by James, Peter
‘Chance would be a fine thing.’ She grimaced. ‘I’ve been working on the music for Bruno’s funeral.’
He looked solemn. ‘Thanks, that’s great.’
‘I’ve only made a start – I need your help.’
‘Sure.’
‘I’ve been going through Bruno’s Spotify playlists on his laptop.’
‘No password?’
‘I found it on a Post-it stuck to the inside of a drawer in his bedroom.’
‘I’ve always said you’d make a great detective.’ He smiled.
She shook her head. ‘No, I wouldn’t – I have a life.’ She gave him a strange look.
It wounded him. Even more at this moment, when he was about to break the news about his commitment for Thursday night. ‘Hey! Meaning?’
‘You know exactly what I mean. I would never want you to change, I know how much you love your work. I’m not saying it as a criticism, it’s what you are, it’s what makes you the man I married. It’s what makes you the man I love.’
He sat down on the sofa and put an arm around her. ‘You do an incredible job, too, being with people, comforting them at the worst moment in their lives.’
‘Thanks, but I’m worried for how much longer I’ll be able to do that,’ she said. ‘It’s the thing I love most about my job. But new technology is taking that away from me. Nowadays identifying a victim is dealt with mostly by DNA or dental records, and relatives are no longer identifying their loved ones in person. I’d really miss that human contact. It’s always tough. Someone leaves home and drops dead, or is killed in an accident, and I feel a real sense of achievement if I’m able to give the loved ones some crumb of comfort. I’d hate that to be taken away. You’re lucky, in one way, no matter how grim – you’ll always have that human contact.’
Grace mentally skipped over the times when, as a junior copper having to deliver the death message, he’d been punched in the face, had furniture thrown at him, had to try to calm someone lying on the floor screaming, clawing at the air. ‘I guess.’
He bided his time; this wasn’t the moment to tell her that he’d be working Thursday night. ‘Can I hear what you’ve put together on the playlist so far?’
She leaned forward and tapped a couple of keys.
102
Thursday 12 September
On what felt like the longest evening of her life, Eden was a bag of nerves. Riddled with doubts. Thinking how few killers ever actually got clean away with it. There was almost always something, one mistake or one witness or one clever, probing detective who finally got the killer to crack. And even when that didn’t happen, oftentimes killers found themselves tormented by guilt.
She couldn’t stop reflecting on a novel she had read, years ago, called Thérèse Raquin, because it reminded her so much of her current situation. Maybe stupidly, she’d downloaded it onto her Kindle a few days ago and had been reading it again during her isolation. Thérèse was married to her useless husband, Camille, but desperate to be with her lover, Laurent. They murdered her husband and life should have been wonderful from then on, except it wasn’t. They were both so haunted by the knowledge of what they had done that ultimately their guilt destroyed them.
Could she live with the knowledge that she had sent Niall to his death? However much she hated him? However much he had hurt her in the past? And despite knowing he had been planning to kill her?
Would he really have gone through with “getting rid of” her? Was she being pushed by Rebecca, coerced by her into doing this? Was she being weak in not standing up to Rebecca and telling her she couldn’t go through with this? And – she churned this over and over – what was going to happen when she met Niall, face to face, shocking the hell out of him?
Or would it shock him at all?
Niall knew she was almost certainly alive and he would be mad as hell with her. Crazy mad for all she’d put him through. And she’d seen him mad before. Scary. Very scary. Definitely capable of killing, like he did with their baby. Was it smart to meet him, in pitch darkness, on a remote clifftop?
As if further dampening her thoughts, a heavy shower was pelting down outside, rattling as loud as hail on the roof of the small conservatory adjoining the kitchen. It was just gone 10 p.m.
She craved a drink, but didn’t dare risk it – being stopped and breathalysed would screw everything up. Although, she reasoned, as she sat at the little dining table beneath the glass roof, digging her fork into a microwaved pasta – turning it over, letting the steam escape, her stomach too knotted to consider eating even a mouthful – maybe that would be the easy way out of all of this? Just get drunk. Pass out at home. Apologize to Bex later.
