The Hawk Is Dead

3

Monday 20 November 2023

Unlike some of his more sceptical colleagues in the police, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace had no delusions about the reality of global warming. Being a father had made him even more acutely aware of the responsibility of his generation, to be the caretakers of a planet that seemed increasingly endangered — and dangerous — by the day.

He was seated at his desk at 8 a.m. on this glorious, cold but sunny, Monday morning, after a happy weekend with his wife, Cleo, and their children, Noah and Molly. It had been a turbulent few years for his personal life, starting with hearing that his long-missing wife, Sandy, had taken her own life, in Munich, Germany, and that they had a son, Bruno, she had never told him about.

Bruno, a challenging boy of eleven, had come to live with him and Cleo. Then, just when Roy Grace felt he was starting to form a good relationship with the boy, Bruno was killed while crossing a road and looking at his phone.

But Grace was beginning to come to terms with it — at least, as much as he ever would — and there seemed to be some equilibrium in his world right now. And Cleo had found some equilibrium in her world, too, after nearly quitting her job in the mortuary in the aftermath of Bruno’s death, finding it too hard to cope with any young children brought in. But now, in addition to Noah and Molly, plus two dogs, Humphrey and Kyla, she’d taken on charity work as well, as local coordinator for the international book donation charity Book Aid, and was loving it. And Grace was loving the satisfaction it was giving her and the total contrast to her grim days in the mortuary.

But although there might be a semblance of equilibrium in Roy’s domestic world, there wasn’t much in the world beyond the walls of the Sussex Police HQ campus.

Knife crime in the city of Brighton and Hove, and other key hotspots around the county of Sussex, especially Hastings and Crawley, was becoming an epidemic. Whereas a decade ago there’d been an average of twelve murders a year in this county, thanks to the culture of knives, which had begun in London and now spread throughout the nation — partly fuelled by the scourge of youngsters snared into so-called county lines drug dealing — the annual murder rate in Sussex was rising.

And way beyond what, in many ways, was the still relatively safe haven of his home county, there were increasingly dangerous trouble spots, both across England and in almost any direction in the world where you looked. Russia, China, Korea, Africa and even the once dependable USA. Sometimes he wished he had the ability to gather all the leaders of every country in the world, knock their heads together, and tell them to try to appreciate this amazing planet we all inhabited, rather than spreading war and hatred.

An optimist by nature, he always remembered something his late father, Jack, had quoted, stoically, soon after the diagnosis of the cancer that was to kill him. Life may not be the party we’d hoped for, but while we are here, we may as well dance.

Roy Grace always held onto that as a mantra for times of adversity. But it would be sorely tested, too often. Especially when in the middle of the night he would answer his job phone to news of yet another horrific crime, and after arriving at the scene would despair of human nature.

A recent case he had just finished working on was a prime example of this. Operation Spottiswood. A forty-eight-year-old woman, Lisa Dent, who had stabbed to death both her mother, aged seventy-eight, and her sister, Mary, aged fifty-one. She had entombed her dead mother in concrete and walled-up her sister’s body in an inglenook fireplace, which she had then plastered over. She told friends and neighbours that they had relocated to New Zealand, to live with Mary and her new husband. It was Financial Investigator Emily Denyer who led the discovery. Lisa Dent, who was employed as a supermarket cashier, had been living a lifestyle well beyond her earnings ever since the demise of her mother and her sister.

Grace sipped his coffee, and called a member of his team, DS Nicholl. When the detective answered, he said, ‘Nick, I need to talk to you about a couple of details on Op Spottiswood — can you pop in at some time when you’re free?’

‘When’s good, boss? I know you’re pretty tied up at the moment — I am too, I’ve been seconded to The Queen’s visit to Brighton and Hove today. I’m currently with the team sweeping Martlets Hospice — she’s due to arrive here at 11.15. You’re the Investigations lead for Operation Flagship, aren’t you?’

Operation Flagship was the name for the operation to guard The Queen while she was in Sussex.

‘I am. Is everything OK at Martlets? No sign of any protestors?’

‘Not so far, boss. Let’s hope it doesn’t all kick off when Her Maj arrives. Do you have any intel on the protestors?’

‘I’ve just come from a briefing with the Chief,’ Grace said. ‘The intel we have is there’ll be a small Not-My-King protest group at Brighton Station and they’ll be corralled. But generally it seems there’s a lot of positive excitement in the city.’ He smiled wryly. ‘However, hey, prepare for trouble, make it double.’

‘I never had you down as a Pokémon fan, boss.’

‘When you have young children, you start learning all kinds of stuff you never even knew existed.’

‘Tell me about it!’

‘So the Royal Train departs from Brighton at 12.30 for Arundel, then Her Majesty’s safety becomes the responsibility of the West Division police — do you have any more Royal Protection duties after that, Nick?’

‘No, I can come over then, if that works?’

‘That’s fine, I’m not going anywhere, assuming all goes to plan today.’

‘Yeah, and we know what they say about those who assume, don’t we, boss!’ the DS teased, knowing this was one of his boss’s most used phrases.

‘Yes, Nick, they make an ass out of U and ME. I’m impressed you remember this. You have clearly been listening and learning!’

‘I hang off every word you say!’ Nick Nicholl retorted.