Looking Good Dead

73

Alison Vosper was power-dressed, as usual, when he entered her office on the dot of 9.30 a.m. And as usual he had an attack of butterflies. She scared him, he couldn’t help it; the bloody woman’s corrosive manner – and the power she wielded over him – affected him. And it didn’t help that he knew she was out to get him with her new secret weapon, Detective Superintendent Cassian Pewe.

Sitting at her immaculate desk, exuding a pungent but unsexy perfume, she was dressed in a black jacket that made her shoulders look massive and an ivory-coloured blouse with a lace collar. Expecting a face of thunder, the Assistant Chief Constable surprised Grace by greeting him with a smile. Unscrewing the cap from a bottle of mineral water, she took a rather dainty sip. ‘Good morning, Roy,’ she said, her voice even more cordial than her smile. She gestured him to take one of the handsome Georgian carver chairs in front of her desk. ‘Have a seat.’

Another good sign? he wondered. She rarely asked him to sit at these meetings. Or was this a very bad sign?

Still smiling, very definitely in sweet rather than sour mode today, she said, ‘So, Operation Nightingale seems to be a bit of a fiasco, so far.’

‘I – I wouldn’t go so-’

She raised a hand to silence his defence. ‘You still have no suspect. You haven’t located the victim’s head. One potential witness has been murdered and two others are missing. And last night, again, your team engaged in a high-speed pursuit which resulted in a serious accident.’ Miraculously she was still smiling, but the warmth had gone and was replaced with apparent bemusement.

Grace nodded. ‘It’s not going our way,’ he said. ‘We need a lucky break.’

She replaced the cap on the bottle. It was a fine morning outside but the room felt dark and oppressive. ‘You are tying up a massive amount of resources. It would be one thing if you could give me a result but all I seem to get is aggravation. Where are we at?’

Grace brought her up to speed. When he had finished, he waited for what he knew was coming: at best she was going to stick Cassian Pewe on this case with him, at worst she was removing him and replacing him with Pewe. To his surprise she did neither.

She pulled a slim black pen from the ammonite holder on her desk and tapped it thoughtfully on her blotter. ‘You haven’t got until nine fifteen tomorrow night, realistically, have you? If these people are going to kill Mr and Mrs Bryce and broadcast it to whoever their customers are, they’re going to do it well in advance. They could be already dead.’

‘I know.’

There was a brief silence. Grace looked down, feeling Vosper’s eyes fixed on him. When he looked up he saw understanding in them. Despite her antipathy to him, she was at least professional enough to recognize – and accept – that the problems he was facing with this case were not necessarily of his making. But he was puzzled that she had not yet mentioned Cassian Pewe. Why was she holding back?

Very hesitantly, he asked, ‘Is… ah… is this meeting with Cassian on? You wanted me to see him this morning.’

‘Actually no, it isn’t,’ she said. Then she began tapping the pen harder and faster on the blotter, without seeming to be aware she was doing this.

‘OK,’ he said, feeling a little relieved, but wondering what had changed her mind. Then he found out.

‘Detective Superintendent Pewe was involved in a road traffic accident last night. He’s in hospital with a fractured leg.’

Not only could Grace barely believe his ears, he could barely believe his eyes, either. She was smiling again. Just the very faintest of smiles, to be fair, but a smile nonetheless. Smiling as she conveyed the information that her protégé was in a bad way after a car crash.

‘I’m sorry,’ Grace said. ‘What happened?’

‘He was a passenger in a taxi in the centre of Brighton, late last night. It was in collision with a van being pursued by a police car.’

And the next moment Grace was smiling too; he couldn’t help it. Gallows humour. It got to everyone in this job, eventually.

As he drove away from Alison Vosper’s office, Grace phoned the Royal Sussex County Hospital to find out if the van driver from last night had come round yet. Right now that man was their best hope of getting to the Bryces’ captors.

Just about their only damned hope.

Except for one long shot.

He drove to the Bryces’ house, where DC Linda Buckley had just taken over from DC Willingham. She asked Grace if there was much point in her staying on in the house. After all, there was nothing to do except feed the dog. He suggested she wait a few more hours in case Tom Bryce turned up – which, he thought grimly, was unlikely.

He went upstairs and into the Bryces’ bedroom, then hurried back downstairs. The Alsatian was standing in the hallway giving him a strange look, as if she knew he was the man who could bring her master and mistress home.

Despite his rush, Grace paused for a moment, knelt beside the dog and stroked her forehead. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Don’t you worry; I’ll bring them back. Somehow. OK?’ He stared into the dog’s large, brown eyes and felt for an instant, just a fleeting instant, that the fine-looking creature had actually understood what he’d said.

Maybe it was his tiredness, or the stress, or whatever, addling his brain, but as he left the house and drove quickly away, heading for the eastern extremity of the city, the expression on that dog’s face stayed with him, haunting him. She had looked so sad, so full of trust. And for a moment he wasn’t doing any of this just for Mr and Mrs Bryce, and for their children. He was also doing it for their dog.