Dead Simple

Smart, of the Specialist Investigations Branch, David Davison of the Crime Policy and Review Branch, Will Graham and Christopher Derricott in the Scientific Support Branch, James Simpson in the Operations and Intelligence Branch, Terrina Clifton-Moore of the Family Liaison Unit, and a couple of dozen more.
    Then he walked through a wide open-plan area filled with desks, few of them attended today, and offices on either side labelled with their occupants’ names and the Sussex Police badge.
    He passed the large office of Detective Chief Superintendent Gary Weston, who was the Head of Sussex CID. Reaching another door, he held his card up against the security panel and entered a long, cream-painted corridor lined with red noticeboards on either side, to which were pinned serious crime detection procedures. One was labelled ‘Diagram – Common Possible Motives’, another, ‘Murder Investigation Model’, another, ‘Crime Scene Assessment’.
    The place had a modern, cutting-edge feel, which he liked. He had spent much of his career in old, inefficient buildings that were like rabbit warrens; it was refreshing to feel that his beloved Police Force, to which he had dedicated his life, was truly embracing the twenty-first century. Although it was marred with one flaw that everyone here moaned about – there was no canteen.
    He walked further along, past door after door flagged with abbreviations. The first was the Major Incident Suite, which housed the incident room for serious crimes. It was followed by the Disclosure Officers Room, the CCTV Viewing Room, the Intelligence Office Room, the Outside Enquiry Team Office, and then the stench hit him, slowly at first, but more powerful with every step.
    The dense, cloying, stomach-churning reek of human putrefaction, which had become too familiar to him over the years. Much too familiar. There was no other stench like it; it enveloped you like an invisible fog, seeping into the pores of your skin, deep into your nostrils and your lungs and your stomach, and the fibres of your hair and clothes, so that you carried it away with you and continued on smelling it for hours.
    As he pushed open the door of the small, pristine Scene of Crimes Office, he saw the cause: the Crime Scene Investigators’ photographic studio was in action. A Hawaiian shirt, torn and heavily bloodstained, lay under the glare of bright lights, on a table, on a sheet of brown background paper. Nearby, in plastic bags, he could see trousers and a pair of camel loafers.
    Peering further into the room, Grace saw a man, dressed in white overalls, who he did not recognize for a moment, staring intently into the lens of a Hasselblad mounted on a tripod. Then he realized Joe Tindall had had a makeover since he’d last seen him a few months back. The mad-professor hairstyle and large tortoiseshell glasses had gone. He now had a completely shaven head, a narrow strip of hair running from the centre of his lower lip down to the centre of his chin and hip rectangular glasses with blue-tinged lenses. He looked more like a media trendy than a scientific boffin.
    ‘New woman in your life?’ Grace asked, by way of a greeting.
    Tindall looked up at him in surprise. ‘Roy, good to see you! Yes, as a matter of fact – who told you that?’
    Grace grinned, looking at him more closely, almost expecting to spot an earring as well. ‘Young, is she?’
    ‘Actually – yes – how do you know?’
    Grace grinned again, staring at his newly shaven pate, his trendy glasses. ‘Keeping you young, isn’t she?’
    Then Tindall understood and grinned sheepishly. ‘She’s going to kill me, Roy. Three times a night every night.’
    ‘You try three times a night or succeed?’
    ‘Oh, fuck off!’ He stared Grace up and down. ‘You’re looking sharp, for a Saturday. Hot date yourself?’
    ‘A wedding, actually.’
    ‘Congratulations – who’s the lucky girl?’
    ‘I have a feeling she’s not that lucky,’ Grace retorted, placing a small plastic bag containing the earth he had retrieved from Mark Warren’s BMW down on the table, next to the shirt. ‘I need you to pull out some stops.’
    ‘You always need me to pull out some stops. Everyone does.’
    ‘Not true, Joe. I gave you the Tommy Lytle material and told you there was all the time you need. This is different. I have a missing person – how fast you get this analysed might determine whether he lives or dies.’
    Joe Tindall held the bag up and peered at it.