by Peter James
Marcel had been seconded here in Sussex a few years back, on a six-month exchange, and they’d become good friends during this period. The officer had extended an open invitation for Grace to come and stay with him and his family at any time. He looked at his watch. Nine fifty-five. Munich was one hour ahead, so it really was late to be calling, but there was a good chance of catching him in.
As he reached out to pick up the phone, it rang.
‘Roy Grace,’ he answered.
It was Brian Bishop.
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42
Grace noted that Bishop had changed out of the golfing clothes he had been wearing earlier. He now had on an expensive-looking black blouson jacket over a white shirt, blue trousers and tan loafers, without socks. He looked more like a playboy on a night out than a man in mourning, he thought.
As if reading Grace’s mind as he sat down uneasily on the red armchair in the cramped Witness Interview Suite, Bishop said, ‘My outfit was selected from my wardrobe by your family liaison officer, Linda Buckley. Not quite my choice for the circumstances. Can you tell me when I will be allowed back in my house?’
‘As soon as possible, Mr Bishop. In a couple of days, I hope,’ Grace replied.
Bishop sat bolt upright, furious. ‘What? This is ridiculous!’
Grace looked at a rather livid graze on the man’s right hand. Branson came in with three beakers of water, set them down on the table and closed the door, remaining standing.
Gently, Grace said, ‘It’s a crime scene, Mr Bishop. Police practice these days is to preserve a scene like this as much as possible. Please understand it’s in all our interests, to help catch the perpetrator.’
‘Do you have a suspect?’ Bishop asked.
‘Before I come on to that, would you mind if we record this interview? It will be quicker than if we have to write down notes.’
Bishop gave a thin, wintry smile. ‘Does that mean I’m a suspect?’
‘Not at all,’ Grace assured him.
Bishop signalled his assent with his hand.
Glenn Branson switched on the audio and video recorders, announcing clearly, as he sat down, ‘It is ten twenty p.m., Friday 4 August. Detective Superintendent Grace and Detective Sergeant Branson interviewing Mr Brian Bishop.’
‘Do – do you have a suspect?’ Bishop asked again.
‘Not yet,’ Grace replied. ‘Is there anyone you can think of who might have done this?’
Bishop gave a half-laugh, as if the question was just too ridiculous. His eyes shot to the left. ‘No. No, I don’t.’
Grace watched his eyes, remembering from earlier. To the left was truth mode. Bishop had answered just a little too quickly, and almost a little too good-humouredly for a bereaved man. He’d seen this kind of behaviour before, the cool, slick, rehearsed answer to the questions; the lack of emotion. Bishop was displaying the classic signs of a man who had committed a murder. But that did not mean he had. That laughter could equally well have been from nerves.
Then his eyes dropped to the man’s right hand. To the abrasion on the back of it, just in from his thumb; it looked recent. ‘You’ve hurt your hand,’ he said.
Bishop glanced at his hand, then gave a dismissive shrug. ‘I – er – bashed it getting into a taxi.’
‘Would that be the taxi you took from the Hotel du Vin to the Lansdowne Place Hotel?’
‘Yes, I – I was putting a bag in the boot.’
‘Nasty,’ Grace said, making a mental note to get the taxi driver to verify that. He also noted that Bishop’s eyes darted to the right. To construct mode. Which indicated he was lying.
‘It looks quite a bad graze. What did the driver say?’ Grace glanced at Branson, who nodded.
‘Did he give you any first aid or anything?’ Branson asked.
Bishop looked at each of them in turn. ‘What is it with you guys? It’s like the bloody Inquisition. I want to help you. What the hell’s a graze on my hand got to do with anything?’
‘Mr Bishop, in our work we ask an awful lot of questions. I’m afraid it’s what we do. It’s in our nature. I’ve had a long day, and so has DS Branson, and I’m sure you must be exhausted. Please bear with us and answer our questions, and we’ll all be able to leave here quicker. The more you can help us, the sooner we’ll be able to catch your wife’s killer.’ Grace took a gulp of water, then said gently, ‘We’re a little curious as to why you checked out of the Hotel du Vin and went to the Lansdowne Place. Could you explain your reasons?’
