Want You Dead (39 page)

He looked around at his team and was greeted by nods. They understood; he sensed the distinct sudden mood change in the room. As if something had been unblocked, and everyone had got their energy supply back.

‘We had a number of sightings of Bryce Laurent called in following our appeals in the press and media,’ Becky Davies, the researcher, said. ‘We’ve had a response from a bed and breakfast hotel called Strawberry Fields, saying they had a long-stay guest who checked out suddenly, yesterday, who they say looks like Bryce Laurent. His name was Paul Millet and they have a credit card imprint in his name as, fortunately for us, they insist on payment by credit card.’

Grace turned to the HOLMES analyst, Keely Scanlan. ‘Give that name to the financial investigators, see what it throws up.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Jon Exton raised a hand. ‘I took a call earlier this morning from the manager of Cuba Libre restaurant, who’d seen the photograph of Bryce Laurent. He’s convinced that he was working for him on the day of the fire.’

‘Bryce Laurent? Working in the restaurant?’ Grace said.

‘Yes, as a busboy. He’d started there three days earlier.’

Grace frowned. ‘Under what name?’

‘Jason Benfield.’

Grace looked up at the whiteboard on which all of Laurent’s known aliases were listed. ‘I don’t see this one there, but that doesn’t mean a thing. Do we have any idea yet of the cause of that fire?’

Tony Gurr, the Chief Fire Investigator, said, ‘Yes, Roy. It looks to us that it was caused by stacking tea towels and other kitchen laundry items.’

The detective superintendent gave him a quizzical look. ‘Stacking tea towels?’

‘Cotton laundry,’ Gurr explained, ‘such as chefs’ whites, aprons, tea towels and cloths are normally contaminated with organic cooking oils. These can self-combust – spontaneously – if they are taken out of the tumble dryer and stacked before they’ve had a chance to cool first.’

‘Do many people know this?’

‘Someone working in the catering trade should. And a fire officer should know – most will have attended fires started this way.’

‘Bryce Laurent was in the fire brigade for a short time,’ Glenn Branson said.

‘Seems a bit too coincidental for him to be working there,’ DS Batchelor said. ‘Particularly to have just started working there. Three days. Enough time for him to have become familiar with how everything worked.’

Grace nodded. ‘Yes, I agree.’ He made a note. It was more evidence of Bryce’s obsession and determination to ruin everything to do with Red Westwood’s life.

‘Is there any job this guy has not done?’ said a new recruit to the team, DC Danielle Goodman. ‘I had a call this morning from a man called Paul Davison, who runs a headhunting agency called SLM Search and Selection – the full name is Shortlist-Me. They’re based in Leeds, but operate nationwide. He told me he recognized Laurent from the photograph – he had worked for his company for a brief while, under his alias of Paul Millet. I went to talk to him at his Brighton office earlier this afternoon.’

‘He worked as a headhunter?’ Grace asked.

‘Yes, sir. Mr Davison told me he recognized him as a narcissist right away, and someone with a serious lack of empathy – a sociopath, in other words. But he took him because he had an extremely impressive CV and references. Davison said he was quite a successful head-hunter because he was never emotionally attached to his clients but ultimately grew concerned because he became too manipulative – manoeuvring his clients like pawns on a chessboard – in his words.’

‘How long did Laurent – sorry, Millet – work for Shortlist-Me?’ Grace asked.

‘Just over three months. Paul Davison started noticing anger management issues, especially when anyone tried asking him too many questions about his past. That made Davison suspicious, so he began looking more deeply into the references Millet had provided. He also looked in his briefcase one day.’

‘In his briefcase?’ Glenn Branson said, with a frown. ‘Was he nicking things from the office?’

‘No, sir,’ DC Goodman said. ‘Apparently Millet used to come into the office every day with a really swanky briefcase – when he really had no need for one at all. Davison said he looked in it one time when Millet was in a meeting with a client and found it contained a hairdryer, foundation, toothbrush, toothpaste, different coloured contact lenses, hair gel, and a book on how to become a top sales person.’

‘I’ve always wondered what was in your bag, Glenn,’ Guy Batchelor ribbed him. ‘Does that all sound familiar?’

