Grace did a double take. Was he imagining it?
Pewe gave him a knowing smile. Grace immediately and angrily looked away.
What the hell was that bastard doing here?
Completely off his stride, glancing around the packed aisles, he finally found Glenn, sitting with Siobhan and Norman, immediately behind Cleo’s family.
The utter silence held. He felt a twitching of the muscle beneath his right eye. An air of expectancy along with the expressions of sympathy on so many faces. Everyone waiting for him, and he had all the time in the world. All the time to totally screw this up. He took a deep breath, then another and looked down at his notes. Focus, he thought. Just focus. Take your time. He looked back up at where Glenn was but for a moment couldn’t locate him. Then he saw him, saw his concerned gaze. Saw his kind eyes and his you can do it smile. And he began, aware his voice sounded nervous and faltering.
‘The American poet Maya Angelou said: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”.’ He paused. ‘Bruno was a truly extraordinary young man, who constantly challenged our preconceptions about so many aspects of our lives and of the human condition. A small boy who was wiser, in some ways, than many people very much older. Had he lived, I’ve no idea how much he might have achieved, but I have a feeling he might have been a truly great human being. Or at the very least, as he once told his headmaster, a benign dictator!’
He smiled and it prompted laughter.
When the congregation was quiet again, Roy Grace said, ‘One of the last conversations I had with Bruno, before that morning when I dropped him off at school, was about music. He told me he was into the local artist Rag’n’Bone Man and that his favourite of his songs was “As You Are”.’
Grace’s voice choked and his eyes flooded with tears. He dabbed his eyes with his handkerchief, mumbled an apology, then took several deep breaths before continuing in faltering words. ‘Bruno wasn’t a misfit, in any conventional sense of that word. But throughout the short time that Cleo and I were lucky enough to have him with us, we always had the impression that he felt he belonged somewhere else, on some higher plane. We both hope that he has found it now, found that higher plane, found that mojo he was seeking. I suspect he has.’
Grace nodded at Smale, and moments later ‘As You Are’ began playing loudly from the speakers.
Clutching his eulogy, he climbed down from the pulpit and walked, avoiding all eyes, back to his pew and a warm, well done smile from Cleo.
32
Monday, 30 September
The service ended with Bob Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, which Erik had said was another favourite of Bruno’s. Thomas Greenhaisen and another of his funeral directors marched down the aisle, solemnly side by side, followed by Roy and Cleo.
Grace stared straight ahead, occasionally giving a slight nod of acknowledgement to a friend or colleague. He was looking for Cassian Pewe, although he wasn’t sure what he would say when he reached the smug bastard. Why the hell was he here?
But when they reached the final row of wooden benches, there was a gap where he thought he’d seen the former ACC sitting. He was gone. Or had he walked past him and not noticed?
Outside, as they’d planned in advance, he and Cleo took up their positions a short distance from the porch, ready to greet and thank everyone for attending. But as the mourners filed out into the bright sunlight he was distracted and angry that Pewe had dared to show up, dared to intrude on this deeply personal service. It was as if this was some act of defiance from Pewe – You might have got me suspended, Roy, but you don’t get me out of your life that easily.
Then the Chief Constable, in full dress uniform, was standing in front of him. A fair-haired woman, with a warm, kindly face that belied the steel behind it when needed. He and Cleo each shook her hand.
‘That was a beautiful eulogy, Roy. I’m so very sorry for your loss,’ she said.
‘It’s very good of you to come, ma’am.’
‘We’re family, Roy, you know that. Perhaps more than ever these days, and we all support each other, not out of any sense of duty but because we want to.’ Looking at them both, she added, ‘If there’s anything I can do for either of you, just pick up the phone, and if you need any time out, please take it, as long as you want.’
Feeling her sincerity, he thanked her. ‘You’re probably busy, ma’am, but we are having drinks and bites back at ours after the interment – the address and directions are on the back of the service sheet.’
She smiled. ‘Thank you. I’ve got the National Police Chiefs’ Council conference call in an hour. If it doesn’t go on too long I will try to make it.’
Next was one of Roy’s team, Emma-Jane Boutwood, then Glenn Branson, who flung his arms around him and, pressing his cheek against Roy’s, said, in a voice barely above a whisper, ‘You did really well, mate.’
Roy Grace closed his eyes, crushing away tears, loving this man even more than ever. ‘Thanks,’ he managed to croak.
‘Seriously, if I fall off the perch before you do – unlikely, I know, because of your great age – promise me you’ll do my eulogy?’
‘You seriously want me to tell the world what you’re like?’
‘Maybe not, on second thoughts.’
As Branson moved on, followed by Siobhan Sheldrake and Norman Potting, Grace saw his old police colleague Dick Pope and his wife Leslie. They’d first alerted him to the possibility that Sandy was living in Munich after they reckoned they’d seen her there while on holiday.
Next was Ray Packham, a former guru of the High Tech Crime Unit, now renamed Digital Forensics, and his wife, Jen, who worked as an ambulance despatcher. ‘We’re so sorry for your loss, Roy,’ he said.
Aware the couple had recently lost their beagle, Hudson, Grace replied, ‘And I’m so sorry for yours. Hudson was a character.’
‘Yeah,’ Ray Packham said. ‘A fat thief. But we loved him.’
Jen nodded. ‘He had a good heart, but he was so damned greedy!’
Behind them was Forensic Gait Analyst Haydn Kelly and his partner, whose name Grace was forever getting wrong. And he couldn’t remember now – was it Emma or Gemma?
He extended the invitation to drinks and bites back at their cottage, where they had a heated marquee erected.
Finally, the queue of people ended. Thomas Greenhaisen approached them respectfully. ‘Are you ready for the interment?’
Roy turned to Cleo, who nodded.
‘Yes,’ he said.
And a short while later, as the same four pall-bearers who had carried the little coffin into the church came back out with it, Roy Grace felt like the loneliest man in the world.
33
Tuesday, 1 October
Harry Kipling drove his grimy Volvo onto the forecourt of their house, parking in the gap between his equally grimy Toyota Hilux pick-up and Freya’s sparkling Fiat 500. She loved her little car, which she’d nicknamed Daffy because of its daffodil yellow colour, and she kept it spotless, unlike his two workhorses, neither of which he’d taken through a car wash in as long as he could remember.
As he fumbled with his front door key, the door opened and Freya stood there, in jeans and roll-neck top, looking concerned. ‘Darling, it’s half past eight, I was expecting you back hours ago. Is everything OK?’
Harry, beaming like a Cheshire cat, kissed her then asked, ‘Is that champagne still in the fridge?’