Peter James - Dead Man's Grip

She looked out of the window. They were moving steadily in the heavy rush-hour traffic along the Old Shoreham Road. She texted Tyler to say she’d be home in ten minutes and signed it with a smile and a row of kisses.

‘You’re towards the Goldstone Crescent end, aren’t you, with your number?’

‘Yes. Well done.’

‘Uh-huh.’

The driver’s radio briefly burst into life, then was silent. After a few moments he said, ‘Do you have a low-flush or high-flush toilet in your house?’

‘A high-flush or low-flush toilet, did you say?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘I’ve no idea,’ she replied.

She got a text back from Tyler: U haven’t got Mapper on

She replied: Sorry. Horrible day. Love you XXXX

‘High flush, you’d have a chain. Low flush, a handle.’

‘We have handles. So low flush, I guess.’

‘Why?’

The man’s voice was chirpy and intrusive. If he didn’t shut up about toilets he wasn’t going to get a damned tip.

Mercifully he remained silent until they had halted outside her house. The meter showed £9. She gave him £10 and told him to keep the change. Then, as she stepped out on to the pavement, he called out, ‘Nice shoes! Christian Louboutin? Size six? Uh-huh?’

‘Good guess,’ she said, smiling despite herself.

He didn’t smile back. He just nodded and unscrewed the cap of a Thermos flask.

Creepy guy. She was minded to tell the taxi company that she didn’t want that driver again. But maybe she was being mean; he was just trying to be friendly.

As she climbed up the steps to her front door, she did not look back. She entered the porch and fumbled in her bag for her key.

On the other side of the road, Tooth, in his dark grey rental Toyota that was in need of a wash, made a note on his electronic pad: Boy 4.45 p.m. home. Mother 6 p.m. home.

Then he yawned. It had been a very long day. He started the car and pulled out into the street. As he drove off, he saw a police car heading down slowly, in the opposite direction. He tugged his baseball cap lower over his face as they crossed, then he watched in his rear-view mirror. He saw its brake lights come on.

Carly could hear the clatter of dishes in the kitchen, which sounded like her mother clearing up Tyler’s supper. There was a smell of cooked food. Lasagne. Sunlight was streaking in through the window. Summer was coming, Carly thought, entering the house with a heavy heart. Normally her spirits lifted this time of year, after the clocks had gone forward and the days were noticeably longer. She liked the early-morning light, and the dawn chorus, too. In those first terrible years after Kes died, the winters had been the worst. Somehow, coping with her grief had been a little easier in the summer.

But what the hell was normally any more?

Normally Tyler would come running out of the school gates to greet her. Normally he would come rushing to the front door to hug her if she had been out. But now she stood alone in the hallway, staring at the Victorian coat stand that still had Kes’s panama hat slung on a hook, and the fedora he’d once bought on a whim, and his silver duck-handled umbrella in its rack. He’d liked cartoons and there was a big framed Edwardian one of people skating on the old Brighton rink in West Street hanging on the wall, next to a print of the long-gone Brighton chain pier.

The realization was hitting her that everything was going to be a hassle this summer with no driving licence. But, sod it, she thought. She was determined to think positively. She owed it to Tyler – and herself – not to let this get her down. After her father died, four years ago, her mother told her, in the usual philosophical way she had of coping with everything, that life was like a series of chapters in a book and now she was embarking on a new chapter in her life.

So that’s what this was, she decided. The Carly Has No Licence chapter. She would just have to get to grips with bus and train timetables, like thousands of other people. And as one bonus, how green would that be? She was going to use her holidays to give Tyler exactly the same kind of summer he always had. Days on the beach.

Treat days to zoos and amusement parks like Thorpe Park and to the museums in London, particularly the Natural History Museum, which he loved best of all. Maybe she’d get to like travelling that way so much she wouldn’t bother with a car again.

Maybe the skies would be filled with flying pigs.

As she walked into the kitchen, her mother, wearing an apron printed with the words TRUST ME, I’M A LAWYER over a black roll-neck and jeans, came up and gave her a hug and a kiss.

‘You poor darling, what an ordeal.’

Her mother had been there for her throughout her life. In her mid-sixties, with short, auburn hair, she was a handsome, if slightly sad-looking woman. She had been a midwife, then a district nurse, and these days kept herself busy with a number of charities, including working part-time at the local Brighton hospice, the Martlets.

‘At least the worst part’s over,’ Carly replied. Then she saw the Argus lying on the kitchen table. It looked well thumbed through. She hadn’t bought a copy because she hadn’t had the courage to open it. ‘Am I in it?’

‘Just a small mention. Page five.’

The main story on the front page was about a serial killer called Lee Coherney, who had once lived in Brighton. The police were digging up the gardens of two of his former residences. The story was on the news on the small flat-screen TV mounted on the wall above the kitchen table. A good-looking police officer was giving a statement about their progress. The caption at the bottom of the screen gave his name as Detective Chief Inspector Nick Sloan of Sussex CID.

She riffled through the pages until she found her tiny mention and felt momentarily grateful to this monster, Coherney, for burying her own story.

‘How’s Tyler?’ she asked.

‘He’s fine. Upstairs, playing with that lovely little friend of his, Harrison, who just came over.’

‘I’ll go and say hi. Do you need to get off?’

‘I’ll stay and make you some supper. What do you feel like? There is some lasagne and salad left.’

‘I feel like a sodding big glass of wine!’

‘I’ll join you!’

The doorbell rang.

Carly looked at her mother quizzically, then glanced at her watch. It was 6.15 p.m.

‘Tyler said another friend might be joining them. They’re playing some computer battle game tonight.’

Carly walked into the hall and across to the front door. She looked at the safety chain dangling loose, but it was early evening and she didn’t feel the need to engage it. She opened the door and saw a tall, bald black man in his mid-thirties, dressed in a sharp suit and snazzy tie, accompanied by a staid-looking woman of a similar age. She had a tangle of hennaed brown hair that fell short of her shoulders and wore a grey trouser suit over a blouse with the top button done up, giving her a slightly prim air.

The man held up a small black wallet with a document inside it bearing the Sussex Police coat of arms and his photograph.

‘Mrs Carly Chase?’

‘Yes,’ she answered, a tad hesitantly, thinking she really did not want to have to answer a whole load more questions about the accident tonight.

His manner was friendly but he seemed uneasy. ‘Detective Sergeant Branson and this is Detective Sergeant Moy from Sussex CID. May we come in? We need to speak to you urgently.’

He threw a wary glance over his shoulder. His colleague was looking up and down the street.