Dead Man's Footsteps

small round table, Skerritt’s cavernous room accommodated, as well as his large desk, a rectangular conference table.
    There were changes in here too. Gone were the framed photographs of racehorses and greyhounds that had dominated the walls in Gary Weston’s day, showing his priorities in life. They had been replaced by a single framed photograph of two teenage boys, and several of Labrador dogs and puppies. Skerritt’s wife bred them, but they were also the police officer’s own passion – on his rare moments away from work.
    Skerritt exuded a faint smell of pipe tobacco smoke, just as Norman Potting usually did. On Potting, Grace found the smell noxious, but on Skerritt he liked it. It suited the senior officer, enhancing his tough-man image.
    To his dismay, he saw Cassian Pewe seated at the table, along with the rest of the SIOs and other senior membersof the Command Team. He did not imagine tobacco had ever crossed Cassian Pewe’s lips in his life.
    The new Detective Superintendent greeted him with a reptilian smile and a treacly, ‘Hello, Roy, good to see you,’ and held out his moist hand. Roy shook it as briefly as he could, then took the only empty seat, muttering apologies for being late to Skerritt, who was a stickler for punctuality.
    ‘Good of you to make it, Roy,’ the Detective Chief Superintendent said.
    He had a strong, classless voice that always sounded sarcastic, as if he had spent so much of his life interrogating lying suspects it had rubbed off permanently on him. Roy couldn’t tell now whether he was actually being sarcastic or not.
    ‘Right,’ Skerritt went on. ‘The business of today.’
    He sat bolt upright, with a fine, confident posture, and had an air of being physically indestructible, as if he was hewn from granite. He read from a printed agenda in front of him. Someone passed a copy to Roy, which he glanced through. The usual stuff.
    Minutes of previous meeting.
    Annual motor incident report.
    2010 Challenge Programme – shortfall of £8–10m.
    Joining forces – update on merging Sussex and Surrey Police Forces…
    Skerritt steered the assembled group through each of the items at a brisk pace. When they reached ‘Operational Updates’, Roy brought them up to speed on Operation Dingo . He did not have a lot of news for them at this stage,but told them he was hopeful that dental records might produce the dead woman’s identity quite quickly.
    When he reached ‘Any Other Business’, Skerritt suddenly turned to Grace. ‘Roy, I’m making a few changes in the team.’
    For a moment, Grace’s heart sank. Was the Vosper–Pewe conspiracy finally showing its colours?
    ‘I’m giving you Major Crime,’ Skerritt said.
    Grace could hardly believe his ears, and indeed wondered if he had misheard, or misunderstood. ‘Major Crime?’
    ‘Yes, Roy, I’ve given it some thought.’ He pointed at his own head. ‘Up here in the old brainbox, you know. You keep your SIO roles, but I want you to head up Major Crime. You’re going to be my number two – you head up CID if I’m not around.’
    He was being promoted!
    Out of his peripheral vision he saw Cassian Pewe looking as if he had just bitten into a lemon.
    Grace knew that although his rank remained the same, covering for Jack in his absence and running HQ CID from time to time, was a big step up.
    ‘Jack, thank you. I – I’m delighted.’ Then he hesitated. ‘Is Alison Vosper OK with this?’
    ‘Leave Alison to me,’ Skerritt replied dismissively. Then he turned to Pewe. ‘Cassian, welcome aboard our team. Roy’s going to have his hands full with his extra workload, so I’d like you to start here by taking on his cold-case files – which means you will be reporting to Roy.’
    Grace was having trouble suppressing a grin. Cassian Pewe’s face was a picture. Rather like one of those television weather maps dotted with rain and thunderclouds and not a ray of sunshine in sight. Even his perma-tan seemed, suddenly, to have faded.
    The meeting ended on target, at exactly 11.30. As Grace was leaving, Cassian Pewe intercepted him in the doorway.
    ‘Roy,’ he said. ‘Alison thought it might be a good idea if I sat in with you today – at your press conference and at your evening briefing. To sort of find my feet. Get the general gist of how you do things down here. Still OK with you – in the light of what Jack’s just instructed me to do?’
    No , Grace thought. Not at all OK with me. But he didn’t say