Not Dead Yet

58

For the first time since Ari had thrown him out, Glenn Branson was in a sunny mood. He left MIR-1 feeling like a man on a mission. He would surprise Bella, he thought. Cheer her up. He knew that visiting hours at the hospital would be over shortly.

He drove to his local Tesco Express, bought a bunch of sweet-smelling flowers and a box of Maltesers. Then he stopped by an off-licence he favoured, Mullholland’s Wines on Church Road, and selected a bottle of chilled Sauvignon Blanc from the cooler, which he remembered her telling him in Cardiff that she liked.

He drove down to his lodgings in Roy Grace’s house off Church Road, had a quick shower, brushed his teeth and sprayed himself with his current favourite cologne, Chanel Blue. He fed Marlon and hurried back out to his car. Remembering Bella’s address from having dropped her home once before, he entered it in the satnav stuck to the dash of his ancient Ford Fiesta, and was just reversing out of the drive when his phone rang. It was 8.25 p.m.

He stopped, debating for a moment whether to ignore it. But in his new, elevated status of deputy SIO he was on call round the clock. Ignoring it was not an option. ‘Glenn Branson,’ he answered, somewhat reluctantly, hoping to hell, just at this moment, that there wasn’t an urgent new development on Operation Icon.

It was Roy Grace.

‘Yo, old timer, you’re up late for a man of your age!’

‘Very witty. Not interrupting you, Glenn, I hope?’

‘Nah, I was just discussing the meaning of life with Marlon.’

‘He should get out more. Come to think of it, so should you.’

‘I’m working on it.’

Grace’s tone became more serious. ‘Okay, we have a development.’

Shit, Branson groaned inwardly. ‘We do?’ he said, trying to sound enthusiastic.

‘The Specialist Search Unit have located a human head. They think it might be Berwick Male’s head.’

This time Branson’s enthusiasm was genuine. ‘Where?’

‘It’s in a shallow grave in a ditch, about a quarter of a mile west of the lake where they recovered the limbs earlier today. Because there’s no Home Office pathologist free tonight, we have one coming tomorrow morning at seven, Ben Swift. Can you meet him at the site? I’ll cover the morning briefing.’

‘Of course, chief.’

Grace’s voice sounded a little strange, a lot more formal than usual, as if he were considering his words carefully. ‘Okay, I’m going to give you the compass co-ordinates. Got something to write them down on?’

Branson pulled his notepad out of his pocket. ‘Ready.’

Grace repeated the directions, which Glenn already knew, to the West Sussex Piscatorial trout lake, near Henfield. He was a little surprised at the elaborate directions the Detective Superintendent gave him, as if Grace did not realize he had already been there for much of today. But all the same, he dutifully wrote them down, and the precise co-ordinates.

‘We’ve been lucky so far that the press haven’t cottoned on. Hopefully we can recover the head before we have to worry about the next stage of our press strategy,’ Grace said.

‘Guess we’re lucky that Spinella’s away on honeymoon,’ Branson said.

‘Clearly there is a God!’

Worthing was the next coastal town west from Brighton and Hove. With its Victorian pier, faded Regency buildings and wide promenade, it had a generally calm air, compared to the edgy vibrancy of its racy neighbour to the east. Glenn Branson had always liked the place, despite its reputation as a major retirement centre and the sobriquet that went with that, of ‘God’s Waiting Room’.

The satnav took him on a route that bypassed the town itself, and down into a suburb, Durrington, and into a broad network of streets lined with postwar bungalows, two-storey houses and shopping parades. The kind of pleasant, utterly civilized open area, peppered with yellow Neighbourhood Watch signs in front windows where, you felt, nothing bad could ever happen to any of its residents.

He slowed to 28 m.p.h. as he approached a speed camera, then made a right, followed by a left, obeying the dictatorial commands of the woman’s voice from inside his TomTom, then made another right on to Terringes Avenue. It was a quiet street of neat red-brick houses; he drove along, peering through the twilight at the house numbers.

‘You have arrived!’ the satnav announced.

He saw 280 on his right, 282, then 284.

He felt a sudden flutter of nerves. God, this was how he had felt – how many years back? – when he was first dating Ari!

Number 284 was on a junction. He drove past the house and turned right, drove a hundred yards then made a U-turn and parked.

Calm down!

He could smell the scent of the flowers.

What the hell am I doing here?

His insides were jangling, as if he’d stuck his finger into an electrical socket.

Calm down!

He took some deep breaths.

What if she was out?

What if she told him to get lost and made a complaint about sexual harassment?

For a moment, he was tempted, very seriously tempted, to twist the ignition key, tramp the accelerator and get the hell out of there.

You’re not even divorced, man!

He ruminated on that for some moments.

Yeah, but.

He got out of the car, scooped up the bottle and flowers, and locked the doors. He walked the short distance up to Terringes Avenue, turned left towards Bella’s home, and then froze.

A man was standing outside her front door, clutching a huge bouquet of flowers in his arms. A man he recognized.

He could not believe his eyes. No way, it absolutely could not be him! But it was.

The door opened, and Bella stood there, wearing a short dress, her hair looking like it had just been done, as it had last night.

She looked like she had been expecting him. He said something and she laughed. They kissed, just a fleeting peck. Two people comfortable with each other.

Norman Potting went inside and the door closed behind him.

Glenn stood there, gobsmacked. Then, slowly he walked back to his car, stopping on the way to jam the bouquet into a dustbin.

He drove off at speed, shaking his head in anger, astonishment and self-pity, the wine bottle rolling on the passenger seat beside him. Norman Potting. Incredible! Like, it did not make any sense. What the hell did she see in an ugly old lech like him?

Clearly something.

Or had he totally misread it?