Peter James: Dead Like You

An attempt had been made, as it was every year, to bring some Christmas cheer into the place. There were paper-chains hanging from the ceiling. Bits of tinsel draped along the tops of the partitions. Christmas cards on several desks.

Sandy was deeply unimpressed that this was the second Christmas in three years that he had found himself on duty. And, as she quite rightly pointed out, it was a lousy week to be working. Even most of the local villains, off their trolleys with drink or off their faces with drugs, were in their homes or their lairs.

Christmas was the peak period for sudden deaths and for suicides. It might be a happy few days for those with friends and families, but it was a desperate, wretched time for the lonely, particularly the elderly lonely ones who didn’t even have enough money to heat their homes properly. But it was a quiet period for serious crimes – the kind that could get an ambitious young detective sergeant like himself noticed by his peers and give him the chance to show his abilities.

That was about to change.

Very unusually, the phones had been quiet. Normally they rang all around the room constantly.

As the first serials appeared, his internal phone suddenly rang.

‘CID,’ he answered.

It was a Force Control Room operator, from the centre which handled and graded all enquiries.

‘Hi, Roy. Happy Christmas.’

‘You too, Doreen,’ he said.

‘Got a possible misper,’ she said. ‘Rachael Ryan, twenty-two, left her friends on Christmas Eve at the cab rank on East Street to walk home. She did not show up for Christmas lunch at her parents and did not answer her home phone or mobile. Her parents visited her flat in Eastern Terrace, Kemp Town, at 3 p.m. yesterday and there was no response. They’ve informed us this is out of character and they are concerned.’

Grace took down the addresses of Rachael Ryan and her parents and told her he would investigate.

The current police policy was to allow several days for a missing person to turn up before assigning any resources, unless they were a minor, an elderly adult or someone identified as being vulnerable. But with today promising to be quiet, he decided he’d rather be out doing something than sitting here on his backside.

The twenty-nine-year-old Detective Sergeant got up and walked along a few rows of desks to one of his colleagues who was in today, DS Norman Potting. Some fifteen years his senior, Potting was an old sweat, a career detective sergeant who had never been promoted, partly because of his politically incorrect attitude, partly because of his chaotic domestic life, and partly because, like many police officers, including Grace’s late father, Potting preferred frontline work rather than taking on the bureaucratic responsibilitiesthat came with promotion. Grace was one of the few here who actually liked the man and enjoyed listening to his ‘war stories’ – as police tales of past incidents were known – because he felt he could learn something from them; and besides, he felt a little sorry for the guy.

The Detective Sergeant was intently pecking at his keyboard with his right index finger. ‘Bloody new technology,’ he grumbled in his thick Devon burr as Grace’s shadow fell over him. A reek of tobacco smoke rose from the man. ‘I’ve had two lessons, still can’t make sodding head nor tail of this. What’s wrong with the old system we all know?’

‘It’s called progress,’ Grace said.

‘Hrrr. Progress like allowing all sorts into the force?’

Ignoring this, Grace replied, ‘There’s a reported misper that I’m not very happy about. You busy? Or got time to come with me to make some enquiries?’

Potting hauled himself to his feet. ‘Anything to break the mahogany, as my old auntie would say,’ he replied. ‘Have a good Christmas, Roy?’

‘Short and sweet. All six hours of it that I spent at home, that is.’

‘At least you have a home,’ Potting said morosely.

‘Oh?’

‘I’m living in a bedsit. Threw me out, didn’t she? Not much fun, wishing your kids a merry Xmas from a payphone in the corridor. Eating an ASDA Christmas Dinner for One in front of the telly.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Grace replied. He genuinely was.

‘Know why women are like hurricanes, Roy?’

Grace shook his head.

‘Because when they arrive they’re wet and wild. When they leave they take your house and car.’

Grace humoured him with a thin, wintry smile.

‘It’s all right for you – you’re happily married. Good luck to you. But just watch out,’ Potting went on. ‘Watch out for when they turn. Trust me, this is my second bloody disaster. Should have learned my lesson first time around. Women think coppers are dead sexy until they marry ’em. Then they realize we’re not what they thought. You’re lucky if yours is different.’

Grace nodded but said nothing. Potting’s words were uncomfortably close to the truth. He had never been interested in opera of any kind. But recently Sandy had dragged him to an amateur operatic society performance of The Pirates of Penzance. She had nudged him continually during the song ‘A Policeman’s Lot is not a Happy One’.

Afterwards she had asked him, teasing, if he thought those words were wrong.

He’d replied that yes, they were wrong. He was very happy with his lot.

Later, in bed, she’d whispered to him that perhaps the lyrics needed to be changed. That they should have sung, ‘A policeman’s wife’s lot is not a happy one.’

Thursday 1 January

Several of the houses in the residential street outside the hospital had Christmas lights in the windows and wreaths on the front door. They’d be coming down soon for another year, Grace thought a little sadly, slowing as they approached the entrance to the squat slab of stained concrete and garishly curtained windows of Crawley Hospital. He liked the magical spell that the Christmas break cast on the world, even when he had to work through it.

The building had no doubt looked a lot more impressive under the sunny blue sky of the architect’s original impression than it did on a wet January morning. Grace thought that the architect had probably failed to take into account the blinds blocking half of its windows, the dozens of cars parked higgledy-piggledy outside, the plethora of signs and the weather stains on the walls.

Glenn Branson normally liked to terrify him by showing off his driving skills, but today he had allowed his colleague to drive here, freeing him to concentrate on giving Roy the full download on his lousy Christmas week. Glenn’s marriage, which had hit new lows in the weeks building up to Christmas, had deteriorated even further on Christmas Day itself.

Already livid that his wife, Ari, had changed the locks on their house, his temper had boiled over on Christmas morning when he’d arrived laden with gifts for his two young children and she’d refused to let him in. A massively powerful former nightclub bouncer, Glenn kicked open the front door, to find, as he suspected, her new lover ensconced in his house, playing with his children, in front of his Christmas tree, for God’s sake!

She had dialled the nines and he had narrowly escaped being arrested by the Response Team patrol car that had turned up from East Brighton Division – which would have put paid to his career.

‘So what would you have done?’ Glenn said.

‘Probably the same. But that doesn’t make it OK.’

‘Yeah.’ He was quiet for a moment, then said, ‘You’re right. But when I saw that dickhead personal trainer playing the X-Box with my kids, I could have fucking ripped his head off and played basketball with it.’

‘You’re going to have to keep a lid on it somehow, matey. I don’t want you screwing your career up over this.’