Peter James - You Are Dead

‘A month?’ Grace tried to remember the last time he’d had that amount of time off, and couldn’t. Instantly he was suspicious. ‘I’m sure I won’t need that long.’

‘It’s not an option, Roy, it’s an order. I’ve seen too many marriages in the police ruined because of the workload of officers.’ He grinned, exposing a set of immaculate white teeth, and shiny, rosebud lips.

Five minutes later, to Roy Grace’s relief, Pewe left.

Saturday 27 December

‘I can’t believe I have you home for an entire month!’ Cleo said, holding the door, then taking his arm to help him out of the car. ‘Welcome back!’ She handed him his stick, then went around to the rear of the car to get his little suitcase.

Roy Grace grinned, gripping the walking stick, supporting himself on his good leg, and stood in the unseasonably warm sunlight staring excitedly at the cottage, and breathing in the smells of the country air. He could hardly believe he was actually, finally, back. For years he had dreamed of living in the countryside, and whilst they were only eight miles from his beloved Brighton, this was wonderfully rural.

The house was small and rectangular, with whitewashed walls, a white front door and a steeply pitched tiled roof, approached down a bumpy drive that was little more than a cart track. All the tiny windows were a different shape, and one side of the house was covered in unruly ivy. The garden was an overgrown riot of shrubs, bushes and long grass. In a slightly elevated position, it had a view from the rear across miles of open fields. They’d got it for a good price because it was in need of modernization, but he loved it all the more for that. Cleo had great taste and had already begun the redecorating.

As he reached the front door he heard Humphrey barking excitedly inside. Moments later it was opened by Cleo’s younger sister, Charlie, in paint-spattered dungarees.

Humphrey came bounding out, almost knocking him over in his excitement, jumping up at him.

Steadying himself on his stick, he hugged the dog. ‘Good boy, like your new pad, do you?’ Moments later Humphrey spotted something and raced off into the undergrowth, barking furiously.

He went into the hallway, treading carefully across the dust sheets, inhaling the heady smell of fresh paint combined with the sweet smell of an open fire. As he kissed Charlie, wishing her a belated Happy Christmas, he heard Noah gurgling.

‘He’s been good as gold all morning!’ Charlie said. ‘He must be excited to have his Daddy home!’

‘I’ll bring him down!’ Cleo said and hurried up the stairs. ‘Go through to the living room. I’ve put a bottle of champagne in the fridge — we’ve got some overdue celebrating to do!’ she called out.

Ten minutes later, on a sofa in front of the crackling, popping fire in the inglenook, with a glass in his hand, and Noah lying on his play mat on the floor, Roy Grace felt almost overwhelmed with happiness. Finally, he felt, his new life was really beginning.

Charlie, whose love life had been a disastrous series of wrong choices, was dating a television commercials director whom the whole family — apart from him — had met and really liked, and she looked happier than he had ever seen her. Humphrey was wrestling to the death with a squeaky rubber toy.

‘So,’ Charlie said, ‘Detective Superintendent Grace is now a country squire. How does that feel?’

He grinned, drained his glass and looked up at Cleo. ‘Pretty damned good!’

Charlie refilled their glasses and went to the kitchen to prepare lunch. ‘We’ve got a whole month together, darling,’ Roy said to Cleo. ‘What are we going to do with it? Have that house-warming for starters?’

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘And let’s have a couple of dinner parties. And we should go to London shopping in the sales — now’s the best time to buy stuff for the house. And there’s a Bryan Ferry concert coming on at the Dome in three weeks — shall we try to get tickets?’

Later on, when the bottle was almost empty, Cleo scooped Noah into her arms to take him upstairs for a feed.

Charlie excused herself to serve lunch. Grace sat and sipped more of his champagne. Then his phone rang.

It was his German Landeskriminalamt friend, Marcel Kullen.

Instantly his mood changed, as if the sky had clouded over.

‘Hey, Roy, Happy New Year. How are you?’

‘Happy New Year, Marcel. I’m OK — apart from being shot in the leg just before Christmas.’

‘Shot? You have been shot?’

‘Eleven pellets removed from my leg.’

‘You are serious?’

‘Yep, they were an early Christmas present from someone who didn’t like me very much.’

‘My God, but you are OK?’

‘I’m OK, thanks. It hurts a bit to walk, but I’ll be fine in another week or so. Alcohol helps! So how are you?’

There was a moment’s silence, then Kullen said, ‘This lady in the hospital I spoke to you about, yes?’

‘Uh huh,’ he replied hesitantly.

‘I have some more information about this woman. Tell me something, did your Sandy — was she ever taking drugs?’

‘Drugs? What do you mean, Marcel? What kind of drugs?’

‘Heroin?’

‘No way! No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I think I would have known!’

‘I do not think always people know, Roy.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I have another question. This lady, they are calling Frau Lohmann — she has a son I mentioned who is ten years and six months old. Do you think there is any possibility your Sandy could have had such a son by you?’

He stared at the dancing flames in the grate. ‘A son? By me?’

‘Could she have been pregnant when she left you?’

‘Pregnant? Pregnant, no — no.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ Grace said hesitantly and tried to do the maths. It was just possible, he calculated. Just.

‘This son has told the friends he is staying with that his mother has taken him twice to Brighton. The last time he said he went to a wedding with her in November and she seemed very upset. They left the wedding.’

Grace listened, feeling numb. ‘Why did you ask about drugs, Marcel?’

‘We circulated her three identities and photographs to all police forces and agencies in Germany that might be able to help us. One responded which is in Frankfurt. They have, how do you call it, a drugs consumption room there. It is a place where drug users can go and inject themselves under supervision. They said they knew this woman who came regularly for two years. I think you should come over here, Roy, and make sure this woman is not Sandy. It would be helpful to us if you were able at least to eliminate her.’

‘What other details do you have?’

‘Well, Roy, with one identity, the one her son gave us, Alessandra Lohmann is the one she seems to be using now. But it is the variation of her first name that she gave to the drugs clinic that might be interesting to you.’

‘Which is?’

‘Sandy.’

Friday 2 January

Roy Grace stared out of the aeroplane window at the vast expanse of flat land beneath him, as they began their descent into Frankfurt. Was he on a wild goose chase after a ghost?

God, he hoped so.

And yet he could not dismiss that JPEG on his phone. It could be Sandy.

Three faked identities?

She was a multimillionaire?

She had a son.

The son’s age would have put her just pregnant at the time she vanished. She might not even have known she was pregnant then.

A son who had been twice with his mother to Brighton, last year. Once to a wedding in Brighton on the day he and Cleo had got married?