‘He’s providing a second breath test at the moment, sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘I’ve no doubt it’ll be positive. According to the arresting officers, he was slightly more than twice over the legal limit when they breathalysed him at the roadside.’
‘Julian Reed is a strong suspect for a murder that I’m investigating, Skip,’ I said, ‘and I should like him to be kept in custody until he’s sober enough to be interviewed.’
‘I presume there’s sufficient evidence to support the allegation, sir.’ The custody sergeant was only doing his job; in normal circumstances the responsibility for deciding whether a prisoner should be admitted to bail rested with him. Nevertheless, I could overrule him if I thought that detention was warranted.
‘There is,’ I said, ‘substantial fingerprint and forensic evidence.’ I thought it better not to mention that Reed had furnished an alibi which, on the face of it, appeared to place him at a swingers’ party in Dorking at the time of Sharon Gregory’s murder. But I still had reservations about that.
‘Right, sir. In any case, he’ll have to be detained until he’s sober enough to be released.’ The sergeant paused as a traffic officer entered the custody suite. ‘Got a result?’ he asked him.
‘The lowest reading was eighty micrograms, Skip. Just over twice the limit.’
‘That settles it, sir,’ said the custody sergeant, turning back to me. ‘We’ll have to keep him in custody for at least eight hours before he can safely be released.’
All of which was a confounded nuisance. If I were to interrogate a man with that amount of alcohol in his system, anything he said would undoubtedly be challenged by his solicitor, to say nothing of defence counsel. If we ever got to court on a murder charge, that is. Given that I accepted the custody sergeant’s prediction, which I was bound to do, it would be at least eleven o’clock this evening before we could speak to him. And as the Police and Criminal Evidence Act stipulated that a prisoner must be afforded rest, usually at night, we would be unable to talk to him before tomorrow.
‘We’ll be back in the morning, Skip,’ I said. ‘In the meantime, I’d like to have a look at his car.’
‘No problem, sir. It’s in the yard. I’ll get a PC to show you the way. Incidentally, a couple of forensic examiners are out there already. They said they were meeting you here.’
Linda Mitchell and an assistant were waiting for us as Dave and I walked out to the station yard.
For a moment or two, Dave stood in open-mouthed admiration of Julian Reed’s silver-grey C-Class Mercedes.
‘That is some car, guv,’ said Dave. ‘It must’ve set him back at least thirty-five grand, possibly more. And presumably Mrs Reed paid for it.’
‘She didn’t,’ I said. ‘According to Charlie Flynn’s sources, she’s not worth a bean.’
‘All right for me to take a look inside, Mr Brock?’ asked Linda, donning a pair of latex gloves.
‘Yes, go ahead, Linda.’
For the next twenty minutes, Linda conducted a meticulous examination of the car’s interior before emerging with a mobile phone.
‘This was in the glove compartment,’ she said. ‘I’ve examined the calls register on it and it shows that a call was made to Reed’s landline from this phone at twelve minutes past twelve on the afternoon of Monday the twenty-ninth of July.’
‘The call was made to Reed?’ I queried. ‘Not from Reed?’
‘That’s right,’ said Linda, and paused while she referred to her notes. ‘The number called was one of those in Sharon Gregory’s contact list, which is the one Dave obtained from her SIM card. That means that this is her mobile phone, and the one we found in her room at the Dickin Hotel most likely belongs to the murderer.’
‘That must mean that Julian Reed, if he’s Sharon’s killer, took her phone with him by mistake,’ said Dave. ‘I reckon we’ve got him, guv. It’s got to be down to him.’
‘It certainly looks like it, Dave,’ I said, ‘but there’s still the question of the swingers’ club at Dorking. The Simpsons said he was there with his wife. Ask the custody sergeant if they’ve photographed Reed yet. If they have, get a copy and we’ll have a run to Dorking again. There’s nothing else we can do for the time being.’
‘Wonderful,’ said Dave. ‘I love Dorking,’ he added sarcastically.
We arrived at the Simpsons’ house in Dorking at just after six o’clock. This time there was only one car on the drive. But I expected more would arrive before long.