Dead Man's Time

to spend the rest of his life with her, start a new family with her, and she’d accepted. They were all set to be married. The church booked, everything sorted, the invitations
printed. Finally, he was in a place where he was happy again.
    Then Detective Roy Grace had come along. And screwed it all up for him. For
them
. On the morning of the wedding. 5 a.m. A dawn raid.
    He’d pleaded with Roy Grace to just let the wedding go ahead and then do what he had to, but did the bastard listen?
    No.
    Grace had chosen the day of his arrest for maximum humiliation, Amis Smallbone was certain. He could have done it days earlier. Or later. But no, he had chosen his moment very deliberately. And
he had not let him make a phone call. So there was Theresa, all excited that morning, having her hair done, getting into her dress, then driving to the Brighton Registry Office. Where Roy Grace let
her wait for her groom who wasn’t going to turn up because he was in a sodding cell in Brighton nick with no phone. They eventually got married in jail, but that wasn’t the point.
    Today had been a long time coming. A long time in the planning. The little shit Gareth Dupont had been arrested and charged, and would be grassing him up to get a reduced sentence for himself,
for sure. So it was only a matter of time before he’d be back inside. If you committed a crime while you were out on licence, then your licence was automatically revoked; he’d be going
back down for another ten years, minimum. But at least this time he would take Roy Grace down with him. The knowledge of Roy Grace’s grief would sustain him in the shitholes that faced him
now and into old age.
    Draining his glass, he stood up unsteadily and left the top-floor room with its view of the courtyard and the front door of the Grace house, and went out onto the landing. He picked up the
hooked stick and flailed around with it until he managed to hook the hoop in the loft door. Then he pulled the door down, and hooked the bottom rung of the metal loft ladder, lowering it carefully,
until its feet touched the landing carpet.
    Then he climbed up it. At the top he reached out and found the light switch. Moments later the two weak bulbs lit up the roof space. Steeply angled wooden beams. Yellow insulating foam,
sprinkled with rat and mouse droppings, between the rafters. The water tank. Spiders’ webs. An old, empty suitcase covered in dust. He hauled himself up onto his knees, breathing in the dry,
dusty smells of wood and the insulating material. Then, supporting himself against the beams with his hands, he trod carefully on the rafters, making his way with some difficulty, because of all he
had drunk, towards the roof hatch.
    He pushed against it, and moments later, light and fresh air flooded in. He squeezed through the rectangular space and stepped out onto the narrow metal fire escape. It gave him a view across
the rooftops down towards the pier and the English Channel. But more importantly to him, it gave him direct access to the Grace house.
    What made him less happy was there was just one low, flimsy-looking handrail on one side. This group of seven town houses had been a conversion from a U-shaped warehouse building, and they
shared a continuous pitched roof, with a fire escape running the full length of it. The gridded metal of the escape, clearly constructed as an afterthought, zig-zagged across the rooftops between
the chimney stacks. To reach the Grace house, he had to navigate a difficult left turn, ducking under a thoughtlessly installed satellite television dish that obstructed his route.
    He succeeded and then reached the identical loft hatch to his own. Conscious that he was standing up here, in broad daylight, he looked around carefully, checking who might be able to see him.
None of the immediate neighbours, but there were some tall buildings, mostly office blocks, that overlooked them, if anyone happened to be staring out of the window. That was unlikely during a
Sunday lunchtime, but not worth taking the risk.
    When he did this for real, it would be dark; some ambient glow from the street lighting, but not much. He had to rehearse his steps now, count and memorize the number of steps to each turn,
particularly the awkward left by the satellite dish. The important thing would be not to hurry.
    Roy Grace would still be in New York. Cleo and the little bastard would be home alone. And he would have all the time in the world!
    Amis Smallbone