Looking Good Dead

by Peter James

  Sometimes, on a wet Sunday, Grace loved to go into the local museum and look at the prints and watercolours of Brighton in a bygone age, in the days of the old chain pier and hansom cabs, when men walked along in silk top hats wielding silver-handled canes. He used to wonder for some moments what life must have been like in those days, and then he would remember his father telling him how his dentist used to pedal the drill by foot. And suddenly he was glad he lived in the twenty-first century, despite all modern society’s ills.

  ‘Penny for your thoughts,’ Glenn Branson said.

  ‘I like this part of Brighton,’ Grace said.

  Branson looked at him, surprised. ‘You do? I think it’s skanky.’

  ‘You’ve got no appreciation of beauty.’

  ‘This part of town reminds me of that movie Brighton Rock. Dickie Attenborough playing Pinkie.’

  ‘Yes, I remember. And I read the novel,’ Grace said, for once trumping him.

  ‘It was a book?’ Branson looked at him in surprise.

  ‘Christ, what stone did you crawl out from under?’ Grace said. ‘Graham Greene. It was one of his most famous novels. Published in the 1940s.’

  ‘Yeah, well that explains it, old timer. Your generation!’

  ‘Yeah, yeah! You give me all this crap about knowing so much about movies, but you’re just a philistine at heart.’

  Branson stopped for a moment and pointed at a boarded-up window, then at the salt-burned paintwork above and below it, and then at the crumbling plasterwork. ‘What’s to love about that?’

  ‘The architecture. The soul of the place.’

  ‘Yeah, well I used to work at a nightclub around the corner, and I never found any soul here. Just an endless line of fuckwits out of their trees on E.’

  They reached the bespectacled community support officer outside the front door and showed him their warrant cards. He dutifully wrote their names down on his log in the slowest handwriting Grace had ever seen. CSOs had been introduced to ease the workload of officers. They had been nicknamed plastic policemen and were perfect for duties such as this.

  ‘You go up to the second floor,’ he said helpfully. ‘The stairwell and access have been checked – they haven’t found anything forensically appropriate.’ He talked as if he were running the show, Grace thought, privately amused.

  Entering the front, the place reminded Grace of every low-rent building he had ever been in: the balding carpet on the floor, junk mail spilling out of the pigeonholes, the tired paintwork and peeling wallpaper, the smell of boiled cabbage, the padlocked bicycle in the hallway, the steep, narrow staircase.

  A strip of blue, yellow and white Sussex Police crime scene tape was fixed across the door of the flat. Grace and Branson pulled their white protective suits out of their holdalls, put them on, then their gloves, overshoes and hoods. Then Branson rapped on the door.

  It was opened after some moments by Joe Tindall, clad in the same protective attire as themselves. It didn’t matter how many times Grace saw SOCOs at work, their hooded white outfits always reminded him of secret government officials cleaning up after an alien invasion. And no matter how many times he had seen Joe Tindall in recent days, he could not get over his colleague’s recent makeover.

  ‘God, we really get to meet in the best of places, don’t we, Roy?’ Tindall said by way of a greeting.

  ‘I like to spoil my team,’ Grace replied with a grin.

  ‘So we’ve noticed.’

  They went into a small hallway, and Tindall closed the door behind them. Another figure in white was on his hands and knees, inspecting the skirting board. Grace noticed that a radiator had been unbolted from the wall. By the time they had finished in here, every radiator would be off, half the floorboards would be prised up, and even parts of the wallpaper would have been removed.

  A band of sticky police tape had been laid in a straight line down the centre of the hall, as the path for everyone to keep to. Tindall was meticulous at preserving crime scenes.

  ‘Anything of interest?’ Grace asked, glancing down at a ginger and white cat which had wandered out to look at him.

  Tindall gave him a slightly strange look. ‘Depends what you call of interest? Bloodstains on a bedroom carpet that someone’s tried to scrub off. Spots of blood on the wall and ceiling. Car keys to a Mini outside. We’ve taken that in on a transporter – I don’t want anyone driving it and contaminating it.’

