Not Dead Enough

118

There were windows on either side of Cleo’s front door, but she had vertical venetian blinds carefully adjusted so that she could see out, while it was impossible for anyone to see in. Grace, standing anxiously outside her front door, rang the doorbell for the third time. Then he rapped on a window pane for good measure.

Why wasn’t she answering?

He dialled her mobile phone again. After a few seconds he heard it ringing from somewhere on the far side of the door. Downstairs.

Had she gone out and left her phone behind? Gone to get some food or to an off-licence? He checked his watch. It was nine thirty. Then he stepped back, trying to see if he could spot any movement in one of the upstairs windows. Perhaps she was up on the roof terrace, preparing a barbecue, and couldn’t hear the bell? He took another couple of steps back and collided with a young, shaven-headed man in Lycra shorts and a top, pushing his mountain bike.

‘I’m so sorry!’ Grace said.

‘No problem!’

He looked vaguely familiar. ‘You live here, don’t you?’ Grace asked.

‘Yep!’ He pointed at a house a few along. ‘Seen you around a few times, too – you’re a friend of Cleo’s, right?’

‘Yes. Have you seen her this evening by any chance? She’s expecting me, but she doesn’t seem to be in.’

The young man nodded. ‘Actually, yeah, I did see her – earlier. She waved at me from an upstairs window.’

‘Waved at you?’

‘Yeah – I heard a noise and looked up, wondering where it had come from. And I saw her in the window. Just a neighbourly wave thing.’

‘What kind of a noise?’

‘Sort of a bang. Like a gunshot.’

Grace stiffened. ‘Gunshot? ’

‘That’s what I thought for a moment. But obviously it wasn’t.’

Every alarm bell in his body was ringing. ‘You don’t have a key, do you?’

He shook his head. ‘No. Got one for Unit 9, but not Cleo’s, I’m afraid.’ Then he glanced at his watch. ‘I gotta rush.’

Grace thanked him. Then, as the young man walked away, the bicycle ticking, the detective heard several very distinct, muffled bangs coming from right above him. Instantly, his anxiety turned to blind panic.

He looked around for something heavy and saw a pile of bricks beneath a loose blue tarpaulin, outside the house directly opposite, on the other side of the courtyard.

He sprinted across and grabbed one, then removed his jacket as he ran back, wound it around the brick in his hand, then punched Cleo’s left window, shattering it. Too bad if everything was fine and she had just popped out to the shops. Better this than take a risk, he thought, bashing away more glass. Then, with his free hand, he pushed apart some of the slats of the blind.

And saw to his cold, stark terror the mess of water, smashed fish tank, the upturned coffee table, books strewn around.

‘CLEO!’ he yelled at the top of his voice. ‘CLEEEEEEOOOOO!’ He turned his head and saw the young man with the bicycle, who had stopped in the middle of opening his front door and was staring at him, with a startled look. ‘Call the police!’ he yelled.

Then, ignoring the jagged shards sticking out of the frame all around, Grace hauled himself up on to the ledge and dived head first into the room, hitting the floor with his hands, rolling, then scrambling to his feet as fast as he could, looking wildly around him.

Then he saw the trail of blood across the floor leading to the stairs.

Sick with fear for Cleo, he sprinted up them. When he reached the first-floor landing and peered through the open door to her empty office, he shouted out her name again.

From directly above him he heard her voice, muffled and tight, call out, ‘ROY, BE CAREFUL! HE’S IN HERE!’

His eyes shot up the stairs to the second-floor landing. Cleo’s bedroom to the right, guest bedroom to the left. And the narrow staircase up to the roof terrace. At least she was alive, thank God! He held his breath.

No sign of any movement. No sound except the boomf-boomfboomf of his own heart.

He should call for back-up assistance, but he wanted to listen, to hear every sound in the house. Slowly, tread by tread, as silently as he could in his rubber-soled shoes, he made his way up the staircase towards the second floor. Just before he reached the landing, he stopped, pulled out his mobile phone again and called 999. ‘This is Detective Superintendent Grace, I need immediate assistance at—’

All he saw was a shadow. Then it felt as if he had been hit by a truck.

The next moment he was falling through air. Crashing head over heels backward down the stairs. Then, after what seemed an eternity, he was on his back on the landing floor, with his legs up above him on the stairs, and a sharp pain in his chest – a busted or cracked rib, he thought dimly, staring up, straight into Brian Bishop’s face.

Bishop was coming down the stairs, dressed in a green all-in-one suit, holding a claw hammer in one hand and a gas mask in the other. Except that it wasn’t Bishop. Couldn’t be, his dazed mind thought. He was in jail. In Lewes prison.

It was Brian Bishop’s face. His haircut. But the expression on his face was unlike any he had seen on Brian Bishop’s. It was twisted, almost lopsided, with hatred. Norman Jecks, he thought. It had to be Jecks. The two of them were absolutely identical.

