Find Them Dead

65 Thursday 16 May

‘Look, look, look!’ Cleo said excitedly as Roy Grace arrived home at a few minutes to 7 p.m. She leaned forward to kiss him then showed him the box in her hands.

‘Eggs?’

She nodded vigorously. ‘Well done. You should be a detective — oh, I forgot, you are one!’ she said, playfully.

He grinned, closing the door behind him and giving Humphrey a quick stroke. ‘Something special about these eggs?’

‘There is, open it, something special about both of them!’

‘Both of them?’ He peered inside. ‘OK, they are blue. Any significance?’

‘Nope.’

‘They’re organic, free range and cost a fortune?’ he ventured.

She shook her head. ‘They’re organic, free range and free.’

‘Free?’

‘Those things we have in the big run in the garden. The feathered creatures that make a clucking noise?’

His eyes widened with delight as he finally understood. ‘These are from them?’

‘Yes, our very first blue eggs!’

‘Wow, amazing!’ He felt a real buzz of excitement. ‘Which ones did they come from?’

‘It must be the new hens — Dorothy and Bessie — we’ve not had this colour before. I’ll have to ask Bruno. I’ve put him in charge of them and he’s now responsible for keeping them clean, feeding them and collecting the eggs. I think it will do him good and get him out of that damned bedroom. And I’ve told him if there are any eggs left over, he can sell them and pocket the money.’

‘I like it. Good parenting! I’d actually given up on them ever laying,’ he said.

She shook her head. ‘The guy at Wishing Wells Farm said it could be a while before they started laying and he was right. I’ve been checking the nesting boxes every day and so has Bruno, so we know they’re freshly laid.’

‘Great, let’s hope we get a few more quickly and we can make a meal out of them!’

‘Definitely! One of your omelettes?’

‘Bien sur!’ he said, with a French accent. ‘Oeufs Grace? A little grated cheese, chopped chilli, spring onion, red peppers and tomato, madame?’

‘You’re making me hungry!’

‘So tell them to lay some more, quick!’

‘I will pass on your instructions.’

‘How was your day?’ he asked, following her through to the kitchen, slackening his tie and slinging his jacket on the back of a chair.

‘OK, quiet at the mortuary — only two new admissions.’

‘Signed the guest book, did they?’

‘Their hands were a bit stiff.’

He grinned again.

‘And Kaitlynn said Noah’s got a cold and been pretty grumpy. He’s asleep now.’

‘Where’s Bruno?’

‘Where do you think? In his boy cave, the very one I’m trying to find ways of getting him out of!’

Roy stood behind Cleo, putting his arms round her waist, and pulled her in towards him. ‘I’m glad it was quiet at work for you, we need to wrap you in cotton wool. I’m grateful every day that you’re OK now.’

‘Me too. I think about it constantly. It was around now we lost the baby last time.’

‘I know you’re worried, but you are fit and healthy and the doctor’s said there’s no reason why everything shouldn’t be fine. And, of course, now I’m back in Sussex I can wait on my beautiful bride hand and foot.’

She laughed. ‘As if! That will stop the first time you get called out. But I do know you’ve made a big sacrifice not staying on in the Met — I know how much that meant to you.’

He went to the fridge. ‘It was the right decision. I’m good with it. Sussex is where I belong, and where I want to be. For sure my time on the streets in London has opened my eyes, and it’ll help me here. And maybe I’ve made a tiny difference.’

She looked at him. ‘Do you think you’re ever going to win the war on drugs? Are you ever going to be able to stop the suppliers?’

‘I don’t think so.’ He shook his head. ‘I didn’t tell you about the kid we stopped in Newham, fourteen years old, acting suspicious. He had a knife on him and nine wraps of heroin. When we nicked him, I said, “Shouldn’t you be in school, why are you doing this?” He just smiled at me and said, “I make two grand a week — that’s more than you make.”’ Roy shrugged. ‘How do I argue against that?’

Cleo smiled. She had no answer.

‘Can I get you anything to drink?’

She pointed at a mug on the table. ‘I’m sipping my infusion. My pregnancy special!’

