Dead Tomorrow

58

Glenn Branson halted the unmarked black Hyundai at the roundabout and glanced up at the curved front of a modern building that he particularly liked, Shoreham’s Ropetackle Centre for the Arts. Then he took the first exit and drove along a wide street that was lined on both sides with shops, restaurants and pubs, all glittering with Christmas lights and decorations. Although it was half past eight on a rain-lashed Tuesday night, the place seemed vibrant and thrumming with people. Office-party season was in full swing. Not that he cared.

He felt terrible.

Christmas was looming. Ari didn’t even want to discuss it with him. Was he going to spend it alone, in Roy Grace’s lounge?

There were three missed calls from Ari on his mobile, which had come in during the briefing meeting, but when he had called her back afterwards, a man had answered.

A man in his house, telling him that his wife was out.

When Glenn had asked him who the hell he was, the man, with a creepy, arrogant voice, had told him he was the babysitter and that Ari was at an English literature class.

A male babysitter?

If he had sounded like a teenager, that would have been one thing. But he didn’t; his voice was older, like someone in his thirties. Who the fuck was he? When he had asked that question, the little shit had replied snidely that he was a friend.

What the hell did Ari think she was doing leaving his kids, Sammy and Remi, in the hands of a man he had never met or vetted? Jesus, he could be a paedophile. He could be anything. The moment the interview was over, Glenn determined to drive straight over there and see him for himself. And throw the fucker out of his house.

The turn-off was coming up, according to the directions he had memorized. He slowed, indicated left, then turned into a narrow, residential street. Driving slowly, he passed a crowded fish and chip shop, trying with difficulty to read the numbers of the terraced houses. Then he saw No. 64. Fifty yards or so on, there was a tight, empty space between two parked cars. He manoeuvred the little Hyundai into it, touching bumpers with the car behind once, and climbed out. Hurrying through the rain, the collar of his cream mackintosh turned up, he rang the doorbell.

The woman who answered was in her mid-fifties, tall and buxom, with a crown of reddish hair that looked as if it had been freshly styled today. She wore a loose grey smock over blue jeans and clogs. Dark rings under her eyes and mascara stains gave away her misery.

‘Mrs Janet Towers?’ he asked, holding up his warrant card.

‘Yes.’

‘Detective Sergeant Branson.’

‘Thank you for coming.’ She moved aside to let him in and then, in a sudden spurt of hope, she asked, ‘Do you have any news?’

‘Nothing so far,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

He stepped inside, squeezing past her into a narrow hallway lined with framed antique nautical prints of Brighton. The house felt hot and stuffy, and smelled of cigarette smoke and damp dog. Something he had noted from past experience was that when people were in shock or mourning, they tended to keep their curtains drawn and turn the heating up high.

She ushered him into a tiny, sweltering lounge. Most of the space was taken up by a brown velour three-piece suite, and the rest by a large television set, a coffee table fashioned from a ship’s wheel, on which sat an ashtray filled with lipsticky butts, and several display cabinets filled with ships-in-bottles in varying sizes. An old-fashioned three-bar heater with fake coals blazed in the fireplace. On the mantelpiece above it were several family photographs and a large greetings card.

‘Can I get you a drink, Detective – er – Detective Sergeant Branson, you said? Like the Virgin guy, Richard Branson?’

‘Yeah, ’cept I’m not as rich as him. Coffee would be lovely.’

‘How do you take it?’

‘Muddy, no sugar, thank you.’

‘Muddy?’

‘Strong, with just a tiny dash of milk.’

She went out of the room and he took the opportunity to look at the photographs. One showed a couple outside the front of a church – All Saints, Patcham, he recognized, because it was the same church where he and Ari had been married. The husband, whom he presumed was Jim, wore a narrow-cut suit with a shirt that looked too big for him, bouffant frizzy hair and a quizzical smile. The bride, a much skinnier Janet, had ringlets down to her shoulders and a lace gown with a long train.

Ranged alongside it were several photographs of two children in varying stages of childhood and one of a shy-looking young man in a mortar board and graduation gown.

Graduation, he thought gloomily. Would he ever get to go to either of his kids’ graduations? Or would his bitch wife exclude him?

He pulled out his personal mobile and checked the display. Just in case.

In case what? he thought, pocketing it miserably and wondering again about the man who had answered the phone. The man who was alone with his children.

Was the little turd going to screw Ari when she came home?

He heard wheezing and turned to see an elderly, overweight golden retriever peering at him through the doorway.

‘Hello!’ Glenn said, holding out a beckoning hand.

The dog deposited a slick of slobber on to the carpet, then waddled towards him. He knelt and patted it. Almost immediately the dog rolled over on to its back.

‘Well, you’re a great guard dog, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘And you’re a tart too, showing me your tits!’

He stroked its belly for some moments, then got to his feet again and picked up the greetings card.

On the front, in gold, was printed: ‘TO MY DARLING.’

Inside was written, To Janet, the love of my life. I adore you and miss you every second that we are apart. Thank you for the happiest twenty-five years of my life. All my love. Jim XXXXXXXX

‘Hope it’s the right strength for you!’

Glenn closed the card and replaced it. ‘Nice card,’ he said.

‘He’s a nice man,’ she replied.

‘I can tell from reading it.’

She placed a tray, with two cups of coffee and a plate of chocolate digestive biscuits on the coffee table, then sat on the sofa. The dog pressed its nose against the plate.

‘Goldie! No!’ Janet Towers said sternly.

The dog waddled away reluctantly. Glenn chose the armchair that was furthest away from the fire and looked at the biscuits, suddenly realizing he was feeling hungry. But he felt it might seem rude to start eating at such a sensitive time for this poor woman.

