Ron has been grumpy, or grumpier, for the last week or so. He had a row with Pauline at Christmas. He won’t tell me what it was about, but Ibrahim says it was to do with when you’re supposed to open presents. Ron said it’s straight after breakfast, but Pauline said not till after lunch, and the whole thing got heated. When Ibrahim went round there on Christmas evening they wouldn’t even play charades with him, and Ron knows that Ibrahim loves to play charades, so it must have been serious. I remember Ibrahim once mimed
Ibrahim had Christmas dinner alone, which he says is how he likes it. I had invited him to mine – there was more than enough goose to go around – but he said he doesn’t really buy into Christmas. It’s too sentimental. It’s worth noting, though, that when he came over to take Alan for a walk, he was wearing a Santa hat.
Elizabeth had stayed in with Stephen, of course. I got very little out of her, except that she gave some turkey to the little fox that has taken to visiting them. They call him ‘Snowy’ because he has white tips to his ears. When he lies on the ground he thinks he is camouflaged, but his little ears always give him away. He comes a bit nearer to their patio every day. He’ll be out there now, somewhere in the dark.
I will see them all at Kuldesh’s funeral tomorrow. We didn’t really know him, but he had no family left, so you want to fill the pews out a bit, don’t you? You’d want someone to do it for you.
So much for ‘no murders’, Joanna, although I will be using my flask tomorrow. Crematoriums are often very draughty.
It’s eight thirty a.m., January 4th, and the troops have been told to gather in the Incident Room at Fairhaven police station to discuss their progress on the murder of Kuldesh Sharma.
Chris should be out front, giving orders, discussing theories, in charge of the marker pens and the whiteboard, but this morning had brought a surprise.
A surprise in the form of Senior Investigating Officer Jill Regan of the National Crime Agency, who, it has become clear, is now in charge of the murder enquiry – for reasons none of them have yet been able to fathom.
An antiques dealer from Brighton has been murdered in Kent. What has that got to do with the National Crime Agency, and with SIO Jill Regan?
She is currently writing on Chris’s whiteboard, with Chris’s pens. Donna can feel Chris bristle.
‘So what do we have?’ says Jill Regan. ‘We have the square root of absolutely nothing. Just over a week since the murder, and we have no clues, certainly no evidence, and we have’ – Jill looks slowly around the squad assembled in the room – ‘no intelligence.’
‘She’s a charmer,’ Donna whispers to Chris.
Jill continues. ‘We’ve no CCTV from the shop – no use crying over it. The track marks from the lane led us nowhere – when do they ever? No fingerprints, no useful DNA, no eyewitnesses, and I’m in a room full of coppers sitting on their arses.’
‘You told us to sit down?’ says Donna.
‘I’m being metaphorical, if you’ve ever heard of it,’ says Jill. ‘Four days, no progress. That stops now. At midday, I have a team arriving from the NCA, and you will be relieved of duty. This room will be out of bounds. My office – Chris, I have authority to use your office – will also be out of bounds. Any questions?’
Chris starts to raise his hand. ‘Yeah, just –’
‘I’m joking,’ says Jill. ‘No questions. Thank you all for coming in early. Please find some other crime to solve, if you have any down here.’
The team begin to disperse, some glad of the opportunity of a quiet day. Chris hangs back, so Donna also chooses to.
‘What’s going on?’ Chris asks Jill.
‘Nothing,’ says Jill. ‘That’s just the problem.’
Chris shakes his head. ‘Nope. Something’s up. A murder in Kent, and they call in the NCA?’
‘I don’t know what to tell you, Chris,’ says Jill.
‘Do you need a briefing from me? Everything we know so far?’
‘No, thank you,’ says Jill. ‘We’re fine. A bit of peace and quiet is all we need. Give us the chance to do our job. Did you find his phone?’
‘Whose phone?’ says Chris. ‘Kuldesh’s?’
‘Wow,’ says Jill. ‘What a razor-sharp mind. Yes, Kuldesh’s.’
‘Didn’t have it on him,’ says Chris.
‘Didn’t find it in the shop?’
‘If we’d found it in the shop, it would have been logged into evidence, ma’am,’ says Donna. She was supposed to log it in yesterday, but the evidence store was unmanned. Donna is thankful for police underfunding for once.
‘Is it an organized crime thing?’ guesses Chris. ‘Crosses over with an international drugs case you’re already investigating?’
‘If that were the case, I wouldn’t tell you, would I?’ says Jill. ‘Now, I’m sure you’ve got things to be getting on with.’
‘Not really,’ says Donna. ‘Someone near Benenden has had a horse stolen.’
