by Peter James
“Yes. I discussed it with Tony Balazs, and we want something that doesn’t glamorize him too much. The one we both like is the Brighton Brander.”
The two senior officers pondered this for some moments. “I think it’s clever,” Martinson said.
“Yes,” Pewe said. “Let’s confirm that with the Gold group to make sure the community’s on board.”
For the next ten minutes they talked about resourcing—and costs. With the potential community impact, Martinson told both officers that money, on this rare occasion, could not be a factor. They had to throw all their resources at this, regardless.
Before the meeting, Roy Grace had already realized the enormity of his responsibility. Now he was feeling it even more.
“Plot 3472 in Hove Cemetery,” Pewe said, suddenly, looking down at the notes he had taken.
“Yes,” Grace said.
From the tone of Pewe’s voice, that piece of information was having a seriously detrimental effect on his blood pressure. Grace hoped for a few brief moments it might prove terminal. “That’s the oldest trick in the book,” Pewe said.
“Yes, sir,” Grace said. “DI Branson has already pointed that out.”
53
Sunday 14 December
Freya Northrop felt stuffed to bursting as she turned the MX5 into the driveway of their house, shortly after 10:30 p.m. She stifled a yawn, totally exhausted. Zak, in the passenger seat beside her, had slept most of the way back from their last stop of the day, an evening meal at The Cat in West Hoathley, a pub restaurant he’d heard great things about and that had not disappointed. He had photographed and written down details about his starter of hazelnut-crumbed goat’s cheese with honey-roasted figs and Parma ham, and the coffee parfait served in a cappuccino cup complete with froth and sugar cubes of chocolate jelly, both of which he planned to try out with a view to putting them on his menu.
She never ceased to be astonished at the amount of food Zak could pack away. They’d had two lunches at different restaurants in Whitstable—starters, mains and puds, because he’d wanted to try a range of dishes—and while she had pecked at hers, he’d wolfed down all of his and finished hers. And now they’d had a three-course dinner at The Cat, and again he had scoffed the lot. Yet he was, she thought enviously, ridiculously thin.
Her dad had once told her never to eat in a restaurant where there was a thin chef, it wasn’t a good sign. Yet Zak was a brilliant cook. He’d been born with supersonic metabolism, he joked. But it was true. Honest to God, where did he put all those carbs? She patted his sleepy, brush-cut head affectionately. “We’re home, my sweet.”
He woke with a start and stifled a yawn. Then he took her hand and kissed it. “Thanks for driving.” He yawned again.
“Want to sleep in the car?” she said with a grin, opening her door.
He unclipped his seat belt, opened his door and climbed slowly out into the cold, damp night air. “I’ve eaten too much,” he said and patted his stomach.
“Coming from you, that’s quite something!”
“I might just make myself a little snack before we go to bed.”
Freya laughed. “Want me to see if there’s a suckling pig in the freezer we can chuck on the barbie?”
She stepped up to the front door, unlocked it and went inside, fumbling for the light switch. The smell of fresh paint and new carpet and recently sawn timber greeted her.
Zak followed her in and closed the door behind him. They walked through to the ultra-modern kitchen—the first room to have been completed—with today’s Observer lying on a huge butcher’s block that served as the table.
“As I haven’t had a drink all day, I think I deserve a glass of wine before bed,” she said, opening the fridge, removing a half-full bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and tugging out the cork. “Want one?”
He shook his head. “Thanks but I’ve drunk far too much already.”
“No comment!” she said with a grin, lifting a glass and an ashtray out of the dishwasher, and setting them down on the table. She poured some wine, then rummaged in her handbag for her tobacco, filters and licorice roll-up papers.
As she began placing strands of tobacco in the opened-out paper, she noticed Zak frowning at something.
“What?” she said.
“There’s a draft. Can you feel it?”
She nodded, she could. A steady, cold draft.
He continued frowning. “Where’s it coming from?”
“I’ve never noticed it before,” Freya said. “It’s always been so snug in here.” The kitchen was usually cozy, thanks to the underfloor heating Zak had put in. But she could feel the cold air, definitely.