Bishop’s eyes moved as if he was tracking the path of an insect across the carpet. Grace followed his line of sight but could see nothing.
‘Why?’ Bishop suddenly looked up, staring at him intently. ‘What do you mean? I was told to move there.’
Now it was Grace’s turn to frown. ‘By whom?’
‘Well – by the police. By you, I presume.’
‘I’m not with you.’
Bishop opened his arms expansively. He gave a good impression of sounding genuinely surprised. ‘I was called in my room. The officer said that the Hotel du Vin was being staked out by the press and you were moving me.’
‘What was the name of the officer?’
‘I – I don’t remember. Umm – it may have been Canning? DS Canning?’
Grace looked at Branson. ‘Know anything about this?’
‘Nothing,’ Branson replied.
‘Was it a male or female officer?’ Grace asked.
‘Male.’
‘DS Canning was his name? Are you sure?’
‘Yes. Canning. DS Canning. I think it was DS. Definitely Canning.’
‘What exactly did this man say to you?’ Grace watched his eyes intently. They darted left again.
‘That you’d booked me a room at the Lansdowne Place. A cab would be outside the rear entrance, by the staff door at the rear of the kitchens. That I should take the fire escape stairs down there.’
Grace wrote down the name DS Canning on his pad. ‘Did this officer call you on your mobile or on the hotel phone?’
‘On the room phone,’ Bishop said after some moments’ thought.
Grace cursed silently. That would make it harder to verify or trace. The hotel’s switchboard could log the time of incoming calls, but not their numbers. ‘What time was this?’
‘About five thirty.’
‘You checked into the Lansdowne Place and then went out. Where did you go?’
‘I went for a walk along the seafront.’ Bishop pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed his eyes. ‘Katie and I used to love it down there. She loved going on the beach. She was a keen swimmer.’ He paused and took a sip of water. ‘I needed to call my kids – they’re both abroad, on holiday. I . . .’ He lapsed into silence.
So did Roy Grace. There was no police officer called Canning on his team.
Excusing himself, the Detective Superintendent slipped out of the room and walked down the corridor to MIR One. It took him just a few clicks on a workstation keyboard to establish that there was no officer of that name in the entire Sussex police force.
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43
Shortly before midnight, Cleo opened her front door wearing an unlaced black silk camisole. It covered the top two inches of her pale, slender thighs and little else. In her outstretched hand was a tumbler of Glenfiddich on the rocks, filled to the brim. The only other things she had on were a tantalizing, deep, musky perfume and the dirtiest grin Roy Grace had ever seen on a woman’s face.
‘Wow! Now that’s what I call a—’ he started to say, when she kicked the door shut behind him, the camisole falling even further open over her large, firm breasts. And that was as far as he got as, still holding the glass, she put both arms around his neck and pressed her moist lips against his. Moments later a whisky-flavoured ice cube was sliding into his mouth.
Her eyes, blurry, smiling, danced in front of his own.
Tilting her head just far enough back that he still could only see her in blurred focus, she said, ‘You’ve got far to
o many clothes on!’ Then, placing the glass in his hand, she began, ravenously, to unbutton his shirt, kissing his nipples, then his chest, then pressing another ice cube, with her mouth, deep against his belly button. She looked up at him with eyes that seemed to burn into him with happiness, eyes the colour of sunlight on ice. ‘You are so gorgeous, Roy. God, you are so, so gorgeous.’
Gasping, and crunching the remains of the ice cube, he said, ‘You’re sort of OK yourself.’
‘Just sort of OK?’ she echoed, distractedly tugging at his belt buckle as if the world’s survival depended on it, then jerking his trousers and boxer shorts sharply down over his shoes.
‘In the sense of being the most beautiful, incredible, gorgeous woman on this planet.’
‘So there are more beautiful women than me on other planets?’ In one deft movement, Cleo dug her fingers into the glass, popped another ice cube in her mouth, then scooped more ice from the glass and pressed it against his balls.
