Dead at First Sight, page 13
On her right foot was a black velvet slipper with a gold crest. Her left foot was bare and the left slipper lay on its side on the far side of the room, against the skirting board. He speculated on how it had got there. Had she kicked out her legs in her death throes, in her final desperate struggle for air? Or had she been carried unconscious by her assailant and had the slipper fallen off and, in a red mist of panic, had he – or she – not noticed?
Had she even died from hanging, he began to wonder? Or was she dead some time before being strung up there? Hopefully, the pathologist would be able to answer that. But however she had died, he was already pretty certain in his own mind that she had not taken her own life. Someone else had.
An iPhone lay on the floor, beneath the chair at the dressing table. An odd location – had it fallen there? Possible sign of a struggle? He called one of the scene investigators over and instructed him to seize the phone as evidence. Then the two detectives left and carried out a room-by-room walk-through. Downstairs in a sumptuous den were two chesterfields, face to face across a handsome coffee table, and a tidy roll-top desk. The clue that something was missing from it was a Mac power cable lying on the floor. Grace followed the cable under the desk, where it was plugged into a wall socket. The switch was in the on position.
Had her computer been taken? By her killer?
There were no other signs that this was a burglary. No cupboard doors or filing cabinet drawers left open with the contents scattered everywhere. The whole house looked neat and tidy. The offender might have just taken her computer. Because of what was on it? But if so, why hadn’t he – or she – taken the phone also? Not noticed it under the chair, perhaps, in the heat of the moment? What else had they not noticed?
He walked into the hall, with busts on plinths, framed antique Brighton prints on the walls and a very ancient high-backed hall-porter’s chair. He carried on through into the kitchen, which was fairly modern in comparison. And saw the iPad immediately. It sat on a work surface on the far side of the room, next to a toaster and a coffee machine, plugged into a socket.
Had Suzy Driver’s killer also missed this?
He called Aiden Gilbert at the Digital Forensics Team and asked him if someone could take a fast look at Suzy Driver’s phone and iPad, to try to see who she had been in contact with in recent weeks. Next, he radioed the Force Control Room and requested a bike or car from the Road Policing Unit to pick the items up and rush them to Gilbert in nearby Haywards Heath.
On a handsome oak Welsh dresser was a wedding photo in a silver frame. He presumed it was Suzy Driver and her husband. She was standing in the front porch of a church, in a wedding dress, her hair tumbling in ringlets around her shoulders, and wearing a short veil. Raymond Driver, in a morning suit with wide trousers and sporting a red carnation, a fancy gold brocade waistcoat and big hair, stood proudly beside her. Alongside was her maid of honour, a fair-haired woman who looked familiar to Roy.
Next to it was another silver-framed photograph, one he was immediately certain he had seen before. Identical to the one he had received from Marcel Kullen in Germany. The photo of the two ladies in ballgowns. The fair-haired one was the maid of honour.
They weren’t identical but they looked so similar they had to be sisters. Suzy and Lena, Roy thought. Both dead.
He looked at Branson, who had joined him and was staring intently at a yellow Post-it note stuck to a work surface. Something was handwritten on it, in blue ink. ‘Jack Roberts,’ the DI said, pensively. ‘Why do I know that name?’
‘Is he a movie star?’ Grace said, mischievously.
‘Ha ha. If he is, he’s from back in the silent movie era – you’re more likely to remember that, old-timer.’
Grace gave him two fingers and opened a drawer in the dresser. He could see without touching anything that it contained a roll of sellotape, scissors, a couple of ballpoint pens, a stapler and a photograph of three young children playing on a beach that he recognized, from a trip to Australia with Sandy many years ago, as Bondi. He slid the drawer shut, then opened the next and glanced in, but saw nothing of interest, nor in any of the other kitchen drawers.
Then he looked at a cork noticeboard fixed to a wall. There were a couple of taxi firm business cards pinned to it; a Thai takeaway menu; a cartoon drawn by a child of a beach, sea, a sailing boat and a big, low sun.
