Love You Dead

52 Monday 2 March

It was part of Roy Grace’s nature that he started to worry whenever things were going well in his life. There was always a balance, a yin and yang. One quote that often came into his mind at such times was from Anthon St Maarten: ‘If we never experience the chill of a dark winter, it is very unlikely that we will ever cherish the warmth of a bright summer’s day.’

He was thinking about this as he let himself out of the back door of their cottage into the darkness of the morning, in his tracksuit and trainers. It was shortly after 5.00 a.m. Breathing in the fresh, chilly country air, he switched on his headlamp torch and stretched, then set off.

Humphrey barked happily and jumped up exuberantly, trying to snatch the red tennis ball out of the plastic thrower his master was holding high up above him.

‘Wait, boy, OK?’

Humphrey responded with another bark.

‘Sssshhh! Don’t wake up Noah, he’ll never go back to sleep, and your mum will be mad with me! They’re going to take you for another walk later, OK?’

He strode in the breaking morning light across the frosty wet grass of the unkempt lawn, passing the hen coop — and in the beam of his torch saw all five of their hens huddled together on the roof of their house, where they seemed to spend every night.

‘Why don’t you sleep inside in the warmth?’ he chided them, wondering how many eggs he’d find when he checked later.

God, he was loving country life, wondering as he had done so often these past couple of months why he hadn’t made the move sooner. They’d bought the cottage shortly before Christmas and, thanks to his leg injury, he’d been able to spend almost all of January here on sick leave, helping Cleo to get the house straight. She had started back at work last week and they now had a part-time nanny helping to take care of Noah, Kaitlynn Defelice, a personable and competent young Californian who they had found after hours of research.

Grace hadn’t yet got used to having a nanny around and needed to remember, constantly, that he could no longer walk about naked or just in his boxers. Cleo was really happy to be working again, back at the mortuary; much though she loved their son, she had been getting restless, starting to find being stuck in an isolated house, with just the relentless baby routine, not fulfilling enough. She missed adult company and the stimulus of work. In addition, things that would take minutes at home, pre-Noah, now took hours.

As Grace opened the back gate and flicked the ball, watching Humphrey bound forward across the huge, barren field that the local farmer had given them permission to walk in, he thought how blissful it was to be able to take the dog out without having to bring a plastic bag to pick up his mess. He set the timer on his watch and began a brisk walk.

He broke into a trot for a few steps, testing his right leg as he crossed the eight-acre field, stopping several times to retrieve the ball from Humphrey’s mouth and flick it again, until he reached the stile on the far side. The dog ran beneath it as he climbed over it, then carried on striding across the next, equally barren, field. When he reached the ten-minute limit set by his physiotherapist he dutifully slowed into a normal walk.

It was growing lighter now and he switched off the head torch. He turned and looked back at the house, which was little more than a speck in the distance. A small, rectangular farm cottage, sitting up on a slight ridge. It was very secluded, almost half a mile down a rutted driveway from the lane, and ten minutes’ drive from the centre of the village of Henfield.

In many ways the house was an ugly duckling, with tiny windows, each a different shape and size, looking as if it had been designed by an infant playing with bricks. Much of it was clad in unruly ivy and — at this time of year — skeletal wisteria. But he loved it, and Cleo loved it, too. This was their first proper home together. He felt that his family was safe here, away from the city, and that it would be a paradise for their son — and for any future children who came along. Cleo said she would be happy to have two more and hoped at least one would be a girl, not that she really minded. He didn’t care whether it was one, two or three more. He was pretty happy with his lot, right now.

But with it came the feeling that this couldn’t last. There were dark clouds on the horizon. One of these was his boss, his old adversary Cassian Pewe, ACC with responsibility for Major Crime. During his month at home with his family, Grace had had the chance to rethink his values. He wasn’t going to let Pewe stress him. He did his job to the best of his ability — and always had. He cared about the victims of all the crimes he had to investigate and did everything he could for the families.

Another dark cloud was Dr Edward Crisp. The knowledge that he’d had him in his grasp, and then the serial killer had escaped, had been eating him up. But at least Crisp was now once again behind bars, albeit in France. And as soon as the French police had completed their enquiries, he would be brought home to face justice. That reminded Grace he needed to contact the police in Lyon for an update.

