Peter James - Dead at First Sight

After he left the room, he stood for a while on the landing, reflecting that maybe he and Cleo had really started to make progress on building their relationship with the boy.

He went down to the kitchen, poured himself a glass of water and sat back down opposite Cleo, telling her the good news. Then he began the task of scanning the deluge of emails that had poured in, most of them irrelevant. But one caught his eye.

It was from his former boss, Assistant Chief Constable Alison Vosper. He’d not heard from her since the day she’d left a couple of years ago to join another force, and from the signature on her email, she now appeared to be with the London Met. Their relationship, although never easy, had been a lot better than his current one with Pewe. She’d been so mercurial in her moods, sometimes charming and sometimes acidic, that she’d been nicknamed No. 27, after the menu of a local Chinese takeaway, which had listed that dish as ‘sweet and sour pork’.

She was being sweet now.

Dear Roy

I hope this finds you well. You may have heard that I’m now appointed to a Deputy Assistant Commissioner role in the Met. Could we meet for lunch sometime soon? Do you have any time free in the next couple of days, perhaps? There is something I would like to discuss. I will have my staff officer, DI Sparking, contact you to arrange a date convenient to you.

I look forward to seeing you again.

Alison Vosper

Deputy Assistant Commissioner.

Astonished, Grace read it out loud.

‘Interesting,’ Cleo said. ‘What’s that all about?’

He shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Are you going to meet her?’

‘Sure, I’m curious. I’ve got to go to London later this week for a meeting in counsels’ chambers with a CPS solicitor and the prosecution counsel they’ve engaged — I could maybe combine the two.’

‘Sounds to me like she intends offering you something in the Met,’ Cleo said. ‘Unless she’s finally realized she fancies you!’

He tried to brush it off, but Cleo was giving him a strangely penetrating stare and he was aware he was blushing slightly. In truth, although Alison Vosper had been an icebox, there were times, on the days when she was warm towards him, that he felt a connection.

‘Have I touched a nerve?’ she probed.

‘Not my type, and I am certainly not hers. No way. Never.’

‘Would you want to go to the Met? Why... why would you want to do that? With the commute it would probably mean even crazier hours than you work here.’

‘I know. But a lot of Sussex officers have — better pay there. It would really piss off Pewe if I left, he’d have no one to beat-up on.’ He shrugged. ‘But seriously, ever since that asshole’s come to Sussex, I’m not enjoying the job any more — at least not the way I used to.’

She gave him a mischievous look. ‘Why don’t you tell Alison you have the perfect person for whatever role she has in mind — Cassian Pewe. She takes him on, he moves back to London, problem gone. Simples!’

‘Then I’d know there really was a God.’

Through the crack in the door, Toby Seward saw two men with hoodies low over their faces. Gripped with terror, he tried desperately to slam the door shut.

Too late. One had a foot inside. A bright-red shoe.

An instant later the door flew wide open with the force of an express train, cracking him hard in the face and propelling him, stumbling, backwards. He crashed against the newel post at the bottom of the stairs.

Calmly, casually, as if they had all the time in the world, the two men entered and closed the front door. One, the red-shoe man, was tall, wearing a long, expensive coat; the other was short, in a shapeless parka, sporting a large, bling watch. Both wore black leather gloves. The tall one slid the safety chain home in a matter-of-fact way, as if he always did this when he entered a stranger’s house. Then they turned towards him.

All he could see of their faces below the hoodies was the lower half. ‘Who... who... are... who are you?’ His voice came out as a petrified croak.

From inside the front of his parka, the short one suddenly pulled out a large, gleaming machete.

Toby turned and fled up the stairs, heart pounding, throat tight with terror. He ran into the master bedroom, slammed the door behind him and turned the key. Neither he nor Paul had ever locked the door in all the time they’d lived here, but he thanked God for that key now.

Phone. He ran to the landline phone on his side of the bed. As he reached it he heard a blam and a splintering crash behind him. Turning, he heard another loud blam and the thin oak door seemed to balloon inwards. The lock held. Just. He picked up the receiver, but his hand was shaking so much he dropped the handset. It clattered to the floor and bounced under the bed.

Frantically he dropped onto his hands and knees.

Blam. Blam. Blam. The walls felt like they were shaking.

Then he saw something he’d forgotten all about. Low down, just above the skirting board. Some years ago, the police had advised them to install it after they’d been victims of homophobic hate mail, followed by a petrol bomb that had been thrown through their front window, but fortunately hadn’t ignited.

The black panic button.

BLAM. BLAM. BLAM

Behind him he heard the sound of the door bursting open and crashing back against the wall.

He stabbed the button. Nothing happened.

No, please. Please. Oh God.

Then he remembered. The alert was meant to be silent. That way the police had a chance of arresting intruders before they ran off.

But was it still working?

His two assailants dragged him to his feet. There was a reek of cologne and cigarette smoke.

‘What... what... what do you want, please? Do you want money?’

‘Motherfucker shooting your mouth off on the radio this morning. Yeah?’ the shorter man said.

They propelled him back down the stairs and into the kitchen. ‘I don’t understand — what do... what... what do... you mean?’

‘Tell us what that bitch told you! What do you know about us?’

‘Nothing — just the fraud. Nothing else.’

‘Gimme your hand, bro,’ the shorter one said. ‘That one, the right one, yeah.’

On the screen the MasterChef contestant said, ‘Now with a sharp knife, I am separating the coral from the flesh of the scallop, but I don’t throw it away, I’m going to use it for my sauce.’

‘Like cooking, do you, bro?’

‘Please don’t hurt me. Please don’t. She didn’t tell me anything. Please believe me. Please, just tell me what you want from me? Anything! I can give you my cards, pin numbers — please, what is it you want? We don’t have anything in the house, we don’t have jewellery, money. What do you mean, shooting my mouth off? I don’t know anything.’

‘You know what we mean, bro,’ the short one said. He forced Toby Seward’s hand down flat on the chopping board, grabbed the long-bladed knife Seward had been using to dice tomatoes and plunged it hard through the back of his hand, just behind the knuckles, crunching it through bone, pinning his hand to the board.

Seward screamed in shock and agony. ‘Oh my God, you bastards, you bastards! Oh, oh Jesus. Why? Why?’

Deep crimson blood ran down his hand. The pain was excruciating. He was gasping, panting in shock. ‘Why are you doing this?’

‘You don’t go mouthing off no more about Suzy Driver, are you hearing me?’ the short one said.

‘Suzy Driver?’

‘Are you hearing me, bro?’

‘Yes, yes, yes, I’m... I’m hearing you. Oh Jesus.’

‘You say one mo word to anyone, any media, any cop, and next time the knife won’t be in yo hand, bro, it’s gonna be across your pretty husband’s throat while you watch. You understanding me?’