Not Dead Enough

Sussex County Hospital, it was too easy for a man of his cunning to escape, despite the police guard. And every unfamiliar noise in the night was potentially a Norman Jecks footfall.
    It was the Black & Decker power drill that Cleo had found in her broom cupboard that upset him – and her – the most. She had never owned an electric drill in her life and had had no workmen in the house recently. It was as if Jecks had left behind a souvenir of his visit, a little token, a reminder.
    B ECAUSE Y OU L OVE H ER .
    The drill was now in an evidence bag, safely locked up in the crime scene evidence store at the Major Incident Suite. But the image of what it represented, and those words breathed at him earlier today by Jecks, from his hospital bed, would shadow him for a long time to come.
    His mind returned to Sandy. To Dick Pope’s utter conviction that he and Leslie had seen her in Munich.
    If it was true, and she had run away from them, what did that say? That she had started over again and wanted no connection with their previous life? But that made no sense. They had been so happy together – or so he had thought. Perhaps she had had a breakdown of some kind? In which case Kullen’s suggestion of trawling all the doctors, hospitals and clinics in the Munich area might produce a result. But then what?
    Would he try to rebuild a life with her knowing she had left him once and might do it again? And destroy all he had with Cleo in the process?
    There was of course the possibility that the Popes were mistaken. That it had been just another woman who resembled Sandy, like the one he had chased across the Englischer Garten. It was nine years now. People changed. Sometimes even he had difficulty remembering Sandy’s face.
    And the truth was, in his heart, it was Cleo who now mattered most in his life.
    Just that one day in Munich had nearly caused a rift in his relationship with her. To engage in a full-scale search of the city and all the time that involved would be a major undertaking and who knew what repercussions that might have? He’d had nine years of chasing shadows on wild-goose chases. Perhaps it was time to stop now. Time to leave the past behind him.
    He fell asleep resolved to try, at any rate.
    And awoke two hours later, shaking and shivering from the recurring nightmare that visited him every few months or so. Sandy’s voice screaming out of the darkness. Screaming for help.
    It was nearly an hour before he fell asleep again.

    At six in the morning he drove home, changed into his jogging kit and went down to the seafront. Almost every muscle in his body was hurting and his ankle was too painful to run, so he hobbled down to the promenade and then back, the fresh morning air helping to clear his head.
    As he stepped out of the shower afterwards and began drying himself, he heard Branson’s bedroom door open, then the toilet seat being lifted. Moments later, as he began lathering his face, he heard his friend urinating with a sound like a supertanker emptying its bilges.
    Finally the cistern clanked and flushed. Then Branson called out, ‘Tea or coffee?’
    ‘Am I hearing right?’ Grace asked.
    ‘Yeah, I’ve decided I would make you a lovely wife.’
    ‘Just make me tea. Hold the nuptials, OK?’
    ‘Tea coming up!’
    Branson was humming cheerily as he clumped down the stairs and Grace wondered what pills he was on this morning. Then he turned his mind back to the business of shaving, and the problem he had still not been able to solve. Although at some time during the small hours, he had realized what his starting point should be.

    Shortly after ten he was back in the small, cubicle-like waiting room in the registrar’s offices at Brighton town hall, holding a file folder.
    After only a couple of minutes, the tall, urbane figure of Clive Ravensbourne, the Superintendent Registrar, entered. He shook Grace’s hand, looking very much more at ease than on the previous occasion they had met, a couple of days ago – if a little curious.
    ‘Detective Superintendent, very nice to see you again. How can I help you?’
    ‘Thank you for coming in on a Saturday, I appreciate it.’
    ‘No problem. It’s a working day for me.’
    ‘It’s in connection with the same murder inquiry I came to see you about on Thursday,’ Grace said. ‘You kindly gave me some information about a twin. I need you to verify it for me – it’s very urgent and important to my inquiry. Certain things are just not adding