Peter James - Not Dead Enough

‘I went for a walk along the seafront.’ Bishop pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed his eyes. ‘Katie and I used to love it down there. She loved going on the beach. She was a keen swimmer.’ He paused and took a sip of water. ‘I needed to call my kids – they’re both abroad, on holiday. I . . .’ He lapsed into silence.

So did Roy Grace. There was no police officer called Canning on his team.

Excusing himself, the Detective Superintendent slipped out of the room and walked down the corridor to MIR One. It took him just a few clicks on a workstation keyboard to establish that there was no officer of that name in the entire Sussex police force.

43

Shortly before midnight, Cleo opened her front door wearing an unlaced black silk camisole. It covered the top two inches of her pale, slender thighs and little else. In her outstretched hand was a tumbler of Glenfiddich on the rocks, filled to the brim. The only other things she had on were a tantalizing, deep, musky perfume and the dirtiest grin Roy Grace had ever seen on a woman’s face.

‘Wow! Now that’s what I call a—’ he started to say, when she kicked the door shut behind him, the camisole falling even further open over her large, firm breasts. And that was as far as he got as, still holding the glass, she put both arms around his neck and pressed her moist lips against his. Moments later a whisky-flavoured ice cube was sliding into his mouth.

Her eyes, blurry, smiling, danced in front of his own.

Tilting her head just far enough back that he still could only see her in blurred focus, she said, ‘You’ve got far too many clothes on!’ Then, placing the glass in his hand, she began, ravenously, to unbutton his shirt, kissing his nipples, then his chest, then pressing another ice cube, with her mouth, deep against his belly button. She looked up at him with eyes that seemed to burn into him with happiness, eyes the colour of sunlight on ice. ‘You are so gorgeous, Roy. God, you are so, so gorgeous.’

Gasping, and crunching the remains of the ice cube, he said, ‘You’re sort of OK yourself.’

‘Just sort of OK?’ she echoed, distractedly tugging at his belt buckle as if the world’s survival depended on it, then jerking his trousers and boxer shorts sharply down over his shoes.

‘In the sense of being the most beautiful, incredible, gorgeous woman on this planet.’

‘So there are more beautiful women than me on other planets?’ In one deft movement, Cleo dug her fingers into the glass, popped another ice cube in her mouth, then scooped more ice from the glass and pressed it against his balls.

For a reply, raw air shot out of Grace’s throat. Pleasure burned in his stomach, so intense it hurt. He pulled the silky garment off her shoulders and buried his mouth into her soft neck, as she took him in her lips, deeply, all the way down the shaft, burying her face in his tangled pubic hairs.

Grace stood, intoxicated with the heat of the night, the smell of her perfume, the touch of her skin, wishing, somewhere in a recess of his brain, that he could freeze this moment, this incredible moment of sheer, utter joy, bliss, freeze it forever, stay here, with her gripping him in her icy lips, that smile in her eyes, that sheer joy dancing in his soul.

Somewhere, just inches away, a shadow hovered. Munich . He pushed it away. A ghost, that was all. Just a ghost.

He wanted this woman, Cleo, so much. Not just now, this moment, but wanted her in his life. He adored her to bits. He felt more in love at this moment than he could imagine any man on the planet had ever been before. More in love than he had ever dared to think could happen to him again, after these nine long wilderness years.

Forcing his hands through her long, silky hair, his words gasped breathlessly. ‘God, Cleo, you are so –

– incredible –

– so amazing –

– so—’

Then, with his suit jacket still on, his trousers and striped boxer shorts around his ankles, half in and half out of his shirt, he was lying on top of her, on a thick, white pile rug on her polished oak floor, deep, so incredibly deep inside her, holding her in his arms, kissing this wild, writhing beast of so many contrasts.

He gripped her head tightly, pulling her mouth hard against his. Feeling her silky skin entwined around his. Feeling her insanely beautiful, lithe body. Sometimes she felt like a stunning, pedigree racehorse. Sometimes – now – as she suddenly broke her mouth away and stared at him in tense concentration, he saw a vulnerable little girl.

‘You won’t ever hurt me, will you, Roy?’ she asked plaintively.

‘Never.’

‘You’re incredible, you know that?’

‘You’re more incredible.’ He kissed her again.

She gripped the back of his head, pressing her fingers in so hard they hurt. ‘I want you to come staring into my eyes,’ she whispered intently.

Some time later he woke up, his right arm hurting like hell, and blinked, disoriented, unable to figure out for a moment where he was. Music was playing. A Dido song he recognized. He was staring up at a square glass tank. A solitary goldfish was swimming through what looked like the remains of a submerged miniature Greek temple.

Marlon?

But it wasn’t his fish tank. He tried to move his arm, but it was dead, like a big lump of jelly. He shook it. It wobbled. Then a tangled fuzz of blonde pubic hairs filled his eye-line. The view was replaced by a glass of whisky.

‘Sustenance?’ Cleo said, standing naked over him.

He took the glass in his good hand and sipped. God, it tasted good. He put it down and kissed her bare ankle. Then she lay down and snuggled up beside him. ‘OK, sleepyhead?’

Some life was returning to his arm. Enough to put it around her. They kissed. ‘Wassertime?’ he asked.

‘Two fifteen.’

‘I’m sorry. I – I didn’t – didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.’

She kissed each of his eyes in turn, very slowly. ‘You didn’t.’

He saw her beautiful face, and her blonde hair, in soft focus. Breathed in sweet scents of sweat and sex. Saw the goldfish again, swimming around, oblivious of them, having whatever kind of a good time a goldfish had. He saw candles burning. Plants. Funky abstract paintings on the walls. A wall-to-ceiling row of crammed bookshelves.

‘Want to go up to bed?’

‘Good plan,’ he said.

He tried to stand up, and it was then that he realized he was still half-dressed.

Shedding everything, holding Cleo’s hand in one hand and his tumbler in the other, he climbed, leadenly, up two flights of steep, narrow wooden stairs, then flopped on to a massive bed, with the softest sheets he had ever felt in his life, and Dido music still pumping out.

Cleo wrapped herself around him. Her hand slid down his stomach and wrapped around his genitals. ‘Is Big Boy sleepy?’

‘A little.’

She held the whisky to his lips. He sipped like a baby.

‘So, how was your day? Or would you like to sleep?’

He was trying to put his thoughts together. It was a good question. How the hell was his day?

What day?

It was coming back. Bit by bit. The eleven o’clock emergency briefing. No one had anything significant to report, except for himself. Brian Bishop’s move from the Hotel du Vin to the Lansdowne Place – and the strange explanation he had given.

‘Complicated,’ he said, nuzzling up against her right breast, taking her nipple in his mouth and then kissing it. ‘You are the most beautiful woman in the world. Did anyone ever tell you?’

‘You.’ She grinned. ‘Only you.’

‘Goes to show. No other man on this planet has any taste.’

She kissed his forehead. ‘Actually, this may come as a surprise from a slapper like me, but I haven’t tried them all.’