Peter James: Need You Dead

‘I’ll drink to that.’

He raised his glass.

Kaitlynn settled down in front of the television, with a small tub of pistachio ice cream Cleo had left her, and began channel surfing. An hour later, watching an old episode of Californication — one of her favourites — she heard Noah crying on the monitor. Then his cries turned to screams.

She paused the television and hurried upstairs, but the screams died down, almost as suddenly as they had started. Entering Noah’s bedroom, she was surprised to see Bruno in there, cradling his little half-brother in his arms. He turned and gave Kaitlynn a smile.

‘He’s OK! I think he was having a bad dream, perhaps. Do babies have bad dreams?’

‘I don’t remember,’ she said with a grin. ‘I was too young.’

He gave her a quizzical look, as if trying to work that one out. Then he said, looking very serious, ‘I think I was also too young to remember. But he is OK now.’ Looking down with a loving smile, he said, ‘You’re OK, Noah, aren’t you? Yes, yes you are!’

Noah giggled.

‘Want me to take him?’ she asked.

Bruno raised a finger to his lips. ‘I will put him back in his cot. Let’s see. Maybe he goes to sleep again.’

She stood and watched as Bruno laid him tenderly down, and pulled his knitted blanket over him. Noah put his thumb in his mouth and closed his eyes.

‘Magic!’ she said.

‘I don’t think so,’ Bruno replied. ‘But he’s fine now, he’s OK.’

They both walked to the door. ‘You seem to have an amazingly calming effect on him, Bruno,’ Kaitlynn said quietly.

‘Maybe. Perhaps.’ He turned the dial, dimming the light in the room low. Then they both went out.

A few minutes later, as Noah slept, a spider with a two-inch span crept slowly up the inside of the cot. It had a brown, shiny abdomen, and a white marking that looked a little like a skull. There had recently been an invasion of them due to the milder climate. It was a Noble False Widow, the most poisonous spider in the UK.

But fortunately for Noah, its bite is seldom fatal. And it would only bite if attacked.

Noah slept on, oblivious to the creature.

Grace and Cleo stood in the rammed upstairs room. Against the backdrop of a huge Jack Daniel’s sign, the musicians were playing a crowd-pleaser. The whole room swayed to the rhythm of the song, ‘Furr’.

Roy had his arm round Cleo. They both sang along to the lyrics.

‘When suddenly a girl, with skin the colour of a pearl,

Wandered aimlessly, but she didn’t seem to see,

She was listenin’ for the angels, just like me. ’

He kissed her on the cheek and she squeezed him back hard.

These were the moments, he thought. Listening to great music, with the person you loved, surrounded by happy people all enjoying the same thing, the same feeling.

The moments when you forgot about all the evil that was out there in this city and in the world beyond.

He was thinking about an interview he had read with Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. The astronaut had said that looking down at Earth, just an incredibly beautiful sight, it was almost impossible to imagine or understand all the evil deeds that happened on that planet. Why couldn’t everyone just enjoy it?

Then he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket.

Still with an arm round Cleo, he pulled it out and peered at the display. There was a text message from Glenn Branson, whom he had this morning appointed his deputy SIO.

Call me as soon as you can, Roy, it’s urgent.

Tempted to ignore it, he jammed the phone back in his pocket. Then, moments later, he felt it vibrating again. This time it was ringing. He pulled it out again, signalled an apology to Cleo and squeezed through the crowd to the back of the room, putting the phone to his ear.

‘Roy Grace,’ he answered.

But the sound of the music was too loud to hear anything.

‘Hold on a sec!’ he said.

He hurried downstairs, through the bar and out onto the street. ‘Sorry about that!’

‘Where are you?’

It was Glenn.

‘At a concert.’

‘Shit, old-timer, at your age?’

‘Sod off! This had better be good.’

‘Roy, this is important. I’ve just had a call from Panicking Anakin at John Street nick. He’s—’

Branson’s next words were drowned out by a police car on blues and twos ripping up the road past him. He had to wait until the siren had faded before responding.

‘Sorry, mate, lost you after Panicking Anakin!’

‘Happens at your age. Hearing goes first, then everything else.’

‘Yeah yeah. Listen, I’m missing a very good concert so this had better be worth it. What’s happened?’

‘Anakin’s had a call from the hospital.’

‘Sussex County?’ Grace felt a stab of panic. Had Guy Batchelor killed himself?

‘Our friend Tooth. He’s vanished. Done a runner.’

‘What?’

‘He was improving, apparently, so because of a shortage of beds in Intensive Care they moved him yesterday into the High Dependency ward. A nurse went to give him his medication a couple of hours or so ago, and he wasn’t there.’

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Roy Grace found himself grinning. He couldn’t help it. He was remembering that at Sandy’s funeral, ACC Pewe had delighted in telling him he had ordered the guard on Tooth to be removed.

‘Have they searched the hospital, Glenn?’

‘Three response units have attended. They’ve searched it top to bottom. Just like the times he’s disappeared on us before, he seems to have done it again. You all right, Roy? You don’t sound very worried.’

‘Worried? Me? I’m having a night off.’

‘Yeah? Well I think you’d better cancel that.’

‘No way, life’s too short. You sort it out. Go find him. Don’t forget the all-ports warning.’

‘You can’t be serious.’

‘Listen, mate, trust me, I’m serious.’

He ended the call and hurried back upstairs to join Cleo.

‘Everything OK?’ she asked.

Blitzen Trapper were playing ‘Not Your Lover’.

He stood listening to the song.

Thinking and smiling. He should not be thinking like this, but he could not help it.

He was smiling about the phone call he would make in a few minutes, after the song had ended, to ACC Cassian Pewe.

Yes!

There is a God!

AD— Attention Drawn. Typically how an urgent radio message is prefaced to alert officers that they are about to receive details of a vehicle or person that is of police interest. Also used to describe that such a circulation has been or will be made.

ANPR— Automatic Number Plate Recognition. Roadside or mobile cameras which automatically capture the registration number of all cars that pass. It can be used to historically track which cars went past a certain camera and can also trigger alerts for cars which are stolen, have no insurance or have an alert attached to them.

ARV— Armed Response Vehicle.

BHIMS— Brighton and Hove Independent Mediation Service. Local specialists in community and workplace mediation, conflict resolution and training. They help resolve disputes between neighbours or residents, families in conflict, tenants and landlords and for businesses.

CAA— Civil Aviation Authority. The statutory corporation which oversees and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the United Kingdom.

CAD— Computer Aided Dispatch. The system where all calls from the public are logged and, if they require police attendance, the live time record of who is attending, how it is developing and what the outcome is.