Питер Джеймс - Left You Dead

He had come out of curiosity, after receiving a handwritten letter a while ago from his disgraced former colleague Detective Sergeant Guy Batchelor.

Roy,

Hope this finds you well. Not much to report here, other than waiting for the appeal hearing against the length of my sentence. Other prisoners haven’t been as nasty to me as I feared — so far, anyway.

I’m writing because I may have something of interest about our mutual friend. No names mentioned because all these letters are read, but I know you were interested in doing something with that church bench. I may be able to help you. Perhaps you could come over — I can promise you it won’t be a wasted journey.

All my best to you and all the team — hey, I miss you all.

The letter contained a cryptic clue which his wife, Cleo, had solved for him. Church bench equalled Pew , she’d suggested, brilliantly.

For almost two years, Assistant Chief Constable Cassian Pewe, his direct boss, had been the bane of his life, to the point where Grace had been seriously considering leaving Sussex Police and taking up a Commander role he’d been offered in London’s Metropolitan Police, just to get away from the vile and odious man.

He opened the driver’s door with some misgivings and stepped out into the vast empty space and silence beneath a mackerel sky which seemed to share these misgivings, and which, from his limited experience of sailing, he knew heralded rain in a few hours. But it was still a warm afternoon. As he walked through the car park and then crossed the road towards the compound of single-storey buildings, he thought that if it wasn’t for the high mesh fencing, the place could have been mistaken for a holiday camp.

Men’s prisons in Britain were categorized from A to D. Cat A were high security, housing violent and dangerous convicts such as serial killers and terrorists who posed the greatest threat to the public, police or national security. Cat B were also high security, but for those who were deemed less of a threat, as well as for prisoners in the local area and those who were being held long-term. Cat C were training and resettlement prisons, enabling prisoners to develop skills to use on their release. Cat D, like this one, were open prisons, for those regarded to be a minimal risk, mostly white-collar criminals, but also for inmates from higher category prisons who were nearing the end of their sentences and were considered safe and suitable to soon re-enter the community.

All the same, he slipped his warrant card under the glass shield of the security desk with the same unease he always felt arriving at any prison. He waited while the serious-looking woman on the other side, who was neither pleasant nor unpleasant, studied his identity, before shoving the small grey tray containing his warrant card back at him. ‘Please put your phone and any valuables in one of the lockers behind you, Detective Superintendent.’ She gave him only the very faintest nod of acknowledgement that they were both on the same side here.

Roy complied, immediately feeling naked as he parted with his ID and phone — his lifeline to the outside world — set the combination and stepped through the electric door, which immediately closed behind him like an airlock.

Tabloid newspapers regularly ran shouty headlines about how cushy life inside British prisons was. But he bet none of their editors had ever sampled even just one night at Her Majesty’s Pleasure.

He hadn’t either, but he’d talked to plenty of people who had. And no one, ever, had told him it had been a party. In many prisons, such as Sussex’s Category B, HMP Lewes, on some wings the inmates were forced to share a cell with two bunks and a toilet with no seat behind a plastic shower curtain, just three feet from the face of the unfortunate on the lower bunk. And had to try to sleep on pillows harder than breeze blocks.

At least here, in Ford, he knew each prisoner had his own decent, if cramped, cell.

After a couple of minutes, a second door opened and an officer, with keys hanging from his belt, greeted him with a friendly smile and an outstretched hand. ‘Detective Super-intendent Grace, don’t know if you remember me from Lewes prison, a couple of years ago?’

Roy Grace, who had a near-photographic memory for names and faces, looked at him. Short grey hair and rounded shoulders. ‘Andrew Kempson?’

‘Well, I am impressed!’

Roy shrugged.

‘Very good to see you again, sir. The Governor thought it best you came after general visiting hours were over, and he’s arranged for you to meet former Detective Sergeant Batchelor in a private interview room, cameras off, and the Governor knows you are going to be handed some evidence.’

Unlike some prison officers, Kempson at least seemed refreshingly respectful to his charges. Roy Grace followed him across a wide, open courtyard, past a row of prefab single-storey buildings. Several men were mooching around, some stooped, with that air of total defeat he’d observed on previous prison visits, others looking more determined and purposeful. One, with a rake and bin bag, looked like he was actually happy to be doing something useful.

They entered a large room that felt like an impoverished, denuded public library. Several prisoners were seated at bare tables, either reading newspapers or books, in front of racks of shelves containing, almost exclusively, crime novels. Among them he noticed several by Martina Cole, Kimberley Chambers and Ian Rankin. Following Kempson, Roy was ushered by the officer into a room at the far end.

And was greeted by the sheepish smile of his former colleague and, until recently, one of the most capable detectives on his team.

Guy Batchelor, with his burly physique, rose from a chair.

Some while ago, the Detective Sergeant had totally lost the plot when a woman he’d been having an affair with, and to whom he had apparently made all kinds of promises about a future together, had trapped him in a web of lies. It had resulted, if Batchelor was telling the truth, in a furious row, in which, through an escalating chain of events, she’d ended up dead in a bathtub, and he’d panicked. In the ensuing downward spiral, the DS had attempted to commit suicide and Roy had risked his own life trying to stop him.

Throughout his life — and career — Grace had always been prepared to see the best in people. He believed, with some exceptions, that most human beings were fundamentally decent, and that it was stuff beyond their control, whether abusive parents in their childhood or something that happened later in their lives, that skewed them onto the wrong path.

So when Guy had made contact saying he wanted to see him because he had something that might be of value to him, Roy had decided he would see him, both because he was intrigued by what Guy might have to say, but also just to talk to him. And because maybe, in some small way, he could help this man who had ruined his own life and the lives of others in a period of madness.

All the same, he was here with some reservations.

It was just like any other interview room. A metal table, hard chairs, wide-angle CCTV camera up near the ceiling. A red notebook sitting on the table.

‘I’ll be outside,’ Andrew Kempson said. ‘I’ll be back in an hour but shout if you need me.’

‘I doubt that will be necessary,’ Grace said.

Kempson gave him a ‘you never know’ shrug, and shut the door, more softly than some officers might have.

Roy Grace shook Batchelor’s hand, trying to mask his surprise at his appearance. The former DS had aged a decade since he’d last seen him in court. And one of the things that was different about him was that he no longer reeked of cigarette smoke.