Peter James - Looking Good Dead

The room had a good vibe; he felt instantly relaxed, could feel it was every inch Cleo. Cream walls and throw rugs on a polished oak floor, two red sofas, black-lacquered furniture, funky abstract paintings, an expensive-looking television and a Latino song from El Divo playing quietly, but assertively, from four seriously cool-looking black speakers.

There were several lush green plants, and in a square glass fish tank on the coffee table, a solitary goldfish was swimming around through the remains of a submerged miniature Greek temple.

‘Still up for a whisky?’ Cleo asked.

‘I think I need one.’

‘Ice?’

‘Lots.’

‘Water?’

‘Just a splash.’

He walked over to the tank.

‘That’s Fish,’ she said. ‘Fish, meet Detective Superintendent Roy Grace.’

‘Hi, Fish,’ he said, then turning to Cleo, added, ‘I have a goldfish, too.’

‘I remember, you told me. Marlon, right?’

‘Good memory.’

‘Uh huh. It’s better than a goldfish’s. I read that they can only remember things for twelve seconds. I can sometimes remember things for a whole day.’

Grace laughed. But it was forced laughter. The atmosphere between them was strained, like two boxers in a ring, waiting for the bell for the first round to clang.

Cleo went out of the room, and Grace took the opportunity to take a closer look round. He walked over to a framed photograph which shared a small side table with a rubber plant. It showed a handsome, distinguished-looking man in his early fifties, dressed in top hat and tails, next to a fine-looking woman in her mid to late forties, who bore a striking resemblance to Cleo, in a stunningly elegant outfit and a large hat; there were dozens of people similarly attired in the background. Grace wondered if it was the Royal Enclosure at Ascot, although he had never been there.

Then he wandered over to a floor-to-ceiling stack of crammed bookshelves. He picked out a row of Graham Greene novels, a set of Samuel Pepys diaries, several crime novels, from Val McDermid, Simon Brett, Ian Rankin and Mark Timlin, a Jeanette Winterson, two James Herbert novels, an Alice Seebold, a Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections, a row of Tom Wolfe, bios of Maggie Thatcher and Clinton, a eclectic mixture of chick lit, an ancient copy of Gray’s Anatomy and, to his surprise, a copy of Colin Wilson’s The Occult.

Cleo came back into the room, holding two glasses, ice cubes clinking.

‘You read a lot?’ he asked.

‘Not enough, but I’m a compulsive book buyer. Do you?’

He loved books and bought several every time he went into a bookshop, but he rarely ended up reading them. ‘I wish I had the time; I mostly end up reading reports.’

She handed him a hefty glass tumbler filled with whisky on the rocks, and they sat down together on a sofa, keeping a space between them. She raised her glass, of white wine. ‘Thank you for coming.’

He shrugged, wondering what bombshell she was going to hit him with.

Instead, she said, ‘Cheers, big ears.’

‘Big ears?’

‘Here goes, nose!’

He frowned.

‘You don’t know this?’

‘No.’

‘Cheers, big ears,’ she said. ‘Here goes, nose. Up your bum, chum!’ She raised her glass and took a long swig.

Shaking his head in bewilderment, he took a swig of the whisky; it was dangerously good. ‘What does that mean? “Cheers, big ears”?’

‘Here goes, nose! Up your bum, chum!’

Grace shook his head, not getting it.

‘Just a saying – I’ll have to teach it to you.’

He looked at Cleo, then down at his drink, and sipped some more, changing the subject. ‘So, do you want to tell me about, um – Mr Right ? Your fiancé?’

Cleo took another gulp of wine. He watched her, loving the way she drank, no delicate prissy little sip but a proper mouthful. ‘Richard?’

‘Is that his name?’

‘I didn’t tell you his name?’ She sounded astonished.

‘Actually, no. It sort of escaped your mind last night. And on our previous date.’

She peered into her wine glass as if staring at ancient runes. ‘But, everyone – everyone knows about him. I mean – I thought – you must know.’

‘I’m clearly not everyone.’

‘He’s been driving the team at the mortuary nuts for months.’

Grace rattled the ice cubes around in his glass. ‘I’m not sure I’m on your bus.’

‘Number forty-two,’ she said. ‘The meaning of everything? The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?’

‘Right,’ he said, the penny dropping. He wondered for a moment whether Cleo was drunk. But she did not look drunk. Not even tipsy. ‘I’m sorry, I’m lost. You have a fiancé who’s been driving everyone nuts?’

‘I thought you knew,’ she said, looking very meek suddenly. ‘Oh shit, you didn’t, did you?’

‘Nope.’

She drained her glass. ‘Oh God!’ Then she tilted the glass as if searching for a few more drops of precious alcohol. ‘Actually, that’s totally the wrong word to use, the God word.’ She shrugged again.

‘You want to fill me in?’

‘You want the full Richard download?’

‘Might be a good starting point.’

‘Richard and I met about three years ago – he’s a barrister. He came to the mortuary because he wanted to view a body in a murder case he was defending.’ She raised her glass expectantly, then looked disappointed when she saw it was empty. ‘I liked him; we started going out; my parents liked him; my brother and sister both thought he was lovely – and about a year and a half ago we got engaged. But about the same time I discovered I had a big rival. God.’

‘God?’

She nodded. ‘He found God. Or God found him. Whatever.’

‘Lucky Richard,’ Grace said.

‘Very lucky,’ she said with a trace of sarcasm. ‘I envy anyone who finds God; how nice to be able to abdicate all your responsibilities to God.’ Suddenly she stood up. ‘You need any more whisky?’

Grace looked at his tumbler, which was still three-quarters full. ‘I’m fine, thanks – I have to drive.’

Cleo went out of the room, returned with a full wine glass, and sat back down, much nearer this time.

‘He started taking me to a charismatic church in Brighton,’ she said. ‘But it just wasn’t for me. I tried it, because at the time I loved him, but all it did was start pulling us apart.’

‘And his solution was to pray even more?’

‘Right. Hey, you know you’re quite astute – for a copper.’

Grace gave her a pointed look, but couldn’t mask his grin. ‘Thanks a lot.’

She chinked her glass against his. ‘He started making me kneel with him, praying for an hour, sometimes even longer, asking God to make our relationship better. After a while I just couldn’t hack it.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I’m just not a believer.’

‘Not in anything?’

‘I spend my days cutting bodies open – you know what I do. I haven’t yet found a soul in any of them.’ She swigged some wine down. ‘Do you believe?’

‘I believe in some form of existence beyond death. But I have a problem with religion.’

‘That puts us on the same bus,’ she said.

‘I saw Colin Wilson’s The Occult on your bookshelf.’

‘All that stuff intrigues me. I know you are into that, and that’s fine. You can believe in ghosts, in some kind of spirit world, but you don’t necessarily have to believe in some kind of monotheistic God. Right?’

Grace nodded.

‘I broke it off with Richard six months ago, and he can’t accept it. He’s convinced God will fix it for us. It’s hurt his career too. He spends more and more time praying for God to help him with his cases instead of reading up the briefs. I’m sorry; I look at all the shit that’s happening in the world and mostly it’s caused by people under some kind of delusion about their particular version of God. Sometimes I don’t think Richard’s obsession is that far removed from that of a Muslim suicide bomber. It’s all part of the same damned belief system – that it’s not this life that matters, it’s the next one. What a crap ideal! Shall we change the subject?’