Need You Dead

33 Friday 22 April

Nothing, in all his life, had prepared Roy Grace for this moment. He’d dealt with horrific crime scenes, including a father who had murdered his baby son, a beautiful young woman murdered for a snuff movie, and a decent young doctor’s charred remains found on a golf course.

Little shocked him any more.

Little scared him.

But right now, just before midday, as Marcel Kullen pulled up his white VW Sirocco outside the Lipperts’ elegant modern villa in the Gräfelfing district of west Munich, he was shaking. Before leaving England he had debated what to wear. Both Cleo and his style guru, Glenn Branson, had texted him advising him to go casual. Glenn had urged him to look cool, adding with his usual dry humour that he didn’t want his son’s first impression of him to be a dull old fart — he’d find that out soon enough...

So, with Kullen wishing him luck, he removed the chewing gum from his mouth, climbed out of the car dressed in leather jacket over a black T-shirt, jeans and boots, and shut the door behind him. As he walked up to the house he realized he was still shaking, aware Bruno’s eyes might already be on him, watching from behind one of the windows. It felt like a blender had been switched on inside his stomach. But at least his pounding head was calming down.

Something his friend had said last night resonated, repeating over and over. Remember this, Roy, your last shirt has no pockets.

He couldn’t get that damned expression out of his head.

We come into this world with nothing, and we don’t need pockets when we leave it, because we take nothing away with us; nothing to put in our pockets, Marcel Kullen had explained. Whatever we have is left behind for others.

Sandy was gone, and had left him Bruno.

What the hell was he going to say to him when he went through that door — the home of Bruno’s best friend, Erik, where Bruno had been staying since his mother, Sandy, had been run over by a taxi and lay comatose in hospital. Before hanging herself in her room soon after she had begun, seemingly, to recover.

And charging him in her suicide letter with their son’s care.

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Marcel Kullen smiling at him. He gave him a cursory nod. Could anyone possibly have any idea what was going through his mind right now?

As he rang the bell he found himself, irrationally, hoping — praying — that no one would be in.

The door opened.