Chapters (130)
- Cover
- FIND THEM DEAD
- Dedication page
- Maps
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- FOUR MONTHS LATER
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
- 71
- 72
- 73
- 74
- 75
- 76
- 77
- 78
- 79
- 80
- 81
- 82
- 83
- 84
- 85
- 86
- 87
- 88
- 89
- 90
- 91
- 92
- 93
- 94
- 95
- 96
- 97
- 98
- 99
- 100
- 101
- 102
- 103
- 104
- 105
- 106
- 107
- 108
- 109
- 110
- 111
- GLOSSARY
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- NOW A MAJOR ITV SERIES
- I FOLLOW YOU
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- DISCOVER THE ROY GRACE BOOKS
- FIND THEM DEAD
- The Detective Superintendent Roy Grace books in order
- Also by Peter James
So far three names had produced hits. The first was potentially interesting: Mike Roberts, a retired Hampshire Police Detective Superintendent and former Senior Investigating Officer on the Major Crime Team. A stocky, silver-haired man of sixty-two, who left the police a decade ago as part of the government’s A19 programme. Highly unpopular, it had forced officers to retire at thirty years’ service, regardless of their rank or experience, to be replaced with new recruits, so the government could claim the salary saving and at the same time claim they had kept police numbers up. He could be a potential, Paul Constantinidi thought. An aggrieved former cop, like himself?
The second was an obese guy, Hugo Pink. His search showed that he was in deep financial trouble. Definitely a potential target. Terence Gready would be more than happy to bail him out.
The third was very interesting. A forty-two-year-old widow, Meg Magellan. Her husband and teenage son had been killed in a car crash five years ago. Now her teenage daughter, Laura, was on her gap year, backpacking through South America, and from her latest posts, currently near Quito, in Ecuador.
He turned to Rio. ‘You must have friends back in Ecuador?’
‘Sure, many. Why?’
Paul Constantinidi nodded. ‘Good to know. Might be useful.’
31
Thursday 9 May
In the court, Richard Jupp gave the jurors another we’re all in this together smile of reassurance and silently hoped that was the case. Then he shot a glance at the defendant. Terence Gready sat behind the glass shield, all nicely shaven, with his neat blue suit and butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-his-mouth expression. Wrongfully accused. Fitted-up. The police getting their own back on the legal profession. Only the flimsiest circumstantial evidence to link him to any of the crimes for which he was standing trial.
Jupp had read through all the documents, every word. He’d read the evidence stacked against the accused solicitor and studied the defence’s arguments. He was confident Stephen Cork, the prosecutor, would drive a coach and horses through those.
He gave Gready, who was staring, deadpan, straight ahead, another quick look. The man disgusted him. Not only a traitor to his profession but actually, in doing what he was accused of, in many ways a traitor to his country. In Jupp’s view, laws were the glue that held civilized society together. When legal practitioners perverted them, they were committing a far worse sin than lining their pockets through greed. They were threatening the very fabric of the nation they fed off. They were like leeches that attached themselves to their host.
That leech in the dock, Jupp had a feeling, by the time this court had finished with him, would not be harming anyone again for very many years. With luck, maybe even forever. Just so long as, he hoped fervently, this wasn’t going to turn out to be a jury dominated by numpties.