Love You Dead

57 Tuesday 3 March

Haydn Kelly had positively identified the woman from the footage DC Alexander had obtained, entering the arrivals hall at Heathrow Terminal Three on Friday 20 February, and heading towards the exit.

But, so far, none of the taxi drivers or limousine companies had come up with anyone remotely matching her description.

Shortly before 9 a.m. Roy Grace drove past the black and gold sign which read BRIGHTON AND HOVE CITY MORTUARY. As he pulled into a parking space at the rear, Glenn Branson drew up alongside him. There was no sign of the Home Office pathologist, who was due to start the examination of Shelby Stonor’s body at 10 a.m. after travelling down from Birmingham.

‘Morning,’ Branson greeted him, then, as his self-appointed style guru, eyed him up and down as usual, to Grace’s annoyance. Grace was dressed for work in a dark suit, white shirt, plain tie and polished black shoes. ‘Expected to see you in tweeds and muddy wellies, chewing straw — you know — with your move to the country and all.’

‘Haha. How’s Siobhan?’

‘Yeah, all right. We took the kids to a farm shop place at the weekend to see the animals — they have chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs roaming around. Noah would love it. If you need any chickens, they sell them.’

Grace grinned. ‘I usually get mine from the butcher in Henfield.’

‘Very funny. Listen, we came back along the coast and the kids had brilliant burgers in a place in Peacehaven. Big Mouths — know it?’

Grace shook his head. ‘How were the kids with Siobhan?’

‘Yeah.’ Branson smiled, and Grace caught a glimpse of something wistful in his expression. ‘It’s hard for them, you know. But Siobhan’s finding ways to their hearts — mostly by spoiling them! And they’re really taking to her, which is a good thing cos there’s going to be times when she’s going to have to look after them without me there. At least she understands about working round the clock, you know, with her own job. She’s not like Ari, she gets what we do and the crazy hours we have to work. But she’s finding being a journalist much more demanding than she’d expected whilst she was a student.’

‘Where did she study?’

‘Here in the city at a place called Brighton Journalist Works.’

‘What’s that?’

‘A specialist college. They train journalists — they work closely with the Argus.’

‘Let’s hope they trained her better than her predecessor — bloody Spinella,’ Grace retorted.

Part of the reason Glenn Branson’s marriage had broken up was the long and frequently unsociable hours that he worked. Ari had taken up with a new man who had started to act as a father to their son, Sammy, and their daughter, Remi. Branson had taken back that role as soon as Ari had died. Grace was relieved he was now with someone who understood his world.

To be a homicide detective meant putting work above your family. You could be called out at a moment’s notice, any time of the day or night and any day of the year. If the phone rang during Christmas lunch or in the middle of your daughter’s birthday party or while you were out at dinner celebrating your wedding anniversary, that was it. You just grabbed your go-bag, that was always packed with essentials as you might need to sleep in the office, working very long hours for days on end.

‘Does she want kids of her own?’

Branson nodded, then shrugged. ‘That could be a problem.’

‘You don’t want any more?’

He shrugged again. ‘This job — you know? When I was a nightclub bouncer at least I worked regular hours, even if I was out most nights. Everyone knew when I’d be home and when I wouldn’t be. I was able to be a decent father to them then. Even when I first joined the police it was OK. All that changed when I moved to Major Crime — and no longer had a proper home life.’

Grace put his arm round his friend’s massive, powerful shoulders and squeezed. ‘It’s what it is.’

‘Yeah. I know. And it’s always going to be.’

‘Unless you apply for a transfer to another department or transfer back to division.’

Branson shook his head. ‘No way, I love this work. You said to me once that you never wanted to do anything different. I get that, I’m the same.’

‘Make sure you make it up to her when you get home late. Offer to cook dinner or buy her a nice, thoughtful present.’

‘Good advice.’

They reached the mortuary’s front door.

A large, opaque window to their right provided light for the main post-mortem room. Grace rang the bell.

Moments later, Cleo, in green scrubs, gloves and white rubber boots, opened the door. Her face brightened when she saw them. ‘Hi, guys — great you’ve arrived before the pathologist — I need you to help me with a bit of a dilemma.’ She gave Branson a peck on the cheek and Grace a kiss on the lips, and ushered them into the changing room.

They gowned up and put on rubber boots also, then Cleo led them through into the large, open-plan post-mortem room. The place had a neat and tidy post-weekend feel about it. All except one of the steel post-mortem tables were empty and spotless. In the alcove to the left lay a motionless figure encased head to toe in black rubber, with two tiny eye-slits in a gimp mask.

Cleo stood over it and peeled back the mask to reveal the face of an elderly man. His eyes were wide open and, despite being dead, they seemed to have a twinkle in them.

Branson giggled, irreverently. ‘A proper little bouncing boy you’ve got here!’

