Peter James: Love You Dead

There was so much darkness in the world. The ever-present threat of terrorism. The scrotes out there intent on committing harm. He just wanted these two people he loved so much to be safe forever.

His phone rang.

As he answered it he saw Cleo’s knowing but understanding expression.

‘Roy Grace,’ he said.

He heard the French accent of the Interpol officer Bernard Viguet.

The body of the prostitute who had been missing for several days had been found in a ditch on the outskirts of Lyon. Further, the Hertz rental car that she had been seen entering had been found and forensically searched. Crisp’s DNA had been present in it.

A sharp-eyed Lyon customs officer had detained a man boarding an international flight at Lyon Airport, from the description Sussex Police had circulated, with his left arm in plaster from an apparent skiing accident. A DNA swab taken from him confirmed him as Dr Edward Crisp.

Suggesting Cleo take Noah on to see the fruit bats, he phoned DS Potting and updated him. ‘Norman, I’m going to be sending you to Lyon with Glenn. The French police will need an intelligence package on Crisp. Can you liaise with the team so I can send it to them?’

‘Right away, chief. Good news!’

Next he phoned Glenn Branson.

‘Gourmet capital of France, Lyon,’ Branson said, sounding hopeful. ‘Happy to go down there and liaise with the French police.’

‘You want to go to Lyon, be my guest. I was there once with Sandy and I ate the most disgusting thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Andouillette. The local sausage. It’s basically a pig’s colon stuffed with bits of its intestine. It smells like bad breath.’

‘Yeccchhhh!’

‘A lot of French people love it,’ Grace went on. ‘It’s an acquired taste. I’ll insist you try one.’

‘You’re a closet sadist, aren’t you?’

‘Nope, I just believe in the maxim, I look and I see, I listen and I hear, I do and I understand .’

‘What’s to understand about eating a pig’s colon?’

‘All part of your education. And the entente cordiale. Never diss other people’s cultures. I think a trip to France to liaise with the French police and see Crisp would be good. And you might enjoy the break, you’ve not really given yourself any time out since Ari died.’

Glenn Branson’s estranged wife, Ari, had died after an allergic reaction to the anaesthetic in surgery, following a bicycle accident. Subsequently the detective inspector had begun dating a bright young reporter on the local paper, the Argus , and was now going to marry her. Glenn had given him the news while Roy had been in hospital. At first he’d been cautious for his mate, marrying a newspaper reporter, but he liked her, and having seen the chemistry between them he felt they seemed right together.

‘Yeah, right.’

‘I’m serious.’

‘And come home to Siobhan with that on my breath?’

‘So you’ve gone off Lyon now, have you?’ Grace chided.

‘No, I’ll go.’

‘We’ll apply for an extradition order, but almost certainly they’re going to want to keep him in France at least until that trial is over. And there’ll be a ton of bureaucracy to work through for the extradition procedure. There are various protocols involved with a European Arrest Warrant. First we need to get the Crown Prosecution Service to agree that he will face charges, prior to starting the whole process. He’ll have to appear in front of a French magistrate before being released to the British police. The National Extradition Unit will be responsible for bringing him back to the UK, but the French police want you to travel to Lyon to share the intelligence we have on Crisp. They’ve informed me there’s been a development in Crisp’s involvement. I’ve got a pile of paperwork that’s arrived from France, in French, which we’ll need to get translated, so we’ll need to find out who the preferred external translation company is.’

‘That’s good,’ Glenn Branson said.

‘Why’s that?’

‘It’ll give me time to go to a chemist and buy some breath freshener — for the sausage thing.’

‘Yeah, from past experience dealing with French police bureaucracy, you’ll have plenty of time.’

Jodie sat, tearfully, in the huge, old-fashioned office of Paul Muscutt, the senior partner of the Manhattan law firm of Muscutt, Williams and Wooding, and executor of the estate of the late Walter Irwin Klein. Twenty-seven storeys above Fifth Avenue, and with a glorious view through the window to her left directly down onto St Patrick’s Cathedral, she was trying to mask her excitement. Warm sunshine streamed in. Jet lag was helping to take the edge off her skiing tan, making her look something of the pale, grieving widow she was trying to be.

Holding her lace-edged handkerchief, she sipped her strong coffee.

Muscutt, who had momentarily been called out of his office, strode back in through the door and headed towards her. In his forties, conservatively dressed, with neat brown hair, he had a no-nonsense businesslike air.

He shook her hand firmly. ‘My deepest sympathy, Mrs Bentley.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, sounding as if she was stifling a sob.

‘I’m afraid the media are really going for the suicide angle,’ he said, slipping down into the black leather chair behind his uncluttered desk.

‘Suicide? What do you mean?’

‘It’s only a theory, of course, from the French police in the Alps, but with all the financial trouble poor Walt had gotten himself into, it would fit.’

‘I’ve read a bit on the internet, after the barrage of press at the airport when I arrived here, and caught some of the news stories, but I was hoping you’d tell me more — is any of it true?’

The lawyer frowned. ‘Walt never told you? He didn’t level with you?’

‘Told me? No?’

‘About his finances?’

‘No, we never talked about money.’ It was true, they didn’t. ‘Are you saying the French police think he might have committed suicide?’

‘It’s a possibility. Walt was in true Walter Mitty land, he believed right up until — I guess about a week before his death, when we last spoke — that somehow everything was going to come good for him. Maybe in that week he realized there was no way out. Walt was an experienced skier. He was following you in a white-out — why would he suddenly go off in a completely different direction?’

Suicide .

Her heart was pounding at the thought. So they suspected maybe it wasn’t an accident after all, but suicide !

For an instant she thought that would be great. But then, reflecting, it began to worry her.

Suicide? Trouble with finances? Shit, how is this going to affect things?

Muscutt peered for a moment at a stack of documents in front of him, which were held together by a single length of green tape, then looked back at her. ‘Anyhow, Mrs Bentley,’ he said in his strong, confident voice, ‘I guess we might never know what was going on in Walt’s mind.’

‘He loved me — we adored each other. I can’t believe he never talked to me about this. I mean — he told me he’d changed his will to include me. What do you mean, exactly, financial troubles ?’

‘You didn’t find him looking a little worried just recently? A bit distracted?’

She shrugged. ‘Not really, no — he was pretty much like he always was.’

‘OK, well, I’m sure you are anxious to know the — ah — situation regarding the provisions for you in your late fiancé’s will?’

She shrugged, trying to look nonchalant and not show her excitement. Her past husband had been a disappointment, leaving her far less than she had anticipated. Enough to buy her the Roedean house and to keep her comfortable, but nowhere near enough to pay for her dreams. But this time, she had been confident, she had struck gold. Just how many millions was she about to inherit from Walt? Riches beyond her wildest dreams. Maybe it ran into billions!