Or have a couple of drinks and take her chances. That was so tempting right now. And if she got arrested for drunk-driving, fess up and see what happened. Surely it wasn’t illegal to disappear? OK, she’d left a trail of evidence to implicate that bastard, but she hadn’t harmed him, she hadn’t made any false claims against him. Rebecca was wrong, surely – she hadn’t committed any offence, had she?
More wisps of steam rose from the white slop in the tinfoil carton. Tagliatelle or rigatoni or cannelloni – she’d forgotten what it had said on the label. The cheesy smell made her stomach churn.
Just a small drink? A tiny whisky to settle her? One wouldn’t do any harm, would it?
She got up, poured herself a finger of Macallan and downed it in one gulp. Wincing at the burn as it went down her throat and hit her stomach, she stood tight. Then it began working its magic and she started to feel better. Not much, but a little. Dutch courage.
What the hell.
She raised her glass and toasted her weak reflection in a windowpane. ‘Cheers, Eden!’
Although she wasn’t actually Eden any more. According to the driving licence and passport that Rebecca had somehow obtained for her – no questions asked – well, only a few – she was now Ginevra Mary Stoneley, tenant of Woodbury Cottage, Chiddingly, East Sussex, and the not very proud owner of an inconspicuous, dark-blue, ageing Nissan Micra.
She even had a new appearance, a brand-new hairstyle and bright blonde colour, courtesy of a hairdresser friend of Rebecca who’d spent two hours at the cottage this morning.
Raising her glass again, this time she said, ‘Cheers, Ginevra, you hot, sexy creature!’
Ginevra winked back at her.
Was Ginevra about to become a murderer?
She put the glass down and checked her watch. Needed to pace herself. Only 10.10 p.m. Another twenty minutes before she had to set off for her rendezvous.
She opened the cupboard door, removed the bottle and took it outside, ducking through the rain and putting it on the passenger seat of the Micra. One final nip of it when she was at her destination. Didn’t warriors always get something to stir them into battle? She’d read that the Zulus fought their wars so ferociously because they were tripping on magic mushrooms. The GIs fought in Vietnam high on cannabis. How else could anyone kill a fellow human being face to face?
Then she sat back down and stared at the steadily congealing pasta. Rebecca had told her to think through to beyond tonight. To the far side. To the fortnight they had booked in a villa with its own pool in a resort in Cancun, Mexico. And to their life beyond.
For years, she could never have imagined being with anyone other than a man. Now she could never imagine being with anyone other than Rebecca.
She would do anything for this woman.
And was about to.
103
Thursday 12 September
Roy Grace and Glenn Branson sat in the unmarked Ford, parked on Eastbourne’s almost deserted seafront. A short distance away the streetlights ended, and a steep dark hill rose ahead, the start of the Seven Sisters chain of chalk cliffs, the most notorious of which was Beachy Head. It was just gone 10.57 p.m. and they’d been here for the past hour. Grace was both anxious and bored. Branson just seemed plain bored. The other members of the team were at HQ awaiting deployment.
Peering through the windscreen, made opaque by the pelting rain, Branson said, by way of conversation, ‘You don’t like heights much, do you?’
Grace shook his head. ‘I get acrophobia. If I look down an unguarded drop – or even a guarded one – I feel a strange pull to jump, almost as if I’m being tempted or my brain is taunting me. You ever get that?’
The DS nodded. ‘This is about as close to the edge as I like to be: a good quarter of a mile of terra firma between me and any drop. I get acrophobia standing on a kerb!’
Grace smiled distractedly.
Glenn looked at him concerned. ‘You OK, mate?’
‘I’m OK, I just get flashes when it hits me and I think of his accident. I just hope to God he didn’t feel anything. But I’d rather be here, especially if we get a result tonight.’
Then he focused back on why they were here. Despite what he had told his team at the briefing earlier in the week, he had been toying ever since with turning this into a full-blown operation, with Gold, Silver and Bronze commanders to cover his back if anything went wrong. But mindful of Cassian Pewe’s scepticism about this entire investigation, he worried the ACC would order him to abort his whole plan, so in the end he’d stuck to his decision of keeping it low-key, not getting Pewe involved.
