Peter James - Looking Good Dead

‘A little unusual, wouldn’t you say?’ the SOCO said.

‘That’s well kinky,’ Branson commented. ‘Yeah!’

‘Maybe she had a bad back,’ Grace offered, tongue in cheek. ‘And it was the only way she could see to put on her make-up.’

‘There’s more,’ the SOCO added, opening the chest at the end of the bed.

Grace and Branson peered in. To Grace’s amazement it was full of artefacts he would have expected to have found in an SM dungeon.

Even without disturbing the contents he could see a whip, handcuffs, a full rubber face mask, several other restraints including a studded dog collar that had clearly not been designed with a dog in mind, a reel of duct tape, a bamboo cane and an assortment of vibrators.

Grace whistled. ‘I think you’ve found her toy box.’

‘Whatever floats your boat, right?’ Joe Tindall said.

Grace knelt and peered in more closely. ‘Anything else?’

‘Yeah, in her bedside table about twenty recent porn magazines. Serious, hard stuff.’

Grace and Branson took a quick glance through the collection of magazines. Men on women, women on women, men on men and various permutations. Despite the circumstances Grace felt a prick of lust as he flicked through some of the women on women pages; he couldn’t help it and in truth was quite pleased that at long last, after all these years, feelings, wants, were coming back to him.

‘Is this kind of shit normal?’ Glenn Branson asked.

‘I’ve found porn in plenty of men’s cupboards before,’ Tindall said. ‘Don’t often find it in a woman’s.’

Grace wandered away from the two men and walked around the whole flat on his own. He wanted to get the feel of the place. And the more he walked round, the more it did not feel homely.

He remembered the architect Le Corbusier saying that houses were machines for living in. That’s what this place felt like. It was spotlessly clean. There was a fresh Toilet Duck freshener in the lavatory in the en suite bathroom; the sink was gleaming, all the toiletries, bar an electric toothbrush and a whitening paste, stored in the bathroom cabinets. The place was incredibly clean – for a student.

He contrasted her bedroom here with the one at her father’s house, with the poster on the wall, the stuffed toys, the collection of shells, the books; you could form an image of the person from that room, but not from this one.

Grace went through into the living room and, using his handkerchief, pressed the last number redial on the phone. It rang a few times, then he got the voicemail of the firm of solicitors where Janie had worked. He then dialled 1471 to check the last incoming number, but it was withheld. Next he pressed the message play button on the answering machine. The cat stood near him, but he did not notice it. He was staring at a framed photograph of Janie on the desk beside the machine. She was in a long evening gown against a background of what looked like Glyndebourne opera house. Interesting, he noted, that all the photographs of her seemed to be very posed. The machine whirred for some moments, then he heard a rather bland woman’s voice.

‘Oh, er – hello, Janie, this is Susan, Mr Broom’s secretary. It’s quarter past eleven on Wednesday. Mr Broom was expecting you in at eight o’clock this morning to work with him on finishing the briefing notes to counsel. Can you please give me a call.’

Grace wrote the details down in his notebook.

There was another, similar message from the same woman, two hours later, then at three thirty in the afternoon a different woman, sounding younger and rather smart: ‘Hi, Janie, this is Verity. Bit worried that you haven’t turned up today. Are you OK? I might pop round later on my way home. Call me or text me or something.’

Then an hour later there was a different message from a woman with an overly jolly voice: ‘Oh, hi, Janie, this is Claire. I have something for you. Give me a call please.’

The next message was from Derek Stretton.

‘Hello, Janie, darling. Got your birthday card – you are so sweet. Longing to see you on Friday. I’ve booked at your favourite; we can go out and have a real seafood binge! Give me a call before if you have a mo. Lots and lots of love. Daddy!’

Then a rather coarse male voice: ‘Oh, hello, Miss Stretton. My name’s Darren. I’m calling from Beneficial to see if you’d like a quotation for household insurance from us. I will call you back.’

Then the jolly voice of Claire again, this time a touch concerned. ‘Oh, hi, Janie, this is Claire again. I’m worried that you might not have picked up my last message. I will try your mobile again, it was for tonight.’

Grace frowned. For tonight ? Wednesday night. When she had been dead for around twenty-four hours?

There were several more messages from her office the following day, Thursday. And from the woman called Claire again, sounding very irritated. There was also another message from her father, an anxious one this time.

‘Janie, darling, your office have been in touch with me – they say you haven’t been in since Tuesday and they are extremely worried. Are you all right? Please give me a call back. Love you lots. Daddy.’

Grace wound the tape back to the first message from the perky Claire.

‘Oh, hi, Janie, this is Claire. I have something for you. Give me a call please.’

Something about this message bothered him, but he couldn’t put a finger on it. He checked the machine to see if it logged incoming phone numbers, but it did not appear to.

‘Glenn,’ he said. ‘You’re the closest I have to a resident techie. Can you get into her address file on the laptop?’

The Detective Sergeant walked over to the computer and flipped up the lid. ‘Depends on whether she’s been a good girl or not. Whether we have any password to… Ah, no – brilliant! No password!’

He pulled out the chair and sat down. ‘You want a name?’

‘Claire.’

‘Claire what?’

‘Just Claire.’ Grace could not be bothered to correct Glenn’s grammar.

After only a few moments tapping at the keyboard, Branson lifted his head. ‘There’s just one. I tried different spellings.’

‘Does it give an address?’

‘Just a number.’

‘OK, dial it.’

Branson dialled then handed Grace the receiver. It rang for a few moments then was answered by an abrupt male voice.

‘Yes, hello?’

‘May I speak to Claire?’

‘She’s on another line – who’s calling?’

Grace did a quick calculation. They had dropped Janie’s photograph off at the Major Incident Suite on their way here at the same time as they had picked up Glenn’s holdall. It would be a good couple of hours before copies were out in the media so no one outside the police and Janie’s immediate family would yet know she was dead. ‘I’m calling on behalf of Janie Stretton,’ he said.

‘OK, hold a sec; she’ll be with you in a minute.’

Grace heard a few moments of Vivaldi’s Spring , then the voice he recognized as Claire. ‘Hello?’ she said, a little wary.

‘Yes, hello. I’m returning a message you left for Janie Stretton on Wednesday afternoon.’

‘Who exactly are you, please?’ Very wary now. Too wary.

‘Detective Superintendent Grace of Sussex CID.’

The phone went dead.

Instantly, Grace hit the redial button. The phone rang several times until the voicemail finally kicked in. ‘I’m sorry, there is no one here to take your call at the moment-’

‘Bullshit!’ Grace said, hanging up. He pulled out his radio, dialled Bella, gave her the phone number and asked her to come up with an address. Then he phoned his assistant Eleanor and asked her to set up a press conference for later that afternoon. He was keen to get maximum exposure with the public before the world wound down for the weekend.