One of Us Is Dead

12 Sunday 25 September 2022

Roy Grace stared at Cassian Pewe for a long moment as the words sank in. He’d never been unfaithful to Sandy throughout the length of their marriage and it had never remotely occurred to him, back then, that she might have been cheating on him.

Of course, all bets were off now that he knew more about her and her erratic behaviour during and after leaving him. But it was more than likely, too, that this sewer rat standing in front of him was lying, being spiteful, winding him up in a way he thought would hurt Grace the most.

‘Why are you here, Cassian?’ he said calmly but coldly.

‘I could ask you the same question, Roy,’ Pewe said, with that smile again, flashing a set of perfect teeth, although Roy clocked that even they had yellowed a little. No teeth-whitening facilities in prison? How sad.

It was all Grace could do to restrain himself from punching the man in the mouth and bashing those teeth — which had always been far too white for his age — down his throat. ‘I’m putting flowers on my son’s grave,’ he said tightly. ‘And I’d appreciate some privacy.’

Pewe locked eyes with him. ‘Ah, you see that’s where you are mistaken I’m afraid, Roy. Bruno wasn’t your son, he was mine. I was his father.’

The grass beneath Grace’s feet suddenly felt unstable, as if it was tilting slightly. What Pewe was saying was absurd. Sandy had confirmed that he was Bruno’s father, he had her letter in which she said she’d had Bruno’s DNA tested. But, all the same, for an instant he felt the cold wind of doubt chill his bones. Had she lied to him?

‘No way, Cassian. No way in hell.’

Pewe was looking at him so confidently, winding Grace’s mind back to the time when Pewe was his boss and seemed to take a sadistic delight in that superiority, giving Grace the feeling that no matter how much it angered him, there was nothing he could do about it; he was impotent. The police command structure was a hierarchy that operated like the military. You obeyed the orders from your senior officers without question and there was no appeal.

It felt to him at this fleeting moment that Pewe was back in his swanky office, in his crisp uniform, standing behind his massive desk. Holding all the aces.

‘You may think you were his father, Roy. But I did the maths. The dates when I was having sex with Sandy correspond precisely with when Bruno was born.’ He smiled that supercilious smile again. ‘You only had to look at him to see he was nothing like you; he looked like me.’

Grace was staring back at him, incredulous, and thinking hard — and trying to hang on to the last fraying threads of his temper. ‘I’m not taking this shit from a jailbird, a bent copper — sorry, ex-copper. I see your game exactly. How does selling advertising space pay? Not too great, I would imagine.’

Still smiling, Pewe said, ‘Sandy had a birthmark, didn’t she, Roy, or did you never get intimate enough with her to see it? You’ll know the one I’m talking about if you did.’

Grace stared at him, saying nothing, feeling that chill wind in his bones again.

‘Like a tiny starfish with two of its arms missing, yes? Just inside her right thigh, about three inches below her pudenda. It drove her wild when I kissed it.’

The wind turned into a gale of cold fury, roiling every cell in his body. No one could ever have seen that birthmark, not even if Sandy was in a bikini, unless they’d been with her close-up when she was naked. As he now realized Cassian Pewe must have been.

‘It’s very simple, Roy. Maybe you don’t want to accept it, but I’m the father. I’ll do whatever it takes to prove it — if I have to have Bruno’s body exhumed, I’ll do it.’

‘You filthy, grubby bastard.’ Grace almost spat the words at him. ‘You’d dig an eleven-year-old boy’s body out of his grave? Let me tell you straight, Cassian. Sandy confirmed in writing that I’m the father and, in any case, you’d never get approval for an exhumation.’

Pewe shook his head and gave another smile that angered Grace even more. More threads were fraying and he was close to losing it. ‘Really, Roy? Sandy was hardly going to tell you that we were having an affair, was she? She obviously felt sorry for you.’ He shrugged.

‘You really are an even bigger tosser than I ever thought, Cassian. You have no place here. Just fucking walk away now and do something to try to prove you exist as more than just a scumbag.’

Pewe covered the five feet separating them in two strides, attempting a punch straight at Roy’s face. The punch fell short and Roy sprang forward in self-defence.

