‘I’m astonished to hear this. He’s one of the most strait-laced officers I know.’
‘A dark horse, perhaps?’
‘A large number of sites, or just one in particular, Paula?’
‘Enough.’ She pushed a printout towards him. ‘It’s all there, the numbers marked.’
‘What a bloody idiot. Well, what I can say is I think he has a problem at the moment. I’d actually been planning to speak to him this afternoon.’
‘What kind of problem?’ In addition to her reputation for being tough, Roy had also seen her caring side before, and was aware he was looking at it now.
‘Well, he’s been coming to work looking very dishevelled — some days not having shaved or brushed his hair, and he seems withdrawn. He’s normally careful with his appearance — as I said, he’s very strait-laced and totally dependable. He’s got the nickname Agenda Man, because he’s so thorough when he gives any instructions to anyone. I’m worried he might be having some kind of a breakdown. Accessing these kinds of sites is totally out of character — and of course quite unacceptable on his police phone.’
‘Is he married?’
‘He was divorced some years ago — I understand reasonably amicably, from what he told me once, and has a daughter. I believe he’s been in a stable relationship with a lady from Australia for some years — a very nice woman called Dawn. He brought her along to an event last year — a Sussex Police Charitable Trust fundraiser. Would you like me to see what I can find out and report back to you?’
She hesitated. ‘I had been thinking about someone from this department talking to him.’
‘Would you let me speak to him first? He’s a good officer — I really believe that.’
She gave him a quizzical look.
‘Trust me, I believe in this man.’
‘OK, Roy,’ she said, hesitantly. ‘But we can’t let this go on.’
‘I’ll speak to him as soon as I can this afternoon.’
‘I’d be grateful. Any officer behaving erratically is a worry. Perhaps even more so in these days of heightened security.’
‘I agree.’
Walking away from her office, he was thinking hard, and extremely concerned. Was there something seriously wrong with his friend and colleague Jon Exton?
80
Thursday 28 April
Glenn Branson and Guy Batchelor were already heading down the corridor towards his office when Grace entered the building, still reflecting on his meeting with Paula Darke. Gesturing them to sit down at the tiny desk in front of his own that he used as a conference table, he decided not to say anything about Exton at this stage; instead he fetched his notes from his desk and joined them.
‘OK, I want to have a word about strategy in advance of this evening’s Op Bantam briefing,’ he said. ‘As I see it we have a number of really good suspects, each of them more than capable of killing Lorna Belling. Her deceased husband, Corin; Seymour Darling; Kipp Brown; and now this mystery lover of Lorna’s introduced into the investigation by her friend, known only as Greg. We have a vague description of the person who might be Greg from Seymour Darling, but in my view he’s an unreliable witness.’
Both the other detectives nodded.
‘Totally,’ Batchelor agreed. ‘I’m not sure we can trust anything that weasel says. And we’re still not able to rule out suicide, especially now we know one of the causes of death was electrocution.’
‘Correct. Now, there is one thing we’ve not considered about Lorna,’ Grace said. ‘The facts we have so far are that we know she was in an abusive relationship with her husband. She worked from home as a hairdresser. She had a secret apartment, the address where she was found dead. And we know from her sister she was planning to leave her husband and move to Australia, and was in the process of raising cash to do just that — hence the probable reason she was selling her car.’ He looked at both men then continued. ‘I have a supposition. Think the unthinkable. What if the real reason she had the apartment was not as a bolthole from her husband, but because she had a secret life as an escort of some kind? Could the reason that there was no phone or computer found in her flat be that the offender took them, knowing his details would be on them?’
Glenn Branson nodded. ‘Interesting thinking, boss.’
‘I think we have just the person to carry out a search of all the escort sites online and advertised in the local media — Spreadsheet Man — Donald Dull. Analysis like that would be right up his alley,’ Batchelor said.
‘Never a dull day,’ Glenn quipped.
‘Every day is if your name’s Dull,’ added Batchelor.
Grace barely noticed the comments. He was thinking again. Lorna had told her friend, Kate Harmond, she had a lover, Greg. Wouldn’t she have told her the whole name and some details about her lover? Could that have been just a ruse, to distract her from knowing the truth? That she was funding her escape to a new life in Australia through sexual services? He looked down at his notes again. ‘Glenn, I want you to pick a small team to look at each of the suspects in depth. Pull together the witness evidence, the forensics, the intel and anything else we have. See if any of them have been accessing escort sites. Grade the suspects — establish who is our most likely one.’
‘I’ll get straight on it.’
Grace looked at Batchelor. ‘Guy, we need a new media strategy targeting the local community. Vallance Mansions is bounded on two sides by residential buildings and Kingsway in front is a very busy thoroughfare. Someone in the apartment block or in the surrounding area may have seen something on the afternoon or night she was killed. And I think we need to update the strategy, and to appoint a house-to-house supervisor to pull in all the PCSOs in the area and get them knocking on doors, and make sure we’ve not missed any CCTV. You can’t walk ten feet in this city without being captured on a camera somewhere. I’ve said I consider the man an unreliable witness — but if Darling is correct and Greg exists and has been a frequent visitor, someone must have seen him, and a CCTV camera must have caught him.’
‘Leave it with me, boss.’ Batchelor hesitated. ‘There is actually something else.’ He shot a glance at Branson, then Grace, who both nodded.
‘I’ve been running an ANPR sweep. I created a matrix, with the help of NotMuch — he’s had a lot of FBI experience in his previous role in Homeland Security, plotting possible routes for attackers into an area. We used the same basic algorithm to plot vehicles travelling from different parts of the city to Vallance Mansions, to see if we could pick up any non-residents visiting frequently — and something interesting has showed up. I could illustrate it better on my computer, but in short summary,’ he said awkwardly, ‘DS Exton has been in the vicinity several times, mostly evenings and often all night. Significantly, he was there on the night of Wednesday, April 20th.’ He looked at Grace expectantly.
Grace frowned, not liking what he was hearing at all. Exton calling sex workers on his phone. Now known to be in the vicinity on the day Lorna died. There was no one on his team who looked less likely than mild, quiet, serious Exton.
This development was potentially horrendous. Could it possibly be true? What were the implications, and how could he deal with this? It hardly bore thinking about. Surely there must be a simple explanation, otherwise this could be his worst nightmare.
‘Where does Exton live, Guy?’ he asked.
‘Hailsham, boss.’