You Are Dead

by Peter James

  “I think you’d better take a look, now.”

  He slipped his hand inside the envelope. Inside were two plastic sleeves. He looked down at them and read the small writing. He looked back at his assistant.

  “Bloody hell.”

  64

  Wednesday 17 December

  Twenty minutes later, Roy Grace sat at his office conference table, along with DCI Sweetman and Tony Balazs. All three men were in dark suits, but unlike the two detectives with their short haircuts and somber ties, the forensic psychologist had a mane of wavy silver hair and was sporting a brightly colored bow tie. He looked, Grace thought, more like an antiques dealer than a shrink.

  All three of them were staring down at the two mottled green paper driving licenses, each dating back thirty years. The first bore the name “Catherine Jane Marie Westerham.” The second, “Denise Lesley Anne Patterson.” Next to them lay a sheet of white A4 paper with the message printed on it:

  Tell Detective Superintendent Grace that he obviously needs help identifying the lady at the Lagoon. Ask him who’s the smart one now, after he recieves this. I don’t make mistakes.

  “He’s inverted the ‘i’ and ‘e’ in receive,” Balazs said.

  “Is that indicative of anything?” Grace quizzed him.

  Balazs nodded. “Yes, that he’s crap at spelling!”

  “So he does make mistakes!” Grace said.

  All three men laughed, thinly.

  “Did the Argus have any CCTV footage from last night, Roy?” Sweetman asked. “Did they catch whoever delivered it on camera?”

  “Yes, he looks like that old movie character The Invisible Man. Wearing a hat, dark glasses, a scarf around his face covering his—or her—nose. Haydn Kelly and a CSI are there now, seeing if they can get any footprints that match the one in the oil at Chesham Gate underground car park. There wouldn’t have been much footfall during the night where the Argus is located. We’re also having all CCTV cameras in the area checked to see if they’ve picked up a slow-moving or parked vehicle.”

  Grace went over to his desk, picked up a folder, opened it and read it as he brought it over. “Denise Patterson was on this list of mispers we’d narrowed—which match Unknown Female’s age and description. With luck we’ll be able to officially confirm with either DNA or dental records that Unknown Female is Denise Patterson,” he said. “The recovery of these driving licenses gives us a definite link to the investigation. Is there anything you can tell from the note?”

  Balazs nodded. “Yes, he clearly has a big but fragile ego. Suggesting he has made mistakes has stung him in the way we had hoped. Also, the fact that he has retained the driving licenses indicates he takes souvenirs.” He looked down at them for some moments. “I wonder if he takes trophies as well.”

  Trophies could be locks of a victim’s hair, jewelry, pieces of clothing or some of their skin. Grace knew that trophies could be indicative of someone who is a loner, substituting objects for friends.

  “He’s trying to gain the high ground again with this note,” DCI Sweetman said.

  “I agree, the Brander thinks he has the high ground now,” Balazs said. “In his egotistical mind he’s helped you to identify her. I think we need to deflate that.”

  “What about playing down the significance of the licenses in our midday press conference in the hope he’ll send us more trophies? I’d just announce that the Argus received them anonymously in the post by someone purporting to be the Brander.”

  “If he’s as smart as we think he is,” Sweetman said, “he’s going to know we are deliberately winding him up, and I think it’ll provoke him into action, to show us.”

  “What kind of action, Paul? Killing again?” Grace said.

  “Very possibly. But we know he’s going to do that anyway, it’s just a matter of time. Hopefully by provoking him into going for his next victim sooner than he had planned, and less prepared, he’ll make a mistake, and that will be our best chance to stop him.”

  * * *

  After the meeting was over, Grace called Cassian Pewe and informed him of the course of action he proposed to take, with DCI Sweetman’s full agreement, but he wanted the ACC’s sanction too.

  Pewe gave him an icy reception. “Roy, I don’t think you made a wise decision going public with this. Just as the Chief and I feared, the whole city is close to meltdown with panic.”

