Want You Dead

by Peter James

  ‘His past is being investigated by our researchers,’ Branson said, pointing at the two researchers. Then he turned to the Chief Fire Investigator. ‘Tony, would you like to remind the team of your findings on your investigation of Red Westwood’s Volkswagen?’

  ‘Yes. After a detailed examination, we found that the coil had been cleverly tampered with to make it short and overheat. At the same time, we found tiny pinholes drilled in the fuel pipe, which would have caused small amounts of petrol to spray out and combust after the engine had been running for some minutes and the wires became hot enough.’

  Branson thanked him, looked down briefly at his notes, then continued. ‘In the garage of Wainwright’s home is a 1970s Volkswagen Beetle car, which he has been restoring. This vehicle is of a similar vintage to Red Westwood’s VW, with virtually identical mechanics. He would have known exactly what to do.’

  There was a silence. Roy Grace was pensive for some moments. ‘If your supposition is correct, Glenn,’ he said, ‘it would seem that Wainwright has gone to a great deal of trouble and taken a lot of risks.’

  ‘Sleight of hand and distraction techniques are part of the stock-in-trade of a good magician,’ the DI replied. ‘He’s had a wonderful opportunity here, with Bryce Laurent. One presented on a platter to him, perhaps, if he is ruthless enough.’

  ‘But why would he have needed to go to these lengths – what would have made him so desperate?’

  ‘I’m told there is a lot of discontent in the Fire and Rescue Service at the moment, boss. They’re talking about strike action for the first time in a generation. There’s a big exodus of disenchanted officers from the service. Perhaps Matt Wainwright saw the perfect opportunity to eliminate a key rival for his new career in magic.’

  Grace nodded. ‘I agree with you, Glenn. There is a lot of evidence suggesting Wainwright is involved in some way. But from what we know about Bryce and his desire for revenge, what if he’s being clever and is setting Wainwright up, deflecting the investigation from himself? It’s your investigation for the next week. You need to prioritize both these lines of enquiry.’

  ‘On paper, Matt Wainwright ticks a lot of boxes,’ Glenn Branson replied. ‘But I agree, it could be a red herring.’

  Grace smiled. He knew that he had not been as focused on this job as he should have been because of his impending marriage. He owed it to Cleo to make their wedding day, and their all-too-short honeymoon, a great and happy success. He was aware that his focus on his work had caused friction at times with Sandy, because there had been many occasions when his work had come first, much to her dismay. Sometimes it had been out of his control, but mostly it had been his decision. He always took every murder case personally. Sandy had called him a workaholic, and his response to her had always been to ask her how she would have felt if it was one of her loved ones who had been found dead. She was an intelligent woman, and she had understood. But it had always placed strains on their relationship. However much it pained him, he knew that for the next week he had to let go of the reins on Operation Aardvark.

  He remembered a quote that Cleo had read out to him some time back during her studies. I might disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

  ‘You’re the boss. But make sure you articulate your thinking in your policy book – and don’t get deflected from finding Laurent as well. It might be Wainwright or both of them together, but I favour Bryce setting up his former colleague, and getting us to divert our resources and waste time. Remember, Red is likely to still be in danger.’

  79

  Saturday, 2 November

  Shortly after 1 p.m., Glenn Branson drove Roy Grace, in his clapped-out old Ford Fiesta the colour of a dried-up cowpat, the short distance to Rottingdean from his Saltdean home, where Grace had spent a second, uncomfortable night in a child’s bed before his wedding.

  Grace was so preoccupied that for once he hadn’t been scared by his mate’s driving. He felt uncomfortable in his rented monkey suit, and the collar of the new shirt that Glenn had insisted he buy was rubbing his neck. As they pulled into the car park of the White Horse Hotel, he dug his hand into his inside pocket and pulled out his speech for the third or fourth time, looking at it again to make sure it was his speech and not some other document he’d picked up by mistake.

  ‘You okay, old timer?’ Glenn asked.

  Grace gave him a nervous nod. His mouth felt dry.

