‘Good work, Kelly,’ Grace said.
‘Thank you, sir. There’s more. The credit card companies all use sophisticated software now that can sift through not just the original applications for similarities but also the subsequent spending patterns.’
‘On these spending patterns, did you find the same shops being used repeatedly, Kelly?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir, there was recent expenditure in France and New York and in and around Brighton, Sussex. The same shops and the same merchandise on the cards that were used. The same brands of hair and beauty products, as well as tampons. Similar wine and food items. Cat food. And rather curiously, perhaps, repeat purchases from a reptile food specialist supplier.’
‘Reptile?’ He felt a beat of excitement. ‘Can you email me over the details of that, urgently?’
‘Right away, sir. And it might be interesting for you to know that one place where her credit cards have been used regularly is at the Asda superstore in Brighton Marina. Also on one card there is expenditure in France for a coffin and a number of transatlantic and internal American flight tickets.’
‘Bloody hell!’ Grace said. ‘That’s very interesting. Brilliant work!’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘What address has this woman put for these applications, Kelly?’
‘Well,’ she said, sounding doubtful, ‘that’s where the trail runs cold. The mail for each application address seems to have been forwarded to PO boxes at mailbox companies. The direct debit to pay them comes from a company with nominee directors based in Port Victoria, Mahé, Seychelles.’
‘How cooperative is the Seychelles, Kelly?’
‘Unfortunately she’s chosen well, sir. At the moment, all the financial links end up in the Seychelles. It’s a notoriously secretive country and any request for information would have to go via NCA — the National Crime Agency — which could take some considerable time.’
‘Good work. Have you any more information that might lead us to her?’
‘Not yet, sir.’
He thanked her again and was about to hang up when the financial investigator said, ‘The second thing, sir, may be a more tenuous link, but I have a feeling it could be significant. There’s a connection between these three cards and a fourth card being used in the name of Jodie Danforth in the Brighton area.’
‘Jodie Danforth? Shit! Can you spell it?’
She replied, ‘D-A-N-F-O-R-T-H.’
He was thinking hard. Jodie Danforth. The name that Michelle Websdale had given him of the Brighton widow whose husband had died on a cruise from a snake bite.
‘OK, Kelly, as a priority action find out all you can about Jodie Danforth and come back to me as soon as possible!’
He ended the call and immediately rang the Coroner’s Officer’s mobile.
‘Michelle,’ he said when she answered. ‘It’s Roy Grace. Listen, what’s the process from now with Rowley Carmichael’s body?’
‘It’s at Brighton and Hove City Mortuary until the Coroner agrees to release it for the funeral.’
‘I’ve got some significant new information. Can you ask the Coroner not to release it until I give you the OK?’
‘Sure, I’ll inform her.’
‘Thanks. It might be really important.’
77
Tuesday 10 March
After finishing his call to Michelle Websdale, Grace, feeling parched, debated whether to make himself a quick coffee. But he was already late, so he hurried on. Entering the conference room he saw the whiteboards set up, and all his team members, minus Glenn Branson and Norman Potting, seated around the oval table.
Pinned to one whiteboard was a blow-up of the photograph Lesley had flagged in the Argus. An elderly man, handsome and distinguished-looking, if a little portly, in a white tuxedo with a black bow tie, the woman in a long evening dress, her hair in ringlets, with mesmerizing blue eyes. He immediately recognized her from the CCTV images Lanigan had sent.
She sported an enormous, sparkling rock of an engagement ring. But although they were standing together, the man’s arm affectionately round the shoulders of his bride of just a day or two, her body language told Grace everything. She was angled very slightly away from him, and there was too much of a gap between them. Whilst he had a proud, happy smile on his face, her smile looked more like it was put on for the camera — her eyes were very definitely not smiling.
Grace sat down at his place, laying the newspaper, his policy book and his briefing notes in front of him, then began by bringing his team up to speed on the information he now had on the death of Brighton resident Rowley Burnett Carmichael.
Next he reported on the information he had just received from Kelly Nicholls. ‘What may be highly relevant is the Asda in the Marina. So far as I’m aware it’s the closest superstore to the Roedean area of the city. The location where the geo-mapping puts the blurred photograph on the whiteboard, the one taken almost certainly accidentally by Shelby Stonor. The post-mortem confirms Stonor died from a saw-scaled viper bite. Jodie’s new husband has just died from a saw-scaled viper bite. And she has been buying products from a reptile food supplier. Since there is no reported death from a snake bite of a Brighton resident since records began over sixty years ago, I’m viewing this as significant. One question still unanswered is how Shelby Stonor got bitten. Is it possible the house where the photograph was taken was a burglary? Had he broken into Jodie’s house — somewhere in this city — and been bitten in the process?’
He glanced at his notes for a moment. ‘This is an important line of enquiry but we do need to keep an open mind. The newly-wed Carmichaels were in a part of India where I’m told these snakes are commonplace and kill many thousands annually.’
DS Cale raised her hand. ‘Boss,’ she said. ‘I have something that may be significant here. Two hours ago I received a phone call from a Mr Harvey Dexter, a retired consultant radiologist, who lives in Eastbourne. He said he’d just been reading the newspaper — the one you have a copy of in front of you — and he believes he recognizes the woman in the photograph.’ She pointed at the whiteboard. ‘He is convinced he stood opposite that lady in a cable car in the French resort of Courchevel a month ago — he was wearing a GoPro camera on his helmet.’
‘Nice life,’ Guy Batchelor commented. ‘Skiing one month, cruising the next.’
Ignoring him, Grace said, ‘And his point is what, Tanja?’
‘Well — he said his career helped him become extremely analytical of photographs. He said that even though she and the man she was with both had ski helmets on, he’s convinced she was the same lady as in this photograph in the Argus. But his GoPro video is of a man who’s not Rowley Carmichael, but Walt Klein — the disgraced American financier who fell to his death over a precipice in Courchevel.’
‘So this is eye-witness evidence that the woman on the slopes with Klein is the same person as Jodie Carmichael,’ Grace said.
It was more confirmation of what he already knew.
‘Look on the bright side, Walt Klein did better than the next bloke she had her claws into,’ Guy Batchelor commented. ‘He only lasted four days!’
Some of the team laughed.
‘Two dead lovers in a month?’ Grace questioned.
‘To lose one may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose two looks like carelessness,’ DS Exton said. ‘In the words of Oscar Wilde!’