Peter James - Dead Man's Grip

Then another waft of cigarette smoke set off another sudden pang. She was going through a bad day, a bad week. Doubting everything. Feeling alone and bleak and questioning herself. She was thirty-seven, single, with two failed relationships behind her and what ahead?

Nothing at this moment.

That good old German philosopher Nietzsche said that if you looked long enough into the void, the void would begin to look back into you.

She understood what he meant. To distract herself, she began to read the newspaper report of the coach disaster. All the passengers were members of a Christian fellowship group in Cologne. Seven dead, twenty-three seriously injured. She wondered what they thought of God now. Then she felt bad for letting her mind go there and turned the page.

There was a picture of a cyclist fleeing the police and another road accident, this time a VW Passat that had rolled over. Then on the next page was the story of a factory closure, which did not interest her. Nor did a photograph of a school football team. She turned the page again. Then froze.

She stared at the printed words, unable to believe her eyes, translating each of them into English inside her head.

She read them, then reread them.

Then she just stared at them again, as if she had been turned into a pillar of salt.

It was an advertisement. Not big, just one column wide and six centimetres deep. The wording read:

SANDRA (SANDY) CHRISTINA GRACE

Wife of Roy Jack Grace of Hove, City of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England.

Missing, presumed dead, for ten years. Last seen in Hove, East Sussex. She is five feet, seven inches tall (1.70 metres), slim build and had shoulder-length fair hair when last seen.

Unless anyone can provide evidence that she is still alive to Messrs Edwards and Edwards LLP at the address beneath, a declaration will be sought that she is legally dead.

She continued staring, reading it, rereading it, then rereading it again.

And again.

‘Do you know what I’m really looking forward to?’ Cleo asked. ‘What I’m absolutely craving?’

‘Wild sex?’ Roy Grace said hopefully, giving her a sideways grin.

They were in the car, heading home from hospital, and she looked a thousand times better. The colour had returned to her face and she looked radiant. And more beautiful than ever. The rest in hospital had clearly done her good.

She ran a finger suggestively a long way up his thigh. ‘Right now?’

He halted the car at traffic lights on Edward Street, almost in view of John Street Police Station – known colloquially as Brighton nick .

‘Probably not the best place.’

‘Wild sex would be good,’ she conceded, continuing to stroke the inside of his thigh provocatively. ‘But at a risk of denting your ego, there is something I desire even more than your body right now, Detective Superintendent Grace.’

‘And what might that be?’

‘Something I can’t have. A big slice of Brie with a glass of red wine!’

‘Terrific! I’m in competition with cheese for your affections?’

‘No competition. The cheese wins hands down.’

‘Maybe I should take you back to the hospital.’

She leaned across and kissed him on the cheek. Then, as the lights turned green, she pressed her fingers even further into his thigh and said, ‘Don’t take it badly.’

As he drove forward, he pouted in a mock-sulk and said, ‘I’m going to arrest every sodding piece of Brie in this city.’

‘Great. Put them in the cooler for after Bump is born and I’ll devour them. But I will devour you first, I promise!’

As he turned south into Grand Parade and moved over into the right-hand lane, with the Royal Pavilion ahead of him to the right, Grace was aware of a sudden feeling of euphoria. After all his fears for Cleo and their baby these past few days, everything suddenly seemed good again. Cleo was fine, back to her normal cheery, breezy self. Their baby was fine. The bollocking from ACC Rigg suddenly seemed very small and insignificant in comparison. The two-bit petty crook van driver, Ewan Preece, would be found within days, if not hours, and that would put Rigg back in his box. The only thing that really mattered to him at this moment was sitting beside him.

‘I love you so much,’ he said.

‘You do?’

‘Yep.’

‘You sure about that? Even with my big tummy and the fact that I prefer cheese to you?’

‘I like your big tummy – more to love.’

She suddenly took his left hand and held it to her abdomen. He could feel something moving, something tiny but strong, and he felt a lump of joy in his throat.

‘Is that Bump?’

‘Kicking away! He’s telling us he’s happy to be going home!’

‘Awwww!’

Cleo released his hand, then pushed her hair back from her forehead. Grace stopped in the right-turn lane, in front of the Pavilion.

‘So have you missed me?’ she said.

‘Every second.’

‘Liar.’

‘I have.’ The lights turned green and he drove across the junction and doubled back around the Old Steine. ‘I’ve kept busy googling buggies and baby names.’

‘I’ve been thinking a lot about names,’ she said.

‘And?’

‘If it’s a girl, which I don’t think it is, I like Amelie, Tilly or Freya best so far.’

‘And if it’s a boy?’

‘I’d like Jack, after your father.’

‘You would?’

She nodded.

Suddenly his phone rang. Raising an apologetic finger, he hit the hands-free button to answer.

It was Norman Potting. ‘Sorry about that, chief, my battery is still down. But I thought you should know-’

Then there was silence.

‘Know what?’ Grace asked.

But he was talking into thin air.

He dialled the Incident Room number to ask if Potting had left any message. But Nick Nicholl, who answered, said no one had heard from him. Grace told him he would be back for the evening briefing, then hung up.

Cleo looked at him provocatively. ‘So, this wild sex, then? It’ll have to be a quickie?’

‘Hard cheese,’ he replied.

‘It’s the soft ones that have listeria.’ She kissed him again. ‘Hard sounds good.’

She did not feel like running any more. She felt in need of alcohol. When the waitress came round, she ordered a Maß of beer. One whole litre of the stuff. Then she stared back again at the words in the Münchner Merkur .

She could feel blind fury welling inside her. Somehow she had to contain it. It was one of the things she had been learning, anger management. She was much better at it, but she needed to focus hard to do it. Had to spiral back inside her mind to the place she was before she was angry. To the Münchner Merkur , lying on the table.

She closed the paper and pushed it away, calming a little. But struggling. A fury inside her was threatening to erupt and she must not let it, she knew. She could not let her anger win. It had already ruled too much of her life and had not ruled it well or wisely.

Extinguish it , she thought. Extinguish it like the flame of a match in the wind. Just let it blow out. Watch it go .

Calmer now, she opened the paper again and turned back to the page. She looked at the details at the bottom. There was a mailing address, an email address and a phone number.

Her next reaction was Why?

Then, calming a little further, she thought, Does it matter?

She’d kept some tabs on him, especially in recent years, now that the local Sussex newspaper, the Argus , was available online. As an increasingly prominent police officer it was easy; he was frequently being quoted in the news doing his stuff. Doing what he loved, being a copper. A crap husband, but a great copper. As a wife you’d always be second to that. Some accepted it. Some wives were coppers themselves, so they understood. But it had not been the life she had wanted. Or so she had thought.