Want You Dead Page 12

  ‘No one. I was all he had. In the early days I was so proud of him, I wanted to show him off to all my friends. I arranged evenings out in bars and restaurants with some of them. But he got insanely jealous if I talked to any other man. One time at a party in Brighton, I was just having an innocent chat with the husband of a friend of mine when Bryce came up and asked him just what the hell he thought he was doing chatting me up. He was so furious I had to restrain him from hitting the guy, and then took him home. We had a terrible row that night. He called me a whore, a slut, all kinds of names. Then he tied me up, gagged me and raped me. I thought he was going to kill me. He left me tied up and gagged all night.’ She fell silent.

  ‘You’re safe now. Such a terrifying ordeal and it’s over. You survived. Are you still with me, Red?’

  ‘Just about.’

  ‘Okay, stay with me. You don’t need to go back there.’

  ‘It feels so real when I remember.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘In the morning he was sobbing, begging me to forgive him. He told me he had only done it because he loved me and was scared of losing me. He would only untie me after I had promised not to call the police. When he finally did untie me he got mad at me again because I’d wet myself.’

  Judith Biddlestone nodded, her eyes softening and her mouth forming an upside-down smile.

  ‘I was so ashamed.’

  ‘The shame’s not yours, Red. Who benefited most from you feeling ashamed?’

  ‘I guess Bryce did. I could never have told the police about the demeaning things he did to me. I can hardly bear to tell you.’

  ‘And yet you have, and in doing so have placed some of that shame back where it belongs. With Bryce.’

  Red was silent for some moments, then she asked, ‘Do you think it’s a good sign that I haven’t heard from him since we split up? Apart from that queen of hearts email a few days after?’

  ‘What do you think, Red? It’s more than four months now. Do you believe it’s over?’

  ‘I want to believe it is. But I can’t believe he would let me go so easily. I did think I saw him on Thursday, outside the office, but maybe I was imagining it. I ran outside and couldn’t see any sign of him.’

  Oh no, my lovely Red, Bryce thought, as he listened. You weren’t imagining it at all.

  35

  Monday, 28 October

  Bryce sat, his earpiece plugged in, his whole body tight with anger; a muscle in his face was twitching the side of his mouth. Monster. Ghastly. Vulgar. Bling.

  Four months, counsellor? What do you know about time in hell, lady? Linear time is a meaningless construct. Why should four months be any different to four minutes? Four days? Four years? It doesn’t hurt any less; it hurts more. The pain builds every day. It’s pretty crass of you, a counsellor of all people, to assume I’ve moved on. You might measure your time in minutes, days, months. But it all blends into one continuum of pain to me. Four months of pain. I feel it like a weight, crushing me.

  Crushing me like those hurtful words.

  I’m a monster am I, Red?

  Vulgar, ghastly, bling. Is that what you thought of it, Red? It’s a beautiful ring. I had it specially made for you by one the best jewellers in Brighton. It cost me over ten thousand pounds of my inheritance.

  Vulgar? Ghastly? Bling?

  You know what, Red, I’m starting to think I had a lucky escape from being stuck with a spoiled brat. Maybe I should be grateful to you for that. Really, I mean it. In fact, the more I think about it, the more grateful I am that you let me go.

  I’m going to give you a present, to show you my gratitude.

  36

  Monday, 28 October

  Shortly after 10 a.m. on Monday morning, Roy Grace was working through the stack of paperwork for the prosecution of Lucas Daly – one of the offenders under arrest from the recent Operation Flounder. Daly’s assets were steadily being tracked down and seized, under the Proceeds of Crime Act, by financial investigator Emily Gaylor.

  Grace had a ton of paperwork he wanted to clear by the end of the week, before his wedding day and the short honeymoon next week. But distracting him was the wedding file, efficiently prepared by Cleo, which was also on his desk. It contained the documentation for the booking of the church and the reception after, the catering contract, the order form for the drinks, canapés and meal. The biggest headache of all was the seating plan. Who to invite and not invite had been bad enough, and they’d had to make some tough decisions. But now trying to decide who should sit where was a complete nightmare.