There was a ripple of laughter, and Grace was glad to hear it. Even Glenn Branson grinned. Laughter was a major coping mechanism for all police officers when confronted with horror. The day you couldn’t laugh, no matter how grim the situation, was a dangerous day for your mental state. ‘Okay, the picture I’m getting more and more clearly of Bryce Laurent is that of a highly intelligent man, a chameleon, with anger issues and the inability to hold down a job. But none of this is helping us with what we urgently need right now, which is to find him. We need to know his vehicle, and then start looking at what ANPR cameras he’s pinged, or what CCTV footage of it there might be.’

Dave Green raised his hand. ‘Boss,’ he said to Roy. ‘I’ve had the result of the analysis on the petrol in the can found at Haywards Heath Golf Club. It is one produced by BP – the regular unleaded. There are dozens and dozens of BP filling stations across the county; wed need to look at CCTV from each one of them, going back weeks, in the hope of spotting Bryce Laurent.’

Grace thought about it for a moment, wrote
BP
on his pad, and made a circle around it. ‘If we can’t find this bastard any other way, we may have to resort to this, Dave. But it’s a massive task and one that will take days, if not weeks. That’s not going to help us save Red Westwood.’

Another DC, Martha Ritchie, raised her hand. ‘I’ve spoken to the charity Rise, for abused women, where Red went during her relationship with Laurent. They gave me the name of her counsellor, Juddith Biddlestone, who I called this afternoon to see if she might have any idea, from what Red told her, where Bryce Laurent might be located. Apparently he had a secret location where he went to practise some of his conjuring tricks, particularly the ones involving fire and explosives.’

Glenn Branson responded. ‘We know that under his alias Pat Tolley he was granted a fireworks licence and operated for a time out of a farm building in Suffolk. But he has long vacated those premises, and we haven’t been able to establish from where he is currently operating that business, if he still is at all.’

The door opened, and Ray Packham from the High Tech Crime Unit entered. ‘I’m sorry I’m late, chief,’ he said. ‘But I have something that might be of interest.’

‘Yes? Tell us,’ Roy Grace said.

Packham had a wry smile on his face. ‘Would the words
Geotec or IrfanView
mean anything to anyone here?’

The Crime Scene Manager raised his hand. ‘Something to do with locating coordinates of places in photographs.’

‘Exactly,’ Ray Packham said. ‘Last week, Ms Westwood received a cartoon, through email, of sharks circling around the hull of a yacht. It was sent as a JPEG file, which I identified at the time as having been taken from a camera phone – which is very helpful. You see, as I explained before, unless the location option is switched off when a digital camera takes a photograph, it embeds in the photograph the exact time it was taken, as well as the compass coordinates, which are accurate to within fifty feet.’ He hesitated.

‘And?’ Grace said.

‘Further research reveals that the phone used has been in a static position for several days since then. Triangulation from mobile phone masts gives us a position approximately half a mile south of the Dyke Golf Club.’

They all looked at one whiteboard, to which was pinned a large-scale map of the county of Sussex.

Grace stood up and went over to the map. He looked at the scale indicator, then ran his finger over a section of green, on which was marked a cluster of buildings. ‘In here?’ he said.

‘That’s where the photograph was taken, sir,’ Packham said.

‘How sure are you?’ Grace asked.

‘One hundred per cent.’

Grace picked up the phone to the Silver commander and updated him with the information. The Silver commander then rang Andy Kille, the duty Ops-1, and requested the helicopter NPAS 15. He read out the coordinates that Roy Grace had given him, requested cars to get close to the scene, with a fast but silent approach, and to stand by but remain as inconspicuous as possible in that area. He wanted to begin to tighten the net around the location that was looking good for where Bryce was holding his victim. He also updated Gold, who was running the suspected abduction operation, with this new information.

98

Monday, 4 November

In the back of the van, with the rear doors open, Bryce shook Red. ‘Are you okay? Red? My love! Are you okay? Red! Red!’

She still did not move.

He stared down at the ligature around her throat. Had he made it too tight? Had she choked or strangled to death?
Oh shit, no, please God, no. Please, no.

‘Red!’ he shouted, shaking her hard.

There was no response.

‘Red!’

Nothing.

Christ.

He tried to think clearly, to think back. To slugging her on the head at Tongdean. Oh shit, had he hit her too hard? Caused a haemorrhage? No. It was just a tap, surely just a tap, hard enough to knock her out, but that was all. Surely?

Surely?

He shook her. ‘Red? Red, my love, my angel. Are you okay? Please wake up, please. Please wake up! Don’t do this to me. I have so much planned for us! Really I do. Don’t be a bitch and deprive me, please, don’t do that! I have so much pain lined up for you! You hear me, you bitch? YOU HEAR ME?’

