you going to be?’
‘I’ll know more later.’
‘I
‘They like her music?’
‘Like it?’ He rolled his eyes. ‘They go nuts when they see her on television. Every kid in England loves her. You know how big she is?’ Then he grinned. ‘Actually I suppose you don’t, you’re too old.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I mean it. At your age, you’re probably dreaming about Vera Lynn. Everyone younger than you is dreaming about Gaia.’
‘Yep, well I’m going to be dreaming about her too, from now on. Nightmares.’
‘She’s awesome. I’m telling you. Awesome!’
Grace nodded, thinking to himself. Gaia was truly awesome. Awesome news for Brighton. A megastar. The film would be a massive global boost to the tourism so much of this city depended on.
And he knew that if anything happened to her here, on his watch, it wouldn’t just be the city of Brighton that would forever be tainted. He would be too.
30
His moist lips closed greedily around the fat soft tobacco leaf of the Cohiba Siglo. He sucked the dense smoke into his mouth, blew it out towards the ceiling, then picked up the crystal tumbler and drained the last of the thirty-year-old Glenlivet.
This was the life. A great deal better than prison, oh yes. You could get most stuff that you wanted inside, if you knew your way around the system and had influence, the way Amis Smallbone did. But nothing compared to being free. One of the girls – a redhead, naked except for her ankle bracelet – stood up from the sofa to get him a refill. The other stayed closely at his side, massaging his crotch through his trousers, slowly bringing a part of him back to life again.
He tried to keep his focus on his pleasures tonight. Saturday night. His first taste of freedom in a decade and a quarter. A porn movie was playing on the home cinema screen in front of him. Two blonde lezzies. Yeah. He liked a bit of girl-on-girl action. He liked this big room in this fuck-off mansion set back behind electric gates in Brighton’s swanky Dyke Road Avenue.
He’d lived in a place even bigger than this once upon a time, just a few streets away. Before a certain Brighton copper took it all away from him.
The pad’s owner, his old mate Benny Julius, with his pot belly and dodgy toupee, was down in the basement Jacuzzi with the other three girls. This was a
He winced as the girl slipped her hand inside his zip. Then she whispered into his ear, ‘Oooh, it’s quite small – but it’s ferocious, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, ferocious,’ he whispered back, before his mouth was smothered by hers.
That was how he was feeling. Ferocious. His focus was slipping from his pleasures.
Detective Sergeant Roy Grace.
Been promoted a few times now, he’d read.
He was stiff as a rock.
‘Like a pencil,’ she breathed, huskily, into his ear. ‘Like a tiny little pencil stub!’
He smashed her across the face with the flat of his hand so hard she fell to the floor. ‘Fuck you, bitch,’ he said.
‘You couldn’t if you tried,’ she retorted, rubbing her cheek, looking dazed. ‘It’s not big enough to get it in.’
He staggered to his feet, but the drink had got there first. His natty grey suede loafers embedded themselves in the deep pile of the carpet and he fell flat on his face, snapping the cigar in half, showering dark grey ash across the white tufts. As he lay there he stabbed a finger at her. ‘Remember who you fucking work for, bitch.’
‘Yeah, I do. I remember what he told me and all. About why you’re called
‘You fucking-’ he climbed to his knees and lunged at her. But all Amis Smallbone saw, for a fleeting instant, was her left foot coming out of nowhere towards his face. An elementary kickboxing manoeuvre. Striking him beneath his chin, jerking his head upwards and back. It felt, as his consciousness dissolved into sparking white light, as if her foot had gone clean through his head and out the back of his skull.
31
As he drove his silver police Ford Focus from the Sunday morning briefing meeting on
His biggest worry was Cleo, who’d had a restless night with the baby kicking, and was not feeling well this morning. She was still very shaken from the vandalism of her car, and he wanted to get back to her as soon as possible.
There had been no developments on ‘Berwick Male’, as the headless, armless and legless torso had been named. Their best hope was pinned at the moment on a DNA hit, and they should hear from the lab in the morning.
Tomorrow he had to go to London, to Inner Temple, for a meeting with the prosecuting barrister on the Carl Venner snuff movie case. He needed to find time today to meet with the Case Officer DC Mike Gorringe and financial investigator Emily Curtis, to review their evidence files and go through his Policy Book. They would be grilled tomorrow as if they were in the dock, and needed to have all their answers ready. And right now he had to attend a meeting with Chief Superintendent Graham Barrington.
His phone rang, and he answered it on hands-free.
‘Mr Grace?’ said an unfamiliar, chirpy voice.
He answered with a hesitant ‘Yes?’
‘It’s Terry Robinson, from Frosts Garage. You popped in a few weeks ago looking at an Alfa Brera?’
‘Right, yes,’ he said, remembering vaguely. There was a strange and irritating clicking sound on the line for some seconds, similar to the noise he heard before. Either a bad connection or something wrong with his phone, he thought.
‘You asked me to let you know if any four-door Alfas came in. Are you still in the market for one?’
‘Um, yes, I am.’
‘We’ve got a year-old Giulietta. High spec, it’s a beautiful car. Got a bit of mileage on the clock, but you said you didn’t mind that, didn’t you?’
‘How many miles?’
‘Forty-eight thousand. One owner. In Etna black. It’s a stunning looking vehicle, sir. We’ve already got enquiries on it. I’d recommend you come and take a look as soon as possible.’
‘Doesn’t black show the dirt badly?’
‘Black always looks best when clean, but it’s the most popular of all colours. And it suits this car very well. It looks stunning.’
Grace did a quick mental calculation. ‘I could try and get over early afternoon. What time do you shut today?’
‘Four o’clock, sir. But I can’t guarantee the car will still be there. If someone puts a deposit on the vehicle, that
