Dead Like You

computer keyboard.
    ‘This is Dunstan Christmas,’ Addenberry said. ‘He’s the duty controller.’
    But Grace had turned his attention away to the bank of monitors. And he frowned as he stared at one in particular. The front of a smart, ultra-modern house. Then he pointed. ‘No. 7 – is that 76 The Droveway, the home of Mr and Mrs Pearce?’
    ‘Yep,’ Christmas said. ‘She was raped, wasn’t she?’
    ‘I didn’t see any cameras when I was there.’
    Christmas chewed a nail as he spoke. ‘No, you wouldn’t. I think in that house they’re all hidden.’
    ‘Why’s no one told me? There might be evidence on this from her attack,’ Grace said angrily.
    Christmas shook his head. ‘No, wasn’t working that night. It was down from mid-afternoon. Didn’t go back up until the next morning.’
    Grace stared at him hard and saw Branson doing the same thing. Was he hiding something? Or guileless? Then he stared back at the screen. The image had changed to the rear garden.
    Down on the night she was attacked. The company was owned by their new prime suspect.
    The coincidence was too much.
    ‘Do these often go down?’
    Christmas shook his head and chewed on his nail again. ‘No. Very rarely. It’s a good system and there’s normally backup.’
    ‘But the backup wasn’t working on the night Mrs Pearce was attacked?’
    ‘That’s what I was told.’
    ‘What about that one there?’ Glenn Branson said, pointing at the blank screen numbered 20.
    Grace nodded his head. ‘Yes, I was going to ask the same.’
    ‘Yep, that’s down at the moment.’
    ‘What’s the property that’s being covered?’
    ‘The old cement works at Shoreham,’ Christmas replied.

118
    Monday 19 January
    Jessie knew what she had to do, but as the moment approached her body went into panic mode and froze on her.
    He was getting closer. Each clang of the rung slow, steady, determined. She could hear his breathing now. Getting closer. Closer. Nearing the top.
    Above her she could hear a sound, like the clatter of that helicopter again. But she ignored it, not daring to be distracted. She turned, holding the knife in her hand, then finally dared to look down. And nearly dropped the knife in terror. He was only a few feet below her.
    His right eyeball was at a grotesque angle, almost as if it was peering back into its own socket, half sunken in a gunge of coagulated blood and grey fluid, the whole socket encircled inside a livid purple bruise. The massive spanner protruded from the top pocket of his anorak and he was holding the rung with one hand, the carving knife with the other, staring up at her with an expression of utter hatred.
    It was a long way down. Her brain was spinning. Trying to think clearly, to remember her instructions, but she’d never been taught how to kick in a situation like this. If she could plant both feet hard on his face she could dislodge him, she knew. It was her one chance.
    In a swift moment, she squatted, fighting off the vertigo as she stared down, trying to concentrate on him and not the long drop below. She took all her weight on her hands, braced herself, bent her knees, then kicked as hard as she could, clinging to the slats of the grid with her fingers.
    Instantly she felt a searing pain in the ball of her right foot.
    Then, crying out in pain, she felt a vice-like clamp around her left ankle. He was pulling her. Pulling her. Trying to dislodge her. And she realized in this instant she had made a terrible mistake. He had jammed his knife into her right foot, let go of the rung and was now holding both her ankles. He was much stronger than he had looked. He was pulling her. Trying to dislodge her. He was being suicidal, she suddenly understood. Taking a gamble. Either he dislodged her and they both plunged together, or she was going to have to pull him up.
    Then she felt another searing pain in the ball of her right foot, followed by an agonizing one in her right shin. And another. He was holding on with his left hand and slashing at her foot with the knife. Suddenly there was a terrible, terrible pain in the back of her right ankle and her foot felt powerless.
    He had sawn through her Achilles tendon, she realized.
    In desperation she jerked sharply backwards. And fell on to her back. He had let go.
    She scrambled to her feet and promptly fell over again. She heard a clatter as her knife skidded away from her and then, to her horror, it plunged through the railings. Moments later she heard a