Looking Good Dead

43

It was only Wendy Salter’s second time on nights. The probationary WPC was three weeks out of Police Training College at Ashford in Kent, and had the best part of two years yet to serve before becoming a fully fledged officer like her colleague. PC Phil Taylor, a few weeks shy of thirty-seven, was at the wheel of the liveried police Vectra, driving fast, blues on, but on this empty road there was no need for the siren.

They were less than a mile from CID headquarters in Sussex House, and had driven almost the entire width of Brighton and Hove in the two minutes since they had picked up the emergency call from the Control Room. They had only just finished sorting out a drunken argument over a bill, which had turned into a fight, in the Escape nightclub just off Brighton seafront.

Going at high speed through the city gave Wendy a massive thrill – she couldn’t help it – it was like being on the best funfair ride in the world. And a lot of officers felt the same. The expression on Taylor’s face showed he was among them.

It was 4.15 a.m. and, looking up through the windscreen, Wendy could see a few cracks of grey dawn light appearing in the black canopy of the night sky. A terrified rabbit sprinted in the glow of the car’s headlights across the road and vanished beneath the bonnet. She waited for the thud and was relieved when there was none.

‘Bloody kamikaze bunny that was,’ Phil Taylor said cheerily.

‘I think you missed it.’

‘I read somewhere that some bloke’s published a book of road-kill recipes – in America.’

‘Could only be in America,’ Wendy said. She’d never actually been there, and had an image of the country heavily influenced by all the crazies in California she had seen on television, or read about, with a bit of Michael Moore thrown in for good measure.

They were passing woodland on their right and a sweeping drop to their left down to the lights of Brighton and Hove. Then, rounding a sharp right-hand bend, they saw the red glow ahead of them.

For a brief instant Wendy thought it might be the sun starting to rise, but dismissed that when she worked out they were travelling almost due west. The glow intensified as they drew closer, and then, suddenly, she could smell it.

The vile, acrid stench of burning paint, rubber and vinyl.

Taylor braked and pulled over a short distance from the blazing car, which was in a tarmac car park in a beauty spot with magnificent daytime views. But all WPC Wendy Salter could see as she unclipped herself and stepped out of the car, dutifully pulling on her hat, was dense, choking smoke as the strong breeze blew it straight towards them, making her eyes water. She turned away for a moment, coughing, then ran alongside her colleague as close as they could get to the vehicle before the heat stopped them.

In the distance she could hear the wail of a siren. Probably the fire brigade, she thought, the stench of burning paint and rubber one hundred times stronger now, and the fierce crackling and roaring of the inferno filling her ears.

She could see inside the car now, with most of the glass of the windows already burned out, and to her relief it was empty. It was an estate, and walking round to the front she recognized the radiator grille. ‘An Audi,’ she called out to PC Taylor.

‘It’s a recent model; you can tell from the grille,’ he said.

‘I know. The new A4.’

He gave her a glance. ‘Bit of a petrol-head, are you?’ he said with grudging admiration.

‘Not as much as whoever did this,’ she retorted.

‘Kids,’ he said, as if it were a swear word. ‘Little bastards. Torching someone’s brand new wheels.’

‘Joyriders?’

‘Bound to be,’ he said. ‘Who else?’