Dead Tomorrow

22

Roy Grace followed the tail lights of the black Audi TT, which was some distance ahead of him and drawing further away all the time. Cleo didn’t seem to fully understand what speed limits were. Nor, as she approached the junction with Sackville and Nevill roads, what traffic lights were for.

Shit. He felt a stab of fear for her.

The light turned amber. But her brake lights did not come on.

His heart was suddenly in his mouth. Being T-boned by a car running a stop light produced some of the worst injuries you could have. And it was not only Cleo in that speeding car now. It was their child too.

The lights went red. A good two seconds later, the Audi hurtled through them. Roy gripped his steering wheel hard, fearing for her.

Then she was safely over and continuing along Old Shoreham Road, approaching Hove Park on her left.

He halted his unmarked Ford Focus estate at the lights, his heart hammering, tempted to call her, to tell her to slow down. But it was no use, this was how she always drove. She was worse, he had come to realize in the five months they had been dating, than his friend and colleague Glenn Branson, who had only recently passed his Police High Speed Pursuit test and liked to demonstrate his skills behind the wheel – or rather, lack of them – to Roy at every opportunity.

Why did Cleo drive so recklessly when she was so meticulous in everything else she did? Surely, he reasoned, someone who worked in a mortuary and handled, almost every day, the torn and broken bodies of people killed on the roads would take extra care when driving. And yet one of the consultant pathologists for Brighton and Hove, Dr Nigel Churchman, who had recently transferred up north, raced cars at weekends. Perhaps, he sometimes thought, if you worked in such close proximity to death, it made you want to challenge and defy it.

The lights changed. He checked there was no one doing a Cleo coming across, then drove over the junction, accelerating, but mindful that there were two cameras on the next stretch of road. Cleo totally denied that she drove fast, as if she was blind to it. And that scared him. He loved her so much, and even more so tonight than ever. The thought of anything happening to her was more than he could bear.

For nearly ten years after Sandy vanished, he had been unable to form any relationship with another woman. Until Cleo. During all that time he had constantly been searching for Sandy, waiting for news, hoping for a call, or for her to walk in through the front door of their home one day. But that had begun to change now. He loved Cleo as much as, and maybe even more than, he had ever loved Sandy, and if she did suddenly reappear, no matter how good her explanation, he strongly doubted he would leave Cleo for her. In his mind and in his heart he had moved on.

And now this most incredible thing of all. Cleo was pregnant! Six weeks. Confirmed this morning, she had told him. She was carrying his child. Their child.

It was so ironic, he thought. In their life together before her disappearance, Sandy had been unable to conceive. The first few years they hadn’t worried about it, having made a decision to wait a while before starting a family. But then, when they had begun trying, nothing had happened. During that last year before she had disappeared, they had both had fertility tests. The problem turned out to be with Sandy, some biochemistry to do with the viscosity of the mucus in her fallopian tubes that the specialist had explained in detail, and Roy had done his best to understand.

The specialist had put Sandy on a course of medication, although he had told her there was less than a 50 per cent chance of it working, and that had depressed her, making her feel inadequate. Sandy always liked to be in charge. Probably one of the reasons why she too had liked to drive fast, commanding the road, he thought. She was the one who created the Zen minimalist look inside their house and who designed the garden. She always made the arrangements when they went away. Sometimes he wondered if she had been more depressed than he had realized about her infertility problem. And whether that might have been the reason behind her disappearance.

So many unanswered questions.

But now the vacuum in his life was filled. Dating Cleo had brought him a sense of happiness he had never believed would be possible again. And now this news, this incredible news!

He saw her car ahead, this time stopped at the lights at the junction with Shirley Drive, where there was a safety camera.

Please, darling, please drive a little less crazily! Don’t go and wipe yourself out in a wreck, just when I have found you. Just when life is beginning for us.

When life is growing inside you.

He saw her brake lights come on before the next camera and finally caught up with her car at the next lights. Then he followed her, right into Dyke Road and along to the Seven Dials roundabout. Half past eleven on a Wednesday night and there were still quite a few people on the streets, in this densely populated area.

Instinctively checking out every face, he soon saw someone he recognized, a ragged, small-time drug dealer and police informant, Miles Penney, shambling along, head bowed, cigarette dangling from his lips. From his slow pace it did not look as if he was on his way either to score or to sell tonight, and besides Grace didn’t care what he did. So long as Penney didn’t rape or murder anyone, he was part of another division’s set of problems.

He followed Cleo on down past the railway station, then through the network of narrow streets of the North Laine district, filled with its mix of terraced houses, individual shops, cafés and restaurants, and antiques dealers, until she found a resident’s parking space near her home. Grace pulled up on a single yellow line in sight of her car and got out, casting a wary eye around for any moving shadows, feeling doubly protective of Cleo all of a sudden.

He followed her through the gates of the converted warehouse building where she had her town house, and put an arm around her as she pressed the entrance keypad.