Police officers were prime targets of hate in prison, ranking only just below paedophiles and rapists. Cassian Pewe’s two years behind bars had sharpened up both his reflexes and his fighting skills. He ducked as Grace’s fist caught his right ear a glancing blow, then he threw a sharp left back at Grace’s nose. But Grace saw it coming, side-stepped, grabbed Pewe’s arm and, in a classic ju-jitsu movement, threw him onto his back on the ground between two graves, but fell down with him.

Pewe held one of his hands to Grace’s windpipe. It had been many years since Grace’s time as a beat copper, when getting into a bundle in the centre of Brighton on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday night was commonplace, but he still retained that muscle memory — as he knew, no doubt, Pewe would have too. He knew instinctively that even though Pewe was trying to choke him, his outstretched arm made him vulnerable.

Grabbing Pewe’s right elbow and using the leverage to spin away, he threw his weight back and drove his hips upwards, hyperextending his elbow. He heard a yelp of pain, as the man’s arm twisted desperately to avoid being snapped.

Grace scrambled to maintain his position on top of his foe and held him there long enough for Pewe to gain the composure to speak.

‘You know, Roy, as Bruno’s father I will inherit his trust fund, don’t you?’

‘Oh, fuck you, Cassian. You won’t get away with pretending you slept with Sandy to get your hands on that. You really are way below the lowest of the low, aren’t you? Sandy had her standards, and she’d never have slept with a pile of filth like you.’

Grace let go of him, staggered to his feet, thinking it was game over, and took a step back, his hand hurting badly. But Pewe, much stronger than he had imagined him to be, came hurtling up at him again, landing an agonizing punch straight to his nose. Grace punched blindly back despite his hand hurting more and more, then took another hammer punch to the eye, dazing him and blurring his vision further.

Stumbling to the ground, Grace desperately wiped his eyes clear only to see Pewe right on top of him, cutting off his oxygen again. He couldn’t move his head properly because his balance was still messed up; all he could do for a moment was cover his face defensively with his forearms and try to find some release.

He could hear Pewe hissing in his ear, ‘This is where you join them, Roy, they’re both right beneath you, just a few feet below you.’

And for an instant, he believed it. The choke was tightening and it was getting harder and harder to breathe at all. Pewe wasn’t stopping. Everything started going dark; he felt his head was being squeezed off his neck. Everything was going quiet and the ringing in his ears was becoming louder. He knew these were signs that he was on the brink of passing out.

No, not here, not like this. Not Pewe winning.

He flailed and kicked. Was this where it ended? Dying where Sandy and Bruno were buried? He tried desperately to think what to do, but then heard Cassian Pewe’s voice, faint, in his ear.

‘Die with them, Roy, I’m going to take it all.’

Then he heard the words again.

Somehow, finding strength in his desperation, he wrenched free his left hand and clamped onto the side of Pewe’s head, pushing as hard as he could into his temple. He heard a faint, almost distant scream, but he continued pressing down, his life depending on it, as Pewe’s scream got louder. The choke was loosening but not enough, his head was still pulsing. He sucked down a little air as Pewe, howling in agony now, released his choke hold. Finally, before Pewe had a chance to retaliate, Grace stood, shaking with both rage and adrenaline and took a step backward. He had his balance back but he was still breathing heavily and his vision was still blurred.

He looked down at the disgraced former assistant chief constable and his long-time nemesis with grim satisfaction. Pewe’s coat was ripped and his white shirt collar and front stained with blood and mud. The bottom of it had untucked from his trousers, exposing some of the pale, bare flesh of his stomach, which looked more paunchy than he imagined it would. His legs were spread-eagled, one shoe off.

‘You bastard!’ Pewe screamed as he scrambled to his knees. Grace, still weakened, could see him coming at him again. He knew he had one last shot at this. As if preparing to drop kick a rugby ball over the goal post he swung his right leg back, then drove it forward with every ounce of strength he had in his body, straight up between Pewe’s legs.

Like some marionette on which the strings had been brutally jerked, Pewe momentarily sat bolt upright with a gasp of agony. Then, clasping his hands to his groin, eyes rolling, he writhed on the ground, moaning.

‘That, Cassian, was for disrespecting me after I risked my life saving yours, for all the years you were a complete and utter arrogant shit to me. And, Cassian,’ Grace said, ‘it was for sleeping with my wife.’ He glared down at him. ‘You’re a ghoul. Why don’t you get her body exhumed at the same time as Bruno’s — she’s just over there.’ He pointed his finger in the direction of Sandy’s grave. ‘Then you can shag her again.’