Smallbone said nothing for some moments. Grace continued to stare at him. He’d aged noticeably, he thought. His face, which once had cold, boyish good looks that used to remind him of one of those perfect, soulless young men in Hitler Youth posters, now had the leathery, lined texture that prison and heavy smoking did for you. His hair was still immaculate, but the blonde colour had gone and instead was the gingery colour of bad dye. But he still exuded the same arrogance from every pore of his skin. ‘I didn’t do it.’
‘Do what?’
‘What you said I done.’
‘Vandalize my lady’s car?’
‘I didn’t do it. You’re making a mistake.’
Clenching his fists, and having to work hard to control the anger that was steadily building inside him, and his hatred for this scumbag all the more intense now he was so close to him, Grace said, ‘Your handwriting’s all over it.’
Smallbone shook his head. ‘You can think what you like, Grace, but knowing your reputation in this city, I don’t think I’m the only person who isn’t signed up to your fan club.’
Grace leaned closer, his face right up against Smallbone’s. ‘Twelve years ago, just after you were sent down, someone burned almost identical words on to my lawn. Don’t even try to deny that was you, because that will make me even angrier. All right?’
He leaned back a little. Smallbone said nothing. Then Grace leaned forward again, pressing his face even closer, so their noses were almost touching. ‘You’re out on licence, a free man, Smallbone, free to do anything you want. But I’m warning you now, and I’m not ever going to warn you again. If anything happens to my lady and the child she is carrying, anything at all,
anything
, I won’t be locking you up again, understand? I won’t be locking you up because there won’t be enough bits of you left to fill a matchbox, by the time I’ve finished with you. Do you understand?’
Without waiting for any comment, Grace climbed out and walked around to the other side of the car, then jerked the door open as hard as he could. Smallbone, his right arm twisted behind his back and hooked by the other end of the cuff to the door handle, was jerked out and fell on his back in the grass, with a pained grunt.
‘Oops, sorry,’ Grace said. ‘Forgot you were holding on to the door.’ Then he knelt and frisked him for a second time. When he was satisfied he didn’t have another phone, he unlocked the cuffs, and pulled him to his feet. ‘So, we understand each other, do we?’
Smallbone stared around him, in the almost pitch darkness now, the pelting rain matting his hair to his head. ‘I told you, I haven’t touched her car. It’s not my doing. I don’t know anything about it.’
‘In that case,’ Grace said with a smile, ‘you’ve got nothing to worry about. Have a nice walk home. It should sober you up nicely!’
‘Hey – what do you mean?’
Grace walked round to the driver’s door and opened it.
‘You’re not leaving me here?’
‘Actually, I am.’
Smallbone patted his pockets. ‘You’ve got my phone!’
‘Don’t worry, it’s safe!’ Grace climbed in, shut the door and hit the central locking. Then he started the engine.
Smallbone pounded on the roof, shouting, ‘Hey!’ He tried to open the front passenger door.
Grace lowered the window a fraction. ‘I’ll drop your phone off at Brighton nick – oh, and your umbrella too!’
‘Don’t leave me here like this . . . please,’ Smallbone said, trying politeness for once in his life. ‘At least give me a lift back to town.’
‘Sorry,’ Grace said. ‘It’s an insurance thing. Not allowed to take passengers unless on official police business. You know how it is these days. Health and Safety, all that shit. Bummer.’
He drove off, slowing down for a brief instant to flick on the rear spotlight, and enjoy the sight of the forlorn, bewildered-looking figure stumbling across the grass after him.
Apart from one night here during happier times with Ari, when they’d toured around Wales before Sammy was born, Glenn Branson did not really know Cardiff at all, and he wasn’t sure of his exact whereabouts in the city right now. Except it was a nice, swanky hotel, and the bar was still open and busy. He sat at the counter with Bella Moy next to him. He was buzzing, on a high from having been in the TV studio, feeling a faint sense of anticlimax that it was all over.
