He should call for back-up assistance, but he wanted to listen, to hear every sound in the house. Slowly, tread by tread, as silently as he could in his rubber-soled shoes, he made his way up the staircase towards the second floor. Just before he reached the landing, he stopped, pulled out his mobile phone again and called 999. ‘This is Detective Superintendent Grace, I need immediate assistance at—’
All he saw was a shadow. Then it felt as if he had been hit by a truck.
The next moment he was falling through air. Crashing head over heels backward down the stairs. Then, after what seemed an eternity, he was on his back on the landing floor, with his legs up above him on the stairs, and a sharp pain in his chest – a busted or cracked rib, he thought dimly, staring up, straight into Brian Bishop’s face.
Bishop was coming down the stairs, dressed in a green all-in-one suit, holding a claw hammer in one hand and a gas mask in the other. Except that it wasn’t Bishop. Couldn’t be, his dazed mind thought. He was in jail. In Lewes prison.
It was Brian Bishop’s face. His haircut. But the expression on his face was unlike any he had seen on Brian Bishop’s. It was twisted, almost lopsided, with hatred. Norman Jecks, he thought. It had to be Jecks. The two of them were absolutely identical.
Jecks came down another step, raising the hammer, his eyes blazing. ‘You called me an
Grace stared at the man, wondering whether his phone was still switched on and connected to the emergency operator. In the hope that it was, he shouted as loudly as he could, ‘Unit 5, Gardener’s Yard, Brighton!’
He saw the nervous dart of the man’s eyes.
Then upstairs there was a sudden screech of wood on wood.
Norman Jecks turned his head for an instant, looking anxiously back over his shoulder.
Grace seized the moment. He launched himself up on his elbows, then kicked his right foot as hard as he could, straight up between the man’s legs.
Jecks expelled a winded gasp, doubling up in pain, the hammer falling from his hand, clattering down the stairs and thudding past Grace’s head. The detective swung his leg up again, aiming another kick, but somehow Jecks, despite his pain, grabbed hold of it and wrenched it sharply round in fury. Grace rolled over, his ankle hurting like hell, going with the direction of the twist to stop the man breaking it, and lashing out with his other foot, striking something hard and hearing a cry of pain.
He saw the hammer! Lunged after it. But before he could get up, Jecks crashed down on top of him, pinning his wrist to the floor. Using every ounce of strength in his body, Grace jabbed back with his elbows and broke free, rolling over again. The man rolled with him, slamming a punch into his cheek, then another into the back of his neck. And Grace was on his face on the floor, breathing in the smell of wood varnish, a dead weight pinning him down, his throat clamped in a grip that was tightening every second.
He rammed his elbow back, but the grip tightened further, choking him. He was struggling to breathe.
Suddenly the grip slackened. A fraction of a second later, the crushing weight on his body lifted. Then he saw why.
Two police officers were clambering through the window.
He heard footsteps running up the stairs.
‘Are you all right, sir?’ the constable called out.
Grace nodded, clambered to his feet, his right leg and his chest agony, and launched himself up the stairs. He reached the landing, stepping over the gas mask. There was no sign of Jecks. He carried on up to the second floor and saw Cleo’s face, badly bruised and bleeding from a gash in her forehead, peering nervously out of her smashed, partially open bedroom door.
‘Are you OK?’ he gasped.
She nodded, looking in total shock.
There was a bang above them. Oblivious to his pain, Grace ran on up and saw the roof terrace door swinging back against the wall. Then he limped out on to the wooden decking of the terrace. And just caught a flash of olive green disappearing, in the failing light, down the fire escape at the far end.
Breaking into a run, he dodged around the kettle barbecue, the tables and chairs and plants, and hurtled down the steep metal steps. Jecks was already halfway across the courtyard, heading to the gate.
It banged shut in Grace’s face as he reached it. He hit the red release button, oblivious to everything else, jerked the heavy gate open, not waiting for the two constables behind him to catch up, and stumbled, breathlessly, out into the street. Jecks was a good hundred yards ahead, sprinting and hobbling at the same time down past a row of closed antiques shops and a pub with jazz music blaring and drinkers outside, crowding the pavement and part of the road.
Grace ran after him, determined to get this fucker. Utterly, utterly determined, everything else in the whole world blocked out of his mind.
