Grace nodded assent. Both detectives were trained Cognitive Suspect Interviewers. ‘He doesn’t sound a very likely candidate, but the link between the two places is interesting.’
He looked down at his notes, then at Norman Potting. ‘Myles Royce, Norman? You’re expecting DNA results back from the lab later today?’
‘I am indeed, boss.’
‘Let me know as soon as you hear.’
‘I will indeed.’
Glenn Branson stared at Potting, still trying to figure out what on earth Bella Moy could see in the man. Twenty years her senior, charmless and, despite his recent makeover, not in any way physically appealing. At least not in his view. Although to be fair, he had been married four times, so presumably he had
something
that was not immediately apparent.
David Green, the Crime Scene Manager, reported on the progress that SOCOs and the Specialist Search Unit were making, looking for the missing head in the area around the West Sussex Piscatorial Society. Or rather, the lack of progress. This morning he had instructed them to widen the search parameters.
That was not good news, Grace thought. Although, from experience, he knew that there was always the possibility that the head, if buried on dry land, could have been carried off by a fox or a badger. Perps often spent hours digging deep graves for their victims. But these tended to preserve the bodies quite well. It was shallow graves that caused much bigger problems for murder investigation teams, because all kinds of animals would carry the remains away, for food and nests, dispersing them over a wide area.
He drew a circle on his pad around the name
Eric Whiteley
. So far their only suspect. He looked forward to the interview report.
After the meeting ended he headed back to his office and phoned Victoria Somers, the mother of his god-daughter, wondering if Jaye might like to play with Gaia’s son. She was a few years older than Roan Lafayette, but from the tone of her mother’s voice, that did not matter remotely. She sounded thrilled to bits.
One very small problem sorted.
And brownie points for himself all round.
He felt ridiculous. He had a pretty good idea that he looked ridiculous too. And he was perspiring heavily. He was in goddamn agony. The waist of the jacket was far too tight for him; the crotch of the cream pantaloons was crushing his balls, and the boots the idiot wardrobe woman had crammed his feet into were at least two sizes too small, and crippling his toes. His wig felt like he was wearing a straw bird’s nest.
He should be spending his last days on a sunlounger on a yacht in the Caribbean, drinking mojitos, surrounded by nubile young women. This was so wrong. The story of his fucking life. Screwed all the time. The goddamn movie business, goddamn television. Screwed by each of his agents. And now this final insult. Brooker Brody Productions stealing his story. The best damned thing he had written in his life.
And instead of basking in glory, he was sweating in tights and an itchy wig.
You’re going to be sorry. So sorry. All of you. Oh fucking yes.
That bitch who had been rude to him on Saturday was going to be sorry, too. He was looking around for her but had not seen her so far. He had plans for her. That was the great thing about dying – you no longer had to give a shit!
But first he had to focus. The task ahead. He had a copy of the production schedule. It gave him every day’s shooting on location in Brighton. Inside and outside the Pavilion, depending on the weather. Outside during the daytime, weather permitting. Inside when it was closed to the public.
Tomorrow after it was closed they were starting shooting the scene in the Banqueting Room when George IV ended his relationship with Maria Fitzherbert, telling her she was history.
The king would tell her while they were sitting beneath the chandelier that he was always scared of. Hollywood stars Judd Halpern and Gaia seated beneath that chandelier. How great would it be to have it crash down on both of them?
He could imagine the headlines around the world the next day. Two legends dead!
How are you going to feel about that, Larry Brooker? Maxim Brody? Bet you will be sorry you ripped off my treatment, won’t you? All your dreams shattered like the crystals of the chandelier.
See? I’m pretty poetic, really. Know what I’m saying?
The bus, packed full of costumed extras, moved off, pulling out through the gates of Brighton Racecourse, and on to the road. It turned left, down the hill, heading towards the sea, and then the Pavilion.
Drayton Wheeler clutched the small rucksack tightly. It contained his change of clothes; drinking water; food; torch; a glass San Pellegrino bottle filled with the mercuric chloride acid cocktail he had very carefully mixed; and a towel from the hotel bathroom.
