Dead Like You

by Peter James

  Tuesday 6 January

  It was shortly after 10 p.m. when Roy Grace flicked the right-turn indicator. Driving faster than was sensible in the pelting rain because he was so late, he nearly lost the back end of the car on the slippery tarmac as he swung off wide, quiet New Church Road into the even quieter residential street that led down to Hove seafront, where he and Sandy lived.

  The elderly 3-Series BMW creaked and groaned, and the brakes made a scraping noise in protest. The car was months overdue for a service, but he was even more broke than ever, thanks in part to an insanely expensive diamanté tennis bracelet he had bought Sandy for a surprise for Christmas, and the service was going to have to wait a few more months yet.

  Out of habit, he clocked each of the vehicles parked in the driveways and on the street, but there was nothing that seemed out of place. As he neared his home, he carefully checked those isolated patches of darkness where the orange haze of the street lighting did not quite reach.

  One thing about being a copper, arresting villains and usually facing them in court months later, you never knew who might harbour a grudge against you. It was rare that revenge attacks happened, but Grace knew a couple of colleagues who had received anonymous hate mail, and one whose wife had found a death threat against her carved on a tree in her local park. It was not a worry you lost sleep over, but it was an occupational hazard. You tried to keep your address a secret, but villains had ways of finding out such things. You could never, ever totally let your guard down, and that was something Sandy resented about him.

  It particularly irked her that Roy always picked a pub or restaurant table that gave him the best possible view of the room and the door, and that he always tried to sit with his back against the wall.

  He smiled as he saw the downstairs lights of his house were on, which meant Sandy was still up, although he was a little sad to see the Christmas lights were now gone. He turned right on to the driveway and stopped in front of the integral garage door. Sandy’s even more clapped-out little black Golf would be parked inside, in the dry.

  This house was Sandy’s dream. Shortly before she had found it, she had missed a period and their hopes had risen, only to be dashed a few weeks later. It had plunged her into a deep depression – so much so that he had become seriously worried about her. Then she rang him at the office, to say she had found a house. It was beyond their budget, she’d told him, but it had such great potential. He would love it!

  They’d bought the four-bedroom semi just over a year ago. It was a big jump up the property ladder from the small flat in Hangleton where they had first lived after their marriage, and a financial stretch for both of them. But Sandy had set her heart on the house, and she’d convinced Roy they should go for it. He’d agreed against his better judgement, and knew the real reason he had said yes. It was because he could see how desperately unhappy Sandy was because of her inability to conceive and he wanted so much to please her, somehow.

  Now he switched off the engine and climbed out into the freezing, pelting rain, feeling exhausted. He leaned in again, lifted the bulging attaché case containing a ton of files he needed to read through tonight off the passenger seat, hurried up to the front door and let himself in.

  ‘Hi, darling!’ he called out as he entered the hallway. It looked strangely bare without the Christmas decorations.

  He heard the sound of voices from the television. There was a tantalizing aroma of cooking meat. Ravenous, he shrugged off his mackintosh, hung it on an antique coat rack they’d bought from a stall on the Kensington Street market, plonked his case down and walked into the living room.

  Sandy, in a thick dressing gown and covered in a blanket, was lying on the sofa, cradling a glass of red wine and watching the news. A reporter was standing, holding a microphone, in a gutted, torched village.

  ‘I’m sorry, darling,’ he said.

  He smiled at her. She looked so beautiful, with her damp hair carelessly hanging around her face, and no make-up. That was one of the things he loved most of all about her, that she looked just as good without make-up as with it. Always an early riser, he loved some mornings to lie awake in bed for a few minutes, just watching her face.

  ‘Sorry about what’s happening in Kosovo?’ she retorted.

  He bent down and kissed her. She smelt of soap and shampoo.

  ‘No, for being so late. I was going to help you with the decorations.’

  ‘Why aren’t you sorry about Kosovo?’

  ‘I am sorry about Kosovo,’ he said. ‘I’m also sorry about Rachael Ryan, who’s still missing, and I’m sorry for her parents and her sister.’

