Picture you dead, p.13
Picture You Dead, page 13
And Grace was now remembering the last conversation he’d had with Bruno, on the fatal morning he’d dropped him at the school gates. A bizarre one, as so many had been with him: Education’s a joke, don’t you think? I can learn more from Google than any teacher can tell me.
It had taken Grace a moment to process this. He’d not particularly enjoyed his own school days, and his performance in class had been disappointing to his parents, only just scraping through essential exams at pretty much the lowest pass grade.
Go for it, speak your mind. Tell them what you think they should be teaching you! he’d replied.
Bruno had hesitated. Really? You think so?
Sure. Be brave. Remember, fear kills more dreams than failure ever can.
Bruno looked puzzled. Dreams? Is there any point in dreaming anything? Look at my mother. My mother had so many dreams, but they were all shattered and there was no way to put the pieces back together. Life sucks. School sucks.
And that was it. He’d jumped out of the car and headed to school. Two hours later, he was on life support.
Grace sat back down on the pew. Behind him, the ever-increasing buzz of conversation convinced him that the large old building must now be pretty full, but he didn’t have the courage to turn round and face everyone. Not yet.
Belinda Carlisle’s ‘Heaven is a Place on Earth’ suddenly boomed through the speakers. He was aware from the sounds behind him that people were standing. He and Cleo had had long discussions about music for the service, consulting with Erik also on what music Bruno had liked, and Erik had told them this had been Bruno’s favourite. A curious choice for someone of his age, but Bruno had long ceased to surprise him. He stood, along with Cleo and the Lipperts.
In slow, steady contrast to the music, they turned and saw Reverend Smale enter through the doorway of the church, leading the procession while reading out Bible verses of hope and comfort in a loud voice. The top-hatted pall-bearers followed with the far-too-small coffin, the red and white flowers.
They rested it on the catafalque and, as the music faded, solemnly walked back down the aisle, Glenn fleetingly locking eyes with him and giving him a chin-up grimace.
Then Reverend Smale, robed in a black cassock and white surplice, moved to the pulpit and addressed the congregation. ‘On this sad day may I welcome you all to All Saints Church, and seeing so many of you gathered here is truly a great tribute of your love and respect for Bruno. Roy and Cleo have asked me to make our time together today more of a thanksgiving celebration of Bruno’s short life rather than a solemn funeral service of his sudden and tragic departure and I’ll do my best to do this but I’m going to need your help.’ He smiled broadly. ‘We all need to try and relax because that will help those contributing, who I am sure at this very moment are feeling extremely tense and emotional. I believe that Belinda Carlisle’s lively entrance song we’ve just heard was a good choice. It’s true that in heaven love comes first. But for now, our thoughts must turn from the insecure world that we live in to our perfect everlasting home that awaits us in heaven. Although this is an extremely sad occasion, I repeat that this is first and foremost a time of thanksgiving as we thank God for Bruno and for the happiness that he brought to many. We pray that Bruno may rest in peace and rise in glory in that place where he will never again know pain, sorrow or suffering.’
He paused. ‘Our thoughts and prayers must also be with the bereaved close family that remain on earth. May the peace of God which passes all understanding be with Bruno’s family and friends as they try and deal with their sad loss. Let us read together King David’s much loved psalm of comfort, Psalm Twenty-Three. You will find it on page three.’
Barely listening to the words of the psalm, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, Grace used the time to go over his eulogy once more in his head. There was a poem by his god-daughter, and a hymn, ‘Abide With Me’, before he had to walk to the pulpit, but he was already feeling sick to his stomach with fear. How the hell was he going to get through it?
31
Monday, 30 September
As the organ struck up the final verse of the hymn, Roy’s cue, he felt a tight squeeze from Cleo’s hand, then stood and walked the few yards over to the pulpit and up its steps.
Years ago, he’d been advised by a mentor that when giving a speech you should look for a couple of friendly faces in the audience and focus on them.
