Not Dead Enough

body was ringing. ‘You don’t have a key, do you?’
    He shook his head. ‘No. Got one for Unit 9, but not Cleo’s, I’m afraid.’ Then he glanced at his watch. ‘I gotta rush.’
    Grace thanked him. Then, as the young man walked away, the bicycle ticking, the detective heard several very distinct, muffled bangs coming from right above him. Instantly his anxiety turned to blind panic.
    He looked around for something heavy and saw a pile of bricks beneath a loose blue tarpaulin, outside the house directly opposite, on the other side of the courtyard.
    He sprinted across and grabbed one, then removed his jacket as he ran back, wound it around the brick in his hand, then punched Cleo’s left window, shattering it. Too bad if everything was fine and she had just popped out to the shops. Better this than take a risk, he thought, bashing away more glass. Then, with his free hand, he pushed apart some of the slats of the blind.
    And saw to his cold, stark terror the mess of water, smashed fish tank, the upturned coffee table, books strewn around.
    ‘CLEO!’ he yelled at the top of his voice. ‘CLEEEEEEOOOOO!’ He turned his head and saw the young man with the bicycle, who had stopped in the middle of opening his front door and was staring at him, with a startled look. ‘Call the police!’ he yelled.
    Then, ignoring the jagged shards sticking out of the frame all around, Grace hauled himself up on to the ledge and dived head first into the room, hitting the floor with his hands, rolling, then scrambling to his feet as fast as he could, looking wildly around him.
    Then he saw the trail of blood across the floor leading to the stairs.
    Sick with fear for Cleo, he sprinted up them. When he reached the first-floor landing and peered through the open door to her empty office, he shouted out her name again.
    From directly above him he heard her voice, muffled and tight, call out, ‘ROY, BE CAREFUL! HE’S IN HERE!’
    His eyes shot up the stairs to the second-floor landing. Cleo’s bedroom to the right, guest bedroom to the left. And the narrow staircase up to the roof terrace. At least she was alive, thank God! He held his breath.
    No sign of any movement. No sound except the boomf-boomf-boomf of his own heart.
    He should call for back-up assistance, but he wanted to listen, to hear every sound in the house. Slowly, tread by tread, as silently as he could in his rubber-soled shoes, he made his way up the staircase towards the second floor. Just before he reached the landing, he stopped, pulled out his mobile phone again and called 999. ‘This is Detective Superintendent Grace, I need immediate assistance at—’
    All he saw was a shadow. Then it felt as if he had been hit by a truck.
    The next moment he was falling through air. Crashing head over heels backwards down the stairs. Then, after what seemed an eternity, he was on his back on the landing floor, with his legs up above him on the stairs, and a sharp pain in his chest – a busted or cracked rib, he thought dimly, staring up, straight into Brian Bishop’s face.
    Bishop was coming down the stairs, dressed in a green all-in-one suit, holding a claw hammer in one hand and a gas mask in the other. Except that it wasn’t Bishop. Couldn’t be, his dazed mind thought. He was in jail. In Lewes prison.
    It was Brian Bishop’s face. His haircut. But the expression on his face was unlike any he had seen on Brian Bishop’s. It was twisted, almost lopsided, with hatred. Norman Jecks, he thought. It had to be Jecks. The two of them were absolutely identical.
    Jecks came down another step, raising the hammer, his eyes blazing. ‘You called me an evil creature ,’ he said. ‘You don’t have any right to call me an evil creature . You need to be careful what you say about people, Detective Superintendent Grace. You can’t just go around calling people names.’
    Grace stared at the man, wondering whether his phone was still switched on and connected to the emergency operator. In the hope that it was, he shouted as loudly as he could, ‘Unit 5, Gardener’s Yard, Brighton!’
    He saw the nervous dart of the man’s eyes.
    Then upstairs there was a sudden screech of wood on wood.
    Norman Jecks turned his head for an instant, looking anxiously back over his shoulder.
    Grace seized the moment. He launched himself up on his elbows, then kicked his right foot as hard as he could, straight up between the man’s legs.
    Jecks expelled a winded gasp, doubling up in