Zak suddenly stood up and walked across to the back door. “Freya, darling,” he said, his voice sounding strange. “We locked the back door, surely—we locked up carefully before we left this morning, didn’t we?”
“I locked it myself,” she said. “I remember doing it—why?”
He pointed at the top and bottom bolts, which were open. Then he pointed at the key in the lock. “I just tried the key, and it’s open, unlocked. Are you sure you locked up?”
She shrugged. “I’m ninety-nine percent, yes.”
“Oh shit,” he said, suddenly, staring down at the floor.
“What?”
He pointed at the leaded light window next to the back door. One small square pane of glass, six inches by six inches, was missing. Then he jabbed a finger down at the floor. “Look.”
She stood up and walked over, and saw the pane of glass lying close to the mat.
“How—how—how did that happen?” She was quivering, staring wildly all around her now.
“Panes of glass don’t detach themselves,” Zak said. “And if they do, they don’t fall onto a tiled floor without shattering. And locks don’t unlock themselves.” He strode over to a drawer, pulled it open and grabbed a carving knife. He walked through into the hall, brandishing the blade.
“We should call the police,” she said, nervously.
“Do it,” he said. “Dial 999.” He stepped forward.
“Don’t go out there, Zak. If there’s someone…”
She grabbed the phone and almost dropped it, she was shaking so much. Then, panic-stricken, she stabbed out the numbers.
54
Monday 15 December
A fine mist of rain fell silently and steadily, soaking the gathering mourners, and glossing the gray, stark, neo-Gothic edifice of St. Peter’s. The imposing building was the largest church in the city, and had been chosen for today because of the number of police officers and support staff who had expressed the wish to attend.
That morning Grace had brought the team briefing forward again to 7:30 a.m. and left a small core of officers continuing with the investigation, under the leadership of his deputy SIO, Iain Maclean. He was planning to return to Sussex House immediately after the service and committal.
Everything about this Monday morning felt gray, he thought. Even the sky was tombstone colored. He was attired—a little uncomfortably—in the formal dress uniform he had not removed from its dry-cleaning bag in over four years. The last time he had worn it was also for a high-profile funeral—a Sussex Police officer who had died in tragic circumstances.
Shortly after 10:30 a.m. he walked with Cleo, the two of them huddled beneath an umbrella, down from the rear car park of John Street police station, where he had been fortunate to have been given one of the few available parking spaces, toward London Road. Neither of them spoke much, as he rehearsed what he was going to say in his mind. They were entering what had once been one of the scuzziest areas of the city, but was now up and coming. Normally, out of habit, he would have been checking the faces of everyone he passed, but today his thoughts were elsewhere, mostly focused on the funeral that lay ahead, but frequently switching back to the disappearances of Logan Somerville, Ashleigh Stanford and, possibly linked with them, Emma Johnson.
Cleo held his hand tightly and he was comforted and more grateful than he co
uld ever say for her support. He could not remember the last time he had felt so nervous. He was shaking as he walked, butterflies going berserk in his stomach. He’d been in many dangerous situations in the line of duty, in the past, but nothing he could remember had ever made him feel this way. Above all, he was terrified of cracking up when he reached the pulpit.
“You’ll be fine, darling.” She kissed him.
He patted his inside pocket for about the seventh time to check that his speech was there, panicking for a moment that he might have left it behind. He tugged it out and checked it, just to make sure, then carefully replaced it, and checked again that it was safely tucked in.
The approach to St. Peter’s was lined with motorcycle police officers. Beyond them stood the guard of honor of uniformed officers, already in place, as well as a contingent of fire officers, despite there being twenty-five minutes to go. Swarming around them were press photographers, TV camera and radio crews.
As they neared he saw Cassian Pewe, in full dress uniform, engaged in conversation with Tom Martinson, also in dress uniform, and Nicola Roigard, like Cleo and most of the other women, all in black. Rainwater dripped from the edge of her broad-brimmed hat.
The trio greeted Grace and Cleo with respectful nods. Then Cassian Pewe extended his hand and gave him a limp handshake. “You know how sorry I am, Roy.”
