by Peter James
Was this where Sandy had been earlier in the week? Was this where she came regularly, walking past the naked bronze on the plinth and the bearded head in the fountain who was advertising Paulaner, to sit and drink beer and stare at the lake?
And with whom?
A new man? New friends?
And, if she was alive, what went on in her mind? What did she think about the past, about him, their life together, all their dreams and promises and times shared?
He took out Dick Pope’s map and looked again at the fuzzy circle, orienting himself.
‘Bottoms up!’
Kullen, wearing aviator sunglasses now, had raised his glass. Grace raised his own. ‘Skol! ’
Shaking his head amiably, the German said, ‘No, we say Prost!’
‘Prost!’ Grace returned, and they clinked glasses.
‘To success,’ Kullen said. ‘Or perhaps that’s not what you want, I think?’
Grace gave a short, bitter laugh, wondering if the German had any idea just how true that was. And almost as if on cue, his phone beeped twice.
It was a message from Cleo.
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57
Probationary PC David Curtis and Sergeant Bill Norris climbed out of the patrol car a short distance up from the address they had been given. Newman Villas was an archetypal Hove residential street of tired Victorian terraced houses. Once they had been single-occupancy homes, with servants’ quarters upstairs, but now they were carved up into smaller units. A battery of estate-agents’ boards ran the length of the street, most of them advertising flats and bedsits to let.
The front door of number 17 looked like it hadn’t seen a lick of paint in a couple of decades, and most of the names on the entryphone panel were handwritten and faded. S. Harrington looked reasonably fresh.
Bill Norris pressed the button. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘used to be just four of us on a stakeout. Today it can be twenty officers. I got into trouble once. There was a streetwalker who was a customer of this deli we was staking out. I wrote in the log, “Nice bum and tits.” Didn’t go down well. I got a right bollocking over that, I did, from the station inspector!’ He rang the bell again.
They waited in silence for some moments. When there was still no answer, Norris pressed all the other buttons, one after another. ‘Time to ruin someone’s Sunday lie-in.’ He tapped his watch. ‘Maybe she’s in church?’ He chuckled.
‘Yeah?’ a wasted voice suddenly crackled.
‘Flat 4. I lost me key. Could you let me in please?’ Norris pleaded.
Moments later there was a sharp rasp, then a click from the lock.
The sergeant pushed the door open, turning to his young colleague and lowering his voice. ‘Don’t tell ’em it’s the law – they won’t let you in then.’ He touched his nose conspiratorially. ‘You’ll learn.’
Curtis looked at him, wondering for how many more patrols he was going to have to endure this pain. And hoping to hell someone would pull out his plug if he ever started becoming like this sad git.
They walked along a short, musty-smelling corridor, past two bicycles and a shelf piled with post, mostly fliers from local pizza and Chinese takeaways. On the first-floor landing they heard the sound of gunshots, followed by James Garner’s stentorian tones: ‘Freeze!’ It was coming from behind a door bearing the number ‘2’.
They climbed on, past the second-floor door numbered ‘3’. The staircase narrowed and at the top they reached a door numbered ‘4’.
Norris knocked loudly. No answer. He knocked again, more loudly. And again. Then he looked at the probationary. ‘All right, son. One day this’ll be you. What would you do?’
‘Break the door open?’ Curtis ventured.
‘And if she’s busy having nooky in there?’
Curtis shrugged. He didn’t know the answer.
Norris knocked again. ‘Hello! Ms Harrington? Anyone in? Police!’
Nothing.
Norris turned his burly frame sideways and barged hard against the door. It shook, but did not yield. He tried harder and this time the door burst open, splintering the frame, and he tumbled in to a narrow, empty corridor, grabbing the wall to steady himself.
‘Hello! Police!’ Norris called out, advancing forward, then he turned to his junior officer. ‘Keep in my footsteps. Don’t touch anything. We don’t want to contaminate any evidence.’
