Peter James - Looking Good Dead

Jessica, proudly wearing two rubber bracelets to copy her brother, a pink one and a yellow one, plonked herself down on the sofa, picked up the remote and began to channel-surf the television. Tom snatched the remote back and switched the television off. ‘Upstairs, young lady!’

‘Mandy spends all the time on the phone to her boyfriend.’

‘She has her own mobile; she can do what she wants,’ Tom retorted.

Jessica, freshly bathed and pink-faced, pushed back her hair, tilted her face in a very grown-up ladylike manner. ‘They talk about sex.’

‘Jessica, firstly it is rude to listen to other people’s phone conversations, and secondly you should be in bed, asleep, when she’s here babysitting, so why does it matter?’

‘Because,’ Jessica said huffily.

Kellie came tripping down the stairs, looking stunning and reeking of a new Gucci scent Tom had bought her recently, which he found incredibly sexy on her. She was wearing a tight-fitting short black dress, which both revealed a daring amount of cleavage and showed off her terrific legs to their best, and she had on a huge Roman-style silver choker around her neck. She looked very classy.

Just perfect for tonight.

They had been invited to dinner by a new client Tom desperately wanted to impress.

Kellie looked at Tom. ‘Drinking already?’

‘Dutch courage,’ he said.

Her eyes widened disapprovingly. ‘I thought you were going to drive tonight, to save money on taxis.’ Then she turned to Jessica. ‘Upstairs to bed at once,’ she said sharply. ‘Or no television tomorrow, and I mean it.’

Jessica looked sullenly at her mother, then her father. She seemed about to say something back, then thought better of it and began to walk, infuriatingly slowly, out of the room.

‘I’ll only have one glass of wine when I get there, then I’ll go on to water.’

‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’ll bloody drive, again.’

‘I think we both need to drink tonight,’ Tom said. He walked towards her, slipped his arms around her, held her tightly and kissed her on the forehead. ‘You look beautiful.’

‘You look nice, too,’ she said. ‘I always like you in a white shirt.’

Jessica was walking up the stairs now.

Tom nuzzled Kellie’s ear. ‘I’d just like to take you straight to bed.’

‘Well you’re going to have to wait. I’m not taking all this lot off and starting again.’

The doorbell rang. There was the thump of the dog flap, and Lady came bounding into the hall, barking loudly.

Tom stayed in the living room and drained his cocktail, the alcohol already starting to give him a buzz that was lifting his mood, giving him some confidence.

Then Mandy came into the room and his jaw almost dropped. The daughter of a friend of Kellie’s from her keep-fit classes, Mandy had done some babysitting for them before on a few occasions over the past three years. And during that time he had noticed her progression from a little girl into something altogether more mature. And tonight she was – there were no other words for it – raw sex on legs.

She was seventeen now maybe even eighteen, short, blonde, a Britney Spears clone with a terrific figure, most of it visible. She was wearing an almost see-through glitter top, definitely the smallest miniskirt he had ever seen and patent leather boots that went up to her thighs. Her face was carefully made up, and he noticed she had glitter varnish on her nails and was clutching a very glitzy-looking mobile phone. She was a total mini-chav.

Her parents had let her go out babysitting like this? And, he thought, dismayed, in not many years maybe Jessica would be dolling herself up like this.

‘Good evening, Mr Bryce,’ she said breezily.

‘How are you doing, Mandy?’

‘Yeah, all right. Got me exams this month, so I’m swotting.’

Grinning, he said, ‘These are your swotting clothes?’

Not getting the joke, she said, very seriously, ‘Yeah, that’s right.’ Then she added, ‘I passed my driving test.’

‘Brilliant. Well done!’

‘Third time. Me mum said she’ll let me borrow her car sometimes; she’s got a brand new Toyota.’

‘That’s very noble of her,’ he said, mentally clocking another thing to not look forward to about Max and Jessica growing up.

Kellie came back into the room. ‘We’ll be back about half twelve or so, Mandy; is that OK?’

‘Yeah, great. Have a brilliant evening.’

Tom raised his empty glass, took one more long, lusting look at the girl and suddenly realized he was feeling a bit drunk. He needed to be careful, he thought. Philip Angelides had been well up the rankings in the recent Sunday Times Rich List, with a personal net worth of over two hundred and fifty million pounds. He had a business empire that included a company making generic drugs, a chain of car dealerships, a group of travel agencies, a property company that built developments in Spain and a very successful sports management company – all areas that could use BryceRight products.

Tom had met him, as he met many of his potential clients, at the golf club, and he owned, by all accounts, a very serious house about half an hour’s drive from Brighton in the country. Tonight’s invitation to a dinner party was a big opportunity. Except Tom wasn’t in any mood to go out tonight.

He had been fretting all day since going to the CID headquarters building up on the Hollingbury estate and telling his story to the tall black Detective Sergeant. DS Branson appeared to have taken everything he had told him very seriously, and had given him assurances that it would be treated with total confidentiality. Nonetheless it had made him extremely nervous when Branson had asked if they could borrow his laptop over the weekend to see what they could find from it. He had returned to the building with the laptop a little later that morning with many misgivings, although Kellie remained adamant he was doing the right thing.

This afternoon he had played a totally crap round of golf – one of the worst games of his life. His mind had just not been on it. He was scared; a deep, insidious darkness swirled through him. He could not stop thinking about what he had done: that he had put his wife and his kids in danger.

That maybe, just maybe, he had made the worst mistake of his life.

‘A vodka and tonic, please,’ Cleo Morey said.

The waiter turned to Roy Grace.

‘I’ll have a Peroni.’ Then he changed his mind, suddenly deciding he was in need of a stronger alcohol hit than beer, despite the fact that he was driving. He would worry about that later. ‘Actually, no, make that a large Glenfiddich on the rocks.’

They were seated at a table towards the back of Latin in the Lanes, an Italian restaurant just off Brighton seafront. There were newer, hipper restaurants he could have chosen, like the Hotel du Vin; smarter, more inventive ones, like Blanche House; there were a load of restaurants that he had never been to with Sandy.

So why had he chosen the one that had been his and Sandy’s favourite?

He wasn’t sure of the answer. Perhaps because the place was familiar to him he thought he might feel comfortable there, know the ropes. Or was it a further laying of her ghost to rest?

He recognized some familiar faces from way back among the staff, and a couple of them seemed to remember him – if not his name – welcoming him back like a long-lost friend. The place had a lively Saturday evening buzz to it, and at nine o’clock – later than Grace had planned on being here – every table was occupied.

The six thirty briefing had taken longer than he had anticipated, and he’d needed to stay on after, doing follow-ups, although there had really been only one development during the day.