Need You Dead

30 Friday 22 April

Shite. Roy Grace’s head was pounding. For some moments he could not figure out where on earth he was. The hideously bright green digits of a clock radio, inches from his face, read 4.53 a.m. A child was crying. Noah?

It didn’t sound like Noah.

His mouth was parched and his head felt like someone had spent several hours poking red-hot wires through his skull.

Slowly it came back to him. He was in the guest room of Marcel Kullen’s house, somewhere in the Munich suburbs. Just how much had they drunk last night?

The child cried again.

The Kullens had three young children; the youngest was two years old. He had originally intended to stay in a hotel but Marcel would not hear of it, and in truth, arriving at the airport a total bag of nerves about what awaited him in the morning, and still having flashbacks to the horrendous accident earlier in the day, he had been grateful for his hospitality. He liked Kullen and his pretty wife, Liese, and their small house had a cosy, welcoming feel. But, boy, did they pour drinks down his throat. Weissbier, followed by a local white wine, then a stonkingly powerful Italian red. Then a clear schnapps, followed by another. Then possibly a third. He’d gulped everything down, grateful for the calming effect of the booze, and the feeling of confidence it gave him about the next day.

But now, as he rummaged through his overnight bag, desperately hoping he had some paracetamol in there, somewhere, he wondered just what it was about the human brain which told you that if you had just one more digestif late at night, you’d feel a lot better in the morning than if you didn’t have it?

To his relief he found the small blue packet. Just two tablets left. He popped them out of the blister pack and downed them with an entire glass of water, then climbed back into bed and double-checked the time on his phone. And saw a text message from Cleo.

Shit. It had been sent at 10.30. Was that UK or German time — and how come he hadn’t seen it? He wondered whether to reply but decided against, not wanting the ping to wake her. An hour ahead here, it was only coming up to 4 a.m. in England. He’d call her at 7 a.m., her time, hoping he’d catch her before she left for work.

Switching off the light, he lay back on the soft pillow, beneath the heavy duvet, and closed his eyes, hoping the pills would kick in quickly. Outside he heard the first tweets of the dawn chorus. A big day today. Massive. Meeting his son and taking him to England. To his new home, new life.

And it sounded like he had a major charm offensive ahead. Bruno was currently staying with his best friend, Erik Lippert. Yesterday evening, when he had landed in Munich, Grace had spoken on the phone to the friend’s mother, Anette, about today’s arrangements. She’d warned him that Bruno was, understandably, very distressed by his mother’s death, and not at all happy at the prospect of being taken away from his homeland.

Just how great was it going to be today to meet his son with a hangover, breath stinking of alcohol, and a developing bruise, thanks to Corin Belling, on one cheek?

He wished he’d thought to bring his jogging kit, so he could have gone for a run and got the booze out of his system and cleared his head. He lay tossing and turning, desperate for another hour or so of sleep, but just felt increasingly wide awake, watching the minutes tick away. Then the crying began again.

Finally, at 5.30, he switched the light back on, got out of bed, dressed, pulled on his coat, and let himself out of the house in the dark, chilly dawn air. Across the road a small BMW started up, the reversing lights came on and it backed out into the street. He breathed in the smell of the exhaust as the driver accelerated away, the engine making a harsh rasp, then began to walk, after logging his bearings.

It was strange, he thought, as he crossed a road and carried on past the dark, curtained windows of houses. For many years — well over a decade now — Sandy had often dominated his waking thoughts, and, at least once a week, his dreams. For a long time he had felt he could never move forward in life until he knew what had happened to her. Now he did know the truth — or at least some of it — and it didn’t make him feel any better.

In some ways, quite the reverse.

A road-sweeping truck was coming towards him, brushes swirling. He walked on past it, then made a right turn into a small park. His thoughts switched for some moments to the crime scene he had left in the Hove seafront flat. Lorna Belling dead in the bathtub. Then the sight of Corin Belling’s body cartwheeling past the yellow Lamborghini.

Case closed?

Why would Belling have done a runner when he and Exton had gone to his office to see him, then punched him in the face and run off again, if he wasn’t guilty? Surely not because there’d been an incident and he had thrown her tiny puppies out into the street — something that made Roy Grace, who loved dogs, really angry.