  “Sir, you, I, and the Chief Constable agreed this strategy on Sunday evening.”

  “Have you no idea of the terror your announcement at the press conference yesterday has created?” Pewe’s voice was sounding more nasal and high-pitched than ever. “We’re just one week from Christmas; I’ve had the head of Visit Brighton on the phone this morning. Hotels are getting cancelations pouring in; restaurants are losing Christmas lunch and New Year’s Eve bookings. You’ve scared the hell out of the city.”

  “With respect, sir, it’s our killer who is scaring the city, not me.”

  “Nicola Roigard rang me herself just a short while ago to express her concerns about the public reaction.”

  “I would expect the Police and Crime Commissioner to be concerned,” Grace said. “It would be a bit strange if she wasn’t.”

  “Don’t try to be clever with me.”

  Grace lifted his phone away from his ear and stared at it for some moments, almost unable to listen to the whiny voice any more. He had broken all the rules in risking his own life to save Pewe’s last year. In this job you had to break rules and take risks. But now his boss was running for the hills at the first sound of gunfire. “Sir, if you would like to give me instructions I will obey them.”

  There was a long silence. Then finally in a reluctant tone Pewe said, “You’re running this operation, you have to make the decisions.”

  “I’d feel a lot more comfortable if I had your agreement on such a big decision, sir.”

  “Tell me exactly what you want me to agree to?”

  “My announcing at the midday press conference that the Argus received two driving licenses, in the names of Katy Westerham and Denise Patterson, the body at Hove Lagoon. They supposedly came from our suspected serial killer. If the Brander wants to communicate with us, we would ask him to give us demonstrable proof that it is him. I intend to play down the significance of the driving licenses and announce we had already identified the Lagoon victim before they arrived.”

  Grace then outlined his proposal for the conference and when he had finished, very reluctantly, Pewe gave him his sanction, and told him he would inform the Chief Constable and Police and Crime Commissioner.

  After he had hung up, Grace made a careful note of the date and time and content of this last telephone conversation in his policy book.

  65

  Wednesday 17 December

  The cramps in her legs were getting worse. Sometimes the pain was so acute Logan cried out; particularly her right leg. It was going into spasm again now. It felt at times as if the muscle was a giant elastic band that was about to snap and rip through the flesh. She desperately, so very desperately, wanted to be able to stretch her leg. To stand up.

  She fought the pain, gasping, breathing faster and faster until it subsided, leaving her spent, with tears that she could not wipe away stinging her eyes.

  How long? God, how long had she been here? She shivered from cold, from fear. Then she remembered something she had been taught, that deep breathing was a way to relax. She took in several deep breaths, filling her lungs, slowly. She had time to fill. So much time. Then she wriggled, as much as she could before the bonds cut into her wrists and ankles, raising her head the small distance the strap around her neck would allow.

  She tried to make plans in her head. If she could get the bastard to untie her, even if just for a few moments, she might be able to headbutt him. She had strong hands from her work; if she could momentarily stun him and get a grip on his neck she might be able to choke him.

  But if she tried and failed, what then?

 
; She thought about it constantly, turning it over and over. At some point, surely, he was going to have to untie her. Wasn’t he?

  To pass some of the time, and to try to get back into a positive mood, she played a game of thinking back on different happy moments in her life. The summer holidays when she was a kid going with her parents to the cottage they rented every year in Cornwall. Rowing on the river and picnicking beside it with her parents and her brother and sister. Peeling a hardboiled egg and dunking it in a little mound of salt on her paper plate, then biting into it; followed by a mouthful of buttered crusty bread; then a bite of a tomato picked from the greenhouse that morning.

