Peter James - Looking Good Dead

The detective wasn’t sure how to respond. He was quiet for some moments, thinking about Janie Stretton’s vicious murder and the warning that Bryce said he had received on his email. Then his missing wife. He could not answer because he just did not have enough information yet. But what if this had happened to him and Ari had vanished? Could he honestly look Tom Bryce in the eye and tell him to stay put?

But what were the alternatives? A round-the-clock police guard? He doubted that could be swung unless there was much stronger evidence to persuade Alison Vosper to stand the cost. Move them to a safe house? Roy Grace had rung him half an hour ago to tell him about Reggie D’Eath. So much for safe houses.

‘I think we need to consider the possibility that your wife has been abducted, Mr Bryce.’

This was what Tom had feared, although there was just one small nagging doubt in his mind. The words of Jessica came back to him repeatedly.

She’ll probably just want to drink vodka. I saw her. I promised I wouldn’t tell.

‘I’ve arranged for a detective from the Family Liaison Unit,’ the detective was saying. ‘She’s very competent – she’ll move in here, if you agree. She’ll organize a roster of herself and a colleague to give you and your children round-the-clock protection.’

‘Is that what you would do in my situation, DS Branson?’

‘Yeah,’ he replied, hesitantly. ‘Yeah. For the moment anyhow. Let’s see what we learn today.’

Glenn Branson looked down, not able to look the man in the eye for more than a second. And as he said the words he was thinking to himself, If this was me, would I want to have Sammy and Remi remain in the house?

And he simply did not know the answer.

‘Potatoes,’ Norman Potting said suddenly.

The three police officers were in the car, Nick Nicholl driving, heading back from the pub in Rottingdean towards Sussex House. The pint of beer on top of the paracetamol and his late night was making Grace drowsy.

‘Potatoes?’ Nicholl echoed.

‘I was brought up on a farm,’ Potting said. ‘My dad used to spray the potato crop with sulphuric acid. Dilute, mind you. Never did me any harm.’

‘Sulphuric acid on potatoes? You’re not serious?’

The words ‘sulphuric acid’ caught Grace’s attention.

‘My friend, I’m always serious,’ Potting replied. ‘The acid kills off the shoots and makes harvesting much easier.’

‘And it kills anyone who eats the potatoes?’ Grace questioned.

‘It’s all bollocks,’ Potting said. ‘All this organic crap. Nothing wrong with a few honest-to-goodness pesticides. Look at me!’

‘I’m looking at you,’ Nicholl said, glancing in the mirror.

‘Never had a day’s sickness in my life!’

You’re just permanently sick, Grace thought.

‘Harmless stuff in the right hands,’ Potting continued.

‘I don’t think Reggie D’Eath would agree with you,’ Grace retorted.

‘Would you give your kids potatoes that had been sprayed with sulphuric acid?’ Nicholl asked Potting.

‘Wouldn’t have a problem with it,’ he said.

‘Well, I would,’ the young DC said.

After a moment’s silence, Potting asked him, ‘How many kids have you got?’

‘First one on its way – any day now,’ the DC said. ‘How about you?’

‘Two by my first marriage. One by my second. Two more by my third. The second by her, Suzie, has Down’s syndrome. Not that I ever see much of the little buggers,’ he said wistfully.

Nicholl was clearly affected by Potting’s response. ‘Down’s?’

Potting nodded.

‘I’m sorry,’ Nicholl said.

Potting shrugged. ‘That’s the way it goes,’ he said sadly. ‘She’s a good kid, always happy.’ He shrugged again. ‘Every family has something, don’t they?’

‘Are you still married? To your third?’

Potting’s face fell. ‘I gave up.’ He pursed his lips. ‘I’m a bachelor, footloose and fancy-free, like DS Grace here. Take it from me, lad, it’s the best way.’

Nick Nicholl said, ‘Actually, I’m very happily married.’

‘You’re a lucky man,’ Potting replied.

‘So if we’re looking for someone who has enough sulphuric acid to fill a bath, we should be looking for a potato farmer?’ Grace asked, turning his head.

‘Or someone who supplies potato farmers,’ Potting said. ‘Or drugs companies. Or manufacturers of citric and lactic acids, and edible oils. Adhesives, explosives, synthetic rubber. Water and effluent treatment. Wood pulping. Leather tanning. Car batteries.’

‘You should go on Mastermind ,’ Nicholl said, ‘with sulphuric acid as your specialist subject.’

‘I got involved in a case a few years ago. A chap in Croydon threw some in his girlfriend’s face when she dumped him. Apparently it’s common practice in one of the countries in Africa.’

‘Nice guy,’ Nicholl responded.

‘A regular charmer. That’s what you get with darkies.’

Now Grace was livid. ‘Norman, in case you haven’t noticed we have a black member on our team. If you make one more racist or homophobic remark I’m going to have you suspended. Any part of that you don’t understand?’

After a few seconds’ silence Potting said, ‘I’m sorry, Roy. I apologize. Not very tactful of me. He’s a good man, that DS Branson.’

Even though he’s black? Grace was tempted to fire back. Instead he said, ‘You’d have needed a few gallons of the stuff to fill that tub. The neighbours must have seen something. All those bloody Neighbourhood Watch stickers. Two tasks for you, Norman. First find out from the house-to-house team if any unfamiliar vehicles have been in the street in the past few days. Second, find out if there are any suppliers – or users – of bulk sulphuric acid in the area.’

‘Before or after I finish working my way through the books of Barry and Claire Escorts Twenty-Four Seven, chief?’

‘You’ll have to multi-task like the rest of us, Norman.’

Two sharp beeps told Grace he had an incoming text. He looked down and saw it was from Cleo. Instantly his spirits lifted. Then, when he read it, they dropped. Or rather plummeted.

The video viewing room in the Major Incident Suite was a tiny, windowless cubicle, a few yards down the corridor from MIR One. With just Glenn Branson and Tom Bryce in there it felt crowded and claustrophobic. Yet another example, in Branson’s view – and he was only an occasional visitor – of how poorly thought-out the conversion of the building had been.

Tom Bryce sat at the desk, with a monitor in front of him, and to his left a video and CD stack. The machine was loaded with CCTV footage from two cameras at Preston Park railway station, the first stop north from Brighton, regularly used by commuters both for its convenient location towards the outskirts and for the free parking in the streets all around. It was the station where the dickhead seated next to him on the train last Tuesday night, who had left behind the CD, had got off.

Constable Bunting had come up trumps. Within two hours of Glenn’s call to British Transport Police, the officer had produced footage of the southbound platform of Preston Park at the time of the arrival of the train Tom had been on.

Tom forced himself to concentrate, but it was hard because he was beside himself with worry about Kellie. He had the shakes from having eaten nothing all day and drunk far too much caffeine. His stomach felt as if it was full of barbed wire. Suddenly his mobile phone rang.

He looked at the display but did not recognize the number. ‘I’d better answer it,’ he said. Branson nodded his encouragement.