Love You Dead (29 page)

‘Yesterday,’ he said listlessly. ‘Sorry – day before yesterday – at the crocodile farm. Mumbai. I got bitten.’

‘Bitten?’

‘Something bit me.’

‘Where were you bitten?’

‘On my leg – ankle – my right ankle.’

‘He fell over in the crocodile farm and thought he had been bitten by something,’ Jodie confirmed. ‘I had a look but I couldn’t see anything.’

The doctor lifted away the sheet and examined his ankle carefully, frowning. ‘There is a faint mark but I can’t see any swelling,’ he said. ‘It might be an insect bite.
If you’d been bitten by something venomous, a snake or a spider, there would almost certainly be swelling.’

He took Rollo’s temperature then studied the thermometer. ‘Hmmn,’ he said. ‘You have quite a high temperature. It might be something you’ve eaten, a bug, or a
reaction to some sort of insect bite.’ He looked at Jodie. ‘Do you feel all right?’

‘Absolutely fine.’ She gave him a smile.

The doctor quizzed Rollo about his medical history, then delved into his medical bag, which he had placed on the floor, and removed a syringe and a vial. ‘I’m going to give you a
shot of antibiotic, and then I’ll come back and see you in a few hours.’ He turned to Jodie. ‘I think you should stay with your husband and keep an eye on him. I suggest you have
room service tonight.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, of course. I wouldn’t want to leave him on his own. Can you explain his nosebleed?’

‘His blood pressure is up quite a bit, which I’d expect in his condition at the moment. That’s probably causing it.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Good,’ the doctor said, preparing the injection. Then he smiled. ‘I’m sure you’ll be feeling right as rain very soon, Mr Carmichael!’ he said. ‘Best if
you don’t eat anything, but I’d like you to drink as much water as you can.’

‘Don’t care for water,’ Rollo Carmichael said, looking at him balefully. ‘You know what W. C. Fields said about water?’

‘W. C. Fields, the actor?’

He nodded. ‘Never drink water,’ he said. ‘Cos fish screw in it.’

The doctor laughed. ‘Well, he had a point, I suppose!’

Then suddenly, and without warning, Carmichael vomited a jet of bile and blood.

The unconscious American in bed 14 had been brought in to the Intensive Care Unit of the Royal Sussex County Hospital on Friday afternoon. He was in a bad way, with an MRI scan
showing a brain contusion from a small, hairline skull fracture, as well as two broken ribs and severe bruising to his right leg. The two cyclists, who had been racing each other along the cycle
lane, were both taken to the hospital as well; one with a broken arm and dislocated shoulder, the other with a shattered knee.

The American had been identified from his driving licence as John Daniels, with an address in New York City. He had a bar receipt in his wallet for the Waterfront Hotel in Brighton. The hospital
had checked with the hotel, but they said they had no record of any John Daniels, though they did have a large group of Americans staying for a conference in the city. A request had been sent by
Brighton Police to the New York Police Department for the contact details of the man’s next of kin, but so far nothing had come back.

Now, this afternoon, the duty nurse in charge of him had called the registrar, excitedly, to say that he was showing signs of coming round.

‘Welcome back, Mr Daniels!’

Tooth blinked. The man was a fuzzy outline. As his focus slowly returned he saw a man in his early thirties, with close-cropped fair hair, dressed in blue surgical scrubs and holding a
clipboard. Beside him stood an Arabic woman, similarly attired, and another man in dark trousers and a white short-sleeved shirt, who looked authoritative.

Tooth stared at them blankly. Was he in Iraq? ‘Back?’ he asked. ‘Back?’

‘I’m Dr Martin, this is Mr Buxton, our consultant neurosurgeon, and our registrar – you’re at the Royal Sussex County Hospital.’

‘Hospital?’

All Tooth could think was that he was in hospital in Iraq. Had he been shot? He remembered a shadow looming over him. That was all. ‘Hospital?’ he repeated blankly. ‘Doc
Marten. Boots?’

The man in the white shirt, with the faintest trace of a smile, said, ‘Very good.’

Tooth squinted at him.
Was the man CIA?

‘Wolverine,’ Tooth rambled. ‘One Thousand Mile Boots.’

The man in the white shirt smiled again. ‘Very good!’

