by Peter James
Courtroom One at Lewes Crown Court always felt to Roy Grace as if it had been deliberately designed to intimidate and impress. It didn't carry any higher status than the rest of the courtrooms in this buildIng, but it felt as if it did. Georgian, it had a high, vaulted ceiling, a public gallery up in the gods, oak-panelled walls, dark oak benches and dock, and a balustraded witness stand. At this moment it was presided over by a bewigged Judge Driscoll, way past his sell-by date, who sat, looking half asleep, in a vivid red-backed chair beneath the coat of arms bearing the legend. 'Dieu et mon droit'. The place looked like a theatre set and smelled like an old school classroom.
Now as Grace stood in the witness stand, dressed neatly as he always was for court, in a blue suit, white shirt, sombre tie and polished black lace-ups, looking good outwardly, he felt ragged inside. Part lack of sleep from his date last night - which had been a disaster - and part nerves. Holding the bible with one hand, he rattled his way through the oath, glancing around, taking in the scene as he swore for maybe the thousandth time in his career, by Almighty God, to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
The jury looked the way all juries did, like a bunch of tourists stranded in a coach station. An untidy, ragbag of a group, gaudy pullovers, open-throat shirts and creased blouses beneath a sea of blank faces, all white, ranked in two rows, behind water jugs, tumblers and a mess of loose-leaf jottings. Haphazardly stacked beside the judge were a video player, a slide projector and a huge tape recorder. Below him, the female stenographer peered primly from behind a battery of electronic equipment. An electric fan on a chair swivelled right then left, not having much impact on the muggy late-afternoon air. The public galleries were heaving with press and spectators. Nothing like a murder trial to pull the punters in. And this was the local trial of the year.
Roy Grace's big triumph.
Suresh Hossain sat in the dock, a fleshy man with a pockmarked face, slicked-back hair, dressed in a brown, chalk-striped suit and purple satin tie. He observed the proceedings with a laconic gaze, as if he owned the place and this whole trial had been laid on for his personal entertainment. Slimeball, scumbag, slum landlord. He'd been untouchable for the past decade, but now Roy Grace had finally banged him to rights. Conspiracy to murder. His victim an equally unsavoury business rival, Raymond Cohen. If this trial went the way it should, Hossain was going down for more years than he would survive, and several hundred decent citizens of Brighton and Have would be able to enjoy uieir lives in their homes freed from the ugly shadow of his henchmen making every hour a living hell for them.
His mind drifted back to last night. Claudine. Claudine bloody Lamont. OK, it hadn't helped that he'd arrived for his date an hour and three-quarters late. But it hadn't helped either that her photograph on the U-Date website was, charitably, a good ten years out of date; nor that she'd omitted to put on her details that she was a non drinking, cop-hating vegan, whose sole interest in life appeared to be her nine rescue cats.
Grace liked dogs. He had nothing in particular against cats, but he'd never yet met one that he'd connected with, in the way he almost instantly bonded with any dog. After two and a half hours in a dump of a vegetarian restaurant in Guildford, being lectured and grilled alternately about the free spirits of cats, the oppressive nature of the British police and men who viewed women solely as sex objects, he had been relieved to escape.
Now, after a night of troubled, intermittent sleep and a day of hanging around waiting to be called, he was about to be grilled again. It was still raining this afternoon, but the air was much warmer and clammy. Grace could feel perspiration walking down the small of his back.
The defence silk, who had surprised the court by summoning him as a witness, had the floor now, standing up, arrogant stature, short grey wig, flowing black gown, lips pursed into a grin of rictus warmth. His name was Richard Charwell QC. Grace had encountered him before and it had not been a happy experience, then. He detested lawyers. To lawyers, trials were a game. They never had to go out and risk their lives catching villains. And it didn't matter one jot to them what crimes had been committed.
'Are you Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, stationed at CID headquarters, Sussex House, Hollingbury, Brighton?' the silk asked.
'Yes,' Grace answered. Instead of his usual confident voice, his reply came out of the wrong part of his throat, more like a croak.
'And have you had some dealings with this case?'
