Love You Dead

124 Tuesday 17 March

At 7 p.m. that evening, in the dry, chilly night air, under the beam of a torch Cleo held, Roy Grace dug a grave in the soft, damp earth beneath an oak tree in a corner of the garden. He went several feet deep, determined that no sodding fox was going to dig Marlon up.

He had wound gaffer tape round the sandwich box, sealing it completely, then placed it inside a jiffy bag, and sealed that with tape, also. He held it up in front of him. ‘Funny to think that all those years ago I brought you home in a plastic bag full of water from a funfair! You were never very chatty, were you? But you know what? For many years you were my mate.’

He stooped down and placed the little package at the bottom of the hole. ‘Goodbye, my friend,’ he said. ‘Maybe you’ll find the happy hunting ground you were searching for all those years of swimming round and round in your tank.’

Then he stood upright for some moments, leaning on the spade, staring down.

‘Goodbye, sweet Marlon,’ Cleo said.

It was strange, he reflected. In a few days they would be flying to Munich for Sandy’s funeral. But right now he felt more emotional about Marlon than he did about Sandy. Was it wrong to be feeling relief that the rollercoaster nightmare with Sandy was finally now at an end?

He shovelled the earth back, and they went inside.

For some reason the words of the previous Chief Constable, Tom Martinson, suddenly came into his head. Martinson had said them to him some years back in his blunt Midlands accent.

‘You know what I always tell my officers, Roy. Never try to be a copy of anyone else. Try always to be a better version of yourself.’

He’d never fully understood, then, what Martinson had meant. But now he did. Cleo had brought that home to him earlier this evening when he had shown her Sandy’s letter.

‘Something I’ve always believed in my heart, Roy, is the wagon train circle. That’s what true love is. It’s not about holding hands, or staring into each other’s eyes, or staring in the same direction together. It’s a bond of strength. A wall around you. When you decide to make a life with someone by marrying them or just living with them, you form a circle against the world. It becomes just the two of you, and for the rest of your lives you never let anything or anyone break that circle. From time to time you let certain people inside that circle with you, and they become part of you and part of that wall.’

She went over to the fridge and took out a bottle of wine. ‘Fancy a drink?’

He did.