Not Dead Enough

Branson said. ‘Presumably we’d be able to see from your bank account – or indeed Mrs Bishop’s – how this was paid? Or perhaps you have a mystery benefactor?’
    Leighton Lloyd was now scribbling fast in his book, his expression continuing to give nothing away. He turned to Bishop. ‘You don’t have to answer that unless you want to.’
    ‘I don’t know anything about it.’ Bishop’s tone had become imploring. Heartfelt. ‘I really don’t!’
    ‘We seem to be stacking up quite a few things you claim not to know anything about, Mr Bishop,’ Glenn Branson continued. ‘You don’t know anything about your car being driven towards Brighton shortly before your wife was murdered. You don’t know anything about a three-million-pound life insurance policy, taken out on your wife just six months before she was murdered.’ He paused, checked his own notes, then drank some water. ‘In your account last night, you said that the last time you and your wife had sexual intercourse was on the morning of Sunday 30 July. Have I got that correct?’
    Bishop nodded, looking a little embarrassed.
    ‘Then can you explain the presence of a quantity of your semen that was found in Mrs Bishop’s vagina during her post-mortem on the morning of Friday 4 August?’
    ‘There’s no way!’ Bishop said. ‘Absolutely not possible!’
    ‘Are you saying, sir, that you did not have sexual intercourse with Mrs Bishop on the night of Thursday 3 August?’
    Bishop’s eyes swung resolutely left. ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I am saying. I was in London, for God’s sake!’ He turned to look at his solicitor. ‘It isn’t possible! It isn’t bloody possible!’
    Roy Grace had seen many solicitors’ expressions over the years, as one client after another had clearly told yet another barefaced lie to them. Leighton Lloyd’s face remained inscrutable. The man would make a good poker player, he thought.
    At ten past five, after Glenn Branson had gone doggedly back over Bishop’s statement from last night’s interview, the questions that had been put to him in the second interview, this morning, and challenged virtually every single word that Bishop had said, he judged that they had got as much from the man as they were going to get at this stage.
    Bishop was not budging on the three key elements: his London alibi, the life insurance policy and the last time he had had sex with his wife. But Branson was satisfied – and more than a little drained.
    Bishop was led back to his cell, leaving the solicitor alone with the two police officers.
    Lloyd pointedly looked at his watch, then addressed the two men. ‘I presume you are aware that you will have to release my client in just under three hours’ time, unless you are planning to charge him.’
    ‘Where are you going to be?’ Branson asked him.
    ‘I’m going to my office.’
    ‘We’ll call you.’
    Then the detectives went back over to Sussex House, up to Roy Grace’s office, and sat at the round table.
    ‘Well done, Glenn, you did well,’ Grace said again.
    ‘Extremely well,’ Nick Nicholl added.
    Jane Paxton looked pensive. She wasn’t one for handing out praise. ‘So we need to consider our next step.’
    Then the door opened and Eleanor Hodgson came in, holding a thin wodge of papers, clipped together. Addressing Grace, she said, ‘Excuse me interrupting, Roy, I thought you would want to see this – it just came back from the Huntington lab.’
    It was two DNA analysis reports. One was on the semen that had been found present in Sophie Harrington’s vagina; the other was on the minute fleck of what had looked like human flesh that Nadiuska De Sancha had removed from under the dead woman’s toenail.
    Both were a complete match with Brian Bishop’s DNA.

95
    Cleo Morey left the mortuary, together with Darren, just before five thirty. Closing the front door and standing in the brilliant, warm sunlight, she said, ‘What are you doing tonight?’
    ‘Was going to take her to the cinema, but it’s too hot,’ he said, squinting back at his boss with the sun in his eyes. ‘We’re going to go down the Marina, have a few drinks. There’s a cool new place I’m going to check out, Rehab.’
    She looked at him dubiously. Twenty years old, spiky black hair, a cheery face sporting some designer stubble, he could have so easily, with just a brief turn in his life, have ended up like so many of the no-hoper youngsters draped along the pavements and doorways of