Peter James - Dead Tomorrow

‘She looks lovely.’

‘Thanks.’ He gave a thin smile.

‘I remember that conversation we had a while back, at Dave Gaylor’s party – about mediums?’

He racked his brains, trying to think. He remembered Julie had lost a close relative and had picked his brains about a good medium to go to. He did vaguely remember they’d had a conversation, but could not recall any details.

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve just found a new one – she’s really brilliant, Roy. Amazingly accurate.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Janet Porter.’

‘Janet Porter?’ The name did not ring a bell.

‘I haven’t got her number on me, but it’s in the book. She’s on the seafront, just near the Grand. Call me tomorrow and I’ll give it to you. I think you’ll be astonished.’

During the past nine years since Sandy’s disappearance, Grace had lost count of the number of mediums he had been to. Most of them had been recommended highly, just like this one now. None of them had come up with anything positive. One had said that Sandy was working in spirit for a healer and that she was happy to be back with her mother. A slight problem with that one, Grace had decided, since her mother was still very much alive.

A small handful of the mediums, the ones he had found most credible, had been adamant that Sandy was not in the spirit world. Which meant, they explained, that she was not dead. He was left as baffled today as he had been on the night of her disappearance.

‘I’ll think about it, Julie,’ he said. ‘Thanks, but I’m sort of trying to move on.’

‘Absolutely, Roy. I understand.’

She moved on too and for a few moments Grace had the buffet to himself. He eyed the new Chief Constable, Tom Martinson, who had only been in Sussex for a few weeks, wanting to ensure he got to chat to him. Martinson, who was forty-eight, was slightly shorter than himself, a strong, fit-looking man with short dark hair and a pleasant, no-nonsense air about him. At the moment he was busily tucking into his food, while engaging energetically in conversation with a group of brown-nosing officers who were surrounding him.

Grace forked a small slice of ham and some potato salad on to his plate, ate them on the spot and put the plate down, to avoid the hassle of walking around with it.

Then, as he turned around, Cleo was standing right behind him, a glass of what looked like sparkling water in her hand. In total contrast to how cold she had sounded over the phone, she was smiling warmly. Beaming.

‘Hi, darling,’ she said. ‘Well done, you’re not that late! How did it go?’

‘Fine. Nadiuska’s happy to wait until the morning to start the PM. How are you?’

Still smiling, she jerked her head, signalling him to follow. At that moment, he saw the Chief Constable break away from the group and head, alone, to the buffet table. This would be the perfect moment to introduce himself!

But he saw Cleo beckoning and did not want to risk her getting caught in another conversation with someone else. He was desperate to know what was going on.

He followed her, weaving through a packed conservatory, acknowledging greetings from colleagues with just a cursory nod. Moments later they stepped outside into the back garden. The night air felt even colder than at the harbour and was thick with the smell of cigarette smoke, wafting over from a mixed group of men and women who were standing in a huddle. The smoke smelled good and, if he’d had his cigarettes with him, he would have lit up. He could have done with one, badly.

Cleo pushed open a gate and walked a short distance down the side of the house, past the dustbins and into the carport at the front. She stopped by Wilkinson’s Ford Focus estate. They were private here.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’ve got some news for you.’ She shrugged, twisting her hands, and he realized it wasn’t for warmth but because she was nervous.

‘Tell me?’

She twisted her hands some more and smiled awkwardly. ‘Roy, I don’t know how you are going to take this.’ She gave him an almost childlike smile of bewilderment, then a kind of hopeful shrug. ‘I’m pregnant.’

The tall man walked up the spiral staircase, then stopped at the top for a moment, checking that his valet-parking stub and his coat-check ticket were securely slotted inside his crocodile-skin wallet. Then he surveyed the Rendezvous Casino’s high-value floor unhurriedly and thoroughly, taking it in the way a policeman might take in a room.

In his late forties, he had the lean physique of a man who works out. His face was craggy and his thinning jet-black hair was slicked back. He looked handsome under tonight’s dimmed bulbs, but coarser in broad daylight. He was dressed in a black cashmere blouson jacket over an open-neck plaid shirt, with a heavy gold chain around his exposed neck, expensive jeans, Cuban-heeled snake-skin boots and, even though they were indoors and it was nearly ten o’clock at night, aviator sunglasses. On one wrist he wore a chunky gold chain-link bracelet and on the other a large Panerai Luminor watch. Although he looked, like he always did, as if he did not belong here but in some more flash establishment, he was one of the casino’s regular high-rollers.

Chewing a piece of gum, he observed the four roulette tables, the blackjack tables, the three-card poker tables, the craps tables and the slots, his eyes behind those glasses scanning every face, then the restaurant at the far end, again scanning every diner, until he was satisfied. Finally he strode unhurriedly towards the table he liked, his regular table, his lucky table.

Four people were already playing and looked as if they had been there a while. One was a middle-aged Chinese woman who was another regular here; with her were a young couple who were dressed for a party they had either been to or were on their way to, and a stocky bearded man in a thick jumper who looked as though he would have been more at home in a geology lecture.

The wheel was spinning slowly, the ball rolling around the rim. The tall man laid £10,000 in bundles of £50 notes on the green baize roulette table, his eyes fixed on the male croupier, who gave him a nod, then said, ‘No more bets.’

The ball tumbled off the rim, rattled and clacked, bouncing across the trivets, then was silent, settled in. Everyone, except for the tall man, craned to look as the wheel slowed further. Deadpan, the croupier said, ‘Seventeen. Black.’

The number popped up on the electronic display screen behind the wheel. The Chinese woman, who had covered most of the table with chips, except for 17 and its immediate neighbours, swore. The young, slightly drunk girl, who was almost falling out of her black dress, gave a small whoop of joy. The croupier cleared away the losing chips, then prepared the payouts for the winning ones, paying the biggest first, while the tall man kept his eye on his bundle of notes.

Then the croupier took the bundle and counted the cash with practised hands. He almost did not need to, as he had done it countless times before and knew exactly how much it would be. ‘Ten thousand pounds,’ he said clearly, for the benefit of the punter and for the voice-recording equipment. The Chinese woman, who was in her fifties, gave the tall man a respectful glance. This was big money by this casino’s standards. The croupier stacked up his chips.

He took them and began to play immediately, rapidly covering the twelve numbers of the Tier, as well as placing some on the outside of the layout on Odd, but the majority he put down on the previous six winning numbers as displayed on the electronic board by the wheel. He covered the numbers straight up as well as all splits and corners. In moments his chips covered large areas of the board, like pins marking conquered territory on a map. As the croupier moved to spin the wheel – he was under a direction to spin it every ninety seconds – the others scrambled to place their bets too, stretching across the table, stacking up their chips on top of those of other players.