And hoped it wasn’t all going to go badly tits-up.
Although the weather had already gone just that. Far from the forecasted clear night, at the moment there was dense cloud cover and a heavy rain shower was falling. It pattered down on the roof of the unmarked Ford as Grace sat with Branson. A strong wind was blowing, too, sending something – an empty drinks can, Grace guessed – rattling along.
Three of the vehicles of Mark Taylor’s Surveillance Team, each with a crew of two, one with Sharon Orman, were parked up close by, covering the exits to the conference hotel where Rebecca Watkins was staying. The others were stationed on the main roads out of Eastbourne. Inside his jacket pocket Grace had a printout of his risk assessment for tonight. But his nerves were ragged.
A figure, head bowed against the rain, walked along the pavement with a dog on a lead, and passed by their car. Branson yawned. ‘Think you need to use a better weather forecasting method,’ he said with a wry smile, watching the rain. ‘There’s technology you can use, apps, you know? They’re a lot more reliable than sticking your finger out of the window – or was it the entrails of a chicken you were studying?’
Grace gave him a withering look.
‘Sorry, boss, that was tactless.’
‘You could say that.’ He grimaced at the reminder of the previous week. ‘I looked at the forecast for around midnight, it’s meant to be clear skies then.’
‘Definitely, for sure it will be, somewhere in the world, just not here,’ Branson retorted.
But Grace barely heard this, he was back in his thoughts, again thinking through what lay ahead tonight. The words of Sharon Orman, relaying the conversation between Niall Paternoster and Rebecca Watkins in the pub in Croydon. Whenever I can get away without being rude. Probably be near to midnight. Does that sound like a plan?
A lovers’ rendezvous? Was that all it was going to turn out to be? He would have egg all over his face, for sure, if he’d organized an operation simply to watch a couple getting it on in the back of a car.
What, he wondered over and over, was he actually expecting to see tonight, if not that? But all his instincts were sensing this was going to turn into something more than a simple bit of canoodling lovers. Rebecca Watkins was up to something.
But what?
Where would she choose? Which remote location, ideal for lovers wanting to be away from prying eyes, and yet close enough to Eastbourne to be just a short drive away?
Both had their phones in front of them, on the road-mapping app Mark Taylor had instructed them to upload. It currently showed Niall Paternoster’s rental car stationary at his home address.
In order to keep as silent as possible, and avoid any sounds from their radios, both of them wore earpieces plugged into their phones. Each of them also had night-vision binoculars.
Glenn Branson spoke suddenly, quietly, in a caring tone. ‘How are you feeling, mate, you know, about the funeral?’
‘Not great. I’ve spent the last couple of evenings going through the order of service with Cleo, listening to Bruno’s playlists, trying to figure what music he would have approved of – and what would sound appropriate in church. Something I guess to do with all he had to overcome – you know – all the difficulties with his mother, then her death, then moving to a new and strange country, family, school.’
Branson was silent for a while, thinking. ‘One suggestion, although it’s not for me to say and it might not be entirely appropriate . . . how about Mike Doughty’s “I Keep on Rising Up”. It’s about overcoming adversity, and he has a beautiful voice, soulful – that’s one that could work.’
‘I don’t know it, but I’ll have a listen tomorrow, thanks.’
‘I’ll try and think of some more.’
‘So,’ Grace asked, ‘wedding still OK for next month?’
After a long and acrimonious divorce from his wife, Ari, and a custody fight for their two children, which Ari had mostly won before her untimely death, Glenn Branson had finally moved on and fallen in love again. Siobhan Sheldrake was a very charismatic and fun person, but as the senior crime reporter for the Argus, Grace could foresee some awkward pillow talk between them in the years ahead. On the other hand she had been really good with his kids and loved being a stepmother to them.
‘Yeah,’ Branson said. ‘All set.’ Then as he looked down at his phone, he murmured excitedly, watching the red dot of Niall Paternoster’s car, ‘Subject one is on the move!’
