You Are Dead

111

Sunday 4 January

Instead of heading home from the airport, as he had been intending, Roy Grace carried on down the A23, past the turn-off to Henfield, and then joined the A27 which took him up towards Hollingbury.

A few minutes later he turned off, drove down a steep hill, with the Asda superstore to his right, and entered the front car park of Sussex House, the CID HQ. It was 4.15 p.m.

The Christmas decorations were still up, but there was a subdued atmosphere. A cloud had hung over the future of this entire building ever since the merger of Sussex and Surrey CID departments.

In his casual clothes, he strode along the corridors towards MIR-1, then entered, greeting several members of his team who had remained, until now at any rate, to tidy up all the outstanding elements of Operation Haywain.

Norman Potting stood up from behind his workstation. ‘Chief!’ he said. ‘How are you? You’re limping.’

‘I’m on the mend, thanks, Norman. Or, at least, I was. Happy New Year! How are you?’

‘Happy New Year to you, too. Chief, I think you ought to take a look at this — it just came in.’ Potting was pointing at his computer screen.

Grace walked over, behind the row of people seated beside Potting, then leaned over his shoulder and stared at the screen.

On it was an email, sent from a Hotmail account. The sender’s name was just a meaningless row of letters and numbers.

‘Read the email,’ Potting said.

Grace read it.

Dear Detective Sergeant Potting, it was very remiss of me not to get back to you on your prostate problems that you mentioned when you last came to see me, but I’ve been busy on an exciting new project. There is an excellent organization that has all the latest information on this vile disease. You can contact them on www.prostatehelp.me.uk.

Good luck, it was nice meeting you.

Bye for now!

Dr Edward Crisp