Looking Good Dead

by Peter James

  On the screen a teenage girl was standing in a rain-drenched alleyway, screaming, as a shadow bore down on her. Mandy was sprawled out on the sofa, a teenage magazine open on the carpet, along with several sweet wrappers, an empty pizza carton and a Coke can. Engrossed in the movie, without taking her eyes from the screen she hovered her left hand over the carpet, searching for the remote, but she was several inches off target.

  Just as the girl on the television screamed even louder, Tom knelt, grabbed the remote off the floor and muted the sound. ‘Everything OK, Mandy?’

  The teenager looked a little surprised by the sudden silence, yawned, then smiled. ‘Yeah, fine, Mr Bryce. The children wasn’t no trouble – good as gold both of ’em. I’m a bit worried about Lady, though.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ Kellie asked.

  Sitting up and putting on her boots, Mandy replied, ‘She doesn’t seem herself. She normally comes and sits with me, but she didn’t want to leave her basket tonight.’

  Tom and Kellie both walked anxiously into the kitchen. Lady, curled in her basket, did not even raise an eyelid. Kellie knelt down and stroked her head. ‘Lady, darling, are you OK?’

  Mandy followed them in. ‘She drank quite a lot of water a while ago.’

  ‘She’s probably got a bug,’ Tom said, glancing at half a congealed pizza lying on the work surface, along with a knife and fork, and a tub of melted Tesco caramel crunch ice cream with the lid off. He knelt and stroked the Alsatian as well. Cocking his head at the dog he asked, feeling very sleepy suddenly, ‘Have you got a bug, Lady? Feeling grots?’

  Kellie stood up. ‘Let’s see if she’s any better in the morning. If not we’ll have to call the vet.’

  Tom gloomily saw a big bill coming, but it couldn’t be helped. He loved the dog; she was a part of his family, part of his life. ‘Good plan,’ he said.

  Kellie squared up with the babysitter, then told Tom she would drive Mandy home.

  ‘It’s OK, I’ll do it,’ Tom said. ‘I deprived myself of all those fine wines – I might as well drive her.’

  ‘I didn’t drink much either,’ Kellie said. ‘I’m fine. You’ve done enough driving tonight. Have a drink and relax.’

  He didn’t take much persuading.

  Tom poured himself two fingers of Armagnac, flopped down on the sofa and flicked the remote, changing from the horror film Mandy had been watching to a golden oldie comedy show, Porridge, and watched Ronnie Barker in prison for a little while, before changing again, this time to an American football game. He heard the front door close and the sound of the Audi starting up, and felt a good, warm sensation as the first sip of his drink slid down his throat.

  Then he stared into the glass and swirled the dark liquid around pensively. He was wondering what the difference was between Philip Angelides and himself. What qualities had made Angelides such a financial success and himself such a failure? Was it luck? Genes? Ruthlessness?

  Outside, Kellie reversed into the street, then began to drive down the hill, making small talk with Mandy. Even if she had looked more carefully in her mirror, she would never have noticed the car that pulled out to follow her.

  It was more than a hundred yards behind and had no lights on.

  41

  Roy Grace, unsteady in his seat in the swaying taxi, stared at the display of his mobile phone. Stared at the single letter.

  X

  He was having serious trouble focusing and despite – or because of – his drunkenness his emotions were in turmoil. Street lights and headlights flashed past him. On the taxi’s crackly radio some caller on a late-night phone-in programme was talking furiously about Tony Blair and the National Health Service. He looked at his watch. Ten past one.

  How had the evening gone?

  He could still taste Cleo on his lips. Could smell her perfume in the cab, on his clothes. God, she was lovely. He still had a hard-on. He’d walked out of the bloody restaurant with a hard-on. And if she had invited him in, would he have . . . ?

  And he knew the answer.

  But she had not invited him in.

  He inhaled deeply, but this time all he got was the stale plastic smell of the cab’s interior.

  ‘Four hours bloody wait, me mum’s sick with cancer, and they made her wait four hours with her head split open before anyone saw her!’ the man on the radio said bitterly.

