barbecue.’
Now he understood the reticence in her voice when he had suggested earlier today that they had a barbecue this evening. ‘A barbecue? What the hell do you barbecue in a thing that size? Whales? Dinosaurs? An entire fucking herd of Aberdeen Angus?’
‘The list price new is over eight thousand pounds. I got it for three thousand!’ she exclaimed.
Tom turned away, his temper just a few threads from fraying completely. ‘You’re unbelievable, my darling. We’ve already got a perfectly decent kettle barbecue.’
‘It’s rusting.’
‘So, you could get a brand new one from Homebase for about seventy quid. You’ve spent
‘No, I don’t – it’s not – not that big when it’s assembled. It just looks so cool!’
‘You’ll have to send it back.’ Then he paused, looking around. ‘Where are the kids?’
‘I told them I needed to speak to you before you saw them. I warned them that Daddy might not be too pleased.’ She slipped her arms around him. ‘Look, there’s something I haven’t told you – I sort of wanted it to be a surprise.’ She gave him a kiss.
Christ, he wondered, what now? Was she going to tell him she was pregnant?
‘I’ve got a job!’
The words actually jolted a smile out of him.
Half an hour later, after he had read Jessica several pages of Poppy Cat Loves Rainbows, then Max a chapter of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and had watered his tomatoes in the greenhouse, and the raspberry canes, strawberries and courgettes in the strip of soil beside it, he was seated with Kellie at the wooden table on their terrace, with a massive vodka martini in his hand, catching the last rays of the evening sun on their garden. They clinked glasses. Near his feet, Lady crunched contentedly on a bone.
Len Wainwright’s head was visible, through the wisteria Kellie had trained along the top of the fence to give them added privacy, moving along, down towards his shed. Len had spent a lot of time, time that Tom could not afford, talking him through the various stages in the construction of this shed. But he had never actually explained its purpose. Kellie had once suggested that he was going to murder his wife and put her underneath. It had seemed funny at the time; Tom wasn’t smiling any more.
The air smelled sweet and was still, other than the busy evening chatter of birds. It was a time of year he normally loved, a time of day when he normally unwound and began enjoying life. But not this evening. Nothing seemed to calm the undefined fear that just went round and round inside him.
‘I – I didn’t know you… I – I mean I thought you weren’t keen on, you know, being apart from the kids, working?’ he said.
‘Jessica’s now started at nursery school, so I have time,’ she replied, sipping her wine. ‘It’s a new hotel started up in Lewes – I’ve been offered a job on the front desk, flexi-hours, starting Monday week.’
‘Why hotel work? You’ve never done hotel work. Why don’t you go back to teaching if you want to work again?’
‘I feel like doing something different. They’ll train me. There’s nothing to it. It’s mostly dealing with stuff on the computer.’
Giving you the opportunity to stay on eBay all day long, Tom thought, but said nothing. He took a gulp of his drink and started doing some mental calculations. If Kellie could earn enough just to cover her purchases that would be a considerable help. But three thousand pounds off her credit card today for the damned monster barbecue… It would take her months to earn that. Meantime he was going to have to fund it. Then his mobile phone, which he had left in his den, began to ring.
They caught each other’s eyes. He saw the flash of fear in Kellie’s, and wondered if she saw it in his own, also.
He hurried upstairs, and saw with relief on the caller display it was Chris Webb.
‘Hi, Chris,’ he said. ‘Have you found out anything from the disc?’
The techie’s voice was sour. ‘No, and it doesn’t look like I’m going to.’
‘How come?’
‘I got home and my whole place has been ransacked. Someone’s been through everything, and I mean everything. It’ll take a week to sort this lot out.’
‘Christ. Have you had much taken?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I haven’t.’ There was a long pause during which Tom heard the click of what sounded like a cigarette lighter and a sharp inhalation. ‘In fact there seems to be only one damned thing missing.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Your CD.’
23
Alison Vosper, the Assistant Chief Constable, was the boss to whom Roy Grace ultimately had to answer. She possessed a mercurial temper, turning her from sweetness and light one moment to very sour the next. Some years back she had been given the sobriquet No. 27 by a wag in the force, naming her after a sweet-and-sour dish at a local Chinese takeaway. It had stuck, although it seemed to Grace it was probably time to change it, as he could not remember the last time she had actually been in a sweet mood.
And she most certainly was not in one today.
Nine o’clock on this Friday morning found him standing on the deep pile carpet of Vosper’s office, in front of her desk, with that same sick feeling in the pit of his stomach he used to get when told to report to the headmaster’s office at school. It was ridiculous for a man of his age to be nervous of a superior, but Alison Vosper had that effect on him, as indeed she did on everyone, whether they cared to admit it or not.
He had been summoned here ostensibly to give her a private briefing in advance of the daily press conference, but there wasn’t a whole lot to say. Nearly forty-eight hours on, they did not know who the victim was and they had no suspect.
One thing Grace had learned in his years as a police officer was how much importance senior officers attached to letting the public feel they were getting results. From the standpoint of trying to make the great unwashed feel all warm and fuzzy about the police, Grace had the feeling that the superiors sometimes considered on balance that it was better to bang somebody into custody, however innocent they might be, and at least show they were doing something, than to have to admit lamely to a room full of journalists trying to flog column inches that they hadn’t a clue.
Unlike the modern, soulless building of the CID headquarters at Sussex House where he was now based, the big cheeses were all housed in this handsome Queen Anne mansion, at the centre of the untidy cluster of buildings that comprised Sussex Police headquarters, on the edge of the ancient county town of Lewes.
The building’s fine original features had been left intact in most of the grander offices, in particular the delicate stucco work and the ornate ceilings. Alison Vosper’s was a fine example. Her ground-floor room was immaculate, with a fine view out over a manicured lawn, and it was furnished with elegant antiques which gave a sense of both authority and permanence.
The centrepiece was a large expanse of polished rosewood desk on which sat a black-edged blotter, a slim crystal vase containing three purple tulips, framed photographs of her husband – a police officer several years older but three ranks her junior – and her two children, a boy and a girl, immaculate in their school uniforms, an ammonite pen holder, and as always a stack of the morning’s papers fanned out. Mercifully Grace did not feature on any of the front pages.
Assistant Chief Constable Alison Vosper was not only sour this morning, she was extremely frosty, an effect enhanced by her starchy-looking high-necked blouse the colour of ice, cinched at the front by an equally icy-looking diamante brooch. Even her perfume had an acidic tang to it.
As usual Vosper did not invite him to sit down – a technique she had long used on all juniors as a way of keeping meetings short and to the point. Grace informed her of everything that had happened since yesterday’s very late briefing. The only visible reaction he got was when he came to the beetle – enough revulsion to show
