Not Dead Yet

Grace. ‘Me?’
    ‘You.’
    ‘Right.’ Thrown, Branson took a moment to recover.
    ‘A bit of advice, Glenn,’ Norman Potting said. ‘Don’t wear that tie.’
    ‘You’re a great one to give sartorial advice,’ Bella Moy snapped at him, huffily.
    As if he hadn’t heard her, Potting pointed at Branson’s multi-coloured op-art design. ‘I mean it Glenn, it will distract people, and it’ll make you look less serious.’
    Branson looked down at his tie, a little hurt. ‘I like it, it’s cheerful.’
    Grace nodded. ‘I have to agree with Norman; that won’t look good on television.’
    Nodding reluctant assent, Branson continued. ‘We have some more information about “Unknown Berwick Male” from the forensic archaeologist.’ Reading from a document in front of him he said, ‘His age is estimated at between forty-five and fifty. From his femur and tibia measurements, I calculate his height at five foot, six or seven inches. The overall appearance of the bones implies a slight build. He has suffered two broken ribs, either from an accident or being in a fight. From the healing in the bones I estimate this to have been at least ten years ago.’ He looked at Potting. ‘Norman, that should help with your mispers. What do you have for us so far?’
    Potting read out a list of missing persons that fell into the approximate range, which came to twenty-three people. ‘So farwe’ve been focusing on Sussex and Surrey/Kent borders, and I have the outside enquiry team looking into each of these, collecting toothbrushes and hairbrushes to take DNA from. With your permission, chief –’ he looked at Branson, then at Roy Grace – ‘I’d like to widen the parameters to the whole of Sussex, Surrey and Kent.’ He turned to the indexer Annalise Vineer, who nodded, making a note on her terminal.
    Good indexers were vital to a major enquiry. Grace knew from his experience at working on cold cases just how many of them might have been solved very much sooner – and in the case of serial killers, preventing the deaths of some of the victims – if more methodical referencing and cross-referencing across both the county and other police forces had taken place.
    Missing person enquiries were like peeling off layers of an onion skin in reverse. With each layer you removed, you widened the search parameters further. Firstly to cover your entire county, then the neighbouring counties, and then the entire country. If that produced nothing, you started looking at continental Europe. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let’s hope Crimewatch tomorrow throws up something. That material is distinctive, people will remember it.’
    ‘Not as distinctive as Glenn’s tie!’ Potting chuckled.
    Branson looked down at his notes. ‘The proprietor of Stonery Farm, Keith Winter, has been very co-operative as have all members of his family. Nothing in any background checks done so far gives me any cause for suspicion. His finances are in good order, he is a respected man in his community and he has no apparent enemies. We are not at this stage regarding him as a suspect. But having said that, in my view, with the elaborate security system at Stonery Farm, it’s unlikely that a stranger could have entered to dump – or plant – this body. Which makes me feel either we are looking for an employee of Stonery Farm, or someone who had access to the place and good knowledge of it.’ He turned to the Crime Scene Manager. ‘Any progress to report, David?’
    ‘I’ve had the Specialist Search Unit, as well as a large number of uniform and Specials from East Downs Division covering the area since Friday afternoon, boss, looking for the head and limbs,’ Green said. Like Potting, he looked first at Branson then Grace. ‘We’vecovered the entire area of Stonery Farm, as well as the immediate surrounding areas with human cadaver dogs and archaeologists doing a visual search for soil disturbances, and the SSU have covered all ditches, streams and ponds.’
    DC Jon Exton raised a hand. ‘Chief,’ he said, ‘I’m trying to work out what the perpetrator might have been trying to achieve by removing the head and limbs. I don’t understand why he wouldn’t simply have cut the torso up, as well. It can’t have been easy to have put the body in the chicken shed, unless he worked at Stonery Farm. So why did he?’
    ‘Do you have a hypothesis you’d like to share with us?’ Grace asked.
    ‘Well, something keeps going around in my