  ‘Disgusting, innit?’ the cab driver said.

  ‘Totally,’ Grace said absently, concentrating on the keypad of his phone.

  ‘Nice lady you had there. I think I recognized her. Got a feeling I’ve met her somewhere.’

  ‘Most people only get to meet her when they’re dead.’

  ‘Is that right?’ the driver said, sounding bemused. ‘An angel, is she?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Grace said distractedly, still concentrating on his phone. He tapped out XX. Then sent it.

  When he reached home, several minutes later, he was disappointed that he’d had no response.

  42

  Tom woke with a start, feeling muzzy and confused, with a roaring sound in his ears, unable to think for a moment where he was. Motorbikes were racing on the television screen in front of him, he realized, starting to think a bit more clearly – that was the noise.

  Looking around for the remote, he saw an empty brandy glass on the carpet at his feet and then it hit him with a jolt. He’d fallen asleep. What the hell was the time?

  The clock on the DVD read 4.10 a.m. That could not be right. He looked at his watch. 4.09 a.m.

  A cluster of motorbikes, all close together, were howling down a straight that he recognized as part of the Silverstone racetrack. He’d been on a corporate hospitality day there a couple of years ago, and had also been to the British Grand Prix a few times. They were braking now, heeling over into Copse. Finding the remote, he switched the television off and stood up slowly, feeling stiff as hell.

  Why hadn’t Kellie woken him when she came in? he wondered. Carrying his empty glass, he tottered out into the hall, his head feeling muzzy still, his whole body leaden. He set the glass down in the kitchen, then somehow found the strength to haul himself upstairs. Creeping along the landing, trying not to wake anyone – although the motorbike racing had already probably done that – he opened the door to his bedroom. Instantly something felt wrong.

  The curtains were wide open, and there was sufficient grey, predawn light to see that their bed was empty.

  No Kellie.

  And suddenly he was wide awake.

  Very occasionally in the past when one of the children had had a bad dream, she’d crawled into their bed for a few hours. Wondering if she had done that now, he checked out each of their rooms in turn. But she wasn’t there.

  Then, cursing his stupidity, he ran downstairs, opened the front door and stared out at the carport. It was empty.

  To be doubly sure he walked out to the pavement and looked up and down, in case for some reason she’d parked the Audi in the street and had fallen asleep inside it. But there was no sign of the car.

  He looked at his watch again, trying to work out how long he had been asleep. What time had she taken the babysitter home? It had been about half past one. Two and a half hours ago. Two and a half hours to make a four-mile round trip?

  An icy whorl of fear spiralled through him. Had she had an accident? Wouldn’t someone from the police have been in touch by now, if that had happened?

  Was she having a long Kellie moment on her own, out in the darkness somewhere? Surely she would have known he’d be fretting?

  But that was the thing, part of Kellie’s problem; she did the most irrational things sometimes without thinking of the consequences. She had never actually done anything to endanger the kids, but she often just did not think. Like the time she’d bought one of her endless ‘bargains’ on eBay, a week at a Champney’s health farm, at the same time as he was going to be away in Germany at a trade fair. She had totally forgotten to consider what would happen to the children.


  There had also been a couple of occasions when she had simply disappeared, once for a whole day, another time for over twenty-four hours. He had been in despair both times, ringing around every hospital in the south of England to see if she’d been in an accident, wondering if she was having an affair. Then she had turned up, apparently unconcerned that he’d had to take the day off to look after the children, telling him that she’d suddenly just felt she needed some space.

  He thought back to earlier, when she had gone into one of her silent modes in the car. Is that what she was doing now, having some space? Nice of her to tell him.

  He picked up the cordless phone in the bedroom and dialled her mobile number. Seconds later he heard her demented, Crazy Frog ringtone coming from downstairs and hung up. She’d left her phone behind.

  Terrific.

