Dead Tomorrow

18

The problem with buffets, Roy Grace always found, was that you tended to pile your plate high with food before you had actually studied everything that was on the table. Then, just when you were already looking terminally greedy, you noticed the king prawns, or the asparagus spears, or something else that you really liked, for the first time.

But there was no danger of his doing that now, at Jim Wilkinson’s retirement party. Although he had not eaten much all day, he had little appetite. He was anxious to get Cleo into a quiet corner and ask her what she had meant by the text she had sent him earlier, at the quayside.

But from the moment he arrived at the Wilkinsons’ packed bungalow, Cleo had been engaged in conversation with a group of detectives from the Divisional Intelligence Unit and had given him no more than the briefest smile of acknowledgement.

What the hell was up with her? he fretted. She was looking more beautiful than ever this evening, and was dressed perfectly for the occasion in a demure blue satin dress.

‘How are you doing, Roy?’ Julie Coll, the wife of a chief superintendent in the Criminal Justice Department, asked, joining him at the buffet table.

‘Fine, thanks,’ he said. ‘You?’ He remembered suddenly that she’d had a mid-life change of career and had recently qualified as an air stewardess. ‘How’s the flying?’

‘Great!’ she said. ‘Loving it.’

‘With Virgin, right?’

‘Yes!’ She pointed at a bowl of pickled onions. ‘Have one of those. Josie makes them herself – they’re fab.’

‘I’ll go back to my seat – perhaps you could put some on my tray when you bring it over.’

She grinned at him. ‘Cheeky sod! I’m not on duty now!’ Then she speared a couple of onions and piled them on the heap on her plate. ‘So, still no news?’

He frowned, wondering what she was referring to for a moment. Then realized. It never went away, however much he tried to forget. There were reminders of Sandy all the time.

‘No,’ he said.

‘Is that your new lady over there? The tall blonde?’

He nodded, wondering how much longer she would be his lady.

‘She looks lovely.’

‘Thanks.’ He gave a thin smile.

‘I remember that conversation we had a while back, at Dave Gaylor’s party – about mediums?’

He racked his brains, trying to think. He remembered Julie had lost a close relative and had picked his brains about a good medium to go to. He did vaguely remember they’d had a conversation, but could not recall any details.

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve just found a new one – she’s really brilliant, Roy. Amazingly accurate.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Janet Porter.’

‘Janet Porter?’ The name did not ring a bell.

‘I haven’t got her number on me, but it’s in the book. She’s on the seafront, just near the Grand. Call me tomorrow and I’ll give it to you. I think you’ll be astonished.’

During the past nine years since Sandy’s disappearance, Grace had lost count of the number of mediums he had been to. Most of them had been recommended highly, just like this one now. None of them had come up with anything positive. One had said that Sandy was working in spirit for a healer and that she was happy to be back with her mother. A slight problem with that one, Grace had decided, since her mother was still very much alive.

A small handful of the mediums, the ones he had found most credible, had been adamant that Sandy was not in the spirit world. Which meant, they explained, that she was not dead. He was left as baffled today as he had been on the night of her disappearance.

‘I’ll think about it, Julie,’ he said. ‘Thanks, but I’m sort of trying to move on.’

‘Absolutely, Roy. I understand.’

She moved on too and for a few moments Grace had the buffet to himself. He eyed the new Chief Constable, Tom Martinson, who had only been in Sussex for a few weeks, wanting to ensure he got to chat to him. Martinson, who was forty-eight, was slightly shorter than himself, a strong, fit-looking man with short dark hair and a pleasant, no-nonsense air about him. At the moment he was busily tucking into his food, while engaging energetically in conversation with a group of brown-nosing officers who were surrounding him.

Grace forked a small slice of ham and some potato salad on to his plate, ate them on the spot and put the plate down, to avoid the hassle of walking around with it.

Then, as he turned around, Cleo was standing right behind him, a glass of what looked like sparkling water in her hand. In total contrast to how cold she had sounded over the phone, she was smiling warmly. Beaming.

‘Hi, darling,’ she said. ‘Well done, you’re not that late! How did it go?’

‘Fine. Nadiuska’s happy to wait until the morning to start the PM. How are you?’

Still smiling, she jerked her head, signalling him to follow. At that moment, he saw the Chief Constable break away from the group and head, alone, to the buffet table. This would be the perfect moment to introduce himself!

But he saw Cleo beckoning and did not want to risk her getting caught in another conversation with someone else. He was desperate to know what was going on.

He followed her, weaving through a packed conservatory, acknowledging greetings from colleagues with just a cursory nod. Moments later they stepped outside into the back garden. The night air felt even colder than at the harbour and was thick with the smell of cigarette smoke, wafting over from a mixed group of men and women who were standing in a huddle. The smoke smelled good and, if he’d had his cigarettes with him, he would have lit up. He could have done with one, badly.

Cleo pushed open a gate and walked a short distance down the side of the house, past the dustbins and into the carport at the front. She stopped by Wilkinson’s Ford Focus estate. They were private here.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’ve got some news for you.’ She shrugged, twisting her hands, and he realized it wasn’t for warmth but because she was nervous.

‘Tell me?’

She twisted her hands some more and smiled awkwardly. ‘Roy, I don’t know how you are going to take this.’ She gave him an almost childlike smile of bewilderment, then a kind of hopeful shrug. ‘I’m pregnant.’