Love You Dead

by Peter James

  Both British detectives were chewing gum to mask the reek of alcohol on their breath. They followed the Extradition Unit members and a prison officer in a black uniform and sturdy boots, clutching a bunch of keys, through a series of double doors, each being locked behind them as they entered the prison’s interior.

  Glenn Branson’s main experience of prisons had been the grim Victorian one just outside Brighton, in Lewes. This one, despite being more modern, had the same claustrophobic feel, with bars, grilles and bare walls, the same slightly rank smell. Potting, who had mumbled about badly needing a toilet, ambled a few steps behind him along a corridor lined on both sides with cell doors. There was a smell of cigarette smoke. A male voice shouted out something in French, which was ignored.

  They stopped outside a door. The prison officer slid back an inspection hatch and peered in, then indicated to Branson and Potting to take a look too.

  Despite his pounding head, Glenn Branson felt a beat of excitement as he peered at the motionless, slumbering man inside, facing the wall, his head obscured with a blanket.

  Two other prison officers materialized from the far end of the corridor. The one they had followed in turned to them and said, ‘Attendez!’

  He unlocked the door and went in, accompanied by the other two officers and the doctor, and approached the bed.

  ‘Got to find a toilet,’ Potting whispered to Branson. ‘Bloomin’ stomach’s on fire.’

  ‘We’ll stop on the way out, Norman.’

  Then they heard a shout from inside the cell. ‘Non! Non! Ce n’est pas possible!’

  Branson stepped in and saw the first officer pull the blanket back. Then he stood stock-still, staring in disbelief. ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’

  79

  Wednesday 11 March

  Roy Grace was not sleeping properly. His mind was still working overtime and, in addition, Noah was teething and cried almost continuously, despite his and Cleo’s efforts to soothe him.

  Each time Noah was quiet and asleep again, Grace had gone back to bed and closed his eyes, listening to the sounds of his son’s breathing. Terrible memories of several cot deaths which he had attended when he’d been a uniformed officer still haunted him. He knew that now Noah could turn himself over in bed, there was less danger of him overheating. But there was still a risk, nonetheless.

  As he lay awake, an endless succession of names presented themselves to him in sequence, like newsflash footage. Jodie Danforth; Jodie Bentley; Jodie Carmichael; Jemma Smith; Judith Forshaw. And now from his late phone call with Kelly Nicholls he had added another name, Cassie Danforth. Jodie’s sister who had died in a cliff fall when Jodie had been out for a walk with her on a family holiday.

  Her sister dead in a cliff fall. Her fiancé dead in a fall from a precipice. Her first husband dead from a snake bite. Her second husband dead from a snake bite. A string of names, some real, some fake.

  He’d googled Christopher Bentley and learned he was an eminent herpetologist, and the author of books on venomous and poisonous creatures. His wife, Jodie, was mentioned but there was no photograph. Bentley also had an elaborate website, but it was basically an information-sharing forum for other herpetologists, and there had been no posts on it, other than a few condolence messages, for several years.

  His search also revealed a wide range of obituaries, including The Times, Telegraph, Guardian and Independent, as well as a humorous and slightly cynical article in the Spectator, talking about the irony of a man who had met many of the world’s most dangerous snakes, scorpions and spiders in their natural habitat, yet had died from a bite at his own home. The article went on to warn people of the danger of experts. It quoted the late Peter Ustinov as saying that if the world was to explode, the last words anyone would hear would be an expert explaining why it couldn’t happen.

  Despite all the coverage on her first husband, Grace could find nothing at all, other than a few brief mentions, about the earlier life of Jodie Bentley. But in the past few weeks there was plenty on her in relation to the tragic death of Walt Klein and the financial shenanigans surrounding him.

  Through the night that was both long and far too short at the same time, a course of action steadily began to take shape in his mind.

  Finally, he’d lapsed into deep sleep. It seemed almost moments later that his alarm was buzzing beside his face. It was 5.00 a.m. He tapped the off button, instantly awake. Had to be awake. Snoozing wasn’t an option. And he was feeling strangely energized.