When he focused on the task ahead, and forgot all about his outfit, he felt a lot better. Oh yes.
He felt extremely happy.
The bloody woman was pestering him again. Angela McNeill was managing to find an excuse to come into Eric Whiteley’s office almost every lunchtime now, on some pretext or other. He tried ignoring her, but she was not the kind of person who would even notice she was being ignored.
Today she was holding a clutch of bound annual accounts for Stonery Farm, which had been returned by a Sussex Police financial investigator called Emily Curtis, wanting to replace them in their correct filing cabinet. There was no urgency on this, Eric knew, she could have done it at any time, but she chose his lunch hour. Deliberately.
Angela McNeill stood over him, looking down at the tuna mayo sandwich, Twix bar, apple and bottle of sparkling water. ‘My, you’re a real creature of habit, aren’t you, Eric Whiteley?’
He concentrated on reading the
Argus
newspaper, open in front of him. They had conveniently printed the entire production shooting schedule, so that the public could know where to go and watch. The production was still appealing for more extras for some crowd scenes.
They had asked him to turn up this morning, but of course he couldn’t, not today, not during a weekday, except in his holidays. But the next days off he had booked were not until September.
‘You always have exactly the same lunch.’
He wasn’t sure whether it was a question or just a comment. Either way he didn’t care and it was none of her business. He didn’t like her voice, it was a charmless, flat monotone. He didn’t care for the way she smelled either. She wore a scent that smelled like toilet air freshener. He hated the way she stood over him, watching him feed like he was some creature in a zoo. He could imagine her being the kind of woman a husband would want to murder.
‘It’s what I like,’ he mumbled without looking up at her, and realized he had now re-read the same sentence three times.
‘It’s important to vary your diet, you know, Eric. There’s a lot of mercury in fish. Too much fish is bad for you.’
‘I’m a bit of a fishy character!’
‘Oooh, you’ve got a wicked sense of humour, haven’t you? I can tell!’
He wished he’d kept his mouth shut. Then he silently prayed that if he were ever in his life unfortunate enough to get stuck in a lift with someone, it wouldn’t be her.
His phone rang.
Saved by the bell, he thought, picking it up.
It was the receptionist. Her voice sounded strange. ‘Eric, there’s a gentleman and a lady who’d like to speak to you in the Conference Room.’
‘Really? What about? I don’t have any appointments today.’
In fact, he very rarely had appointments. He mostly worked alone, crunching numbers; it was other people in this firm who regularly dealt with the clients. The only meetings he ever had were the occasional ones with inspectors from the HM Revenue and Customs probing into the finances of clients, and when he was auditing.
‘They are police officers – detectives. They’re interviewing everyone in the firm.’
‘Ah.’ He frowned. ‘Shall I come down?’
‘Right away, if you could, please.’
‘Yes, good, right.’ He stood up and put on his jacket. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said to Angela McNeill. ‘I – my appointment’s here – I have to go to the Conference Room.’
‘Aren’t you going to finish your lunch first?’
‘I’ll have it afterwards.’
‘Would you like me to put your sandwich in the fridge? You shouldn’t leave it out, you could get salmonella.’
‘A bit of salmonella would go rather nicely with tuna,’ he said, and escaped from the room, leaving Angela to laugh at his joke.
As he walked along the corridor he wondered what this could be about. Had they found the bicycle he’d had stolen two years ago? Somehow he didn’t think they’d be interviewing everyone in the firm about that.
He entered the small Conference Room, with its eight-seater table, with a breezy smile but feeling nervous. A tall black man in a flashy suit and even flashier tie stood there. Next to him was a rather plain-looking woman in her mid-thirties, with tangled brown hair, wearing a white blouse, black trousers and utilitarian black shoes.
‘Good afternoon!’ he said. He could feel beads of sweat popping on his brow. Police always had that effect on him. He noticed the male officer peering down at his feet for a moment.
