Dead Man's Time

as one, seventeen years ago in Manchester,
for Class A drug dealing. Ken Barnes is two years free of his licence for ten years for armed robbery on a building society branch in Worthing. He took a hostage – a twenty-year-old woman
– who he threatened to kill. I don’t think you could find a nicer couple of guys, sir.’
    There was a titter of laughter.
    ‘So no great loss then,’ Norman Potting said.
    Ignoring the DS, Grace thanked Vineer, then looked down at the notes that his assistant had prepared for this meeting. ‘I think Lucas Daly went to Marbella to attempt to recover his
father’s highly valuable Patek Philippe watch. The time of death of these two people found in Puerto Banus harbour coincides with his visit.’
    Norman Potting raised his hand. ‘Chief, if they’d gone to try to recover the watch, and anything else, what would be the gain in killing those two?’
    ‘My thoughts precisely, Norman,’ Grace said. ‘The chance to check the boat out, perhaps? Hopefully you’ll find out more than Interpol have given us so far when you get
out there.’
    ‘Why didn’t they just tie the two of them up, in that case?’ Guy Batchelor said.
    ‘Because Krasniki’s a psycho?’ Potting said. ‘We’ve just heard about his past form.’
    Grace was thinking about the bruises he had seen on Sarah Courteney’s chest, when her dressing gown had slipped open, and then again in Dupont’s bedroom. ‘We know that Daly was
arrested two years ago for assaulting his wife, Sarah Courteney, and then released when she wouldn’t press charges. He’s a thug. Could be that he and Krasniki went too far.’ He
held up a sheaf of printed papers. ‘I have the post-mortem report on the two men from the Marbella Coroner. It makes interesting reading.’
    He paused, the bit of bacon stuck in his teeth nagging him, but he couldn’t be seen picking his teeth in front of his team, so did his best to ignore it. ‘Summarizing the
report,’ he said, ‘Macario had two broken bones in his foot, and bruising right across it, consistent with it being crushed. He also had severe bruising across the back of his neck, and
Barnes had severe bruising around the front of his. Not injuries I would consider consistent with capsizing a small rubber dinghy.’
    ‘So if Daly and Krasniki killed these two, chief,’ Guy Batchelor said, ‘was it because they had got the information they wanted, or because they hadn’t?’
    ‘This kind of killing tends to be done to silence people,’ Grace said.
    ‘Silence them from what, in this instance?’ Batchelor asked.
    It was a good question. The bacon in his teeth was really distracting him now, and Grace desperately wanted a toothpick. He tried to dislodge it with his tongue, for the twentieth time, without
success. ‘Possibly to stop them from telling their paymaster who was on his trail. Possibly because, as Norman so succinctly put it, they’re both a couple of psychos and Daly lost his
temper with them over his aunt’s death.’
    ‘Should we bring old man Daly in for questioning?’ Glenn Branson asked.
    Grace shook his head. ‘I think Daly could be ahead of us. We should put surveillance on his son. I’ve a feeling he’ll lead us to the watch. If we find the watch, I suspect
we’ll find who’s really behind this.’
    ‘Eamonn Pollock?’ Branson quizzed.
    ‘I’d put him as our prime suspect,’ Roy Grace replied. ‘We have Gareth Dupont in custody and we’ll have to try to make him talk. In his early interviews he gave his
first account, and we developed a strategy for the interviews this morning. His detention has been extended. It’s a shame we’re not allowed to offer murder suspects a deal on sentence.
But I think our interview strategy might be to offer him another kind of deal.’
    ‘What do you have in mind?’ Potting said.
    ‘Let’s recap on what we know about Lucas Daly. This is just my hypothesis – nothing proven yet. The knocker-boy, Ricky Moore, who Lucas Daly considers responsible for his
aunt’s robbery and murder, ends up in Intensive Care with severe burns. Lucas Daly goes to Marbella, and lo and behold, Macario and Barnes end up as floaters.’ He gave Norman Potting a
quizzical stare.
    ‘I’m on your bus, chief.’
    ‘Now, with Lucas Daly’s record for vengeance, if I was shagging his wife, I think I’d want to keep it quiet. In particular, I wouldn’t like hubby to find out. Would
you?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Murder suspects