Dead Man's Time

Folds of flesh hung from the man’s midriff, forming a canopy over his private parts. His dome was bald with little tufts of hair on either side, he had a hearing aid in his right ear, and his mouth was frozen open in an expression of surprise, one that was mirrored in his startled, lifeless eyes. As if dying had not, she thought, irreverently, been on his list of things to do that day, and certainly not in this undignified way.

A television was on in the sparsely furnished living room, a daytime chat show on which, ironically, there was a discussion about the plight of the elderly.

She glanced around looking for signs of anything personal. But there were no photographs, no pictures on any of the walls. She saw an ashtray full of butts, with a lighter and a packet of cigarettes beside it, and a beer can with a half-empty glass tumbler. A small, untidy stack of old gardening magazines lay on the floor, next to a pile of Daily Mirror newspapers.

Ralph Meeks had clearly been dead for a while, in here all alone. It was a sad but common story in cities. They were on the second floor of a low-rise apartment block. But Ralph Meeks had no friends, no neighbours bothering to check he was okay, no one who had thought it odd that the post was getting more and more jammed in the letter box every day. Not until he had started to decompose, and neighbours had begun to notice the smell out in the corridor, had anyone been bothered to check on Meeks.

The stench in the corridor was nothing compared with that inside the flat. It was a hundred times worse in here. The stench and the buzzing of flies. It was making her gag, and her colleague, PC Dave Roberts, was keeping his gloved hand over his nose.

The two immediate tasks were to call in their Sergeant to help them assess whether this was a natural death, or whether there were any suspicious circumstances, in which case they would involve CID and seal the flat as a crime scene. Their second was to call a paramedic to have the man’s death confirmed. Fairly u

Sudden deaths – or G5s, as the form for them was called – were the least favourite shouts for most Response officers. But Susi Holiday actually liked them, and found them interesting. This was the fifteenth she had attended since joining the Response Team three years ago.

Turning to her colleague, eighteen years her senior, she said, ‘Anything bothering you about this?’

He shook his head, feeling queasy. ‘Nope.’ He shrugged. ‘Except – just the thought that could be me one day.’

Susi gri

‘Yep, guess I’d prefer to die young, with my trousers on.’

She gave him a mischievous grin. ‘Wouldn’t that depend who you were with?’

9

Whenever Roy Grace left his front door he was always on guard. After over twenty years as a cop, looking around for anything unusual or out of place had long become second nature. It used to irritate his former wife, Sandy. One time, during his early days as a Detective Constable, he’d spotted a man slipping a handbag off the back of a chair in a crowded pub, and chased him a mile on foot, through Brighton, before rugby-tackling and arresting him. It had been the end of their evening, as he’d had to spend the next four hours booking the thief into custody and filling out forms.

Often when he and Sandy were out for a meal, she would notice his eyes roving and kick him sharply under the restaurant table, hissing, ‘Stoppit, Grace!’

But he couldn’t help it. In any public place, he couldn’t relax unless he knew he was somewhere there were no obvious villains, and no immediate signs of anything about to kick off. Sandy used to joke that while other women had to be wary of their men ogling other women, she had to put up with him ogling Brighton’s pond life.

But there was one thing he never told her, because he didn’t want to worry her: he knew, like all police officers, there was always the danger of retribution by an aggrieved villain. Most crims accepted getting arrested – some saw it as part of the game; some shrugged at the inevitability; some just gave up the ghost from the moment the handcuffs were snapped in place. But there were a few who harboured grudges.

Part of the reason judges traditionally wore wigs was to disguise themselves, so they would not be recognized later by those they had sent down. The police had never had such protection. But even if they had, to someone who was determined enough, there were plenty of other ways to track them down.

*

Such a man, right now, was sitting in his car, in front of an antiques shop that specialized in fireplaces, opposite the gates of a smart town-house development in the centre of Brighton.

He had a grudge against one particular Sussex Police officer, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace.

The cop’s baby was in there, in the third house on the left. He’d obtained plans of the house from the Pla

The baby would sleep in the tiny room opposite, with the window overlooking the courtyard.

But what interested him most of all right now was an estate agent’s sign, fixed to the wall to the right of the wrought-iron gates to the courtyard, advertising, TOWN HOUSE TO RENT.

What fun to be Roy Grace’s neighbour. And how convenient?

He’d be able to watch every movement. And bide his time.

Happy days again!

10

Two hours after first entering Ralph Meeks’ flat, Susi Holiday and Dave Roberts were back out on the streets of Brighton in their patrol car. Susi drove. She loved her job. Hunting was what she liked to call it, all the time they weren’t actually on a shout – as calls to incidents were known colloquially.

Dave, at forty-six, was one of the oldest PCs on the unit. Response was considered a young person’s game, and it could at times be extremely physical – intervening in violent domestic fights, pub brawls and chasing after robbers and burglars. But he’d been on this unit for twenty years and had no interest in promotion and the desk work that would involve, or in any other area of policing.

If anyone were to ask him what he most loved about his job, he would have replied that it was never knowing what was going to happen in five minutes’ time. That, and ripping through the city on blues and twos, which almost every police officer with a Pursuit Driving ticket he had ever talked to admitted was one of the greatest kicks of the job.

They were driving up North Street towards the Clock Tower, one of the city’s most prominent landmarks. Watching the faces of people meandering along the pavements on both sides of the road, recognizing the occasional villain among the crowds. And all the time monitoring their radios, clipped below their shoulders. Waiting for the next shout from the Control Room.

It was coming up to midday, on a fine late August Thursday morning. They’d started their shift at 7 a.m. and would be on until 4 p.m. So far they’d attended a call to a potential firearms incident up at Brighton Racecourse, which had turned out to be a man shooting rabbits. That had been followed by a rip across the city to attend a collision between a motor scooter and a bin lorry, which had, fortunately, been less serious than it had sounded. Then another shout to attend a report of a woman screaming for help. Which had turned out to be an infant having a tantrum. Then the Ralph Meeks G5.