  There was a knock on his door and without waiting for a reply, as usual, Norman Potting ambled in. ‘Morning, chief. Got some information back for you,’ he said, clutching a brown envelope and looking pleased with himself. Recently the Detective Sergeant had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Around the same time, Grace had noticed, Potting appeared to have had something of a makeover. The comb-over was still the same, but his previously sparse grey hair was now an unnatural-looking shiny black. The horrible tweed jackets with leather-patched elbows and grey flannel trousers that he favoured had been replaced with dark grey suits, fresh shirts and ties that no longer showed what he’d eaten for breakfast. And instead of reeking of stale pipe tobacco, he smelled quite fragrant.

  ‘Have a seat, Norman.’

  Potting used to shuffle along, but today he walked across the floor with almost a spring in his step. He sat down and looked, for a moment, a tad shy.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to ask, Norman, what’s the latest on your prostate?’

  ‘Well, so far so good. The old PSA levels have dropped quite substantially – the quack’s pretty pleased.’

  ‘That’s good news. What does your doctor think is the reason?’

  ‘He’s not sure. I’ve got a good sex life at the moment. Maybe that could be it.’

  Despite that being rather too much information, Grace nodded, and grinned. ‘Well, good news, Norman. Keep it up – as it were.’

  ‘Oh, I am, chief! Oh yes!’ Then he looked almost coy. ‘Actually, chief, that’s one of the reasons I came to see you. It’s about your wedding.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m well chuffed to be invited.’

  ‘Cleo and I are delighted you can come.’

  ‘The thing is – ’ Potting blushed. ‘I just wondered . . . you know . . . if you are doing a seating plan . . . would it be possible to sit next to DS Moy?’

  Grace stared him in the face, and grinned. ‘Oh? So are the suspicions I’ve been having over the past few months correct?’

  ‘Suspicions, chief?’

  ‘I couldn’t help noticing the body language between you two. Something going on, is there?’

  ‘There’s no regulations against it that I’d be contravening, are there, chief?’ Potting looked worried for a moment.

  ‘About relationships between staff? No, none. So, you and Bella – you’re seeing each other?’

  ‘You could say that, chief. Actually, it’s gone beyond that stage. We’re sort of, um, a bit of an item, actually.’ He blushed. ‘I’ve asked Bella to be my wife – last night, actually – and she’s accepted.’

  Grace grinned. Despite them being the most unlikely couple imaginable, he was pleased for both of them. Bella, who was in her mid-thirties, had been stuck at home for years looking after her ailing mother, and leading what seemed to him to be a totally joyless life beyond her work. And Norman, despite being his own worst enemy at times, had been ruthlessly conned and exploited by his scheming Thai bride and had recently been dealt a shitty blow by Mother Nature. ‘So she will become Mrs Norman Potting the fifth?’

  ‘Fifth and last, I hope!’ Potting said.

  Then both men fell silent as the darkness behind the possible truth of that comment, Norman’s prostate cancer, sat between them like an elephant in the room.

  ‘Well, she’s a lovely lady. Let’s hope you have a long and happy marriage,’ Grace said. ‘You both deserve a break in
life. I’ll make sure you sit together. And congratulations!’

  ‘Thank you, I appreciate it.’ Potting gave a sad, wintry smile. ‘Right, business.’ He shook out the contents of the envelope, several printed pages clipped together, and passed them across the desk to Grace. ‘You asked me to have the suicide note of Dr Karl Murphy checked out by a graphologist? To have it compared against samples of his normal handwriting?’

  Grace nodded. ‘Yes. And?’

  ‘This is the full report. It’s pretty detailed. In summary, there is little doubt Dr Karl Murphy wrote the note. I was able to get the work fast-tracked as the guy owed me a favour.’

  ‘Good work, Norman, thanks.’

  ‘But there is one slightly odd thing,’ Potting said. ‘The graphologist said that Murphy’s normal handwriting has a right – forward – slant. This note has been written in a left slant – rearward.’

