo had said, Bruno’s two favourite hens, Fraulein Andrea and Fraulein Julia, lay motionless, side by side, their heads at unnatural angles.
He knelt and touched the birds. They were stiff and cold.
And so neatly laid out, juxtaposed against each other.
They hadn’t been killed by a fox, which would have ripped them to shreds or just bitten off their feet or heads. Nor could they have died from being egg-bound — not in this perfect symmetrical position.
They had been deliberately killed, almost certainly by having their necks wrung.
Again, he went back to that conversation with Bruno yesterday morning — which now seemed an aeon ago.
Did you know that the ancient Egyptians, when they died and were mummified, had their favourite pets killed and mummified, to go in the tomb with them?
Knowing how much the sight of the hens had distressed Cleo, he picked both of them up, took a spade from the garden shed, then, holding them aloft, out of reach of Humphrey who kept jumping up at them, carried them out through the garden gate, shutting it on the dog. He climbed part way up the hill, stopping when he reached a large gorse bush, and put the two hens down gently on the ground.
Then, striking the spade into the hard, dry soil and pushing down on it with his foot, he began the laborious task of digging, wanting to make a hole deep enough so the unfortunate creatures would not easily be dug back up by a fox.
As he worked away, perspiring heavily from his exertions, he was thinking about both his conversation with Glenn Branson and with the hospital team, who had given him a helpful step-by-step postmortem leaflet for the loved ones of organ donors.
First up, tomorrow morning, he had to go to the Brighton Register Office to register Bruno’s death and obtain the death certificate. Then he and Cleo needed to appoint a funeral director. A huge number of decisions would have to be made about Bruno’s funeral, starting with what kind of coffin, what kind of service. His one certainty was that the boy should be buried in the same graveyard as his mother and as close to her as possible. Bruno’s grandparents had agreed with his thinking.
But all of this was for tomorrow, not now.
He stood staring at the sky and soaking up the beautiful evening, remembering the good times with his eldest son.
He continued to dig until he felt the hole was deep enough. He knelt and laid each of the hens into it. Close by, he saw a pink wild flower. He walked over and picked it, then laid it on top of the birds, before beginning to shovel the earth back onto them.
68
Arrangements had been made for Bruno’s postmortem to be carried out at Worthing mortuary, instead of Brighton, and it had taken place the previous afternoon. With the agreement of the Coroner and Christopher Goodman’s solicitor, the defence proffered their own pathologist, Ashley Brown, who was also present alongside the local pathologist to avoid the need for a second postmortem. After close and careful liaison with the transplant team surgeons, the cause of death was confirmed as injuries sustained as a result of the accident. Brown informed the Coroner that he was happy for the body to be released for burial.
On Thursday, Cleo had accompanied Roy for the grim task of arranging his death certificate, and then they had made an appointment to see the funeral director today. Neither of them had gone into work, both wanting to be there to support each other.
They’d taken some comfort from the huge number of emails and social media messages of condolences that had poured through from family, friends and colleagues, including the Chief Constable, the Police and Crime Commissioner, the Headmaster of St Christopher’s School and several other teachers, and one, less welcome and more mealy-mouthed, from Cassian Pewe. Grace had also been surprised to receive a couple expressing their sympathy from criminals he was known to from over the years.
A Facebook memorial page set up by the Lippert family, who had taken care of Bruno after his mother’s accident, already had messages of sympathy from a number of people Grace was not even familiar with and was headed up by a heartfelt message from Erik Lippert, who was Bruno’s best friend in Germany. Grace was surprised to see a post from Cassian Pewe written in German. He wondered what that was about.
For the second time in eighteen months, Grace now found himself back in a funeral home. The last time he had been in one was to discuss the arrangements for Sandy, whom he’d decided to have buried here in England, so that Bruno would have a place to go and mourn his mother whenever he wanted.
He’d never, ever imagined he would be having to make funeral decisions about Bruno.
They’d already decided on burial, rather than cremation — Roy wanted Bruno to be laid to rest in the churchyard of All Saints, Patcham, in a plot as close to Sandy as possible.
They had also decided on the same firm that had handled Sandy’s arrangements, and Grace was pleased, as they entered the curtained-off front of the establishment, to be greeted by the proprietor himself, with whom he’d had the previous dealings, Thomas Greenhaisen.