Dead Simple

reflected. They were two of a kind.
    Sometimes he wished he wasn’t a policeman, that he did some less demanding job where he could switch off at five o’clock, go to the pub and then home, put his feet up in front of the telly. Normal life. But he couldn’t help it. There was some stubbornness or determination gene – or bunch of genes – inside him – and his father before him – that had driven him relentlessly throughout his life to pursue facts, to pursue the truth. It was those genes that had brought him up through the ranks, to his relatively early promotion to Detective Superintendent. But they hadn’t brought him any peace of mind.
    His face stared back at him again from the mirror. Grace grimaced at his reflection, at his hair cropped short, to little more than a light fuzz, at his nose, squashed and kinked after being broken in a scrap when he’d been a beat copper, which gave him the appearance of a retired prize fighter.
    On their first date, Sandy had told him he had eyes like Paul Newman. He’d liked that a lot. It was one of a million things he had liked about her. The fact that she had loved everything about him, unconditionally.
    Roy Grace knew that he was physically fairly unimpressive. At five foot, ten inches, he had been just two inches over the minimum height restriction when he’d joined the police, nineteen years back. But despite his love of booze, and an on–off battle with cigarettes, through hard work at the police gym he had developed a powerful physique, and had kept in shape, running twenty miles a week, and still playing the occasional game of rugger – usually on the wing.
    Nine-twenty.
    Bloody hell.
    He seriously did not want a late night. Did not need one. Could not afford one. He was in court tomorrow, and needed to bank a full night’s sleep. The whole thought of the cross-examination that awaited him pressed all kinds of bad buttons inside him.
    A pool of light suddenly flooded down from above him, and he heard the clattering din of a helicopter. After a moment the light moved forward, and he saw the helicopter descending.
    He dialled a number on his mobile. It was answered almost immediately.
    ‘Hi, it’s Detective Superintendent Grace speaking. I’m sitting in a traffic jam on the A26 south of Crowborough, there seems to be an accident somewhere ahead – can you give me any information?’
    He was put through to the headquarters operations room. A male voice said, ‘Hello, Detective Superintendent, there’s a major accident. We have reports of fatalities and people trapped. The road’s going to be blocked for a while – you’d be best turning around and using another route.’
    Roy Grace thanked him and disconnected. Then he pulled his BlackBerry from his shirt pocket, looked up Claudine’s number and texted her.
    She texted back almost instantly, telling him not to worry, just to get there when he could.
    This made him warm to her even more.
    And it helped him forget about tomorrow.

4
    Drives like this didn’t happen very often, but when they did, boy, did Davey enjoy them! He sat strapped in the passenger seat next to his dad, as the police car escort raced on in front of them, blue lights flashing, siren whup , whup , whupping , on the wrong side of the road, overtaking mile after mile of stationary traffic. Boy, this was as good as any fairground ride his dad had taken him on, even the ones at Alton Towers, and they were about as good as it gets!
    ‘Yeeeha!’ he cried out, exuberantly. Davey was addicted to American cop shows on television, which was why he liked to talk with an American accent. Sometimes he was from New York. Sometimes from Missouri. Sometimes Miami. But mostly from LA.
    Phil Wheeler, a hulk of a man, with a massive beer belly, dressed in his work uniform of brown dungarees, scuffed boots and black beanie hat, smiled at his son, riding along beside him. Years back his wife had cracked and left from the strain of caring for Davey. For the past seventeen years he had brought him up on his own.
    The cop car was slowing now, passing a line of heavy, earth-moving plant. The tow-truck had ‘ WHEELER’S AUTO RECOVERY ’ emblazoned on both sides and amber strobes on the cab roof. Ahead through the windscreen, the battery of headlights and spotlights picked up first the mangled front end of the Transit van, still partially embedded beneath the front bumper of the cement truck, then the rest of the van, crushed like a Coke can, lying