Grace smiled. The poor man looked ridiculous. ‘Seems like he died having a nice time,’ he said.

‘He was,’ Cleo confirmed, also smiling. They were joined by Darren, Cleo’s Assistant Mortuary Technician, a sharp, good-looking and pleasant-natured young man in his twenties, with spiky black hair, similarly clad to the rest of them.

‘They called him Rubber Johnny,’ Darren said, his mouth twisted into a grin.

‘Who did?’ Grace asked.

‘All the girls who worked there, apparently.’

‘Didn’t Rubber Johnny use to be slang for a condom?’ Branson asked. ‘I saw that in a movie — was it Quadrophenia?’

‘The problem I have,’ Cleo said, ‘is that this sweet little old man, Ian Rolf, has been visiting a dominatrix dungeon in Saltdean every Monday morning for the past ten years. Apparently he would tell his wife he was off to play golf, put his clubs in the car and then go to this dominatrix place. Yesterday, he suddenly stopped breathing. They panicked, tried to resuscitate him, then called an ambulance.’

‘Either a heart attack or a stroke?’ Grace asked.

‘Seems likely,’ Cleo said.

‘Lucky sod,’ Glenn Branson said. ‘That’s the way to go. Out with a bang and a hard-on. Beats being wheeled around an old folks’ home, playing tiddlywinks and pissing in your pants any day.’

All of them laughed.

‘Maybe,’ Cleo said. ‘But what the hell am I supposed to tell his widow?’

‘The truth,’ Grace said.

‘I can’t, Roy! That would just be so cruel. Can you imagine finding that out about the man you loved? That he’d been deceiving you for so long?’

They heard the doorbell and Cleo went off to answer it.

‘Does his widow need to know, Roy?’ Branson asked.

Grace stared down at the dead man’s face. He really did look happy. Most dead bodies he’d attended had their faces frozen in shock or pain. ‘I’m sure it would be better for her and her family if she didn’t. But she has to know the truth — it’ll come out.’

‘You implying I’ll tell Siobhan so she can write it in the Argus? Never!’

‘That’s not what I’m saying. But it’s going to come out at the inquest. Better to let his widow find it out sensitively.’

Grace reflected for a moment on his own massive issue, and when he was going to tell Cleo.

‘Morning all!’

They turned to see a tall, reedy man in his mid-thirties, with lank, floppy hair, dressed in a jacket over a black T-shirt, blue jeans and fancy, knobbly, black and white trainers. He strode into the room in light, bouncy steps, followed by the Coroner’s Officer, Michelle Websdale, a slim, fair-haired former Border Agencies officer, whose attractive model looks belied her tough character. She even managed to make her baggy green scrubs look like they were designer chic, Grace thought. Behind her was the youthful Crime Scenes Investigator, Chris Gee, also gowned up and holding a camera. Grace always thought Gee, much like Cleo, looked too gentle a person for such a grim job, yet Gee was unfazed by almost anything — except children. Children were the one thing that most affected all those in the emergency services, without exception.

Grace held out his hand to the stranger he presumed must be the Home Office pathologist, Nick Best. ‘I’m Detective Superintendent Grace — and this is my colleague, Detective Inspector Branson.’ He introduced Websdale and Gee also.

Best had a warm smile but a rather brusque nature. ‘Good to meet you all. So, my information is we have a suspected death from poisoning?’

‘That’s correct,’ the Coroner’s Officer said.

‘I’ll go and get my kit on.’

‘I’ll show you the changing room.’ Cleo smiled at him. ‘This way.’ She led the way back out into the corridor.

The pathologist looked at Cleo in a way, suddenly, that Grace did not like. It was a really lechy stare.

Nor did he much like the smile Cleo gave the man back.

Shit, he was jealous! And he felt almost ridiculously relieved when Cleo came straight back in. It was the first time, ever, that he had felt such an emotion. He didn’t like it. And he didn’t like himself for feeling it.

‘So, guys,’ Cleo said. ‘What am I going to do with — er — Rubber Johnny?’

‘Remove his kit for the viewing,’ Grace said. ‘The widow’s going to have to formally identify him. It’ll be easier for her if he’s not in a latex shroud.’

‘Yep, you’re right,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’ Then she led them all through towards the Isolation Room.

As they crowded round the door, peering in through the glass panel at the body on the solitary table, Cleo instructed them all to put on their face masks.

‘Righty ho!’ said Nick Best, joining them. He was gowned-up in white, head to toe, with a full head mask and visor, as if ready to enter a nuclear waste site, and holding a small bag. ‘Let’s go and check out le plat du jour!’

He entered the Isolation Room, followed by the others. Last in, Grace closed the door behind them. As he did, Glenn Branson took a shocked step back and said, his voice muffled, ‘Oh Jesus!’