Neither of them heard Fluff, early that April Tuesday morning, pad upstairs from the kitchen, where he usually slept, and flop down on their bedroom floor. Later, Crafty would tell the police he thought he had heard whimpering, around 5 a.m. he estimated, but because he wasn’t aware the dog was in the bedroom, he thought the sound was coming from Caroline, having a bad dream.
It was only when Crafty woke at 7 a.m., with that very distinct smell of damp dog in his nostrils, that he saw Fluff on the floor. To his surprise, the dog was shaking. ‘Fluff!’ he hissed, not wanting to wake Caroline, who never rose before 8.30. ‘What are you doing here, boy?’
The dog gave him a baleful look, stood up, still shaking, padded to the door, then turned back to him and gave a single bark that was much higher than his usual.
‘Ssshhhh, boy!’ Crafty said, but at the same time he thought the dog was behaving in a very strange way — almost as if he was trying to tell him something. Was he ill? ‘Need to go out, do you? What’s the matter? Why are you shaking?’ he whispered, then slipped out of bed, pushed his feet in his slippers, and unhooked his silk paisley dressing gown from the back of the door. It was cold in the room and he was covered in goosebumps, he realized. Spring was meant to be here, although there was still a wintry chill in the air. But that could not be why Fluff was shaking — he had too much fur on him to be cold, surely?
The dog barked again, trotted a short way down the stairs, then turned, looked up at his master and barked again.
‘You’re definitely trying to tell me something, aren’t you, boy?’
He was.
Detective Constable Roy Grace sat at his small desk in the detectives’ room, on the second floor of Brighton’s John Street police station, which was to be his home for the foreseeable future.
He put down his mug of coffee from the canteen, and removed his jacket. His desk, apart from a telephone, his radio next to it and a copy of yesterday’s briefing notes, was almost bare. He opened his attaché case and pulled out a few personal belongings, and started by pinning up in front of him a photograph of his fiancée, Sandy. She was smiling, leaning against a railing on the seafront, the wind blowing her long blonde hair. Next he placed in front of him a photograph of his parents. His father, Jack, stood proudly in his uniform bearing Sergeant stripes.
Roy had recently completed his two years as a probationer, walking the beat in Brighton as a Constable, and he had loved it. But right from his early teens he had dreamed of becoming a detective. He still could not really believe that he now was one.
This was his second day in his new role, and he loved the sound of his title. Detective Constable Grace. Detective! Sandy loved it too, and told him she was very proud of him. He sipped some coffee and stifled a yawn. He had been told he did not need to be in until 8 a.m., but he wanted to make a good impression — and perhaps bag an early worm — so he had arrived at the police station, in a smart blazer and slacks, at 7 a.m., hoping for a more challenging day than yesterday when, in truth, he’d felt a little bored. Wasn’t this supposed to be the second busiest police station in the UK? It had felt as quiet as a mortuary.
What he needed was a case to get his teeth into. Nothing had happened on his first day, apart from attending a briefing, some basic familiarization with the routines, and being given his shifts for the three months ahead. It had been a quiet Monday generally, blamed largely on the pelting rain. ‘Policeman Rain’ it was jokingly called, but it was true. Levels of crime fell dramatically when the weather was rubbish. Today looked better, an almost cloudless sky giving the promise of sunshine. And crime!
Yesterday, he reflected, had felt a bit like his first day at school, getting to know the ropes and his new colleagues. There had been a handful of follow-ups from crimes committed on the Sunday night — a string of break-ins, a couple of street robberies, several motor vehicle thefts, a racist attack on a group of Asians by one of the town’s nasty youth gangs, and a drugs bust on a private dwelling — but other detectives had been despatched to handle those. He had spent most of his first day chatting to colleagues, seeing what he could learn from them, and waiting for his Detective Sergeant, Bill Stoker, to give him an action; he hoped today would not be a repeat.
He did not have to wait long. The DS, a burly former boxer, ambled over, wearing a charcoal suit that looked a size too big for him and black shoes polished to a military shine. ‘Right, old son, need to send you out. Domestic burglary in Dyke Road Avenue. Sounds like a high-value haul. I’ll come with you — but I’ll let you lead. I’ve already got SOCO on standby.’
Grace hoped his excitement didn’t show on his face too much. He drove the unmarked Metro up past Brighton railway station, carefully sticking to the speed limit, across the Seven Dials roundabout and on up Dyke Road, then into Dyke Road Avenue, lined on both sides with some of the town’s swankiest houses.
‘Not many coppers living on this street,’ his Sergeant observed wryly. ‘Not many honest ones at any rate.’
There had been a big police corruption scandal some years back, which Roy Grace’s father had talked about, and which had left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth — police and public alike. He decided, from the Sergeant’s slightly bitter tone, not to probe. Just as he was about to make a non-committal comment, his colleague said, ‘Here, that’s it, over on the left, on that corner!’
Grace pulled over. There was a narrow driveway with in-and-out gates; both sets were open — and from their poor state of repair, it did not look as if they had been closed in years. ‘I think if I lived on this street, I’d keep my gates shut — open like that is an invitation,’ he said.
‘Most people don’t have a bloody clue about security,’ the Detective Sergeant said. ‘All right, before we get out of the car, what’s this place tell you at first glance?’
Roy Grace stared at the house. It was secluded from the street by a wooden fence badly in need of repair, rising above which, on the other side, was a tall, neatly trimmed privet hedge. The house itself was an Edwardian mansion, with window frames that, he could see from here, looked in poor condition. ‘Elderly people live here,’ Grace said. ‘They’ve probably owned the property for several decades, and never bothered with an alarm. There’s no box on the outside of the house.’
The Detective Sergeant raised his eyebrows. ‘What makes you think the occupants are elderly?’ He looked down at his notepad. ‘Mr and Mrs Cunningham.’
‘Old people get worried about money, sir. They don’t like to spend anything they don’t have to. So they haven’t done maintenance on the exterior for a very long time. But I suspect they are keen gardeners — and they have the time, which means they are retired. Look at the condition of the hedge. It’s immaculate — trimmed by a perfectionist.’
‘Let’s see if you’re right,’ Bill Stoker said, climbing out.
Grace looked at him. ‘Is there something you know about these people that I don’t?’
Stoker gave a non-committal shrug and a wry smile. The two men walked up the threadbare gravel of the driveway. An elderly Honda saloon was parked near the front door. From what they could see of the garden from their position, all the shrubbery was neatly tended, but close up, Grace could see the exterior of the house was in an even worse state of repair than he had first assessed, with large chunks of the pebbledash rendering missing and a few ominous patches of damp on the walls.
They entered the porch and rang the bell. Instantly, they heard the half-hearted bark of a dog, and a few moments later the door was opened by a wiry, energetic-looking man in his early seventies, Grace estimated. Grace shot Bill Stoker a quick glance; Stoker gave a small grin of approval.