  ‘Remember that film Four Weddings and a Funeral, yeah?’

  ‘Why do you want me to remember that?’

  ‘’Coz you look like you’re going to a fucking funeral, that’s why! Come on, man, enjoy! This is the biggest day of your life!’

  ‘The second of the biggest days,’ Grace reminded him. ‘I’ve been here before.’

  ‘Groundhog Day?’

  ‘Feels a bit that way.’ He touched his shirt collar. Hadn’t it felt stiff and scratchy around his neck in his dream?

  ‘Old timer, just for once in your life pack away everything to do with work, forget about it, and concentrate on enjoying yourself and cherishing your beautiful bride, yeah? Okay?’

  Finally, cowed into submission by his best man’s relentless enthusiasm, Grace mustered a smile.

  ‘You know what you need?’ Branson asked.

  ‘No. What do I need?’

  ‘A sodding big drink.’

  ‘I have to make a speech.’

  ‘You’ll have sobered up by then.’

  They went inside to the bar. Not normally much of a beer drinker, Roy Grace downed a pint of Harvey’s, and instantly felt a lot more cheerful. They ordered toasted cheese sandwiches from the menu, then Glenn bought a bottle of Moët & Chandon.

  ‘Hey! We can’t drink this!’ Roy Grace said.

  ‘We can have a good go!’ Branson replied.

  ‘Look, I need to talk to you about Red Westwood,’ he tried.

  Branson shook his head. ‘No. Today you just need to drink.’

  When they left the pub, shortly after 2 p.m., the bottle empty, Grace felt slightly tipsy, but relaxed and definitely in a very happy mood now. Glenn Branson strode ahead of him down towards the traffic lights at the start of Rottingdean High Street. It was a glorious afternoon, the sun shining from a cloudless sky. Glenn looked magnificent in his top hat and grey tails, he thought, and at least the booze had stopped his damned shirt from itching.

  They turned into the High Street. Several people smiled at them; Roy smiled back. He had no idea whether they recognized him or were just amused by their outfits.

  Minutes later they were walking up the path to the church. Several people, the men in suits, the women in hats and finery, were already milling around outside. Some, colleagues, he recognized and greeted by name; others, strangers, he presumed were friends or family of Cleo.

  It all seemed surreal. The bells were ringing loudly above them, and the early afternoon sun was blazing down from a brilliant blue sky, feeling as hot as if it was a summer’s day, not early November. It was as if someone had turned up a rheostat, making everything feel more intense. Even the flint walls of the Saxon church itself seemed to be glistening with light. And he was trembling with excitement. He turned to Glenn.

  ‘You know, this really is Groundhog Day!’

  ‘Yeah?’

  Father Martin, plump and cheery in his cassock, with a white stole and buzz cut, suddenly appeared and gave Roy a firm handshake. ‘All set?’

  Grace felt a sudden lump in his throat. He nodded, his voice deserting him for one of the few times in his life.

  Guests were now streaming up the asphalt path through the graveyard, couples and singles, nodding greetings and then entering the church, and being handed Order of Service sheets by his two ushers, Guy Batchelor and Norman Potting, also in morning suits. ‘Bride or groom?’ he heard each of them asking.

  There seemed an impossible number of people attending. Surely they had not invited all of these? He felt a stab of panic over whethe
r they would all fit inside.

  And then another stab of panic. This was truly like his dream. He wished to hell he had not drunk so much, but it was too late now. He smiled and greeted everyone exuberantly, like they were all his long-lost friends and as if the wedding would have been a total disaster without their presence.

  Groundhog Day, Glenn had said. This was. Truly. This was exactly like the bloody dream he’d had. Even the weather. The sheen on the church walls.

  Glenn gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. ‘You bearing up, old timer?’

  ‘Yep.’ Grace gave him a nervous smile. Shit, he was shaking all over.

  This was what Glenn had said to him in the dream.