For a reply, raw air shot out of Grace’s throat. Pleasure burned in his stomach, so intense it hurt. He pulled the silky garment off her shoulders and buried his mouth into her soft neck, as she took him in her lips, deeply, all the way down the shaft, burying her face in his tangled pubic hairs.
Grace stood, intoxicated with the heat of the night, the smell of her perfume, the touch of her skin, wishing, somewhere in a recess of his brain, that he could freeze this moment, this incredible moment of sheer, utter joy, bliss, freeze it forever, stay here, with her gripping him in her icy lips, that smile in her eyes, that sheer joy dancing in his soul.
Somewhere, just inches away, a shadow hovered. Munich. He pushed it away. A ghost, that was all. Just a ghost.
He wanted this woman, Cleo, so much. Not just now, this moment, but wanted her in his life. He adored her to bits. He felt more in love at this moment than he could imagine any man on the planet had ever been before. More in love than he had ever dared to think could happen to him again, after these nine long wilderness years.
Forcing his hands through her long, silky hair, his words gasped breathlessly. ‘God, Cleo, you are so –
– incredible –
– so amazing –
– so—’
Then, with his suit jacket still on, his trousers and striped boxer shorts around his ankles, half in and half out of his shirt, he was lying on top of her, on a thick, white pile rug on her polished oak floor, deep, so incredibly deep inside her, holding her in his arms, kissing this wild, writhing beast of so many contrasts.
He gripped her head tightly, pulling her mouth hard against his. Feeling her silky skin entwined around his. Feeling her insanely beautiful, lithe body. Sometimes she felt like a stunning, pedigree racehorse. Sometimes – now – as she suddenly broke her mouth away and stared at him in tense concentration, he saw a vulnerable little girl.
‘You won’t ever hurt me, will you, Roy?’ she asked plaintively.
‘Never.’
‘You’re incredible, you know that?’
‘You’re more incredible.’ He kissed her again.
She gripped the back of his head, pressing her fingers in so hard they hurt. ‘I want you to come staring into my eyes,’ she whispered intently.
Some time later he woke up, his right arm hurting like hell, and blinked, disoriented, unable to figure out for a moment where he was. Music was playing. A Dido song he recognized. He was staring up at a square glass tank. A solitary goldfish was swimming through what looked like the remains of a submerged miniature Greek temple.
Marlon?
But it wasn’t his fish tank. He tried to move his arm, but it was dead, like a big lump of jelly. He shook it. It wobbled. Then a tangled fuzz of blonde pubic hairs filled his eye-line. The view was replaced by a glass of whisky.
‘Sustenance?’ Cleo said, standing naked over him.
He took the glass in his good hand and sipped. God, it tasted good. He put it down and kissed her bare ankle. Then she lay down and snuggled up beside him. ‘OK, sleepyhead?’
Some life was returning to his arm. Enough to put it around her. They kissed. ‘Wassertime?’ he asked.
‘Two fifteen.’
‘I’m sorry. I – I didn’t – didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.’
She kissed each of his eyes in turn, very slowly. ‘You didn’t.’
He saw her beautiful face, and her blonde hair, in soft focus. Breathed in sweet scents of sweat and sex. Saw the goldfish again, swimming around, oblivious of them, having whatever kind of a good time a goldfish had. He saw candles burning. Plants. Funky abstract paintings on the walls. A wall-to-ceiling row of crammed bookshelves.
‘Want to go up to bed?’
‘Good plan,’ he said.
He tried to stand up, and it was then that he realized he was still half-dressed.
Shedding everything, holding Cleo’s hand in one hand and his tumbler in the other, he climbed, leadenly, up two flights of steep, narrow wooden stairs, then flopped on to a massive bed, with the softest sheets he had ever felt in his life, and Dido music still pumping out.
Cleo wrapped herself around him. Her hand slid down his stomach and wrapped around his genitals. ‘Is Big Boy sleepy?’
‘A little.’
She held the whisky to his lips. He sipped like a baby.
‘So, how was your day? Or would you like to sleep?’
