Not Dead Enough

that clear?’
    Jecks raised his left arm a few inches and, with a humourless smile, said, ‘You’re going to have a problem handcuffing me, aren’t you, Detective Superintendent Grace?’
    Taken aback by his defiance, Grace retorted, ‘Good point. But at least we’ll now be able to distinguish you from your brother.’
    ‘The whole world’s always been able to distinguish me from my brother,’ Norman Jecks said bitterly. ‘What’s your particular problem?’
    ‘Are you prepared to talk to us, or do you wish to have a solicitor present?’ Grace asked.
    He smiled. ‘I’ll talk to you. Why not? I’ve got all the time in the world. How much of it would you like?’
    ‘As much as you can spare.’
    Jecks shook his head. ‘No, Detective Superintendent Grace, I don’t think you want that. You don’t want the kind of time I’ve got banked away, believe me, you really don’t.’
    Grace limped over towards the empty chair beside the bed and sat down. ‘What did you mean just now when you said the whole world’s always been able to distinguish you from your brother?’
    Jecks gave him the same, chilling, lopsided grin that he had given him last night, coming down the stairs in Cleo’s house, after him. ‘Because he was the one born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and me – you know what I was born with? A plastic breathing tube down my throat.’
    ‘How does that make you physically distinguishable from each other?’
    ‘Brian had everything, didn’t he, right from the start. Good health, well-off parents, a private-school education. Me? I had under-developed lungs and spent the first months of my life in an incubator, here in this hospital! That’s ironic, isn’t it? I had chest problems for years. And I had pretty crap parents. You know what I’m saying?’
    ‘Actually no, I don’t,’ Grace said. ‘They seemed pleasant enough people to me.’
    Jecks stared at him hard. ‘Oh yes? Just what do you know about them?’
    ‘I saw them yesterday.’
    Jecks grinned again. ‘I don’t think so, Detective Superintendent. Is this some kind of a trick question? My father died in 1998, God rot his soul, and my mother died two years later.’
    Grace was silent for a moment. ‘I’m sorry, there’s something I don’t understand.’
    ‘What’s not to understand?’ Jecks shot back. ‘Bishop got a beautiful home, a good education, every possible start in life you could have, and last year his company – the idea he stole from me – made the Sunday Times list of the hundred fastest-growing companies in the UK. He’s a big man! A rich man! You’re a detective, and you can’t spot the difference?’
    ‘What idea did he steal from you?’
    Jecks shook his head. ‘Forget it. It’s not important.’
    ‘Really? Why do I get the sense that it is?’
    Jecks lay back against his pillows suddenly and closed his eyes. ‘I don’t think I want to say any more, not now, not without my solicitor. See, there’s another difference. Brian’s got himself a fancy brief, the best that money can buy! All I’m going to end up with is some second-rate tosser courtesy of Legal Aid. Right?’
    ‘There are some very good solicitors available at no cost to you,’ Grace assured him.
    ‘Yeah, yeah, yadda yadda yadda,’ Jecks responded, without opening his eyes. ‘Don’t worry about me, Detective Superintendent, no one ever has. Not even God. He pretended He loved me, but it’s Brian He loved all along. You go off and cherish your Cleo Morey.’ Then, his voice suddenly icy, he opened his eyes and gave Grace a broad wink. ‘ Because you love her .’

    There was an air of expectancy in the packed conference room for the Friday morning briefing meeting.
    Reading from his notes, Roy Grace said, ‘I will now summarize the principal events that occurred during the course of yesterday, prior to the arrest of Norman John Jecks.’ He glanced down at his notes. ‘One major item in our investigation into the murder of Katie Bishop is conclusive evidence provided this morning by the forensic odontologist, Christopher Ghent, that the human bite mark found on Norman Jecks’s severed right hand was made by Katie.’
    He paused to let the significance sink in, then continued. ‘DS Batchelor has discovered that for two years, until March of this year, a Norman Jecks, matching our man’s description, worked in the software engineering department of the Southern Star Assurance Company as a computer programmer. That