Not Dead Enough

Northrop-Turner, at his chambers in Chichester, Pole told him. And it looked like the barrister had an alibi. Before they had finished speaking, Grace’s phone started beeping with an incoming call. He thanked Pole and switched to the new call. It was the Director of Social Services again.
    ‘All right, Detective Superintendent. You won’t need to explain all of this to the post-adoption social worker – I will get her to bring you the file and let you have the information you require. Is it the names of the people who adopted Frederick Roger Jones that would suffice for your purposes?’
    ‘That would be a good starting point,’ Grace responded. ‘Thank you.’

    A bus rumbled past the first-floor window of the small, sparsely furnished conference room in the Council office building. Grace glanced out, through the venetian blinds, at the pink banner advertising the television series Sugar Rush below its top deck. He had been sitting in this damn room with Nick Nicholl for over a quarter of an hour, with no offer of a coffee or even a glass of water. The morning was slipping by, but they were at least making some progress. His nerves were badly on edge. He was trying to concentrate on his own cases, but he could not stop thinking and worrying about Cleo, almost every second.
    ‘How’s your lad?’ he asked the young DC, who was yawning and pallid-faced despite the glorious summer weather.
    ‘Wonderful!’ he said. ‘Ben’s just amazing. But he doesn’t sleep very well.’
    ‘Good at changing nappies, are you?’
    ‘I’m becoming world class.’
    A leaflet on the table was headed Brighton & Hove City Council Directorate of Children, Families and Schools . On the walls were posters of smiling, cute-looking children of different races.
    Finally the door opened and a young woman entered, managing to put Grace’s back up even before she opened her mouth, just from the way she looked, combined with her scowl.
    She was in her mid-thirties, thin as a rake, with a pointed nose, a hoop-shaped mouth ringed with red lipstick, and her hair was dyed a vivid fuchsia, gelled into small, aggressive-looking spikes. She was wearing an almost full-length printed muslin dress and what Grace thought might be vegan sandals, and was carrying a buff file folder with a Post-it note stuck to it.
    ‘You’re the two from the police?’ she asked coldly, in a south London accent, her eyes, behind emerald-framed glasses, finding a gap between the two detectives.
    Grace, followed by Nicholl, stood up. ‘Detective Superintendent Grace and Detective Constable Nicholl from Sussex CID,’ Grace said.
    Without giving her name, she said, ‘The director has told me that you want to know the adoptive parents of Frederick Jones, who was born on 7 September 1964.’ Now she looked straight at Grace, still intensely hostile.
    ‘Yes, that’s right. Thank you,’ he said.
    She pulled the Post-it note off the folder and handed it to him. On it was written, in neat handwriting, the name Tripwell, Derek and Joan .
    He showed it to Nick Nicholl, then looked at the folder. ‘Is there anything else in there that could give us any help?’
    ‘I’m sorry, I’m not authorized,’ she said, avoiding eye contact again.
    ‘Did your director not explain that this is a murder inquiry?’
    ‘It’s also someone’s private life,’ she retorted.
    ‘All I need is an address for the adoptive parents – Derek and Joan Tripwell,’ he said, reading from the yellow note. Then he nodded at the folder. ‘You must have that in there.’
    ‘I’ve been told to give you their names,’ she said. ‘I haven’t been told to give you any more.’
    Grace looked at her, exasperated. ‘I can’t seem to get it across – there may be other women in this city whose lives are in danger.’
    ‘Detective Superintendent, you and your colleague have your job to do, protecting the citizens of Brighton and Hove. I have my job to do, protecting adopted children. Is that clear?’
    ‘Let me make something clear to you then,’ Grace said, glancing at Nicholl and clenching up with anger. ‘If anyone else is murdered in this city, and you are withholding information that could have enabled us to prevent it, I’m going to personally hang you out to dry.’
    ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ she said, and left the room.

111
    Grace was driving his Alfa up the hill, past ASDA and British Bookstores, about to turn in through the gates of Sussex House, when DC Pamela