The problem with Pewe’s whiny voice was that anything he said, even condolences like this, sounded like he was sneering, Grace thought. “Thank you, sir,” he said, stiffly. “I don’t think you’ve met my wife, Cleo.”
Pewe shook her gloved hand and simpered, unctuously. “What an absolute delight. I’m told you are sorely missed at the mortuary. Are you enjoying life as a mother?”
“Very much,” she said. “But I plan to be back at work again soon.”
“Not soon enough, so far as I’m concerned.” He smiled, his lips curling to reveal a viperous set of incisors.
Grace remembered that ACC Pewe was outside the burning building where DS Bella Moy had died, remaining there all day until her body was brought out. He did at least respect his old adversary for that.
“A difficult morning for you, Roy,” Nicola Roigard said.
“Yes,” he said, his voice choked. “This is my wife, Cleo.”
The two women shook hands. As they did so, Pewe stepped out of the line-up and said to Roy Grace, quietly, “Any developments overnight?”
Grace saw, heading toward them, the Argus reporter Siobhan Sheldrake.
“Nothing since my update of yesterday evening, sir.”
“Excuse me, gentlemen!” Siobhan Sheldrake interrupted them, holding out a small microphone. “Could I get a comment from each of you about the tragic death of Detective Sergeant Bella Moy?”
Roy Grace had to listen, close to vomiting, as Cassian Pewe launched into a sickly, glib list of superlatives about the diligence, dedication and outstanding courage of the fallen officer. Pewe finished with the words, “Detective Sergeant Bella Moy was quite one of the most remarkable police officers it has ever been my privilege to work with.”
Except, Roy Grace thought, stifling his anger, Pewe had never worked with her. But this was neither the time nor the place for trying to settle scores. He let Pewe finish, said his own piece into the microphone, then led Cleo toward the entrance of the church, where Glenn Branson was standing next to Guy Batchelor, who was accompanied by his blond, attractive Swedish wife, Lena.
They smiled at each other, politely, but none of them felt like talking. Grace noticed a faint smell of cigarette smoke on Batchelor and could have happily slunk away for a quick smoke himself right now to calm his nerves. Glenn put his arm around him and gave him a hug. Grace sniffed, pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose.
“Good luck, mate,” Branson said. He balled his fist and touched knuckles with Grace. Grace always wondered what it would feel like for anyone on the receiving end of a punch from his friend’s fist; it felt as if it had been hewn out of rock.
The almost ethereal silence across the city was shattered, suddenly, by the Doppler wail of sirens, as an ambulance threaded its way through the clogged-up London Road traffic. Once it faded away into the distance, an even greater silence followed. It was as if the entire city of Brighton and Hove had ground to a halt. Even the seagulls were quiet. The only sound that could be heard, for several minutes, was the clop-clopping of horses’ hooves.
Then the cortège came into sight. The coffin was clearly visible, draped with the Sussex Police flag and a policewoman’s hat, surrounded by flowers, through the glass windows of a carriage drawn by four black horses. It was followed by a black limousine. Both pulled up outside the front of the church.
Roy Grace put his arm around Cleo and led her inside, accepting the two service sheets that were handed to him, and headed down the aisle, nodding in acknowledgment at faces he knew. As they sat down, Bella’s mother, a frail lady with a Zimmer frame, and several others of Bella’s family members, including three children, sat down on the pew in front of them.
Roy handed a service sheet to Cleo, then stared at the photograph on the front of his. It was an angelic young child with golden curls, the dates of her birth and death beneath. Bella Kathleen Moy. She was just thirty-five when she died. He opened it and ran his eyes through the order of service, noting the hymns that had been chosen, glad to see that one of his own favorites, the rousing “Jerusalem,” was among them.
Cleo had told him she believed in God, although she never went to church to worship. They’d had a number of discussions about faith, particularly in the days following Noah’s birth, and whether to have him baptized. Cleo wanted it; she liked traditions, and the idea of godparents. Grace was not really sure how he felt. Part of him would have preferred not to have a christening, and to let Noah decide for himself when he was older. But if it was what Cleo wanted, he was happy to go along with it.
