Find Them Dead

111 Saturday 1 June

Roy Grace let himself and Humphrey into the garden after a morning walk, went over to the hen house and lifted the lid of the first of the three nesting boxes, trying to ignore the sour reek. Two eggs of different sizes, one brown and one blue, nestled in the straw.

‘Good girls! I’ll tell your keeper, Bruno!’ he called out to them, gently lifting each egg out and placing them in a bowl. He retrieved a further three from the next two boxes and headed back towards the house with the triumph of a crusader returning home laden with booty.

Strolling in shorts and flip-flops across the freshly mown lawn, he felt, suddenly, an almost intoxicating happiness. It was moments like this when he wished he could freeze time and hold them in his mind forever. He stopped and stood, looking at their cottage and the hill, dotted with sheep, that rose up behind. It was coming up to 9 a.m. and the clear, cobalt sky looked set to deliver the forecaster’s promise of a fine weekend. There was just one major cloud and it wasn’t in the sky.

Cassian Pewe.

Even when he’d given the ACC the news that poor Stuie Starr’s murder was pretty much cleared up, there was no thank you, simply an admonishment that two murders in Sussex within such a short period of time did not make good headlines. A litany of anger from him then followed, blaming Grace for failing his team by not anticipating Starr’s attack on Gready.

Maybe Pewe was right, he reflected, perhaps as the leader he should have done. But how? Police officers had been described by a former Met Commissioner as ‘ordinary people doing extraordinary things’. True sometimes, Grace thought. But we’re not superhuman.

He was at a loss how to deal with Pewe. The ACC had welcomed him back from his secondment to the Met with open arms, only to immediately stab him in the back and return to his former hostile attitude. A few years ago, when they’d been on equal rank, Grace had risked his life to save Pewe’s, when the front of his car had gone over the edge of a cliff and the vehicle hung precariously. There had been little more than grudging gratitude afterwards.

Was there something in psychology, he wondered, some innate pride perhaps, that could turn people against those who had saved their lives?

It hadn’t helped their relationship that he subsequently found a discrepancy that nearly resulted in Pewe being investigated by Professional Standards, and which had sent him fleeing back to the Met, from where he had originated, with his tail between his legs.

Grace had scarcely been able to believe it when he was told by the Chief Constable less than a year later that Pewe was returning, and in a senior rank. The Chief told Roy that Pewe had assured him he felt no animosity towards him. How wrong that had turned out to be.

He decided to try to put Pewe from his mind for now and enjoy the weekend with his family. Bruno had asked him to cook French toast today and that’s what he planned to do. Then they were going to take a picnic to the beach.

A sudden squawking and clucking behind him made him turn and look at the chicken enclosure. Anna was pecking Isobel furiously, before strutting off in what looked like a huff. He smiled, fascinated by their little world. He loved watching how busy they were, rushing around in short bursts, eyeing the ground beadily for a speck of corn or mixed seed they might have missed.

After the endless daily horrors of human violence, in the papers, on television and, all too often, like poor Stuie Starr, on a tray in the mortuary, the simple act of walking Humphrey over fields, or picking an egg out of a nesting box, he found incredibly grounding and calming.

Not that he was starry-eyed or naive about hens, or any other aspects of Mother Nature. Chickens could be as vicious as any humans, with domestic violence — as he had just witnessed — an almost daily occurrence in the enclosure. People said violence was just human nature, but it wasn’t, it was all nature — and you didn’t have to go far to see it. The local wood half a mile away was, in its densest part, a war zone of plants and trees trying to strangle each other.

As he walked in through the kitchen patio doors he heard the sound of a vehicle, and an instant later Humphrey, barking furiously, catapulted himself across and through the living area. They’d sealed up the letter box a while ago, as the dog would rip everything that came through to shreds.

Cleo, seated at the breakfast bar, eating a bowl of cereal, was studying her course work. Noah lay on the floor watching a cartoon on television and giggling intermittently.

‘I think that was Mr Postie,’ she said.

‘I’ll go check.’

‘No wait, I need to speak to you quickly about that call from Bruno’s headmaster. I really think we should be proactive. Let’s get him properly assessed by the psychologist for everybody’s piece of mind, they might be able to help integrate him better. We don’t want the school ringing us up every five minutes about him.’

He nodded. ‘Look, darling, I know where you are coming from, but he’s not a bad kid and maybe the school is being oversensitive.’ He paused, thoughtfully. ‘Or maybe I’m just protective of him. If it helps us move forward, let’s do it.’