He grabbed a handful of nuts in exotically coloured coatings and crunched them, then lifted his pint glass. ‘Cheers,’ he said.
Bella raised her Cosmopolitan and they clinked glasses.
‘Well done, star!’ he said.
‘You were the star,’ she returned with a sweet smile.
She was dressed in a navy trouser suit with an open-necked white blouse and elegant high-heels. He wanted to tell her how lovely she looked, but he didn’t quite have the courage, unsure how she might react, knowing from past experience that she had a very brittle side to her. And besides, he thought regretfully, in today’s politically correct police world, the slightest innuendo taken the wrong way could have you up before a disciplinary tribunal for sexual harassment.
But what a transformation, he thought, from the normally drab attire she wore at work, and her messy mousy hair. She’d had it done especially for tonight, an elegantly layered cut, and for the first time since he had known her, he was looking at her as an attractive woman. He noticed the fine gold chain with a tiny cross around her neck, and wondered how religious she was. He realized, despite having worked closely with her for the past two years, how little he knew her. ‘Must be tough with your mum being in hospital,’ he said.
She nodded sadly. ‘Yes.’ She shrugged, and in that gesture he saw, through that sadness, what might have been a hint of relief.
‘How long have you been looking after her?’
‘Ten years. I lived away from home for a few years, then my dad was sick with Parkinson’s and Mum had a minor stroke and wasn’t able to look after him, so I moved back in with them. He died and I – I sort of stayed on, looking after her.’
‘That’s dedication.’
‘I suppose.’ She smiled wistfully and he sensed even more strongly her deep inner sadness.
She drained her glass and he ordered her another, downing his own too and getting a pleasant buzz from the alcohol. He was enjoying himself. It was good having some company. And he had to admit it, he’d really, really enjoyed being on television. Live television! Roy Grace had called him twenty minutes ago telling him he’d just watched the recording and congratulating him on giving a command performance – even if he had stolen his line about cold cases and the identifying of the victim!
There had been a flurry of calls but no positive leads so far. They’d agreed Grace would take the morning briefing so that he and Bella didn’t have to rush back at dawn.
Which meant he could enjoy himself for a while longer. Away from Brighton and for the first time in a long while not feeling all chewed up inside about Ari and his kids. And suddenly he found himself staring at Bella not as a colleague, but as a guy out on a date would. He didn’t want this evening to end just yet. Instead he found himself wondering what it might be like to sleep with her.
Their eyes met. She had big, soulful eyes. A pretty nose. He liked her slender neck, although that crucifix bothered him some. Was she a prude? Why had she got divorced? He needed to know more about her. ‘Do you have – you know – like – a fella?’
She smiled evasively. ‘Not really. No one – you know – that I’m an item with.’
‘Oh?’ His hopes rose. There had been several times in the past when he had looked at the DS in briefings, munching away almost obsessively on her Maltesers as if they were a Freudian substitute for something else, and thought to himself that with a makeover she could be really attractive. And now here she was, smelling of an alluring scent, and with just that makeover. Although he could improve on her further, if she gave him the chance. And, he decided, emboldened and increasingly amorous from the drink, he was going to try to persuade her to give him that chance.
Roy Grace had told him, on a couple of occasions recently, that he needed to accept that his marriage was over – had been, in reality, for a long time – and that he should start seriously considering a new relationship. Well, he thought, this just might be it.
They chatted on for a while, and she finished her second Cosmopolitan.
‘Have another!’ he said, draining his second beer – or was it his third? A cheesy song was playing in the background, ‘Lady In Red’. Not normally his kind of music, but it was doing it for him at this moment.
‘I have to go to bed,’ she said, slipping off her bar stool, suddenly, surprising him with her abruptness. ‘It’s been a great evening!’ She gave him a quick, damp peck on the cheek and was gone.
He sat there, reflectively nursing his empty glass, then ordered another pint. He listened to more cheesy songs, savouring that soft, wet touch of her lips, and thinking, for the first time since Ari had told him their marriage was over, that maybe it was possible to find a new life.
