I discovered I was pregnant and I had some fast decisions to make. Either I stayed, in which case I would have been trapped by this child into remaining with you – for a while, at least. Or I had an abortion.

  It goes on. About his work, whether I have the courage to leave. And the part I find truly embarrassing. But I have to tell him.

  You need to know I wasn’t a saint, I wasn’t the good person you always believed I was. This may hurt to read, but you need to know that I wasn’t always faithful to you – I had some one-night stands. I’m not making any excuses – nor am I going to name names.

  More about what I kept hidden from him. The mess I am in and my depression. The drugs. It’s all just so shameful. I feel those same feelings of self-hatred I always felt when my parents came down on me for being such a disappointment to them.

  There’s so much I wanted to tell you – and ask you – when you came here last. I don’t know why I didn’t. I was so shocked to see you, my head was all over the place. I guess I knew then I couldn’t see any future. My face is going to be permanently scarred. I’ve got motor-control problems – the consultant neurosurgeon just told me that my head hit the road at a bad angle – the worst bloody angle it could have hit – all my grey matter is jumbled up inside the box that’s meant to protect it.

  No hope, no future, a long dark tunnel. And then to the final part.

  When I am gone, take care of our son, Bruno. He worries me; you’ll see what I mean. Don’t give him to my parents, they’d never cope and it would be hell for him.

  I’m leaving you plenty of money for him, to pay for his education and set him up in life. I’ve also left you DNA proof that you are his father. You won’t know this but I took some samples from our house when I visited Brighton last year.

  I do still love you, even though it might not have seemed that way to you for all these years. Sorry, but this is really the end for me. I know I’m a coward, but then maybe I always have been.

  Sandy

  110

  March 2018

  I smiled, in sorrow, as my supper tray arrived. One of the games Roy and I used to play during a date-night dinner in one of our favourite restaurants was choosing our last meal if we were to be executed in the morning. Both of us agreed we would be gluttons. And we would totally large it on the desserts.

  It’s strange the things we remember from our past. I can clearly recall the last time we played it. Roy said he would have the biggest banoffee pie on the planet. I had chosen chocolate fondant with hot chocolate sauce. Grilled lobster as a starter for Roy, then a rib-eye steak with chips and broccoli – health-conscious to the last – well, the broccoli bit. I’d have gone for an aubergine parmigiana, then a Dover sole – off the bone, I don’t like to see dead fish faces – and mushy peas. And chips, too. It has to be chips.

  I was thinking about this as my meal tray arrived tonight. It had some horrible, tasteless lake fish, pike or perch, with a green vegetable that was so overcooked it fell apart when I prodded it with my fork. It might have been spinach in a former life. Dessert was trifle, which – well, let’s be polite, because it tasted better than it looked – looked like the remains of a roadkill reimagined by Tracey Emin.

  Not exactly my fantasy last meal. But I guess so much in life doesn’t live up to our hopes, and that part of growing up is learning to manage our expectations. Oh well, let’s hope this is the final disappointment.

  The clock on the wall read 7.45. I knew the ritual. In ten minutes a quiet male nurse would come in to take my tray and give me the two small pills, in a plastic container, to take half an hour before I wanted to sleep. I wouldn’t be swallowing them tonight and I wouldn’t be needing them ever again, but I didn’t say that to him when he came. I watched him leave with the tray and close the door. A few moments later, scrupulously punctual, a female nurse came in to insert my night-time catheter.

  When she had left, I felt completely at peace with myself. I’d made my decision, my affairs were all in order. The three letters, all in envelopes and addressed, were on my bedside table. I felt crashing waves of sadness about things I would never see – most of all, Bruno growing up, becoming a teenager. But at least I wouldn’t be an embarrassment to him. An invalid mother with a scarred face. I’m sparing him that, my dear, sweet boy.

  They normally left me alone at night, now that I was out of danger. No nurse had come in after my catheter had been inserted for several nights now. I would just have to take that risk. If anyone did, I would plead my screwed-up mind, that I had no idea what I was doing and divert to Plan B. Which I didn’t yet have. And hopefully would not need.