Then he saw another business card. ‘Bingo!’ Branson said.
‘Perhaps?’ Grace added with a note of caution. The card read:
Jack Roberts
Investigations Director
GLOBAL INVESTIGATIONS
1st Floor, 44 Richmond Road, Kingston, Surrey KT2 5EE
‘Pay him a visit?’ Branson suggested.
Grace glanced at his watch. Kingston was a good hour away, longer probably as they would be heading into rush hour. ‘Better see if he’s there, and willing to wait for us.’
He dialled the number on the business card.
36
Tuesday 2 October
‘Hello?’ Johnny Fordwater answered cautiously, his hands reeking of oil.
‘Hey, buddy, how you doing?’
It was Gerry. Sounding irrepressibly cheerful.
‘Not that great, actually, but thanks for asking.’ Johnny glanced at his watch and did a quick calculation. Gerry was in the Midwest. Six or was it seven hours behind the UK? Mid-morning for him. He looked down at his gun. It lay there, taunting him.
Try again, Major Failure!
‘Look, buddy, I’m feeling pretty gutted myself, for suggesting online dating.’
‘Well, you were only trying to be helpful, Gerry – and you had a great experience – you found a beautiful lady in Katrina.’
‘Karen,’ Gerry corrected him.
‘Karen, yes, sorry. You’re a lucky guy.’
He fell silent, fixated on his gun. Tempted. So tempted to pick it up and end it all whilst still talking to Gerry.
Interrupting his chain of thought, Gerry said, ‘Thought you might want to know the same’s happened to another buddy of mine, a former NYPD detective who went through one shitstorm of a divorce and then thought he’d met his soulmate. Instead, she rinsed him. I feel terrible, buddy – like, I’m the idiot who made all this happen.’
‘Gerry, I don’t blame you in any way. I know you meant well, and it’s not your fault, I was just incredibly stupid. I just – I – I should have seen it. Blinded by love, I guess.’
‘These internet scammers are smart. They know how to yank someone’s chain every which way.’
‘Very neatly put.’
‘OK, here’s the thing. My ex-NYPD buddy, Matthew Sorokin, isn’t gonna take this lying down. I hope you don’t mind, but I told him about your situation and he’d like to talk to you – can I hook you guys up?’
Well, I’d like to but I’m just about to blow my brains out, as soon as you get off the line, if that’s all right with you, Gerry? Johnny was tempted to say. Instead he found himself saying, ‘Sure, Gerry, I’d be really interested to talk to him.’
37
Tuesday 2 October
‘So, how can I help you, gentlemen?’
Jack Roberts, getting up from behind his desk to greet Grace and Branson, still exuded energy and charm, despite it being the back-end of his working day. The PI’s dark tie was slack, the top button of his creased purple shirt unbuttoned, his grey suit jacket hanging over the back of his chair. As he beamed, he revealed a youthful set of gleaming white teeth.
Showing their warrant cards, Roy Grace said, ‘We are investigating the death of Mrs Susan Driver. We found your business card at her home, and possibly your name on a note in her kitchen.’
Roberts looked visibly shaken. ‘Dead? Suzy Driver?’
‘You knew her, sir?’ Glenn Branson asked.
Roberts ushered them to a leather sofa, and then sank into an armchair beside it. ‘Suzy’s dead?’ He clenched his knuckles.
‘I’m afraid so,’ Grace said.
A woman brought in a tray with tea, coffee, bottled water and a plate of digestive biscuits, which she set down in front of them, then left.
‘How – when – when did this happen – what happened?’ Roberts asked. ‘How did she die?’
‘I’m afraid we can’t tell you at this moment, sir. May I ask how you knew this lady?’ Grace asked.
The private investigator said nothing for some moments. ‘Well, she first contacted this agency about three weeks ago – hold on a sec and I’ll tell you exactly.’
