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far end of the room, he asked, ‘Is she going to survive?’
    ‘Well, she’s slipping in and out of consciousness, sir.’
    ‘What do you have on it?’ he asked.
    ‘Nothing so far. This is a very vicious attack. I’ve attended myself and my feelings are this is something for Major Crime to handle. All the indications are that this is a
high-value robbery, and I don’t think the victim will make it.’
    Thugs who hurt elderly people were high up on Roy Grace’s list of what made him truly angry. ‘Okay,’ he said, masking his reluctance to be involved. ‘Give me the
details.’
    He scribbled them down on a pad. Then, when he had finished with the DI, he called Detective Sergeant Glenn Branson, whom he had made an acting Detective Inspector on the last case they had been
on together, two months back, when a stalker was threatening the life of a popstar-turned-actress who had been making a movie in Brighton.
    ‘Doing anything important right now, Glenn?’ he asked.
    ‘Apart from dealing with the divorce papers from my bitch wife?’ he replied.
    ‘Good. Meet me at 146 Withdean Road in thirty minutes.’
    ‘Smart address, that street.’
    ‘So be on your best behaviour!’

14
    Yet again he sat in the elderly, borrowed, S-Type Jaguar outside the entrance to the gated development where Roy Grace now lived with his beloved Cleo Morey and their
two-month-old baby, Noah. Noah Jack Grace.
    The windows of the Jaguar were illegally blackened. No one could see him. No one could see the mask of hatred that was his face.
    Noah Jack.
    He’d got all the details from the Registry Office at Brighton Town Hall.
    Noah Jack Grace.
    Leave him alone
, friends had said.
Move on.
    No way. You could not just forget a man who had totally screwed your life. You had to take things one step at a time. And this was the first step. You had to level the score. Last night
he’d watched, through night-vision binoculars, as one of the residents had punched the code into the number panel beside the gates. Later he’d entered himself, checked there was no one
watching and no CCTV cameras, and stood in the darkness outside the Grace house, as he liked to call it. He’d watched through the slats in the blinds as Detective Superintendent Grace and his
slut, Cleo, lay curled up on the sofa in front of the television, with the baby monitor beside them.
    Such a cosy scene.
    How sweet would it be for Cleo Morey, Senior Anatomical Pathology Technician at Brighton and Hove Mortuary, to attend the recovery of a baby, suffocated by a plastic bag over its head, from a
rubbish dump? And then find it was her own?
    How symbolic would that be?
    Rubbish father, rubbish baby.
    He liked that image so much. But he also liked the image of Grace coming home to find his beautiful slut permanently disfigured. Acid in her face might teach her not to fraternize with cops.
    Options. He liked having options. You didn’t have much freedom of choice when you were in prison, but free, you had all the options in the world.
    Yes.
    He crushed out his cigarette in the ashtray.
    And now the gates were opening. Someone was walking out. Suited and booted. Detective Superintendent Roy Grace. Looking a bit tired.
    He watched him stride, in the afternoon sunshine, up the road towards the black Alfa Romeo Giulietta in the residents’ parking bay a short distance away.
    He saw the brake lights come on, then the car drive away into the summer afternoon.
    He thought about the pleasure he would get from Detective Superintendent Roy Grace’s suffering.
    Oh yes. The joy of revenge. A dish best eaten cold.
    A cold baby.
    He liked that idea a lot.
    The unit that was for rent was number 4. The Grace House was next door. The adjoining property. Just a few formalities to settle and then, in a week or so’s time, he would become their
next-door neighbour.
    In Roy Grace’s face, for a change, instead of the copper being in his.
    How sweet was that going to be?

15
    New York,