Not Dead Yet

shocked, and said if that were the case, the reporter was totally out of line and acting in a rogue manner, completely alien to the paper’s policy. I subsequently received an email from him a few minutes before I came in here, telling me that Spinella has been suspended with immediate effect. I get the sense Spinella was acting alone – the editor wouldn’t do that to him if he were acting on official policy.’
    ‘So what happens to Spinella’s career now?’ Norman Potting asked.
    Bella Moy rounded on him. ‘What? You care?’
    Glenn Branson watched the exchange, intrigued. Until last night he thought that Bella couldn’t stand the man. Now, he realized, it was more like the bickering of an old married couple. He was still in shock from seeing them together, and had not told Roy yet. He looked at the two of them now. Surely she was capable of attracting someone a lot better than Norman?
    Such as himself.
    Then again, he knew, his collapsed relationship with Ari showed just how little he understood women.
    ‘I think I’d be lying,’ Roy Grace went on, ‘if I said I was going to be losing any sleep over harming Kevin Spinella’s future career prospects.’
    There was a ripple of laughter.
    ‘Has he been charged yet?’ Jon Exton asked.
    ‘What, like his phone?’ Potting riposted and chortled, oblivious to the raised eyebrows around him.
    Grace ignored him. ‘Yes, he has. With a bit of luck he could be looking at three to five years.’
    ‘Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy,’ Nick Nicholl said sarcastically.
    ‘He’ll like being inside,’ Potting said, on a roll now. ‘He thrives on inside information!’ He chortled again.
    ‘Very witty, Norman,’ Grace said. Then he turned to the press officer, Sue Fleet. ‘You’ll need to liaise with the Argus and find out who will be our new principal contact there.’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘Okay, let’s move on, down to business.’ He looked at his prepared notes. ‘Glenn, what do you have for us from the post-mortem today?’
    ‘We hope to have the DNA results on the four limbs back tomorrow, boss. But from their well-preserved condition the pathologist Nadiuska De Sancha was able to match them up pretty well to the torso. She was unable to find anything under the nails, skin scrapings or anything else which might indicate a struggle and perhaps give us the perp’s DNA.’
    ‘What about fingerprints?’
    ‘Yes, boss, we got a complete dead set.’
    ‘Good.’
    ‘We also got good plantars, too.’ Plantars were toe prints. ‘The fingerprints indicate the hands – therefore the arms – are probably from the same body, but there are no hits from the database, so we’re no further forward with identification.’ He turned to the forensic podiatrist. ‘Do you have anything to add on the legs, Haydn?’
    ‘At this stage,’ Kelly said, ‘the right and left leg appear to belong to the same body – I’m as near to one hundred per cent certain as I can be. I fully expect the DNA analysis will confirm this for us.’
    ‘So all we need is the head, and we’ll have a complete assemble-it-yourself human cadaver in kit form,’ Potting said.
    There were several sniggers. Bella Moy gave him a reproachful look.
    ‘What do you have for us on mispers, Norman?’ Grace asked.
    ‘We now have thirty-seven male mispers from the three counties, chief, who fit the age and build profile of the victim. The families that we have been able to contact have been asked to provide items we might be able to obtain DNA from. There are five mispers where we have been unable to find any relatives, and another six with relatives who can’t provide us with anything at all.’
    Grace thanked him, and turned to DC Nick Nicholl. ‘Nick, how are you getting on with the list of people who’ve had access to Stonery Farm?’
    ‘We’re pretty much complete, sir.’ He turned to the indexer Annalise Vineer. ‘Annalise has been making up a database for us to cross-reference against.’
    ‘We have everyone in it who has been to the farm in the last twelve months – at least the names that the Winter family have given us,’ she said, with a slight toss of her head which sent her fringe flicking left, then right, over her forehead. ‘Tradesmen, friends, professionals. I’m also cross-referencing them against the Police National Database to see if there are any matches with known criminals.’
    ‘Good work,’ Grace said. He looked down at his notes. ‘Right, I understand