Dead Man's Grip

articulated lorry pull out on to the road and begin to crawl up the hill, then he turned back to his screen, tapped the keyboard and brought up the serials, as he did every half-hour or so. This was the log of all reported incidents with their constant updates. Scanning through, he saw nothing new, other than the Portland Road accident, to interest him. Just the usual daily stuff. Road traffic collisions, a noisy-neighbour incident, a missing dog, assaults, burglaries, a van break-in, a stolen car, signings for bail, a broken shop window, a domestic, two bike thefts, suspicious youths spotted by a car, some chocolates stolen from a Tesco garage, a G5 (sudden death) of an elderly lady that was not suspicious – at this stage, anyway.
    With the exception of a major rape case, on which Grace had been the Senior Investigating Officer, the first two months of the year had been relatively quiet. But since the start of spring, the whole city seemed to be kicking off. Three of the average twenty murders that Sussex could expect annually had taken place during the past six weeks. In addition there had been an armed robbery on a jewellery shop, resulting in an officer who had given chase being shot in the leg, and four days ago there had been a brutal stranger rape of a nurse walking along Brighton’s seafront.
    As a consequence, most of the four Major Incident Suites around the county had been in full use, including both the Major Incident Rooms here. Rather than relocate from Sussex House to the Major Crime Suite in Eastbourne, some thirty minutes’ drive away, which had available space, Roy Grace had borrowed Jack Skerritt’s office, next door to his, for the first briefing of Operation Violin – the name the computer had given to the hit-and-run fatality involving the cyclist in Portland Road this morning. The head of HQ CID was away on a course and had a much larger conference table than the small round one in Grace’s office.
    He planned to keep the inquiry team small and tight. From his study of the evidence so far, and the initial eyewitness reports, it seemed a straightforward case. The van driver could have had any number of reasons for doing what he did – possibly he had stolen the vehicle, or had no insurance, or was worried about being breathalysed, or was carrying something illegal. Grace did not think it would be a hard job to find him. His favoured Deputy Senior Investigating Officer, Lizzie Mantle, was away on leave, so he was using the opportunity to make Glenn his Deputy SIO for this case. It would be a good test of the Detective Sergeant’s abilities, he thought – and it would help to distract him from his current marital problems. Further, it would give him an opportunity to really shine before his all-important boards for promotion to inspector, which would be coming up later this year, by showing his ability to manage real-life inquiries.
    There was a knock on the door and DC Nick Nicholl entered. He was beanpole tall, wearing a grey suit that looked as if it had been made for someone even taller, and bleary-eyed, courtesy of his young baby. ‘You said 5 p.m. for the briefing, guv?’
    Grace nodded. He was holding the meeting earlier than his favoured 6.30 for evening briefings, because he was anxious to get back to the hospital and be with Cleo.
    ‘Next door in Detective Chief Superintendent Skerritt’s office.’
    He followed the DC in there.
    ‘I hear Cleo’s in hospital. Is she OK?’ Nick Nicholl asked.
    ‘Thanks – yes, so far so good. I seem to remember your wife had problems during her pregnancy, Nick. Is that right?’
    ‘Yeah, internal bleeding twice. First at about twenty-four weeks.’
    ‘Sounds similar. But she was all right?’
    ‘No, not at first.’
    ‘It’s a worrying time.’
    ‘Yep, you could say that! You need to see she gets a lot of rest, that’s vitally important.’
    ‘Thanks, I will.’
    Grace, who managed the police rugby team, was proud of having converted Nick Nicholl from football to rugby, and the young DC was a great wing three-quarter. Except that since the birth of his son some months ago, his focus tended to be elsewhere and he was often zapped of energy.
    Nicholl sat down at the long meeting table and was followed a few moments later by Bella Moy. The Detective Sergeant was in her mid-thirties, cheery-faced beneath a tangle of hennaed brown hair and a little carelessly dressed; she carried a box of Maltesers in one hand and a bottle of water in