But as he laid his notes on the lectern, he was so close to tears he wasn’t sure he dared look up at the congregation. Finally, as the music faded, he risked it and looked up. The church was rammed and there were people standing at the back. And there was total silence. As his eyes roved quickly, trying and failing to spot Glenn again, he picked out the Chief Constable, Lesley Manning, as well as his new acting ACC Hannah Robinson; Bruno’s headmaster; a retired solicitor, Martin Allen, who’d given Grace and Cleo some sound advice on the legalities around bringing Bruno to England. Then, suddenly, he was thrown.
There, sitting close to the rear of the church, was the unmistakable figure of Cassian Pewe.
Grace did a double take. Was he imagining it?
Pewe gave him a knowing smile. Grace immediately and angrily looked away.
What the hell was that bastard doing here?
Completely off his stride, glancing around the packed aisles, he finally found Glenn, sitting with Siobhan and Norman, immediately behind Cleo’s family.
The utter silence held. He felt a twitching of the muscle beneath his right eye. An air of expectancy along with the expressions of sympathy on so many faces. Everyone waiting for him, and he had all the time in the world. All the time to totally screw this up. He took a deep breath, then another and looked down at his notes. Focus, he thought. Just focus. Take your time. He looked back up at where Glenn was but for a moment couldn’t locate him. Then he saw him, saw his concerned gaze. Saw his kind eyes and his you can do it smile. And he began, aware his voice sounded nervous and faltering.
‘The American poet Maya Angelou said: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”.’ He paused. ‘Bruno was a truly extraordinary young man, who constantly challenged our preconceptions about so many aspects of our lives and of the human condition. A small boy who was wiser, in some ways, than many people very much older. Had he lived, I’ve no idea how much he might have achieved, but I have a feeling he might have been a truly great human being. Or at the very least, as he once told his headmaster, a benign dictator!’
He smiled and it prompted laughter.
When the congregation was quiet again, Roy Grace said, ‘One of the last conversations I had with Bruno, before that morning when I dropped him off at school, was about music. He told me he was into the local artist Rag’n’Bone Man and that his favourite of his songs was “As You Are”.’
Grace’s voice choked and his eyes flooded with tears. He dabbed his eyes with his handkerchief, mumbled an apology, then took several deep breaths before continuing in faltering words. ‘Bruno wasn’t a misfit, in any conventional sense of that word. But throughout the short time that Cleo and I were lucky enough to have him with us, we always had the impression that he felt he belonged somewhere else, on some higher plane. We both hope that he has found it now, found that higher plane, found that mojo he was seeking. I suspect he has.’
Grace nodded at Smale, and moments later ‘As You Are’ began playing loudly from the speakers.
Clutching his eulogy, he climbed down from the pulpit and walked, avoiding all eyes, back to his pew and a warm, well done smile from Cleo.
32
Monday, 30 September
The service ended with Bob Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, which Erik had said was another favourite of Bruno’s. Thomas Greenhaisen and another of his funeral directors marched down the aisle, solemnly side by side, followed by Roy and Cleo.
Grace stared straight ahead, occasionally giving a slight nod of acknowledgement to a friend or colleague. He was looking for Cassian Pewe, although he wasn’t sure what he would say when he reached the smug bastard. Why the hell was he here?
But when they reached the final row of wooden benches, there was a gap where he thought he’d seen the former ACC sitting. He was gone. Or had he walked past him and not noticed?
Outside, as they’d planned in advance, he and Cleo took up their positions a short distance from the porch, ready to greet and thank everyone for attending. But as the mourners filed out into the bright sunlight he was distracted and angry that Pewe had dared to show up, dared to intrude on this deeply personal service. It was as if this was some act of defiance from Pewe – You might have got me suspended, Roy, but you don’t get me out of your life that easily.
Then the Chief Constable, in full dress uniform, was standing in front of him. A fair-haired woman, with a warm, kindly face that belied the steel behind it when needed. He and Cleo each shook her hand.
