Peter James - You Are Dead

Glenn Branson came back into the tent. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I just spoke to Philip Keay, the on-call Coroner’s Officer. He thinks we should get the death certified, just to be safe.’

‘For fuck’s sake, it is such a ridiculous policy!’ Green said exasperatedly. He jerked a finger at the skull. ‘How much more sodding dead does she need to be?’

Outside, they heard the yap of a dog. Moments later the tent flap opened and CSI Chris Gee peered in.

‘Sir,’ he said. ‘There’s a gentleman walking his dog across the lagoon who saw the police vehicles and asked if he could help — he said he’s a doctor.’

Grace and Branson looked at each other. ‘A doctor?’ Roy Grace said. ‘Well, how convenient is that? Yes, ask him if he would be willing to confirm a death.’

A few minutes later, a short, fit-looking man in his mid-fifties, in a protective suit, mask and shoes, entered the tent. ‘Hello,’ he said cheerily. ‘I’m Edward Crisp, I’m a local GP. I was just walking my dog — your colleague at the barrier is kindly looking after him — and saw all the activity. Just wondered if I could be of any help? I used to serve Brighton and Hove Police as one of your on-call police surgeons up until about fifteen years ago.’

Grace nodded. ‘Yes, I remember your name. Well, your timing’s impeccable.’ He pointed down at the exposed remains. ‘Some workmen uncovered this earlier today. I know it sounds a little strange, but we need a medical person to confirm life extinct. Would you be able to oblige?’

Dr Crisp peered down, then knelt and stared for some moments at the skull, then at the rest of the exposed bones. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I really don’t think there’s much doubt about that. Poor woman.’

‘Woman?’ Grace said. ‘Definitely?’

The doctor hesitated. ‘Well, it’s a long time since I was a medical student, but from all I can remember I’d say from the shape of the skull it’s female. And from the condition of the teeth, late teens or early twenties.’

‘Any idea how long she might have been here?’ Glenn Branson asked.

He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t begin to hazard a guess — you’d need a forensic archaeologist to give you that kind of information. But, yes, indeed, there’s no question of life here. I would be happy to confirm that I can see it is a skeleton and there is no life. Is that helpful?’

‘Extremely,’ Roy Grace said.

‘Is that all?’

‘Leave your details, I’ll send someone round to you tomorrow to take a formal statement.’

‘Absolutely! No problem at all.’ He smiled. ‘Bye for now!’

Thursday 11 December

Jamie Ball sat perched on a stool at his kitchen breakfast bar, drinking beer after beer, phone in his hand, calling each of their friends in turn, his back to the rainy darkness beyond the window. He focused first on Logan’s girlfriends, then her sister, then her brother, then her parents, asking if by chance — slim chance — she had gone over to see them. As he spoke he stared either at the tropical fish in the tank or at the photograph on the bar counter of the two of them in their ski suits taken on top of the Kleine Matterhorn at Zermatt last March, with snow-capped peaks framing the horizon. They were laughing at some joke their mate John, who had taken the picture, had just cracked.

John, who had introduced them a year earlier, had a simple philosophy that they both often joked about: Get up, have a laugh, go to bed!

But Jamie wasn’t laughing at that now. With tears streaming down his face, he stared at the woman he loved more than he could ever have imagined loving anyone, who he still hoped would become his wife.

She was twenty-four, with long brown hair and an infectious smile that showed her immaculate white teeth. The first time he had seen her she had reminded him of a younger Demi Moore in one of his favourite movies, Ghost. She’d told him he reminded her of a younger Matt Damon, in an un-Matt Damon kind of way. Whatever that meant. She was like that, quirky and oblique at times.

God, he loved her.

Please be OK, my darling. Please come home. Please come home.

Every time he heard a sound out in the corridor he turned and waited, expectantly, for Logan to walk in through the door.

He turned to PC Holliday, who was sitting on a sofa making notes, and asked if there was any update.

Thursday 11 December

Logan’s head was pounding. She was lying on her back, totally disoriented and with no idea where she was, shivering with cold. She was light-headed and giddy, and experiencing a faint swaying sensation, as if she were on a boat. And she badly needed to pee. Desperately. She fought against it. There was a vile smell in her nostrils, of mildew and something much stronger, a smell that reminded her of the time she and Jamie had come back from two weeks on the Greek island of Spetses last summer to find the mains fuse in their flat had tripped, and the fridge and freezer had been off for many days during an August heatwave.

They had opened the freezer door to find two steaks crawling with maggots and a chicken that had turned bright green and almost luminous. The smell of the decaying flesh had made them both gag, and it had taken days of keeping the windows open, burning scented candles and constantly spraying the place with air fresheners to finally get rid of it.

Was she having a nightmare?

But her eyes were open. She could see a faint green glow of light. She was lying in some enclosed container, hemmed in on both sides so tightly she could not move her elbows. Her eyes were blurred, as if they had some kind of drops in them, and her mind was fuzzy. She tried to sit up and something hard dug into her neck, painfully, almost choking her.

She cried out.

What the hell?

Where was she?

It was coming back now. And with it, the terror. She felt a dark feeling of dread deep inside her.

Driving down into the underground car park. Someone in the shadows. Then, suddenly, the hooded figure looming above her window. Her car door being yanked open.

The hiss of gas.

Her eyes stinging, agonizingly.

Then nothing.

Thursday 11 December

‘I really like this Farrow and Ball paper for the dining room,’ Cleo said. ‘What do you think?’

The question took Roy Grace back almost twenty years, to when he and Sandy had bought their house. But the big difference was, he realized, that Sandy had got on and made all the decorating choices herself, without asking him his opinion in the way Cleo was doing.

Roy had just dropped in, on his way to Chesham Gate, to update Cleo and keep his peace with her. He stood over the sofa and peered down at the grey and white zigzag pattern. It looked busy and a complete contrast, he thought, to the kind of paper Sandy would have chosen. She liked minimalistic, plain. ‘Yes,’ he said, a little abstractly. The coffee table and most of the floor were scattered with fabric swatches and sample books. To their irritation, Humphrey kept moving around restlessly, sitting on different books. It was as if the dog sensed that change was happening, and was unsettled.

Grace would have loved a drink right now. A really stiff vodka martini or a large glass of cold white wine. But being on call and with all that was going on, he did not dare. It was twenty past eight. Panicking Anakin had phoned him earlier to say that Logan was neither an heiress or came from a moneyed family, and he was going off duty. He’d briefed his replacement Golf 99, who was now the Duty Inspector for Brighton and Hove Police for the next twelve hours and who Roy was due to meet shortly at the Chesham Gate car park.