  Now I needed to focus on the task in hand.

  I’m really not feeling great.

  The whole room seems to be wobbling.

  111

  March 2018

  But I can’t do it. I just can’t do it.

  I lie there, crying. Scared. And I’m realizing that I just can’t do this to Bruno. He’s been through such shit with me, during all my years as a drug addict and then as a recovering addict. None of it is his fault. Don’t I owe it to him to care for him? I was the one, even more than Roy, who so desperately wanted a child. And now I have one, can I really just abandon him, because it suits me to bail out?

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  I’m feeling even more light-headed now. Even weaker. I sink back down into the bed, then look at the three envelopes I’ve addressed and pick up the one to Roy. And realize in my addled state I hadn’t sealed it. I try to pull the letter out because I want to rip it up. I’m going to rip all three letters up.

  My hands are shaking so much that the moment I get the letter out of the envelope it falls. The paper is so flimsy that I see it, floating down from side to side like a crappy paper aeroplane, and it lands on the floor several feet from my bed.

  My brain is all over the place. I need to get up and fetch it. I need to replace the catheter I have pulled out. I need—

  The door opens suddenly, and I’m frozen with panic.

  The clock says 11.55.

  I don’t know why I’m looking at it.

  A medic comes in, wearing the scrubs and gauze mask that all the doctors and nurses here wear. A male.

  Part of a crash team?

  Had I triggered an alarm at the nursing station when I pulled out the catheter?

  He shuts the door and walks over towards me. As he reaches me he raises his mask and, with a faint foreign accent that is very definitely not German, he says, ‘Hello, Sandy, remember me?’

  I do. It is not a happy memory.

  112

  March 2018

  Roel Albazi looks pretty much as I had last seen him a decade ago. Apart from a large scar down one side of his face.

  He’s smiling. But not with a lot of warmth.

  ‘It’s been a long journey to find you, Sandy,’ Albazi says.

  ‘If it’s about the money I owe you? I can pay it back – with interest. I always planned to pay you back. I have the cash – I could pay you tomorrow when the banks open.’ My voice comes out as a croak. I’m shivering.

  Albazi shakes his head and gives me another smile, this one almost sympathetic. ‘It’s not about the money, now, Sandy. And just to show my bona fides on that, I’ve brought your handbag back for you. I believe you lost it when you had a little altercation – shall we say – with a taxi.’

  I see my beige Louis Vuitton bag dangling from his arm. I’m shaking with terror. I think I’m about to throw up.

  ‘This is about my mother, my father, my grandfather, my sister and her girl,’ Albazi says. His voice sounds horrible. ‘All of them were murdered because you defaulted and disappeared. Any ideas how you can pay me back for destroying my family? No? Final answer?’

  I lie there, utterly petrified.

  He suddenly bends down, and then stands up holding a sheet of lined paper with handwriting on it.

  My letter to Roy, I realize.

  ‘Give me that, please,’ I blurt. ‘It’s personal.’

  He stands and reads it carefully, taking his time, taking several minutes. When he has clearly finished, he looks at me, then at the equipment around me. Then he smiles. ‘Trying to take your own life, Sandy?’

  ‘No, please listen to me. We can sort this out.’

  He shakes his head. ‘No, Sandy, we could have sorted this out ten years ago, when I was waiting for you in my office in Shoreham and you never turned up with the money you had promised.’

  ‘I have the money now. I can pay you any amount of interest.’

  ‘Did you not hear me very well, Sandy? This is not about money any more. There is no amount of money you could pay me. No amount in the world.’

  ‘So – what – what – how – how can we sort this out? Listen – there were so many issues I had.’

  ‘Did your mother get tortured to death, Sandy?’

  I look him in the eye. It was like staring into the crevasse of a glacier. ‘No.’

  ‘Did your family get tortured to death?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Did you ever spend ten years in prison dreaming of this moment, Sandy?’

  ‘What moment do you mean?’ I was whimpering.