  ‘Good thinking.’ Immediately Grace logged that Janie Stretton clearly had not driven to meet her killer. At least that eliminated one enquiry line. He knelt and stroked the cat for a moment. ‘We’ll get someone to take you to your granddad,’ he said.

  Tindall gave him that strange look again. ‘Follow me.’

  ‘You must be Bins,’ Grace said to the cat, remembering Derek Stretton mentioning the cat.

  It miaowed at him.

  ‘Anyone fed this?’

  ‘There’s one of those automatic feeder things in the kitchen,’ Tindall said.

  Roy Grace followed the SOCO officer. In contrast to the exterior of the building and the shabbiness of the common parts, Janie Stretton’s flat was spacious, in very good order and tastefully if cheaply decorated. The hall and the living room off it had polished wood floors thrown with white rugs, and all the curtains and soft furnishing covers were also white, with the hard furniture a shiny lacquered black, except for six perspex chairs around the dining table. On the walls were black and white photographs, a couple of them quite erotic nudes, Grace noticed.

  To one side of the living room, in the recess of a bay window, was a small, rather flimsy-looking desk with a Sony laptop sitting on it and a telephone-answering machine combo. The message light was winking.

  There was a minuscule kitchen, an equally minuscule spare bedroom, then a good-sized master bedroom, very feminine-feeling, with the lingering scent of a classy perfume Grace vaguely recognized and liked. It was strangely poignant to think that the wearer was now dead and yet this part of her remained. The room was carpeted wall to wall in white and there was a large central blotch, a good two feet in diameter, then several smaller blotches around it. Bloodstains someone had scrubbed, unsuccessfully.

  Through an open door he could see into an en suite bathroom. He walked across, carefully skirting the bloodstains, and peered in. There was an empty plastic bucket and scrubbing brush on the floor by the bath.

  His eyes roamed the bedroom, taking everything in, as another white-clad SOCO member busily dusted all surfaces for prints. He looked at the cedar chest at the end of the small double bed, the scattered cushions on the bed, the long antique wooden mirror on a stand, the closed Venetian blinds, the two bedside lamps, switched on, the mirrored wardrobe doors opposite the bed. He could see the spots on the wall which the killer had been too careless to wipe off. Or maybe the killer had just given up with the stains on the carpet – or been startled in the midst of his clean-up.

  Yet the bucket looked spotless, as did the scrubbing brush.

  Another enigma.

  Bins came into the room and rubbed up against Grace’s leg. He stroked the cat again, absently. Then, prompted by Tindall staring upwards, he suddenly noticed the mirrored ceiling above the bed.

  ‘A little unusual, wouldn’t you say?’ the SOCO said.

  ‘That’s well kinky,’ Branson commented. ‘Yeah!’

  ‘Maybe she had a bad back,’ Grace offered, tongue in cheek. ‘And it was the only way she could see to put on her make-up.’

  ‘There’s more,’ the SOCO added, opening the chest at the end of the bed.

  Grace and Branson peered in. To Grace’s amazement it was full of artefacts he would have expected to have found in an SM dungeon.

  Even without disturbing the contents he could see a whip, handcuffs, a full rubber face mask, several other restraints including a studded dog collar that had clearly not been designed with a dog in mind, a reel of duct tape, a bamboo cane and an assortment of vibrators.

  Grace whi
stled. ‘I think you’ve found her toy box.’

  ‘Whatever floats your boat, right?’ Joe Tindall said.

  Grace knelt and peered in more closely. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yeah, in her bedside table about twenty recent porn magazines. Serious, hard stuff.’

  Grace and Branson took a quick glance through the collection of magazines. Men on women, women on women, men on men and various permutations. Despite the circumstances Grace felt a prick of lust as he flicked through some of the women on women pages; he couldn’t help it and in truth was quite pleased that at long last, after all these years, feelings, wants, were coming back to him.

  ‘Is this kind of shit normal?’ Glenn Branson asked.

  ‘I’ve found porn in plenty of men’s cupboards before,’ Tindall said. ‘Don’t often find it in a woman’s.’