Equally, he knew he always had to keep personal prejudices out of any investigation. If you summarily believed someone was guilty, you were in danger of obstructing the search for the truth. This would be a good case for Guy to cut his teeth on.

A woman in a tracksuit jogged past him, murmuring guten morgen. She was out of earshot by the time he replied, his focus switched back to the day ahead — and beyond.

He wished now that he’d encouraged Cleo to come with him to Germany. But she had been resolute in her view that he needed to have some time with his son on their own. The little boy already had a huge amount to contend with. Being uprooted would have a massive impact on him in ways they could not even guess. They were going to have to take it very gently, one step at a time.

He and Cleo had spent many hours during recent evenings googling about introducing a stepchild into a family with a baby. One issue was what Bruno might call her, and she him. Son? Stepson? They had decided it was best to wait to see what Bruno was most comfortable with. She didn’t mind whether she would be known by him as ‘mum’ or Cleo — or something totally different. Whatever the case, it wasn’t going to be an easy transition for any of them. They couldn’t expect to meet one day and all be best friends the next. It was going to take time and a lot of effort — which he and Cleo were completely prepared for.

What could he say at the funeral in England next week that would be meaningful? How many people would be attending? Sandy’s parents, an aunt and uncle and four cousins. She had never been one for friends in England. She had just one girlfriend, Chantal Rickards, and they’d never been that close. Chantal had genuinely been as surprised as he was by her sudden disappearance nearly eleven years ago. She’d told Chantal that it was hard at times being married to a cop who was married to his work, but she said she had accepted that.

A few of his friends and colleagues would attend, among them Glenn for sure, and Norman said he wanted to come. And his old friend Dick Pope, also a detective, and his wife, Leslie. He and Sandy had been good friends with them — and had been due to go out for dinner with them to celebrate his thirtieth birthday on the night that she’d disappeared. They had been good to him in those terrible months immediately after, inviting him over for meals and providing lots of support. But when Dick had later transferred to the Met they’d moved closer to London, and he barely saw them any more. He was glad they were coming.

He was less glad about Sandy’s parents, who were making things awkward. He’d learned long ago not to take the fact that they didn’t like him personally — so far as he could see, they didn’t actually like anyone, not even each other. Her mother looked permanently angry and her fantasist father, Derek, spent his time immersed in the world of model Second World War aircraft, telling anyone who would listen how his father had flown seventy-five missions in the legendary Dambusters squadron. In fact, his father had never even been up in the air during the war — sure, he was stationed at 617 Squadron at Lossiemouth in Scotland, but he was an aircraft fitter and never left the ground.

But now, decades later, Derek Balkwill had finally managed to drop a bombshell himself. He and his wife had decided they wanted a Catholic funeral for Sandy because, they informed him, they had brought her up Catholic. It was news to him.

When he and Sandy had married it had been an Anglican service and neither of her parents had made any comment then. Subsequently Sandy had pretty much rejected all religion, and had once told Roy that if she died before him, she would want a Humanist funeral. He’d told Derek and Margot Balkwill this at a tense meeting at their house last week, after breaking the news to them over the phone. He’d been there for nearly an hour before being offered anything to drink — a miserably weak cup of tea that tasted like it was the bag’s third or fourth outing. Margot was the kind of woman so mean he could imagine her hanging used teabags out to dry.

‘It’s the boy you have to think of,’ she had said, coldly and a bit oddly. ‘This funeral is not about our daughter — we lost her years ago. We all know what our daughter wanted, which was to turn her back on us all. Now it’s about our grandson. We need to nurture his spiritual wellbeing. Bring him up in the sight of our Lord.’

Eventually they reached an uncomfortable compromise. It would be a religious service but an Anglican one — and Grace would approach the senior police chaplain to see if he would be willing to conduct it, which he had done. The Reverend Smale had asked Roy if he or anyone would be giving a eulogy. It was something he had been thinking about and had not yet come to any conclusion. What could he say — just talk about the Sandy he had known? But then how would Bruno feel, to have a total stranger suddenly talking about how wonderful his mother had been?

He tried to put himself in Bruno’s shoes. How would he have felt in this situation? But he didn’t know. He really didn’t. And he hadn’t long to figure it out.