‘That was a beautiful eulogy, Roy. I’m so very sorry for your loss,’ she said.
‘It’s very good of you to come, ma’am.’
‘We’re family, Roy, you know that. Perhaps more than ever these days, and we all support each other, not out of any sense of duty but because we want to.’ Looking at them both, she added, ‘If there’s anything I can do for either of you, just pick up the phone, and if you need any time out, please take it, as long as you want.’
Feeling her sincerity, he thanked her. ‘You’re probably busy, ma’am, but we are having drinks and bites back at ours after the interment – the address and directions are on the back of the service sheet.’
She smiled. ‘Thank you. I’ve got the National Police Chiefs’ Council conference call in an hour. If it doesn’t go on too long I will try to make it.’
Next was one of Roy’s team, Emma-Jane Boutwood, then Glenn Branson, who flung his arms around him and, pressing his cheek against Roy’s, said, in a voice barely above a whisper, ‘You did really well, mate.’
Roy Grace closed his eyes, crushing away tears, loving this man even more than ever. ‘Thanks,’ he managed to croak.
‘Seriously, if I fall off the perch before you do – unlikely, I know, because of your great age – promise me you’ll do my eulogy?’
‘You seriously want me to tell the world what you’re like?’
‘Maybe not, on second thoughts.’
As Branson moved on, followed by Siobhan Sheldrake and Norman Potting, Grace saw his old police colleague Dick Pope and his wife Leslie. They’d first alerted him to the possibility that Sandy was living in Munich after they reckoned they’d seen her there while on holiday.
Next was Ray Packham, a former guru of the High Tech Crime Unit, now renamed Digital Forensics, and his wife, Jen, who worked as an ambulance despatcher. ‘We’re so sorry for your loss, Roy,’ he said.
Aware the couple had recently lost their beagle, Hudson, Grace replied, ‘And I’m so sorry for yours. Hudson was a character.’
‘Yeah,’ Ray Packham said. ‘A fat thief. But we loved him.’
Jen nodded. ‘He had a good heart, but he was so damned greedy!’
Behind them was Forensic Gait Analyst Haydn Kelly and his partner, whose name Grace was forever getting wrong. And he couldn’t remember now – was it Emma or Gemma?
He extended the invitation to drinks and bites back at their cottage, where they had a heated marquee erected.
Finally, the queue of people ended. Thomas Greenhaisen approached them respectfully. ‘Are you ready for the interment?’
Roy turned to Cleo, who nodded.
‘Yes,’ he said.
And a short while later, as the same four pall-bearers who had carried the little coffin into the church came back out with it, Roy Grace felt like the loneliest man in the world.
33
Tuesday, 1 October
Harry Kipling drove his grimy Volvo onto the forecourt of their house, parking in the gap between his equally grimy Toyota Hilux pick-up and Freya’s sparkling Fiat 500. She loved her little car, which she’d nicknamed Daffy because of its daffodil yellow colour, and she kept it spotless, unlike his two workhorses, neither of which he’d taken through a car wash in as long as he could remember.
As he fumbled with his front door key, the door opened and Freya stood there, in jeans and roll-neck top, looking concerned. ‘Darling, it’s half past eight, I was expecting you back hours ago. Is everything OK?’
Harry, beaming like a Cheshire cat, kissed her then asked, ‘Is that champagne still in the fridge?’
‘What’s going on – and where’s the painting?’
He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. The house smelled of grilled fish.
‘Where’s the painting?’ she asked. ‘Why didn’t you call me? I’ve been worried sick you were in an accident.’
‘I wanted to surprise you with my news, my love.’
She gave him a dubious look. ‘I called you four times and you didn’t answer.’
‘I’m sorry, but trust me!’
‘Where’s the painting?’ she asked again.
‘It’s safe, don’t worry!’ He kissed her again and strode through into the kitchen. Opening a cupboard door, he removed two tall glass flutes, set them down on the work surface and walked over to their massive fridge. He took out the bottle of Taittinger that had been chilling.