  He rolled over in the darkness and kissed Cleo’s cheek. She did not stir. Then, very gently and slowly, trying not to wake her, he slid out of bed into the chilly air. He gulped down the glass of water on the table beside him, then went through into the bathroom, closed the door behind him, switched on the light and peered blearily into the mirror. He looked ragged, he thought. He looked like shit. Yet he felt positive.

  His master plan was a gamble; Cassian Pewe might reject it out of hand. But he was fired with excitement. He squeezed toothpaste onto his electric toothbrush and worked around his mouth for the next two minutes, feeling even more sure of what he needed to do.

  He went through to Noah’s room in his dressing gown and slippers and gently placed his hand on his son’s back, checking that his breathing felt fine; then, careful not to wake him, went downstairs. Humphrey came bounding up to him.

  Grace knelt and stroked him. ‘I’ll take you out, Humph, but I’m afraid no run today. Make it up to you tomorrow, OK?’

  He opened the back door and walked out into the streaky dawn light with a torch. The smell of wet grass and the silence of the countryside gave him an intense feeling of calm. He loved it here. This little piece of paradise. The moon was low in the sky. He felt just how insignificant he was in the universe. A tiny speck. Here for a fleeting moment in time.

  Humphrey squatted and did a dump, then ran towards him, looking pleased as punch.

  ‘Good boy!’ He knelt and patted him. He walked over to the hen coop and, in the beam of his torch, saw all five sitting on the roof, not yet ready to start their day.

  ‘Hi, girls! What are your plans today? Maybe lay a few eggs? Rob a bank? Get up to some internet fraud? Help me lock up some villains?’

  He went back inside and microwaved a bowl of porridge. While the machine was whirring he took six red grapes from the fridge. Cleo had read somewhere that six red grapes a day warded off ageing and all kinds of disease. He loved how she took such a keen interest in health matters.

  Then he made the first of several phone calls, apologizing for the early hour, brimming inside with excitement. It was a gamble. A massive gamble. But he was convinced it was the right thing to try.

  When he had finished, he ate his porridge, which was now tepid, but in his eagerness to get to the office, he barely noticed. He hurried upstairs. Cleo was sitting up in bed, checking messages on her iPhone.

  ‘Lots on at work today?’ he asked.

  ‘Five post-mortems,’ she said. ‘You?’

  He told her quickly about his plan.

  ‘I like it!’ she replied. ‘But could you really do that?’

  He shrugged. ‘I’m going to give it a go!’

  He showered and shaved, and dressed quickly, then & left & the house shortly after 6 a.m. As he pulled into his parking slot outside Sussex House at 6.20 a.m., his phone rang.

  It was Glenn Branson. Grace did a quick calculation – he would be an hour ahead of UK time in France.

  ‘Bonjour!’ he said. ‘Ça va?’

  ‘Merde!’ Branson replied, grimly. ‘I think that’s the right word for it.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  Grace listened for some moments in almost stunned silence. ‘Disappeared? Escaped?’

  ‘Looks like he used that old Ted Bundy trick of faking a broken arm. Lured a prison officer into his cell in the hospital wing to help him remove his T-shirt for bed, overpowered him, whacked him unconscious, tied and gagged him and put him on his bunk, facing th
e wall, with a blanket over his head. Left the two halves of the plaster cast in the bed with him.’

  ‘Didn’t anyone check his bloody arm when he was booked into custody?’

  ‘Clearly not. He was taken straight to the prison hospital.’

  ‘Even so, how did he get out of there – surely it was secure?’

  ‘Nobody knows at this stage. Perhaps through the sewers or drains.’

  ‘Shit!’ Grace responded when he had finished. ‘Shit!’ he repeated. ‘That seems to be his MO. He’s a cunning bastard – I’ve heard of wanted people using a prop to steer attention away from their faces when they travel through airports. That’s what he must have done. But how the hell did the French authorities let this happen? He’s got away twice, he must be having a right bloody laugh on us.’ God, even though it wasn’t his fault, how on earth was he going to explain this to Pewe? he wondered.