  Suddenly the Chief Constable, Tom Martinson, in a dark suit, and his elegant wife, her outfit topped with a grey hat with a short veil, were standing right in front of him. Martinson shook his hand. ‘Congratulations, Roy. Big day! You’ve got the weather for it – the gods must be smiling on you!’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’ Then he turned to his wife. ‘That’s a wonderful outfit, if I may say so, Mrs Martinson!’

  Then ACC Rigg, in tails, accompanied by his taller, elegant blonde wife, appeared. ‘Good stuff, Roy,’ he said chirpily. ‘Got a glorious day for it!’ Then he smiled at Glenn Branson. ‘So you’re minding the shop for the next week.’

  ‘I am, sir, yes. I’m sorry that you’re leaving, but congratulations on your promotion.’

  ‘Well, thank you. I’m sure that ACC Cassian Pewe will prove himself very able,’ he replied, studiously avoiding Roy’s eyes.

  After a few minutes, during which several male and female police officers and support staff, whom he was sure he had not invited, filed past, each of them thanking him for their invite, Glenn put an arm around his shoulder and gave him a gentle squeeze. ‘Your bride’ll be here in a minute. Time to rock ‘n’ roll.’

  ‘I need to speak to you,’ Roy Grace said.

  ‘Later, dude.’

  ‘No, now!’

  ‘We have to go in. Cleo’s about to arrive!’

  ‘So is Sandy,’ Grace hissed urgently.

  Branson gave him a sideways look. ‘I don’t think so.’

  They went inside and strode down the aisle together. Grace acknowledged smiling faces with a wave or a cheery smile back. But inside, he was shaking.

  Sandy.

  The dream.

  Was she about to turn up here?

  Father Martin greeted Roy in front of the altar with another firm, warm handshake, and immediately Grace felt better. ‘Remember what I told you, Roy? Relax and enjoy it!’

  Grace frowned. He’d heard those words before in his dream. But, he suddenly remembered, in the dream the Chief Constable had been in his full dress uniform, not a dark suit. He breathed a sigh of relief.

  The organ struck up. ‘Pachelbel’s Canon’!

  Roy Grace’s heart melted. He turned and stared down the aisle. And saw Cleo, looking utterly beautiful in a cream gown, her hair up, a veil over her face. Slowly, arm in arm with her father, accompanied by the music, she came down the aisle towards him.

  No one noticed, nor took any notice at this moment, of the veiled woman in a broad-brimmed hat and gloves, dressed entirely in funereal black, who slipped in the rear door, accompanied by a neat-looking young boy in a smart herringbone overcoat.

  80

  Saturday, 2 November

  ‘Are those people getting married, Mama?’ whispered the boy in German.

  Every pew in the church was full. Sandy stood at the rear with her son, clutching the Order of Service sheet. Shaking. Staring.

  Staring past the sea of people, strangers, almost all of them. Feeling as if she was on some alien planet. In someone else’s world. Staring at Roy Grace, his hair short, cutting an elegant figure in his grey tails, hands clasped behind his back, his bride-to-be to his left. What the fuck was her outfit? She looked like Barbie.

  Both of them facing away from her, towards the portly clergyman and the altar. To Roy’s right was a tall black man, also in tails, who she did not know. His best man. She wondered who he was. He looked like a cop, perhaps. Of course he would be a cop.

  This was all so surreal. Like a dream. A nightmare. Her husband getting married to another woman, in just a few minutes, if she did nothing about it. Her husband with a best man she had never met. Her husband getting married in a church full of people she had never met.

  Anger swirled through her, like the first gust of a brewing storm.

  ‘Mama, are they?’ the boy whispered. Are they getting married?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she whispered back.

  But maybe not, she thought. I can stop it.

  ‘Only maybe?’ he whispered. ‘Why are they standing there if they are not going to get married, Mama?’

  The vicar, blocked from her view now by the bride and groom, said, ‘The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you.’ His name, according to the service sheet, was Father Martin.

  There was a quiet response from the congregation. ‘And also with you.’