He jumped up, went over to his desk, stood over it and tapped the keys on his computer. ‘Yes, September 7th she came to see me. She was quite agitated. She told me she’d been widowed four years previously and had joined an online dating agency.’ He shrugged, walked back over and sat down again.
‘I’m afraid, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘it’s a familiar kind of story that we deal with here constantly. She’d met a man purportedly from Norway, giving his name as Norbert Petersen. And using a photograph of a gentleman lifted from the internet. But she was unaware of this at the time.
‘She was attracted to him and they chatted online for several months – just steadily getting to know each other. He told her he was a geologist in the petrochemical industry, working on oil exploration in Bahrain. They got on so well, she said she was starting to fall in love with him.’
‘Despite not having met him?’ Grace asked.
‘Correct.’ Roberts paused and dropped a sweetener in his tea. ‘Then one day he gave her the usual kind of cock-and-bull sob story, some bullshit about his grandmother having cancer and needing treatment in a special clinic in the USA, and asked her if she could give him a short-term loan of £20,000 to pay her costs. He explained he was going through an acrimonious divorce and his wife had had his bank accounts frozen. Could she lend him the money to tide him over and he would pay her back as soon as the divorce was settled and he was able to sell his home. Luckily, Mrs Driver was sceptical and did a reverse Google search on his image – something her sister had explained to her. You just put in an image and do a Google search on it and it will come up with any matches. Mrs Driver found his same profile on a number of different online dating sites. When she challenged the so-called “Norbert Petersen”, he assured her that he was genuine and that some bastard had stolen his identity and was using it to scam lonely women around the world.’
‘She was clearly a smart lady,’ Glenn Branson said. ‘How did she get suckered in – or, at least, nearly suckered in?’
Roberts shrugged. ‘I can’t explain what it is, but there is something strangely powerful – almost magnetic – about internet romances. A connection that is far stronger than a traditional meeting of two people. Maybe because on the internet you can lie all the time, each person gives the other only their good side. It’s intoxicating. That’s one of the things which makes it so dangerous – and such easy pickings for fraudsters.’
‘Can you tell us more about Suzy Driver?’ Grace asked.
‘Suzy came to see me because she was in love with this Norbert Petersen, but had been smart enough to want someone to check him out before sending him any money.’
‘You checked him out?’ Grace asked.
‘That’s one of the things my agency specializes in,’ he responded. ‘The Norbert Petersen that Mrs Driver is – was – in love with, I’m afraid, is an invention. Our investigations led to two dead ends – one in Jersey in the Channel Islands, the other, Munich. They led us to the true identity of the photograph this Norbert Petersen was using. He is quite a high-profile Brighton resident, a motivational speaker called Toby Seward. He’s gay and happily married.’
Grace frowned. ‘What do you know about Suzy Driver’s sister, Lena?’
‘Very little, but they both appeared to be on to something.’
‘Are you aware that she’s dead?’
‘Her sister? Lena?’ Roberts exclaimed, looking shocked.
‘She was killed in Munich last week,’ Grace continued.
Roberts shook his head in disbelief. ‘Whatever it was they were on to must have something to do with why they’re both dead now.’ He was silent again for a moment. ‘This changes everything. Our IT guys have been digging as hard as they can, but they’ve hit firewalls in both places they haven’t been able to penetrate, yet. I’ll gladly share any information we do get to help your investigation, as their client confidentiality is no longer an issue here. You might be interested to know that we’ve had two other clients who seem to have been targeted by this same group.’
‘Can you give us any of their details?’ Grace asked.
‘I’m afraid with the new privacy regulations I can’t disclose much about them. What I can tell you is that one paid out over £300,000 and the other close to two million.’
‘Two million?’ Glenn Branson exclaimed.
‘I’ve had one client who paid out just over five million.’
Grace stared at him. ‘How could—’
‘I know,’ Roberts interrupted him. ‘Incredible, right. We’re in the grip of an epidemic. These scammers are smart professionals.’
‘Five million pounds?’ Glenn Branson said, incredulous.
