Dead Man's Grip

There was another marker next to some debris that looked like a broken bicycle lamp. A short distance behind the lorry he saw a fluorescent jacket covering something, with another marker beside that. More markers were dotted around.
    Before he had a chance to hail Branson, suddenly, materializing out of the ether, as he seemed to do at every crime scene Grace attended these days, was Kevin Spinella, the young crime reporter from the local paper, the Argus . In his mid-twenties, with bright eyes and a thin face, he was chewing gum with small, sharp teeth that always reminded Grace of a rat. His short hair was matted to his head by the rain and he was wearing a dark mackintosh with the collar turned up, a loud tie with a massive knot and tasselled loafers.
    ‘Good morning, Detective Superintendent!’ he said. ‘A bit nasty, isn’t it?’
    ‘The weather?’ Grace said.
    Spinella grinned, making a curious movement with his jaw, as if a piece of gum had got stuck in the wrong place.
    ‘Na! You know what I’m talking about. Sounds like it could be a murder from what I hear – is that what you think?’
    Grace was guarded, but tried to avoid being openly rude to the man. The police needed the local media on their side as they could be immensely useful. But equally, he knew, they could at times bite you hard and painfully.
    ‘You tell me. I’ve only just arrived, so you probably know more than I do.’
    ‘Witnesses I’ve spoken to are talking about a white van that went through a red light and hit the cyclist, then accelerated off at high speed.’
    ‘You should be a detective,’ Grace said, seeing Glenn Branson making a beeline towards him.
    ‘Think I’ll stick to reporting. Anything you’d like to tell me?’
    Yes. Fuck off, Grace thought. Instead, he replied pleasantly, ‘Anything we find out, you’ll be the first to know.’ He nearly added, You always are anyway, even if we don’t tell you.
    It was an ongoing cause of irritation to Roy Grace that Spinella had a mole inside Sussex Police that enabled him always to get to the scene of any crime way ahead of the rest of the press pack. For the past year he had been quietly digging away to discover that person’s identity, but so far he had made no progress. One day, though, he promised himself, he would hang that creep out to dry.
    He turned away, signed his name on the log and ducked under the tape to greet Glenn Branson. Then they both walked off towards the lorry, safely out of earshot of the reporter.
    ‘What have you got?’ Grace asked.
    ‘Young male under the lorry. They’ve found a student ID card. His name’s Anthony Revere, he’s at Brighton Uni. Someone’s gone there to get his full details and next of kin. From what the Collision Investigation Unit’s been able to piece together so far, seems like he came out of a side road – St Heliers Avenue – turned right, east, on the wrong side of Portland Road, causing that Audi travelling west to swerve on to the pavement. He was then hit by a white van that had gone through the red light, a Transit or similar, that was behind the Audi, also travelling west. The van flipped him across the road, under the wheels of the artic, which was travelling east. Then the van did a runner.’
    Grace thought for a moment. ‘Anyone ID the driver?’
    Branson shook his head. ‘There are a lot of witnesses. I’ve got a team covering the area for any CCTV footage. I’ve put an alert out to the RPU to stop any white van within two hours’ driving distance of here. But that’s kind of needle in a haystack territory.’
    Grace nodded. ‘No registration?’
    ‘Not yet – but with luck we’ll get something from a CCTV.’
    ‘What about the drivers of the Audi and the lorry?’
    ‘Woman Audi driver’s in custody – failed a breath test. Lorry
driver’s in shock. Colin O’Neill from the Collision Investigation Unit’s had a look at his tachometer – he’s way out of hours.’
    ‘Well, that’s all looking great, then,’ Grace said sarcastically. ‘A drunk driver in one vehicle, an exhausted one in another and a third who’s scarpered.’
    ‘We do have one piece of evidence so far,’ Branson said. ‘They’ve found part of a damaged wing mirror that looks like it’s from the van. It has a serial number on it.’
    Grace nodded. ‘Good.’ Then he pointed along the road. ‘What’s under the fluorescent jacket?’
    ‘The cyclist’s right leg.’
    Grace swallowed. ‘Glad I