Not Dead Yet

often a fast and efficient way to eliminate people like Whiteley – or incriminate them. He turned to his HOLMES – Home Office Large Major Enquiry System – and Intelligence researchers. ‘I want you to check the serials going back two years, and see if any of Whiteley’s neighbours have ever complained about him. See if he’s been involved in any incidents. We need more information on him.’ Then he said to Bella, ‘I think you should have a word with Whiteley’s senior partner and find out what kind of employee he is.’
    ‘I have a call in to him already, sir.’
    ‘Good!’ Then he turned to DC Exton. ‘The Hunter wellington boots – anything to report from the stockists?’ He pointed up at the trio of whiteboards. One board showed a photograph of Stonery Farm, circled in blue marker ink, and a photograph of the West Sussex Piscatorial Society trout lake, also circled in blue, with a line connecting them. A second showed photographs of a Hunter boot, and three photographs of the actual-size prints found around the edge of the trout lake. The third board had photographs of the torso and limbs of Myles Royce, and now, just added today, his face.
    ‘I’ve obtained a list of online retailers,’ Exton said. ‘We’ve been working through these, compiling a list of names of customersthey’ve supplied in our parameter area of Sussex, Surrey and Kent in the past two years. But the problem as we know with many stockists, like garden centres and outdoor wear shops, is many don’t keep customer records. We’re getting as much as we can through credit card records, but that is slow and incomplete. I’ve been feeding names as they come through to the indexer.’ He looked at Annalise Vineer.
    ‘Nothing so far,’ she said. ‘I’ve names from sixteen stockists of people who’ve made recent purchases, but no hits, and that includes Eric Whiteley.’
    Grace had worked with her on several murder enquiries and knew just how thorough she was. If she said no hits, she meant it. He looked at his notes. ‘Haydn – how are you doing on gait analysis?’
    ‘I’ve completed my computer modelling. I won’t bore you with the technical data but analysis of these prints shows our perp has a very unusual gait. I’m confident I could pick him out in a crowd. I could spend a few days in the CCTV control room at John Street, if you like?’
    Brighton and Hove had one of the most comprehensive CCTV networks of any city. This was helped by the fact that the English Channel bordered the south, giving a relatively narrow arc to the east, north and west. But the problem, as Grace saw it, was which crowd ? Haydn Kelly was on an expensive daily rate; he couldn’t just sit him down in front of a bank of television monitors and have him observe real-time footage in the hope of spotting the perp, when there were no guarantees that Myles Royce’s killer was even in the city.
    He looked up at the dead man’s photograph. Royce was fifty-two, his mother had told Potting. He looked a little younger, in Grace’s view. The unfortunate man had not been blessed with great looks. He had a rather weak, flaccid face with bulging eyes, as if he had a thyroid problem, protruding lips, a squat nose and a shapeless mop of dark-brown hair with the unnatural flat tones of a bad dye job.
    A trustafarian. Modest inherited wealth. Never had to do a day’s work in his life. Just dabbled in property from time to time. Fromthe expression he wore in his photograph, he sure as hell did not look happy, Grace thought.
    So how did you end up like this? Your torso covered in quicklime and immersed in chicken shit? Your limbs in a trout lake? And your head missing?
    ‘You know what, chief?’ Norman Potting said, as if reading his mind. ‘If we could just find his head, maybe he could tell us who did it!’
    There was tittering in the room. Roy Grace did his best to keep a straight face, but after some moments he allowed himself a grin.
    In all the murder enquiries he had attended, and more recently had run, he could not remember a single one where there had been less information about the victim or the suspected perpetrator.
    In two hours’ time he had to attend a press conference with Glenn. If they put over their messages correctly, it could lead to a crucial witness either phoning the police directly or the Crimestoppers line anonymously. The enormity of his responsibility never escaped him. Myles Royce was his mother’s only child. He was