Blood and Honey by Hurley Graham

Author:Hurley, Graham [Hurley, Graham]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Crime, Mystery, thriller
ISBN: 9780752878010
Amazon: 0752878018
Goodreads: 824244
Publisher: Orion Publishing
Published: 2006-03-01T08:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

Friday, 27 February 2004

It was Faraday’s decision to press Willard to escalate Congress to a full HOLMES-based investigation. After a night back on the mainland for a meeting with a CPS lawyer on a previous job, he’d taken an early hovercraft, walking the half-mile from the Esplanade to Ryde police station. At this hour the Major Incident Room was still empty. Collecting the key from the front desk, Faraday took the stairs to the first floor and let himself in.

Already, the SIO’s office had attracted a light snowfall of paperwork. Faraday made himself comfortable behind his desk and sorted through the messages that had come in since he’d bailed out the previous evening: a formal list from the Land Registry of island properties owned in the name of R. Pelly; a scribbled note from Tracy Barber confirming a meet with an expert in tides and currents from Southampton University; a photocopied blow-up map of Bembridge Harbour, with properties warranting a visit edged in green highlighter; and a tally of bookings over the last eighteen months on P & O ferries in the name of Chris Unwin. The latter had come with a vehicle registration number and a Southsea residential address, 267 Bath Road.

Faraday gazed at it a moment, knowing another visit would be pointless. Unwin had long since moved on from Bath Road. The vehicle registration, on the other hand, was a breakthrough. Tracy Barber had already accessed the details of the van from the Police National Computer and would be circulating them to all forces first thing.

Faraday’s gaze drifted back over the rest of the messages. Barely a day of serious legwork had already produced a good deal of information. Each of these lines of enquiry would generate further contacts, yet more interviews to be actioned, transcribed and added to the rapidly growing body of evidence that might make a second interview with Pelly a very different proposition. So far the investigation had been exploratory and therefore paper-based. Without the HOLMES computer program, software that would file and cross-index every scrap of information, Congress was already in danger of overlooking a vital lead.

Willard, still at home in Old Portsmouth, was halfway through his breakfast. Faraday talked him through yesterday’s developments and the Detective Superintendent agreed at once to escalate the inquiry to HOLMES. They had a headless corpse and a possible ID. In the shape of Pelly they were looking at a prime suspect with means, opportunity and the first shadowy hint of motive. Pelly and Unwin had certainly fallen out. Pelly was a man who carried a grudge. The hunt now was for evidence of how lethal that grudge might have been.

‘Back-record conversion.’ Willard was thinking aloud. ‘How many indexers will you need?’

Faraday had already decided on six. Three would be inputting current intelligence while the rest would be playing catch-up.

‘DCs?’

‘As many as you can spare, sir.’ Faraday was looking at the highlighted map. ‘We need to blitz the area around Bembridge Harbour. That’s serious house-to-house.’

Willard grunted something about the New Forest job that Faraday didn’t catch.

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