‘Excellent. Glenn, any update from your press conference?’
‘Unfortunately no sightings of Eden or useful information from the public to date; it’s drawn a blank, boss. Two crank calls and that’s it.’
Roy Grace looked again at his team. ‘One piece of evidence from Digital Forensics that’s been driving our investigation towards Niall Paternoster so far is the examination of his computer. It’s shown that he’d been searching for ways to commit murder and dispose of human bodies. Norman and Velvet, I need you to ask Aiden Gilbert at Digital Forensics for a log of all the times when Niall Paternoster was supposedly looking at murder and body-disposal methods. Then you need to speak to the taxi owner, Mark Tuckwell — he must have a record of the times that Paternoster was using his taxi.’
‘To see if it could have been Niall Paternoster online at those times, sir?’ Velvet Wilde asked in her rich Belfast accent. ‘If he was out driving the taxi that would indicate maybe his wife was accessing his computer, perhaps?’
‘Exactly,’ Grace said. He hesitated for a moment, before continuing. ‘I’m not saying this is what I believe happened but we need to eliminate that as a possibility — or not.’ He looked around. ‘What I am saying, at this moment, is that I don’t bloody know. Right now we have a woman who has disappeared and her husband having an affair with his wife’s boss. There is evidence her husband murdered her — but we have no body. I also have grounds for suspecting Eden could have set this up.’
Chris Gee raised his arm. Grace nodded at him.
‘I’m wondering if I was Niall Paternoster and innocent, how would I be reacting right now, sir? Would I be taking this calmly or protesting my innocence loudly? Which has he been doing?’ the Crime Scene Manager asked.
‘Good question, Chris,’ Grace responded. ‘From all I’ve seen so far, Niall Paternoster is hard to read.’ He turned to Potting and Exton. ‘You’ve been conducting the interviews — what are your views?’
Jon Exton replied, ‘When we arrested him, boss, his first concern was for their cat.’
Several of the team giggled.
‘Bless!’ EJ Boutwood said. ‘He loves animals, he’s clearly innocent.’
‘Hitler loved animals, too,’ Potting mumbled.
‘For most of the interviews we conducted he alternated between being belligerent and going “no comment”,’ Exton said. ‘I found him hard to read.’ He looked at Potting.
‘Same here, chief.’
‘OK,’ Grace said. ‘We need to talk to this Rebecca Watkins urgently. Have we found any more about her?’ He looked at DS Stratford.
‘Yes, I’ve been doing a search on her family, sir.’ He leaned over his shoulder and pointed at the association chart on one of the whiteboards behind him. ‘Her husband, Ned, runs a successful advertising agency based in Brighton. They’ve been married five years, no children.’
Grace thanked him, then looked at Polly. ‘I’m very curious about this lady, I’d like to meet her myself. I think we’ll pay her a visit straight after this briefing — then you and I can bring her in for a formal interview.’
‘Might that not risk potential issues with her marriage, sir?’ Polly asked.
‘And your point is?’
‘Just saying, sir.’
‘Polly,’ Grace retorted, ‘Rebecca Watkins is Eden Paternoster’s boss. Eden has gone missing. That’s why we’re going to talk to her. I’m not about to tell her hubby that his wife is having an affair — are you?’
‘No — sir,’ Polly responded assertively.
84
Half an hour after the seventh briefing of Operation Lagoon had ended, Roy Grace, accompanied by Polly Sweeney, turned the silver, unmarked Mondeo estate off Dyke Road Avenue into Barrowfield Drive, an exclusive residential enclave of smart, detached houses. The entrance road was narrow, more like a country lane than somewhere in the middle of a city. The only giveaway was the yellow lines down each side at the start of the drive.
A wide mix of houses could be seen, Edwardian, mock Tudor, ultra-modern, colonial with columned porticos and a few old-fashioned, country-cottage style. Several had expensive motors in the driveways, adding to the air of moneyed exclusivity.
‘They ought to have a sign at the entrance to this estate,’ Polly observed. ‘No riff-raff here.’
Grace, following the car’s satnav, smiled thinly as he made a left into Barrowfield Drive. ‘Nor anyone on a copper’s salary,’ he added.
A man in his fifties, wearing orange earbuds, jogged past in the opposite direction.
‘Any of these fit your idea of a dream home, sir?’ Polly asked.
Grace shook his head. ‘Houses too close together. They’re beautiful, but if I had the kind of money to buy one of these, I’d get something in the country. Rolling acres, that kind of thing.’
‘Fancy yourself as Lord Grace of Grace Towers, do you, sir?’
Grace shook his head. ‘Nope. Never had any desire for that kind of money. Did you ever read the novel Catch-22?’
‘No — is it good?’
‘Brilliant, a classic. I read that its author, Joseph Heller, was at a party in New York thrown by some billionaire for a bunch of writers. Someone asked him how it made him feel that, no matter how successful he was as an author, he would never make the kind of money his host did. Know what Heller replied?’
Polly shook her head.
‘He said, “I have something he will never have. And that’s the knowledge that I have enough.”’
Polly, smiling, checked the numbers, then said, ‘Here, boss, number seventeen.’
Grace pulled up outside a fancy, mock-Georgian mansion, with a Grecian-columned porch. A Range Rover Evoque and a matt-black McLaren were parked ostentatiously in the curved driveway out front.
Grace, automatically clocking their licence plates, smiled too. It was good to be back properly on the job — it was helping him so much to escape, however fleetingly, from his grief over Bruno.
They climbed out and walked up the path to the front door. Polly glanced enviously at the McLaren. ‘Wouldn’t mind one of those,’ she said.
‘What colour?’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘I’m not fussed.’
85
Entering the porch, Roy Grace pressed the doorbell — one of the modern ones, a Nest, with a built-in video. Even the chimes they could hear faintly sounded expensive. He half expected a butler to open the door.
A dog yapped. Followed by a man’s voice calling out, ‘Kiko! Kiko!’
Moments later the door opened a crack, then wider. A lean man in his mid-forties with an equine face, a dishevelled mop of thinning fair hair covering the front of his head, stood there. He was dressed in a T-shirt, running shorts and trainers, and clutching one of the smallest dogs Grace had ever seen — it was barely larger than a rat — to his sweaty chest. Despite his clear recent exertions, the man smelled of cologne. Staring at them without an ounce of welcome in his expression, he said flatly, ‘Yes?’
‘Mr Ned Watkins?’ Grace asked and held up his warrant card, as did his colleague. ‘Detective Superintendent Grace and Investigating Officer Sweeney of Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team.’
‘Yes, that’s me.’
‘We would like to speak to your wife, Rebecca. Is she home?’ Grace said.
The dog, its eyes like wet marbles, was sizing them up.
‘What about?’ he asked.
‘Is your wife home?’ Grace repeated politely.
He hesitated then said, ‘She is, yes.’
‘We’d like to speak to her,’ Grace said.
‘Would you like to tell me what this is about?’ Ned Watkins said insistently.