  Grace frowned. ‘Do doctors use handwriting much these days or do they type everything on keyboards?’

  Potting thought for some moments. ‘Well, I’ve been seeing more of doctors just recently than I really want. A few write prescriptions by hand, but pretty much everything is done on computers now.’

  ‘You need to talk to his secretary, get her to go through all his files, see if there are any other examples of left-slant handwriting. If not, it could mean something.’

  ‘That he was trying to send us a signal? A message, chief?’

  ‘Possibly.’ Then Grace thought for a moment. ‘You’re a bit of a crossword puzzle man, aren’t you, Norman?’

  ‘Done the Telegraph every day for years – well, tried to do it anyway. Why?’

  ‘Well, I’m speculating wildly here, but I’ve found out Dr Murphy was a keen crossword man. If he wrote this in a backward slant, perhaps to signal he was writing under coercion, then possibly, just possibly, he left something cryptic in these words. Maybe you could analyse it word by word from a crossword perspective?’

  Potting frowned. ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘This is probably not going to go anywhere, but I want to make sure. So far every bit of forensic evidence, and the graphologist’s findings, point towards suicide. But . . .’ Grace shrugged.

  A few minutes later, as Norman Potting left his office, closing the door behind him, Roy Grace’s phone rang. It was his new Lead Management Secretary.

  ‘Roy,’ she said, ‘I’ve just had a call from the Chief Constable’s staff officer. Tom Martinson’s asked if you can come over to see him late afternoon. I have you booked in for a cold cases review meeting, but you are free after then. Would 6 p.m. suit you?’

  Instantly, the sky outside seemed to cloud over. He had hoped to get home early tonight, to help Cleo put Noah to bed. It didn’t matter that Roy was both a grown man and a highly experienced police officer. A call from the Chief Constable could still set his nerves jangling. His first thought was what he might have done wrong to merit a reprimand. But he couldn’t think of anything. It might be for some transgression he had not even realized he had committed. Or to brief him on some forthcoming event. Or a change in policy on some aspect of policing in Sussex.

  Whatever.

  ‘Did he give a clue what it’s about?’ he asked.

  ‘None, I’m afraid.’

  Grace had a feeling it was not going to be good news.

  He was right.

  37

  Monday, 28 October

  The headline on page six of the Argus newspaper online read: Top copper to wed on Saturday.

  Sandy Lohmann, seated in front of the computer screen in her Munich apartment in the little room she had made her study, with its view down onto the turbulent water of the River Isar just beyond the waterfall, stared transfixed at the screen.

  The wedding of Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, of Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team, and Cleo Morey, Senior Anatomical Pathology Technician of Brighton and Hove Mortuary, will take place at St Margaret’s Church in Rottingdean at 2.30 p.m. on Saturday, 2 November. Many senior police officers, including Chief Constable Tom Martinson, are expected to attend. The marriage will bring to a close the detective’s years of sadness following the unexplained disappearance of his former wife, Sandra (Sandy) Christina Grace, over ten years ago, who was formally declared dead in August of this year.

  ‘Mama?’

  She turned to her son, Bruno, trying to hide her irritation at being distracted. ‘Ja, mein Lieber?’

  He was hungry. She would make him supper in a few minutes, she promised. ‘I just need to finish this,’ she said, in her fluent German.

  He padded off, disgruntled, returning to his computer game in which he was killing futuristic warriors on an intergalactic battlefield.

  Sandy logged on first to Lufthansa, and then to British Airways. Then she went onto expedia.com. This was good timing. It was a holiday for German schools next week, so it would be no problem to take her son – their son. Within five minutes she had booked flights to London and a bed and breakfast hotel in Brighton, called Strawberry Fields, for the two of them.

  How very convenient to have had me declared dead, she thought, with anger rising by the second. Getting married, are you, Roy Grace? I don’t think so.