‘Nice?’

She screwed up her face. ‘It smells like molten tarmac and tastes like mildew.’

‘Sounds like it could catch on.’

‘It has — either very clever online marketing, or there are millions of pregnant women out there on social media who have different taste buds to mine.’

‘Maybe your taste buds got altered by your pregnancy — that happened with you before.’ He walked over, picked up the brew and sniffed it.

‘Yeccccch!’ He put the mug straight back down. ‘That is vile.’

‘I’m taking it for the team.’

‘Our baby had better damned well appreciate it!’

‘I’ll be reminding him — or her — for the rest of its life.’

Humphrey trotted into the room and over to Roy.

He patted the dog. ‘OK, boy, in a little while, I’ll take you for a nice walk. Yeah, you want to go walkies?’ Normally, Humphrey would have been jumping and pestering, but instead he sloped off under the table.

‘Well, that’s just weird, isn’t it?’

‘What, Roy?’

‘I said the magic walkies word and Humph has taken himself off under the table. Look at him just lying there obsessively cleaning his feet!’

‘Maybe he’s embarrassed because I really told him off earlier — he was growling at Noah. He’s probably gone under there in shame.’

‘Growling? He’s normally a big softy. What’s happened?’

She shrugged. ‘Perhaps he knows there’s going to be another baby in the house and is getting jealous. I hope Bruno hasn’t been teasing him. I often see him winding him up, maybe that’s it?’

‘Bruno? Bruno is great with him. Don’t start thinking bad of him. It’s one of his positive traits.’

‘All I’m saying is we’ll need to keep a very close eye on the dog when he’s with Noah and the new arrival. If he shows any aggression—’ Cleo held back from saying something she might regret.

‘Hey, come on, darling, you’re always telling people a dog is not just for Christmas, it’s for life. We’ll watch him and, if we need to, we can separate them. I’m sure it’s nothing.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ she said, flatly.

‘I hear what you’re saying, OK. Come on, let’s not get annoyed about something that hasn’t even happened! I’ll be all over Humphrey, watching him like a hawk, and he won’t do anything to any of the children. I promise. Remember, I’m a detective, so you have to believe me!’ he said, trying to lighten up the conversation a little.

‘Good. OK, detective, how was the rest of your day?’ she asked.

‘I’ve been going through the paperwork for Dr Crisp’s trial with Glenn and our legal team.’

‘Slippery Dr Crisp. Who nearly blew your leg off. But it’s not personal, is it, for you?’

He grinned. ‘Personal, moi? A nice kind family doctor who has a penchant for raping and killing young women and who shot me in the leg with a twelve-bore, so I’m still limping a little eighteen months on — why should it be personal?’ He grinned again. ‘He was just doing his job and I was doing mine.’

Cleo gave him a strange look, as if unsure for an instant whether he was joking or not.

‘The bastard is scheming to escape, I know it, and I want extra security — hospitals are easy for a man of Crisp’s ingenuity, but idiot Pewe won’t hear of it. He refuses to liaise with the Met Police on this, because of costs coming back to us. Can you believe it?’

‘How did Pewe ever get to be where he is?’ she asked. ‘Who on earth promoted him in the first place?’

‘The Peter Principle,’ Grace replied.

‘The what?’

‘A guy back in the 1960s — I think he was a sociologist called Peter something — came up with the theory that in every organization, sooner or later people get promoted to the level of their incompetence.’

‘That fits,’ she replied. ‘Guess you’d better make sure you don’t get promoted again.’ She grinned.

‘Thanks a lot!’ He gave her a friendly punch on the shoulder then shook his head. ‘The problem with Pewe is no one ever knows where they are with him. I’m only just back from the Met and I’ve seen him a couple of times and he’s been fine, almost friendly. In fact, he’s going to support my application for the Chief Superintendent process in Sussex. But this Crisp business is taking him back to his old self.’ He shook his head. ‘You know, I’m almost wishing that he would bloody escape, just to piss off Pewe!’

His job phone rang, interrupting him. It was Norman Potting.

Roy Grace got his wish. Crisp had escaped.