Dead at First Sight, page 22
Two minutes later he was back in his car, wiping grease and oil spots off his face with his handkerchief, before heading towards Brighton. A quick cheeseburger and a coffee would set him up fine. After that, he decided, he’d check out that house in Withdean Road, just to make sure Ogwang wasn’t still there.
65
Wednesday 10 October
Roy Grace drove in through the barrier of the Sussex Police headquarters shortly after midnight, feeling more awake now, having gulped a quick double espresso before leaving home.
Walking along the deserted corridor towards the Major Incident suite, he smelled the unappetizing aromas of microwaved ready-meals that were the all-too-familiar staple gastronomic delights of late-night investigations. He entered the room to see Simon, EJ, Alec, Arnie, Velvet and Vivi, the analyst, at their workstations. Norman was perched on a desktop, holding a foil container, spooning something lurid out of it into his mouth at high speed.
As soon as he saw him Potting jumped up and hurried over to him like an eager puppy, orange stains around his lips. ‘Thanks for coming in, chief. I think we’re making progress. I’ll show you.’
Grace went over to Potting’s workstation. On the screen was a Google Earth aerial map of part of Withdean Road. ‘There seem to be four houses where the call might have been made from,’ Potting said. ‘The analyst has identified, from an internet search, the occupants of three of them. One is owned by a female property developer, who has no previous with us. Another, an elderly widow, whose husband ran a building society. The third is a well-respected Brighton businessman, Ian Steel, a big charity benefactor.’ He stabbed a finger at the screen, at a property between the last two, which appeared to Grace to be isolated in substantial grounds. ‘This is the one that might be of interest to us, chief,’ he said.
Grace peered closely at the part of the screen Potting’s bitten fingernail was tapping. A substantial house, in a very large garden with a tennis court and pool.
‘Apparently it’s owned by a Swiss company, chief. We’re unable tonight to find out more about them. But the managing agents are a Brighton firm called Rand and Co., who have been very helpful. We’ve phoned their office and got an out-of-hours emergency number. A short while ago DC Davies spoke to the proprietor, Graham Rand, who told him that the property was on a twelve-month rental. Mr Rand then rang the sales executive who handled the leasing and said it was a tall gentleman, a Jules de Copeland, he believed of African origin, currently domiciled in Germany. He said Mr Copeland paid twelve months in advance and had impeccable references. Then he added something that might be of real significance.’
‘Yes?’
‘Apparently he wore very shiny red shoes.’
Roy Grace stared back at him. ‘Bingo!’
‘That’s what I thought, too, chief.’ Potting beamed.
Grace immediately dialled the on-call Oscar-1 and requested an unmarked car to go straight to Withdean Road and take a discreet look around the vicinity of a property called Withdean Place.
When he had finished, he made a second call which gave him a great deal of pleasure. It was to Cassian Pewe’s job phone. And hopefully it would wake him up.
It did.
‘Apologies for calling so late, sir,’ Grace said, breezily.
‘This had better be good,’ Pewe said, sounding bleary, as Roy Grace had hoped.
‘I need a surveillance team, urgently,’ Grace replied and quickly explained why. Whether Pewe was in the process of getting laid or trying to get a night’s sleep, Roy Grace didn’t give a monkey’s. He just needed his boss’s approval for the additional expenditure, as he’d been instructed.
He got it.
66
Wednesday 10 October
Tooth remembered a decent all-night café on Brighton seafront, called Buddies. To his irritation, it appeared the crew of a police patrol car, which was parked a short distance along, also liked it. He could see through the window two officers standing inside.
Although he’d changed his appearance from the last time he had been in this city, letting his hair grow back instead of shaving his head, wearing arty glasses and an ear stud, he didn’t want to chance it. He was aware too many police here would have his description, which was circulated not that many months ago. It had also appeared in the local Argus newspaper in a photo parade of faces of the most wanted in the county.
He parked a couple of cars back and waited. The two officers seemed to be chatting with a man behind the counter. All jovial. Chatting. Chatting. Laughing, making small talk.
He continued watching. Waiting. The nodding heads. More laughter. He was anxious about being away from the apartment block in case Copeland slipped off. He checked his phone. The blue dot was still at the address, the car hadn’t moved. Not that he was expecting it to.
Finally the officers came out into the street, holding their dinner – or early breakfast – packages. Hopefully they wouldn’t sit and eat them in their car, just here.
He was in luck. Within seconds of climbing in, they must have received a call.
They shot off at speed on blue lights.
Five minutes later, relieved that no more police had come in, he hurried out with his cheeseburger, fries and coffee, back to his car. He sat there in darkness to eat his meal and prised the plastic lid off his coffee cup. As soon as he had finished, he left and headed towards Withdean Road. On the way he pulled into a filling station in Dyke Road, went into the shop and loaded up with sandwiches, chocolate bars and bottles of water. Five minutes later he was out and heading on up the road in his car.
After half a mile he made a right turn, then a left into Withdean Road. The affluent area, lined with tall trees, felt more rural than urban, and it was, despite the street lighting, fairly dark. That had suited him well earlier, and it would suit his purposes even better now.