He was trying to put his thoughts together. It was a good question. How the hell was his day?
What day?
It was coming back. Bit by bit. The eleven o’clock emergency briefing. No one had anything significant to report, except for himself. Brian Bishop’s move from the Hotel du Vin to the Lansdowne Place – and the strange explanation he had given.
‘Complicated,’ he said, nuzzling up against her right breast, taking her nipple in his mouth and then kissing it. ‘You are the most beautiful woman in the world. Did anyone ever tell you?’
‘You.’ She grinned. ‘Only you.’
‘Goes to show. No other man on this planet has any taste.’
She kissed his forehead. ‘Actually, this may come as a surprise from a slapper like me, but I haven’t tried them all.’
He grinned back. ‘Now you don’t need to.’
She looked at him quizzically, shifted herself around and propped her chin up on one hand. ‘No?’
‘I missed you all week.’
‘I missed you too,’ she said.
‘How much?’
‘Not going to tell you – I don’t want it going to your head!’
‘Bitch!’
She raised her free left hand in the air and curled the index finger, provocatively mimicking a limp dick.
‘Not for long,’ he said.
‘Good.’
‘You are totally wicked.’
‘You make me feel wicked.’ She kissed him, then moved back a few inches, studying his face carefully. ‘I like your hair.’
‘You do?’
‘Uh huh. Suits you. I do, I really like it!
He blushed slightly at the compliment. ‘I’m glad. Thank you.’
Glenn Branson had been going on about his hair for as long as he could remember, telling him it needed a makeover, and had finally booked him an appointment with a very hip guy called Ian Habbin, at a salon in Brighton’s most fashionable quarter. For years Grace had just had his hair clipped to a short fuzz by a mournful, elderly Italian in an old-fashioned barber’s shop. It had been a new experience to have his hair shampooed by a chatty young girl in a room hung with art and pounding with rock music.
Then Cleo asked, ‘So, Sunday lunch with your sister – Jodie, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you tell me about her? Is she protective of you? Am I going to get the third-degree interrogation? Like, Is this old slapper good enough for my brother?’ She grinned at him quizzically.
Grace took a large gulp of whisky, trying to buy time to compose his thoughts and his response. Then he took another gulp. Fin
ally he said, ‘I’ve got a problem.’
‘Go on.’
‘I have to go to Munich on Sunday.’
‘Munich? I’ve always wanted to go there. My friend Anna-Lisa, who’s an air hostess, says it’s the best place in the world to buy clothes. Hey, I could come with you! Check out some cheap tickets on easyJet or something?’
He cradled the glass. Took another sip, wondering whether to tell her a white lie or the truth. He didn’t want to lie to her, but at this moment it seemed to be less hurtful than telling her the truth. ‘It’s an official police visit – I’m going with a colleague.’
‘Oh – who?’ she was staring at him hard.
‘It’s a DI from another division. We’re meeting to discuss a six-month exchange of officers. It’s an EU initiative thing,’ he said.
Cleo shook her head. ‘I thought we’d made a pact never to lie to each other, Roy.’
He stared back at her for a moment, then dropped his eyes, feeling his face flushing.
‘I can read you, Roy. I know how to read you. I can read your eyes. You taught me – remember? About that right and left stuff. Memory and construct.’
Grace felt something drop deep inside his heart. After some moments’ hesitation, he told her about Dick Pope’s possible sighting of Sandy.
Cleo’s response was to pull away sharply from him. And suddenly he felt a chasm between them as large as the one separating Earth from the moon.
‘Fine,’ she said. She sounded like she had just bitten into a lemon.
‘Cleo, I have to go there.’
‘Of course you do.’
‘I don’t mean it like that.’
‘No?’
‘Cleo, please. I—’
‘What happens if you find her?’
He raised his hands hopelessly. ‘I doubt that I will.’
‘And if you do?’ she insisted.
‘I don’t know. At least I’ll have found out what happened to her.’
‘And if she wants you back? Is that why you lied to me?’
‘After nine years?’
She rolled away from him and lay facing the far wall.