  He sat down on the bed, thinking. God, he loved her so much, despite her quirks. They had their differences, yet in many ways they were so comfortable together. He had loved watching her at the dinner table tonight. Yes, she was out of her social league in that vipers’ nest – they both were – but she’d coped; she’d held her head up; she’d looked beautiful; she’d said nice things about him, building him and his business up to the people on either side of her.

  Then he thought about the envy he’d detected in her voice tonight, in the car driving back, when he had asked her if she would like to live in a house as big as the Angelides’.

  Yeah, why not, if I had all those servants. We will one day, I’m sure. I believe in you.

  He hadn’t yet had the courage to break the news to her that they might soon have to sell this house and downsize. He didn’t know how to, didn’t want to see the pain it would cause. And most of all he didn’t want to seem a failure to her.

  Christ, where are you, my darling?

  He got up and paced around, his insides slippery with fear. It was twenty to five. He wondered whether to call Mandy Morrison’s parents to ask if Kellie had brought her home safe. But if the girl was not home by now, her parents would have been on the phone, anxious.

  Still fully clothed, he lay back against the headboard, his brain buzzing, listening for a car coming up the street. Instead, all he heard were the first twitterings of birdsong. After a few minutes, despite the hour, he rang Mandy Morrison’s home number; the phone was answered by her very sleepy father, who assured him Mandy had been dropped safely home at about quarter to two.

  He thanked him, then dialled Directory Enquiries and asked for the number of the Royal Sussex County Hospital. A few minutes later he was through to a tired-sounding woman at Accident and Emergency. She assured him that no one of Kellie’s name had been admitted in the past few hours.

  Next he got the main number for Sussex Police, from Directory Enquiries again, and rang that. But after being transferred to Traffic, then put on hold for several minutes, he was told there had been no reported road traffic accidents involving his wife or their car.

  He did not know what to do next.

  43

  It was only Wendy Salter’s second time on nights. The probationary WPC was three weeks out of Police Training College at Ashford in Kent, and had the best part of two years yet to serve before becoming a fully fledged officer like her colleague. PC Phil Taylor, a few weeks shy of thirty-seven, was at the wheel of the liveried police Vectra, driving fast, blues on, but on this empty road there was no need for the siren.

  They were less than a mile from CID headquarters in Sussex House, and had driven almost the entire width of Brighton and Hove in the two minutes since they had picked up the emergency call from the Control Room. They had only just finished sorting out a drunken argument over a bill, which had turned into a fight, in the Escape nightclub just off Brighton seafront.

  Going at high speed through the city gave Wendy a massive thrill – she couldn’t help it – it was like being on the best funfair ride in the world. And a lot of officers felt the same. The expression on Taylor’s face showed he was among them.

  It was 4.15 a.m. and, looking up through the windscreen, Wendy could see a few cracks of grey dawn light appearing in the black canopy of the night sky. A terrified rabbit sprinted in the glow of the car’s headlights across the road and vanished beneath the bonnet. She waited for the thud and was relieved when there was none.

  ‘Bloody kamikaze bunny that was,’ Phil Taylor said cheerily.

  ‘I think you missed it.’

  ‘I read somewhere that some bloke’s published a book of road-kill recipes – in America.’

  ‘Could only be in America,’ Wendy said. She’d never actually been there, and had an image of the country heavily influenced by all the crazies in California she had seen on television, or read about, with a bit of Michael Moore thrown in for good measure.

  They were passing woodland on their right and a sweeping drop to their left down to the lights of Brighton and Hove. Then, rounding a sharp right-hand bend, they saw the red glow ahead of them.

  For a brief instant Wendy thought it might be the sun starting to rise, but dismissed that when she worked out they were travelling almost due west. The glow intensified as they drew closer, and then, suddenly, she could smell it.

  The vile, acrid stench of burning paint, rubber and vinyl.

  Taylor braked and pulled over a short distance from the blazing car, which was in a tarmac car park in a beauty spot with magnificent daytime views. But all WPC Wendy Salter could see as she unclipped herself and stepped out of the car, dutifully pulling on her hat, was dense, choking smoke as the strong breeze blew it straight towards them, making her eyes water. She turned away for a moment, coughing, then ran alongside her colleague as close as they could get to the vehicle before the heat stopped them.