Most of the large, detached houses were partially or completely secluded behind tall hedges and walls, and those he could see were in darkness at this hour. He cruised along slowly until he reached the one, on his left, somewhere behind the high brick wall and wrought-iron gates. Withdean Place.
He carried on past, looking for somewhere to park. This end of the road was narrow and twisty. But it was late and no one was around. He put two wheels onto the pavement, secured the car, then walked back towards the house, looking up at the wall as he approached for any possible access point. He switched on his phone torch and ran the beam up the wall. Saw the glints of glass shards along the top.
He reached the gates and debated whether to scale them. No question they’d be covered by infra-red cameras on motion sensor. He switched the phone torch off and studied the Google Earth map on his screen. There was no rear access to the property because to the south was another house. That one fronted onto Dyke Road Avenue.
Maybe he could access this house from there?
He checked Maps on his phone. A short distance ahead was a side road that would take him to Dyke Road Avenue, and then another right turn would put him behind Withdean Place.
As he walked along, the street suddenly lit up with approaching headlights. He stepped behind a thick tree and watched a small, dark car with two people in it drive past, slowly.
Too slowly.
Two people inside. Looking for something? An address?
Midweek, mid-October, this was not party season. They sure weren’t looking for a party – nor a rave. All his instincts pinned them as cops.
Were they simply patrolling the city’s Nob Hill? In an unmarked car? Or, more likely, looking for something – or someone?
As he walked on, light built up behind him. A car.
The same car. Coming back.
It passed him as he stood, invisible, behind another tree. Had someone tipped them off?
What were they looking for? Him?
They’d have spotted his car for sure. Checked it out. Found it was a rental.
And hopefully left it at that.
Would they?
Or would they be wondering what a little rental Polo was doing parked half on the sidewalk, in the middle of the night?
He abandoned any thoughts of breaking into the grounds of Withdean Place and walked as fast as he could, trying not to look obvious to any CCTV camera that might be clocking him, back to his car.
He set off, driving sedately, keeping carefully to the speed limits, and headed into a maze of residential streets, looking specifically for something. A Volkswagen Polo identical to his own.
After ten minutes, he found it, down a smart side street in Hove. A dark Polo, parked on the driveway of a detached house, which had clearly been there for some while, judging from its misted-up windows.
It took him less than five minutes to swap number plates.
When he arrived back outside Marina Heights, twenty minutes later, to further avoid possible detection by police cameras, he made a second number-plate swap, this time with the dusty one he had seen in the underground car park.
67
Wednesday 10 October
Roy Grace sipped a fresh mug of coffee he’d made as he read through the latest report from Kullen. The team there had established links between the suspects in the murder of Lena Welch – whom they had identified as Kofi Okonjo, alias Dunstan Ogwang, and Tunde Oganjimi, alias Jules de Copeland – to a Sakawa organization in Accra, Ghana. They had further established links to a British crime lord called Steven Barrey. Barrey was a Person of Interest to them in connection with a wide range of internet fraud schemes perpetrated out of Germany, and they were in the process of gathering more evidence on this. They believed Barrey might have relocated to the Channel Isles.
Kullen had also identified that Copeland had a wife and small baby residing near Munich.
Then, reading on, he was interested to see another piece of information from the German detective on the two suspects. Something which fitted with their behaviour and made them chillingly dangerous.
A shadow fell over him and he looked up to see the analyst Vivienne Crown standing in front of him, looking excited.
‘You have something, Vivi?’
She handed him a printout. ‘Take a look at this, sir. I ran our suspect’s biometrics, which I got from Custody, through the Home Office Border Control database.’
He read the document and sensed a breakthrough. ‘Nice work!’
He immediately looked back at the report from Munich, which confirmed what she had brought him. He jotted down a number of notes and a reminder to himself to call Kullen in the morning. Then he yawned again, feeling exhausted. The best thing, he thought, was to send his team members still here home, to get some sleep and be fresh for the morning. He was about to stand up and tell them when DC Alec Davies came over to him, holding a small sheet of paper.
‘Sir, I’ve just had a call from Oscar-1. The car sent to patrol Withdean Road has reported a suspicious vehicle, a Volkswagen Polo, parked near to the target house. They’ve checked it out and from the index it’s a rental from Budget at Gatwick, hired on October 8th to a Mr John Jones.’
‘Great name,’ Grace said, sarcastically. ‘We could narrow that down to around fifty thousand John Joneses. What licence did “Mr Jones” show?’
‘A UK one.’
‘Of course. With what address?’
‘One in Brighton, sir, but I’ve since established it’s fictitious.’
‘What about the car – is it still there?’
‘No, it left approximately ten minutes ago. The surveillance crew didn’t see it leave. They did stop to check it out when they first saw it, and it was unoccupied. But the engine was warm so it hadn’t been there that long.’
Grace was thinking. A rental car parked at this hour of the morning, then driving off, quite possibly spooked by the police car, was not likely to be there visiting friends. It could have been there casing properties for a potential burglary.
Or . . .
‘Did whoever it was at the rental desk give a description of John Jones?’
