Peter James - Need You Dead

Shit. Shit. Shit.

‘Guy! Guy! What the hell are you doing?’ Roy Grace called up at him.

The Detective Superintendent began to scale the ladder like a creature possessed.

Batchelor started climbing again.

‘Guy!’ Grace shouted. ‘Guy, stop! For Christ’s sake stop!

Ignoring him, Batchelor climbed on. His arms were so tired he could barely grip each rung above him. But he kept going. Driven by grim determination. Desperation. He just had to keep climbing. Higher. Higher.

‘Guy!’

The voice was a distant echo below him, but getting louder with every shout.

‘Guy!’

With every rung he climbed, Roy Grace seemed to climb two. He was gaining on him. Rung by rung.

‘Guy. We need to talk.’

In front of his face, Batchelor saw a sign. It read 50 metres.

He was less than halfway up.

‘ Screw you, Roy! Leave me alone!’ he yelled.

He climbed higher.

His chest was tight. His heart was hammering. His grip was getting weaker. Weaker.

Roy Grace was less than twenty feet below him now. Still scaling the ladder like a sodding rat up a drainpipe.

There was another platform just above him. And a door, with a handle on it.

Using the last of his strength, he reached the platform and hauled himself onto it. Grace, below him, was still climbing strongly. Batchelor lashed out with his shiny boot, a warning. ‘Don’t try it, Roy. I’ll kick you off, I promise you, I will!’

Grace stopped. ‘Guy, come on, whatever it is, we can sort it out. OK?’

‘No fucking way.’

Finding some strength from somewhere inside him, Batchelor threw himself at the ladder and climbed on. On.

Past the 100 METRES sign.

On.

He looked down.

Roy Grace had stopped, some distance below him, for breath; he was having to grip the ladder tightly, his hands dangerously slippery with perspiration.

‘How did you do in the “beep” test, eh, Roy?’ he chided. ‘Not so well?’

He climbed on.

‘Guy! Guy, what’s wrong with you?’

Grace’s strength was sapping as he climbed on up, also passing the 100 METRES sign. He did not dare look down. All his life he had been bad with heights. He just kept staring at the rungs in front of his face. Trying to convince himself that he was only a few feet above the ground. His hands were running out of feeling, out of grip. But he had to keep going. His chest was pounding, his breath rasping and he was feeling giddy.

Batchelor’s feet were just inches above him now. He could have reached up and grabbed one of them. But he had no strength for a struggle. He just had to keep clinging on. Keep climbing. He had no idea what was going to happen, all he knew was to keep going.

Now above him he saw the 150 METRES sign. Batchelor was standing, stooped, gasping, on the platform beside it. A torch beam shot up around him, but he ignored it.

‘Guy!’ he grunted. ‘Guy, just tell me?’

‘Tell you what?’

‘What the hell’s happening?’

‘Leave me alone. Just leave, Roy, it’s too late for me.’

Batchelor began climbing again.

Grace reached the platform and stepped onto it, gripping the rails, gulping down air. He saw his colleague’s boots disappearing above him. Saw the flickering torch beam from below him, and made the mistake of glancing down.

Into the void.

He swayed, vertigo drawing him down.

Shit.

‘Guy!’ he yelled. ‘Guy!’

Jesus.

He felt scared now. Out of his depth. But he had to keep going. Had to reach him, had to find out just what was going on inside this man’s mind.

Then suddenly he saw Batchelor, some rungs above him, push open a flap — an inspection hatch — and haul himself up and out, through it.

‘Guy!’ he yelled. ‘Guy, no, no!’

Frantically he scrambled up more rungs until he was level with the flap. A strong blast of cooling wet wind blew on his face. He was grateful for it. Guy Batchelor, sodden, was standing on some form of platform, outside, misty darkness beyond him, the wind flapping his coat.

‘Stay where you are, Roy,’ he said, his voice threatening. ‘I mean it.’

‘Guy, for God’s sake, man, let’s talk.’

‘You want to talk? Talk!’

Grace was gripping the rung for all he was worth. He was remembering some health and safety advice he’d been given on a training day. Always keep three limbs on a ladder at any time. Right now he had all four. ‘Let me onto the platform with you, Guy, we can talk. I can’t hang on here, I’m sodding exhausted.’

‘Stay where you are, I’m going to have a fag. A last cigarette. Did you know, some execution chambers don’t let you have that any more? In this ridiculous world they actually have no smoking execution chambers. What do you think about that?’

‘I’ll join you, I’ll have a cigarette too.’

‘Bad for your health, Roy.’ Batchelor raised a leg, as if about to kick him.

‘It’ll be worse for my health if I fall off this bloody ladder,’ he panted.

‘You didn’t have to come up here.’

‘Guy, you’re my friend! Just tell me, what’s happened to you?’

‘I’m finished, Roy. You’re wasting your time — don’t forget I’m a trained suicide negotiator too. I know all the tricks. They’re not going to work on me.’

Grace heard a click, then smelled cigarette smoke.

‘You’re not my friend, Roy, you’re no one’s friend. You’re a copper, you’d nick your best friend if it helped you get a result.’

‘Guy, listen to me.’

‘I’m finished.’

Then Grace heard the voice of Ops-1. ‘Roy, we have the drone approaching the i360 tower, but visibility is bad. What assistance do you need?’

His arms were aching. He didn’t know how much longer he could hold on for. Using all his strength, he wrapped first his right arm then his left around the ladder and pulled himself tightly into it. That eased some of the strain and he felt slightly more secure. ‘I’m OK,’ he replied. ‘No assistance at this moment.’

‘There’s nothing worse than a corrupt officer, is there, Roy? One who lets the team down?’

Grace could hear him sobbing.

‘Guy, come on, let’s talk, tell me what is going on. Talk to me, be honest with me, and I’ll tell you what I can do for you.’

‘I didn’t mean to kill her. We just had an argument and it all got out of hand. She hit her head, I panicked. You know the rest. I thought I might get away with it — I nearly did. But he recognized me, that Weatherley, I could see it in his face. That’s why he didn’t want to say anything in front of me. I saw it, Roy. He knew it was me.’

‘If you didn’t mean to kill her, you need to tell your story. A decent barrister might be able to argue self-defence, or whatever. OK, you’ll lose your job, but this doesn’t sound like murder. Maybe manslaughter? You know the evidence, Guy. If you think you can convince a jury to believe you panicked and it was an accident, or worst case, manslaughter, you’ll get a sentence, yes, but maybe not a long one.’

‘How’m I going to explain running the Met guy — the Super Recognizer — off the road, Roy? You and I both know I’m going down for a long time. I’ll lose my family, my career. I’ve just two choices, I give myself up to you or I jump.’

‘Think of your family, Guy. Let’s talk.’

‘What’s there to talk about?’ Batchelor suddenly sounded calm. ‘I’ve betrayed you and I’ve betrayed Sussex Police by trying to cover it up. By attempting to set up a friend and colleague — Jon Exton. I did it pretty well, didn’t I? Well enough so you arrested him. I just tried to kill a cop. I’ve betrayed everything I signed up for.’