And that he might have found the person to start it with.
Like all police officers, Roy Grace had long been conditioned to arrive early for meetings of any kind, at any level. The Wednesday morning
Operation Icon
briefing had been short, with little progress to report in the past twenty-four hours. Their best hopes of a breakthrough, at this stage, were pinned on a positive response from Glenn Branson’s appearance on
Crimewatch
.
At a quarter to ten, he showed his warrant card to the security officer on the gates at Malling House, then drove through the barrier. He was still privately smiling after his encounter with Amis Smallbone last night. He couldn’t help it. He had no doubt the creep was swearing and cussing, and that his head was full of all kinds of retribution, but he had equally no doubt that Smallbone would not go within ten miles of Cleo ever again.
He parked and stepped out of his car into a fresh, warm, early summer morning. He walked across the complex of buildings towards a modern, functional building that housed the visitors’ reception desk, entered the large waiting area, and gave his name to one of the uniformed receptionists.
Then he sat down and picked up a copy of the Police Federation magazine and began idly flicking through it, scanning with interest several articles mentioning officers he knew. After a few minutes a shadow fell over him and he looked up.
It never mattered what the nature of his business was with officers from PSD – the Professional Standards Department – he always felt a tad nervous dealing with them. They were, essentially, the force’s own police force, whose job was to investigate both public complaints and any internal misconduct of their fellow officers. It didn’t matter that they might once have been colleagues, as Detective Superintendent Michael Evans had indeed been; they now played for a culturally different team. They were perceived by some as the enemy, even when you were seeking their help or advice.
‘Good to see you, Roy. Long time!’
Grace stood up. It had been several years since they’d last met. A sprinter with the Sussex Police Athletics team, the Detective Superintendent was a wiry forty-five-year-old, with a shaven head and a slightly world-weary cynicism in his eyes. ‘Good to see you too.’
Evans frowned. ‘Did things ever get resolved about your wife – Sandy, wasn’t it?’
He clearly wasn’t up to speed, Grace thought. ‘Nope. It’ll be ten years in a couple of months. I’m going through the process of having her declared legally dead. I’m planning to get married again.’
Evans pursed his lips and nodded, like some inane troll on a toy counter. For some reason his expression reminded Grace that he needed to buy a birthday present for his god-daughter, Jaye Somers, who would be ten in August. Then he said, ‘Word of advice, Roy, make sure you get all that buttoned up. You know, just in case . . .’
‘I know.’
Compliance was a big current issue in the police force. There had been too many scandals over expenses and police relationships recently. They were all walking on eggshells these days.
He followed Evans a short distance to the modern block where the PSD was housed, then along a corridor and into a small, boxlike office, and took one of the two chairs opposite his desk. The office was that of a man who lived a neat, orderly life. Tidy desk, tidy shelves, regulation framed photos of a perfect-looking wife against a blank, blue background, and cute kids against beige backgrounds. Nothing to give any hint of any interests. It was, he imagined, like a KGB member’s office during the height of the Cold War.
‘So how can we help you, Roy?’ he asked, settling down behind his desk and not offering any drinks.
‘You may remember I mentioned to you a while ago I’ve been concerned about leaks of key information on a number of murder enquiries I’ve been running during the past year,’ Grace said. ‘It’s still going on and I need advice from you on dealing with the situation.’
Evans opened a lined notebook, identical to the Policy Books that were maintained during Major Crime enquiries. He jotted down the date and Grace’s name. ‘Right. Can you give me details?’
For the next thirty minutes, Grace talked him through the cases, during the past twelve months, where Kevin Spinella always seemed to have privileged information on what was happening, long before any press officer had circulated it. Sometimes, Spinella had called him only minutes after he himself had been informed of a murder. All the time he kept an eye on the notes Evans was taking – he had long been skilled at reading upside down.