With the stack of evidence they had against the creepy doctor, the man would spend the rest of his life rotting in jail, with no chance — not even with today’s absurdly lenient legal system — of ever being released.

But the darkest cloud of all was his missing first wife, Sandy. Something that he’d kept to himself since early January, which was when he’d flown to Munich at the request of a German police officer friend of his, Marcel Kullen. Kullen believed a woman lying in a coma in a hospital ward there after being run over by a taxi might just be Sandy.

Looking down at her damaged and intubated body in the private room at the Klinikum Schwabing, her face covered in scars, scabs and bandages, it had been hard to tell for sure one way or the other. However, he believed in his heart of hearts that it was her. But the major issue was her ten-year-old son. He had no idea who the father was, and he didn’t want to think about the possibility of it being him, and of having responsibility for the boy.

Sandy had made her choice, ten years ago, to walk out on him and disappear. At some point, he had learned many years later, she had become a drug addict, although she had apparently managed to come through that. There was too much history, too much baggage.

So he had walked away, denying it was her.

A few days after his visit to Munich, Marcel Kullen had phoned him, asking if he could send some item from Sandy — if he still had anything — that they might get DNA from, to make one hundred per cent sure she could be eliminated.

It had placed Grace in a dilemma. He had promised to see if he could find anything, but told Kullen a small lie, that he didn’t think he had anything left of hers. The truth was he had kept some of their things. A week later, aware he would never have closure unless he knew the truth for sure, he mailed Kullen one of Sandy’s old hairbrushes. But he already knew what the outcome would be. And that he would have to tell Cleo.

Now he waited on tenterhooks for another communication from Kullen, one that would change his life dramatically and not in a good way.

Next weekend, on Saturday, he and Cleo were going on a date night. Dinner at the Cat Inn at West Hoathly, one of their favourite country restaurants. They’d booked the romantic Grand Suite for the night and arranged for the nanny to stay over in the house with Noah. They were both really looking forward to having an evening together away from everything.

He looked at his watch. At 6 a.m., he would be handing over to a new duty Senior Investigating Officer. Sussex and Surrey normally had around twenty-four homicides a year between them. So far this year, Sussex was enjoying a below-average rate. The odds had been badly stacked against him for this weekend, and although homicides were his meat and drink — there was nothing he loved better than to investigate a murder — he was glad to have had a quiet period.

Just as he thought this, bending down to tug the red tennis ball free from Humphrey’s jaws, his phone rang.

‘Roy Grace,’ he answered, and was immediately dismayed to hear the somewhat neurotic voice of Andy Anakin — known to his colleagues as ‘Panicking Anakin’ — one of the city’s duty inspectors. Anakin was known colloquially within the police as a shit magnet. Incidents happened whenever he was on duty. A nervous man, he frequently spoke in short, staccato sentences.

‘Oh, sir, good morning. Just wanted to give you a heads-up, sir. In case. You know?’

‘Heads-up on what? In case of what?’ Grace replied.

‘Well, the thing is, a major Brighton target died last night in suspicious circumstances.’

‘You’re talking in riddles, Andy. Who died?’

‘You didn’t hear? Shelby Stonor.’

‘Shelby Stonor?’ Grace quizzed him. ‘That scrote?’

‘Yep, the very one. DI Warner was called out and has looked at the circumstances and has asked that you be informed.’

Like any city, Brighton had its share of persistent offenders who were well known to the police. Shelby Stonor was up there on the A-list of the worst of them. Grace had first encountered him in his early days in the force, as a beat copper. Back then Stonor had been a frequent joyrider and a petty thief. He had graduated to becoming a house breaker — and a fairly rubbish one at that. During the past twenty years Stonor had spent more time in prison than out. And one of the crimes Grace hated, almost more than any other, was domestic burglary. In his view — and a view shared by both Sussex Police and all other forces — violating the sanctuary of people’s homes was up there amongst the vilest of offences. Currently, Grace knew, Stonor was a major target for Brighton Police who also believed he was connected to a gang stealing high-value cars.

‘That’s what you’re calling me at this hour to tell me? That Shelby Stonor’s dead?’ He added, cynically, ‘Are we going to have a whip-round for flowers or something?’

‘It’s how he’s died, Roy. That’s why I’m calling you.’

Does anyone care? That little bastard, he was tempted to reply. He took a deep breath. ‘Tell me.’