  She was salivating. Craving, suddenly, a hardboiled egg with bread and butter. Anything other than the bland-tasting protein shakes her captor had been giving her. She tried to switch her mind to Jamie. To the happy day she had first met him, at a dismal birthday party in an upstairs room of a pub. It had been an old school friend’s birthday, but there had been barely anyone in the room she knew, and the people she had talked to seemed universally dull. She was mooching around a table laden with blocks of Cheddar, pickles and slightly stale baguettes, holding a plastic beaker of warm white wine, about to go outside to have a cigarette and maybe to find some better company, when her mate John Southern suddenly appeared alongside her with Jamie and introduced them, before going off to find another beer.

  “You look about as bored as I feel,” he had said.

  “You can join my escape committee,” she’d replied.

  “Willingly, but I think it might be rude to leave before the speeches.”

  “I’m going to nip out for a cigarette—do you smoke?” she had asked.

  “No, but I’ll come out with you.”

  Logan thought, for a fleeting instant, she could smell the sweet aroma of cigarette smoke. But then it was gone. The memory of Jamie faded. Then suddenly she heard a faint sound.

  Splashing. A scraping sound of something being dragged. Footsteps. Rustle of clothing. A flashlight beam jigging. Something was happening! Hope rose inside her. Something was happening! Had the police come for her?

  Then the light went out. She was surrounded once more by darkness and silence.

  “Hello?” she cried. “Hello? Help. Help me! Please help me, someone, please help me!”

  66

  Wednesday 17 December

  At 3 p.m., one and a half hours after his press conference had ended, Roy Grace checked the online version of the Argus newspaper and was pleased with what he saw. True to her word, the reporter Siobhan Sheldrake had given him the headline he had asked for.

  BRIGHTON BRANDER PROVIDES VITAL CLUES

  The story beneath quoted Grace at the press conference, stating that certain items had been received, purporting to have been sent by the killer of Katy Westerham and the victim from Hove Lagoon, believed to be Denise Patterson.

  Grace said this was a major mistake by the killer, providing the police with the potential to identify vital forensic evidence.

  The words had been carefully chosen by the psychologist Tony Balazs, and Grace had quoted them. Hopefully they would provoke a response. In the meantime forensic work was taking place on the note that had accompanied the driving licenses, and the packaging they had come in.

  Having again taken no lunch break, Grace hurried down to the car parking area at the front of Sussex House, deciding to pop home very quickly and see if he could talk with Cleo—and give her at least a little help with the packing. As he drove he munched a very old Twix, with white flecks on the chocolate, which he had found amid a ton of parking receipts in the glove box. It tasted stale but he didn’t mind. He was so hungry, he realized suddenly, that almost anything would have tasted good.

  When he opened the front door of the house, clutching a large bunch of flowers he had bought on the way, he stopped and stared in amazement. Two of Cleo’s friends, her sister, Charlie, and her parents were there, all seemingly frenetically at work, wrapping their very personal items in tissue paper and placing them in boxes. Upstairs he could hear Noah screaming.

  “Roy, hi!” Charlie greeted him with a kiss on both cheeks. He had always liked her; she was a younger, chubbier version of Cleo and seemed to be permanently cheerful. She pointed a finger at the stairs. “Noah’s in a total grump—I think he’s teething, poor thing.” She looked at the flowers. “Those from you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good plan,” she said. “It might save your marriage.” She grinned.

  He said a hello and thank you to Cleo’s parents and her two friends, then hurried up the stairs and into Noah’s room. And was shocked by how tired and drawn Cleo looked, sitting on a chair beside the cot, holding Noah in her arms and rocking him sideways, trying to soothe his grizzling. She gave Roy a desultory nod.

  “I bought you these, darling,” he said, holding them up.

  “Great,” she said flatly. “One more thing to pack.”

  “Hey, come on!” He walked across, gave his son’s scrunched up face a fond look, then kissed Cleo on the forehead.

  She smiled thinly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s all too much at the moment. On top of that I’m worrying if we’re doing the right thing moving to the country. At least when I’m here going stir-crazy with this little one, I can push him around the streets and see life and color and people. What am I going to do out in Henfield—talk to cows and sheep?”

  “Everyone says villages are much more friendly than cities.”