‘I just phoned Budget myself, sir, and spoke to a young lady there. She said he was in his fifties, short, wiry, with brown hair, green-rimmed glasses and a gold ear stud. He was dressed in a jacket and slacks. And he had what she thought was an American accent. She remembered him particularly because he was surly and walked with a limp.’
A fleeting thought crossed his mind. Could it possibly be?
No way. Forget it . . .
‘Instruct Oscar-1 to put out an alert for the Polo. I don’t want it stopped, just followed. Make that very clear.’
‘Sir, I put in a request for any ANPR sightings of the vehicle.’
Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras were in various strategic locations across the city and the county.
‘Good man.’
‘Between 11.30 p.m. and 11.45 p.m. the Polo was picked up by three cameras, the first heading down Dyke Road, the second heading south on West Street and the last one heading east along the seafront, Marine Parade. The next camera it would have pinged was at Rottingdean, but it didn’t, indicating it either stopped or turned off somewhere before then. There were no further sightings until 12.15 a.m. when it travelled west on Marine Parade. At 12.45 a.m. it was sighted heading up Dyke Road. Then, coinciding with your timings, at 1.20 a.m. it was picked up travelling again on Dyke Road and turning down a number of side streets. It hasn’t been clocked since.’
‘A busy fellow,’ Grace said.
‘As he was earlier, sir, darting around the city.’
‘No cameras have picked him up in any other direction?’
‘No, sir.’
Roy Grace stood up, walked over to the whiteboard on which was pinned a map of the Brighton area of Sussex, showing the ANPR locations, and picked a red Sharpie pen from the rack at the base. He drew a circle, encompassing the Onslow Road area, as far as Brighton Marina and the immediate areas to the east and north, keeping the circle short of the other cameras. Then he turned to DC Hall. ‘Kevin, have the local officers do a street-by-street search for the Polo, right away. Also ask Comms to get any unmarked vehicles available to do an area search.’
‘Yes, sir.’
As Hall walked back to his workstation, Grace was thinking hard again. Withdean Road, with its houses beyond most people’s dreams, would always be a prime target for burglars. There was bound to be CCTV surveillance outside most of them.
He glanced at his watch. It was almost 2 a.m. He was always mindful of the need to allow his team rest, in order for them to be fresh. But, equally, if you wanted to be an effective member of a major crime investigation, you had to understand that meant putting your normal life on hold.
He dialled Jack Alexander’s number.
A young woman with an American accent answered, sleepily. Instantly Grace recognized the voice of their nanny, Kaitlynn. ‘Yrrr, hello?’
He smiled, privately. ‘Can I talk to Jack, please.’
A few seconds later he heard the young detective’s slightly sheepish voice.
‘Sorry to wake you, Jack, but we have a development. I need your Outside Enquiry Team to crack into action at 6.30 a.m.’
‘Of course, yes, sir,’ he said, sounding more awake now.
Roy Grace told him about the parked rental car that had been spotted in Withdean Road, then added, ‘We don’t know why it was there, but the driver must have left it and walked along the street. If any of the houses have outward-facing CCTV cameras we need to get the footage between midnight and 1.30 a.m. checked out.’
‘Leave it with me, sir.’
Grace ended the call, then finally told his team to go home and meet again at 7 a.m.
Then he left to grab a precious few hours of sleep.
68
Wednesday 10 October
Dawn had come in the form of an oppressive grey sea mist, coating the windscreen of Tooth’s Polo in a film of moisture. From time to time he switched on the ignition and flicked the wipers to clear it. He listened on Radio Sussex for the news. But neither the 7 a.m. nor 8 a.m. bulletins carried any relevant updates.
There had been few signs of action in the apartment block. During the past hour, a handful of cars had driven out of the lot, but not the Kia, nor had any of them contained Jules de Copeland. A couple of people had left in taxis, one a weary-looking young woman – had she been the grumpy one he’d disturbed, he wondered, idly? The other, in a long dress, who looked like she was doing the walk of shame, had clambered hurriedly into the rear of a cab.
No Kia. No rush.
Take all the time you need, Jules de Copeland. Enjoy your last morning on earth, and tell your pal, Dunstan Ogwang, to enjoy his, too.
Tooth switched on the local radio, again, in time to catch the morning news.
To see if there was any update on the suspected homophobic attack of last night.
There was.
It was the second news item, after a concerned piece on the rise of Sussex burglary statistics and defensive soundbites from an aggressive-sounding Assistant Chief Constable called Cassian Pewe.
‘Following a brutal attack on Sussex motivational speaking expert, Toby Seward, Sussex Police have confirmed they have arrested a suspect. The events of last night are still unclear, but Sussex Police have announced that during the – possibly homophobic – attack, Mr Seward had his right hand severed. Trauma surgeon Robin Turner and his team worked through the night to reattach it. A hospital spokesman said the operation went well but it was too early to tell if it would be successful.’
Suspect, Tooth thought, with gloom as grey as the mist engulfing his car. Ogwang?
In custody?
He thought about his explicit instructions to eliminate Ogwang and Copeland.
Now one of his targets was possibly out of reach, in custody.
And if he was, for sure he would squeal. His paymaster, Steve Barrey, was not going to be happy.
