Dead Man's Grip

Emma-Jane Boutwood asked.
    ‘In the 1930s this city got the sobriquet Murder Capital of Europe,’ Grace retorted. ‘I don’t intend to let anyone think they can come here, kill someone for a bounty and get away with it. And that’s what we could be dealing with right now.’
    ‘If it’s a professional Mafia hit,’ Nick Nicholl said, ‘whoever did this could already be back in America. Or wherever he came from.’
    ‘Evie Preece does not have an internal door into her garage,’ Grace replied. ‘If our man knocked Preece out, he would have had to carry him out of the house and into the garage – on a street in a densely populated neighbourhood. When he got to Shoreham Harbour, he would have had to leave him in the van while he opened the gates. Then he would have had to glue his hands to the wheel, start the fork-lift truck and use it to push the van into the water. OK, I’m speculating. But Evie Preece had a whole bunch of neighbours. Also, there are houses all around Shoreham Harbour. It’s possible Preece’s killer got lucky and no one saw a thing. But I want to ramp up those house-to-house enquiries in her street and around the harbour. Someone might have been out walking their dog or whatever. Someone must have seen something , and we have to find them.’
    He looked down at his notes again, then turned to DC Howes. ‘David, do you have anything to report from Ford?’
    ‘Not so far, boss,’ he replied. ‘It’s the usual prison situation, with everyone closing ranks. No one saw anything. They’re still working on it – going through all the recorded phone conversations around the time in question, but that could take several days.’
    Grace then turned to DC Boutwood and DC Nicholl, to whom he had delegated the line of enquiry regarding the camera found in the van.
    ‘Do you have anything to report?’
    E-J shook her head. ‘Not so far, sir. The camera is a Canon model widely on sale here, at a price of around a grand, and overseas. There are seventeen retail outlets in Brighton that stock it, as well as numerous online stores, including Amazon. In the US there are thousands of retail outlets, Radio Shack, a national chain, being among the major discounters.’
    ‘Great. So we’re looking for a needle in a haystack, is that what you’re saying?’
    ‘That’s about it, sir.’
    ‘OK,’ Grace replied, staring her back, hard, in the eye. ‘That’s one of the things we do best. Finding needles in haystacks.’
    ‘We’ll try our hardest, sir!’
    He made another note, then sat in silent thought for some
moments. He could not put a finger on it, but he had a bad feeling. Copper’s nose , they used to call it. Gut feelings. Instinct.
    Whatever.
    The little shit Kevin Spinella was pushing him to hold another press conference. But he wasn’t ready for that yet and he would stall for time. All the reporter knew at this stage – unless he had something from his inside source – was that a dead body in a van had been recovered from Shoreham Harbour. The fact that the story merited only a handful of lines in today’s paper, both in its print and online editions, indicated to him that, so far at least, the reporter was in the dark.
    And that was good.
    Except, Grace thought, he was in the dark too. And that was not a good place to be at all.

58
    Tooth was also in the dark. And that was exactly where he wanted to be. Dressed all in black, with a black baseball cap pulled low over his face, he knew he would be almost invisible outside.
    Tuesday night: 11.23 p.m. It was dry and the motorway was dark and busy. Just tail lights, headlights and occasional flashing indicators. He concentrated as he drove, thinking, working out his next steps, covering alternatives, best- and worst-case scenarios.
    At long last the lorry he had been following from Aberdeen was pulling into a service station. The driver had been going steadily for nearly five hours since he had stopped for a break on the A74M, just south of Lockerbie, and Tooth needed to urinate. The need had been getting so pressing he had been close to using the expandable flask he kept in the car for such purposes. The same kind he used to take with him behind enemy lines so he didn’t leave any traces for them to track him.
    He followed the tail lights of the truck along the slip road and up a slight incline. They passed signs with symbols for fuel, food, accommodation and another one for the goods vehicles’ parking area.
    Conveniently,