‘Harry,’ she said, both irritated and grinning at the same time. ‘Just bloody tell me?’
In reply he sat the bottle down beside the glasses, removing the foil and wire. Grabbing a clean dishcloth, he wrapped it around the top of the bottle and, after some silent exertion, popped the cork and poured. ‘How’s Tom?’
‘Up in his room. He had his dinner earlier. His sugars were getting low.’
He carried their glasses over to the kitchen table. Then he pulled up a chair and beckoned Freya to join him. ‘You need to sit down for this!’
Still looking hesitant, she sat.
He raised his glass. ‘Well, it looks like we might well be multimillionaires!’
‘Might be?’ she quizzed, almost reluctantly clinking his glass before sipping the wine.
‘I took the painting to the valuations department of Sotheby’s in Bond Street this morning, and the expert there got very excited. She studied the back of the painting almost as much as the front. I was with her for three hours, during which she showed it to several colleagues and made a number of phone calls and internet searches. She asked if I could leave it with her for a few days, to show to a gentleman she said was the number-one expert in Fragonards in the UK, but I didn’t want to do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’ll come to that. What she did say was that if, as she suspects, it’s an original Jean-Honoré Fragonard painting of Summer, then it would be worth upwards of five million pounds, and she cited two recent sales of Fragonards, one of which had fetched well in excess of that figure!’
‘We don’t need that kind of money, Harry.’
He frowned. ‘What do you mean, we don’t need it?’
‘We’re good as we are, aren’t we? We have everything we need. We have each other and we have Tom. We have a good life.’
Harry frowned again. ‘Would it be such a problem if we had a whole lot more money? It would be like winning the lottery, right?’
Freya shrugged. ‘I read a piece in a magazine about lottery winners – about how few were actually made happy by winning. Mostly, the vast sums destroyed their lives.’
‘Fine, we could give it away to charity – or some of it, anyway. We could keep enough so we never needed to worry about money – wouldn’t that be good? You find teaching stressful, more than ever these days you keep telling me, with all the regulations about how you can and cannot treat your kids. And I’m constantly stressed out by my customers, especially this bloody Steyning job. We could buy a place in Spain and give two fingers to the world.’
‘And just abandon Tom? And end up among a bunch of drunk ex-pats who spend their time going from one bar to the next?’
He reached out and touched her arm. ‘Hey, what is it, what’s bothering you?’
Freya took a long gulp of her champagne, almost draining her glass. Harry refilled it.
‘I’ve had a particularly stressful day. I’ve had to deal with an angry parent whose twelve-year-old boy has been playing up in school and bullying. Then, on top of that – and this may just all be in my mind – I think someone might be following me.’
‘What?’
‘Like I said, I may be imagining it but I don’t think so. When I drove Tom to Varndean this morning, I noticed a Range Rover in my mirrors. Then a dark Range Rover, I don’t know if it was the same one or not, seemed to follow me to Tom’s school this afternoon, and then back home – and drove straight on past when I turned into the driveway and up Mackie Crescent.’
Instantly concerned, Harry asked, ‘Did you get the registration?’
‘No, I was so shaken I didn’t think straight. Maybe it’s nothing, just my imagination. I’m not even sure the two cars were the same colour.’ She gave a thin smile. ‘I’m probably just being paranoid.’
Harry nodded, thinking. The episode of Antiques Roadshow hadn’t been broadcast. Only a handful of the public at the event would have seen the art expert’s assessment of the painting, and he could give no guarantee it was authentic. It was too soon for someone in London today who might have seen it to pass it to a contact, surely. And anyhow, for a while, the painting would not be in their house. ‘I think we’re both jittery at the moment. But if you see the car again try to get its number plate.’
‘I’ll try. So – so where’s the painting now?’
‘You know I was mentioning Daniel Hegarty, right?’
‘The forger.’
Harry beamed. ‘He is my plan!’
Freya frowned. ‘OK – do you want to explain exactly how?’
