Dead Like You

41

Saturday 10 January

Every time she bought a pair of shoes, Dee Burchmore got a guilty thrill. There was no need to feel guilty, of course. Rudy encouraged her to dress smart, to look great! As a senior executive of American & Oriental Banking, over here at its lavish new Brighton headquarters on a five-year posting to establish a foothold for the company in Europe, money was no object at all to her husband.

She was proud of Rudy and she loved him. She loved his ambitions to show the world that, in the wake of the financial scandals that had dogged US banking in recent years, it was possible to show a caring face. Rudy was attacking the UK mortgage market with zeal, offering deals to first-time buyers that none of the British lenders, still smarting from the financial meltdown, was prepared to consider. And she had an important role in this, in public relations.

In the time Dee had in between taking their two children, Josh, aged eight, and Chase, aged six, to school and then collecting them, Rudy had tasked her with networking as hard as she could within the city. He wanted her to find charities to which American & Oriental could make significant contributions – and, of course, gain significant publicity as benefactors to the city. It was a role she relished.

A respectable golfer, she had joined the ladies’ section of the city’s most expensive golf club, the North Brighton. She had become a member of what she had gleaned was the most influential of Brighton’s numerous Rotary Clubs and she had volunteered for the committees of several of the city’s major charitable institutions, including the Martlet’s Hospice. Her most recent appointment was to the fund-raising committee of Brighton and Hove’s principal hostel for the homeless, St Patrick’s, where they had a unique facility, offering Japanese-style pods to homeless people, including prisoners out on licence who were actively involved in retraining.

She stood in the small shop, watching the assistant wrap her beautiful blue Manolos in tissue, then carefully lay them in the box. She could not wait to get home and try her dress on with these shoes and bag. She knew they were going to look sensational. Just the thing to give her confidence next week.

Then she glanced at her watch: 3.30. Shit! It had taken longer than she thought. She was late for her appointment at the Nail Studio in Hove, on the other side of the city. She hurried out of the stop, barely clocking the weird-looking woman with lopsided blonde hair who was staring at something on display in the shop window.

She never once looked behind her all the way to the car park.

If she had, she might just have noticed this same woman following her.