'Yes.' Another choked, dry-mouthed sound.
'I now tender this witness.'
There was a brief pause. No one spoke. Richard Charwell QC had the ear of the entire court. A consummate actor with distinguished good looks, he paused deliberately for effect before speaking again, in a sudden change of tone that suggested he had now become Roy Grace's new best friend.
'Detective Superintendent, I wonder if you might help us with a certain matter. Do you have any knowledge about a shoe connected with this case? A brown crocodile-skin slip-on loafer with a gold chain?'
Grace eyeballed him back for some moments before answering. 'Yes, I do.' Now, suddenly, he felt a stab of panic. Even before the barrister spoke his next words, he had a horrible feeling about where this might be going.
Are you going to tell us about the person to whom you took this shoe, Detective Superintendent, or do you want me to squeeze it out of you?'
'Well, sir, I'm not exactly sure what you are getting at.'
'Detective Superintendent, I think you know very well what I'm getting at.'
Judge Driscoll, with the bad temper of a man disturbed from a nap, intervened: 'Mr Charwell, kindly get to the point, we haven't got all day.'
Unctuously, the silk responded, 'Very well, your honour.' Then he turned back to Grace. 'Detective Superintendent, is it not a fact that you have interfered with a vital piece of evidence in this case? Namely this shoe?'
The silk picked it up from the exhibits table and held it aloft for the entire court to see, the way he might have been holding up a sporting trophy he had just won.
'I wouldn't say I had interfered with it all,' Grace responded, angered by the man's arrogance - but, equally, aware this was the silk's game plan, to wind him up, wanting to rile him.
Charwell lowered the shoe, pensively. 'Oh, I see, you don't consider that you have interfered with it?' Without waiting for Grace to answer, he went on. 'I put it to you that you have abused your position by removing a piece of evidence and taking it to a dabbler in the dark arts.'
Turning to Judge Driscoll, he continued. 'Your honour, I intend to show this court that the DNA evidence that has been obtained from this shoe is unsafe, because Detective Superintendent Grace has affected the continuity and caused possible contamination of this vital exhibit.'
He turned back to Grace. 'I am correct, am I not, Detective Superintendent, that on Thursday, March 9th of this year, you took this shoe to a so-called medium in Hastings named Mrs Stempe? And presumably we are going to hear from you that this shoe has now been to another world? A rather ethereal one?'
'Mrs Stempe is a lady of whom I have a very high opinion,' Grace said. 'She--'
'We are not concerned with your opinions, Detective Superintendent, just the facts.'
But the judge's curiosity seemed piqued. 'I think his opinions are perfectly relevant in this issue.' After a few moments of silent stand-off between the defence silk and the judge, Charwell nodded reluctant assent.
Grace continued. 'She has helped me on a number of enquiries in the past. Three years ago Mary Stempe gave me sufficient information to enable me to put a name to a murder suspect. It led directly to his arrest and subsequent conviction.'
He hesitated, aware of the intense gazes of everyone in the room, then went on, addressing the silk. 'If I may respond to your concerns over continuity of the exhibit, sir. If you had checked through the records, which you are entitled to do, and looked at the packaging, you would have seen the label was signed and dated when I removed
I
when I returned it. The defence have been aware of this exhibit , the start, which was found outside Mr Cohen's house on the : he disappeared, and have never asked to examine it/ i you regularly turn to the dark arts in your work as a senior I officer, do you, Detective Superintendent Grace?' �An audible snigger rippled round the courtroom. 1 lf wouldn't call it the dark arts,' Grace said. 'I would call it an itive resource. The police have a duty to use everything at their josal in trying to solve crimes.'
'So would it be fair to say you are a man of the occult? A believer t the supernatural?' the silk asked.
Grace looked at Judge Driscoll, who was staring at him as if it was I himself who was now on trial in this court. Desperately trying to lk of an appropriate response, he shot a glance at the jury, then public gallery, before he faced the silk again. And suddenly it le to him.
Grace's voice notched up a gear, more strident, more confident, uddenly. 'What is the first thing this court required me to do when it entered the witness stand?' he asked.