Curtis tiptoed clumsily, holding his breath, in the sergeant’s footsteps along the corridor. Ahead of him the sergeant pushed open a door, then stopped in his tracks.
‘Bloody hell!’ Norris said. ‘Oh, bloody hell!’
When he caught up with the sergeant, the young PC stopped in his tracks, staring ahead in revulsion and shock. A cold sensation crawled in his guts. He wanted desperately to look away but could not. Morbid fascination that went way beyond professional duty held his gaze rooted to the bed.
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58
Roy Grace stared at the message from Cleo on his phone’s display:
Sort yourself out in Munich. Call me when you get back home.
No signature. No kiss. Just a bald, pissed-off statement.
But at least she had finally responded.
He composed a terse reply, in his mind, and instantly discarded it. Then he composed another, and discarded that. He had stood her up for a Sunday lunch date in order to go to Munich to try to find his wife. Just how good must that have sounded to her?
But surely she could be a little sympathetic? He’d never kept Sandy’s disappearance a secret – Cleo knew all about it. What choice did he have? Surely anyone would be doing what he was doing now, wouldn’t they?
And suddenly, fuelled by his tiredness, stress, the incessant heat of the sun beating down on his head, he felt a flash of anger at Cleo.
Hell, woman, can’t you bloody understand?
He caught Marcel Kullen’s eye and shrugged. ‘Women.’
‘Everything is OK?’
Grace put down his phone and cradled his heavy glass in both hands. ‘This beer is OK,’ he said. ‘More than OK.’ He took a large swig. Then he sipped his scalding coffee. ‘Nothing much else is. You know?’
The Kriminalhauptkommisar smiled, as if he was unsure how to respond.
A man at the next table was puffing on a briar pipe. Smoke drifted across them and the smell suddenly reminded Grace of his father, who also smoked a pipe. He remembered all the rituals. His father ramming long, slim white pipe cleaners, that rapidly turned brown, down the stem. Scraping out the rim with a small brass instrument. Mixing the tobacco with his large fingers, filling the bowl, lighting it with a Swan Vesta match, then tamping it down and relighting it. The living room instantly filling with the tantalizing aroma of the blue-grey smoke. Or, if they were out fishing in a small boat, or on the end of the Palace Pier, or on the mole of Shoreham Harbour, Roy use to watch the direction of the wind when his father took out his pipe, then ensure he stood downwind of him to catch those wisps.
He wondered what his father would have done in this situation. Jack Grace had loved Sandy. When he was sick in the hospice, dying far too young, at fifty-five, from bowel cancer, she used to spend hours at his bedside, talking to him, playing Scrabble with him, reading through the Sporting Life with him as he selected his bets for each day and placing them for him. And just chatting. They were like best friends from the day Grace had first brought Sandy home to meet his parents.
Jack Grace had always been a man contented with what he had, happy to remain a desk sergeant until his retirement, tinkering with cars and following the horses in his free time, never with any ambition to rise higher in the force. But he was a thorough man, a stickler for details, procedures, for tidying up loose ends. He would have approved of Roy coming here, of course he would. No doubt about it.
Bloody hell, Roy thought suddenly. Munich is just full of ghosts.
‘Tell me, Roy,’ Kullen asked, ‘how well was Inspector Pope knowing Sandy?’
Bringing him back to re
ality, to his task here today, Grace replied, ‘Good question. They were our best friends – we went on holiday with them, every year for years.’
‘So he would not easily be mistook – ah – mistaken?’
‘No. Nor his wife.’
A young man, tall and fit-looking, in a yellow shirt and red trousers, was clearing glasses away from the vacated places next to them. He had fashionable gelled fair hair.
‘Excuse me,’ Grace asked him. ‘Do you speak any English?’
‘Too right!’ he grinned.
‘You’re an Aussie?’
‘’Fraid so!’
‘Brilliant! Maybe you can help me. Were you here last Thursday?’
