He let that hang in the air for a moment, looking around at this team. No one contradicted him. ‘We always need to consider the alternatives in any case,’ he continued. ‘Let’s suppose for a moment that the kitchen knife was deliberately put in that sparse bush, instead of one of the much thicker bushes close by, so we would find it?’
DC Soper raised a hand.
‘Yes, Louise?’
The smartly dressed Detective Constable, her brown hair elegant as always, her discreet Hublot watch the only clue to her private wealth, held up a sheaf of papers. ‘It’s a good point, sir. I’ve been going through the forensic report on the Paternosters’ BMW, as I’m sure we all have, and something’s struck me — as I’m sure it must have you.’
‘Which is, Louise?’ Grace encouraged.
‘If Niall Paternoster had murdered his wife and transported her to the deposition site in Ashdown Forest in their BMW — which all the evidence from the car’s satnav and onboard computer points to — why is there no DNA evidence in the car? It’s a two-door convertible — so most likely he would have put her body in the boot, or at least on the back seat, although that would have been awkward. Yet there is no DNA evidence — so far at least — of her being in either.’
Grace nodded. ‘A good point, Louise.’
Norman Potting raised a hand. ‘But if Niall had wrapped up all the body parts carefully, say in bin liners or plastic sheeting, there wouldn’t necessarily have been any DNA in the car.’
‘Yes, Norman,’ he replied. ‘But if he’d had the presence of mind to wrap up the body parts carefully, in my thinking that doesn’t square with the seemingly careless way he’d disposed of the knife — if that is in fact what he did.’
He saw the Financial Investigator trying to attract his attention.
‘Emily?’
‘Sir,’ Denyer said, ‘as we already know, the house in Nevill Road is owned by Eden Paternoster. We found out that a year ago she paid off the mortgage, but does he know that? It looks like she used the income she had built up from her rental properties. I’ve now discovered two things of interest late this afternoon. The first is, just ten weeks ago, she raised a seventy per cent mortgage on the house of £420,000, from the Lothian Bank of Commerce. And secondly, possibly even more significant, six weeks ago she transferred that entire amount to a nominee account in the Cayman Islands. I am awaiting more information from the Land Registry but I doubt Niall is aware of any of this.’
Grace felt a beat of excitement at this new information. Am I being set up here? he began to wonder. Have I missed something? Niall Paternoster was having an affair with Eden’s boss. Had she suspected her husband and placed the tracker under their car? Or did she hire someone to do it? Did she suspect he might be about to divorce her, so she’d moved all the assets she could overseas? And, holding down a senior job in IT in a major international company, she was clearly tech savvy.
He thought back to the chessboard, with the game in progress in the Paternosters’ living room. Roy Grace’s grandfather had taught him chess when he was about seven, and he’d played often with him, and also occasionally with his dad — until his father stopped playing with him because he always beat his old man too easily.
Chess was about strategy. Thinking as many moves ahead as you could. The fact that both Niall and Eden played chess against each other indicated both were strategists. Was Eden Paternoster still alive? Who was out-thinking the other here in a game beyond the board?
83
Addressing his team, Roy Grace said, ‘I want to run a parallel line of enquiry, looking at the possibility Eden Paternoster is not dead and has set this whole thing up — and if so, why?’
‘Could she have done this to get her husband locked up on a murder charge, boss?’ Glenn Branson said.
‘On the face of it, that would seem the most likely,’ Grace agreed. ‘Maybe she planted the blood-spotted T-shirt, hid her rings in a place they would be found, took items of clothing to the forest? Far-fetched? Maybe, but an angry, hurt partner in a relationship is capable of going to any lengths to hit back.’ He continued, ‘But we should consider this might only be a smokescreen and there’s another motive behind it. I want to stress these are only hypotheses and I don’t want to deflect our complete focus away from the current lines of enquiry. So I’m going to divide our resources.’
‘You mean like punting each way on a horse race, chief?’ Norman Potting interrupted. ‘Hedging your bet?’
‘That’s a rather crude way of putting it, Norman, and I’m not so much a betting man these days, I prefer to follow the evidence, but point taken. I’m giving you and Velvet the action of establishing whether Eden Paternoster is still alive.’ He looked at both officers.
Velvet Wilde nodded. Potting pursed his lips. ‘Five to two on the husband being the killer, ten to one his wife’s still alive.’
Frustrated now, Grace snapped, ‘This is not a game, Norman. These are people’s lives.’
Immediately he realized his nerves were frayed and he was exhausted. And he felt guilty for snapping at Norman, who was going through his own particular hell right now. Maybe he should have stayed home and not come in.
Looking suitably crestfallen, Potting said, ‘Sorry, chief.’
Moving on, Grace continued, ‘What if when Eden left their BMW in the Tesco car park she went round the back of the store and got into another car? One of the actions you need to start with is to check all local car hire companies and see if her name pops up. Recheck the CCTV cameras around the outside of the store and see if you can spot anything that might support this theory. Perhaps she had a disguise planned. A wig, different clothing. Maybe she had an accomplice — a lover or friend waiting in the car park?’
‘What about checking all ANPR cameras around the roads out of the store, sir?’ Emma-Jane Boutwood asked.
‘I’ve been thinking about that, EJ. But that’s a big ask — the exit leads onto a main road going in two different directions, and we don’t even know what vehicle we’re looking for. If any. If Niall Paternoster is telling the truth — and it’s still a big if — then Eden might well have left the Tesco car park in a vehicle. If we could identify that vehicle, then yes, definitely.’
‘What about a number-plate match to any vehicles on Nevill Road in the window of time before he could have got back there, boss?’ Jack Alexander suggested.
Grace nodded thoughtfully. ‘OK, you’re suggesting, depending on where the cameras are located — if any are in either location — that we see what vehicles left Tesco and then drove along Nevill Road? It’s a big task, but something we should consider if there is a camera there.’
DS Stratford interrupted them. ‘Sir, there is one ANPR camera a quarter mile to the east of the store. The other is just over a mile to the west. But there are none covering any part of Nevill Road.’
‘Shame,’ Grace said, and looked back at Alexander. ‘It was a good idea.’
DS Stratford focused back on his screen. Grace turned to the Financial Investigator. ‘We need a thorough breakdown of Eden Paternoster’s finances, Emily. Drill into her background, look at her maiden name, Townsend, and any other family names she might possibly have used as an alias.’
‘Yes, sir, already on it. I should have an update tomorrow.’