‘Thanks, it would. Oh, just a thought, now your investigation is over, will you have a chance to call my OU mate Alison and chat with her daughter — you know, she wanted to learn about jury service and nobbling for her dissertation?’

‘It’s on my list! I’m sure there’s not much I can tell her that she couldn’t find out online. As I said, it hardly ever happens. I’ve never had a case, but of course I’ll ring her.’

Humphrey continued barking. Roy put the eggs on the table, walked to the front door and calmed the dog down. He heard a vehicle driving away and opened the door a crack, not wanting Humphrey to race out and chase it. The lid of the free-standing mail box was raised and he saw that a couple of the motoring magazines he subscribed to had been delivered, along with some letters held together by a rubber band.

He carried the letters back and plonked them on the kitchen table, then took a knife from a drawer and began sliding the envelopes open.

‘Anything interesting?’ Cleo asked.

He was about to say there wasn’t, when he picked up a small, flimsy envelope that was hand-addressed. It reminded him, darkly, of one he’d had some years back, containing a death threat from a particularly nasty drug dealer he’d put away. He slit it open and removed the equally flimsy folded sheet of paper.

At the top was written,

He frowned again, then realized, even before he read the signature, who it was from. His former friend and colleague Guy Batchelor.

Last year Guy had panicked when a woman with whom he was having an affair threatened to go public. She’d ended up dead in a bathtub, and Guy hadn’t exactly helped his claim that it was an accident when he’d tried to cover his tracks and later escape arrest. But all the same, and despite his loathing of any cop who brought the force into disrepute, Grace couldn’t help feeling some sympathy for the man. He had a lovely wife, an equally lovely daughter, he’d been on a rising career path and he’d had everything going for him. Prison was not a good place for a police officer to be. In terms of prisoner loathing, they didn’t rank far below paedophiles.

He read the letter. It was brief. Guy’s handwriting was, as ever, neat.

‘From a secret admirer?’ Cleo asked with a grin. ‘Not very classy taste in headed paper.’

‘I don’t think they have Harrods stationery departments in British prisons,’ he said and handed her the letter.

She read it then frowned. ‘All very cryptic — what is he talking about? What church bench?’

‘I’ve no idea, I’m trying to figure it out.’

She gave him a sideways look and grinned. ‘Pew?’

He raised a finger. ‘Genius! Of course!’

‘I thought you were supposed to be the detective.’

‘Yep, well, it’s my weekend off!’

‘So what’s his reference to Pewe, exactly, meaning?’

Grace smiled. ‘It may be he has found out something — got the goods on him. He’s always known the crap I’ve had to take from him. I will definitely pay Guy a visit, next week if I can.’ He smiled again. ‘The weekend just got even better! Something to look forward to afterwards — I’m very nicely intrigued!’

‘Perhaps we could go to church tomorrow — we haven’t been to a normal service since before we got married. Might be good to take Noah and Bruno?’

‘Really? I don’t want to get in the way of a thunderbolt aimed at our little Antichrist upstairs.’

She punched him. ‘You are terrible!’

‘And I can just about cope with one Pewe — don’t want to spend my Sunday surrounded by dozens of them.’

‘Stop it!’

He went over to a cupboard and removed a jar of coffee. ‘Any tea or coffee, darling?’

She shook her head. ‘Thanks, I’m fine. So, tell me, do you think Gready’s wife was in the know?’

He shrugged. ‘Honestly, I’ve no idea. She refused to give evidence and abandoned him during the trial — she seemed to have made her mind up that he was guilty. It’s the age-old question, was the partner really innocent? I’ve heard that she has made a substantial donation to the Down’s Syndrome Association. Interesting to know when she had this epiphany — blood money?’ Roy said cynically.

‘What about the rest of the money, surely she doesn’t get to keep it?’

‘She won’t lose anything under the Proceeds of Crime Act because he is dead, but there might well be civil action — Customs and Excise, the police, that sort of thing.’

‘Imagine if she didn’t know, Roy? First, she’s lost her husband, now she stands to lose her reputation.’

He nodded. ‘Twenty years ago, I might have imagined that she genuinely didn’t know. But less so these days.’

‘Because twenty years as a copper has turned you into a sceptical bastard?’ she said, with a teasing smile.

‘No, life’s about making choices. She chose a wrong ’un.’

‘And what about me?’ Cleo asked. ‘What did I choose?’

He grinned back at her. ‘I’m far too modest to say.’