Peter James - Not Dead Enough

Thirty seconds later, as they passed under it, Grace’s eyes swung from his watch to the car’s milometer. ‘OK, you can slow down now!’

‘No way!’

Bubba Sparxxx ended, to Grace’s relief. He leaned forward to turn down the volume, but Branson protested. ‘It’s Mobb Deep coming on next, man. He’s like well out of your depth, but he’s my kind of music.’

‘If you don’t slow down, I’m going to find some Cliff Richard!’ Grace threatened.

Branson slowed down, a fraction, shaking his head.

For a moment, Grace tuned out Branson and his music and concentrated on some mental calculations. They had covered just over twenty-eight miles from outside Bishop’s apartment building in Westbourne Grove, Notting Hill, some of which was through built-up, urban areas and some on dual carriageway and motorway.

There were a number of different routes that Bishop could have taken, and analysis of all speed cameras and CCTV cameras covering them might in time reveal the one he had chosen. There had been some heavy traffic coming out of London, and Grace knew that on different days, at different times, you could be lucky or unlucky.

Tonight they had covered this distance in thirty-six minutes. At legal speeds, the journey would have taken closer to an hour. Branson really had been driving like the wind, and it was a miracle they hadn’t been stopped anywhere. With lighter traffic, or taking a different route, he reckoned it might be possible to knock five to ten minutes off this time. Which meant Bishop could have driven it in twenty-six minutes.

There were a number of factors to be considered. Phil Taylor’s restaurant receipt showed the bill had been paid at ten fifty-four on Thursday night. The clock on the credit card machine wouldn’t necessarily be 100 percent accurate – it could easily be a few minutes fast or slow. He made an assumption for the moment, erring on the side of caution to give Bishop the benefit of the doubt, that it was five minutes slow. So, he assumed Bishop had left the restaurant more or less exactly at eleven on Thursday night. The cab journey, assuming no traffic hold-ups, could have been done in fifteen minutes. Add on a couple of minutes for Bishop to get his car out of the underground parking area beneath his flat.

Bishop could have been in his car, on Westbourne Grove, by eleven twenty. The ANPR camera on the bridge of Junction 9 at Gatwick had clocked him at eleven forty-seven.

Twenty-seven minutes to do a journey that had just taken them thirty-six. And Bishop had a much more powerful car. The fastest saloon car in the world.

The ANPR camera clock wouldn’t necessarily be dead accurate either. There was a whole bunch of moving parts to this time-line. But what he was now certain of was that it was possible.

He turned the radio off.

‘Hey!’ Branson protested.

‘And don’t start playing that stuff in my house, or you’ll be out in the chicken shed.’

‘You don’t have a chicken shed.’

‘I’ll buy one in the morning.’

‘You’re crap at DIY. You’d never put it together.’

‘So you’ll have to hope it’s not raining.’ Then, serious, he asked, ‘Give me your assessment of Phil Taylor as a witness?’

‘He’s straight. Well flash, with that car and all. Cocksure.’

‘Covering for his client? In league with Bishop for the insurance money?’

Branson shook his head. ‘Didn’t strike me as the type. Ex-Inland Revenue special investigator? Nothing to say anyone isn’t a villain, but he just seemed straight to me. Regular guy, he was all right. But that car, though, bastard! I hate him for that!’

‘I think he’s straight too. And he’d come over as a credible witness in court.’

‘So?’

‘You did the journey in thirty-six minutes. On my calculations, Bishop would have needed to have done it in twenty-seven, but there’s give or take on either side.’

‘I could have gone faster.’

Grace winced at the thought. ‘You did it exactly right.’

‘So?’

‘We’re going to charge him.’

Grace pulled out his mobile phone and dialled the home number of the Crown Prosecution Service solicitor, Chris Binns, with whom he had already been liaising over the past couple of days, whose sanction he would require in order to formally charge Bishop. He informed the lawyer of his latest findings tonight, and the time constraints they were under with Bishop’s detention.

They arranged to meet at six thirty a.m. at Sussex House.

101

Cleo lay on a sofa in the downstairs living area, with an almost empty bottle of rosé wine on the floor and a completely empty glass lying next to it. A DVD of Memoirs of a Geisha was playing on the large television screen, but she was struggling to keep her eyes open.

She shouldn’t really have drunk anything, she knew, being on call tonight – and she had an essay to write for her philosophy course – but finding Fish on the floor had really upset her. It was strange, she was thinking, that she saw dead human beings all day long and, with the exception of children, remained emotionally detached from them. But seeing little Fish lying sideways across the join between two oak planks, much of her vivid gold colour faded to a dull bronze, her opaque eye staring up at her, accusatory, as if saying, Why didn’t you come home and rescue me?

And how the hell had the little creature got there? If it had been yesterday, she could have blamed her cleaning lady, Marija, because the clumsy woman was always breaking things. But she didn’t come on Tuesdays. Could a cat have got in here? A bird? Or had poor Fish been trying out some wild new exercise?

She reached out her arm, poured the last drops into her glass and drained it. On the screen, the Geisha was being taught the arts of pleasuring a man. She watched keenly, suddenly feeling more awake now, getting her second wind. She had put this film on in the hope of learning a few things she could try out on Roy.

Which was why all she had on beneath her silk dressing gown was some very slinky and revealing cream lace underwear that she had bought on Saturday, at an outrageous cost, from a specialist shop in Brighton. All evening she had been planning what she would do when he arrived. She would open the door, kiss him, then stand back and let the front of the dressing gown fall open.

She was longing to see his reaction! She had once read that men got turned on by women who took the lead. And it was a real turn-on for her just lying here, in this outfit, thinking about it. The clock on the front of the video player read eight minutes past midnight. Where are you? she wondered.

As if in response, her home phone rang. She put the cordless handset to her ear and answered. It was Roy, on a crackly mobile.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘How are you doing?’

‘I’m OK. Where are you, you poor thing?’

‘Five minutes from the office. I’ve got a couple of things to quickly sort for the morning – I could be with you in half an hour. Is it going to be too late to come over?’

‘No, it won’t be too late at all! Just get here when you can. I’ll have a drink waiting for you. How’s it gone?’

‘Good. It was very good. Tiring, but worth the journey. Are you really sure you’d like me to come over?’

‘I’m totally sure, my darling! Making love is really a lot more fun with two people than one!’

She heard the call-waiting beep just as she hung up. The phone instantly rang again.

‘Hello?’ she answered.

And then, Shit! she thought, her heart sinking as she heard the voice at the other end. Bugger, bugger, bugger! Why now?

102

Skunk’s phone pinged. An incoming text. He disentangled himself from a half-undressed Bethany, desperately trying to get his bearings. He’d been asleep, his body was all cramped up, he couldn’t find the fucking phone. And he had the shakes badly now.