Not Dead Enough

of him the sergeant pushed open a door, then froze.
    ‘Bloody hell!’ Norris said. ‘Oh, bloody hell!’
    When he caught up with the sergeant, the young PC stopped in his tracks, staring ahead in revulsion and shock. A cold sensation crawled in his guts. He wanted desperately to look away but could not. Morbid fascination that went way beyond professional duty held his gaze rooted to the bed.

58
    Roy Grace stared at the message from Cleo on his phone’s display:
    Sort yourself out in Munich. Call me when you get back home.
    No signature. No kiss. Just a bald, pissed-off statement.
    But at least she had finally responded.
    He composed a terse reply, in his mind, and instantly discarded it. Then he composed another, and discarded that. He had stood her up for a Sunday lunch date in order to go to Munich to try to find his wife. Just how good must that have sounded to her?
    But surely she could be a little sympathetic? He’d never kept Sandy’s disappearance a secret – Cleo knew all about it. What choice did he have? Surely anyone would be doing what he was doing now, wouldn’t they?
    All at once, fuelled by his tiredness, stress, the incessant heat of the sun beating down on his head, he felt a flash of anger at Cleo. Hell, woman, can’t you bloody understand?
    He caught Marcel Kullen’s eye and shrugged. ‘Women.’
    ‘Everything is OK?’
    Grace put down his phone and cradled his heavy glass in both hands. ‘This beer is OK,’ he said. ‘More than OK.’ He took a large swig. Then he sipped his scalding coffee. ‘Nothing much else is. You know?’
    The Kriminalhauptkommisar smiled, as if he was unsure how to respond.
    A man at the next table was puffing on a briar pipe. Smoke drifted across them and the smell suddenly reminded Grace of his father, who also smoked a pipe. He remembered all the rituals. His father ramming long, slim white pipe cleaners, that rapidly turned brown, down the stem. Scraping out the rim with a small brass instrument. Mixing the tobacco with his large fingers, filling the bowl, lighting it with a Swan Vesta match, then tamping it down and relighting it. The living room instantly filling with the tantalizing aroma of the blue-grey smoke. Or, if they were out fishing in a small boat, or on the end of the Palace Pier, or on the mole of Shoreham Harbour, Roy use to watch the direction of the wind when his father took out his pipe, then ensure he stood downwind of him to catch those wisps.
    He wondered what his father would have done in this situation. Jack Grace had loved Sandy. When he was sick in the hospice, dying far too young, at fifty-five, from bowel cancer, she used to spend hours at his bedside, talking to him, playing Scrabble with him, reading through the Sporting Life with him as he selected his bets for each day and placing them for him. And just chatting. They were like best friends from the day Grace had first brought Sandy home to meet his parents.
    Jack Grace had always been a man contented with what he had, happy to remain a desk sergeant until his retirement, tinkering with cars and following the horses in his free time, never with any ambition to rise higher in the force. But he was a thorough man, a stickler for details, procedures, for tidying up loose ends. He would have approved of Roy coming here, of course he would. No doubt about it.
    Bloody hell , Roy thought suddenly. Munich is just full of ghosts .
    ‘Tell me, Roy,’ Kullen asked, ‘how well was Inspector Pope knowing Sandy?’
    Bringing him back to reality, to his task here today, Grace replied, ‘Good question. They were our best friends – we went on holiday with them, every year for years.’
    ‘So he would not easily be mistook – ah – mistaken?’
    ‘No. Nor his wife.’
    A young man, tall and fit-looking, in a yellow shirt and red trousers, was clearing glasses away from the vacated places next to them. He had fashionable, gelled fair hair.
    ‘Excuse me,’ Grace asked him. ‘Do you speak any English?’
    ‘Too right!’ he grinned.
    ‘You’re an Aussie?’
    ‘’Fraid so!’
    ‘Brilliant! Maybe you can help me. Were you here last Thursday?’
    ‘I’m here every day. Ten in the morning till midnight.’
    From his jacket pocket Grace pulled a photograph of Sandy and showed it to him. ‘Have you seen this person? She was here, on Thursday, lunchtime.’
    He took the photograph and studied it intently for some moments. ‘Last Thursday?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘No, mate, doesn’t