‘A charming old boy, a retired investment fund manager with a beautiful mansion and fifty acres. Had a nice, comfortable retirement all mapped out. Now he’s living in a bedsit on his state pension, while some kiddo in Ghana or Nigeria is wearing a Rolex and riding around in a top-of-the-range Porsche or Ferrari or Range Rover Sport my client’s money has bought him, as well as probably his grandpa, his cousins and all his mates. Meanwhile, what are you guys doing about it?’
‘All we can,’ Grace said.
Roberts looked at him the way he might study a wounded animal. ‘Really? Thanks to our former Home Secretary, you don’t have enough officers to chase the moped and knife gangs who’ve turned London into a war zone. Right?’ he added, pointedly.
‘I think you’d have to look pretty far and wide to find a copper with a good thing to say about her,’ Grace admitted.
Roberts shrugged. ‘I love her! I raise a glass to her every night. “Thanks, darling Theresa,” I say, “for all the business you’ve handed to me.”’ Then he shook his head. ‘But I tell you something. I built much of this business out of exposing rogues. It hurts me deeply to have to tell nice, decent people the truth about the person they’ve met online. The love of their life, who doesn’t actually exist.’ He looked at them both. ‘Is that why Suzy Driver is dead? Killed herself in desperation?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t comment,’ Grace said.
Jack Roberts nodded. ‘I respect that.’ He looked at each detective in turn. ‘I’ll say one thing. Unless you get on top of this situation, there’s going to be an epidemic of suicides in the months and years to come.’
‘You said your agency is specializing in so-called internet romance fraud,’ Grace said. ‘Is there any intelligence you can share with us?’
‘Well, there is something you may be able to follow up on. A possible mastermind operating out of Jersey.’
‘Do you have his name?’
‘I will have soon, with luck.’
The man was lying, Grace could tell. He already knew the name and wasn’t going to give it to them.
‘Anything else I can do for you, gentlemen?’
‘No, not for now,’ Grace said. ‘You’ve been very helpful. We’ll need to take a formal statement in due course.’
‘You know, the best thing you guys can do is get the word out to the public. Make them aware. Maybe use Crimestoppers – get them running a national campaign.’
‘We’re working with the local Sussex branch on this,’ Branson said.
Roberts nodded. ‘It needs to be nationwide.’ He shrugged. ‘Suzy Driver. I don’t know how she died and I understand you gentlemen aren’t able to tell me at this moment. But I tell you this, you should be treating anyone who dies after being scammed online as murder victims, whether they take their own lives or not. Scamming an elderly person out of their life savings is tantamount to killing them. I’ve had three clients who got wiped out, who eventually took their own lives. What’s left for people in their seventies or eighties, who’ve always been used to having a little money, who are suddenly facing losing their home? They’re not going to be able to go out and start earning – at least nothing other than pin money, you know?’
The two detectives shot an uncomfortable glance at each other. ‘I hear what you’re saying, Mr Roberts,’ Grace said.
‘I’ll give you one piece of advice. You’d better act fast and hard on this. Otherwise you’re going to find vigilantes doing your job for you.’
‘Really?’
Roberts gave him a strange look he could not read.
Grace and Branson stood up to leave. As Roberts shook their hands, he said, ‘Guys, I know a lot of police officers are currently pretty disenchanted with their lot – several have joined my team. If you ever decide to quit the police, my door will always be open. And I pay a lot better.’
‘We’ll bear that in mind,’ Grace said.
‘You do that, gentlemen. The pleasure will be all mine.’
After the two detectives had left, Jack Roberts opened a file on his computer.
It was titled: LYNDA MERRILL – DAUGHTER, ELIZABETH FOSTER. SCAM. He had an idea that was steadily taking shape.
38
Tuesday 2 October
Johnny Fordwater dialled the number Gerry had given him.
It was answered almost immediately, in a brusque, businesslike, American voice. ‘Sheriff’s office.’
‘Is it possible to speak to Matthew Sorokin?’
‘Completely possible, you got him now.’
