Dead Like You

‘Co

‘I think you’d better have a read of it. After Marcie Kallestad fought Spicer off, he knocked her to the floor, grabbed the shoes from her feet – and ran off with them. They were high-heeled Roberto Cavallis which had cost her three hundred and fifty quid. She’d only bought them that day, from a shop in Brighton.’

58

Monday 12 January

There was a palpable change of mood in the briefing room. Roy Grace could sense the sudden, intangible buzz of excitement. It happened every time there was a possible breakthrough in an inquiry. Yet he was the least excited member of his team at this moment.

‘Shame we didn’t know about this yesterday,’ Gle

Nick Nicholl nodded in agreement.

‘We’ve got enough to arrest him now, boss, haven’t we?’ said Michael Foreman.

Grace looked at Ellen. ‘Do we know whether the shoes were recovered subsequently?’

‘No, I’m afraid not,’ she replied. ‘I don’t have that information.’

‘Would they have had a cash value for him?’ Nick Nicholl asked.

‘Absolutely,’ Bella Moy said. ‘Brand-new Roberto Cavalli shoes like that – there are loads of second-hand clothes shops in the city that would buy them – at a knockdown price. I buy things from some of them. You can get brilliant bargains.’

Grace looked at Bella for a moment. In her early thirties, single and living at home, caring for her aged mother, he felt a little sorry for her, because she was not an unattractive woman but appeared to have no real life beyond her work

‘Ten per cent of their cost, Bella?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know – but they wouldn’t pay much. Twenty quid, perhaps, max.’

Grace thought hard. This new information was certainly enough to justify arresting Darren Spicer. And yet… it didn’t feel right. Spicer seemed almost too obvious to him. Sure, the villain was conveniently out of prison in time to have committed the first rape, on New Year’s Day. Even more conveniently, he had been working at the Metropole Hotel, where it occurred. And now they had just learned that he’d taken his last burglary victim’s shoes. But, Grace fretted, could the man really be so stupid?

More significantly, Spicer’s past form was as a career burglar and drugs dealer. He made his living, such as it was, breaking into properties and into safes inside them, taking jewellery, watches, silverware, cash. Neither Nicola Taylor nor Roxy Pearce had, so far, reported any property stolen other than their shoes and, in Nicola’s case, her clothes as well. It was the same with Mandy Thorpe on Saturday night. Just her shoes were gone. Unless Spicer had come out of prison a changed man – which, with his history, he doubted – this did not seem like Spicer’s MO.

On the other hand, how could he be sure that Spicer had not committed other sexual offences for which he had not been caught? Could he possibly be the Shoe Man? The records produced by Ellen showed that he had been out of jail at the time of the Shoe Man offences. But the Shoe Man raped and assaulted his victims in vile ways. He didn’t just try to kiss them, as Spicer had done. Again, the MO did not match.

Yes, they could bring him into custody. It would please the brass to get such a quick arrest, but that pleasure could be shortlived. Where would he go from there with Spicer? How would he get the proof needed for a conviction? The offender wore a mask and barely spoke, so there was no facial description or voice to go on. They hadn’t even got an estimate of the offender’s height that they were happy with. Medium seemed to be the best guess. Slight build. Few bodily hairs.

The forensic examination results showed that the offender had left no semen in any of the three victims. So far there were no DNA hits on any hairs or fibres or nail scrapings taken – although it was very early days. It would be a couple of weeks before everything taken was examined, and they couldn’t hold Spicer for that length of time without charging him. For certain the Crown Prosecution Service would not consider there was enough to bring any charge on what they had.

They could question him about why he had taken Marcie Kallestad’s shoes, but if he really was the Shoe Man that would alert him. Just as getting a search warrant for his locker at the night shelter would. From what Gle

He thought for another moment, then said to Gle

‘I didn’t get the impression he’s got anything. I doubt it, boss, no.’

‘He said he walks everywhere to save the bus fares, chief,’ Nick Nicholl added.

‘He can probably get one when he needs it,’ Ellen Zoratti said. ‘He’s got a couple of previous convictions for vehicle theft – one for a van and one for a private car.’

That was good he had no transport, Grace thought. It would make the task of keeping him under observation much simpler.

‘I think we’ll get more chance of a result by watching him than pulling him, at the moment. We know where he is between 8.30 p.m. and 8.30 a.m., thanks to the curfew at the night shelter. He’s got his retraining job at the Grand Hotel, so we’ll know where he is during the day on weekdays. I’m going to get Surveillance to watch him when he leaves work and to see he doesn’t leave the shelter at night.’

‘If he’s a real Person of Interest, Roy, which seems to be the case,’ said Proudfoot, ‘then I think you’d better move quickly on this.’

‘I hope to get them started today,’ Grace replied. ‘This would be a good point to tell us your thoughts.’

The forensic psychologist stood up and walked over to a whiteboard on which there was a wide sheet of graph paper. Several spiking lines had been drawn on it in different-coloured inks. He took his time before speaking, as if to demonstrate he was so important he didn’t need to hurry.

‘The offender matrix of the Shoe Man and your current offender are very similar,’ he said. ‘This graph shows the linking factors to date between the two. Each colour is a different aspect: the geography, time of day, his approach to his victims, the form of his attack, appearance of the offender.’

He pointed each out, then stepped aside and continued: ‘There are a number of characteristics of the Shoe Man offences that were never made public, but which nonetheless are apparent in your current offender’s MO. This leads me to say with some certainty that there are sufficient linking factors for us to be able to assume at this stage we are dealing with the same person. One of the most significant is that the same name, Marsha Morris, was used in the hotel register both at the Grand in 1997 and at the Metropole on this past New Year’s Eve – and this name was never made public knowledge.’

He now moved over to a blank whiteboard.

‘I am also fairly certain that the offender is a local man, or at least a man with good local knowledge who has lived here in the past.’

He quickly drew some small squares in the top half of the whiteboard in black ink and numbered them 1 to 5, talking as he drew.

‘The Shoe Man’s first reported sexual assault was a botched one on 15 October 1997. I’m going to discount that for our purposes and just concentrate on the successful ones. His first successful one was at the Grand Hotel, in the early hours of 1 November 1997.’ He wrote GH above the first square. ‘His second was in a private house in Hove Park Road two weeks later.’ He wrote HPR above the second square. ‘The third was beneath the Palace Pier a further two weeks later.’ He wrote PP over the third square. ‘The fourth was in the Churchill Square car park another two weeks later.’ He wrote CS above that one. ‘A possible fifth attack was on Christmas morning, again two weeks later, in Eastern Terrace – although unconfirmed.’ He wrote ET above the fifth box. Then he turned back to face the team, but fixed his gaze on Roy Grace.