‘Eric Whiteley?’ The man produced a warrant card. ‘I’m Acting Detective Inspector Branson and this is my colleague, Detective Sergeant Moy. Thank you for taking the time to talk to us.’
Eric studied his warrant card for some moments because he felt he should, to look like he was taking this meeting seriously. Then he said, expansively, ‘Please have a seat. Can I offer you any refreshments?’
‘Thank you,’ the Acting DI said. ‘We’ve already been looked after.’
‘Good!’ Eric said. ‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it!’
He noticed a quick exchange of glances between the two officers. The two detectives sat on one side of the table, with their backs to the window with its view out across the Pavilion grounds, and he sat opposite them. Immediately he realized he was in a bad position, because the strong afternoon light from the brilliant blue sky was directly behind them, making it hard to see their faces clearly.
He felt intimidated. Like sitting in front of two school bullies. ‘Erm, I don’t suppose you’ve come about my bicycle?’
Both of them looked at him strangely. ‘Bicycle?’ the woman said.
‘I had it stolen from outside – a long time ago now. The bastards cut through the padlock.’
‘No, I’m sorry,’ Branson said. ‘That would be local uniform or CID – we’re from the Major Crime Branch.’
‘Ah.’ Eric nodded approvingly.
The detective was staring very hard at his face, eyeball to eyeball, which made Eric feel even more uncomfortable. As if at any moment he was about to say Ubu! Useless, Boring, Ugly! Instead he said, ‘Mr Whiteley, we’re making enquiries regarding the murder of an as yet unidentified body. The torso which was found at—’
‘Stonery Farm?’ Eric interrupted.
‘Yes,’ Bella Moy said.
‘Correct,’ Branson confirmed. ‘There were also body parts which belong to this same body recovered from the West Sussex Piscatorial Society trout lake near Henfield.’
Eric nodded. ‘Yes, yes, I thought you’d be getting round to me eventually!’ He gave a nervous laugh, but neither detective smiled.
‘How long have you worked here, Mr Whiteley?’ Glenn Branson asked.
He thought for a moment. ‘At Feline Bradley-Hamilton? Twenty-two years. Well, it will be twenty-three in November.’
‘And what exactly is your role here?’
‘I do company audits, mostly.’
The detective was still eyeballing him, without blinking. ‘Would I be correct in saying you carried out the audits this year on Stonery Farm and on the West Sussex Piscatorial Society?’
‘Something fishy about the West Sussex Piscatorial Society, is there, Detective?’ He giggled nervously at his joke.
Neither of them smiled, which made him even more nervous.
‘Nothing fishy at all, Mr Whiteley,’ he replied, levelly. ‘Could you tell us how long you have been auditing these two?’
Whiteley thought for some moments. ‘Well, some years.’ He looked down. He was feeling increasingly intimidated. ‘Yes. Ten years, at least. I can check if you would like? With Stonery Farm I could tell you egg-zactly!’ He giggled again, and was met with stony glares.
‘We’re investigating a murder, Mr Whiteley,’ Glenn Branson said. ‘I’m afraid we don’t quite share your humour on this. Have you ever been to the premises of Stonery Farm, Mr Whiteley?’
‘Every year. I do some of the accounts work on site.’
‘And you’ve been to the West Sussex Piscatorial Society trout lake?’
‘Only once, just to familiarize myself with the location – it’s the club’s main asset. But I carry out the audit work for the club here – it’s very straightforward.’
‘Does anyone else from this firm accompany you when you audit Stonery Farm?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I get on very well with Mr Winter, the owner; it’s a job for one person, really.’ His armpits were damp. He was sweating profusely now and still could not see their faces clearly. He wanted to get back to his office, to his solitude and his lunch and his newspaper. ‘This murder is a terrible thing,’ he went on. ‘I mean, there could be a bad impact on Stonery Farm’s business. I mean, would you want to eat free-range eggs from hens that had been feeding in an area where there was a corpse? I’m not sure I would.’