  Noah began bawling again. At the same time Grace’s phone rang. He stepped out of the room to answer it. He heard a voice on the other end in erratic broken English that sounded vaguely familiar, but for an instant, distracted by both Cleo’s mood and Noah’s screaming, he did not recognize who it was.

  “Roy, hello, Roy Grace am I speaking with?”

  “Yes, who is this?”

  “Marcel Kullen! You are going senile is it with your old age, forgetting your friend from Germany?”

  Grace closed Noah’s bedroom door and walked through into the quiet of his and Cleo’s bedroom. “Marcel! Hey, how are you? Great to hear from you—what’s up?”

  Marcel Kullen was an officer in Munich’s Landeskriminalamt, the German equivalent of the British CID. They had originally become friends when the German detective had come to Sussex House on a six-month exchange, about five years back. Subsequently they had met again a year and a half ago when Roy Grace had flown over to Munich after a reported possible sighting of Sandy—which had turned out to be erroneous.

  “All is good here.”

  “How are the kids?”

  “Well, you know, OK. My son Dieter is two years old now and driving us crazy—I am thinking it is what you are calling in England the terrible twos.”

  “Yep, well I have a son now myself. You can probably hear him crying right now!”

  “Yah, you have a son? You are married again?”

  “Very happily—I’d love you to meet my wife!”

  “Bring her to München. What is her name?”

  “Cleo.”

  “And your son?”

  “Noah.”

  “So this is the reason I am calling. About your wife—your former wife, Sandy, yes?”

  Grace felt a churning in his stomach. “Sandy?”

  “There’s a woman who has been brought into hospital here in München after an accident—she was hit by a taxi as she crossed the street. While she was lying in the street, moments after, a motorcycle stopped, took her handbag and drove off. There are some nice people in the world, yes?”

  “Regular charmers,” Grace said. “We have our share of them here. Are you sure this was an accident and not some kind of professional hit?”

  “Yah, sure. There were witnesses—she just stepped out and looked the wrong way. This is the kind of mistake English people make sometimes, because you still drive on the wrong side!”

  Grace smiled but his nerves were jangling. Whenever Sandy’s name was mentioned he felt a
sudden chill deep in his veins. As if a ghost had suddenly entered the room and walked right through him. “So, tell me?”

  “She is in a coma and so far we don’t have any confirmed identification, but believe she could be using the name Lohmann. This is the name her little boy gave us. Alessandra Lohmann.”

  “How old is he, Marcel?”

  “He’s ten.”

  “Marcel, we didn’t have a child—and she’s been gone more than ten years.”

  “It is—yes, as you say I think, a long shot. But the woman’s age kind of fits. To me there are some facial similarities to the photographs I have—but of course these are more than ten years old—and the color of her hair is dark, not blond. But I thought I should send you a photograph for you to eliminate her. Can I do this?”

  “Of course,” he said, more enthusiastically than he felt. He shut the door, not wanting Cleo to hear this conversation. Could the nightmare that had haunted him ever since falling in love with Cleo be about to come true?

  “OK, Roy, I will e-mail some photographs through in a few minutes.”

  “Danke!”

  “You are welcome! I am sorry to make some trouble for you.”

  “No trouble, I really appreciate you calling, Marcel.”

  “We will see us soon, yah?”

  “I’d love Cleo to see Munich, it’s a beautiful city.”

  “Bring Cleo and Noah. Our house is your house.”

  “We might just do that!”

  “Come next year, we go to the Oktoberfest together?”

  “I’ll iron my lederhosen!”

  When he ended the call, Roy Grace sat down on the bed, deep in thought for some moments. All kinds of demons had been reawakened inside him. Every time he thought he had finally laid Sandy’s ghost to rest, something happened to revive them.

  Some moments later the door opened and Cleo came in. She gave him a wan smile. “I’m sorry, darling,” she said. “It’s just really hard right now. I don’t want to be angry with you.”

  He stood up and hugged her.