‘I’m here every day. Ten in the morning till midnight.’
From his jacket pocket Grace pulled a photograph of Sandy and showed it to him. ‘Have you seen this person? She was here, on Thursday, lunchtime.’
He took the photograph and studied it intently for some moments. ‘Last Thursday?’
‘Yes.’
‘No, mate, doesn’t ring a bell. But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t here. There’s like hundreds of people every day.’ He hesitated. ‘Shit, I see so many faces, they all become a blur. I can ask my colleagues if you like.’
‘Please,’ Grace asked. ‘It’s really important to me.’
He went off and returned, a few minutes later, with a whole group of young clearer-uppers, all in the same uniform.
‘Sorry, mate,’ he said. ‘This is a bunch of the stupidest people on the planet. But the best I could do!’
‘Yeah, you can fuck off, Ron!’ one of the young men said, a short, stocky Aussie with a head of hair that looked like a pin cushion. He turned to Grace. ‘Sorry about my mate, he’s just retarded. Happened at birth – we try to humour him.’
Grace put on a forced smile and handed him the photograph. ‘I’m looking for this person. I think she was here last Thursday at lunchtime. Just wondering if any of you guys recognize her?’
The stocky Australian took the photograph, studied it for some moments, then passed it around. Each of them in turn shook their head.
Marcel Kullen dug his hand in his pocket and pulled out a bunch of business cards. He stood up and handed one to each of the crew. Suddenly they all looked more serious.
‘I will come back tomorrow,’ the police officer said. ‘I will have a copy of this photograph for each of you. If she comes back, please call me immediately on my mobile number on the card, or at the Landeskriminalamt number. It is very important.’
‘No worries,’ Ron said. ‘If she comes back we’ll call.’
‘I would really appreciate that.’
‘You got it.’
Grace thanked them.
As they returned to their duties, Kullen picked up his beer and held his glass out, staring Grace in the eye. ‘If your wife is in Munich, I will find her for you, Roy. What is that you are saying in England? Whatever takes it?’
‘Close enough.’ Grace raised his glass and touched the German’s. ‘Thank you.’
‘I have also been making a list for you.’ He pulled a small notepad from his inside pocket. ‘If we imagine she is here, all her life she has lived in England. There are perhaps things that she would miss, yes?’
‘Like?’
‘Some foods? Are there any foods she might miss?’
Grace thought for a moment. It was a good question. ‘Marmite!’ he said, after some moments. ‘She loved the stuff. Used to have it on toast for breakfast every day.’
‘OK. Marmite. There is a store in the Viktualienmarkt that sells English foods for your expatriates. I will go there for you. Did she have anything medical wrong with her? Allergies, perhaps?’
Grace thought hard. ‘She didn’t have any allergies, but she had a problem with rich foods. It was a genetic thing. She used to get terrible indigestion if she ate rich foods – she took medication for it.’
‘You have the name of the medication?’
‘Something like Chlomotil. I can check in the medicine cabinet at home.’
‘I can make a search of the doctors’ clinics in Munich – we find if anyone with her description is ordering this medication.’
‘Good thinking.’
‘There are many things we should be looking at also. What music did she like? Did she go to the theatre? Did she have favourite movies or movie stars?’
Grace reeled off a list.
‘And sport? Did she do any sport?’
Suddenly, Grace realized where the German was coming from. And what had seemed, just a couple of hours ago, to be an impossibly enormous task was getting narrowed down into something that could be done. And it showed him just how fogged his own thinking had become. That old expression of not being able to see the wood for the trees was so true. ‘Swimming!’ he said, wondering why the hell he hadn’t thought of it himself. Sandy was obsessed with keeping fit. She didn’t jog, or go to a gym, because she had a knee that played up. Swimming was her big passion. She used to go to the public swimming baths in Brighton daily. Either the King Alfred or the Regency, or, when it was warm enough, the sea.
