Dead Tomorrow

he cut the deflated craft, which was like a giant bladder, into several strips and scooped them into a bundle.
    Struggling under its wet weight, he made his way along the walk beneath the cliffs to where he had left his van earlier today, in the ASDA superstore car park in the Marina, depositing strips into each of the rubbish bins he came to on his route.
    It was a few minutes to midnight. He could have used a drink and a couple of hours at the roulette table in the Rendezvous Casino to calm down. But in his bedraggled state that was not a smart option.

40
    Including Roy Grace, there were twenty-two detectives and support staff assembled around two of the three communal work stations in Major Incident Room One, on the top floor of Sussex House.
    The Major Incident Suite, reached through a warren of cream-painted corridors, occupied about a third of this floor. It comprised two Major Incident Rooms, of which MIR One was the larger, two witness interview rooms, a conference room for police and press briefings, the Crime Scene labs, and several offices for SIOs based elsewhere to move into during major investigations here.
    MIR One was bright and modern-looking. It had small windows set high up with vertical blinds, as well as one frosted-glass ceiling panel, on which rain was pattering. There were no decorations to distract from the purpose of this place, which was absolute focus on the solving of serious violent crimes.
    Onthe walls were whiteboards, to which had been pinned photographs of the three victims of Operation Neptune. The first young man was shown in plastic sheeting in the slipper of the drag head of the Arco Dee dredger, then during various stages of his post-mortem. There were photographs of the second and third victims in their body bags on the deck of the Scoob-Eee deep-sea fishing boat, then also during their post-mortems. One, blown up larger than the others, was a close-up of the upper arm of the female, showing the tattoo with a ruler across it to give a sense of scale.
    Also pinned to the whiteboard, providing light relief, was a picture of the Yellow Submarine from the Beatles album, beneath the words Operation Neptune. It had become traditional to illustrate the names of all operations with an image. This one had been devised by some wag on the inquiry team–probably Guy Batchelor, Grace guessed.
    The morning’s copy of the Argus lay beside Grace’s open policy book and his notes, typed up by his MSA, which were in front of him on the imitation light-oak surface. The headline read: TWO MORE BODIES FOUND IN CHANNEL.
    It could have been a lot worse. Kevin Spinella had done an uncharacteristically restrained job, writing up the story pretty much as Grace had spun it to him, saying that the police suspected the bodies had been dumped from a vessel passing through the Channel. It was enough to give the local community the information they were entitled to, enough to get them thinking about any teenagers they knew who had recently had surgery and had subsequently disappeared, but not enough to cause panic.
    For Grace, this had become a potentially very important case. A triple homicide on the home turf of the new Chief Constable, within weeks of his commencing in the post. No doubt the poisonous ACC Vosper had already told Tom Martinson exactly what she thought of Grace, whose clumsy attempt to strike up conversation with him at Jim Wilkinson’s retirement party would have added credibility to her opinion. He intended to get a few minutes with Martinson at the dinner dance tonight, and an opportunity to assure him that this case was in good hands.
    Dressedcasually, in a black leather jacket over a navy sweatshirt and a white T-shirt, jeans and trainers, Roy Grace opened proceedings. ‘The time is 8.30 a.m., Saturday 29 November. This is the fourth briefing of Operation Neptune, the investigation into the deaths of three unknown persons, identified as Unknown Male 1, Unknown Male 2, and Unknown Female. This operation is commanded by myself, and by DI Mantle in my absence.’
    He gestured to the Detective Inspector opposite him for the benefit of those who did not know her. Unlike many of the team in here, who were also dressed in casual weekend gear, Lizzie Mantle still wore one of her trademark masculine suits, today’s a brown and white chalk-stripe, her only concession to the weekend being to wear a brown roll-neck sweater instead of a more formal blouse.
    ‘I know several of you are going