  Grace wandered away from the two men and walked around the whole flat on his own. He wanted to get the feel of the place. And the more he walked round, the more it did not feel homely.

  He remembered the architect Le Corbusier saying that houses were machines for living in. That’s what this place felt like. It was spotlessly clean. There was a fresh Toilet Duck freshener in the lavatory in the en suite bathroom; the sink was gleaming, all the toiletries, bar an electric toothbrush and a whitening paste, stored in the bathroom cabinets. The place was incredibly clean – for a student.

  He contrasted her bedroom here with the one at her father’s house, with the poster on the wall, the stuffed toys, the collection of shells, the books; you could form an image of the person from that room, but not from this one.

  Grace went through into the living room and, using his handkerchief, pressed the last number redial on the phone. It rang a few times, then he got the voicemail of the firm of solicitors where Janie had worked. He then dialled 1471 to check the last incoming number, but it was withheld. Next he pressed the message play button on the answering machine. The cat stood near him, but he did not notice it. He was staring at a framed photograph of Janie on the desk beside the machine. She was in a long evening gown against a background of what looked like Glyndebourne opera house. Interesting, he noted, that all the photographs of her seemed to be very posed. The machine whirred for some moments, then he heard a rather bland woman’s voice.

  ‘Oh, er – hello, Janie, this is Susan, Mr Broom’s secretary. It’s quarter past eleven on Wednesday. Mr Broom was expecting you in at eight o’clock this morning to work with him on finishing the briefing notes to counsel. Can you please give me a call.’

  Grace wrote the details down in his notebook.

  There was another, similar message from the same woman, two hours later, then at three thirty in the afternoon a different woman, sounding younger and rather smart: ‘Hi, Janie, this is Verity. Bit worried that you haven’t turned up today. Are you OK? I might pop round later on my way home. Call me or text me or something.’

  Then an hour later there was a different message from a woman with an overly jolly voice: ‘Oh, hi, Janie, this is Claire. I have something for you. Give me a call please.’

  The next message was from Derek Stretton.

  ‘Hello, Janie, darling. Got your birthday card – you are so sweet. Longing to see you on Friday. I’ve booked at your favourite; we can go out and have a real seafood binge! Give me a call before if you have a mo. Lots and lots of love. Daddy!’

  Then a rather coarse male voice: ‘Oh, hello, Miss Stretton. My name’s Darren. I’m calling from Beneficial to see if you’d like a quotation for household insurance from us. I will call you back.’

  Then the jolly voice of Claire again, this time a touch concerned. ‘Oh, hi, Janie, this is Claire again. I’m worried that you might not have picked up my last message. I will try your mobile again, it was for tonight.’

  Grace frowned. For tonight? Wednesday night. When she had been dead for around twenty-four hours?

  There were several more messages from her office the following day, Thursday. And from the woman called Claire again, sounding very irritated. There was also another message from her father, an anxious one this time.

  ‘Janie, darling, your office have been in touch with me – they say you haven’t been in since Tuesday and they are extremely worried. Are you all right? Please give me a call back. Love you lots. Daddy.’

  Grace wound the tape back to the first message from the perky Claire.

  ‘Oh, hi, Janie, this is Claire. I have something for you. Give me a call please.’

  Something about this message bothered him, but he couldn’t put a finger on it. He checked the machine to see if it logged incoming phone numbers, but it did not appear to.

  ‘Glenn,’ he said. ‘You’re the closest I have to a resident techie. Can you get into her address file on the laptop?’

  The Detective Sergeant walked over to the computer and flipped up the lid. ‘Depends on whether she’s been a good girl or not. Whether we have any password to . . . Ah, no – brilliant! No password!’

  He pulled out the chair and sat down. ‘You want a name?’

  ‘Claire.’

  ‘Claire what?’

  ‘Just Claire.’ Grace could not be bothered to correct Glenn’s grammar.

  After only a few moments tapping at the keyboard, Branson lifted his head. ‘There’s just one. I tried different spellings.’

  ‘Does it give an address?’

  ‘Just a number.’

  ‘OK, dial it.’

