Dead Man's Grip (18 page)

If they could get an explanation out of Preece, he should be able to wrap up the inquiry by the end of next week. And hopefully win some brownie points with Peter Rigg. It all looked pretty straightforward.

Fortunately for Roy Grace’s mood at this moment, he didn’t know how brutally different things were going to turn out to be.

There was a long jam on the approach to the roundabout opposite the Palace Pier – wrongly, in Roy Grace’s traditionalist view, renamed
Brighton Pier
. As he sat, slowly crawling forward in the traffic, he watched a couple pushing their stroller along the promenade. He found himself looking at them with intense curiosity. That was something, he realized, that had definitely changed inside him. He’d never, ever, been remotely interested in babies. Yet in recent weeks, wherever in the city he had been, he had suddenly found himself staring at babies in buggies.

A few days ago, buying a sandwich in the ASDA superstore opposite his office, he began making inane comments to the mother and father of a tiny infant in a stroller, as if the three of them were members of a very exclusive club.

Now, as the engine idled, and an old Kinks song played on BBC Radio Sussex, he found himself looking around for more buggies. A few evenings ago, the night before Cleo had gone into hospital, they’d spent a long time studying them on the Internet and had made a shortlist of ones they thought might be suitable.

Cleo was keen on ones he could go jogging with. She thought it would help him to bond with the baby, as his work would preclude them from spending much time together otherwise. One pregnancy book they had been reading together warned of this, that while the mother would be at home, developing her relationship with the baby, the father would be at work, becoming increasingly remote.

Across the road he could see a man about his own age jogging along with a baby in a Mountain Buggy Swift. Then he saw a female jogger with one they favoured, an iCandy Apple Jogger. Moments later he saw another they liked, because of the name, a Graco Cleo. And over on the far side of the promenade he saw a single woman pushing the one that they liked most of all – which was unfortunately one of the most expensive – a Bugaboo Gecko.

Money was no object, luckily. Cleo had told him that her parents wanted to buy it for them. Ordinarily Grace would have insisted on paying for everything himself. That was the way he had been brought up. But he had done the sums and the cost of having a baby was terrifying. And seemingly endless. Starting with having to turn the spare room at Cleo’s house into the baby’s room. They had been advised that it should be painted well in advance, so there was no danger to their baby from paint fumes. Then there were the digital baby monitors Cleo wanted, so they could hear the baby’s breathing. The Moses basket for the baby to sleep in during its first few months. Decorations for the room. Clothes – which they could not buy yet as they did not know whether it was a boy or a girl.

It was strange not being able to put a sex to the baby. Just an
it
. Neither he nor Cleo wanted to know. But Cleo had told him on several occasions she believed it would be a boy, because the bump was high up, and because, another old wives’ tale, she had been craving savoury rather than sweet things.

He did not mind. All he cared was that the baby was healthy and, more importantly to him, that Cleo was fine. He had read that fathers sometimes, when things went badly wrong, had to make a decision between saving the life of the baby and of the mother. In his mind there was absolutely no question at all. He would save Cleo every time.

A Ziko Herbie stroller went by on the promenade. Followed by a Phil & Teds Dash, a Mountain Buggy and a Mothercare Mychoice. It was sad, he thought, that he had acquired this encyclopedic knowledge of buggies in such a short space of time. Then his phone rang.

It was Norman Potting. ‘Boss,’ he said. ‘I’ve got good news and – ah – not good news. But I’m running out of battery on my BlackBerry.’

‘Tell me?’

All he got in reply was silence.

Someone had left the
Münchner Merkur
further along on the wooden trestle table where she sat, alone, beside the Seehaus lake in the Englischer Garten. The
Merkur
was one of Munich’s two local papers. On the front page was a photograph of a large silver coach that had rolled on to its side, straddling and buckling an autobahn crash barrier. Emergency service crews in orange suits were standing around it and there was a bleeding victim partially visible on a stretcher.

The headline, which she translated into English in her head as she read, said, SEVEN DIE IN AUTOBAHN COACH CRASH.