  The entire inside of the church became a blur. She felt in total turmoil. Roy looked so confident, so handsome, so mature now. Such a different person from a decade ago. Ten years in which she had thought about him every day. Many times every day. Regretting so much. Burying herself first in one cult, the Scientologists, then another, in Germany. Her relationship with Hans-Jürgen, this cult’s founder who turned out to be a control freak who couldn’t keep his hands off other women.

  Roy had his faults, but in the eight years they were married she was certain, from the deep love he had shown her, that he had never been unfaithful. Indeed she had never, in all that time, even seen him eye another woman. He had told her, many times, that he loved her to bits, that she was his soulmate, that something incredibly powerful had drawn them together. And she had agreed with him each time then. In those early days she had truly believed they would be together for ever.

  Until.

  She shuddered.

  ‘God is love, and those who live in love live in God and God lives in them,’ Father Martin intoned.

  In just a few minutes, he would be gone for ever. Married to another woman.

  A tear trickled down her cheek.

  ‘Why are you sad, Mama?’

  Almost the entire congregation read aloud the words printed on their Order of Service sheet. Sandy clutched her son’s hand and held the sheet in the other. On the front was printed Roy, Cleo, with the date and a dinky drawing of church bells between them.

  She was starting to hyperventilate. Tears were flooding down her cheeks now. She had to stop this. Had to. This lie. This sham. Bigamy was about to happen. She had to stop it. Was duty-bound, surely, to stop it?

  And she wanted him back so desperately.

  ‘God of wonder and joy: grace comes from you, and you alone are the source of life and love. Without you, we cannot please you; without your love, our deeds are worth nothing. Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love, that we may worship you now with thankful hearts and serve you always with willing minds; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.’

  Grace. The word kept coming up in the service. Grace. The name seared her heart. The sight of the man she had once loved so much, and still loved, standing beside his bride-to-be. Sometime tonight they would make love. And again tomorrow, no doubt. Doing all the intimate things they used to do. She knew his moves; his tongue on her skin, and against her lips and deep down in her crevices. The movements of his hands, the places he liked to touch with his fingers. All of that in a few hours’ time. On this Barbie doll beside his body.

  But she had the power to stop it.

  She had come here to stop it.

  She would be an accomplice to a criminal act if she did nothing – despite the fact that she had been declared legally dead. But then wouldn’t someone notify you if you were legally dead? she w
ondered.

  She thought about that for a moment. The absurdity of that thought.

  The organ struck up, the strains of ‘Jerusalem’. The congregation began to sing, loudly, lustily; everyone knew and loved this hymn. Their voices rose to the roof of the building and echoed off its walls.

  ‘And did those feet, in ancient time, walk upon England’s mountains green? And was the Holy Lamb of God on England’s pleasant pastures seen?’

  This was the same damned hymn they had sung at their wedding. Roy’s favourite, of course, because it was the English rugby anthem. She could remember so very vividly standing at the altar at All Saints Church, Patcham, with Roy to her right, on the happiest day of her life. About to be married to the man she loved, and with whom she wanted, without any question, to spend the rest of her life. Was this Barbie woman standing beside him now as happy as she had felt on her wedding day?

  She hoped not. She looked up at the church roof above them, hoping that some fucking lump of masonry would fall from it and crush the smug bitch.

  She blinked away the tears, but her eyes were stinging from their saltiness. She felt her son squeeze her hand. She let go, fumbled in her handbag for a tissue, and raising her veil a small amount, dabbed her eyes.

  ‘Mama?’

  She silenced him with a raised finger. Then stood still, shaking, listening.

  ‘I will not cease, from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, till we have built Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land.’

  She sniffed, tears streaming down her face. Hans-Jürgen was always spouting meaningful quotations at her. There was one, his favourite, that was resonating now.

  For all of us, life is a series of journeys, and at the end of each journey, we arrive back at the place we started from, and know it for the first time.

  This was her, now. Here in the church. Listening to the dying sound of the organ, and the echo of their wedding hymn. Realizing just how much she loved this man standing at the altar, and had always loved him.

  Knowing it for the first time.

  And time was running out.