Peter James - Not Dead Yet

‘Help from the public is vital to us in this case. We cannot start a murder investigation in earnest until we know who that body is. One thing that may be significant in helping to jog the mind of someone out there is the gentleman’s stomach contents. He ate a last meal which probably included oysters and wine.’

What kind of oysters? Tell us? Anna urged, silently. Colchester? Whitstable? Blue Point? Bluffs? What kind? Tell us, tell us! Colchester? Colchester are the best!

Now the detective was pointing at two ragged pieces of fabric that were stuck to a whiteboard. Next to them was a complete male suit in the same material, on a shop-window mannequin. ‘Something that may be significant to our enquiry is these two pieces of cloth found in the vicinity of the body. We believe they come from a suit similar to this one.’ He pointed at the mannequin.

The screen filled with a blow-up photograph of the two pieces. It was a distinctive yellow ochre and red and dark-brown check. Anna listened to the detective’s voice, taking another, larger sip of her drink.

‘This is a tweed suit material, in a heavyweight cloth from the quality manufacturer Dormeuil,’ DS Branson said. ‘You can see this is a very bold and distinctive design. You’d remember if you saw a suit of this pattern, or if you knew someone who had a suit like this.’

Anna did. She drained the rest of her drink in one gulp then set the glass down. The numbers to call for the Incident Room and the anonymous number for Crimestoppers came up. But Anna did not call either of them.

Instead she made herself another drink.

‘This isn’t the way to the nick,’ Amis Smallbone slurred, as the car bumped and jolted over the grass.

‘Woken up at last, have you?’ Grace said, watching him in the rear-view mirror, although in the growing darkness, it was getting harder to see him. He’d been good as gold for the past twenty minutes, out for the count. He’d hardly needed the handcuffs, one of which was clamped around Smallbone’s right wrist, behind his back, the other to the rear passenger door handle, which had been made inoperable from the inside by the child lock.

Smallbone’s mobile phone, which Grace had removed and placed on the passenger seat beside him, rang for the third time.

‘Hey, that’s my phone ringing.’

‘Crap ringtone,’ Grace said as it stopped. He was out of his comfort zone, doing what he was now doing, but he didn’t care. He was going to teach this little shit a lesson he would not forget. He drove for several hundred yards towards an old fort, long abandoned, at the top of the Devil’s Dyke, Brighton’s highest landmark. It was where he used to come and play as a child, and where he used to bring Sandy when they were courting. The lights of the city were some miles behind them across farmland.

In his first couple of years as a uniformed copper, before he’d joined CID, and before the force had today’s level of public scrutiny and accountability, they used to scoop up aggressive drunks on a Friday or Saturday night in a police van, drive them up here, and toss them out on the grass, leaving them with a five-mile trek back to the town centre. No better way to sober them up!

He climbed out of the car, and carefully checked all around him, peering through the driving rain. It was deserted. Then he opened the rear door and peered in. Smallbone glared at him. He slid in beside him and pulled the door shut. The smell of booze and cigarettes coming off the man was much stronger, mixed with a sickly cologne.

‘What the fuck do you want?’

Grace stared at him and gave him a cheery smile. ‘Just a little chat, Amis, then I might release you without charge, if we come to an understanding.’

‘Without charge for what?’

‘Breaching your prison release conditions, by not staying at the hostel where you were instructed to reside, and failing to report to your probation officer. I can of course read you your rights and formally charge you on both these counts, and you’ll be straight back inside, if you’d prefer. Five more years, maybe? That sound good to you?’

Smallbone said nothing for some moments. Grace continued to stare at him. He’d aged noticeably, he thought. His face, which once had cold, boyish good looks that used to remind him of one of those perfect, soulless young men in Hitler Youth posters, now had the leathery, lined texture that prison and heavy smoking did for you. His hair was still immaculate, but the blonde colour had gone and instead was the gingery colour of bad dye. But he still exuded the same arrogance from every pore of his skin. ‘I didn’t do it.’

‘Do what?’

‘What you said I done.’

‘Vandalize my lady’s car?’

‘I didn’t do it. You’re making a mistake.’

Clenching his fists, and having to work hard to control the anger that was steadily building inside him, and his hatred for this scumbag all the more intense now he was so close to him, Grace said, ‘Your handwriting’s all over it.’

Smallbone shook his head. ‘You can think what you like, Grace, but knowing your reputation in this city, I don’t think I’m the only person who isn’t signed up to your fan club.’

Grace leaned closer, his face right up against Smallbone’s. ‘Twelve years ago, just after you were sent down, someone burned almost identical words on to my lawn. Don’t even try to deny that was you, because that will make me even angrier. All right?’

He leaned back a little. Smallbone said nothing. Then Grace leaned forward again, pressing his face even closer, so their noses were almost touching. ‘You’re out on licence, a free man, Smallbone, free to do anything you want. But I’m warning you now, and I’m not ever going to warn you again. If anything happens to my lady and the child she is carrying, anything at all, anything , I won’t be locking you up again, understand? I won’t be locking you up because there won’t be enough bits of you left to fill a matchbox, by the time I’ve finished with you. Do you understand?’

Without waiting for any comment, Grace climbed out and walked around to the other side of the car, then jerked the door open as hard as he could. Smallbone, his right arm twisted behind his back and hooked by the other end of the cuff to the door handle, was jerked out and fell on his back in the grass, with a pained grunt.

‘Oops, sorry,’ Grace said. ‘Forgot you were holding on to the door.’ Then he knelt and frisked him for a second time. When he was satisfied he didn’t have another phone, he unlocked the cuffs, and pulled him to his feet. ‘So, we understand each other, do we?’

Smallbone stared around him, in the almost pitch darkness now, the pelting rain matting his hair to his head. ‘I told you, I haven’t touched her car. It’s not my doing. I don’t know anything about it.’

‘In that case,’ Grace said with a smile, ‘you’ve got nothing to worry about. Have a nice walk home. It should sober you up nicely!’

‘Hey – what do you mean?’

Grace walked round to the driver’s door and opened it.

‘You’re not leaving me here?’

‘Actually, I am.’

Smallbone patted his pockets. ‘You’ve got my phone!’

‘Don’t worry, it’s safe!’ Grace climbed in, shut the door and hit the central locking. Then he started the engine.

Smallbone pounded on the roof, shouting, ‘Hey!’ He tried to open the front passenger door.

Grace lowered the window a fraction. ‘I’ll drop your phone off at Brighton nick – oh, and your umbrella too!’

‘Don’t leave me here like this… please,’ Smallbone said, trying politeness for once in his life. ‘At least give me a lift back to town.’