  He holds the letter in front of my eyes. ‘I dreamed of this moment every single day when I woke up, and I dreamed of it every long night while I slept on my shitty, hard bunk. I dreamed of meeting you again one day, somewhere. And I dreamed that the day I met you, I would kill you. But I never dreamed you would have made it so easy for me.’

  113

  March 2018

  Kriminalhauptkommissar Marcel Kullen sat in his third-floor office at the Munich Landeskriminalamt headquarters, sipping his scalding first coffee of the day, while staring at his screen, viewing the video footage he had just been sent.

  It was a woman in a hospital gown, in a room at the Klinikum München Schwabing. She had hanged herself from the arm of a ceiling light.

  According to early estimates from the attending police officers, she had been dead for some hours. Her last visit from any of the nursing staff at the hospital had been at 8.15 p.m. yesterday.

  Her death had all the hallmarks of a carefully planned suicide. There was a lengthy note to her former husband, Roy Grace, which Kullen had just read, as well as notes to her son, Bruno, and to her lawyer.

  He liked Roy, from the brief times they had spent together, and was sure he would be very upset at this news. The English detective had been so convinced his long-vanished wife might still be alive and living in Germany – in Munich. As had turned out to be the case. Her letters – all three at her bedside, in sealed envelopes – were even greater evidence of this.

  With a heavy heart, he picked up his phone and dialled Roy Grace’s number.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I never knew when I started the Roy Grace series just how much Sandy would passionately interest so many of my readers. She didn’t just captivate Roy Grace fans, but she has captivated me, too, and I’ve been with her through her highs and lows and many personas. She has, over the years, become an icon of the entire Roy Grace series. I’ve always felt I owe you, my readers, this book – and I owe Sandy, too, the chance to be judged fairly.

  I have so many people to thank for all the time and help they have given me in my research for this novel. I would love to detail the input of each person listed below, but that would take a whole other book! Instead, my heartfelt thanks. Please know each of you is far more than just a name in an alphabetical list: Martin Allen; Sue Ansell (RIP); Graham Bartlett; Jon Bennion-Jones; Inspector James Biggs; Clare Butcher; DI Louise Clayson; CI Callum O’Connor; Emily Denyer; Jane Diplock; Martin Diplock; Dr Matt Doyle; Dr Deryn Doyle; Linzi Duckworth; Kelly Frost; Jonathan Gready; Chris Hamsey; Anna-Lisa Hancock; Kevin Lemasney; Jonathan Jones; Anette Lippert; Dr James Mair; Tom Ogg; Richard Pedley; DI Aiden Quenault; Dr Graham Ramsden; Chris Robinson; Guy Rolliston; Alan Setterington; Andy Sibcy; Anita Simmonds; Helen Shenston; Julian Short; Chief Officer Robin Smith; Hans Jurgen Stockerl; PC Richard Trundle; Dr Orlando Trujillo; Darren Twort; Ludwig Waldinger; Sven Müller, Polizeihauptkommissar.

  Thank you to my wonderful publishing house, starting with a sad and fond farewell to Wayne Brookes, my friend and wonderful publisher for fourteen years, and a big, excited welcome to my new publisher, Francesca Pathak. Pan Macmillan have been publishing my books since 2003 and I owe them so many thanks. To single out a few: Jonathan Atkins, Melissa Bond, Charlotte Cross, Stuart Dwyer, Brid Enright, Claire Evans, Jamie Forrest, Lucy Hale, Daniel Jenkins, Andy Joannou, Becky Lloyd, Sara Lloyd, Poppy North, Joanna Prior, Jeremy Trevathan, Charlotte Williams, and my brilliant structural consultant Susan Opie.

  Huge thanks, too, to my tireless agent, Isobel Dixon, and the fabulous team at Blake Friedmann, including Julian Friedmann, Conrad Williams, Sian Ellis-Martin, James Pusey, Nicole Etherington, Susie Bloor, Daisy Way and all the other people there!

  I’m also blessed with three wonderful publicists – Caitlin Allen, Emily Souders and Niamh Houston at Riot Communications.

