Not Dead Enough

68

A few minutes later Roy Grace stood with Glenn Branson outside the front of Sussex House, watching the tail lights of Bishop’s dark red Bentley disappear around the right-hand bend, below them, past the massive warehouse of British Bookstores.

‘So what do you think, old-timer?’ Branson asked him.

‘I think I need a drink.’

They drove down to the Black Lion pub at Patcham, went in and stood at the bar. Grace bought Glenn a pint of Guinness and ordered a large Glenfiddich on the rocks for himself, then they installed themselves in a booth.

‘I can’t figure this guy out,’ Grace said. ‘He’s smart. There’s something very cold about him. And I have a feeling that he does know Sophie Harrington.’

‘His eyes?’

‘You saw that?’ Grace said, pleased at the way his protégé learned from him.

‘He knows her.’

Grace drank a little whisky and suddenly craved a cigarette. Hell. One more year and smoking in pubs was going to be banned. Might as well take advantage. He went over to the machine and bought himself some Silk Cut. Ripping off the cellophane, he took out a cigarette and then went to get a light from the young female bartender. He inhaled deeply, loving every sweet second of the sensation as he drew the smoke in.

‘You should quit. Those things don’t do you any good.’

‘Living doesn’t do you any good,’ he replied. ‘It kills us all.’

Branson’s face descended into gloom. ‘Tell me about it. That bullet. Yeah? One inch to the right and it would have taken out my spine. I’d have been in a wheelchair for the rest of my life.’ He shook his head, then drank a long gulp of his beer. ‘I go through all that goddamn recovery, get home, and instead of finding a loving, nurturing wife, what do I get? Fucking shit!’

He leaned forward, cradling his face in his hands.

‘I thought you just had to get her a horse,’ Grace probed gently.

His friend did not respond.

‘I don’t know how much a horse costs to buy or keep, but you’ll get compensation for your injury – quite a lot of money. More than enough, I would have thought, to buy a horse.’

The young barmaid who had given him the light was suddenly standing over them. ‘Can I get you anything else? We’re going to be closing up soon.’

Grace smiled at her. ‘We’re done, thanks.’ He put an arm around Branson, feeling the soft suede of his bomber jacket.

‘You know the irony?’ the Detective Sergeant said. ‘I told you, didn’t I? I joined the force so my kids could be proud of me. Now I’m not even allowed to kiss them goodnight.’

Grace drank some more whisky and took another drag on his cigarette. It still tasted good, but not so good as before. ‘Matey, you know the law. She can’t stop you.’

He stared at the long wooden counter of the bar. At the upturned bottles and the optics beyond; at the empty bar stools and the empty tables around them. It had been a long day. Hard to believe he’d had lunch beside a lake in Munich.

‘You,’ Glenn Branson said suddenly. ‘I didn’t even ask you how it went. What happened?’

‘Nothing,’ he replied. ‘Nothing.’

‘Don’t do what I did, Roy. Don’t screw it all up. You’ve got a good thing going with Cleo. Cherish her. She’s well lovely.’

Cleo was smashed when he got to the wrought-iron gates of her townhouse, shortly after half past eleven.

‘Need your help,’ she said through the intercom. ‘God, I’m pisshed!’

The electronic lock opened with a sharp click, like a pistol being cocked. Grace went in, walking across stone slabs that were lit by a faint neon glow, towards Cleo’s house. As he neared the front door, it opened. Cleo was standing there, beside what looked like the upturned shell of a giant, mutant blue crab.

She turned her cheek towards him as he attempted to kiss her on the lips, signalling through her inebriated state that she was still angry with him. ‘The hard top for my MG. Some bastard slashed my roof open today. Can you help me put the hard top on?’

He could not remember ever lifting anything so heavy in his life. ‘You OK?’ he asked, grunting repeatedly as they staggered out into the street with it. He was disappointed by her frostiness.

‘Much lighter than a body!’ she replied breezily, then nearly fell over sideways.

They walked down the dark, silent street, past his Alfa Romeo, until they reached her MG, then they put it down. Grace looked at the clean slit in her roof.

‘Bastards!’ he said. ‘Where was it done?’

‘At the mortuary this afternoon. No point getting it repaired. It will just happen again.’

With an unsteady hand she fumbled with the key fob, then unlocked the car, climbed inside and lowered the soft roof. Struggling, sweating, cursing, they proceeded to manoeuvre the hard top into place.

All their concentration was taken up by the task in hand. Neither Roy Grace nor Cleo Morey noticed the figure standing in the shadow of an alley a short distance away, watching them with a smile of satisfaction.