She wore a long black cape over her dress, and he slipped his hand inside it and pressed the palm against her stomach.

‘This is amazing,’ he said.

She stared at him with wide-open, trusting eyes. ‘Are you sure you’re OK with this?’

He slipped his hand out of her cape, then cupped her face in both his hands. ‘With all my heart. I’m not just OK with this, I’m incredibly happy. But – I don’t know how to express it. This is one of the most incredible things ever. And I think you will be a wonderful mother. You will be amazing.’

‘I think you will be a wonderful father,’ she said.

They kissed. Then warily, because it was late and dark, he glanced around again, checking the shadows. ‘Just one thing,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Your driving is something else. I mean, Lewis Hamilton, eat your heart out!’

‘That’s a bit rich coming from a man who drove his car over Beachy Head!’ she said.

‘Yep, well, I had a good reason for that. I was in a pursuit situation. You just did eighty in a forty limit and shot a red light for no reason at all.’

‘So? Book me!’

They stared into each other’s eyes. ‘You can be such a bitch at times,’ he said, grinning.

‘And you can be such an anal plod!’

‘I love you,’ he said.

‘Do you, Grace?’

‘Yes. I adore you and I love you.’

‘How much?’

He grinned, then held her close and whispered into her ear. ‘I want you inside, naked, then I’ll show you!’

‘That’s the best offer I’ve had all night,’ she whispered back.

She tapped out the numbers. The gate lock clicked and she pushed it open.

They walked through, across the cobbled yard and up to her front door. She unlocked it and they went inside, straight into a scene of utter devastation.

A black tornado hurtled through the mess and launched itself into the air, hitting Cleo in her midriff and almost knocking her over.

‘Down!’ she yelled. ‘Humphrey, down!’

Before Grace had a chance to prepare himself, the dog head-butted him in the balls.

He staggered back, winded.

‘HUMPHREY!’ Cleo yelled at the labrador and border collie-cross.

Humphrey ran back into the devastation that had been the living room and returned with a length of knotted pink rope in his mouth.

Grace, getting his breath back and wincing from the stabbing pain in his groin, stared around the normally immaculate, open-plan room. Potted plants were lying on their sides. Cushions had been dragged off the two red sofas and several were ripped open, spilling foam and feathers everywhere across the polished oak floor. Partially chewed candles lay on their sides. Pages of newspaper were strewn all around, and a copy of Sussex Life magazine lay with its front cover half torn off.

‘BAD BOY!’ Cleo scolded. ‘BAD, BAD BOY!’

The dog wagged his tail.

‘I AM NOT HAPPY WITH YOU! I AM VERY, VERY ANGRY. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?’

The dog continued to wag his tail. Then he jumped up at Cleo once more.

She gripped his face in her hands, knelt and bellowed at him. ‘BAD BOY!’

Grace laughed. He couldn’t help it.

‘Fuck!’ Cleo said. She shook her head. ‘BAD BOY!’

The dog wriggled himself free and launched himself at Grace again. This time the Detective Superintendent was prepared and grabbed his paws. ‘Not pleased with you!’ he said.

The dog wagged his tail, looking as pleased as hell with himself.

‘Oh fuck!’ Cleo said again. ‘Clear this up later. Whisky?’

‘Good plan,’ Grace said, pushing the dog away. It came straight back at him, trying to lick him to death.

Cleo dragged Humphrey out into the backyard by the scruff of his neck and shut the door on him. Then they went into the kitchen. Out in the yard, Humphrey began howling.

‘They need two hours’ exercise a day,’ Cleo said. ‘But not until they are a year old. Otherwise it’s bad for their hips.’

‘And your furniture.’

‘Very funny.’ She chinked ice cubes into two glass tumblers from the dispenser in the front of her fridge, then poured several fingers of Glenfiddich into one and tonic water into the other. ‘I don’t think I should be drinking anything,’ she said. ‘How virtuous is that?’

Grace felt badly in need of a cigarette and checked his pockets, but he remembered he had deliberately not brought any with him. ‘I’m sure the baby won’t mind a wee dram or two. Might as well get him or her used to the stuff at an early age!’

Cleo handed him a tumbler. ‘Cheers, big ears,’ she said.

Grace raised his glass. ‘Here goes, nose.’

‘Up your bum, chum!’ she completed the toast.

He drained his glass. Then they stared at each other. Outside, Humphrey was still howling. Him or her. He hadn’t thought about that. Was it a boy or a girl? He didn’t mind. He would worship that child. Cleo would be a wonderful mother, he knew that, unquestionably. But would he be a good father? Then he followed Cleo’s gaze across at the mess.

‘Want me to clear up?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she said. Then she kissed him very slowly and very sensually on the lips. ‘I’m badly in need of an orgasm. Do you think you might be up for that?’

‘Just one? Could do that with my eyes shut.’

‘Bastard.’