‘How are you feeling, Mr Daniels?’ the one with the short hair, in scrubs, asked.

He’d been trained to keep silent if ever captured. So, staring at the blue curtains all around him and the monitor showing his vital signs, he said nothing.

He was in some kind of military hospital. American, he hoped.

He closed his eyes and drifted off.

The medical team remained around him for some moments, then stepped away and out through the curtains, safely out of earshot.

‘He’ll be confused for a while yet,’ the neurosurgeon said. ‘There are no abnormalities showing on his brain scan. There are a number of contusions consistent with this
kind of accident, which will take a while to subside. I’ll come back and see him in a couple of days. If there’s any dramatic change in his condition either way please let me know
immediately. The biggest danger is a cerebral haemorrhage from damaged blood vessels, and that’s something we cannot see from the current scans.’

As they walked away across the ward, Tooth grappled with his mind. It felt like he was trying to grip a wriggling fish with a greasy hand.

It slipped free.

Everything went blank again.

The wet weekend had only worsened Roy Grace’s sense of gloom and confusion. On Saturday, he’d tried hard to put his troubled thoughts away and focus on spending
time with Noah who was now, at eight months, able to crawl at some speed. He’d also busied himself stripping the wallpaper off the spare room in their cottage, and exploring a new area of the
surrounding countryside with Humphrey – and trying to train him – unsuccessfully so far – to ignore sheep in the neighbouring field. They’d also had a site meeting with a
man from Sussex Oak Framers, who was going to quote for an extension they wanted to add to enlarge the kitchen – provided they could get planning permission.

Planning permission was a dirty expression in the village at the moment, due to proposals, which everyone in the area thought were absurd, for an entire new town to be built nearby. It was being
actively fought by a protest group, LAMBS, who had invited him to be their spokesperson. He’d had to decline, reluctantly, because of his position as a police officer, but he privately
supported their aims.

On Saturday night, leaving Noah in the care of Kaitlynn, Cleo and he had packed an overnight bag and gone to dinner at the Cat Inn at West Hoathly. Both of them had ended up drinking far too
much, in an effort to relax, and had returned yesterday morning, with bad hangovers, to Noah screaming. He felt guilty that for much of yesterday Noah had been propped in front of the TV for his
entertainment, whilst they had recovered.

All he could really think about was Sandy. Lying right now in the Munich hospital. With her life slipping away?

He had to see her again one more time before she was gone for good, either into a grave or a crematorium incinerator.

Had to have closure for both himself and Cleo.

Cleo had asked him, repeatedly, over the weekend what was wrong, and each time he’d fobbed her off by telling her he was fretting about Crisp.

But the reality was he’d barely thought about the serial killer. And he’d hardly slept a wink over the weekend.

Sandy.

He’d simply not been able to pluck up the courage to talk to Cleo, unrealistically hoping it would all go away.

But it wouldn’t. It would never go away. Not until they had closure. There was only one way to do that.

He had to go to Munich and see her again.

That scared the hell out of him. He remembered the saying, ‘And the truth shall set you free.’

But would it?

What if it was quite the reverse?

He had a bad feeling, a really bad feeling.

As he stood in the shower after his early-morning run, feeling as if he’d had no weekend at all, he knew what he had to do.

But he really wasn’t sure how to do it.

An hour later, in his office, Roy Grace began the week as he always did, by glancing through the serials of the past few days. He saw several dwelling burglaries, two Range
Rover thefts and a missing vulnerable teenager who had last been seen heading towards Dukes Mound, a popular gay cruising area. A nasty bicycle accident on Friday, close to the pier, where an
American visitor and two cyclists had been hospitalized, and a reported robbery at 5 a.m. on Sunday morning by two youths and a woman who had taken a mobile phone and wallet from a man in the city
centre.

Soon after making a start on the papers relating to Crisp, his phone pinged with a text from his sister asking when she could next come over to see her ‘favourite and only’ nephew
– and spend some time with them all.

He texted back with a photograph of a giggling Noah with a thumb raised in the air, looking like he was in agreement, and gave her some dates that worked for him and Cleo.

At 10 a.m. he had a meeting in his office with financial investigators DS Peter Billin and Kelly Nicholls, who had been piecing together the complex paperwork relating to ownership of the house
next door to Crisp’s home, where several of his murders appeared to have been carried out, and which clearly linked Crisp to the property.