  ‘Let’s hope he had to wade through plenty of merde,’ Branson replied.

  ‘Yeah. So what’s the French for the stuff we’re in now – deep doo-doo?’

  80

  Wednesday 11 March

  Having woken full of excitement, Grace now felt totally deflated. Edward Crisp, the big prize he had been expecting Glenn and Norman to escort home, had vanished. Now they were flying home alone. He was increasingly fretting about the reaction he would get from his ACC.

  He phoned the mobile number of their Interpol case officer in London and got his voicemail. He left a message, informing him of the disastrous developments in Lyon, and asking the officer to call him back urgently.

  Five minutes later, mug of coffee in his hand, he sat down at his desk deep in troubled thought. He called Cassian Pewe’s mobile but it went to voicemail. Was nobody bloody answering their phones this morning? He left a message.

  He briefly checked what had happened overnight on his computer but there was nothing of significance to him – just the usual muggings, robberies, fights, vehicle thefts – a Mercedes and a BMW – mispers, break-ins and RTCs.

  Next he checked his emails and saw one from his NYPD detective friend, Pat Lanigan.

  Call me, pal, I’ve something of interest for you.

  The email had been sent at 10 p.m. last night, Eastern time.

  Grace did a quick mental calculation. New York was five hours behind the UK. 6.30 a.m. here; 1.30 a.m. in New York. He’d wait a few hours before ringing him back. Instead he made a phone call to someone for whom he had great respect.

  It was answered by the eager-sounding voice of Ray Packham, who had recently retired, on health grounds, from the High Tech Crime Unit.

  ‘Ray, it’s Roy Grace. I’m sorry it’s so early, but I have something I need to run by you. Are you OK to talk?’

  ‘Roy! Good to hear from you. I’ve been up for ages, bored out of my mind, if you want to know the truth. How can I help you?’

  Grace told him. When he had finished the conversation, feeling very upbeat about his plan, he sat still, reflecting. Crisp had escaped from his cell somewhere between lock-up at 9 p.m., French time, last night and 7 a.m. their time this morning. All his possessions would have been taken from him, surely, when he had been booked into custody there? He would only have had the prison officer’s uniform and gun. Enough to have enabled him to hijack a car and flee the country. He could be in Switzerland or Italy or Germany by now. Or Austria, he thought, looking at the map of Europe on his wall.

  God, they’d had the evil bastard. How the hell had he done it? How the hell had he pulled off his escape again? No doubt with the same cunning and planning he’d used to escape from his underground hideout in Brighton back in December. Now he was playing international hide and seek. One certainty, he knew, was that Sussex Police did not have the resources, however heinous Crisp’s crimes, to embark on an international manhunt. They would have to rely on Europol and Interpol for that.

  Right now he had to focus on Operation Spider. If there really was a ‘black widow’ operating in the city, and the evidence pointed to it, he needed to stop her before another victim died. But the plan he had concocted during the night seemed fraught with problems. In a different era he could just have gone ahead with it on his own initiative. Now he had to seek permission, and jump through a whole bunch of potentially hostile hoops.

  Which might have fatal consequences.

  He needed to strengthen his evidence in every way that he could, and one thought had been going through his mind during the night on how he might possibly do that.

  He googled ‘saw-scaled viper’, then leaned forward, peering closely at his screen as he scrolled through a wide range of information and links about the snake and its genus, Echis. He was looking for one very specific thing. Something that Jodie might have slipped up on. It was just a hunch, a long shot, but worth a few minutes of his time.

  As he read what came up, he felt a beat of excitement. ‘Yes!’ he said, punching the air. He read it carefully again, then phoned Guy Batchelor, who was acting as the office manager for Operation Spider. ‘Guy, the venomous reptile expert from London Zoo who came down to accompany the team that searched Shelby Stonor’s home, Dr Rearden right?’

  ‘Yes, boss, he said if someone was needed to advise on the snake bite, we should contact the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, who are world-renowned experts.’

