Looking Good Dead

little about his friend. Underneath the hulking frame that must have made him a formidable nightclub bouncer was a gentle guy. Too damned gentle and kind-hearted for his own good, at times.
    ‘Sulphuric acid,’ Potting said pensively, raising his glass and taking a long draught.
    Grace stared at him. The poor sod had not been blessed with good looks – in fact he verged on being plug ugly. Despite the ageing detective’s failings, he suddenly felt a little sorry for his colleague, sensing a sad and lonely man behind the bravado.
    Potting put his glass down on a Guinness mat, dug his hand in his pocket and got out his pipe. He stuck it in his mouth, then pulled a box of matches from the opposite pocket. Nick Nicholl watched in fascination.
    ‘Ever smoked, lad?’ Potting asked.
    The young DC shook his head.
    ‘Didn’t think so; you don’t look the type. Fit bugger, I suppose?’

    ‘I try.’ Nicholl sipped his beer. ‘My dad smoked. He died at forty-eight from lung cancer.’
    Potting was silenced for a second. Then he said, ‘Cigarettes?’
    ‘Twenty a day.’
    He held up his pipe, smugly. ‘There’s a difference, you see.’
    ‘Nick’s a good runner,’ Grace cut in. ‘I want to poach him for my rugby team this autumn.’
    ‘Sussex need some good runners at the moment,’ Potting retorted. ‘They’ve got a lot of bloody runs to get today. What a Horlicks yesterday! Three bowled out for ten! Against bloody Surrey!’ He struck a match and lit his pipe, blowing out a cloud of sickly sweet smoke which billowed around Grace.
    Potting puffed away until the bowl of his pipe glowed an even, bright red.
    Normally Grace liked the smell of pipe smoke, but not this morning. He waved the smoke away, watching it curl heavily and lazily up towards the nicotine-decorated ceiling. Reggie D’Eath’s murder could have been coincidental, he thought. The man was a key witness for the prosecution in the trial of members of a major international paedophile ring. There were several people who would have good reasons for wanting him silenced.
    Yet what had been found on the two computers seemed to him to indicate another possibility. Bryce had been warned not to contact the police. He had – rightly – ignored the warning, and a police examination of his computer had connected it to Reggie D’Eath’s PC. Less than twenty-four hours later D’Eath was dead.
    There was an irritating chime from the fruit machine, then a series of further chimes like a xylophone. Potting and Nicholl were now deep into a conversation about cricket, and Grace drifted more deeply into his own thoughts. He remained so deep in thought that, even when they were back in the car, he barely registered the one piece of information that Norman Potting, changing the subject from cricket back to Reggie D’Eath, suddenly revealed.

51
    The emergency vet, who had introduced herself as Dawn, a rather butch-looking Australian woman in her mid-thirties, was kneeling beside Lady, who was still very drowsy. She pulled down the Alsatian’s left eyelid and examined it with the aid of a pencil torch. Max and Jessica watched anxiously. Tom stood with an arm around each of them.
    The detective, Glenn Branson, had gone outside to make a phone call.
    Tom stared down at the dog, his mind in turmoil. Yesterday morning he had gone to the police, defying the email warning that had been sent to him. Now Kellie was missing and the car had been found, burned out.
    Oh Christ, my darling, where are you?
    Standing in the brilliant morning sunshine out in the street, Branson held his mobile phone to his ear, talking to a family liaison officer, WPC Linda Buckley, arranging for her to come straight over to the Bryces’ house.
    Almost immediately after he ended the call, the phone rang. It was an officer from British Transport Police, PC Dudley Bunting, returning Branson’s call. Glenn told him what he was looking for and that it was very urgent. Bunting promised to come back to him as quickly as he could.
    ‘Today is what I need,’ Branson said. ‘Not three weeks time. That possible?’
    Bunting sounded hesitant. ‘It’s Sunday.’
    ‘Yeah, I know, I should be in church. And I’m with a geezer who would quite like to spend the day with his wife, and I’m with his two kids who’d quite like to spend the day with their mother – except it looks like someone abducted her in the middle of the night. So maybeyou’d like to sacrifice the Sunday roast with your