Dead Man's Time

announced. Is there any urgency on
holding another press conference?’
    ‘Not at the moment, sir, but we’ll need to by the end of the week,’ she said.
    ‘Okay. Friday afternoon.’ He turned to David Green, the Crime Scene Manager. ‘Anything to report?’
    ‘Not until we get the detailed footprint analysis back from the forensic podiatrist, Haydn Kelly, chief. We haven’t found anything else in Aileen McWhirter’s house
yet.’
    Normally, Grace kept his cool, but his tiredness and the grilling from the ACC were getting to him. ‘Bloody hell!’ he exploded. ‘The woman’s been tortured, and her house
has virtually been stripped bare. No one could have done that without leaving a damned trace! There has to be more than three sets of shoeprints!’
    ‘If there is, we’ll find it, boss!’ Green said.
    He turned to Ray Packham, from the High Tech Crime Unit, a man in his mid-forties who could easily have been mistaken for a provincial bank manager. ‘Anything for us from the
victim’s phone, Ray?’
    ‘Very little traffic, chief. I don’t know if it is in any way significant, but she received a call only moments before she was attacked.’ Packham checked his notes for a
moment. ‘We traced it to a mobile phone belonging to an employee of a telesales company selling loft insulation. The man who made the call, Gareth Dupont, left their employment at the end of
last week and started with a new company called Mountainpeak this Tuesday. I would not consider this significant, ordinarily, except for one thing.’ Ray Packham gave Grace a smile, then said
nothing further, as if enjoying his moment in the sun.
    ‘Which is?’ Roy Grace asked.
    ‘Gareth Dupont has form. Four previous convictions. Possession of cannabis. That was minor. More significant is one for GBH, one previous conviction for handling stolen goods – and
even more significant is he’s out on licence for aggravated burglary.’
    ‘Good work, Ray,’ Grace said. ‘I’ve had one of those calls about loft insulation as well – but I got rid of him smartly. Do you have any details on his aggravated
burglary conviction?’
    Packham nodded. ‘Yes, chief. Five years ago he was arrested following a burglary at a country house near Lewes. The owners were an elderly couple who were tied up and tortured with a very
similar MO to Aileen McWhirter. They were burned with cigarettes by perps wanting their credit-card pin codes. Dupont claimed only to be the driver and got a reduced sentence for giving evidence
against the other two perpetrators. I think he’s a fairly nasty piece of work. He also has links to an organized crime ring in Spain – Russian Mafia – specializing in fencing
valuable paintings.’
    DS Batchelor raised his hand. ‘Boss, there could be something significant here.’
    ‘Tell us,’ Grace said.
    ‘I was on a case of country-house burglars some years ago. They used a trick similar to this: phoning the occupant under the pretext of selling something, while knocking on the front door
at the same time. It creates confusion, puts people off their guard – especially elderly people.’
    Roy Grace made a note on his pad. ‘Good thinking, Guy. Do a full background on him, and what he’s up to now. Who he associates with, and any intelligence we have on him. Then
I’d like you to go and have a chat with him.’
    ‘Do we have a residential address for him?’
    ‘His Probation Officer will know it. Otherwise you can go to Mountainpeak tomorrow where he’s working. Let me know; I’d like to come with you – I’m interested in
this person.’
    ‘Yes, chief.’
    Grace turned to DS Moy. ‘Bella, the knocker-boy who left the leaflet in Aileen McWhirter’s house – R. C. Moore. I had a phone call earlier this morning from Andy Kille, the Ops
One Inspector. A senior nurse from the Royal Sussex County Hospital contacted Sussex Police at 5 a.m. today. She’d read in the
Argus
about Aileen McWhirter being tortured with burns,
and reported that a man giving his name as Ricky Moore had been admitted early last Saturday morning, after stumbling into A&E with burns across his body – as well as internally. Without
going into graphic detail, I understand it will be several weeks before he’s going to be able to sit down – or have a crap in comfort.’
    ‘You mean he’s a fudge-packer, chief?’ Norman Potting said.
    ‘Not a willing one, Norman, no,’ Grace said, irritated at his language. ‘I’ve