Dead Tomorrow

sixteen years old. Some time back, he could not remember exactly when but it was shortly after his seventh birthday, his mother had run away from his father, who drank and hit her constantly, taking him with her. Then she had met another man. This man did not want a family, she had explained sadly to Rares, so she was putting him in a home where he would have lots of friends, and would be with people who loved and cared for him.
    Two weeks later a silent old woman, with a face as flat and hard as a steam iron, led him up four flights of stone stairs, into a crowded, flea-infested dormitory. His mother was wrong. No one loved or cared for him there, and at first he was bullied. But eventually he made friends with other children his own age, though never with older boys, who regularly beat him up.
    Life was hell. Early every morning they were forced to sing national songs, and like all the others, boys and girls, if he did not stand up straight, he was beaten. When he was ten he started wetting his bed and was beaten regularly for that. Gradually, he learned to steal from some of the older boys, who seemed to be able to get extra food. One day he was caught with two chocolate bars he had taken.
    To escape retribution, he ran away. And stayed away, joining a community who hung out at Bucharest’s main railway station, Gara de Nord, begging and doing drugs. They slept wherever they could, sometimes in doorways, sometimes in tiny one-room shacks built along the overland steam pipes, and sometimes in cavities beneath the roads.
    It was meetingpretty, lost Ilinca, in a hole beneath the road when he was fourteen, that had brought Rares alive for the first time. She had given him a reason to go on living.
    Dragging their bedding further up the tunnel beneath the hot pipeline, away from their friends, they made love and they dreamed.
    They dreamed of a better life.
    Of a land where they could have a home of their own.
    And then one day, on the street, fresh from stealing several bottles of Aurolac, he met the angel he had always believed–but had never dared to hope–would visit him.
    Her name was Marlene.
    And now he was in the back seat of her Mercedes car, and in a short while he would meet his beloved Ilinca.
    He was in a state of bliss.
    The car was stopping in a residential street. It was so clean. It was like one of the rich sectors of Bucharest where he sometimes went begging.
    Marlene turned round and said to him, ‘Vlad and Grigore will look after you now.’
    ‘Will they take me to see Ilinca?’
    ‘Exactly,’ she replied. Then she climbed out of the car and walked to its rear.
    Peering through the rear windscreen, Rares saw the boot lid pop open. A few moments later, she slammed it shut and walked up the path to the front door of a house, holding an attaché case. He watched her, waiting for her to turn and wave at him. But she just kept looking straight ahead.
    The Mercedes pulled away, sharply, jerking him against the seat back.

64
    Roy Grace sat in his office, reading through his notes from the briefing meeting. Despite the damp, grey day outside, he was in a sunny mood. In fact, he was feeling happier and more positive about life than he could ever remember. He was on a total high. His 7 a.m. meeting with an even more sour than usual ACC Vosper had not made even the slightest dent in his mood.
    This afternoon he was meeting with a solicitor to work out the details of having Sandy declared legally dead. Finally he felt as if the past really was behind him, that he could close the door and move on. He was going to marry Cleo. They were going to have a baby.
    Everything else suddenly seemed unimportant this morning–and that was a luxurious feeling he knew he could not allow himself to revel in. He had a ton of work ahead of him. His job was to serve the public, to catch criminals, to make the city of Brighton and Hove a safer place. He viewed any serious crime in this city as a failing by the entire police force and therefore a failing in some part by himself. He couldn’t help it, that was the way he was.
    Three dead teenagers lay in fridges in the mortuary because the police had failed in some way to protect them. Now at least that wrong could be partially redressed by capturing whoever did this, and hopefully depriving them of their liberty–and ability ever to do this again–forever.
    In front of him were the names of doctors in the UK who had been struck off the medical register. As he read down