Dead Tomorrow

55

Some years ago, when he was a detective sergeant, Roy Grace had attended a break-in at a small wine merchant’s premises up on Queens Park Road, close to the racecourse and the hideous edifice of Brighton and Hove General Hospital.

The proprietor, Henry Butler, a drily engaging, shaven-headed and impeccably spoken young man, appeared more upset at the quality of the wines the thieves had taken than at the break-in itself. While the SOCOs went about their business, dusting and spraying for fingerprints, Butler bemoaned the fact that these particular specimens of Brighton’s broad church of villainy had no taste at all.

The Philistines had taken several cases of his cheapest plonk, leaving all the fine wines, which in his view would have been far better drinking, untouched. Grace had liked him instantly, and whenever he needed a bottle for a special occasion, he had always returned to this shop.

At four o’clock on Tuesday afternoon, taking a quick, late lunch break, he pulled up the unmarked Ford Focus on double yellow lines outside the small, unassuming shop front of the Butler’s Wine Cellar and dashed inside. Henry Butler was in there now, head still shaved, sporting a gold earring and a goatee beard, dressed in dungarees and a collarless shirt, as if he had just been out picking grapes.

The door pinged shut behind him and Roy instantly breathed in the familiar, sour, vinous smell of the place, mixed with the sweeter scent of freshly sawn timber from the wooden cases.

‘Good afternoon, Detective Superintendent Grace!’ Butler said, putting down a copy of The Latest. ‘Very nice to see you. All crimes solved now, so you’re free to partake of my libations?’

‘I wish.’ Grace smiled. ‘How’s business?’

Butler gave a shrug at the empty shop. ‘Well, with your arrival, I would say the day just got better. So what can I tempt you with?’

‘I need a rather special bottle of champagne, Henry,’ he said. ‘What’s the most expensive bottle you have?’

‘Good man! That’s what I like to hear!’ He disappeared through a doorway into a tiny, cluttered back office and then clattered down some stairs.

Grace checked a text that just pinged in, but it was nothing important, a reminder about his haircut appointment tomorrow at the Point, the hair salon his self-appointed style guru, Glenn Branson, insisted he go to for his monthly close-crop. He stared around at the displays of dusty bottles flat on their sides on shelves and stacked in wooden boxes on the floor. Then he glanced at the headline of the Argus: BRIGHTON REGAINS DRUG DEATH CAPITAL OF ENGLAND STATUS.

A grim statistic, he thought, but at least it kept his case off the front page today.

A couple of minutes later, Henry Butler reappeared, reverently cradling a squat bottle in his arms. ‘Got this rather seductive Krug. One sip and anybody’s knickers will hit the ground.’

Grace grinned.

‘Two hundred and seventy-five quid to you, sir, and that’s with 10 per cent discount.’

Roy’s smile fell into a black hole. ‘Shit – I didn’t actually mean quite that expensive. I’m not a Russian oligarch, I’m a copper, remember?’

The merchant gave him a quizzical, mock-stern look. ‘I have a luscious Spanish cava at nine quid a pop. It’s what we drink at home in summer. Gorgeous.’

‘Too cheap.’

‘There you go, Mr CID – ’ which he pronounced Sid – ‘I never did take you for a cheapskate. I do have a rather special house champagne, seventeen quid for you, sir. A massive, buttery nose, long finish, quite a complex, biscuity style. Jane MacQuitty did her tonsils over it in the Sunday Times a while ago.’

Grace shook his head. ‘Still too cheap. I want something very special, but I don’t want to have to take out a mortgage.’

‘How does a hundred quid sound?’

‘Less painful.’

The merchant disappeared down into the bowels of his emporium and re-emerged. ‘This is the dog’s bollocks! Roederer Cristal, 2000. Best vintage of the decade. Last one I have, bin-end price. A beaut! Normally one hundred and seventy-five – I’ll flog it to you for a hundred, as it’s you.’

‘Done!’

‘Diamond geezer!’ Henry Butler said approvingly.

Grace pulled out his wallet. ‘Credit card OK?’

Butler looked like he had been kicked in the nuts. ‘You know how to squeeze a man when he’s down – yeah, all right.’ He shrugged. ‘Very special occasion, is it?’

‘Very.’

‘Give her this and she’ll love you forever.’

Roy smiled. ‘That’s kind of what I’m hoping.’