‘So we can monitor the baths in Munich.’
‘Good plan.’
Staring at his notes again, Kullen said, ‘Does she like to read?’
‘Is the Pope a Catholic?’
The German looked at him, puzzled. ‘The Pope?’
‘Forget it. Just an English expression. Yes, she loved books. Crime, especially. English and American. Elmore Leonard was her favourite.’
‘There is a bookstore, on the corner of Schelling Strasse, called the Munich Readery. It is run by an American. Many English-speaking persons go there – they can exchange books, you know? Swapping them? Is that the right word?’
‘Will it be open today?’
Kullen shook his head. ‘This is Germany. On Sunday, everything is closed. Not like England.’
‘I should have picked a better day.’
‘Tomorrow I go look for you. Now will you have something to eat?’
Grace nodded gratefully. Suddenly he had an appetite.
And then, as he looked yet again around the sea of faces, he caught a glimpse of a woman, blonde hair cropped short, who had been heading over in their direction with a group of people but suddenly turned and started walking very quickly away.
His heart exploding, Grace was on his feet, barging past a Japanese man taking a photograph, running, weaving through a group unloading their backpacks, locking on to her with his eyes, gaining on her.
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59
Dressed in just a crumpled white T-shirt, Cleo sat in her favourite place, on a rug on the floor, leaning back against the sofa. The Sunday papers were spread all around her and she was cradling a half-drunk mug of coffee that was steadily getting more tepid. Up above her, Fish was busily exploring her rectangular tank, as ever. Swimming slowly for a few moments, as if stalking some invisible prey, then suddenly darting at something, maybe a speck of food, or an imaginary enemy, or lover.
Despite the room being in the shade, and having all the windows open, the heat was unpleasantly sticky. Sky News was on television, but the sound was down low and she wasn’t really watching, it was just background. On the screen, a pall of black smoke was rising, people were sobbing, jerky images from a handheld camera showed a hysterical woman, dead bodies, stark buildings, the twisted, burning ball of metal that had been a car, a man covered in blood being carried off on a stretcher. Just another Sunday in Iraq.
Meanwhile, her own Sunday was ebbing away. It was half past twelve, a glorious day, and all she had done was get up and lie here, downstairs, in this shaded room, leafing through section after section of the papers until her eyes were too numb to read any more. And her brain was almost too numb to think. The place looked a tip, she needed to give it a good clean, but she had no enthusiasm, no energy. She stared down at her mobile phone, expecting to see a reply to the text she had sent Roy. Bloody man, she thoug
ht. But it was really herself she was cursing.
Then she picked up the phone and dialled her closest girlfriend, Millie.
A child answered. A long, drawn-out, faltering five-year-old voice saying, ‘Hello, this is Jessica, who is speaking please?’
‘Is your mummy there?’ Cleo asked her goddaughter.
‘Mummy’s quite busy at the moment,’ Jessica replied importantly.
‘Could you tell her it’s your Auntie Kilo?’ Kilo was what Millie had called her for as far back as she could remember. It had started because Millie was dyslexic.
‘Well, the thing is, you see, Auntie Kilo, she is in the kitchen because we have quite a lot of people coming to lunch today.’
Then a few moments later she heard Millie’s voice. ‘Hey, you! What’s up?’
Cleo told her about what had happened with Grace.
The thing she had always liked about Millie was that, however painful the truth might be to hear, Millie never minced words. ‘You’re a bloody idiot, K. What do you expect him to do? What would you do in that situation?’
‘He lied to me.’
‘All men lie. That’s how they operate. If you want a long-term relationship with a man, you’ve got to understand it’s going to be with a liar. It’s in their nature – it’s genetic, it’s a bloody Darwinian acquired characteristic for survival, OK? They tell you what they want you to hear.’
‘Great.’
‘Yep, well, it’s true. Women lie too, in different ways. I’ve lied about most of the orgasms Robert ever thinks I’ve had.’