Then an unexpected call came from an Interpol detective in London, Tom Haynes, shortly after 11 a.m.

‘Sir,’ he said, ‘formal arrangements have been made for two of your officers to travel to Lyon to liaise with French police over Edward Crisp.’

As soon as he had finished speaking to the man, he informed ACC Cassian Pewe; then he called Glenn Branson and asked him to come to his office. Whilst waiting, he leaned back in his chair,
closed his eyes and lapsed back into his troubled thoughts.

‘Can’t take the pace at your age?’

Grace looked up with a start to see the tall detective towering over him. ‘Ever heard of that basic courtesy, knocking?’

‘Yeah – didn’t want to wake you. Old people can die from sudden shocks.’

Grace gave him a smile. ‘Haha.’ Then he looked him up and down. ‘Have you got a part-time job as a lighthouse?’

‘What?’

Branson was attired at this moment in a slim-fit, shiny, chocolate-coloured suit and a yellow tie that looked luminous. Grace pointed at it. ‘Could be useful at night in a power
cut.’

‘Is that why you wanted to see me – to be rude about my rig?’ Branson sat down on the chair in front of the desk, swinging it round, as was his custom, and sitting astride it,
folding his arms over the back and staring quizzically at his boss.

‘Looks like your jolly to Lyon is happening,’ Grace told him.

‘That means I have to eat one of those stinky Andouillette sausage things? And frog’s legs and snails?’

‘If the French police offer you their hospitality and take you to a Lyon restaurant, it would be rude to refuse. Don’t want you messing up our
entente &
cordiale
!’

Branson wrinkled his face. ‘Yech.’

‘Don’t screw up this one, mate!’

Glenn Branson stared back at him. ‘I’m not planning to screw up, yeah?’

‘Crisp is a twister. Don’t let him start sweet-talking you.’

‘I’m not planning to have sex with him.’

Grace grinned. ‘You’re not his type, so I wouldn’t worry. And just to ensure you’re not there for any romance, I’m sending Norman Potting with you.’

‘Norman? He’s my date for this trip?’

‘I want two of you there. Norman’s still hurting badly from Bella’s death. I think it would do him good to have a break for twenty-four hours. Not that I’d wish your
company on my worst enemy.’

‘You’re a bundle of laughs this morning. Remember that night we watched
The Last Detail
at your place, when Ari had thrown me out?’

Grace frowned. ‘Rings a bell.’

‘Jack Nicholson and Otis Young had to escort a young sailor – Randy Quaid – to jail. Yeah?’

Grace nodded. ‘Yes, I seem to remember you said it was one of your favourite films. So what’s your point?’

‘It was about bringing a prisoner back.’

‘Nicholson and Young took Quaid to a brothel, didn’t they?’

‘See! Your memory’s still good. Not bad at all for an old man.’

‘Sod off ! And don’t come back telling me you took Crisp to a brothel because you felt sorry for him.’

Branson raised his hands in the air. ‘Joking!’

‘I don’t find anything funny about a man who killed five, and probably a lot more, women. Just so you know.’

‘Me neither.’

‘OK, speak to Tony Case and get him to sort out the travel arrangements. I’m told you can take a Eurostar train to Lille and then a train from there to Lyon.’

His phone rang again. It was Marcel Kullen. It was the second of the calls he had been awaiting this morning.

Asking him to hang on for a moment, then covering the receiver with his hand, he said to Branson, ‘OK?
Alles ist klar?
’

The DI got the message and stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ Kullen said. ‘But I thought you must know that Sandy’s condition is improved a very little. Perhaps you would like to come over and talk
to her?’

Grace thought for some moments. ‘Yes, yes, I would like to. I – the next few days are difficult as I have to deal with something – but I’ll see how quickly I can do
it.’

‘
Jah
. You let me know. She’s not in such a hurry to make her last journey.’

Grace smiled at the German’s gallows humour. ‘I’ll call you as soon as I know.’

‘Good.’ Kullen paused for a moment and the silence was palpable. Roy Grace could sense his hesitation. Then he added, ‘Roy, I just want to say, I think you are making a good
decision to come. It is the honourable thing to do.’