  ‘Liverpool, bugger, that’s quite a distance. Can you contact them as soon as you can and see if there’s anyone who could get down here today?’

  As he ended the call, his phone rang. It was ACC Pewe. Grace took a deep breath.

  Pewe was not as angry as he had expected, but he guessed the reason why. This was something Pewe would be able to bank and hold against him at a later date, however much it had not been his fault.

  ‘What a bloody mess, Roy,’ he whined down the phone.

  ‘Crisp? Yes, sir, I agree with you. But not Operation Spider. I have a strategy – I’d like to come and talk it through with you. Do you have any time free today?’

  ‘I’m free now,’ his boss replied. ‘I’ve one hour.’

  81

  Wednesday 11 March

  At a few minutes before 7 a.m., the security guard at the barrier of Malling House, the sprawling Sussex Police Headquarters where Major Crimes was soon going to be housed, waved to Roy Grace as he passed through.

  He drove his unmarked Mondeo up the steep hill, passing the car park to his right for the Road Policing Unit and the Call Centre, and pulled up at the entrance to the visitor car park. He held his access pass up against the electronic reader and the barrier rose.

  He reversed into a bay in the almost empty car park, then went into the reception area of the prefab building and exchanged pleasantries with the duty receptionist, whom he had known for years.

  He sent a text to Guy Batchelor telling him to delay the morning briefing until 9 a.m., then made his way through the back entrance into the grand Queen Anne building that housed the senior staff of Sussex Police. He greeted his old friend, Acting Superintendent Steve Curry, then switching his phone to silent, went up the stairs and into Cassian Pewe’s majestic office, with its view across the trim lawn below and one of the modern housing estates of the county town of Lewes beyond.

  The ACC rose from behind his large desk to greet him. Dressed in immaculate uniform, he extended a delicate hand.

  ‘Good to see you, Roy,’ he said. He indicated a leather chair in front of the desk.

  As Grace sat down, Pewe asked, ‘Tea or coffee?’

  ‘Black coffee would be good, sir, thank you.’

  ‘I see, a heavy night?’

  ‘No, sir,’ he said, always aware of Pewe’s hidden agenda in every question he asked. ‘An early night, actually, but that’s hard with a young baby.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Pewe spoke into his phone, ordering the coffee, then looked across the desk at Grace. ‘How is little Noah?’

  ‘Getting feistier by the day – and night.’

  Pewe gave him a patronizing smile.
‘And do I understand you went to Munich for a couple of days?’

  ‘No, sir, just the one day. Sandy has surfaced, after ten bloody years. She’d been involved in a traffic accident out there – hit by a taxi.’

  Pewe avoided eye contact. ‘She’s alive?’

  ‘Badly injured.’

  He was dying to say to Pewe, So she wasn’t buried in my back garden after all, was she? Perhaps that was why the ACC wouldn’t meet his eye.

  ‘Oh? I’m sorry to hear that. And where does that leave you, Roy?’

  ‘I’ve moved on, sir. But I had to go and see her.’

  ‘Of course you had to.’

  ‘There’ll be a lot of legalities to resolve, but that’s for another day.’

  There was an awkward silence for some moments. Pewe finally broke it. ‘So, Roy – you mentioned a strategy?’

  The assistant brought in the coffee and a plate of shortbread biscuits.

  ‘Yes.’ He sipped the scalding coffee, waited until she had left the room, closing the door behind her, then talked the ACC through it.

  When he had finished, Cassian Pewe stared at him in total silence, his expression impossible to read. Then he said, ‘This is insane, Roy.’

  ‘It’s a risk, sir, I agree with that.’

  ‘Have you thought about all the different ways it could backfire on us?’

  ‘Yes, I have. But in my view we are dealing with a monster potentially every bit as evil as Edward Crisp. It’s looking like she might have murdered three men, and we have no way of telling, at this moment, if there are any others before Bentley she may have killed. We’re currently searching the UK and internationally for potential matches. This might be a way to flush her out.’

  ‘Or to get one of our officers killed?’

  ‘Not if we risk assess it properly, sir.’