Before the silk could respond, Grace answered for him. 'To swear on the Holy Bible.' He paused for it to sink in. 'God is a supernatural being - the supreme supernatural being. In a court that accepts witnesses taking an oath to a supernatural being, it would be Strange if I and everyone else in this room did not believe in the supernatural.'
'I have no more questions,' the silk said, sitting back down. The prosecution counsel, also in a wig and silk gown, stood up and addressed Judge Driscoll. 'Your honour, this is a matter I want to raise in chambers.'
'It's rather unusual,' Judge Driscoll responded, 'but I'm satisfied that it has been dealt with properly. However,' and now his eyes turned to Grace, 'I would hope cases that come before my court are based on evidence rather than the utterings of Mystic Megs.' Almost the whole court erupted into laughter. The trial moved on, and another defence witness was called, a bagman for Suresh Hossain called Rubiro Valiente. Roy Grace stayed to listen while this piece of Italian low-life told a pack of lies, which
were exposed in rapid succession by the prosecution counsel. By the afternoon recess, the court was so agog with the audacity of the lies that Roy Grace began to hope the business of the shoe might have been overshadowed.
His hopes were dashed when he went outside into Lewes High Street to get some fresh air and a sandwich. Across the street, the news banner headline of the local paper, the Argus, shouted to the world:
POLICE OFFICER ADMITS TO OCCULT PRACTICES
Suddenly, he felt badly in need of a drink and a fag.
10
The hunger wouldn't go away no matter how hard Michael tried to block it from his mind. His stomach reminded him with a steady dull ache as if something were chafing away inside it. His head felt light and his hands shaky. He kept thinking of food, of meaty burgers with thick-cut fries and ketchup. When he pushed those from his mind, the smell of broiling lobsters replaced it; then barbecued corn; grilled garlicky mushrooms; eggs frying; sausages; sizzling bacon.
The lid was pressing down against his face and he began to panic again, snatching at the air, gulping it greedily. He closed his eyes, tried to imagine he was fine, he was somewhere warm, on his yacht - in the Med. Lapping water all around, gulls overhead, balmy Mediterranean air. But the sides of the coffin were pushing in. Compressing him. He fumbled for the torch resting on his chest and switched it on, the battery feeble and rapidly failing now. Carefully unscrewing the cap of the whisky bottle with trembling fingers, he brought the neck to his lips. Then he took one miserly sip, swilling the liquid around his parched, sticky mouth, stretching every drop out as far as it would go, savouring every second. The panic subsided and his breathing slowed.
Only some minutes after he had swallowed, after the warm burning sensation that spread down his gullet and through his stomach had faded away, did he turn his concentration back to the task of screwing the lid back on. Half a bottle left. One sip per hour, on the hour.
Routine.
He switched the torch off to conserve the last dregs of juice. Every movement was an effort. His limbs were stiff and he shivered with cold one moment, then broke out in a clammy, feverish sweat the next. His head pounded and pounded - he was desperate for some paracetamol. Desperate for noise above him, for voices. To get out.
Food.
By some small miracle, the batteries in the walkie-talkie were the same as those in the torch. At least he still had those in reserve. At least there was one bit of good news. The only good news. And the other bit was that in an hour he could have another sip of whisky.
Routine kept the panic attacks at bay.
You kept sane if you had a routine. Five years back he had crewed on a thirty-eight-footer sloop across the Atlantic, from Chichester to Barbados. Twenty-seven days at sea. For fifteen of them they'd had a gale on the nose that not once dropped below a force seven, and at times gusted up to ten and eleven. Fifteen days of hell. Watches four hours on and four hours off. Every wave shook every bone in his body, as they crashed down again and again, every chain rattling, every shackle smacking against the decking or the rigging, every knife, fork and plate clattering in its locker. They had got through that by routine. By measuring each day into groups of hours. And then by spacing those hours with small treats. Bars of chocolate. Sips of drink. Pages of a novel. Glances at the compass. Taking turns pumping the bilges.