Although now fluent in German, she still
thought
in English and, she realized some mornings, still dreamed in English. She wondered if one day that would change. She had German blood. Her grandmother on her mother’s side had come from a small town near here and she felt increasingly strongly, with every day that passed, that Bavaria was her true spiritual home. She loved this city.

And this park was her favourite place in it. She came here every Saturday morning that she could. Today the April sunshine was unseasonably hot and she was grateful for the breeze blowing off the lake. Although dressed lightly in a T-shirt, Lycra jogging shorts and trainers, she was perspiring heavily after a ten-kilometre run. Gratefully, she gulped down half the bottle of the cold mineral water she had just bought in one draught.

Then she sat still, breathing in the sweet scents of grass and lake water and wood varnish and pure clean air. Suddenly she caught a waft of cigarette smoke from someone nearby. Instantly, as it did almost every time, that smell brought a twinge of sadness – memories of the man she had once loved so much.

She took another swig of the bottle and reached over to pick up the paper, as no one seemed to be coming back to claim it. Only eleven o’clock and the Englischer Garten was busy already. Dozens of people sat at the beer garden tables, some obviously tourists but many of them locals, enjoying the start to the weekend. Most had a
Maß
of beer in front of them, but some like herself were drinking water or Cokes. Several people were out on the lake in rowing boats and pedalos, and she watched for a moment as a mother duck, following by a string of tiny brown ducklings, rounded the wooded island.

Then suddenly a very determined-looking Nordic walker in her sixties, wearing bright red Lycra, teeth clenched, ski poles clacking on the ground, was heading straight towards her.

Leave me alone, don’t invade my space, she thought, planting her elbows on the table and giving the woman a defiant glare.

It worked. The woman clacked off and settled at a table some distance away.

There were times, such as now, when she craved solitude, and there were precious few moments when she was able to find it. That was one of the things she most treasured about her Saturday morning runs. There was always so much to think about and not enough time to focus on it. Her new masters gave her new thoughts to work on every week. This week they had told her,
Before you can seek new horizons, first you have to have the courage to lose sight of the shore
.

Surely she had done that ten years ago?

Then another waft of cigarette smoke set off another sudden pang. She was going through a bad day, a bad week. Doubting everything. Feeling alone and bleak and questioning herself. She was thirty-seven, single, with two failed relationships behind her and what ahead?

Nothing at this moment.

That good old German philosopher Nietzsche said that if you looked long enough into the void, the void would begin to look back into you.

She understood what he meant. To distract herself, she began to read the newspaper report of the coach disaster. All the passengers were members of a Christian fellowship group in Cologne. Seven dead, twenty-three seriously injured. She wondered what they thought of God now. Then she felt bad for letting her mind go there and turned the page.

There was a picture of a cyclist fleeing the police and another road accident, this time a VW Passat that had rolled over. Then on the next page was the story of a factory closure, which did not interest her. Nor did a photograph of a school football team. She turned the page again. Then froze.

She stared at the printed words, unable to believe her eyes, translating each of them into English inside her head.

She read them, then reread them.

Then she just stared at them again, as if she had been turned into a pillar of salt.

It was an advertisement. Not big, just one column wide and six centimetres deep. The wording read:

SANDRA (SANDY) CHRISTINA GRACE

Wife of Roy Jack Grace of Hove, City of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England.

Missing, presumed dead, for ten years. Last seen in Hove, East Sussex. She is five feet, seven inches tall (1.70 metres), slim build and had shoulder-length fair hair when last seen.

Unless anyone can provide evidence that she is still alive to Messrs Edwards and Edwards LLP at the address beneath, a declaration will be sought that she is legally dead.

She continued staring, reading it, rereading it, then rereading it again.

And again.

‘Do you know what I’m really looking forward to?’ Cleo asked. ‘What I’m absolutely craving?’

‘Wild sex?’ Roy Grace said hopefully, giving her a sideways grin.