  In the distance she could hear the wail of a siren. Probably the fire brigade, she thought, the stench of burning paint and rubber one hundred times stronger now, and the fierce crackling and roaring of the inferno filling her ears.

  She could see inside the car now, with most of the glass of the windows already burned out, and to her relief it was empty. It was an estate, and walking round to the front she recognized the radiator grille. ‘An Audi,’ she called out to PC Taylor.

  ‘It’s a recent model; you can tell from the grille,’ he said.

  ‘I know. The new A4.’

  He gave her a glance. ‘Bit of a petrol-head, are you?’ he said with grudging admiration.

  ‘Not as much as whoever did this,’ she retorted.

  ‘Kids,’ he said, as if it were a swear word. ‘Little bastards. Torching someone’s brand new wheels.’

  ‘Joyriders?’

  ‘Bound to be,’ he said. ‘Who else?’

  44

  Roy Grace woke at six thirty on Sunday morning to the beeping of his alarm clock, with a parched mouth and a blinding headache. Two paracetamol capsules he’d swallowed with a pint of water at about five in the morning had had about as much effect as the first couple he had downed a few hours earlier. Which was not a lot.

  As he hit the snooze button, temporarily silencing the clock, the loud chirrup of a bird outside took over, incessant, like a stuck CD track. Light streamed in through a wide gap in the curtains, which he realized he had not closed properly.

  How drunk was I last night?

  Assembling his thoughts, his brain sluggish, feeling like someone had spent all night pulling wires out of it at random, he reached out for his mobile phone. But there was no further text from Cleo.

  He could hardly expect there to be one, as it was only half six in the morning and she was probably sound asleep, but logic wasn’t a major feature of his thinking just at this moment, with the pounding inside his head and the damned bird, and the knowledge that he had to get up and face a full day’s work. No chance of a Sunday lie-in today, boyo.

  He closed his eyes, thinking back. God, Cleo was lovely in every way, a really warm, gorgeous human being. She was very, very special – and they had got on so incredibly well! Then he thought
back to their kiss in the back of the taxi, a long, long, amazing kiss. And he tried to remember who had started it. It was Cleo, he seemed to recall. She had made the first move.

  He felt a pang of longing to speak to her, to see her. Suddenly, he thought he could smell her perfume. Just the lightest trace on his hand; he brought it to his nose and yes! It was strongest on his wrist; it must have come from when he had sat in the cab with his arm around her. He held his wrist against his nose for a long time, breathing in the musky scent, something stirring deep in his heart that he had thought, until these past few days, was long dead.

  Then he felt a twinge of guilt. Sandy. But he ignored it, shut it out of his mind, determined not to go there, not to let it spoil this moment.

  He looked at the clock again to double-check the time, his brain turning, reluctantly, to work. To the 8.30 a.m. briefing. Then he remembered he needed to collect his car.

  If he got up now, he worked out, he would just have time to run to the underground car park where he had left the Alfa last night – the fresh air might help his head. Except that his body was telling him it did not need a run, it needed about eight hours more sleep. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to crush the pain like cheese-wire cutting through his skull – and to ignore that sodding bird which he could happily have shot if he’d had a gun – and drifted for a few delicious moments back into thoughts about Cleo Morey.

  It seemed barely a few seconds before the alarm started beeping again. Reluctantly, he hauled himself out of bed, opened the curtains the rest of the way, and padded naked into the bathroom to brush his teeth. The face that stared back at him out of the mirror over the basin wasn’t a pleasant sight.

  Roy Grace had never been a vain man but had until recently considered himself still young, or youngish, not handsome but OK-looking, with his best feature being his blue eyes (his Paul Newman eyes, Sandy used to tell him) and his worst his small but very broken nose. Now, increasingly, the face he stared at early in the morning seemed to belong to some much older guy – a complete stranger with a wrinkled forehead, slackening jowls and bags the size of oyster shells beneath his eyes.