Dead Simple

just as much.
    She headed up towards Portland Road, driving faster than she should, anxious not to be late for her chiropodist. The corn was giving her grief and she did not want to miss the appointment. Nor did she want to get delayed there. She badly needed to be in the office ahead of Mr Misery and, with luck, have a few minutes to catch up with some urgent paperwork on a forthcoming hearing.
    Her phone pinged with an incoming text. When she reached the junction with the main road, she glanced down at it.
    I had a great time last night – wld love to see you again XXX
    In your dreams, sweetheart. She shuddered at the thought of him. Dave from Preston, Lancashire. Preston Dave, she’d called him. At least she had been honest with the photograph of herself she’d put up on the dating website – well, reasonably honest! And she wasn’t looking for a Mr Universe. Just a nice guy who wasn’t 100 pounds heavier and ten years older than his photograph, and who didn’t want to spend the entire evening telling her how wonderful he was, and what a great shag women thought he was. Was that too much to ask?
    Just to put the icing on the cake, the tight bastard had invited her out to dinner, to a far more expensive restaurant than she would have chosen for a first encounter, and at the end had suggested they split the bill.
    Keeping her foot on the brake and leaning forward, she deleted the text, decisively, returning the phone to the hands-free cradle with no small amount of satisfaction.
    Then she made a left turn, pulling out in front of a white van, and accelerated.
    The van hooted and flashing its lights angrily, closed up right behind her and began tailgating her. She held up two fingers.
    There were to be many times, in the days and weeks ahead, when she bitterly regretted reading and deleting that text. If she hadn’t waited at that junction for those precious seconds, fiddling with her phone, if she had made that left turn just thirty seconds earlier, everything might have been very different.

5
    ‘Black,’ Glenn Branson said, holding the large golf umbrella over their heads.
    Detective Superintendent Roy Grace looked up at him.
    ‘It’s the only colour!’
    At five foot, ten inches, Roy Grace was a good four inches shorter than his junior colleague and friend, and considerably less sharply dressed. Approaching his fortieth birthday, Grace was not handsome in a conventional sense. He had a kind face with a slightly misshapen nose that gave him a rugged appearance. It had been broken three times – once in a fight and twice on the rugby pitch. His fair hair was cropped short and he had clear blue eyes that his long-missing wife, Sandy, used to tell him resembled those of the actor Paul Newman.
    Feeling like a child in a sweet shop, the Detective Superintendent, hands dug deeply into his anorak pockets, ran his eyes over the rows of vehicles on the Frosts’ used-car forecourt, all gleaming with polish and rainwater, and kept returning to the two-door Alfa Romeo. ‘I like silver, and dark red, and navy.’ His voice was almost drowned out by the sound of a lorry passing on the main road behind them, its air horns blaring.
    He was taking advantage of the quiet week, so far, to nip out of the office. A car he’d liked the look of on the Autotrader website was at this local dealer.
    Detective Sergeant Branson, wearing a cream Burberry mackintosh and shiny brown loafers, shook his head. ‘Black’s best. The most desirable colour. You’ll find that useful when you come to sell it – unless you’re planning to drive it over a cliff, like your last one.’
    ‘Very funny.’
    Roy Grace’s previous car, his beloved maroon Alfa Romeo 147 sports saloon, had been wrecked during a police pursuit the previous autumn, and he had been wrangling with the insurance company ever since. Finally they had agreed a miserly settlement figure.
    ‘You need to think about these things, old-timer. Getting near retirement, you need to look after the pennies.’
    ‘I’m thirty-nine.’
    ‘Forty’s looming.’
    ‘Thanks for reminding me.’
    ‘Yeah, well, the old brain starts going at your age.’
    ‘Sod off! Anyhow, black’s the wrong colour for an Italian sports car.’
    ‘It’s the best colour for everything.’ Branson tapped his chest. ‘Look at me.’
    Roy Grace stared at him. ‘Yes?’
    ‘What do you see?’
    ‘A tall, bald bloke with rubbish taste in ties.’
    ‘It’s Paul Smith,’ he said, looking