They were in the car, heading home from hospital, and she looked a thousand times better. The colour had returned to her face and she looked radiant. And more beautiful than ever. The rest in hospital had clearly done her good.

She ran a finger suggestively a long way up his thigh. ‘Right now?’

He halted the car at traffic lights on Edward Street, almost in view of John Street Police Station – known colloquially as
Brighton nick
.

‘Probably not the best place.’

‘Wild sex would be good,’ she conceded, continuing to stroke the inside of his thigh provocatively. ‘But at a risk of denting your ego, there is something I desire even more than your body right now, Detective Superintendent Grace.’

‘And what might that be?’

‘Something I can’t have. A big slice of Brie with a glass of red wine!’

‘Terrific! I’m in competition with cheese for your affections?’

‘No competition. The cheese wins hands down.’

‘Maybe I should take you back to the hospital.’

She leaned across and kissed him on the cheek. Then, as the lights turned green, she pressed her fingers even further into his thigh and said, ‘Don’t take it badly.’

As he drove forward, he pouted in a mock-sulk and said, ‘I’m going to arrest every sodding piece of Brie in this city.’

‘Great. Put them in the cooler for after Bump is born and I’ll devour them. But I will devour you first, I promise!’

As he turned south into Grand Parade and moved over into the right-hand lane, with the Royal Pavilion ahead of him to the right, Grace was aware of a sudden feeling of euphoria. After all his fears for Cleo and their baby these past few days, everything suddenly seemed good again. Cleo was fine, back to her normal cheery, breezy self. Their baby was fine. The bollocking from ACC Rigg suddenly seemed very small and insignificant in comparison. The two-bit petty crook van driver, Ewan Preece, would be found within days, if not hours, and that would put Rigg back in his box. The only thing that really mattered to him at this moment was sitting beside him.

‘I love you so much,’ he said.

‘You do?’

‘Yep.’

‘You sure about that? Even with my big tummy and the fact that I prefer cheese to you?’

‘I like your big tummy – more to love.’

She suddenly took his left hand and held it to her abdomen. He could feel something moving, something tiny but strong, and he felt a lump of joy in his throat.

‘Is that Bump?’

‘Kicking away! He’s telling us he’s happy to be going home!’

‘Awwww!’

Cleo released his hand, then pushed her hair back from her forehead. Grace stopped in the right-turn lane, in front of the Pavilion.

‘So have you missed me?’ she said.

‘Every second.’

‘Liar.’

‘I have.’ The lights turned green and he drove across the junction and doubled back around the Old Steine. ‘I’ve kept busy googling buggies and baby names.’

‘I’ve been thinking a lot about names,’ she said.

‘And?’

‘If it’s a girl, which I don’t think it is, I like Amelie, Tilly or Freya best so far.’

‘And if it’s a boy?’

‘I’d like Jack, after your father.’

‘You would?’

She nodded.

Suddenly his phone rang. Raising an apologetic finger, he hit the hands-free button to answer.

It was Norman Potting. ‘Sorry about that, chief, my battery is still down. But I thought you should know-’

Then there was silence.

‘Know what?’ Grace asked.

But he was talking into thin air.

He dialled the Incident Room number to ask if Potting had left any message. But Nick Nicholl, who answered, said no one had heard from him. Grace told him he would be back for the evening briefing, then hung up.

Cleo looked at him provocatively. ‘So, this wild sex, then? It’ll have to be a quickie?’

‘Hard cheese,’ he replied.

‘It’s the soft ones that have listeria.’ She kissed him again. ‘Hard sounds good.’

She did not feel like running any more. She felt in need of alcohol. When the waitress came round, she ordered a
Maß
of beer. One whole litre of the stuff. Then she stared back again at the words in the
Münchner Merkur
.

She could feel blind fury welling inside her. Somehow she had to contain it. It was one of the things she had been learning, anger management. She was much better at it, but she needed to focus hard to do it. Had to spiral back inside her mind to the place she was before she was angry. To the
Münchner Merkur
, lying on the table.