Peter James - Dead Like You

Sandy sipped her wine. ‘I hope you find her quickly and that she’s OK.’

Grace nodded. ‘Yup,’ he said quietly. ‘I hope so too.’

‘Will you?’

He had no answer. Not, at least, the one she wanted to hear.

Saturday 10 January

Yac did not like drunk people, especially drunk slappers, especially drunk slappers who got into his taxi. Especially this early on a Saturday night, when he was busy reading the latest on the Shoe Man in the Argus.

There were five drunk girls, all without coats, all in skimpy dresses, all legs and flesh, displaying their breasts and tattoos and pierced belly buttons. It was January! Didn’t they feel the cold?

He was only licensed to carry four of them. He’d told them that, but they’d been too drunk to listen, all piling in at the rank on East Street, shouting, chattering, giggling, telling him to take them to the pier.

The taxi was full of their scents: Rock ’n Rose, Fuel for Life, Red Jeans, Sweetheart, Shalimar. He recognized them all. Uh-huh. In particular, he recognized the Shalimar.

His mother’s perfume.

He told them it was only a short walk, that with the Saturday-night traffic they’d be quicker to walk. But they insisted he take them.

‘It’s bleedin’ freezing, for Christ’s sake!’ one of them said.

She was a plump little thing, wearing the Shalimar, with a mass of fair hair and half-bared breasts that looked like they’d been inflated with a bicycle pump. She reminded him a little of his mother. Something in the coarseness, the shape of her figure and the colour of her hair.

‘Yeah,’ said another. ‘Sodding bleedin’ freezing!’

One of them lit a cigarette. He could smell the acrid smoke. That was against the law too, he told her, staring at her crossly in the mirror.

‘Want a drag, gorgeous?’ she said, pouting, holding out the cigarette to him.

‘I don’t smoke,’ he said.

‘Too young, are you?’ said another, and they broke into peals of squeaky laughter.

He nearly took them to the skeletal remains of the West Pier, half a mile further along the coast, just to teach them a lesson not to risk a taxi driver’s livelihood. But he didn’t, for one reason only.

The shoes and the perfume the plump one was wearing.

Shoes that he particularly liked. Black and silver sparkly Jimmy Choos. Size four. Uh-huh. His mother’s size.

Yac wondered what she would look like naked, just wearing those shoes. Would she look like his mother?

At the same time, he wondered if she had a high- or low-flush loo in her home. But the problem with people who were drunk was that you couldn’t have a proper conversation with them. Waste of time. He drove in silence, thinking about her shoes. Smelling her perfume. Watching her in the mirror. Thinking more and more how much she looked like his mother had once looked.

He made a right turn into North Street and crossed over Steine Gardens, waited at the lights, then turned right and queued at the roundabout before coming to a halt in front of the gaudy lights of Brighton Pier.

Just £2.40 showed on the meter. He’d been sitting in the queue at the cab rank for thirty minutes. Not much for it. He wasn’t happy. And he was even less happy when someone handed him £2.50 and told him to keep the change.

‘Huh!’ he said. ‘Huh!’

The man who owned the taxi expected big money on a Saturday night.

The girls disgorged themselves, while he alternated between watching the Jimmy Choos and glancing anxiously around for any sign of a police car. The girls were cursing the cold wind, clutching their hair, tottering around on their high heels, then, still holding the rear door of the taxi open, began arguing among themselves about why they’d come here and not stayed in the bar they’d just left.

He reached across, called out, ‘Excuse me, ladies!’ then pulled the door shut and drove off along the seafront, the taxi reeking of Shalimar perfume and cigarette smoke and alcohol. A short distance along, he pulled over on to the double yellow lines, beside the railings of the promenade, and switched off the engine.

A whole bunch of thoughts were roaring around inside his head. Jimmy Choo shoes. Size four. His mother’s size. He breathed deeply, savouring the Shalimar. It was coming up to 7 p.m. His on-the-hour, every hour, mug of tea. That was very important. He needed to have that.

But he had something else on his mind that he needed more.

Uh-huh.

Saturday 10 January

Despite the cold and the biting wind, several groups of people, mostly youngsters, milled around the entrance to the pier. Garish lights sparkled and twinkled all along the structure, which stretched almost a third of a mile out into the inky darkness of the English Channel. A Union Jack crackled in the wind. A giant sandwich-board hoarding in the middle of the entrance advertised a live band. The ice-cream stall wasn’t doing much business, but there were ragged queues at the Southern Fried Chicken, Doughnut, Meat Feast and Fish and Chips counters.

Darren Spicer, wearing a donkey jacket, jeans, woollen mittens and a baseball cap pulled low, was flying high, totally oblivious to the cold, as he stood in the queue to buy a bag of chips. The aroma of frying batter was tantalizing and he was hungry. He stuck his bent roll-up in his mouth, rubbed his hands together and checked his watch. Eight minutes to seven. He needed to be back at the St Patrick’s night shelter by 8.30, lock-up time, or he would lose his bed, and it was a brisk twenty-five minutes’ walk from here, unless he jumped on a bus or, more extravagantly, took a taxi.

Tucked into one of his big inside poacher’s pockets was a copy of the Argus he’d pulled out of a wheelie bin at the Grand Hotel, where he had registered earlier, to start work on Monday, doing a job that would utilize his electrical skills. The hotel was replacing its wiring, a lot of which did not appear to have been touched for decades. On Monday he would be in the basement, running new cables from the emergency generator to the laundry room.

It was a big area and they were short-staffed. Which meant not many people would be there to keep an eye on him. Which meant he’d pretty much have the run of the place. And all its rich pickings. And he’d have access to the computer system. Now all he needed was a pay-as-you-go mobile phone. That wouldn’t be a problem.

He felt good! He felt terrific! At this moment he was the most powerful man in this whole city! And probably the horniest!

A gaggle of scantily clad girls disgorging from a taxi caught his eye. One of them was a plump little thing, with her tits almost falling out of her blouse and pouting, bee-stung lips. She tottered around on the tiles at the entrance in sparkly high heels, clutching at her hair, which was being batted by the wind. She looked as if she was a little the worse for wear from alcohol.

Her miniskirt blew up and he saw a sudden flash of the top of her thigh. It gave him a sharp prick of lust. She was his kind of girl. He liked a bit of flesh on a woman. Yeah, she was definitely his kind of tottie.

Yeah.

He liked her.

Liked her shoes.

He took a deep drag of his cigarette.

The taxi drove off.

The girls were arguing about something. Then they all headed to the back of the queue behind him.

He got his bag of chips, then stepped away a short distance, leaned against a stanchion and watched the girls in the queue, still arguing and joshing each other. But in particular he watched the plump one, that prick of lust growing inside him, thinking again and again of the flash of her thigh he had seen.

He had finished his chips and lit another cigarette by the time the girls had all got their bags and had fumbled in their purses for the right change to pay for them. Then they set off up the pier, the plump one trailing behind them. She was hurrying to catch up but struggling on her heels.