Dead Man's Time

to live; but it was time he moved on, got a place of his own and got his life back together.
    Just as Roy focused on the first item on the form, the house phone rang.
    He snatched the receiver, not wanting the ringing to wake Noah. ‘Hello?’ he answered quietly, hoping desperately this was not to do with work.
    The male voice at the other end spoke with a silky purr, and almost instantly, Grace felt relieved – and irritated.
    ‘Good afternoon. I’m calling because a good friend of yours told me to call you.’
    ‘Oh really, who was that?’
    ‘Gerard Scott.’
    ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know anyone of that name.’
    ‘He says to pass on his very best wishes.’
    ‘I think you must have the wrong number.’
    ‘We’re saving him two thousand five hundred pounds a year off his heating bill.’
    ‘Really?’ Grace disliked the intrusion of telesales people, although he could not help having a tiny amount of sympathy for them, trying to make a living. ‘How?’
    ‘We have a representative working in your area next week. Perhaps I could make an appointment at a time convenient for you?’
    ‘A representative for what, exactly?’
    ‘Loft insulation.’
    ‘Loft insulation?’
    ‘We are England’s leading specialists. The insulation we put in is so effective it will have fully paid for itself in just nine years from savings on your fuel bills.’
    Quite apart from anything else, with their plans to move, Cleo wasn’t about to spend any money on this place that wasn’t absolutely necessary. Mischievously, he said, ‘Are you
aware you’re calling a crime scene?’
    ‘A crime scene?’
    ‘I need your name, address, date of birth and your connection with the murder victim. Are you willing to come voluntarily to Brighton police station to make a statement?’
    There was a sudden silence. It was followed by the click of the line disconnecting.
    Yesss!
Grace smiled at his small triumph. He looked down at his sleeping son.
    Moments later his mobile rang. He answered. It was the new duty Detective Inspector at Brighton’s John Street police station, who had replaced the recently promoted Jason Tingley. Any call
from him was unlikely to be good news.
    ‘Sorry to bother you, sir. We have a nasty tie-up domestic robbery in Withdean Road. A ninety-eight-year-old lady has been tortured. She’s been taken to the ITU at the Royal Sussex
County Hospital. Looks like her home may have been stripped of antiques and paintings.’
    Stepping away from Noah, to the far end of the room, he asked, ‘Is she going to survive?’
    ‘Well, she’s slipping in and out of consciousness, sir.’
    ‘What do you have on it?’ he asked.
    ‘Nothing so far. This is a very vicious attack. I’ve attended myself and my feelings are this is something for Major Crime to handle. All the indications are that this is a
high-value robbery, and I don’t think the victim will make it.’
    Thugs who hurt elderly people were high up on Roy Grace’s list of what made him truly angry. ‘Okay,’ he said, masking his reluctance to be involved. ‘Give me the
details.’
    He scribbled them down on a pad. Then, when he had finished with the DI, he called Detective Sergeant Glenn Branson, whom he had made an acting Detective Inspector on the last case they had been
on together, two months back, when a stalker was threatening the life of a popstar-turned-actress who had been making a movie in Brighton.
    ‘Doing anything important right now, Glenn?’ he asked.
    ‘Apart from dealing with the divorce papers from my bitch wife?’ he replied.
    ‘Good. Meet me at 146 Withdean Road in thirty minutes.’
    ‘Smart address, that street.’
    ‘So be on your best behaviour!’

14
    Yet again he sat in the elderly, borrowed, S-Type Jaguar outside the entrance to the gated development where Roy Grace now lived with his beloved Cleo Morey and their
two-month-old baby, Noah. Noah Jack Grace.
    The windows of the Jaguar were illegally blackened. No one could see him. No one could see the mask of hatred that was his face.
    Noah Jack.
    He’d got all the details from the Registry Office at Brighton Town Hall.
    Noah Jack Grace.
    Leave him alone
, friends had said.
Move on.
    No way. You could not just forget a man who had totally screwed your life. You had to take things one step at a time. And this was the first step. You had to level the score. Last night
he’d watched, through night-vision binoculars, as one of the residents had punched the code