He kissed her on the cheek. Smelled her hair. It smelled the way it always had when they were lovers. A faint scent of coconut. Lemongrass. He nuzzled his face in it. ‘Wake up, my darling, my angel, please wake up. I love you so much. Wake up! I love you! Wake up!’

She lay limp, her eyes closed.

He held her wrist, trying to take her pulse. But his heartbeat had gone crazy. He heard the roaring of his own blood in his ears. Felt the pulse through his body. His pulse. ‘Red!’ he said, urgently. ‘Wake up, my darling. Wake up! We have so much to talk about. Wake up, it’s me, Bryce. I love you. I love you so much! Sooooo damned much! Wake up!’

Was he imagining it or was her body turning cold?

‘Red! Please don’t die on me! Don’t die on me until I’m ready. Don’t cheat me, please!’

He tore at the straps restraining her, undoing them one at a time. ‘Red, oh Red, my darling, my angel, my beautiful. Come back to me. Come back to Bryce. Come back to me.’

When her arms and legs were free, he began chest compressions.

Still nothing.

He gently pulled the duct tape from her mouth with shaky hands. Pressed his lips to hers and began the compressions again.

Then felt an agonizing pain as she bit right through his lower lip. And jammed her fingers in his eyes, so hard she was starting to gouge them out.

He screamed, momentarily blinded, thrashing at her with his hands.

She bit harder. He tasted blood. He could see nothing. He squirmed, wriggled, but her fingers, nails sharp, kept pushing into his sockets. She was wriggling beneath him. Suddenly, he could no longer feel her.

Silence.

His eyes were in agony.

He raised his fingers and felt fluid. Lights flashed all around him. Green, yellow, blue, orange, bright red.

‘Nooooooooo!’ he screamed. ‘Nooooooo, you fucking bitch!’ He clamped his hand over his left eye, which was stinging as if it had been sprayed with acid. All he could see through it were streaks of colour. He swung himself around in the darkness. ‘COME BACK! COME HERE, RED!’

His head struck something hard. The roof of the van, he realized. He stared with his good eye at the roof light, which burned as bright as a laser and shot shards of brilliant white in all directions. ‘RED!’ he screamed. ‘RED!’

He grabbed his crossbow off the front seat. Beside it lay the night-sight. He lifted that to his right eye, his good eye. And saw her.

Running away.

She was running across the field.

He snapped off the day-sight and slipped on the night-sight. Now he could see her clearly, against a green landscape. He took careful aim. She was already quite a distance away. A good eighty yards, he estimated.

Eighty yards was the distance he had practised on for Rottingdean church.

Slowly, much more calmly than he felt inside, he brought the cross hairs of the sight down to the middle of her back. Then he squeezed the trigger.

99

Monday, 4 November

Roy Grace stared at his watch, and cursed the damned budget cuts. Sussex Police, in line with all the nation’s other forty-two forces, was required to reduce its annual expenditure by twenty per cent. A government edict. One of the savings had been to lose the county’s combined police and air ambulance helicopter, Hotel 900, located at Shoreham Airport, which had the capability to be anywhere in the city of Brighton and Hove in under three minutes. Now with the advent of the National Police Air Service, the helicopter allocated to them, NPAS 15, was shared with Surrey, Kent and Hampshire, and located at Redhill. It took a minimum of fifteen minutes for the helicopter to reach Brighton – providing it was even available. Fortunately tonight it was.

He sat at his allocated workstation in MIR-1 rather than return to his office, watching the time with growing frustration. The helicopter was still ten minutes away. There was no certainty that Bryce Laurent was in one of those farm buildings south of the Dyke Golf Club, but it was all they had to go on at this moment and it seemed probable to him. If Laurent had abducted Red Westwood, he would have needed to take her somewhere remote and isolated. This place looked suitable, and Laurent would have known it.

Grace was thinking fast. The first priority was to locate the two of them. But the even greater priority was to get Red away from Laurent, unharmed. That was going to be harder. Grace had spoken with Silver, who wanted the helicopter to overfly the farm buildings where he had a feeling Bryce Laurent had taken Red Westwood, using its thermal-imaging camera to establish whether there was anyone in the buildings. He had requested it fly at as high an altitude as possible to try to avoid alerting Bryce Laurent. He was awaiting a call back.