Peter James - Not Dead Yet

‘So do I!’ Grace held up a printout of a Frosts Garage fact sheet and photograph of a shiny black Alfa Romeo Giulietta. ‘What do you think of her?’

‘Awesome!’

‘A year old, high mileage, but she’s in my price range!’

Branson took the details out of courtesy and glanced through them. ‘It’s only got two doors!’

‘Nope, four – the rear door handles are hidden.’

‘So you could put the baby in the rear seat, right?’

‘Exactly!’

‘Go for it. Treat yourself, you deserve it. And hey, at your age, it could be the last fun vehicle you buy before your mobility scooter.’

‘Fuck off!’ Grace retorted with a grin. ‘So what or who are you in love with?’

‘Well, you’re probably not going to believe it but – um – ’ He looked uncharacteristically coy, suddenly. ‘You know – Bella is actually a very attractive lady when she puts her mind to it!’

‘I thought she was looking quite foxy on Crimewatch , actually. Only saw her in the background, but she looked better than I’ve ever seen her. So did you pull?’

‘Not exactly. But I’m working on it.’

‘Good man, I’m pleased. It’s about time you started getting a life again.’

‘She’s a sweet lady.’

‘She’s smart, I’ve a lot of time for her. And well done you on your television debut – you were brilliant!’

Branson looked genuinely thrilled. ‘You think so, really?’

‘Really!’

There was a knock on the door.

‘Come in!’ Grace called out.

Ray Packham entered, holding Grace’s BlackBerry. He looked at both detectives, then hesitated. ‘Sorry to interrupt, chief. Just bringing this back.’

‘Any joy?’

‘I’ve cloned it – I’ll study it as soon as I have a moment.’ He handed over the phone.

Grace thanked him, and saw the red message light winking furiously. He began a perfunctory scroll through the messages of the past hour. Then, moments after Packham had shut the door, the BlackBerry rang.

It was Chief Superintendent Graham Barrington, the Divisional Commander for Brighton and Hove. ‘Roy, just to let you know Gaia has arrived at The Grand. I’ve arranged with her security chap, a fellow by the name of Andrew Gulli, for a meeting to discuss her security in Brighton in an hour’s time, in the Presidential Suite at the hotel. Are you able to make that?’

Grace told him he was. Just as he ended the call his internal phone rang. He answered, and heard the excited voice of one of his new team members, DC Emma Reeves.

‘Sir,’ she said, ‘I’ve just taken an interesting call from someone who saw Crimewatch last night!’

‘And?’

‘It was from a member of an angling club near Henfield. He’s just seen a piece of cloth that matches the one DS Branson showed on television.’ Henfield was a village ten miles north-west of Brighton.

‘How sure is he?’

‘He’s sent me a picture from his mobile phone. It certainly looks like a match. He says he was there yesterday and he’s certain the fabric wasn’t there then.’

‘You’re in the Incident Room?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I’ll be straight down.’

He ended the call then stood up. ‘Want to go fishing?’ he asked Branson.

‘Never been fishing in my life.’

‘Now’s the time to start, before you get too old.’

‘You can sod off, too!’

‘Remember the actor Michael Hordern?’

‘ Sir Michael to you! Passport To Pimlico. Sink The Bismark. El Cid. The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. Where Eagles Dare. Shogun. Gandhi . He was well brilliant!’

‘Know what he said?’

‘I’ve a feeling you’re about to tell me,’ Branson said with a grin.

‘ Of our allocated lifespan of three score years and ten, time taken out for fishing does not count. ’

‘That’s how you stay young, old timer?’

‘Haven’t fished in years,’ said Grace. ‘I just have the gift of natural youth.’

‘In your dreams.’

‘No, in my dreams I’m even younger, and pushing you around in a wheelchair.’

Ten minutes later, Roy Grace stared at the blow-up of the photograph that had been texted through to Emma Reeves’s phone. It was a jagged piece of fabric, snagged on what appeared to be a branch of gorse.

‘Looks a pretty close match,’ Glenn Branson said, looking over his shoulder.

‘It’s the same pattern,’ Grace agreed.

‘This chap is absolutely certain it wasn’t there yesterday.’

Grace nodded, thinking hard. ‘Significant it appears the morning after you show it on Crimewatch ? Could be that the perpetrator still had most of the suit – and possibly our missing body parts, and was panicked into disposing of them.’

‘That’s what I’m thinking.’

‘Okay, send one of our detectives down to the fishing club with the Crime Scene Manager, taking the piece of cloth we have, and see if the fabric matches. If it does, get the whole area sealed off as a crime scene and get a forensic strategy in place right away. We’ll need a land and water search. It sounds like a potential deposition site.’

Leaving Grace in his office to finish off some urgent paperwork on the Venner case, before heading to the security meeting on Gaia, Glenn hurried back to MIR-1. He despatched DC Emma Reeves, together with David Green, the Crime Scene Manager, to the angling club.

Then he sat at his workstation and began checking through the large number of other calls that had come in following his Crimewatch appearance. But there was nothing else of interest. A handful of the usual crank calls, and a couple from people who had called the Crimestoppers line anonymously to report suspicious neighbours. He delegated various members of his team to follow up each call, but at this moment, none seemed as positive as the one from a man called William Pitcher.

An hour later Emma Reeves phoned Glenn Branson in great excitement to tell him that the fabric did appear to be an exact match. Also she said there were fresh-looking tyre tracks that had not been made by the vehicle belonging to the angler who had made the call. Feeling a thrill of excitement, he appointed her as the temporary scene guard. Then he asked her for the directions, and told her he would be on his way in a few minutes.

He ended the call and looked around the Incident Room, wondering who else to take. He saw Bella Moy finishing a call and walked over to her. ‘Fancy a drive out into the countryside?’

She shrugged, and gave him a strange look, followed by a hesitant ‘Okay, yes.’ She grabbed a handful of Maltesers from the box on her desk and stood up.

She had been quiet during the early morning train journey back from Cardiff, and Glenn wondered whether he’d said something to upset her the previous night. She had appeared for breakfast wearing a top he had never seen before: although conservative it was far more modern than her usual style, and he wondered if it had been for his benefit.

Disappointingly, she seemed strangely subdued in the car now, updating him as he drove with the latest bulletin on her mother, who was not doing well in hospital. Every few minutes the TomTom, clipped to the top of the dashboard, interrupted their conversation, barking out the route.

For the final mile, Bella took over, reading aloud from the directions Emma Reeves had given them, then lapsing into her own thoughts. They headed down a narrow country lane, then turned left at a sign which read WEST SUSSEX PISCATORIAL SOCIETY, crossed a cattle grid, and drove down a steep, single-track road with tall hedgerows on either side.

‘Ever lived in the country?’ Glenn asked, trying to break the rather awkward silence that persisted between them. He wondered again, had he upset Bella in some way last night? He didn’t see how.