‘I’d prefer a cheetah or a gazelle, Denton.’
‘I don’t do either of those animals. Just tortoises,’ he retorted, somewhat cryptically.
‘The tortoise and the hare,’ Grace said. ‘Got it!’
‘No, Roy,’ Scroope’s humourless voice responded, the pedantic dial turned up to maximum. ‘Only tortoises.’
51
Saturday 25 November 2023
A few years ago, after being shot by a criminal he was chasing through a network of underground tunnels, Roy Grace had been to see a psychotherapist. It was at Cleo’s insistence because she feared, after he had woken night after night from terrible nightmares, that he might be suffering post-traumatic stress. It was the second time in his career he had been shot. The first, in his very early days, chasing a bank robber. Fortunately, both times he had only received a leg wound but therapy had helped him on each occasion.
The one thing he had taken away from the more recent course of sessions he had attended was something the therapist had said: Almost everything will work again if you unplug it — including you.
Downtime. Everyone needed it. But in those first few crucial weeks of a murder enquiry, that was never an option — at least not for him as the Senior Investigating Officer, although he always tried to ensure that members of his team got enough rest and crucial days off.
Glenn Branson had told him, after the briefing last night, that he looked shattered and he should try to get a good night’s sleep. Have a lie-in, he’d urged, and spend some time with his family in the morning — even if just a few hours — and he would cover for him. Grace had agreed, reluctantly, and on the condition that he reciprocated on Sunday, and Glenn took some time out to spend with his wife, Siobhan.
But, attractive as the notion of a good night’s sleep had been to the exhausted Detective Superintendent, reality had other ideas. He’d fallen asleep within minutes of climbing into bed, before the opening credits of a new television series Cleo had heard was brilliant had finished rolling. But a few hours later, at 1.30 a.m., he was wide awake, his brain churning. So he reached for his phone to check his email, in case there was anything back from Denton Scroope. There wasn’t.
The enormity of the responsibility on his shoulders was affecting him in a way that no previous case had. He’d always prided himself on being non-judgemental. Every victim he encountered had once been someone’s child, and perhaps someone’s lover. He treated every case equally.
Or had done until now.
It was impossible to pretend to himself this was just another job, that it was a case like any other. Quite apart from the media frenzy that was showing no signs of abating, with shouty headlines around the globe still proclaiming the assassination attempt on The Queen, he had twice-daily phone calls with Magellan-Lacey, enabling the Master to update both The King and The Queen, as well as a daily call with the Chief Constable to update her. The daily press briefings were held with the largest turnouts he had ever experienced. In addition he felt the hot breath of Nigel Downing on his neck, the ACC hovering like the proverbial cat on a hot tin roof, desperate for any development, any scrap of news, any bone he could throw to the Chief Constable.
He’d lain awake during the small hours of every night this week, fretting over what he might be overlooking. And at the same time, feeling torn. Part of him still wondering if he would have been more sensible not to have fought for primacy on this enquiry, and let the Met get on with it. But deep down he knew he wanted the job.
Passing the buck just wasn’t in his DNA. He was all too well aware that just like there were good and bad lawyers and doctors, there were good and bad detectives. And the Met Detective Superintendent Greg Mosse, who had argued that it was he who should be the SIO, was a classic example of a bad one. An arrogant one, with tunnel vision. And the condescending Met DI he’d had foisted on him, Brent Dean, further convinced him he’d made the right decision.
But Grace knew he needed to be careful not to fall into that very same trap himself. It was vital to constantly re-examine his own hypothesis and ask himself that question: What if he was wrong, and The Queen really had been the intended target? With the consequence that her would-be assassin was still out there and preparing their next attempt?
It was normal on all major investigations where a prime suspect was not identified quickly for the SIOs to have another detective review the case at regular intervals. Some SIOs resented the intrusion but Grace welcomed it — and more than ever on this case. He knew he wasn’t infallible and with so much at stake he dreaded the thought that he had missed something.
The first review of Op Asset had been yesterday, and it had been carried out by Detective Superintendent John Smith. After a day of diligently reading Grace’s Policy Book, checking the lines of enquiry and looking at all the actions, he’d concluded that Grace was covering every possible angle.
Lying awake now, his brain was churning again through what he and the team knew so far, trying to reassure himself that his assumptions were valid, repeatedly going back over everything he had to date.
The assurance from the ballistics expert that there was no way the shooter could have missed The Queen — if she had been the target — by such a wide margin was extremely significant.
The understanding of how the Royal Train came to be derailed — by a deliberate act, involving at least one accomplice, of pushing a length of rail across the tracks. That combined with the shooter bore all the hallmarks of a carefully planned conspiracy.
The anti-monarchy protestors had been under the Met Police Counter Terrorism team microscope since the shooting, and the Met’s report delivered to him yesterday concluded it was highly unlikely they would have been involved in such a well-planned operation — but it was impossible to rule out that a splinter group or some extremist faction might have been involved.
Separate intelligence from a specialist Surrey and Sussex Counter Terrorism branch had concluded there was nothing on this particular group of protestors to suggest that there was a faction among them violent enough to commit murder and they had found no connections with any of them who rode motorbikes and had a service background.
But Grace knew that they weren’t the only people who could be a threat to either of Their Majesties. The footman, Geoffrey Bailey, whom Jack Alexander had raised a flag about, might be one potential lead. Someone with a grievance who felt he’d been passed over for a medal. Undervalued. It seemed unlikely, but he looked forward to hearing the result of Jack’s interview with him on Monday.
One of his many actions had been to draft in extra resources across the Sussex Force. The Chief Constable of Surrey had done the same. Outside Enquiry Teams were deployed across both counties, interviewing everyone who had posted anything on social media that the Digital Support Unit thought might be of concern.
Following Sarah Stratten’s sighting of the motocross bike and rider, footage from all speed cameras, ANPR and motorway cameras was being examined for any sightings of a motorcycle containing the two digits of the licence plate she had so far recalled. That information had been given out at the press conference yesterday.
Grace hoped the woman might remember more, during her further interview, which had been arranged for Monday. He suspected the plates would be false, but if they could identify the make of motorcycle, that would narrow the field significantly. Many Roads Policing officers were petrol-heads, and often keen motorcyclists, and the description Sarah Stratten had given of the type of bike and the colour, black with a splash of red, had already resulted in some informed suggestions of the possible make coming from RPU officers. Yamaha and Honda were top of the list. That was too broad to be of immediate help, but it might be useful information later.