Jecks came down another step, raising the hammer, his eyes blazing. ‘You called me an evil creature,’ he said. ‘You don’t have any right to call me an evil creature. You need to be careful what you say about people, Detective Superintendent Grace. You can’t just go around calling people names.’

Grace stared at the man, wondering whether his phone was still switched on and connected to the emergency operator. In the hope that it was, he shouted as loudly as he could, ‘Unit 5, Gardener’s Yard, Brighton!’

He saw the nervous dart of the man’s eyes.

Then upstairs there was a sudden screech of wood on wood.

Norman Jecks turned his head for an instant, looking anxiously back over his shoulder.

Grace seized the moment. He launched himself up on his elbows, then kicked his right foot as hard as he could, straight up between the man’s legs.

Jecks expelled a winded gasp, doubling up in pain, the hammer falling from his hand, clattering down the stairs and thudding past Grace’s head. The detective swung his leg up again, aiming another kick, but somehow Jecks, despite his pain, grabbed hold of it and wrenched it sharply round in fury. Grace rolled over, his ankle hurting like hell, going with the direction of the twist to stop the man breaking it, and lashing out with his other foot, striking something hard and hearing a cry of pain.

He saw the hammer! Lunged after it. But before he could get up, Jecks crashed down on top of him, pinning his wrist to the floor. Using every ounce of strength in his body, Grace jabbed back with his elbows and broke free, rolling over again. The man rolled with him, slamming a punch into his cheek, then another into the back of his neck. And Grace was on his face on the floor, breathing in the smell of wood varnish, a dead weight pinning him down, his throat clamped in a grip that was tightening every second.

He rammed his elbow back, but the grip tightened further, choking him. He was struggling to breathe.

Suddenly the grip slackened. A fraction of a second later, the crushing weight on his body lifted. Then he saw why.

Two police officers were clambering through the window.

He heard footsteps running up the stairs.

‘Are you all right, sir?’ the constable called out.

Grace nodded, clambered to his feet, his right leg and his chest agony, and launched himself up the stairs. He reached the landing, stepping over the gas mask. There was no sign of Jecks. He carried on up to the second floor and saw Cleo’s face, badly bruised and bleeding from a gash in her forehead, peering nervously out of her smashed, partially open bedroom door.

‘Are you OK?’ he gasped.

She nodded, looking in total shock.

There was a bang above them. Oblivious to his pain, Grace ran on up and saw the roof terrace door swinging back against the wall. Then he limped out on to the wooden decking of the terrace. And just caught a flash of olive green disappearing, in the failing light, down the fire escape at the far end.

Breaking into a run, he dodged around the kettle barbecue, the tables and chairs and plants, and hurtled down the steep metal steps. Jecks was already halfway across the courtyard, heading to the gate.

It banged shut in Grace’s face as he reached it. He hit the red release button, oblivious to everything else, jerked the heavy gate open, not waiting for the two constables behind him to catch up, and stumbled, breathlessly, out into the street. Jecks was a good hundred yards ahead, sprinting and hobbling at the same time down past a row of closed antiques shops and a pub with jazz music blaring and drinkers outside, crowding the pavement and part of the road.

Grace ran after him, determined to get this fucker. Utterly, utterly determined, everything else in the whole world blocked out of his mind.

Jecks turned left along York Place. The bastard was fast. Christ, he was fast. Grace was sprinting flat out, his chest on fire, his lungs feeling like they were being crushed between rocks. He wasn’t gaining on the man but at least he was keeping pace. He passed St Peter’s Church on his right. A Chinese takeaway, followed by endless shops on his left, everything except the fast-food places closed, just window display lights on. Buses, vans, cars, taxis passed by. He dodged around a gaggle of youths, all the time his eyes locked on to that olive-green suit that was increasingly blending into the closing darkness as York Place became the London Road.

Jecks reached the Preston Circus junction. He had a red traffic light against him and a line of cars crossing in front of him. But he sprinted straight through and on up the London Road. Grace had to stop for a moment, as a lorry thundered past, followed by an interminable line of traffic. Come on, come on, come on! He glanced over his shoulder and saw the two constables some way behind. Then, recklessly, almost blinded by the stinging perspiration in his eyes, he raced across the road in front of the flashing headlights and angry blaring horn of a bus.

He was fit from his regular running, but he didn’t know how much longer he could go on.

Jecks, now about two hundred yards in front of him, slowed, turned his head, saw Grace and picked up speed again.

Where the hell was he going?

There was a park on the right side of the road now. On his left were houses that had been converted into offices, and blocks of flats. The irony did not escape him that he was at this moment running past the Brighton & Hove City Council Directorate of Children, Families and Schools, where he had been earlier today.