  ‘Are they more important to you than Kosovo?’

  ‘I need a drink,’ he said. ‘And I’m starving.’

  ‘I’ve already eaten, I couldn’t wait any longer.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m late. I’m sorry about Kosovo. I’m sorry about every damned problem in the world that I can’t deal with.’

  He knelt and pulled a bottle of Glenfiddich from the drinks cabinet, then, as he carried it out to the kitchen, she called after him, ‘I’ve left you a plate of lasagne in the microwave and there’s salad in the fridge.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he called back.

  In the kitchen he poured himself four fingers of whisky, popped in some ice cubes, retrieved his favourite glass ashtray from the dishwasher and went back into the living room. He pulled off his jacket, then removed his tie and plonked himself down in his armchair as she was taking up the whole sofa. He lit a Silk Cut cigarette.

  Almost instantly, like a Pavlovian reaction, Sandy batted away imaginary smoke.

  ‘So, how was your day?’ he asked. Then he reached down and picked a pine needle off the floor.

  A young, attractive woman with spiky black hair and wearing battle fatigues appeared on the screen, against a background of burnt buildings. She was holding a microphone and talking to camera about the terrible human cost of the war in Bosnia.

  ‘That’s the Angel of Mostar,’ Sandy said, nodding at the screen. ‘Sally Becker – she’s from Brighton. She’s doing something about the war there. What are you doing about it, Detective Sergeant, hoping soon to be Detective Inspector, Grace?’

  ‘I’ll start dealing with the war in Bosnia, and all the other problems of the world, when we’ve won the war in Brighton, which is the one I’m paid to fight.’ He put the pine needle in the ashtray.

  Sandy shook her head. ‘You don’t get it, do you, my love? That young woman, Sally Becker, is a hero – rather, a heroine.’

  He nodded. ‘She is, yes. The world needs people like her. But—’

  ‘But what?’

  He dragged on his cigarette and then sipped his whisky, feeling the burning, warming sensation deep in his gullet.

  ‘No one person can solve all the problems in the world.’

  She turned towards him. ‘OK, so talk me through the one you’ve been solving.’ She turned the volume on the television down.

  He shrugged.

  ‘Come on, I want to hear. You never tell me about your work. You always ask me about my day and I tell you about all the weirdo people I have to deal with who come into the medical centre. But every time I ask you, I get some crap about confidentiality. So, soon-to-be Detective Inspector, tell me about your day for a change. Tell me why for ten nights running you’ve left me to eat on my own, yet again. Tell me. Remember our wedding vows. Wasn’t there something about not having secrets?’

  ‘Sandy,’ he said. ‘Come on! I don’t need this!’

  ‘No, you come on for a change. Tell me about your day. Tell me how the search for Rachael Ryan is going.’

  He took another deep drag on his cigarette. ‘It’s going bloody nowhere,’ he said.

  Sandy smiled. ‘Well, there’s a first! Don’t think I’ve ever heard you be so honest in all the years we’ve been married. Thank you, soon-to-be Detective Inspector!’

  He grinned. ‘Shut up about that. I might not get through.’ />
  ‘You will. You’re the force’s blue-eyed boy. You’ll get the promotion. You know why?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it means more to you than your marriage.’

  ‘Sandy! Come on, that’s—’

  He laid his cigarette in the ashtray, jumped up from his chair, sat on the edge of the sofa and tried to put an arm around her, but she resisted.

  ‘Go on. Tell me about your day,’ she said. ‘I want every detail. If you truly love me, that is. I’ve never actually heard a minute-by-minute account of your day before. Not once.’

  He stood up again and crushed the cigarette out, then moved the ashtray to the table beside the sofa and sat back down.

  ‘I’ve spent the whole day looking for this young woman, all right? Just as I’ve been doing for the past week.’

  ‘Yeah, fine, but what did that entail?’

  ‘You really want to know the details?’

  ‘Yes, I do. I really want to know the details. You have a problem with that?’

