Need You Dead

75 Thursday 28 April

Funeral weather. Silent rain falling from a pewter sky; the wettest kind, a mist that settles on your hair like dew and permeates every layer of your clothing; the kind that gives England its lush green countryside and inspired the words they would be singing in the church shortly, ‘Walk upon England’s mountains green’.

The wipers scraped noisily across the windscreen as Roy Grace drove, not helping his jangling nerves. Cleo sat beside him, dressed in black, with a dark silk scarf covering her head, the name Cornelia James just visible in one corner. Arriving at Patcham village on the outskirts of Brighton, he turned left beside the former Black Lion pub — now a smart restaurant — which had been his regular watering hole when he’d been based at Sussex House, a five-minute drive away. Nothing stays still in life, he reflected, looking at the building as he headed up the steep, narrow hill, past a row of terraced cottages on his left, and slowed opposite the pretty, ancient church of All Saints.

Parking the Alfa with two wheels on the grass verge, he climbed out, head bowed against the rain, removed an umbrella from the boot then opened the front passenger door for Cleo, ignoring the lone newspaper reporter across the road.

Bruno, in the rear seat, had been silent throughout the journey, holding the small bunch of white lilies, Sandy’s favourite flowers, that he was going to place on the coffin when it was lowered into the grave. Cleo had also said very little. All of them were immersed in their own thoughts. Roy couldn’t imagine what might be going through his son’s mind right now.

He could remember some of how he had felt after losing his first parent, his father, Jack — although he had been more than a decade older than Bruno at the time. It was the sense that the buffer zone between himself and death had gone, that there was no longer a generation standing between him and the great yonder — as well as the realization he was now head of the family, and had to take his father’s place looking after his mother. That feeling of there no longer being a generation between him and death intensified even further after his mother died a few years later.

Bruno had dressed smartly, in a suit, white shirt and tie, his fair hair immaculately brushed. As Grace opened the rear door to let him out, Bruno looked up at him darkly. When he spoke, Grace saw a flash of anger in his eyes. ‘Papa, why is Cleo coming? She did not know my mother.’

He thought carefully for a moment before responding. ‘She did meet your mother, Bruno, when she was in hospital. She’s coming out of respect for her and you.’

For an instant the boy’s face darkened further, and Roy worried he was about to kick off. But instead Bruno nodded, very seriously, as if this was something he had been brooding over for a long while, unclipped his seat belt and, holding the little bunch of flowers, climbed out.

‘Let’s leave the flowers in the car,’ Roy Grace said. ‘We’ll take them when we go to your mother’s grave later, in the cemetery, OK?’

‘OK.’ It came out as a whisper.

‘You feeling OK about the reading?’

The boy nodded.

Other cars were pulling up and several people were walking up the path to the church but Grace barely noticed anyone other than his sister and her family.

Inside the shelter of the porch, where he folded the umbrella and stuck it in a rack, they were greeted by the rugged, bearded Reverend Ish Smale, who quickly turned his focus onto Bruno, taking his hands and crouching down to his height. ‘Hello, young man!’ he said. ‘It’s very brave of you to come and to do the reading, and I’m glad you are.’

‘Why is it brave?’ Bruno asked, quite coldly. ‘She’s my mother. What is brave about going to my mother’s funeral?’

Grace saw the momentary frown on the wise clergyman’s face, before the sympathetic smile reappeared.

‘It’s brave, Bruno, because not all young people your age would be strong enough to be doing this.’

‘I’m ten,’ Bruno said, his face deadly serious. ‘I’m strong enough.’

‘Of course you are!’ Reverend Smale smiled. Then, looking over his shoulder, he said, ‘Ah, I think they’re arriving now.’

Roy and Cleo turned to see the small cortège of black hearse, followed by a solitary black limousine, pull up. Derek and Margot Balkwill. As if this wasn’t already a gloomy enough moment, it had just got gloomier still, he thought. It was mildly ironic to see two of the world’s meanest people, who wouldn’t spend a bean on themselves that they didn’t have to, stepping out of this limo. Sandy had made provisions to pay for the funeral — the wake and everything — through her German lawyer, some years back, but with no specific instructions.

If need be he would have stood up to the plate himself, even though legally Sandy had no longer been his wife or his responsibility. But he would not have been able to bear the thought of the shabby apology of a funeral her parents would almost certainly have arranged, if left to them. Whatever he felt today about Sandy, this was much more about Bruno than her. He wanted his son to see his mother buried with dignity and with some show of caring.

Stepping inside the church, an elderly warden handed them order-of-service sheets. Roy led Bruno and Cleo down the aisle, nodding at familiar faces on the way, flashing a brief smile at Glenn Branson, and ushered them into a front-row pew. He took his position at the end with Bruno between them.

Cleo knelt in prayer, while Bruno sat very still. Grace looked around, pleased for his son’s sake that there was a reasonable turnout; he had been worried about it being a virtually empty church, but there were a good sixty or seventy people here. Among them he spotted a number of current and former colleagues, as well as a handful of retired police officers. The rest he presumed were friends or relatives of Sandy’s. He recognized an elderly couple seated with what looked like their grown-up son and his wife and three small children in the reserved pew over to the left. Sandy’s uncle and aunt. They’d always been friendly enough on the few occasions they had met, but Sandy had never been big on family gatherings. He remembered how she used to make him smile by saying, ‘Why do you have to like someone just because you’re related to them?’ Although she was happy to accept a large inheritance from one of her aunts.

