Dead Man's Grip

what are your conclusions?’
    ‘I’m keeping an open mind. But I think it has to have been done by someone after that reward. Which brings me on to something I want to raise. We have a real problem with the crime reporter from the Argus , Kevin Spinella.’
    ‘Oh?’
    Rigg reached forward and grabbed another biscuit Grace had been eyeing, a custard cream.
    ‘I had a call from him earlier. Despite all our efforts at keeping from the press, at this time, that Ewan Preece’s hands were glued to the steering wheel of the van, Spinella has found out.’
    Grace filled him in on the history of leaks to the reporter during the past year.
    ‘Do you have any view on who it might be?’
    ‘No, I don’t at this stage.’
    ‘So is the Argus going to print with the superglue story?’
    ‘No. I’ve managed to persuade him to hold it.’
    ‘Good man.’
    Grace’s phone rang. Apologizing, he answered.
    It was Tracy Stocker, the Crime Scene Manager, and what she had to say was not good news.
    Grace asked her a few brief questions, then ended the call and looked back at his boss, who was studying the exhibits list intently. He eyed once more a chocolate digestive on the plate, but all of a sudden he’d lost his appetite. Rigg put down the list and looked back at him quizzically.
    ‘I’m afraid we have another body, sir,’ Grace said.
    He left the office, then hurried across the Police HQ complex to his car.

65
    One of the many things Roy Grace loved about Brighton was the clear delineation to its north between the city limits and stunning open countryside. There was no urban sprawl, just a clean dividing line made by the sweep of the A27 dual carriageway between the city and the start of the Downs.
    The part of that countryside he was driving towards now, the Devil’s Dyke, was an area that never ceased to awe him, no matter how often he came here and no matter his purpose, even this afternoon, when he knew it was going to be grim.
    The Devil’s Dyke was the beauty spot where he used to bring Sandy in their courting days and they often hiked here at weekends after they were married. They would drive up to the car park at the top and walk across the fields, with their spectacular views across the rolling hills in one direction and towards the sea in another. They would take the path past the old, derelict and slightly creepy fort that he used to love coming to as a child with his parents. He and his sister would play games of cowboys and Indians, and cops and robbers in and around its crumbling walls – always being careful to avoid treading in one of the numerous cowpats that were its major hazard.
    If it was too blustery on the top, he and Sandy used to walk down the steep banks into the valley below. Legend had it that the Devil had dug out a vast trench – in reality a beautiful, natural valley – to allow the sea to come inland and flood all the churches in Sussex. It was one of the least true of the myths about his city’s dark heritage.
    In those first few years after Sandy had vanished, he often came up here alone and either just sat in his car, staring through the windscreen, or got out and walked around. There was always the dim hope in his mind that she might just turn up here. It was one of the beliefs he had clung to that she might have lost her memory. A neurologist he had consulted told him that sometimes people with
this condition regain fragments of their memory and might go to places familiar to them.
    But sometimes in those lonely years he came here just to feel close to her, to feel her spirit in the wind.
    He had never done any of these walks with Cleo. He didn’t want the memories casting clouds over their relationship. Didn’t want Cleo meeting his ghosts. They’d made other parts of the city and its environs their own special places.
    He drove as fast as he dared along the high top road, on blue lights and wailing siren. Open land stretched away on both sides, shimmering beneath the almost cloudless afternoon sky. A mile or so to the south, the fields gave way to the houses of the residential area of Hangleton and, even further to the south, Shoreham and its harbour. Taking his eyes off the empty road ahead for a fleeting second, he caught a glimpse of the tall smokestack of the power station, a landmark for the city and for sailors.
    As he swept the silver Ford Focus around a long right-hander, he saw a car some distance off about to pull out of the car park of the Waterhall Golf