  He lit another cigarette and inhaled. Then, with the smoke jetting from his mouth, he said, ‘I went round with a detective sergeant – a guy called Norman Potting, he’s not the most tactful officer in the force – to see the missing woman’s parents again. They’re in a terrible state, as you can imagine. We tried to reassure them about all we were doing, and took down every detail they could give us about their daughter that they might not already have done. Potting managed to upset them both.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘By asking a lot of awkward questions about her sex life. They needed to be asked – but there are ways of doing it . . .’

  He took another sip of his drink and another drag, then laid the cigarette down in the ashtray. She was looking at him inquisitively.

  ‘And then?’

  ‘You really want to hear everything else?’

  ‘I do, I really want to hear everything else.’

  ‘OK, so we’ve been trying to prise out of them everything about Rachael’s life. Did she have any friends or close work colleagues we haven’t already talked to? Had anything like this ever happened before? We tried to build up a picture of her habits.’

  ‘What were her habits?’

  ‘Phoning her parents every day, without fail. That’s the most significant one.’

  ‘And now she hasn’t phoned them for ten days?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Is she dead, do you think?’

  ‘We’ve checked her bank accounts to see if any money’s been withdrawn and it hasn’t. She has a credit card and debit card, and no transactions have taken place since the day before Christmas Eve.’

  He drank some more whisky and was surprised to find that he’d emptied the glass. Ice cubes tumbled against his lips as he drained the last drops.

  ‘She’s either being held against her will or she’s dead,’ Sandy said flatly. ‘People don’t just vanish off the face of the earth.’

  ‘They do,’ he said. ‘Every day. Thousands of people every year.’

  ‘But if she had that close connection to her parents, she wouldn’t want to hurt them deliberately, like this, surely?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘What does your copper’s nose tell you?’

  ‘That it doesn’t smell good.’

  ‘What happens next?’

  ‘We’re widening the search, the house-to-house enquiries are expanding to cover a bigger area, we’re drafting in more officers. We’re searching the parks, the waste dumps, the surrounding countryside. CCTV footage is being examined. Checks are being made at all stations, harbours and airports. Her friends are being questioned and her ex-fiancé. And we’re using a criminal psychologist – a profiler – to help.’

  After some moments Sandy asked, ‘Is this the shoe rapist again, do you think? The Shoe Man?’

  ‘She’s mad about shoes, apparently. But this is not his MO. He’s never taken one of his victims.’

  ‘Didn’t you once tell me that criminals get bolder and more violent – that it’s an escalating thing?’

  ‘That’s true. The guy who starts out as a harmless flasher can turn into a violent rapist. So can a burglar, as he gets bolder.’

  Sandy sipped her wine. ‘I hope you find her quickly and that she’s OK.’

  Grace nodded. ‘Yup,’ he said quietly. ‘I hope so too.’

  ‘Will you?’

  He had no answer. Not, at least, the one she wanted to hear.

  43

  Saturday 10 January

  Yac did not like drunk people, especially drunk slappers, especially drunk slappers who got into his taxi. Especially this early on a Saturday night, when he was busy reading the latest on the Shoe Man in the Argus.

  There were five drunk girls, all without coats, all in skimpy dresses, all legs and flesh, displaying their breasts and tattoos and pierced belly buttons. It was January! Didn’t they feel the cold?

  He was only licensed to carry four of them. He’d told them that, but they’d been too drunk to listen, all piling in at the rank on East Street, shouting, chattering, giggling, telling him to take them to the pier.

  The taxi was full of their scents: Rock ’n Rose, Fuel for Life, Red Jeans, Sweetheart, Shalimar. He recognized them all. Uh-huh. In particular, he recognized the Shalimar.

  His mother’s perfume.

  He told them it was only a short walk, that with the Saturday-night traffic they’d be quicker to walk. But they insisted he take them.

  ‘It’s bleedin’ freezing, for Christ’s sake!’ one of them said.

  She was a plump little thing, wearing the Shalimar, with a mass of fair hair and half-bared breasts that looked like they’d been inflated with a bicycle pump. She reminded him a little of his mother. Something in the coarseness, the shape of her figure and the colour of her hair.

