Love You Dead

68 Monday 9 March

The wet weekend had only worsened Roy Grace’s sense of gloom and confusion. On Saturday, he’d tried hard to put his troubled thoughts away and focus on spending time with Noah who was now, at eight months, able to crawl at some speed. He’d also busied himself stripping the wallpaper off the spare room in their cottage, and exploring a new area of the surrounding countryside with Humphrey — and trying to train him — unsuccessfully so far — to ignore sheep in the neighbouring field. They’d also had a site meeting with a man from Sussex Oak Framers, who was going to quote for an extension they wanted to add to enlarge the kitchen — provided they could get planning permission.

Planning permission was a dirty expression in the village at the moment, due to proposals, which everyone in the area thought were absurd, for an entire new town to be built nearby. It was being actively fought by a protest group, LAMBS, who had invited him to be their spokesperson. He’d had to decline, reluctantly, because of his position as a police officer, but he privately supported their aims.

On Saturday night, leaving Noah in the care of Kaitlynn, Cleo and he had packed an overnight bag and gone to dinner at the Cat Inn at West Hoathly. Both of them had ended up drinking far too much, in an effort to relax, and had returned yesterday morning, with bad hangovers, to Noah screaming. He felt guilty that for much of yesterday Noah had been propped in front of the TV for his entertainment, whilst they had recovered.

All he could really think about was Sandy. Lying right now in the Munich hospital. With her life slipping away?

He had to see her again one more time before she was gone for good, either into a grave or a crematorium incinerator.

Had to have closure for both himself and Cleo.

Cleo had asked him, repeatedly, over the weekend what was wrong, and each time he’d fobbed her off by telling her he was fretting about Crisp.

But the reality was he’d barely thought about the serial killer. And he’d hardly slept a wink over the weekend.

Sandy.

He’d simply not been able to pluck up the courage to talk to Cleo, unrealistically hoping it would all go away.

But it wouldn’t. It would never go away. Not until they had closure. There was only one way to do that.

He had to go to Munich and see her again.

That scared the hell out of him. He remembered the saying, ‘And the truth shall set you free.’

But would it?

What if it was quite the reverse?

He had a bad feeling, a really bad feeling.

As he stood in the shower after his early-morning run, feeling as if he’d had no weekend at all, he knew what he had to do.

But he really wasn’t sure how to do it.