Peter James: Not Dead Enough

If she moved, she would have just a few seconds before he shoved the door open. If she stayed put, it would only be a few minutes before he had smashed a hole in the door big enough to get his arms through. Or even climb through.

Roy!PleaseRoywhereareyouohGodpleaseRoy!

Another loud bang, more wood splintered away and now there was a hole three or four inches across. And she could see one glass lens pressed up against it. The faint shadow of an eye flickering behind it.

She thought for an instant she was going to vomit. Images of people flashed through her mind. Her sister, Charlie, her mother, her father, Roy, people she might never see again.

I am not going to die here.

There was a sharp crack, like a gunshot. For a moment she thought the man had fired a weapon at her. Then she realized, horrified, what it was. The wood on the right-hand bottom drawer of her dressing table had split and her bare foot had gone through. She withdrew it, then jammed it against the next drawer up. That seemed firm, for a moment. Then the whole thing began collapsing.

He was really enjoying himself! It was like opening a particularly challenging tin of sardines. One where you got the lid to lift up just a tiny fraction, so you could see the sardines lying there beneath you, tantalizing you, but you couldn’t yet touch or taste them. Though you knew in a few minutes that you would!

She was feisty! He was staring at her now, her face flushed, eyes bulging, hair all tangled and matted with perspiration. She was going to be great to make love to! Although clearly he was going to have to quieten her down or restrain her first. But not too much.

He took a couple of steps back, then slammed the sole of his shoe, his solid, metal-tipped and heeled workman’s shoe, against the door three times. It yielded a good inch! The most by far for one attempt! Now he was cooking with gas! The lid was peeling! A few more minutes and she would be in his arms!

He licked his lips. He could taste her already.

Not bothering with the hammer any more, he stepped back again and kicked out.

Then he heard the shrill ring of the front-door bell. He saw the change in the bitch’s expression.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to answer it! We don’t want anybody to disturb our little love nest, do we?

He blew her a kiss. Although, of course, she couldn’t see it.

118

There were windows on either side of Cleo’s front door, but she had vertical venetian blinds carefully adjusted so that she could see out, while it was impossible for anyone to see in. Grace, standing anxiously outside her front door, rang the doorbell for the third time. Then he rapped on a window pane for good measure.

Why wasn’t she answering?

He dialled her mobile phone again. After a few seconds he heard it ringing from somewhere on the far side of the door. Downstairs.

Had she gone out and left her phone behind? Gone to get some food or to an off-licence? He checked his watch. It was nine thirty. Then he stepped back, trying to see if he could spot any movement in one of the upstairs windows. Perhaps she was up on the roof terrace, preparing a barbecue, and couldn’t hear the bell? He took another couple of steps back and collided with a young, shaven-headed man in Lycra shorts and a top, pushing his mountain bike.

‘I’m so sorry!’ Grace said.

‘No problem!’

He looked vaguely familiar. ‘You live here, don’t you?’ Grace asked.

‘Yep!’ He pointed at a house a few along. ‘Seen you around a few times, too – you’re a friend of Cleo’s, right?’

‘Yes. Have you seen her this evening by any chance? She’s expecting me, but she doesn’t seem to be in.’

The young man nodded. ‘Actually, yeah, I did see her – earlier. She waved at me from an upstairs window.’

‘Waved at you?’

‘Yeah – I heard a noise and looked up, wondering where it had come from. And I saw her in the window. Just a neighbourly wave thing.’

‘What kind of a noise?’

‘Sort of a bang. Like a gunshot.’

Grace stiffened. ‘ Gunshot? ’

‘That’s what I thought for a moment. But obviously it wasn’t.’

Every alarm bell in his body was ringing. ‘You don’t have a key, do you?’

He shook his head. ‘No. Got one for Unit 9, but not Cleo’s, I’m afraid.’ Then he glanced at his watch. ‘I gotta rush.’

Grace thanked him. Then, as the young man walked away, the bicycle ticking, the detective heard several very distinct, muffled bangs coming from right above him. Instantly, his anxiety turned to blind panic.

He looked around for something heavy and saw a pile of bricks beneath a loose blue tarpaulin, outside the house directly opposite, on the other side of the courtyard.

He sprinted across and grabbed one, then removed his jacket as he ran back, wound it around the brick in his hand, then punched Cleo’s left window, shattering it. Too bad if everything was fine and she had just popped out to the shops. Better this than take a risk, he thought, bashing away more glass. Then, with his free hand, he pushed apart some of the slats of the blind.

And saw to his cold, stark terror the mess of water, smashed fish tank, the upturned coffee table, books strewn around.

‘CLEO!’ he yelled at the top of his voice. ‘CLEEEEEEOOOOO!’ He turned his head and saw the young man with the bicycle, who had stopped in the middle of opening his front door and was staring at him, with a startled look. ‘Call the police!’ he yelled.

Then, ignoring the jagged shards sticking out of the frame all around, Grace hauled himself up on to the ledge and dived head first into the room, hitting the floor with his hands, rolling, then scrambling to his feet as fast as he could, looking wildly around him.

Then he saw the trail of blood across the floor leading to the stairs.

Sick with fear for Cleo, he sprinted up them. When he reached the first-floor landing and peered through the open door to her empty office, he shouted out her name again.

From directly above him he heard her voice, muffled and tight, call out, ‘ROY, BE CAREFUL! HE’S IN HERE!’

His eyes shot up the stairs to the second-floor landing. Cleo’s bedroom to the right, guest bedroom to the left. And the narrow staircase up to the roof terrace. At least she was alive, thank God! He held his breath.

No sign of any movement. No sound except the boomf-boomfboomf of his own heart.

He should call for back-up assistance, but he wanted to listen, to hear every sound in the house. Slowly, tread by tread, as silently as he could in his rubber-soled shoes, he made his way up the staircase towards the second floor. Just before he reached the landing, he stopped, pulled out his mobile phone again and called 999. ‘This is Detective Superintendent Grace, I need immediate assistance at—’

All he saw was a shadow. Then it felt as if he had been hit by a truck.

The next moment he was falling through air. Crashing head over heels backward down the stairs. Then, after what seemed an eternity, he was on his back on the landing floor, with his legs up above him on the stairs, and a sharp pain in his chest – a busted or cracked rib, he thought dimly, staring up, straight into Brian Bishop’s face.

Bishop was coming down the stairs, dressed in a green all-in-one suit, holding a claw hammer in one hand and a gas mask in the other. Except that it wasn’t Bishop. Couldn’t be, his dazed mind thought. He was in jail. In Lewes prison.

It was Brian Bishop’s face. His haircut. But the expression on his face was unlike any he had seen on Brian Bishop’s. It was twisted, almost lopsided, with hatred. Norman Jecks, he thought. It had to be Jecks. The two of them were absolutely identical.