Peter James: You Are Dead

They had moved into their beautiful new home, and Cleo, despite her exhaustion with Noah and the move, was feeling so happy and positive about the future. She would shortly be going back to work, and they would have to make a decision on a nanny.

They had always been honest and open with each other. Should he tell her the truth when he got home, and lay her mind to rest once and for all? Even if that would mean admitting he had lied to her about this trip?

The past had been a dark place for far too long. He needed to put it back in its box. It had taken him ten long years to finally move forward and find happiness again. He could not let the past destroy him — them.

And yet.

He couldn’t shake the image of the woman from his mind.

In room 7, the comatose woman’s eyes suddenly opened. Her attending nurse had stepped away for a comfort break and she was, briefly, alone.

‘Roy was here,’ she said.

Then her eyes closed again.

Sunday 4 January

The moment the plane had taxied to a halt at Heathrow Airport, Roy Grace switched his phone from flight mode. It took some moments before it found a signal. As soon as it did, he texted Cleo to say he was back safe.

Then his phone buzzed, indicating he had voicemail.

He checked it. There were two messages from Cassian Pewe, the second sounding more impatient than the first. ‘Roy, call me urgently, will you, please.’

A loud bing-bong sounded, and people all around him began standing up and removing their belongings from the overhead lockers. Grace joined them, shuffling along and out of the plane. Pewe could wait a few minutes, he decided, and anyway, he was officially on leave.

A little while later, he entered the short-term car park. Then, just as he reached Cleo’s Audi, his phone rang again. He looked at the display but the number was withheld.

‘Roy Grace,’ he answered.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ said the whiny voice of Cassian Pewe.

‘In Germany, sir.’

‘Germany?’

‘I’ve just flown back to London.’

‘I’ve been trying desperately to get hold of you. What have you been doing in Germany?’

‘Family business, sir,’ he said, barely masking his irritation at Pewe’s tone.

‘Why didn’t you tell me where you were going?’

‘I’m still on sick leave, sir.’

‘I need you back on Operation Haywain right away. We have a very big problem.’

His heart sinking, Grace said, ‘What’s happened, sir?’

‘I’ll tell you what’s happened. Dr Edward Crisp has happened. The excavation of the collapsed tunnel where you last saw Crisp has been completed. He isn’t there.’

‘That’s not possible, sir. He was buried.’

‘Did you see him being buried?’

Grace was silent for a moment. ‘No, not actually buried.’

‘Down in his lair, where he had a cosy little set-up, there was a hatch which dropped down into the main sewer for the area. He must have gone down it. I’ve spoken to Southern Water who are responsible for the entire Brighton and Hove sewerage network and they say it’s very unlikely he could have survived. Apparently after all the rain of the past two months, the sewers have been in flood. He could have been carried several miles along the tunnel but then he would have hit a series of filters designed to stop and break down large objects, before they are carried on to the plant at Peacehaven, and ultimately out to sea.’

Puzzled and dismayed, Grace asked, ‘So are you saying Crisp escaped into the sewer system, but would then have drowned, or been ripped to shreds?’

‘What I’m saying, Roy,’ Pewe’s voice sounded on the cusp of a snarl, ‘is that we need a damned body, or at least some body parts. Our Specialist Search Unit know how to search sewers. They need to find something urgently. Do you understand?’

‘I do, sir, and a Happy New Year to you.’

‘Huh.’

Sunday 4 January

Instead of heading home from the airport, as he had been intending, Roy Grace carried on down the A23, past the turn-off to Henfield, and then joined the A27 which took him up towards Hollingbury.

A few minutes later he turned off, drove down a steep hill, with the Asda superstore to his right, and entered the front car park of Sussex House, the CID HQ. It was 4.15 p.m.

The Christmas decorations were still up, but there was a subdued atmosphere. A cloud had hung over the future of this entire building ever since the merger of Sussex and Surrey CID departments.

In his casual clothes, he strode along the corridors towards MIR-1, then entered, greeting several members of his team who had remained, until now at any rate, to tidy up all the outstanding elements of Operation Haywain.

Norman Potting stood up from behind his workstation. ‘Chief!’ he said. ‘How are you? You’re limping.’

‘I’m on the mend, thanks, Norman. Or, at least, I was. Happy New Year! How are you?’

‘Happy New Year to you, too. Chief, I think you ought to take a look at this — it just came in.’ Potting was pointing at his computer screen.

Grace walked over, behind the row of people seated beside Potting, then leaned over his shoulder and stared at the screen.

On it was an email, sent from a Hotmail account. The sender’s name was just a meaningless row of letters and numbers.

‘Read the email,’ Potting said.

Grace read it.

Dear Detective Sergeant Potting, it was very remiss of me not to get back to you on your prostate problems that you mentioned when you last came to see me, but I’ve been busy on an exciting new project. There is an excellent organization that has all the latest information on this vile disease. You can contact them on www.prostatehelp.me.uk.

Good luck, it was nice meeting you.

Bye for now!

Dr Edward Crisp

As ever with my Roy Grace novels I owe an incalculable debt to so many people in different fields, who have generously given their sanction, advice or time to my research.

Starting with officers, former officers and support staff of Sussex Police, Surrey Police, and other law-enforcement agencies both in the UK and overseas: Chief Constable Giles York, QPM; Police and Crime Commissioner Katy Bourne; Chief Superintendent Nev Kemp; former Chief Superintendent Graham Bartlett; Superintendent Paula Light; Detective Superintendent Paul Furnell; Detective Superintendent Nick May; Chief Inspector Jason Tingley; Detective Inspector Bill Warner; Former Detective Chief Inspector Trevor Bowles; Inspector Andy Kille; Sergeant Phil Taylor; Sergeant Lorna Dennison-Wilkins, PC Martin Light; PC Paul Quinn, PC Scott Kendal and all the team of the Specialist Search Unit. Suzanne Heard; Katie Perkin; Jill Pederson; Ray Packham formerly of the High Tech Crime Unit; Crime Scene Investigators James Gartrell and Chris Gee; Tony Case, Senior Support Officer; Juliet Smith JP, High Sherriff of East Sussex. And last, but also first, my close friend and Roy Grace alter-ego, former Detective Chief Superintendent David Gaylor, the career role model for Roy Grace.

Thank you to those who gave me invaluable medical, scientific or technical help: Dr Wilfrid Assin; Dr Neil Haughton; Iain Maclean; Dr Haydn Kelly; Dr David Veale; Michael Beard; Andrew Davey; Janet Blainey; Martin Pile; Nigel Ostime; Brian Price; Derek Middlehurst; Dr Mark Howard; Dr Nigel Kirkham; Father Martin; Hans Jürgen Stockerl; Wolfgang Barth at the Drogennotdienst, Frankfurt; Anette Lippert; and a particularly special mention to Sigrid Daus and Klinikum Munich, Krankenhaus Schwabing, for their enormous help with this book.

Although writing is a solitary task, there are numerous people in the background working on the editing, sales and marketing, without whom there would, quite simply, be no book. Starting with my computer guru, Chris Webb of MacService; my agent, Carole Blake and her team. My editor, Wayne Brookes; Geoff Duffield, Anna Bond. Sara Lloyd and all at Pan Macmillan. My US team — Andy Martin; Marc Resnick; Hector DeJean; Paul Hochman; Elena Stokes; Tanya Farrell and all the rest at Team James USA. My copy-editor Susan Opie; my publicists, Sophie Ransom, Becky Short and Tony Mulliken.