  ‘Yeah,’ said another. ‘Sodding bleedin’ freezing!’

  One of them lit a cigarette. He could smell the acrid smoke. That was against the law too, he told her, staring at her crossly in the mirror.

  ‘Want a drag, gorgeous?’ she said, pouting, holding out the cigarette to him.

  ‘I don’t smoke,’ he said.

  ‘Too young, are you?’ said another, and they broke into peals of squeaky laughter.

  He nearly took them to the skeletal remains of the West Pier, half a mile further along the coast, just to teach them a lesson not to risk a taxi driver’s livelihood. But he didn’t, for one reason only.

  The shoes and the perfume the plump one was wearing.

  Shoes that he particularly liked. Black and silver sparkly Jimmy Choos. Size four. Uh-huh. His mother’s size.

  Yac wondered what she would look like naked, just wearing those shoes. Would she look like his mother?

  At the same time, he wondered if she had a high- or low-flush loo in her home. But the problem with people who were drunk was that you couldn’t have a proper conversation with them. Waste of time. He drove in silence, thinking about her shoes. Smelling her perfume. Watching her in the mirror. Thinking more and more how much she looked like his mother had once looked.

  He made a right turn into North Street and crossed over Steine Gardens, waited at the lights, then turned right and queued at the roundabout before coming to a halt in front of the gaudy lights of Brighton Pier.

  Just £2.40 showed on the meter. He’d been sitting in the queue at the cab rank for thirty minutes. Not much for it. He wasn’t happy. And he was even less happy when someone handed him £2.50 and told him to keep the change.

  ‘Huh!’ he said. ‘Huh!’

  The man who owned the taxi expected big money on a Saturday night.

  The girls disgorged themselves, while he alternated between watching the Jimmy Choos and glancing anxiously around for any sign of a police car. The girls were cursing the cold wind, clutching their hair, tottering around on their high heels, then, still holding the rear door of the taxi open, began arguing among themselves about why they’d come her
e and not stayed in the bar they’d just left.

  He reached across, called out, ‘Excuse me, ladies!’ then pulled the door shut and drove off along the seafront, the taxi reeking of Shalimar perfume and cigarette smoke and alcohol. A short distance along, he pulled over on to the double yellow lines, beside the railings of the promenade, and switched off the engine.

  A whole bunch of thoughts were roaring around inside his head. Jimmy Choo shoes. Size four. His mother’s size. He breathed deeply, savouring the Shalimar. It was coming up to 7 p.m. His on-the-hour, every hour, mug of tea. That was very important. He needed to have that.

  But he had something else on his mind that he needed more.

  Uh-huh.

  44

  Saturday 10 January

  Despite the cold and the biting wind, several groups of people, mostly youngsters, milled around the entrance to the pier. Garish lights sparkled and twinkled all along the structure, which stretched almost a third of a mile out into the inky darkness of the English Channel. A Union Jack crackled in the wind. A giant sandwich-board hoarding in the middle of the entrance advertised a live band. The ice-cream stall wasn’t doing much business, but there were ragged queues at the Southern Fried Chicken, Doughnut, Meat Feast and Fish and Chips counters.

  Darren Spicer, wearing a donkey jacket, jeans, woollen mittens and a baseball cap pulled low, was flying high, totally oblivious to the cold, as he stood in the queue to buy a bag of chips. The aroma of frying batter was tantalizing and he was hungry. He stuck his bent roll-up in his mouth, rubbed his hands together and checked his watch. Eight minutes to seven. He needed to be back at the St Patrick’s night shelter by 8.30, lock-up time, or he would lose his bed, and it was a brisk twenty-five minutes’ walk from here, unless he jumped on a bus or, more extravagantly, took a taxi.

  Tucked into one of his big inside poacher’s pockets was a copy of the Argus he’d pulled out of a wheelie bin at the Grand Hotel, where he had registered earlier, to start work on Monday, doing a job that would utilize his electrical skills. The hotel was replacing its wiring, a lot of which did not appear to have been touched for decades. On Monday he would be in the basement, running new cables from the emergency generator to the laundry room.