Her parents were approaching down the aisle now. Margot, normally drab, had gone to town on her outfit and was looking quite ridiculously melodramatic. She wore a stark, macabre ensemble, entirely in black, with a dramatic veil, but all of it having a slightly moth-eaten feel about it, as if she had bought it in a charity shop — which she probably had. Derek was a broad-shouldered man who had a permanently weak, deflated look about him. He appeared to have dusted off his father’s RAF demob suit again — the only suit Roy Grace had ever seen him wear — and spruced it up with a starchily uncomfortable-looking shirt and a wide black tie. To his relief they chose to sit on the pew to his left, with their relatives.

He looked down at the service sheet. On the front was his favourite photograph of Sandy, taken the year after they were married, when they were on holiday in Spetses in Greece. She was standing with her back to the little fishing boats of the port, strands of her blonde hair blowing in the breeze, either side of her freckled face, wearing a sundress and laughing, looking so incredibly happy. It was that image of her that still occasionally came to him in his dreams.

Memories came flooding back to him. Memories of those early days when he had felt so happy, married to the woman he had been certain he would spend the rest of his life with. That beautiful, smart, tempestuous companion and soulmate. So she had seemed back then.

The music started. Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘The Sound of Silence’.

Reverend Smale walked down the aisle, followed by the four pall-bearers carrying the coffin. It was oak with plain brass handles. Sandy had always hated anything ornate — and clutter — and had decorated their home in an elegant, minimalistic, Zen fashion. He found himself hoping she would have approved of his choice of coffin and furnishings.

Then a reality check caught up with him.

Sandy.

After all these years.

In restless dreams I walked alone.

Sandy was inside that coffin. Her body, damaged, broken and now dead. Inside that box. The nightmare days, weeks, months after she had first vanished; the nightmare years that followed. All the time wondering what had happened to her. Speculating. Knowing from his own experience investigating missing persons that the longer they were absent, the smaller the likelihood of finding them alive. This poor, troubled, lost soul.

Hopefully she was at peace now.

He looked down at his son and saw a solitary tear trickle down his cheek. Tears welled in his own eyes, too. He breathed in the smells of the church, the mustiness, the old wood, the faint, sweet tang of Cleo’s perfume.

The song ended. Reverend Smale stood in the pulpit. ‘We meet in the name of Jesus Christ, who died and was raised to the glory of God the Father and mercy be with you.’ He paused again. ‘We have come here today to remember before God our sister, Sandra — Sandy; to give thanks for her life; to commend her to God our merciful redeemer and judge; to commit her body to be buried and to comfort one another in our grief.’

Grace could feel Bruno shaking and shot him a sideways glance. The little boy was sobbing; Cleo pressed a handkerchief to his face but he pushed it away. Grace could feel his own self-control slipping away, too, and he needed to keep his composure for the eulogy. He had discussed at length both with Reverend Smale and with Cleo something that would be appropriate for Bruno, and they had settled on a few lines from Michael Rosen’s Sad Book.

The moment came. Bruno had composed himself. Grace whispered good luck, and watched his son stand up, walk solemnly up to the lectern, and climb up onto the box Smale had placed there for him.

Then he began.

‘Sometimes I’m sad and I don’t know why. It’s just a cloud that comes along and covers me up. It’s not just because my mama’s gone. It’s just because things now aren’t like they were.’ He faltered and then went on, reading the rest of his chosen words slowly and flawlessly.

When he had finished he walked back, stiffly, very upright. It was now Grace’s turn. He stood, a bag of nerves, fastening the middle button of his jacket.

‘Well done!’ he whispered as Bruno sat down again.

As he stepped up to the pulpit the clergyman gave him a reassuring pat on the arm. He climbed the steps, took his short speech from his pocket and laid it down in front of him.

As he glanced up, momentarily taking in the sea of faces, he noticed both the Chief Constable, Lesley Manning, and the Police and Crime Commissioner, Nicola Roigard. It was deeply respectful that they’d made the effort to come.

Then, suddenly, seated alone towards the back of the church, he saw Cassian Pewe, in full dress uniform. He was surprised the ACC had come. Perhaps he did have a heart after all. He took a couple of deep breaths, something he had learned long ago, to calm down before giving any talk. Even so he began reading in a shaky voice, staring rigidly down at the text, not trusting his emotions if he caught anyone’s eye.

He allowed himself to look down at the front row of pews, at Cleo and Bruno. His son was staring up at him, staring with that same look he had seen in his eyes a short while earlier before he had got out of the car. Anger at his mother’s death? Anger at him for causing it?

By contrast, Cleo was smiling, a sweet, sad smile.

‘All of us have to find and take our own paths in life,’ he said, his voice stumbling. ‘Sandy was a beautiful woman and I was lucky enough to spend so many years of my life with her. She was funny, smart and she had a great interest in so many things, as well as a real talent for interior design, which was her passion. As many of you here today know, she chose some years ago to take her own, different path in life, and had many adventures, some great, some perhaps more challenging for her. Her legacy is our delightful son, Bruno, of whom I’m immensely proud.’

He glanced up and, nearly choking with emotion, looked quickly back down at his script.

‘Sandy loved books, and she loved to read me quotes from authors. One of her favourites was a somewhat irreverent line from Kurt Vonnegut. “Listen, we are put on this earth to fart around and don’t let anyone tell you any different.”’

There was a small ripple of laughter.

‘Another, very different and much deeper, was from John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman: “Life is not a symbol, is not one riddle and one failure to guess it, is not to inhabit one face alone or to be given up after one losing throw of the dice; but it is to be, however inadequately, emptily, hopelessly into the city’s iron heart, endured. And out again, upon the unplumb’d salt, estranging sea.”’

He paused and took another deep breath.

‘We don’t know, none of us, what is around the corner. Life is short, and for some of us far too short. It was far too short for Sandy. But I feel lucky to have spent those years with her, and I was always proud of her. As were her parents, Derek and Margot. I hope this hugely talented and lovely woman is now at peace.’

As he climbed back down the wooden steps from the pulpit, tears were rolling down his face.