81

‘So what’s this about?’ Gareth Dupont asked, sullenly chewing gum in the back of the unmarked Ford. He had shaved, and was dressed in clean jeans and a freshly laundered blue shirt beneath a suede bomber jacket. Prisoners on remand were permitted to wear their own clothes until convicted.

‘I thought you might appreciate a few hours out of prison,’ Roy Grace, in the front passenger seat, said. It was midday, and they had to return Dupont by 5 p.m. Guy Batchelor reversed the car out of the custody block bay. The police always had to be discreet when taking prisoners out on a Production Order, to avoid other prisoners finding out. The slightest whiff that one might be a grass, and life inside could be extremely unpleasant and dangerous.

The reason given in this instance was that Gareth Dupont was going to show the police addresses of other domestic burglaries he had done in and around Sussex, in the hope of leniency on that part of his sentence. Even so, rather than collecting him from the prison, he had first been transferred to the custody block behind Sussex House.

‘I’d prefer not to be in there in the first place.’

‘Your choice,’ Grace said. ‘Right?’

Batchelor drove down to the electric gate and waited while it slid open.

‘I didn’t hurt the old lady. I didn’t have any part in that.’

‘So what part did you have, Gareth?’

He held up his handcuffed arms in front of him. ‘Any chance you could remove these? I’m not going to try to escape.’

‘That’s very big of you,’ Grace said. ‘Let’s see how co-operative you are, and we might do even better than that – perhaps get you a decent meal?’ He raised his eyebrows.

Dupont visibly perked up at that. ‘What about prison – can you get me a better cell?’

‘One with a sunken bathtub? I think the one with the four-poster bed’s already been taken.’

‘Haha. I’m sharing with a moron who stinks, and snores like a hog. But like, he really stinks, know what I mean? He’s disgusting.’

‘I’ll see what I can do, but I’m not making any promises – I don’t have the authority to. But if you are helpful to us, I’ll speak to the Governor. So, what takes your fancy for lunch?’

‘Any chance of a Big Mac?’

‘With fries and a Coke?’

‘Don’t get my hopes up.’

‘Happy to get you all of those, Gareth, if you’re helpful to us.’

They headed along the A27, then up the hill and turned off onto Dyke Road Avenue, a wide road running along the spine of Brighton and Hove, lined on both sides with some of the city’s most expensive houses, although some had long been converted into nursing homes. A short distance along they pulled over, outside wrought-iron gates; a large red-brick house sat well back, with a Bentley and a Ferrari in the drive.

‘Recognize this place?’ Grace asked.

Dupont shook his head.

‘It was burgled three years ago. A large haul of paintings and Georgian silver. No one’s ever been apprehended. One of yours?’

‘No.’

‘You’re sure? It’ll be better for you to admit other offences before your trial; the judge will be more lenient that way. Otherwise you could find more time being added to your sentence.’

‘I don’t think anyone can add much time to a life sentence. No, I never burgled this place. And, look, I didn’t play any part in hurting the old lady. You have to believe me.’

‘Why do I have to believe you?’

‘Because – oh shit.’ He sighed. ‘Those arseholes didn’t need to torture her. I already had the safe code, and I knew about the dummy door at the back of it.’

‘You knew about the Patek Philippe watch that was in it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Really? Who from?’

‘I can’t tell you; he’d kill me.’

‘He? Are you sure it wasn’t she?’

‘It was he,’ he said, adamantly. His eyes told Grace he was telling the truth.

Grace nodded at DS Batchelor to drive on, then turned back to Dupont. ‘So it’s entirely coincidence you were – are – having an affair with Lucas Daly’s wife, and then you were involved with burgling her husband’s aunt’s house?’

Dupont shrugged. ‘I might have picked her brains on a few things.’

‘Did you specifically target her, or was meeting her just a lucky coincidence?’

‘Know one of the things I believe in?’ the prisoner responded. ‘Serendipity. Sometimes in life you get lucky.’

Batchelor turned right, down tree-lined Tongdean Road, which was even more exclusive than Dyke Road Avenue. Some of the houses were concealed behind walls and shrubbery. They passed one with white columns the proportions of an ancient Greek temple, then turned left into Tongdean Avenue, considered by many to be the city’s most exclusive street. Batchelor steered around three learner drivers in a row practising reversing, then pulled over to the right and halted in front of another gated mansion that, like all the homes on this side of the road, had magnificent views south across Hove to the English Channel.

‘How about this place?’ Grace quizzed. ‘Four years ago the owners were attacked by two masked men, at midnight, as they waited for the gates to open. They were tied up and threatened with a cigarette lighter until they gave the safe code and their bank pin codes.’

Dupont shook his head. ‘No, not me, sorry.’

‘Think harder,’ Grace said. ‘Oh, by the way, I do have one more bit of bad news for you.’

‘Yeah?’

‘My officers have found the Luton van that you rented from a company in Ipswich. I imagine you thought renting from far away would give you a better chance, right?’

Dupont said nothing.

‘SOCO found fingerprints of you and your mates Macario and Barnes in there. You’re not coming out for fifteen to twenty years. So, just a friendly word of warning, don’t piss us about. Shall we make a deal?’

‘What deal?’

‘We’re ten minutes, max, from the nearest McDonald’s. Where is the stuff you stole from Aileen McWhirter, and who hired you? Wasn’t by any chance someone called Eamonn Pollock?’

‘I thought our deal was I didn’t talk about the case without my brief. I thought you were taking me around burglary sites.’

‘You don’t have to talk about it, and we don’t have to get you a Big Mac. We can drive you straight back to prison, if you’d prefer?’

‘I’m vulnerable in prison,’ he said. ‘I know that. I’d like a burger, but I’m not grassing anyone up. So if that’s your plan, you might as well drive me straight back.’

Grace’s phone rang. He raised a finger at him, then answered. It was Norman Potting.

‘All good on the Costa del Sol?’ he enquired.

‘Costa del Crime, chief,’ he chuckled. ‘I have a couple of things to report. Firstly, the post-mortems on Ken Barnes and Anthony Macario. Both men died from drowning, with excessive alcohol consumption a probable cause – their overturned dinghy supports this. However, the Coroner here’s unhappy about the men’s physical injuries – it looks like they might have been in a fairly brutal fight prior to drowning. But there were no disturbances reported that night to the police and, significantly, none of the people on any of the neighbouring yachts, or in the apartments overlooking the harbour, heard or saw anything. The Guardia Civil have been brought in to investigate more thoroughly and that’s where it stands, for the moment.’

‘Okay. Thanks, Norman. What is the second thing?’

‘The local police had all the outgoing passenger lists for the past week from Malaga Airport checked and Eamonn Pollock’s name popped up.’

‘Flying where?’

‘Last Thursday, August the 30th, domestic from Malaga to Madrid. He must have stayed overnight in Madrid, then on August the 31st he boarded an international flight to New York.’

Grace was conscious of Dupont behind him listening to every word. He stepped out of the car, closed the door and walked a few paces along the street. A blustery wind was blowing. ‘Brilliant work, Norman. We need to find out where he’s staying in New York. I remember when I went over last year you have to give that information to the airline before you board.’