You have to start tiring soon, Jecks. You are not getting away. You don’t hurt my darling Cleo and get away.

Jecks ran on, past a garage, over another junction, past another parade of shops.

Then, finally, Grace heard the thrashing wail of a siren coming up behind him. About sodding time, he thought. Moments later a patrol car slowed alongside him, the passenger window going down, and he heard a burst of static, followed by a controller’s voice coming from the radio inside.

Barely able to speak, Grace gasped to the young constable, ‘In front of me. That guy in the green suit. Do a hard stop on him!’

The car roared off, blue light showering from its roof, and pulled into the kerb just past Jecks, the passenger door opening before it had come to a halt.

Jecks turned and bolted straight back towards Grace for a few yards, then darted right, towards Preston Park railway station.

Grace heard the sound of another siren approaching. More back-up. Good.

He followed Jecks doggedly up a steep hill lined on both sides with houses. Ahead was a high brick wall, with an access tunnel to the platforms and the street on the far side. Two taxis were parked up.

There was a pick-up area in front of the station, with a couple of taxis waiting, and an unmade-up residential road to the right, which ran along the side of the railway line for several hundred yards.

Jecks turned into it.

The first police car shot past Grace, following Jecks. Suddenly, the man doubled back on his tracks, then dashed into the tunnel and up the steps to the south-bound platform, barging past a young woman with a suitcase and a man in a business suit.

Grace followed, dodging through more passengers, then he saw Jecks running down the platform. The last door of the train was open, with the guard hanging out, signalling with his torch. It began to move.

Jecks leapt off the platform, disappearing from Grace’s view. Was he on the track?

Then as the guard slipped past him, the train accelerating, Grace saw its red tail light. And Jecks, clinging to a handrail on the rear of the last carriage, his feet perched precariously on a buffer.

Grace yelled at the guard, ‘Police, stop the train! You’ve got a man hanging on the back!’

For a moment the guard, a spindly young man in an ill-fitting uniform, just looked at him in astonishment as the train continued gathering speed.

‘Police! I’m a police officer! Stoppppp!’ he yelled again. The guard, now several yards ahead of him, was only just in earshot.

The guard ducked inside. Grace heard a shrill bell, then suddenly the train was slowing, the brakes screeching. There was a hiss of air pressure and it came to a jerky halt fifty yards beyond the end of the platform.

Grace ran down the slope and on to the track, keeping clear of the raised live conductor rail, stumbling through loose, weed-strewn ballast and over the sleepers.

The guard jumped down and ran back towards Grace, flashing his torch beam. ‘Where is he?’

Grace pointed. Jecks, looking fearfully down at the live rail below him, edged over to the right-hand buffer, then leapt, but not far enough, and his right foot brushed the top of the second conductor rail. There was blue flash, a crackle, a puff of smoke, and a scream from Jecks. He landed on the ballast in the centre of the north-bound track with a sharp crack, then fell over, his head striking the far rail with a dull thud, and lay still.

In the beam of the guard’s flashlight, Grace saw his left leg sticking out at an odd angle, and for a moment he thought the man was dead. There was an acrid, burning smell in the air.

‘Hey!’ the guard yelled in panic. ‘There’s a train coming! The nine fifty!’

Grace could hear the rails singing like the whine of a tuning fork.

‘It’s the fast one! Victoria! Express! Oh, Jesus!’ The guard was trembling so much he could barely keep the beam on Jecks, who was gripping the rail with his hands, trying to drag himself forward.

Grace put a foot over the conductor rail, on to the loose ballast beyond. He wanted this bastard alive.

Suddenly Jecks tried to get up, but he instantly fell forward with another howl of pain, blood trickling down his face.

‘No!’ the guard shouted at Grace. ‘You can’t cross – not there!’

Grace could hear the sound of the approaching train. Ignoring the guard, he swung his other leg over and stopped in the space between the two sets of tracks, looking left. At the lights of the express train that was tearing out of the darkness, straight at him. Seconds away.

There was a space on the other side before the next track. Enough room, he decided, making a snap decision and vaulting the second live rail. He grabbed the partially melted, heavy-soled shoe on the broken leg, which was the nearest part of Jecks to him, and pulled with all his strength. The lights bore down. He heard Jecks’s scream of agony above the train’s klaxon. He could feel the ground vibrating, the rails singing a deafening pitch now. The rush of wind. He pulled the man again, oblivious to the howl of pain, the shouting of the guard, the roar and blare of the train, and staggered back, hauling the deadweight over the far rail and on to the rough ground as hard and fast as he could.

Then, losing his footing, he fell sideways on to the track, his face inches from the rail. And heard a terrible human screech.

The train was thundering past, a vortex of air ripping at his clothes, his hair, the clang of the wheels deafening him.

A final whoosh of air. Then silence.

Something warm and sticky was spurting into his face.