Looking Good Dead

88

On Thursday morning, his hands heavily bandaged and still hurting like hell from the acid burns, Tom Bryce went into his office for a couple of hours.

It was clear from the exuberant greetings from his staff and the stack of press cuttings on his desk that the front-page headlines he had made with Kellie, nationwide over the past couple of days, had done Bryceright Promotional Merchandise no harm at all. His two salesmen in the office, Peter Chard and Simon Wong, were over the moon – they couldn’t remember when they had last had this level of enquiries, from existing and potential customers.

‘Oh,’ Chard added, standing over his desk, ‘good news is that we’ve delivered the Rolexes to Ron Spacks. All twenty-five of them. Our margin is un-bloody-believable!’

‘I never saw the final artwork,’ Tom said, suddenly feeling a little concerned. If there had been a screw-up on the engraving of twenty-five Rolex watches, it would be a financial disaster.

‘No worries! I rang him yesterday to check all was kosher. He’s happy as Larry with them.’

‘Get me the paperwork on them, will you?’

A couple of minutes later Chard put the file down on his desk. Tom opened it and stared at the order. The margin was fantastic, £1,400 profit per watch. Multiplied by twenty-five. That made £35,000. He’d never made that kind of a profit on an order before, ever.

Then his elation turned to gloom. Kellie had agreed to go to a clinic, to dry out. Afterwards they would start afresh together. But the good places cost a fortune; for the top ones, you could be looking at the wrong end of a couple of thousand pounds a week – multiplied by several months. A good £30,000-40,000 if you really wanted a result. And the cost of childminders while she was there.

At least with this order he would have the dosh to cover it – and in the six years he had been doing business with Ron Spacks, the man had always paid on the nail. Seven days from delivery. Never a day late.

Looking at the paperwork, Tom asked, ‘When were these delivered?’

‘Yesterday.’

‘Fast work,’ Tom said. ‘I only took the order last-’

‘Thursday!’ Peter Chard said. ‘Yeah, well I found a supplier who had stock, and got our engraver to work through the night.’

‘I never saw the design; he was going to send it through.’

Chard turned a couple of sheets of paper over, then tapped an A4 photocopy. ‘This is a massive enlargement. It’s actually a microdot, invisible to the naked eye.’

Ron looked down and saw a drawing of a beetle, a rather fine but slightly menacing-looking creature, with strange markings on its back and a horn rising from its head. He frowned.

‘It’s called a scarab beetle,’ Peter Chard said. ‘Apparently they are sacred in ancient Egyptian mythology.’

‘Is that right?’

‘Yep. Disgusting creature. Also known as a dung beetle.’

‘Why would he want these on a watch?’

Chard shrugged. ‘He’s a DVD distributor, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, massive.’

‘Maybe there’s a record label with that name.’ The salesman shrugged again. ‘He’s your client – I figured you knew.’

Tom felt a sudden cold shiver run through him. Maybe he should mention this to Detective Superintendent Grace when they next spoke – as a coincidence to have a laugh about, if nothing else.

But he decided it might be wise to wait until Ron Spacks had paid, first.