The Hawk Is Dead

52

Saturday 25 November 2023

Grace eased himself up in bed gently, trying not to disturb Cleo. Feeling barely refreshed at all, but well aware that any further sleep was not going to happen, he reached for his phone. Still nothing from Denton Scroope. Then, out of dutiful habit, he checked the daily Chief Officer’s Briefing Sheet. There was nothing to trouble him on it, and he said a silent prayer to the god of Senior Investigating Officers’ Downtime that there were no major incidents or developments overnight to distract him, or call on his already stretched resources.

Outside, Billy Big Balls crowed. There were mornings when he loved the sound of that rooster, and there were mornings when he could have cheerfully strangled him. Today was one of the latter.

He slipped out of bed, and five minutes later, dressed in his running kit, holding Kyla on her lead and with Humphrey alongside, went out into the garden and opened the rear gate. As Humphrey bounded off ahead a short distance up the hill, then stopped to do a dump, Grace, keeping Kyla on her lead, did his leg swings and a short programme of stretches.

Then, with an excited Kyla running beside him, he headed off up the steadily increasing gradient, chasing after Humphrey. As he ran he was thinking again. What was he missing, overlooking, not getting in the mix? The name Geoffrey Bailey popped up again. The footman who Jack was concerned about, and the only Person of Interest they had from their interviews of the Buckingham Palace staff so far, was due to be formally interviewed on Monday morning by two of his team — Sir Tommy had made the arrangements.

Jack, still very young, was rapidly proving himself to be a smart detective with good instincts. Maybe Geoffrey Bailey would turn out to be a significant witness. Or more? But right now Grace was pinning most of his hopes of a breakthrough on the contents of the diary.

As he ran on up the hill, feeling increasingly exhilarated, he smiled. For the first time since the start of this investigation, he felt really positive. And he’d really hit the jackpot with the weather this morning. It was going to be a glorious autumn day and he was damn well going to take Glenn’s advice and enjoy a few hours of it at least.

He and Cleo had planned to take Noah and Molly for a walk along Noah’s favourite beach, behind Hove Lagoon. Although he suspected the only reason it was Noah’s favourite was because of the range of ice creams served even out of season in the Big Beach Cafe, owned by superstar DJ and Brighton legend Fatboy Slim.

Still smiling, he ran on up to the top of the hill and along the ridge, through a huge field of sheep, with Humphrey trained to ignore them and obediently doing so, staying close to his heels. Kyla, kept on a tight leash, tugged away, as if wondering why she couldn’t meet all these new playmates. They were running along part of the South Downs National Park, which stretched 100 miles from Eastbourne to Winchester. Just a few miles from the village of Plumpton, where Camilla’s family home had been and where she had spent much of her childhood. And as a bonus, the village had always boasted a particularly good pub, he thought.

The sun was tracking its way into a cloudless sky and he was starting to sweat. God, he needed this, he thought. For the past few days, his brains had felt as though they were being steamed inside a pressure cooker, or rather — what were those new things called? — a Thermomix? No... Then he remembered. Air fryers!

Arriving back home, with Kyla off the lead now that they were out of the field of sheep, he collected five eggs from the hen coop, warding off Billy, with his exotic plumage and razor-sharp spurs, who was particularly aggressive to anyone who came near his girls, and carried his booty triumphantly into the kitchen, placing them in the rack along with the other nine eggs that Cleo had collected in the past few days.

‘Eggs for breakfast!’ he announced. ‘I am the Eggman!’

‘Yayyy, Eggman!’ Noah responded.

Molly raised her hands and squealed in solidarity with her brother, even if she didn’t quite get it.

He showered and then changed ready for a few hours on the beach this morning before returning to work. As he went back down into the kitchen, Cleo was sitting at the breakfast bar, leafing through the pages of the Argus, with Molly on her chair beside her, eating scrambled egg from a bowl. Noah lay on the floor, with Kyla beside him, his arms wrapped around her neck. Radio 4 news was on in the background.

‘Who else is still hungry?’ Roy Grace asked.

Noah and Cleo announced they both were.

Grace felt a sudden, almost overwhelming burst of happiness. Everyone he loved in the world, really and truly loved, including the two dogs, was here in this room right now with him — this beautiful kitchen with its view across to the rolling hills of the South Downs and the tiny white pieces of cotton-ball fluff that populated them.

‘OK!’ he said, removing a tub of butter from the fridge. He placed a frying pan on the hob, turned the heat up and shook in several drops of avocado oil. Next he took a plastic container of maple syrup from one of the cupboards, and a loaf of sliced sourdough bread. ‘Who’d like French toast and who’d like an omelette, or—’

His work phone rang, interrupting him.

He hesitated for a moment, so very tempted to ignore it. But that wasn’t an option.

‘Roy Grace,’ he answered.

Instantly, he recognized the intensely serious, earnest voice of Denton Scroope. ‘Roy, I believe I’m making progress deciphering the code. It’s a slow process — whoever wrote this knew what they were doing.’

Feeling a beat of excitement, Grace said, ‘Tell me? What have you learned so far?’

‘This document is real, and not just an exercise, Roy?’

‘It’s real,’ Grace assured him.

‘And the author of it is dead?’

‘Correct.’

‘Then I do not think it would be wise to tell you over the phone what I have deciphered so far, Roy. I really do not. I need to do it in person. If you want to make the best use of time and allow me to keep working on the pages, perhaps you could come over here?’

Yet again, Roy Grace was faced with a horribly familiar choice. Work or family? In his former life with his wife Sandy, he’d destroyed his marriage by choosing work too many times — not that he had any option. And he had no option now. A morning on a beach in Hove with his wife and kids, or protecting the lives of his King and Queen?

At least in this marriage, second time around, he had a wife who understood.