Peter James - Dead Like You

He was prepared. He was already wearing his latex gloves. The chloroform pad was in a sealed container in his anorak pocket. He slipped his hand inside, to check again. His hood was in another pocket. He checked that again too. Just one thing concerned him: he hoped that Jessie would have a shower after her game, because he didn’t like sweaty women. He didn’t like some of the unwashed smells women had. She must shower, surely, because she was going straight on to pick up a Chinese takeaway and then to watch a horror film with Roz.

Headlights approached up the ramp. He stiffened. Was this her? He switched on the ignition to sweep the wipers over the rain-spattered screen.

It was a Range Rover. Its headlights momentarily blinded him, then he heard it roar past. He kept the wipers going. The heater pumped in welcoming warm air.

A guy in baggy shorts and a baseball cap was trudging across the car park, with a sports bag slung over his shoulders, engrossed in a conversation on his mobile. He heard a faint beep-beep and saw lights wink on a dark-coloured Porsche, then the man opened the door.

Wanker, he thought.

He stared again at the ramp. Looked at his watch: 6.05 p.m. Shit. He pounded the wheel with his fists. Heard a faint, high-pitched whistling sound in his ears. He got that sometimes when he was all tensed up. He pinched the end of his nose shut and blew hard, but it had no effect and the whistling grew louder.

‘Stop it! Fuck off! Stop it!’

It grew louder still.

Exceptionally diminutive manhood!

Jessie would be the judge of that.

He looked at his watch again: 6.10 p.m.

The whistling was now as loud as a football referee’s whistle.

‘Shut up!’ he shouted, feeling all shaky, his eyes blurring with anger.

Then he heard voices, suddenly, and the scrunch of shoes.

‘I told her he’s an absolute waste of space.’

‘She said she loves him! I told her, like, I mean, what??????’

There was a sharp double beep. He saw a flash of orange over to his left. Then he heard car doors click open and, a few moments later, slam shut. The brief whir of a starter motor, then the rattle of a diesel. The interior of the van suddenly stank of diesel exhaust. He heard the blast of a horn.

‘Sod off,’ he said.

The horn blasted again, twice, to his left.

‘Sod off! Screw you! Fuck you! Fuck off!’

There was a mist in front of his eyes, inside his head. The wipers screeched, clearing the rain. More came. They cleared that too. More came.

Then the horn blasted again.

He turned in fury and saw reversing lights on. And then realized. A big, ugly people carrier was trying to reverse and he was parked right in front of it, blocking it.

‘Fuck you! Screw you!’ He started the van, crunched it into gear, jerked forward a few inches and stalled. His head was shaking, the whistling even louder, slicing his brain to bits like a cheese-wire. He started the van again. Someone knocked on the passenger door window. ‘Fuck you!’ He rammed the gear lever into first and shot forward. He carried on, almost blind with fury now, and hurtled down the ramp.

In his haze of fury he was utterly oblivious of the headlights of the little black Ford Ka racing up the ramp, in the opposite direction, and passing him.

Wednesday 14 January

‘I’m sorry I’m late, my darling,’ Roy Grace said, coming through the front door.

‘If I had a pound for every time you’ve said that, I’d be a millionaire!’ Sandy gave him a resigned smile, then kissed him.

There was a warm smell of scented candles in the house. Sandy lit them most evenings, but there seemed more than usual tonight, to mark the special occasion.

‘God, you look beautiful,’ he said.

She did. She’d been to the hairdresser’s and her long fair hair was in ringlets. She was wearing a short black dress that showed every curve of her body and she had sprayed on his favourite perfume, Poison. She raised her wrist to show him the slim silver bracelet he’d bought her from a modern jeweller in the Lanes.

‘It looks great!’ he said.

‘It does!’ She admired it in the mirror on the Victorian coat-stand in the hall. ‘I love it. You have great taste, Detective Sergeant Grace!’

He held her in his arms and nuzzled her bare neck. ‘I could make love to you right now, here on the hall floor.’

‘Then you’d better be quick. There’s a taxi coming in thirty minutes!’

‘Taxi? We don’t need a taxi. I’ll drive.’

‘You’re not going to drink on my birthday?’

She helped him out of his coat, slung it on a hook on the stand and led him by the hand into the sitting room. The juke box they’d bought a couple of years earlier in the Saturday morning Kensington Gardens market, and had restored, was playing one of his favourite Rolling Stones tracks, their version of ‘Under the Boardwalk’. The lights were dimmed and candles were burning all around. On the coffee table sat an open bottle of champagne, two glasses and a bowl of olives.

‘I had thought we might have a drink before we went out,’ she said wistfully. ‘But it’s OK. I’ll put it in the fridge and we can have it when we get back! You could drink it off my naked body.’

‘Mmmm,’ he said. ‘It’s a lovely idea. But I’m on duty, darling, so I can’t drink.’

‘Roy, it’s my birthday!’

He kissed her again, but she pulled away from him. ‘You’re not on duty on my birthday. You were on duty all over Christmas. You’ve been at work all day today since very early. Now you’re switching off!’

‘Tell Popeye that.’

Popeye was his immediate boss, Detective Chief Inspector Jim ‘Popeye’ Doyle. The DCI had been appointed the Senior Investigating Officer on Operation Sundown, the investigation into the disappearance of Rachael Ryan, which was currently consuming all Grace’s working hours – and keeping him awake every night, his brain racing.

‘Give me his number and I will!’

Grace shook his head. ‘My darling, all leave has been cancelled. We’re on this case around the clock. I’m sorry. But if you were Rachael Ryan’s parents, that’s what you’d expect of us.’

‘You’re not telling me you can’t have a drink on my birthday?’

‘Let me nip up and change.’

‘You’re not going anywhere until you promise me you’re going to drink with me tonight!’

‘Sandy, if I get called out and someone smells alcohol on my breath, I could lose my job and get kicked off the force. Please understand.’

‘Please understand!’ she mimicked. ‘If I had a pound for every time you said that as well, I’d be a multi-millionaire!’

‘Cancel the cab. I’m going to drive.’

‘You are not bloody driving!’

‘I thought we were trying to save money for the mortgage and for all the work on the house.’

‘I don’t think one taxi’s going to make much bloody difference!’

‘It’s two taxis actually – one there and one back.’

‘So?’ She placed her hands on her hips defiantly.

At that moment, his radio phone crackled into life with an incoming call. He tugged it from his pocket and answered.

‘Roy Grace.’

She looked at him, giving him a Don’t you dare, whatever it is, glare.

It was his DCI.

‘Good evening, sir,’ he said.

The reception was poor, Jim Doyle’s voice crackly.

‘Roy, there’s a burnt-out van just been found in a field by a farmer out lamping for rabbits. The index shows it was stolen yesterday afternoon. There’s a body in it which he thinks is female – he was in the Tank Corps of the army out in Iraq and knows a bit about these things apparently. Sounds possible it could be our missing Rachael Ryan – we need to secure the vehicle immediately. It’s off the Saddlescombe Road, half a mile south of the Waterhall Golf Club. I’m on my way over now. Can you meet me there? How long would it take you?’