‘I have a few questions for you, further to our telephone conversation yesterday,’ he said. ‘If you don’t mind?’

‘I’m desperate,’ she said. ‘Anything, anything at all.’

He turned to the mantelpiece. ‘Are those your children? How old are they?’ Then he watched her eyes very closely.

They swung to the right, then centred as she stared at him, frowning. ‘Jamie, twenty-four and Chloe, twenty-two. Why?’

Without answering, he said, ‘I take it you’ve still heard nothing?’

Roy Grace had taught him, some while back, that you could tell if a person was lying or telling the truth by watching their eye movements. It was an area of neurolinguistic programming. The human brain was divided into left and right parts. Although it was more complicated than Grace taught, essentially with right-handed people, the imagination – or construct – took place in the left-hand side, and the long-term memory and factual stuff took place in the right-hand side. When you asked someone a question, their eyes often moved either to the construct or to the memory side, depending on whether they were lying or telling the truth.

Glenn had already established, by watching her, that she was right-handed. If he now observed her eyes carefully, he should see them move to the left if she was lying or to the right if telling the truth.

Her eyes moved sharply to the right. ‘Not a word,’ she said. ‘Something has happened to him, please believe me.’

He pulled out his notebook and pen. ‘Am I right that you’ve had no word from your husband since Friday night?’

Again her eyes flicked distinctly to the right.

‘Yes.’

‘Has Jim ever been absent for a period like this before?’

‘No, never.’

She still appeared to be telling the truth. He made a note, then sipped his coffee, but it was too hot, so he put it back down.

‘Forgive me if I sound insensitive, Mrs Towers – did you and your husband have any kind of argument before he – disappeared?’

‘No, absolutely not! It was our wedding anniversary – our twenty-fifth. The night before, he told me that he wanted us to renew our wedding vows. We were – are – extremely happy.’

‘OK.’ He looked at the biscuits longingly, but continued to resist. ‘How much did he tell you about his clients?’

‘He told me lots about them, if they were interesting – or odd.’

‘Odd?’

‘He had one guy this summer who hired him to go out deep-sea fishing who turned out to have a penchant for fishing naked.’ She managed a grin.

‘Whatever floats your boat,’ he said, grinning back.

Then, in the awkward silence that followed, he realized that was probably not the best analogy to have used at this moment.

‘So what are the police doing about – about trying to find him?’ she asked.

‘Everything we can, Mrs Towers,’ Glenn replied, his face burning from his faux-pas. ‘The coastguards have launched a full air-sea rescue team, with support from the RAF, out looking for the boat. They’ve stopped tonight but will resume again at first light. All UK and overseas Channel ports have been alerted. All shipping has been alerted to be on the watch for the Scoob-Eee. But so far, I’m afraid, there has been no reported sighting.’

‘We had a table booked for dinner at eight o’clock on Friday night. Jim told me the boat had been chartered for the day by the police diving unit, and that all he had to do was move it back to its mooring, when they returned, and he’d be home by about six.’ She shrugged. ‘Then at nine o’clock his boat was seen going through the Shoreham Harbour lock and heading out to sea. That doesn’t make any sense.’

‘Perhaps he got a last-minute charter?’

She shook her head vigorously. ‘Jim’s very romantic – he’s been planning this evening for weeks – months. He wouldn’t have taken a charter that night, absolutely no way.’

Glenn finally succumbed, took a biscuit and bit a chunk. Chewing, he said, ‘I don’t want to sound insensitive, but we know that a lot of smuggling, both of humans and of drugs, goes on in this city. Is it possible that your husband could have been involved in some kind of shipment?’

Again she shook her head vigorously. ‘Not Jim, no.’

Still happy that she was being truthful, he asked, ‘Does Jim have any enemies?’

‘No. None that I’m aware of, anyway.’

‘What do you mean by that, Mrs Towers?’

‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ she asked.

‘Go ahead.’

She pulled a packet of Marlboro Lites from her handbag, took out a cigarette and lit it.

‘Everyone loves Jim,’ she said. ‘He is that kind of man.’

‘So in all his time as a private eye he never made an enemy?’

‘It’s possible. I keep thinking about all his old clients. Yes, he might have upset someone, but he’s been out of that game for a decade.’

‘Could it be someone he put inside who’s just been released?’

‘He didn’t put people in prison. He was more – you know – following unfaithful spouses around, doing a bit of industrial espionage. He just snooped around, followed people, that sort of thing.’

Glenn made another note. Then he asked, ‘I presume Jim has a mobile phone?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s not here?’

‘No, he always has it with him.’

‘Could I have the number?’

She reeled it off from memory and he wrote it down.

‘Who is the provider?’

‘O2.’

‘When was the last time you spoke to him?’

‘About quarter past five on Friday. He’d just picked up the boat from the police diving unit and was back in his berth. He said he was going to tidy her up and then he’d be home.’

‘That was the last conversation you had?’

‘Yes.’

She started sobbing.

Glenn sipped his coffee and waited patiently. When she had quietened down he asked, ‘Presumably you’ve tried ringing him?’

‘About every five minutes. Nothing happens. It just goes straight to voicemail.’

Glenn noted that down. He looked up at Janet Towers and his heart went out to her.

Then he thought again about the man who had answered the phone at his home. The man who was babysitting his son and his daughter.

The man he had never met, but at this moment hated more than he had ever believed it was possible to hate anyone.

If you are sleeping with Ari, he thought, then God help you. I’ll rip your testicles out of your scrotum with my bare fingers.

He forced a smile at Janet Towers and handed her his card.

‘Call me if you hear anything. We’ll find your husband,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about it. We’ll find him.’

Through her sobs her voice suddenly turned to anger. ‘Yes, well, I hope to hell you find him before I do, that’s all I can say.’ She began sobbing again.