There had been a time, too, when he had believed. Then he’d gone through a period of being almost a militant atheist, partly prompted by the death of both his parents, and Sandy’s absolute cynicism about religion, and then had arrived at where he was today, open-minded. He found it hard to believe in the Biblical notion of God, but equally, he was uncomfortable with the modern atheists like Dawkins. If he had to nail his colors to the mast, he would have said that there was a bigger picture, and human beings weren’t—as yet, anyhow—smart enough to understand what it was.
But whenever he entered an impressive church like this one, he could understand something of the mystical spell cast over people. He remained seated in the pew, breathing in the smells of wood and musty fabric while Cleo unhooked her kneeler, laid it down and knelt on it, her face buried in her hands in prayer.
He followed suit, opened his hands and pressed them against his face. He tried to remember the words of the Lord’s Prayer, which he had said every night throughout his childhood, and into his mid-teens.
“Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name,” he murmured, self-consciously, and stopped, as the next line suddenly eluded him.
Then music began playing. John Denver’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane.”
Suddenly, all around him, people were getting to their feet. He and Cleo stood, too.
As the music played on, the pall-bearers carried the pine coffin down the aisle. He turned, along with everyone else, to see four somber men, one of them Norman Potting, tears streaming down his face, slowly approaching the altar. Then they placed it, carefully, on the catafalque.
The congregation sat again. As the service commenced, officiated by Father Martin, who only a short while ago had officiated at their own wedding, Roy Grace pulled his speech from his pocket and read through it once more. The vicar said a few words of introduction, then they stood again for the first hymn, “Abide with Me.” As it drew to an end, the vicar gave a reading from 1 Corinthians 12. Then Norman Potting stood up, slowly made his way toward the pulpit and entered it.
His face was
wet with tears and there was total silence in the church. It took him some moments to compose himself. “This is about Bella,” he said. Then his voice faltered. “The music she loved. The people she loved. No one ever loved her more than I did.” He began to sob. After several moments, dabbing his eyes again, he said, “Throughout the time I was lucky enough to know Bella, and for her to become my fiancée, there was one Sussex Police officer who knew all along just how damned good she was.” He pointed straight at Roy Grace. “You, sir. Roy. Please come and say a few words—I—I can’t—I can’t say any more.”
As he stumbled down from the pulpit, Grace stood and walked toward it. When he reached Norman Potting he stopped, gave him a hug and kissed him on both cheeks. Then he climbed into the pulpit, took out his speech and laid it on the lectern, and waited for Norman to find his front-row seat and settle into it before commencing.
“The police have come in for a lot of criticism in recent years,” he said, catching Cleo’s reassuring expression, then scanning the congregation of almost one thousand faces. “Fair do’s to the press for highlighting the idiots in our forces, the wrong’uns. There are over one hundred and thirty-five thousand police officers in the UK. In any body of people that big, you are bound to find some bad eggs. Maybe they number about one percent, although I would guess the figure is lower even than that. So what about the other ninety-nine percent? Bella Moy was one of these. She worked as one of the most valued members of my team on many cases. During all the time I knew her, despite her obligations caring for her mother, she never threw a sickie, never moaned, never went home early, never took a single day off that she wasn’t entitled to. Sussex CID was her life. A life that very recently and for far too short a time, in which she found true love with Norman.”
He paused, faltering, as he caught the Detective Sergeant’s eye, and had to take a deep breath to compose himself. He stared again at the sea of silent but attentive faces, most of whom were familiar. “I’ve been privileged to serve Sussex Police for twenty-one years, and I’ve met and know many of you here today. There are few officers in our force, or in any other police force around the nation, who have not, at some time, been in a situation where their life has been on the line. Whether it’s confronting, single-crewed, a scimitar-waving drunk at three o’clock in the morning in Brighton’s Lanes, approaching a car in a dark country lane, with a suspected armed robber inside, entering a brutal pub brawl, or crawling out on a high-rise window ledge to try to talk down a potential suicidal jumper. What I do know is that all of you officers here today would go into that situation with barely a moment’s thought for your own safety, to do your duty in serving the public.” He fell silent, to let the words sink in, before continuing.