It was a dry, fine, if chilly, autumn morning, and still half an hour to sunrise. Wrapped up well in a fleece and beanie, the artist climbed the steps to the street in the half-light, the dogs tugging on their leads, almost pulling him up, and opened the gate latch, letting the over-excited animals run out onto the pavement, yanking his arm.
‘Hey!’ he said. ‘Hey, calm down, boys!’
But Rocky and Rambo seemed even more excited than usual this morning. And instead of turning right, as usual, to drag their master as fast as they could towards the Downs and where they would be let off their leashes, they ran straight ahead, stopped and began barking loudly.
‘Ssssshhhhh, Rocky, Rambo!’ Hegarty hissed. ‘You’ll wake the neighbours!’
Then, to his surprise, the leads slackened as they stopped pulling and just stood barking.
Barking at the dark shape lying on the pavement.
A human body, he realized. A tall thin man, with congealed blood down the right side of his face.
Hegarty’s first thought was that it was a drunk. Shouting at the dogs to calm down, he kneeled down and touched the man’s face. It was stone cold. The flesh stiff and unyielding.
He recoiled in shock. Then stood up, shaking, and dialled 999.
‘Emergency, which service please?’ the calm female voice answered after several rings.
‘There’s a body — a man — lying on the pavement outside my house, I think he might be dead,’ Hegarty said.
‘I’ll put you through to the Ambulance Service, sir.’
Moments later, Hegarty repeated the same thing to the Ambulance Service controller who answered. He was asked for his name and address, which he gave, and the controller asked if he could stay at the scene and an ambulance would attend as quickly as possible.
Hegarty said he would, then walked the dogs a short way up the street, stopping to let first Rocky and then Rambo relieve themselves, scooping up their poop with plastic bags. Less than ten minutes later, he heard the faint doppler wail of a siren.
Then his phone pinged with an incoming text.
He looked at the display. And froze at the words he saw.
I hope you haven’t double-crossed my boss, Mr Hegarty, by keeping the original — you know what I’m talking about. If you have, the next body on the pavement outside your house will be yours.
Hegarty replied, with shaking fingers, struggling to get the words right and having to correct his text several times before it was ready to send. All the time, the siren getting louder and nearer. As he finally sent it, the siren had stopped and he saw light approaching, streaking across the pavement on both sides.
Why would I double-cross your boss or anyone? I make a good living doing what I do best. Assuring you and your boss of my best services at all times, DH.
58
Sunday, 3 November
There had been plenty of weeks in his life that Roy Grace would like to forget. Among them had been the week between his beloved father’s death and his funeral, and another when his mother, whom he adored, had died. The weeks following his former wife Sandy’s disappearance had until now been perhaps the worst of all. Not to mention the months and then years of torment, during which he’d begun to give up all hope of ever living anything approaching a normal life again.
But now, finally, in these past few years, Cleo had changed all that. This gorgeous, smart, amazing woman lying in bed beside him, with her swollen, heavily pregnant belly, had given him a whole new life, a new home, a new passion for living. He loved her with all his heart and he would do anything for her. He would take a bullet for her without a moment’s hesitation. She had given him the gift of something he thought would elude him for the rest of his life.
The gift of happiness.
That had been torn away in the weeks that followed Bruno’s death and his funeral, which Cleo had helped him so much to get through.
The sadness would never leave him but he knew he had to try to live his life and be there for his family. And at work there were still some unresolved issues with his former boss, Cassian Pewe, that he was yet to get to the bottom of. But for now it was Sunday, his favourite day of the week. In a few moments he would prise himself away from his luxuriously soft pillows, slip out of bed quietly, then change into his running kit and take Humphrey for a good long run along the Downs. 10k at least, maybe more. Then when he came back he was eager to try out a new recipe he’d read, an omelette, but with the eggs mixed with rolled oats and a little English mustard, wrapped around grilled mushrooms, with tomatoes and steamed spinach on the side.
He loved experimenting, and the picture of the finished dish he’d seen in a magazine looked amazing.
Later they were going to meet Cleo’s sister and her boyfriend at one of his favourite pubs, the child-friendly Griffin at Fletching, for Sunday lunch. Grace had mixed views about this. He liked Cleo’s sister, Charlie, a lot, although he was less keen on her boyfriend, Lance, a pompous know-all who enjoyed belittling Roy by telling him how much money he made in financial services and wondering why Roy persisted at his relatively low-paid job with the police.
The last time they’d spent a day together, at Christmas last year, when, after their boozy lunch Lance had again told Roy he was wasting his talents in the police, and that he would never become rich as a copper, Roy had retorted, ‘Maybe not, but I have something you will never have.’
‘And what’s that?’ Lance had asked, through a blue cloud of cigar smoke.
‘The knowledge that I have enough,’ Grace had said.
They hadn’t spoken again for the rest of that day. And Roy wasn’t much looking forward to seeing him now. But, big bonus, despite Cleo in her advanced state of pregnancy not drinking, he’d be able to have a couple of glasses of red wine. It might help him cope with the boyfriend.
Then his job phone rang.
He grabbed it quickly, slipped out of bed and answered, whispering, ‘One moment!’
He hurried through into the en-suite bathroom. As he did so, he remembered he had completely forgotten that he was doing a favour to the previous week’s duty Senior Investigating Officer, Mike Ashcroft — who had helped him out by covering his shift last week — taking over from him today instead of the customary 6 a.m. Monday morning.
A slightly nervous female voice he didn’t recognize said, ‘Detective Superintendent Grace?’
‘Uh huh,’ he said, closing the door behind him.
‘It’s DI Sapna Patel at Brighton.’
‘You’re new?’
‘I am, my first shift, sir.’
‘Tell me?’
‘We’ve a possible suspicious death, sir. The victim has been identified as someone well known to Sussex Police — Archie Goff.’
‘Very well known,’ Grace confirmed. ‘A proper recidivist.’
‘He was found two hours ago on a pavement in Saltdean, by a gentleman walking his dogs. DS Walker attended and there are a number of things that make her concerned that this is not a natural death. The first is that the dead man reeks of what apparently smells like an accelerant, possibly petrol, as if he has been doused with it. He also has a wound behind an ear, and the fingers of both hands look to have been crushed.’
‘Sounds like he might have upset someone,’ Grace said. ‘Anything else?’
‘No, sir, but I felt you should be informed.’
‘Where is the body now?’
‘Still in situ, sir.’
‘Has a coroner been notified?’
‘No, sir, not yet. DS Walker felt that should be a decision by Major Crime.’