  38

  Monday, 28 October

  Mondays had never been Red’s favourite day of the week, and this particular one had proved no exception. On Saturday she had shown fourteen different clients around properties the agency had up for sale, and seven of them had contacted her today to say they weren’t interested. Then, to add to her despondency, the couple she had shown around the Portland Avenue house on Thursday, for whom she had had such high hopes, had called to say they had found somewhere that they liked better with another agency, and they had withdrawn their earlier offer.

  She left the office at 5 p.m., although ordinarily she would have stayed at her desk for at least another half hour. Raquel Evans was taking her to a hot yoga class this evening, which her friend thought would do her some good. And she was quite looking forward to doing something different.

  As was her normal daily routine, she stopped at the convenience store on her way home to buy herself something to bung in the microwave for her evening meal. She looked along the chilled cabinet section and pulled out a fish pie, then grabbed a pack of frozen beans and dropped them into her basket. As she did so, she was dazzled by a brilliant flash of light.

  She heard a scream.

  A boom that popped her ears.

  Suddenly she was enveloped in a cloud of noxious black smoke that stung her eyes, almost blinding her with tears. Her instant thought was, Shit, is this a terrorist attack? More and more smoke billowed around.

  She turned to run down the aisle towards where she thought the door was. But crashing into someone, she stumbled away, backing into a stack of tins which clattered down around her. She turned, totally disoriented, holding her breath, trying to work out which way the door was. An alarm was screeching above her. She stumbled forward and her legs bashed painfully into something. A shelf? She breathed out, then breathed in the vile smoke.

  In a wild panic, coughing and choking, her throat feeling like it had been stuffed with burning cotton wool, she fell to her knees. She had read somewhere that in a fire, the closer to the ground you got the better off you would be. There were screams all around her. Her eyes were watering so much she could see nothing. There was another explosion. Then another. The alarm continued like a banshee. Suddenly she felt cold water spraying on her head. The banshee continued, mixed with terrified cries, shouts, screams.

  Oh shit, Red thought. She dropped her basket, thinking only of survival. Where the hell was the exit? Somewhere close to her, a mobile phone rang.

  She felt the heat of flames on her face. Burning. She spun around, keeping as low as she could. Crawling. Collided with something hard that smacked her cheek. A trolley.

  Then a hand grabbed hers. Pulled. Pulled.

  ‘Help me!’ she said.

  The hand pulled her up
, silently, and she scrabbled along on her knees, gripping the hand, feeling – knowing – that her life depended on it. The siren and screams continued in the choking darkness all around her.

  Then suddenly she felt a blast of cold. Heard the swoosh of electric doors. She was outside. Still on her knees. Gulping down fresh air. A cacophony of wailing sirens. She turned to look at the chaos behind her. Fire engines were arriving. People were staggering out, falling over. Slivers of blue light slid past her along the pavement, like ghosts.

  I’m outside, she thought, coughing again. Thank God, I’m outside!

  In terrorist attacks they set off one bomb to get you outside and then another to hit all the rescue workers, she remembered from news reports. Got to get away. Fast.

  As police cars and ambulances arrived, followed by more fire engines, in a cacophony of screaming sounds, Red staggered to her feet, retrieved her bike and stumbled away in panic and terror, gulping down air.

  Get away from here!

  She hurried along New Church Road, pushing her bike, her chest hurting, then turned left into her street, Westbourne Terrace. The thick, choking smoke was in her lungs and her nostrils. She coughed with every step until finally the steady, cooling sea breeze had replaced most of it.

  She was shaking.

  Shit.

  What happened?

  What the hell happened?

  Terrorists?

  It was all she could think of.

  Her hand was shaking so much, she struggled for some moments to get the key in the lock of her front door. Then she went inside, pushed her bike along the hallway, and secured it with the padlock. Popping the timer switch for the stair lights, she climbed up to her second-floor apartment.

  Again she struggled with her keys, finally inserting them. She went in, snapped on the hall light, slammed the door shut behind her and, exhausted, leaned against it, thinking, gathering her thoughts.

  Something did not feel right.