The FLO tapped her chest. ‘That is what we did our training for. We are specialists in all aspects of bereavement.’
Grace looked at the women in turn. ‘I know all about your training and I know both of you – I’ve worked with you before and I respect you. This has nothing to do with your abilities. Your training gives you guidance, but at the end of the day there’s also the policing aspect. On this occasion I have my reasons for wanting to break the news, and as the SIO on this case I set the rules, OK? I don’t want any more sour faces from you, I want cooperation. Understood?’
The two FLOs nodded but still did not look comfortable.
‘Have you decided how much you are going to tell the father?’ Vanessa Ritchie said tartly.
‘No, I’m going to play it by ear. I’ll bring you up to speed before I call you in, OK?’
Maggie Campbell smiled in a half-hearted, conciliatory way. DC Ritchie gave him a reluctant You’re the boss shrug.
On a nod from his boss, Branson pressed the bell, and moments later the gates swung jerkily open. They drove up to the house. Grace parked between the two cars outside, an old, rather grubby BMW 7 series and a very ancient Subaru estate.
As they approached the front door it was opened by a distinguished-looking man in his mid-fifties, with dark hair streaked with silver at the temples, wearing an open-necked white business shirt with gold cufflinks, suit trousers and shiny black loafers. He was holding a mobile phone.
‘Detective Superintendent Grace?’ he said in an upper-crust accent which was slightly muffled as he seemed to speak through his teeth, scanning both police officers uncertainly. He had a pleasant smile, but sad blue-grey eyes like a pair of little lost souls.
‘Mr Derek Stretton?’ Grace asked. Then he and Branson both showed him their warrant cards out of courtesy.
Ushering them in, Derek Stretton asked, ‘How was your drive?’
‘It was fine,’ Grace said. ‘I think we picked a good time of day.’
‘It’s a beastly road; can’t think why they can’t just make it motorway. Janie’s always spending hours stuck when she comes down here.’
The first thing Grace noticed as he entered the hallway was how sparsely furnished the place was. There was a fine long inlaid table, and a tallboy and antique chairs, but there were no rugs or floor coverings, and he observed a row of shadows along the walls where paintings had clearly recently been removed.
Leading them through into an equally barren drawing room, with two large sofas on bare boards and what looked like a plastic picnic table put between them as a coffee table, Derek Stretton seemed in a hurry to explain, gesturing at the bare walls of the room and the large rectangular shadows, many with bare wires poking out, some with small lights at the top. ‘Afraid I’ve had to let go of some of the family silver. Made a few bad investments…’
That explained the shadows on the wall, Grace thought. They’d probably gone to auction. Stretton looked so distressed, he felt genuinely sorry for the man, and that was without the bombshell he was about to drop.
‘My housekeeper isn’t-’ He waved his arms helplessly in the air. ‘Um, but can I get you some tea? Coffee?’
Grace was parched. ‘Tea please, milk, no sugar.’
‘The same, please,’ Branson said.
As Stretton went out, Grace walked over to one of the few pieces of furniture in the room, an elegant side table covered in photograph frames.
There were a couple of much older people – grandparents, he presumed. Then one of a slightly younger Derek Stretton with an attractive woman of about the same age. Next to this was a young woman – Janie, he guessed. She was about seventeen or eighteen in the photograph, pretty and very classy-looking, in a black velvet ball gown, with long fair hair swept up and clipped by two diamanté barrettes, and an ornate silver choker around her neck. She bore a striking resemblance to a young Gwyneth Paltrow. She was smiling at the camera, but there was nothing self-conscious in that smile. To Grace it was a Yes, I am gorgeous and I know it smile.
There was another photograph next to it, also of Janie, a couple of years younger, on a ski slope, wearing a lilac anorak, designer sunglasses and a seriously cool expression.
Grace glanced at his watch. It was 11.30 a.m. He’d ducked out of the press conference, leaving it to the PRO Dennis Ponds to tell the pack that they now had the name of the victim, and would be releasing it the moment her next of kin had been informed – which would be in about an hour and a half or so. Then he wanted Ponds, in particular, to get her photograph out in as many places as possible, to see what sightings of her last hours might come in from the public, and to get the case on the next episode of Crimewatch on television, the following Wednesday, if they hadn’t made progress by then.
Branson wandered over to the fireplace. A number of birthday cards stood on the mantelpiece. Grace followed. He stared at one with a cartoon of a proud-looking man in a suit and bow tie, with the wording above, ‘To a very special Dad!’
He opened it up and saw the message: ‘To my Darling Daddy. With all my love, tons and tons and tons of it. J XXX’.
Grace put the card back and walked over to a tall bay window. There was a fine view down to the Hamble River; Branson joined him and they stared at a forest of masts and rigging from a marina that looked as if it was just beyond the boundary of the property.
‘Never been into boats,’ Branson said. ‘Never been totally comfortable with water.’
‘Even though you live by the sea?’
‘Not exactly right by it.’ His phone rang and he pulled it out. ‘DS Branson? Oh hi, yeah, I’m with Roy, down near Southampton. ETA about two o’clock back in Brighton. Roy wants a briefing at six thirty, so everyone there, OK? Yeah. Did we get the extra officers he requested? Only one so far? Who is it? Oh shit, you are joking! Him! I can’t believe they’ve dumped him on us. Roy is going to be well pissed. We’re going straight to her flat from here; Roy wants someone to go to her office, speak to her boss and the staff there. OK. Yeah. Six thirty. You got it.’
Branson slipped the phone back in his pocket. ‘That was Bella. Guess what – your request for two extra officers for the team – know who they’ve given us?’
‘Hit me.’
‘Norman Potting.’
Grace groaned. ‘It’s about time he retired; he’s older than God.’
‘Hasn’t exactly thrilled the ladies. Bella is not happy.’
Detective Sergeant Norman Potting was in his mid-fifties, a late joiner compared to some. He was a old-school policeman, politically incorrect, blunt and with no interest in promotion – he had never wanted the responsibilities – but nor had he wanted to retire when he reached fifty-five, the normal police pension age for a sergeant, which was why he had extended his service. He liked to do what he was best at doing, which he called plodding and drilling. Plodding, methodical police work, and drilling down deep beneath the surface of any crime, drilling for as long and deep as he needed until he hit some seam that would lead him somewhere.
The best that could be said about Norman Potting was that he was steady and dependable, and could get results. But he was boring as hell, and had the knack of upsetting just about everyone.
‘I thought he was permanently up at Gatwick with the anti-terrorist lot,’ Grace said.
‘They obviously had enough of him. Maybe they couldn’t bear any more of his jokes,’ Branson said. ‘And Bella said he stinks of smoke from his pipe. Neither she nor Emma-Jane want to sit near him.’
‘Poor precious souls.’
Derek Stretton came back into the room, carrying a tray with three china cups and a milk jug. He set it on the plastic table, then ushered them to one sofa, and sat down opposite. ‘You said on the phone you have news about Janie, Detective Superintendent?’ he asked expectantly.