Peter James: You Are Dead

Now eleven years on, Marlon was still going strong. In the Guinness World Records , which Roy had recently consulted, the longest-lived goldfish in the world achieved forty-three years. Still some way to go, but for sure Marlon showed no signs of pegging out anytime soon. And secretly, Roy was glad about that. In a strange way — one he would never tell Cleo about — Marlon provided a link back to Sandy. He knew that he would be sad when he eventually died. And indeed, every morning when Roy came downstairs, the first thing he did was to look at the bowl, hoping that Marlon would not be floating lifelessly on the surface.

‘As we’re moving, darling, I think Marlon should move too. I’ve just read, on the internet, that goldfish need a bigger tank than people realize.’

‘Oh? How big? Like an Olympic-size pool?’ Cleo said.

He grinned. ‘No, but big enough to stretch their legs — or rather, fins.’

‘Just so long as it’s not bigger than our new house — or I would be getting extremely jealous. And in which case, sushi, my love?’

He looked at her, quizzically. ‘Don’t even go there!’

‘Love me, love my fish, right?’

He put his arms around her. ‘God, I adore you.’

She stared into his eyes. ‘And I adore you. I love you more than anything I could ever have imagined, Detective Superintendent Grace.’

She kissed him.

Then his work phone rang.

It was Andy Anakin, the Golf 99 — the term for the divisional duty uniformed inspector at Brighton’s John Street police station — which had the somewhat unwelcome reputation as the second busiest police station in England. Unlike most of his colleagues, who had the ability to remain calm in any situation, this particular inspector had acquired the nickname of ‘Panicking Anakin’. He sounded like he was panicking now.

‘Sir,’ he said, seemingly out of breath. ‘The DI’s dealing with another urgent situation, and asked me to call you to give you the heads-up that we have a possible kidnap or abduction. A young woman has gone missing after screaming down the phone to her fiancé that there was an intruder in an underground car park in Kemp Town.’

‘What information do you have on it?’ Roy asked, immediately concerned.

‘Very little, sir, you see, that’s the thing. Very little so far. I’ve units doing a house-to-house in the area, and a distraught boyfriend who believes his fiancée has been abducted. We’re doing all we can, but it’s not looking good, sir. Really it’s not. Ops-1 has alerted the duty Gold and Critical Incident Manager.’

Grace’s heart sank. It didn’t sound or feel good. ‘What do you know about the couple?’

‘Her name’s Logan Somerville. Twenty-four, recently qualified as a chiropractor, works at a practice in Portland Road, Hove. His name’s Jamie Ball. He’s a marketing manager for the pet food division of the Condor Food Group — works at their offices near Croydon. We’re checking him out further.’

With eighty per cent of victims of violence harmed or killed by an immediate member of their family or someone close to them, Grace was well aware that loved ones were always people who deserved close investigation. He had been called, he knew, not solely because he was the on-call Senior Investigating Officer, but because he was also a trained kidnap and hostage negotiator. But if this did become an active investigation he wouldn’t be carrying out both roles.

‘I think we need to seal off the county, sir,’ Anakin said. ‘Roadblocks on all major roads, sir. Put out an all-ports. I’ve requested NPAS 15 on standby.’

NPAS 15 was the call sign for the helicopter shared between Sussex and Surrey police forces and now based at Redhill.

‘Hold on,’ Grace said.

‘This is bad, Roy. I’m telling you, this is bad!’

‘Andy, calm down. Wind your neck in!’ Grace retorted. ‘What checks have you done to verify she is missing?’

‘Local?’

‘Presumably there’s CCTV in the car park?’

‘Yes, but it’s not working.’

‘Great.’ He grimaced. ‘Have you got any local officers searching around the immediate scene? Seeing if anyone’s seen or heard anything?’

‘I have two there.’

‘Not enough. Get more there right away. Have you spoken to the boyfriend?’

‘Officers are talking to him at the moment. I’m at the scene myself. I’ve asked for divisional CID to attend, and thought you needed to be aware, Roy. I understand the woman screamed, and mentioned a man lurking in the vicinity who has not been traced.’

Grace frowned. It didn’t look good, but equally Anakin seemed to be rushing in before he had all the facts. ‘What do we know about the missing woman, Andy? Does she have anything that would make her a potential kidnap target? Is she an heiress, or does she have rich parents?’

‘I’ll find out all that.’

‘Right. Update me in thirty minutes, please — if not before.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Roy Grace stared at Marlon’s bowl, his brain racing. Mobile phones dropped connections constantly and sometimes made odd noises. A squeal of car tyres or the scrape of a metal gate or just some interference on the line could have been misinterpreted as a scream. But twenty years as a police officer had given him a rich amount of that instinct they called ‘copper’s nose’. And this one did not smell good. And the grim truth was that in abduction cases the victim was often killed very quickly. With every hour that passed, the chances of finding the victim alive lessened.

He reflected on what he had been told so far. The man who called it in, Jamie Ball, worked at Croydon and was on his way home. That would be easy enough to verify. A combination of the ANPR — number plate recognition cameras — sited strategically along the M23, and triangulation of his mobile phone, would pinpoint his approximate position at the time he claimed to have received the call from his fiancée. Likewise it would be an easy job to verify that she had made the call and where she was at the time. But with luck it wouldn’t come to that. Maybe she’d arrive back with a load of grocery bags having gone foraging in the nearby Sainsbury’s Local. He hoped.

Noah began to cry. He saw Cleo rush dutifully up the stairs. Life was complicated. So damned complicated. He suddenly envied Marlon the simplicity of his existence. Did the fish have to worry about anything? Did he fret about food being put into his tank daily or did he assume its delivery?

Marlon would never be robbed; conned out of his life savings; abused. He was unlikely to be murdered or mutilated by a terrorist attack.

His mind drifted back to the evening before, when he had travelled to Worthing with Norman Potting to speak to Bella Moy’s mother. He had wanted to see her in advance of her daughter’s funeral, to discuss with her the details of the service and if there was anything in particular she wanted him to say. Bella, who had been engaged to Norman, and was one of his core team, had tragically died in a fire.

Then his phone rang again.

Thursday 11 December

Shortly after 7.15 p.m. Roy Grace and Detective Inspector Glenn Branson hurried, heads bowed against the driving rain, towards the battery of bright lights illuminating the small Crime Scene Investigation tent that been erected a short distance in front of the Big Beach Café at Hove Lagoon. It was surrounded by two cordons of fluttering blue and white crime scene tape. To the right, inside the inner cordon, was a second similar-sized tent.

So much for a quiet weekend , Grace was thinking. First a possible abduction, and now this. If the abduction was real — and he was increasingly certain that was the case — he would have to delegate one case as he couldn’t run two simultaneously.