Peter James - Dead at First Sight

‘ The Shrinking Man or something?’

‘Yeah, right,’ said Branson, a movie buff. ‘1957, The Incredible Shrinking Man , directed by Jack Arnold and starring Grant Williams and Randy Stuart. But it wasn’t just his manhood that shrunk.’

‘Grant Williams and Randy Stuart?’ Grace looked perplexed.

‘A man of your vintage? Surely you remember them?’

‘Respect your elders, Detective Inspector Branson!’

‘That was a TV movie in 2012.’

‘Is there anything you don’t know about films?’ Grace shook his head with a smile and returned to the stack he was working through, covered in annotations from a Crown Prosecution solicitor. He read through them, trying to answer each of the queries about Jodie Bentley’s then fiancé, an American called Walt Klein. The solicitor was asking for corroboration on the following points.

Why were they in Courchevel?

What time did they leave the hotel?

Exactly what time did she lose sight of him?

How long after his disappearance before she notified the police?

There weren’t just hours of questions, there were days. He had been working on the queries since 7 a.m. this morning and was starting to lose the will to live. Then his phone rang.

‘Roy Grace,’ he answered.

It was an old colleague he hadn’t spoken to in a while, Inspector Bill Warner from Brighton CID. ‘Roy, how are you doing?’

‘Good, Bill, you? How’s your back?’

Warner, a former professional boxer, taxi driver then international water polo player, was suffering from a disintegrating spine condition, which he was not letting interfere with his work. He was today’s on-call detective inspector for Brighton and Hove.

‘Crap, if you want the truth, mate! But I’m fine otherwise. I’ve just attended a suicide, but I’m not happy with it. I think someone from Major Crime should go and take a look.’

‘OK,’ Grace said to him, ‘What are your thoughts, Bill?’

‘Lady by the name of Susan Driver, age fifty-five. Widowed four years ago. Her husband, Raymond Driver, was a big name in the Brighton antiques world — started life as a knocker boy, then became a player in brown furniture until that market collapsed and he moved into antique jewellery. Left his old lady properly loaded. Her daughter in Australia was worried because she hasn’t been able to contact her for several days. There’s a number of reasons why this looks suspicious to me. CSM Alex Call’s at the scene and he can fill in your officers.’

Bill then went on to describe the scene and what he had found there.

‘I’ll go myself,’ Grace said.

Warner thanked him.

‘Fancy a peep at a swinger?’ he asked Branson after he ended the call.

‘Not really my thing, but I’ll come and hold your hand, boss.’

Apologizing to Emily Denyer, telling her they would be back as soon as they could, the two detectives left, both trying not to look too happy about the welcome, if grim, distraction.

To dream of death is good for those in fear, for the dead have no more fears.

Johnny Fordwater kept returning to that quote he’d heard, years back, trying to recall the source.

Death, as it had for the past week, felt like the best solution. Suicide.

Any other option meant complete loss of face.

In front of him lay his neat and elaborately written notes to his three children and eight grandchildren. In them, he apologized for being unable to leave them the bequests he had always planned for them. He told them the reason, perhaps too much information, but so what? Maybe it would serve as a warning to them to never do what he had done. However desperate their lives might have become.

He walked over to the safe in his study, entered the six-digit code and swung open the heavy door. Inside lay his old service revolver, which he should have handed in years ago, when he’d left the army. But no one had actually requested it so he’d just thought ‘sod it’ and kept the weapon. Next to it lay several rounds of ammunition. With a steady hand he filled each of the six chambers, in turn, with a live round. An old army chum who suffered from depression had told him that he occasionally toyed with shooting himself with his service revolver, and each time he changed his mind at the last minute it felt better.

It felt to Johnny that the only way out of his financial ruin was to do the honourable thing. When he pulled the trigger it wouldn’t matter which chamber ended up in front of the firing pin. The relief of death was a certainty. He completed the task, then put the gun in his mouth, pointing upwards, and with his right index finger found first the trigger guard, then the trigger itself.

Staring out through the window at the afternoon sun low over the calm water of the English Channel, he saw a container ship sitting up high on the horizon and, closer to shore, a paddleboarder. He squeezed the trigger, gently at first, then steadily increased the pressure.

‘It’s not pretty, sir,’ Crime Scene Manager Alex Call said. Roy Grace, accompanied by DI Glenn Branson, both gowned up in protective suits, overshoes and gloves, signed the scene guard’s log outside the substantial, detached Victorian house.

A row of police vehicles, including a Crime Scene Investigation van, were parked along the residential street.

‘What do we have, Alex?’

The CSM was a slightly built, intensely serious man, with a sharp eye for detail that had earned him rapid promotion. ‘The home owner — who we believe is the victim — is Susan — Suzy — Adele Driver, widowed four years ago, sir,’ Call said. ‘Her late husband was an antiques dealer who moved into jewellery after the market in brown furniture collapsed. Apparent suicide by hanging, but the Coroner’s Officer who attended agrees with DI Warner.’

‘Who was that?’

‘Michelle Websdale. She’s gone to attend a fatal — RTC — but she’s coming back.’

Michelle Websdale was someone Grace trusted. As he did DI Bill Warner. ‘Where’s Bill now?’

‘He’s just left on a shout — a woman holding a baby threatening to jump from a fourth-floor balcony.’

‘So, what are your initial findings?’

‘The height of the noose is one thing — which I agree with. Her feet are a good six inches above the chair she stood on. There’s a bruise on the back of her head. My CSIs have already found hairs on the floor a short distance away, which could be evidence she’d fallen or been pushed backwards, prior to hanging.’

‘Are you aware of anything missing in the house? Any sign of it being burgled or ransacked?’

‘No, sir, everything looks orderly. Nothing immediately obvious missing — there’s what seems like some quality art on the walls and a lot of antiques, statuettes and stuff. Difficult to know if anything has been taken at this stage, but my impression is this is not a burglary.’

‘She’s still in situ?’

‘Yes, I spoke to the Home Office pathologist, who should be here in an hour or so.’

‘Who is it?’

‘Your good mate, Dr Frazer Theobald.’

Grace rolled his eyes and said, ‘Great, that’s my evening gone.’ He thanked Call, then both detectives ducked under the taped barrier.

As they entered the front door into a large, handsomely furnished hall, they wrinkled their noses at the reek of human decay. They walked up the stairs, the smell becoming more distinct, and the heat rising; the central heating had been left on full blast. On the first-floor landing a gowned-up Crime Scene Investigator stood outside a closed door. Recognizing Roy Grace, she said, ‘You’ll have to push hard, sir, it’s a heavy fire door.’