Dead Tomorrow

spend it alone, in Roy Grace’s lounge?
    There were three missed calls from Ari on his mobile, which had come in during the briefing meeting, but when he had called her back afterwards, a man had answered.
    A man in his house, telling him that his wife was out.
    When Glenn had asked him who the hell he was, the man, with a creepy, arrogant voice, had told him he was the babysitter and that Ari was at an English literature class.
    A male babysitter?
    If hehad sounded like a teenager, that would have been one thing. But he didn’t; his voice was older, like someone in his thirties. Who the fuck was he? When he had asked that question, the little shit had replied snidely that he was a friend .
    What the hell did Ari think she was doing leaving his kids, Sammy and Remi, in the hands of a man he had never met or vetted? Jesus, he could be a paedophile. He could be anything . The moment the interview was over, Glenn determined to drive straight over there and see him for himself. And throw the fucker out of his house.
    The turn-off was coming up, according to the directions he had memorized. He slowed, indicated left, then turned into a narrow, residential street. Driving slowly, he passed a crowded fish and chip shop, trying with difficulty to read the numbers of the terraced houses. Then he saw No. 64. Fifty yards or so on, there was a tight, empty space between two parked cars. He manoeuvred the little Hyundai into it, touching bumpers with the car behind once, and climbed out. Hurrying through the rain, the collar of his cream mackintosh turned up, he rang the doorbell.
    The woman who answered was in her mid-fifties, tall and buxom, with a crown of reddish hair that looked as if it had been freshly styled today. She wore a loose grey smock over blue jeans and clogs. Dark rings under her eyes and mascara stains gave away her misery.
    ‘Mrs Janet Towers?’ he asked, holding up his warrant card.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Detective Sergeant Branson.’
    ‘Thank you for coming.’ She moved aside to let him in and then, in a sudden spurt of hope, she asked, ‘Do you have any news?’
    ‘Nothing so far,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’
    He stepped inside, squeezing past her into a narrow hallway lined with framed antique nautical prints of Brighton. The house felt hot and stuffy, and smelled of cigarette smoke and damp dog. Something he had noted from pastexperience was that when people were in shock or mourning, they tended to keep their curtains drawn and turn the heating up high.
    She ushered him into a tiny, sweltering lounge. Most of the space was taken up by a brown velour three-piece suite, and the rest by a large television set, a coffee table fashioned from a ship’s wheel, on which sat an ashtray filled with lipsticky butts, and several display cabinets filled with ships-in-bottles in varying sizes. An old-fashioned three-bar heater with fake coals blazed in the fireplace. On the mantelpiece above it were several family photographs and a large greetings card.
    ‘Can I get you a drink, Detective–er–Detective Sergeant Branson, you said? Like the Virgin guy, Richard Branson?’
    ‘Yeah, ’cept I’m not as rich as him. Coffee would be lovely.’
    ‘How do you take it?’
    ‘Muddy, no sugar, thank you.’
    ‘Muddy?’
    ‘Strong, with just a tiny dash of milk.’
    She went out of the room and he took the opportunity to look at the photographs. One showed a couple outside the front of a church–All Saints, Patcham, he recognized, because it was the same church where he and Ari had been married. The husband, whom he presumed was Jim, wore a narrow-cut suit with a shirt that looked too big for him, bouffant frizzy hair and a quizzical smile. The bride, a much skinnier Janet, had ringlets down to her shoulders and a lace gown with a long train.
    Ranged alongside it were several photographs of two children in varying stages of childhood and one of a shy-looking young man in a mortar board and graduation gown.
    Graduation , he thought gloomily. Would he ever get togo to either of his kids’ graduations? Or would his bitch wife exclude him?
    He pulled out his personal mobile and checked the display. Just in case.
    In case what? he thought, pocketing it miserably and wondering again about the man who had answered the phone. The man who was alone with his children.
    Was the little turd going to screw Ari when she came home?
    He heard wheezing and turned to see an elderly, overweight golden retriever peering at him