Picture You Dead

65

Sunday, 3 November

Arriving home shortly after 8 p.m., deep in thought, Roy Grace thanked their nanny, Kaitlynn, for coming in on a Sunday and staying so late, but asked her if she could hang on a little longer while he walked the dog. She told him that Noah was sound asleep and had been good as gold all day.

He pulled on his Barbour and a baseball cap, against the falling drizzle, grabbed his torch and took Humphrey out for a short walk. As he walked through the darkness, wondering about Archie Goff’s deposition site outside Hegarty’s house, he called the Force Control Room to get an operation name assigned to the enquiry into the man’s murder. He was given Operation Porcupine and the option to have another if it caused any issues.

He said it was fine.

Where Goff had been deposited could of course have been sheer coincidence. But his body could have been dumped in any number of woods or lay-bys, or outside any of the 430,000 houses and apartment buildings in and around the city of Brighton and Hove and its neighbouring towns and villages.

But it had been dumped on the doorstep of the city’s most famous art forger.

Grace wasn’t a gambling man, but he understood odds. One and a half million people lived in the county of Sussex – East and West. The odds of Goff ending up on Hegarty’s doorstep by sheer chance were astronomical.

He spent the next twenty minutes of his walk, guided by his torch beam, up through the fields behind their house, using the time to call the key members of the new team he was assembling, asking them to attend an 8.30 a.m. briefing on Op Porcupine in the morning.

Before going back inside, he entered the hen run, checked on the birds, which were all in their shed, asleep on their perches, and retrieved four eggs – two dark brown, his favourites, one white and one blue. As an added precaution against foxes, he shut their door with a breezy, ‘Goodnight, girls and Billy!’

Then he went into the kitchen, said goodbye to Kaitlynn and used the date stamp Bruno had bought to mark each egg, then laid them at the back of the tray on the work surface. His son was always in his thoughts. Feeling pensive, he turned his attention to preparing supper, Humphrey sitting on the floor at his feet, looking up expectantly.

‘Still hungry, are you, boy? You’ve already been fed by Kaitlynn, you gannet! Are you ever not hungry?’ Grace asked. Cleo had told him after her last visit to the vet that the vet had said he was five pounds overweight.

But as he removed the cheeses from the fridge, unwrapping them and putting them on a wooden board, Humphrey continued staring up at him, making him feel guilty. He cut a few slivers off and slipped them to the dog, who swallowed them like he was inhaling them, and then looked up at his master for more.

‘Last slice, boy, OK? And don’t tell your mistress.’ He kneeled down and patted the dog, hard. ‘Fatty boom-boom, are you? Or is it all muscle tone?’

Down on his haunches, Humphrey barked at him. One sharp bark. Grace cut him one more slice – a large one. As he did so he heard the front door opening. Quickly, he slipped it into the dog’s jaws and immediately heard Cleo’s rebuke.

‘Hey, you, I saw that!’

Turning towards her, he grinned. ‘I had to – he was fifteen seconds away from dialling the RSPCA to complain we were starving him to death.’

‘Yeah yeah, you big softy!’ She stood there, in mock disapproval, in a leather jacket over a turtleneck sweater and jeans. ‘Overweight dogs are much more likely to get arthritis – no more cheese treats, OK?’

‘Understood.’ He went across and kissed her. ‘Long day, eh, my darling.’

She nodded. ‘How about a couple of Virgin Marys? I really crave one.’

‘Great idea, I’ll make them.’

She grinned and looked at the platter containing an array of cheeses, crackers, nuts, fruit and pickles. ‘I’m impressed.’

He mock-bowed, filling two glasses of cold water from the fridge dispenser and placing them on the kitchen table.

‘You have recently become quite the Domestic God, haven’t you?’ she said with an approving grin.

He grinned back. ‘Every team needs a water carrier.’

‘Is that in the Murder Manual?’

‘Page one! So, what was it you needed to go and check?’

‘Tell you over supper – I think you’ll be impressed. Maybe I should be a detective too!’

‘Oh?’