Dead Man's Time

don’t get bail. If we can bang Dupont up in the remand wing, and let him know we’re going to tell Lucas Daly about him and his wife, I think he’d talk.
You don’t have many places to hide in prison. But we have one problem to overcome. We haven’t got enough to charge Dupont yet; we need something that puts him at the house. He lied to
us when we went to see him at his office, and we asked him what car he drove. He told us he owned a Golf GTI. There was a black Porsche parked outside his block of flats. The registration plate
gave the owner as a leasing company in London.’ He turned to Bella Moy. ‘Which is why your search did not reveal anything. I’ve been in touch with the company, and they tell me
it’s leased to one Gareth Dupont. At his address. But that still doesn’t put Dupont in Aileen McWhirter’s house.’ He looked around at his team.
    ‘We have his dab on a bronze statuette and the call made from his mobile phone, and now we know he drives a black Porsche, similar to one spotted at the scene exactly a week before the
attack,’ Guy Batchelor said. ‘Isn’t that enough?’
    Grace shook his head. ‘The triangulation report on his mobile phone isn’t helpful enough. He could have been anywhere within a quarter-of-a-mile radius of the house at the time of
his call. It’s too circumstantial. On the fingerprint, his brief would argue that he might have handled the statuette at Lester Stork’s house. It’s not going to fly – we
need something more.’
    ‘Sir,’ asked researcher Jacqueline Twamley, ‘do we know any more about Lester Stork’s death?’
    ‘Yes, I’ve heard from one of the Coroner’s Officers, Philip Keay, that it was natural causes – a heart attack.’
    ‘Probably the excitement of handling all that stolen loot!’ Norman Potting said.
    ‘Isn’t it a bit too cosy that Dupont was shagging Lucas Daly’s wife, chief?’ Potting said. ‘Doesn’t that smack of collusion?’
    ‘I can’t rule out that she’s involved and we need to talk to her. I’m pretty sure Daly beats her, so she’d have a motive. But when Guy and I talked to her, I got
the feeling she was genuinely fond of the old woman.’ He looked at the DS.
    Batchelor nodded. ‘I agree, chief. I’d say it’s more likely she was unwittingly targeted by Dupont.’ He shrugged. ‘Unhappy marriage. Dupont’s a fit guy, a
charmer. More likely they met somewhere and he pulled. I’m going to talk to her and see what she says.’
    The youngest and newest member of his team, DC Jack Alexander, raised his hand. ‘I’ve found out something regarding that Porsche, sir.’
    ‘What’s that, Jack?’
    The young DC told him. When he had finished, the whole atmosphere in the room had changed.
    ‘That, young man,’ Roy Grace said, ‘is pure bloody genius!’

72
    Like most interview rooms used by Sussex Police, the one at the Custody Suite immediately behind Sussex House had a fitted CCTV camera, perched high up on a wall. By watching
and filming arrested suspects, police officers were able to study their body language and generally assess their credibility.
    It was a square, featureless room containing a fixed metal table and hard chairs; its internal window overlooked the central area, dominated by a futuristic-looking circular pod made of a
dark-green marble-like material that always made Roy Grace think must have been designed by a
Star Trek
fan.
    The suspect, unshaven, his shirt crumpled, was seated on one side of the table next to his solicitor, Leighton Lloyd, even more sharply dressed than when he was at the football. A wiry man with
close-cropped hair, he had a formidable track record at getting Brighton’s villains off the hook.
    Grace had chosen his team carefully. Bella Moy and Guy Batchelor were both trained cognitive suspect interviewers. Batchelor, he hoped, would put Gareth Dupont on edge, from having previously
visited him at his office. Bella would seem softer, perhaps Dupont’s friend, and he clearly had an eye for the ladies.
    A narrow, windowless viewing room, where Grace sat in front of a monitor, adjoined the interview room. It comprised two mismatched chairs, which were pulled up against a work surface, and on
which sat the squat metal housing of the video recording machinery and the colour monitor in front of him, giving a dreary colour picture of the proceedings.
    Grace wrinkled his nose. It permanently smelled in here as if someone with rancid feet had been