Not Dead Enough

guidelines, all phones seized should be handed straight to the Telecoms Unit at Sussex House, untouched. But there wasn’t time for that at this moment, any more than he had time for half the new policies that got dreamed up by idiot policy-makers who had never been out in the real world in their lives.
    Taking it in his gloved hands, he switched the machine on, and was relieved when it didn’t ask him for a pin code. Then he tried to figure out how to navigate the controls, before giving up and handing it to Branson. ‘You’re the tekkie,’ he said. ‘Can you find the list of recently dialled numbers?’
    Branson tapped the keys, and within a few seconds showed Grace the display. ‘He’s only made three calls on it.’
    ‘Just three ?’
    ‘Uh huh. I recognize one of the numbers.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘It’s Hove Streamline Taxis – 202020.’
    Grace wrote the other two down, then dialled Directory Inquiries. One was for the Hotel du Vin. The second was the Lansdowne Place Hotel.
    Pensively, he said, ‘Seems like Bishop might have been telling us the truth.’
    Then a SOCO who had accompanied them into the flat suddenly called out, ‘Detective Superintendent, I think you should see this.’
    It was a walk-in broom closet just off the entrance to the kitchen. But it had clearly been a long time since any brooms were kept in here. Grace stared around in amazement. It was a miniature control centre. There were ten small television monitors on the walls, all switched off, a console with a small swivel chair in front of it, and what looked like a stack of recording equipment.
    ‘What the hell is this? Part of his security system?’ Grace asked.
    ‘He’s got three entrances – can’t see why he’d need ten monitors, sir,’ the officer said. ‘And there aren’t any cameras inside or outside – I’ve checked.’
    At that moment Alfonso Zafferone came into the room, holding the signed search warrant for Norman Jecks’s lock-ups.

    Ten minutes later, having left Nick Nicholl and the SOCO officer continuing their search of the flat, Grace and Branson stood in the small mews that was tucked behind a wide, leafy residential street of substantial detached and semi-detached Victorian villas. There were a few small businesses in the mews – a couple of car-repair outfits, a design studio and a software company – all closed for the night – and then a row of lock-up garages. According to the document they had found, Norman Jecks leased numbers 11 and 12. The blue-painted wooden doors of both were secured by hefty padlocks.
    The Local Support Team gorilla who had bashed in the door of the flat, and four further members of his team, stood in readiness. It was almost dark now, the mews eerily silent. Grace briefed them all that once the door was open, no one was to go in if the place appeared empty, which seemly likely, to preserve it forensically.
    Moments later the yellow battering ram smashed into the centre of the door, splintering the wood around the padlock’s hasp, sending the entire lock, along with a jagged chunk of wood, on to the floor. Several flashlight beams shone in simultaneously, one of them Grace’s.
    The interior, mostly taken up by a car beneath a fitted dust cover, was silent and empty. It smelled of engine oil and old leather. On the floor at the far end, two pinpricks of red light gleamed and then were gone. Probably a mouse or a rat, Grace thought, signalling everyone to wait, then stepping in himself and looking for the light switch. He found it, and two startlingly bright ceiling bulbs came on.
    At the far end was a workbench on which was a machine resembling the kind he had seen in shops that offered key-cutting services. A variety of blank keys were fixed to the wall behind it, in a carefully arranged pattern. Tools were hung on all the other walls, very neatly again, all in patterned clusters. The whole place was spotlessly clean. Too clean. It felt more like an exhibition stand for tools than a garage.
    On the floor was a small, very ancient suitcase. Grace popped open the catches. It was full of old buff file folders, corporate documents, letters, and near the bottom he found a blue Letts schoolboy’s diary for the year 1976. He closed the case – the team would go through the contents carefully later.
    Then, with Branson’s help, he removed the car’s cover, to reveal a gleaming, moonstone-white 1962 3.8 Jaguar Mk II saloon. It was in such immaculate condition that it