As Grace looked too, both suddenly heard communications in their earpieces.
‘Alpha Five here, subject two, Range Rover Evoque, index Golf November Seven Zero Charlie Papa November has just left hotel.’
Grace felt a beat of excitement. That was Rebecca Watkins’s car. He heard Taylor’s voice.
‘Alpha Five, roger that, keep eyes on it.’
‘Copy that, sir, am following at distance.’
A few minutes later, Grace heard a voice. ‘Subject two’s turning into Beachy Head pub car park. I’m carrying on past.’
Grace looked at the red dot heading up Nevill Road. Even driving fast in light traffic, it would take Paternoster a good half-hour to get here. They could reach the car park in less than ten minutes. He radioed Taylor. ‘Grace to Alpha Seven.’
‘Alpha Seven,’ Taylor replied.
‘We’re going to check out the Beachy Head pub car park.’
‘Roger that, sir, we’ll put units either side but not too close.’
Grace turned to Branson. ‘Fire her up. Get there quickly but quietly.’
As Branson started the engine, Grace looked down at the red dot again. And again hoped to hell this wasn’t going to turn out to be a massive waste of everyone’s time.
104
Thursday 12 September
Glenn Branson drove fast out of Eastbourne, heading along the steep, twisting, clifftop road, with the darkness of farmland to their right as they left the town and the darkness of the English Channel, beyond the cliffs, to their left.
‘Coming up on the right,’ Roy Grace said.
There was a sign for the Beachy Head Chaplaincy on their right and then one for the pub. Branson slowed right down as they approached the pub’s huge car park. It was almost deserted. Just the Range Rover, on one side, parked close to some kind of mobile industrial unit, and a large camper van with German plates some distance from it, almost at the far end, facing towards the cliffs. The camper van’s roof extension was open, and the interior lights were on. Holidaymakers settled in for the night, Grace guessed, an idea forming.
‘Don’t go in, drive on by.’
As they did so, a figure emerged from the camper van, from a door on the far side to the Range Rover, and sparked up
a cigarette.
There is a God, Grace thought. ‘Spin her round, go into the car park, drive normally as if you’re deliberately heading to the camper van, and pull up beside it, on the far side of it to the Rangey.’
Branson threw him a puzzled look and complied. As they approached the camper, they saw a man in shorts, a vest and flip-flops, sheltering beneath a small awning above the door. He looked at them warily. Grace lowered his window, smiled and said, ‘Guten abend!’ He smelled the sweet aroma of the smoke.
The man smiled back and replied with something that Grace, with his very limited German, failed to catch. He climbed out of the car, holding up his warrant card but still smiling. Putting a finger to his mouth to indicate they should be quiet, Grace said, ‘Polizei! Sprechen Sie Englisch?’
‘Ja!’ the German replied. Then he added, ‘I am very good to speak English.’
‘We are just keeping an eye on someone.’ Grace pointed at the binoculars around his neck and the man nodded. ‘Is it possible we can sit in your camper for one hour, to observe?’ He jerked a finger surreptitiously to the far side of the car park, in the direction of the Range Rover. Again quietly, but loud enough for the German to hear, he said, ‘Criminals.’
The man’s eyes lit up with excitement. He crushed out his cigarette, opened the door, and they entered. It smelled of damp clothes and grilled meat. A middle-aged woman was sitting watching a movie in German on the video screen, a bottle of wine open beside her, two glasses on the table. The man spoke to her in German briefly. She froze the film, turned and waved at the two detectives, then said something to her husband and held up the bottle.
‘My wife asked if you would like a drink? A glass of wine?’
‘Nein, danke! You are very kind. Can we go to the front seats?’
‘Please, be free. You want lights in the cabin off or on?’
‘Off, as they are, danke.’
Grace and Branson settled into the front seats, Grace with the left-hand-drive vehicle’s steering wheel in front of him. They now had an unobstructed view, through the rain-blurred windscreen and side window, both of the Range Rover and of the road and clifftop ahead.
