Dead Tomorrow

remembered a little about the machinery.
    ‘I don’t want the body moved, Ron,’ he said. There could be key forensic evidence lodged around the body or in the nozzle of the dredge pipe. ‘Tell them to secure and preserve it as best they can, and get them to make an exact note on the chart where the body came up.’
    As soon as he hadterminated his call with Ron, he made a further series of calls, assembling the immediate team he needed. One was to the Coroner, informing her of the incident and requesting a Home Office pathologist to attend. Most bodies taken or washed up from the sea would be collected by the mortuary team straight away, after a cursory examination by a police surgeon or paramedic at the scene to certify death, no matter how obvious it was that the person was dead, and then assessed back at the mortuary for a suspicious or natural death. But here, Grace felt from the sound of it, there was little doubt this was suspicious.
    Thirty minutes later he was at the wheel of a pool Hyundai, heading towards the harbour, with Detective Inspector Lizzie Mantle, with whom he had worked on a number of previous inquiries, beside him. She was a highly competent detective, and the fact that she was nice to look at was another bonus. She had shoulder-length fair hair, a pretty face, and was dressed, as she always seemed to be, in a man’s style of suit, today in a blue chalk-stripe over a crisp white blouse. On some women it would have looked quite butch, but on her it was businesslike while still feminine.
    They drove around the end of the harbour, passing the private driveway leading to the cul-de-sac where Heather Mills’s house was.
    Seeing Grace turn his head, as if perhaps to get a glimpse of the Beatle’s former wife, she asked, ‘Did you ever meet Paul McCartney?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘You’re quite into music, aren’t you?’
    He nodded. ‘Some.’
    ‘Would youhave liked to be a rock star? You know, like one of the Beatles?’
    Grace thought about it for a moment. It was not something he had ever considered. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘No.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Because,’ he said. Then he hesitated, slowing down, looking out for the right part of the quay. ‘Because I have a crap voice!’
    She grinned.
    ‘But even if I was able to sing, I always wanted to do something that would make a difference.’ He shrugged. ‘You know? A difference to the world. That’s why I joined the police force. It may sound clichéd–but it’s why I do what I do.’
    ‘You think a police officer can make more difference than a rock megastar?’
    He smiled. ‘I think we corrupt fewer people.’
    ‘But do we make a difference ’?
    They were passing a lumber yard. Then Grace saw the dark green van bearing the gold crest of the city of Brighton and Hove Coroner, parked close to the edge of the quay, and pulled up a short distance from it. None of the rest of the team had arrived so far.
    ‘I thought the ship was supposed to be here already,’ he said a little irritably, mindful of the time, and of the retirement party he had to be at tonight. Several of the top brass of the Sussex Police Force would be there, which meant it would be a good opportunity to do a spot of brown-nosing, so he had been anxious to be there punctually. But there was no chance now.
    ‘Probably delayed in the lock.’
    Grace nodded, andclimbed out of the car, walking to the very edge, still limping and tender from rolling his beloved Alfa Romeo during a pursuit a while back. He stood beside an iron bollard, the wind feeling icy on his face. The light was fading fast, and if it wasn’t such a cloudless sky, it would already be almost dark. A mile or so in the distance he could see the closed lock gates and an orange superstructure, probably that of the dredger, beyond. He pulled his overcoat tightly around himself, shivering against the cold, dug his hands into his pockets and pulled on his leather gloves. Then he glanced at his watch.
    Ten to five. Jim Wilkinson’s retirement party started at seven, over on the far side of Worthing. He had planned to go home and change, then collect Cleo. Now, by the time he finished here, depending on what he found, and on how much examination the pathologist would want to do in situ, he would be lucky to make the party at all. The one blessing was that they had been allocated Nadiuska De Sancha, the quicker–and more fun–of the two specialist Home Office pathologists they worked with