Not Dead Enough

The Detective Sergeant hesitated, then said, ‘That is something we will be dealing with during the interview process.’

Lloyd made another note with the roller-ball pen in his book. Then he smiled at Branson. ‘Is there anything else you can tell me at this stage?’

Branson glanced at Nicholl and shook his head.

‘Right. I’d like to see my client now.’

88

It was now almost completely dark outside. Distractedly, Roy Grace ran his eye down the pages and pages on his screen of today’s incident reports log, looking for anything that might be relevant to the two cases. He found nothing. He scanned through his email inbox, deleted several where he had just been copied in and fired off a few quick responses. Then he looked at his watch. It was fifteen minutes since Cleo had said she would call him right back.

He felt a sudden knot of anxiety in his stomach, thinking how much he cared for her; how he could not bear the thought of anything happening to her. As Sandy had been for so many years, Cleo was starting to feel like the rock to which his life was moored. A good, solid, beautiful, funny, loving, caring and wise rock. But sometimes in shadow, not sunlight.

Roy, this is not the woman Lesley and I saw last week. We really are convinced we saw Sandy. Best, Dick

God, he thought, it would have been so much simpler if Dick had replied to him that yes, this was the woman they had seen. It still wouldn’t have given him the closure he sought, but at least it would have put Munich back in its box. Now it was drawing him towards another journey there. But at this moment, he wasn’t able to think about that. He was remembering only too vividly that some creep had slashed the roof of Cleo’s MG yesterday, in broad daylight, outside the mortuary.

The place attracted every imaginable kind of weirdo and sicko, of which Brighton had more than its fair share. He still found it hard to understand how she could enjoy working there as much as she claimed she did. Sure, you could get used to just about anything. But that didn’t mean you could like anything.

Car roofs mostly got slashed in urban streets, either by people breaking in to steal something or by swaggering yobs late at night, high or drunk, who were passing by. People didn’t pass by the mortuary car park, especially not on a hot Sunday afternoon. Nothing had been stolen from the car. It was just a nasty, malicious piece of vandalism. Probably some lowlife jealous of the car.

But was that person outside the mortuary now?

Call me. Please call me.

He opened an attachment and tried to read through the agenda for this year’s International Homicide Investigators Association annual symposium, in New Orleans, now just a few weeks away. It was impossible to concentrate.

Then his phone rang. Grabbing it, he blurted in relief, ‘Hi!’

But it was Jane Paxton, telling him that Bishop was about to see his solicitor and she was heading over to the observation room at the custody block. She suggested that he came over in about ten minutes.

89

Brian Bishop sat alone in his silent cell, hunched forward on the edge of the bench that was also the bed. He could not remember ever feeling so low in his entire life. It seemed that half his world had been ripped away from him and the other half was turning against him. Even gentle, non-judgemental Robert Vernon had sounded less friendly than usual on the phone earlier. Why? Had word got round that he was damaged goods, to be left alone? Poisonous to touch?

Would it be Glenn and Barbara next? And the other couple he and Katie saw a lot of, Ian and Terrina? And the rest of the people he had once considered his friends?

His blue paper suit felt tight under the armpits and his toes could barely move inside the plimsolls, but he didn’t care. This was all a bad dream and some time soon he was going to wake up, and Katie would be all big smiles, sitting up in bed next to him, reading the Daily Mail gossip column, the page she always turned to first, a cup of tea beside her.

In his hands he held the yellow sheet he had been given, squinting at the blurred words, struggling to read them without his glasses.

SUSSEX POLICE

NOTICE OF RIGHTS AND ENTITLEMENT

REMEMEMBER YOUR RIGHTS

His cell door was opened suddenly by a pasty-faced man of about thirty, with no neck and the physique of a jelly baby, who looked as if he used to pump iron but had recently let his muscles run to fat. He was wearing the Reliance Security uniform of monogrammed white shirt with black epaulettes, black tie and black trousers, and was perspiring heavily.