  Branson dialled then handed Grace the receiver. It rang for a few moments then was answered by an abrupt male voice.

  ‘Yes, hello?’

  ‘May I speak to Claire?’

  ‘She’s on another line – who’s calling?’

  Grace did a quick calculation. They had dropped Janie’s photograph off at the Major Incident Suite on their way here at the same time as they had picked up Glenn’s holdall. It would be a good couple of hours before copies were out in the media so no one outside the police and Janie’s immediate family would yet know she was dead. ‘I’m calling on behalf of Janie Stretton,’ he said.

  ‘OK, hold a sec; she’ll be with you in a minute.’

  Grace heard a few moments of Vivaldi’s Spring, then the voice he recognized as Claire. ‘Hello?’ she said, a little wary.

  ‘Yes, hello. I’m returning a message you left for Janie Stretton on Wednesday afternoon.’

  ‘Who exactly are you, please?’ Very wary now. Too wary.

  ‘Detective Superintendent Grace of Sussex CID.’

  The phone went dead.

  Instantly, Grace hit the redial button. The phone rang several times until the voicemail finally kicked in. ‘I’m sorry, there is no one here to take your call at the moment—’

  ‘Bullshit!’ Grace said, hanging up. He pulled out his radio, dialled Bella, gave her the phone number and asked her to come up with an address. Then he phoned his assistant Eleanor and asked her to set up a press conference for later that afternoon. He was keen to get maximum exposure with the public before the world wound down for the weekend.

  While he was waiting he checked the emails on his Blackberry, in particular for any news from the Suresh Hossain trial – but that seemed bogged down in day after day of legal submissions at the moment.

  Five minutes later, Bella, efficient as ever, radioed him back with an address near Hove station, about ten minutes drive away, going soberly, or ninety seconds with the blues and twos on. It was a business line in the name of BCE-247 Ltd. It meant nothing to him.

  He turned to Branson. ‘Bag the computer up and bring it; we’re going to take a drive. I don’t like people who hang up on me.’

  28

  Grace buckled himself in tightly, told Branson to do the same, then floored the Alfa Romeo’s accelerator, driving as fast as he dared, weaving in and out of the traffic, horn blaring, flashing his headlights, wishing he was in a marked car.

  As he crept over the line of his third red light in a row, all Grace could think was, If I hit
anything, anything at all, I might as well start flat hunting in Newcastle.

  The address Bella had given him was in a parade of shops in the street that ran south from Hove station. Grace screamed into a tight left-hander, passing a busy car wash on the right, then another tight left-hander, cutting dangerously across the bow of a taxi exiting from the station.

  He saw a woman dressed in a trouser suit emerging hurriedly from the door between a bathroom tiling shop and a newsagent’s. She was about thirty, with a good figure, spiky red hair and a plain face with too much make-up caked on. She was carrying a large leather portfolio case.

  Before the wheels of the Alfa had stopped turning, Grace was out of the car, running across the road, calling out to her: ‘Claire?’

  She turned, too startled to deny who she was.

  He flashed his warrant card at her. ‘Bit early to be knocking off for the day, isn’t it?’

  Her eyes darted furtively to the right then left, as if she was looking for an escape route. ‘I . . . I was just – nipping out to get a sandwich.’ She spoke in a coarse east London accent.

  ‘We were talking on the phone a few minutes ago – I think we got cut off.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said evasively. ‘We were?’

  ‘Yeah, I thought it might be easier to nip round – you know what the phones are like . . .’

  She watched his face warily, no hint of a smile.

  ‘Mind if we pop into your office and have a chat?’ Grace asked, watching Branson out of the corner of his eye walking across the road to join them.

  Now she looked panic-stricken. ‘Well . . . I – I think I need to speak to my business partner.’

  ‘I’ll give you a choice,’ Grace said. ‘We can either do this the nice way or the nasty way. The nice way is we go to your office now, have a cup of tea and a cosy chat. The nasty way is I stay here with you while my partner goes off to get a search warrant, and he’ll come back with six police officers, who’ll take your office apart, floorboard by fucking floorboard.’

  Grace saw the panic in her eyes turn to fear.