You Are Dead

67

Thursday 18 December

The following morning, Roy Grace was checking his notes from the Gold group meeting the previous night, preparing for the 8.30 a.m. briefing. The Gold group had agreed to continue the current media strategy.

On his desk was a note from Glenn Branson, regarding Denise Patterson. Her parents had been located, still in their same family home in Aldwick Bay. Her bedroom had been kept as a shrine and her hairbrush had been sent for DNA testing. They also had the name of the dental practice that the dead woman had attended, and hoped to have identification officially confirmed from her dental records later today.

He was interrupted by a knock on his door and DS Tanja Cale came in, looking flustered, holding a Jiffy bag. ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘sorry to barge in, sir, but this might be important.’

‘No problem, tell me?’

‘We had a call to the Incident Room half an hour ago from the Argus. This package was lying on the Argus’s front doorstep this morning, addressed to you, care of the editor. You’d better take a look.’ She handed him the padded envelope.

He pulled out a plastic bag, inside which were two sheets of paper, one newsprint, the other plain A4 printed paper. The newsprint item was the front page of yesterday’s Argus containing the news story stating that certain items had been received, purporting to have been sent by the killer and Detective Superintendent Roy Grace’s comment about how this had been a mistake.

The second page, contained the typed words:

Grace immediately noticed the spelling of receive. ‘Well, he’s either crap at spelling or he’s done this deliberately.’

DS Cale frowned. ‘Deliberately?’

‘His way of signalling his identity. His message yesterday had the same mistake. And I have a feeling the killer is not illiterate.’ He looked back at the message. ‘Monumental Indian?’ he said.

‘It sounds very cryptic,’ she said. ‘Shall I google Indian restaurants that do takeaways in the city?’

‘Yes, I’m thinking the same thing. He’s enjoying playing with us, setting us a little puzzle.’

He then read the second part again, aloud. ‘Go to the monumental Indian for a takeaway treat.’

During her pregnancy, Cleo had begun doing newspaper crosswords, in particular the big daily one in The Times, and he enjoyed attempting to solve them with her. ‘Monumental Indian.’ He pursed his lips, debating for a moment whether to phone Cleo.

Then, suddenly, he got it.

He pushed his chair back and stood up. ‘I think I know exactly what this means. Let’s go.’