Peter James - Not Dead Yet

‘Cheers, Gaia!’ she said. ‘So tell me, did it feel good cutting me dead yesterday? Hey? Tell me about it? Who put you on your platform? Did you ever think about that? Did you ever think about me? You stared at me so often. I watched you watching me on Top Gear . And on so many other shows. So what do you think gave you the right to treat me like – like – scum – shit – like – like – trash? Tell me, I’m really interested. Your number one fan needs to know.

‘I do really.

‘Tell me.

‘Tell me.

‘Tell me?’

For the Friday evening briefing, Glenn Branson chose a seat that gave him a clear view of Bella. He noticed that, as usual, she and Norman Potting sat well apart so that eye contact between them was difficult. Experienced detectives, he thought, they’d clearly planned this between them. So just how long had their relationship being going on? It wasn’t that long ago that Potting had married for the fourth time, suckered by a Thai girl who’d been bleeding him dry of money.

He watched her pop a Malteser into her mouth. She wasn’t in any sense beautiful, but there was something about her that he found very attractive. Warmth and a vulnerability that made him want to scoop her up into his arms. Just a short while ago he’d thought he might be able to offer her something better than the life of drudgery she had looking after her ailing mother. Now it was a different challenge altogether. Potting was so not right for her. He looked at him. At the smug grin on his face.

Come on, Bella, how on earth could you fancy him?

‘Glenn? Hello? Glenn?’

With a start, he realized Roy Grace was speaking to him, and he had no idea what about.

‘Sorry, chief, I was somewhere else.’

‘Welcome back from Planet Zog!’

There was some sniggering in the room.

‘Long day?’ Potting queried. His words were like a knife twisting inside him.

‘I asked you about the DNA results on the four limbs,’ Grace said, glancing briefly down at his notes. ‘You said you were expecting them back from the lab today?’

Branson nodded. ‘Yep. I have the results.’ He opened a plastic folder. ‘I can read you out the full lab report if you want, chief?’

Grace shook his head. To most police officers, himself included, DNA reports were a mysterious, arcane art. He had always been rubbish at science at school. In fact he had been rubbish at most things at school except for rugby and running. ‘Just summarize for now, Glenn.’

‘Okay. So all four limbs are from the same body and it’s a millions-to-one certainty that they belong to the torso of “Unknown Berwick Male”,’ he said.

‘Good work,’ Grace said. ‘Right, so we have another piece of our jigsaw in place. All we are missing now is his head.’

‘Could be we are looking for a man who lost his head to a woman,’ Potting said, and guffawed.

‘You should know!’ Bella rounded on Potting. Potting blushed and looked down. To everyone else present her remark was a barb about his marital failures. Only Glenn knew the truth behind it.

‘Not very helpful, actually, Norman,’ Grace said.

‘Sorry, boss.’ He looked around with a sheepish grin, but no one responded.

Roy Grace stared at Potting. He was a fine detective, but sometimes he could be so damned irritating with his bad jokes, and on this enquiry he seemed to be worse than ever.

‘The issue we have is the timing difference between the torso and the limbs,’ Glenn said, pushing his mess of thoughts to the back of his mind, and fully focused again now. ‘We know that the torso was deposited many months ago and is in a highly advanced state of decomposition. The limbs are relatively fresh.’

‘Which would indicate that Darren Wallace’s opinion that they had been frozen is probably correct,’ said the Crime Scene Manager, David Green.

‘Is that not something the pathologist can determine?’ Bella Moy asked.

Green shook his head. ‘Not easily. Freezing will cause cell damage, but it is going to take a while to establish that.’

‘So what does this tell us?’ Grace said, addressing the entire team. ‘Why was the torso dumped months ago and the limbs only in the past couple of days?’

‘Someone playing games with us, chief?’ suggested Nick Nicholl.

‘Yes,’ Roy Grace said. ‘That’s a possibility. But let’s apply our old friend Brother Ockham’s razor.’

William of Ockham was a fourteenth-century friar and logician. He believed that the simplest answer was usually the right one.

‘You’re suggesting a link between Crimewatch and the limbs, boss?’ said Guy Batchelor.

‘I think we’re dealing with someone either very cunning or very nervous,’ Grace replied. ‘It’s possible that he left the torso and the suit fabric in the chicken farm as one clue for us. Then the limbs and the piece of suit fabric at the trout lake as another clue. In which case at some point we’ll find another piece of fabric and the head. Or, as I think more likely, Crimewatch spooked the perpetrator into getting rid of some – and possibly all – of the rest of the evidence. Lorna’s team are continuing to search for the head.’

‘Or maybe that’s the one trophy he can’t bear to part with?’ Potting said.

Grace nodded. ‘Yes, that’s possible.’ He looked at his notes. ‘For the moment we have no option but to work with what we have. Right, the suit fabric.’ He looked up at Glenn Branson. ‘What is the situation with that?’

‘DS Batchelor’s been on to this, boss.’

Batchelor nodded. ‘I’ve got the outside enquiry team going through the list that Dormeuil supplied us. All men’s clothing stores and tailors within our three counties’ parameter who bought sufficient quantities of this cloth to make suits from, including Savile Style. I gave a list of eighty-two people who bought one of the suits – or had one made – to Annalise Vineer at midday today.’ He turned to the indexer. ‘What do you have for us, Annalise?’

‘There is something interesting,’ she said, flushing a little, as if not used to being in the limelight. ‘There’s a men’s clothing store in Gardner Street, Brighton, called Luigi, which sold a suit in this material to a man called Myles Royce two years ago. It wasn’t bespoke, but the proprietor, Luigi, remembers making a number of tailoring alterations to make a better fit. Myles Royce is on our mispers list. DS Potting is following up.’

Grace turned to Potting. ‘Have you progressed this?’

‘Yes, chief. Luigi had an address for his customer in Ash Grove, Haywards Heath, which I went to this afternoon – a pleasant detached house in a decent neighbourhood. There was no answer and the place looked in a state of neglect. I come from a farming background and I know a little about grass. In my view the lawn hasn’t been cut this year. The garden’s overgrown with weeds. I found one helpful neighbour at home, an elderly lady opposite, who told me he lived alone. She’s been looking after his cat for several months. Apparently he had some investments – some kind of family trust that he lived on – and he’d told her he was going off to do a bit of travelling for a few weeks, and never returned.’ Potting paused and shuffled through the mess of papers in front of him.

‘Now here’s the interesting thing – well – maybe not that interesting.’

Grace stared at him, waiting patiently, wishing he could get to the point. But that wasn’t Norman Potting’s style and never would be.

‘I got the name and phone number of his mother from this lady,’ Potting said. ‘So I went round to see her, in a care home in Burgess Hill. She told me her son used to call her at seven every Sunday evening without fail. She hasn’t heard from him since January. She’s very distressed – apparently they were extremely close.’