  I have a dream team at Team James: Dani Brown, Chris Diplock, Emma Gallichan, Lyn Gaylor, Sarah Middle, Mark Tuckwell, Chris Webb. And two extra-special mentions to my front-line edit team.

  First, to David Gaylor, who, as befits the real-life model for my fictional Roy Grace, used all of his detective skills in quite brilliantly rising to the enormous challenge of aligning all the events in this novel to the countless appearances and mentions of Sandy in the preceding nineteen Roy Grace novels.

  The second extra-special mention is to my wife, Lara, who really got inside Sandy’s head and provided so many invaluable insights and ideas that really helped to shape both her erratic but very human character and the novel itself. Without her input, it would have been a lesser book.

  And, of course, I owe thanks as ever to all our furry and feathered friends in our ever-growing menagerie, who help make me smile no matter what, and none more so than our gorgeous dogs, Spooky and Wally, and our mischievous cats, Willy and Woo.

  I always love to hear from you, my readers. Message me through any of the channels below. Thank you for being such wonderful and loyal readers – and now, finally, you know the truth about Sandy . . . how she filled in that little dash, which all of us will one day have, between the dates of her birth and death.

  Peter James

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  Read the opening chapters of the new Peter James novel

  ONE OF US IS DEAD

  COMING AUTUMN 2024

  When Taylor arrives late for a funeral, he has to stand at the rear of the rammed country church. But, as the service progresses, Taylor notices a man seated on a pew six rows in front of him. At first he thinks he must be mistaken, but the more he looks at him, the more certain Taylor becomes that this is his old school friend Rufus Rorke.

  Except it couldn’t be him, could it? Because two years ago Taylor attended Rufus Rorke’s funeral. And, not only that, he delivered Rufus’s eulogy.

  Taylor tries to catch this person at the end of the funeral, but he has vanished into the torrential rain. How is Rufus still alive? And how dangerous is it to find out why?

  1

  Friday 23 September 2022

  The small village church was packed, and Taylor, who had arrived at the funeral late, just as the service was beginning, had to stand at the back, dripping wet from the pelting rain outside. But he wasn’t looking at the coffin, nor at the cleric – the almost overbearingly pious Very Reverend Parry-Jones, with his pristine cassock, zealot’s eyes and mad white hair, who was giving a good impression of genuine sincerity, but a less convincing one of having known the unfortunate star of the show.

  Instead, Taylor was staring at the back of the head of a man sitting six rows in front of him. Transfixed.

  Even though he hadn’t yet had a chance to see the man’s face clearly – the man was wearing dark glasses, a scarf and a baseball cap – Taylor was certain it was Rufus Rorke. His old school friend. Except it couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible.

  The man inclined his head slightly to the left, as if resting it on his shoulder – the quirky way Rufus had always done when he was composing a reply to something someone had just said. And now Taylor was even more sure. It was Rufus, it absolutely was!

  Except it could not be. Rufus Rorke had been dead for two years. Taylor had given the eulogy at his funeral.

  2

  WTF???

  Taylor could not take his eyes off the man as the service proceeded, interminably. There were two cheesy poetry readings by – according to the service sheet – Barnie’s nieces, and another that Taylor liked, about not being dead but just in the next room, which was read by a woman in a veil, Barnie’s ex-wife, Debbie Martin (she’d kept her maiden name), though several lines were drowned out by a baby screaming.

  These were followed by a tribute from a dapper man of around forty, who, in a virtuoso performance of pure fiction, interrupted again by the baby, portrayed the deceased as pretty much one miracle short of sainthood. The sun had come out and its rays shone through the stained-glass window behind the pulpit, creating a halo effect around the man’s head.

  Maybe Barnie would be canonized one day, Taylor thought wryly. He could be the patron saint of losers.

  Taylor had only come to the funeral out of a sense of duty – he’d not seen Barnie for years, other than briefly at Rufus’s funeral two years ago. But the three of them had been tight at school – Taylor, Rufus and Barnie. The Three Musketeers, they called themselves. And, for a while after leaving, they’d continued meeting up for lunch or for an evening at a boozer close to one of them. They’d vowed they would always stay in touch, but of course life had other plans.