Routine gave you structure. Structure gave you perspective. And perspective gave you a horizon.
And when you looked at the horizon, you felt calmer.
Now he measured each hour with a small sip of whisky. Half a bottle left, and his horizon was the hour hand of his watch. The watch Ashley had bought him, a silver-rimmed Longines with luminous Roman numerals. It was the classiest watch he had ever owned. Ashley had great taste. She had class. Everything about her was classy, the kink in her long, brown hair, the way she walked, the confidence with which she talked, her classically beautiful features. He loved walking into a room with her. Anywhere. Eyes turned, stared. Jesus, he loved that! There was something special about her. Totally unique.
His mother said that too, and usually she never approved of his girlfriends. But Ashley was different. Ashley had worked on his mum and charmed her. That was another thing he loved about her, she could charm anyone. Even the most miserable damned client. He fell in love with her the day she walked into the office he shared
With Mark, for a job interview. Now, just six months later, they were getting married.
His crotch and thighs itched like hell. Nappy rash. Long back he'd given up on his bladder. Twenty-six hours had passed now.
Something must have happened, but he had no idea what. Twenty-six fucking hours of shouting into the walkie-talkie, dialling his mobile and getting the same damned message. No service.
Tuesday. Ashley wanted the stag night to be well before the wedding. You'll get drunk and feel like shit. I don't want you feeling like that on our wedding day. Have it early in the week to give yourself time to recover.
He pushed up with his hands for the hundredth time. Maybe the two hundredth time. Maybe even the thousandth time. It made no difference. He had already tried grinding a hole in the lid with the only hard implement he had, the casing of his walkie-talkie. The mobile and the torch were both plastic. But the casing still wasn't tough enough.
He switched on the walkie-talkie again. 'Hello? Is anyone there? Hello?'
Static was there.
A dark thought occurred to him. Was Ashley in on this? Was this why she'd been so insistent that he should have the stag party early in the week, on Tuesday? So he could be locked in here - wherever here was - for a whole twenty-four hours, longer, without it causing any problem?
Never. She knew he was claustrophobic, and she didn't have a cruel bone in her body. She always put everyone else first, was always thinking about other people's needs.
The number of presents she had bought for his mother and himself had staggered him. And everything exquisitely appropriate. Her f
avourite perfume. A CD of her favourite singer, Robbie Williams, a cashmere jumper she had been hankering after. A Bose radio he had coverted. How did Ashley find out all these things? It was a knack, a gift, just one of the endless list of attributes that made her such a special person.
And made him the luckiest man in the world.
The torch beam dimmed, noticeably. He switched it off again to
conserve the battery and lay still in the darkness again. He could hear his breathing getting faster. What if?
If they never came back?
It was nearly 11.30. He waited, listening for a gaggle of voices that would tell him his friends were back.
Jesus, when he got out of there they weren't half going to regret this. He looked at his watch again. Twenty-five to midnight. They would be along soon, any minute now.
They had to be.
11
ldy stood over him, grinning, blocking the sunlight, deliberately tickling him. Her blonde hair swung down either side of her face, brushing his cheeks.
'Hey! I have to read - this report -1--'
'You're so boring, Grace, you always have to read!' She kissed his ' forehead. 'Read, read, read, work, work, work!' She kissed his forehead again. 'Don't you still fancy me?'
She was wearing a skimpy sun dress, her breasts almost falling Out the top; he caught a glimpse of her long, tanned legs, her hem riding up her thighs, and suddenly he felt very horny.
He reached up his arms to cup her face, pulling her down to him, Staring into those trusting blue eyes, feeling so incredibly - intensely - deeply - in love with her.
'I adore you,' he said.
'Do you, Grace?' Flirting. 'Do you really adore me more than your work?' She pulled her head back, pouted her lips quizzically.
'I love you more than anything in--'
Darkness suddenly. As if someone had pulled out a plug.
Grace heard the echo of his voice in cold, empty air.
'Sandy!' he shouted, but the sound stayed trapped in his throat.
The sunlight faded into a weak orange glow; street lighting leaking in around the bedroom curtains.