Looking Good Dead

strength; Nicholl seemed to find it too, at the same time. And the next moment, like a huge, blubbery fish, the fat pigtailed man was hauled to safety, up over the edge of the roof.
    Venner lay on his back, yabbering in terror; there was a dark stain around his crotch where he had pissed himself. Moments later, with no time to spare, Grace roughly rolled him over onto his front, grabbed his hands and cuffed him. There was a vile stench; the creep had crapped himself as well, but Grace barely noticed; he was on autopilot now.
    Yelling at Nicholl to get the man out of the building, Grace ran back to the fire exit, hurtled down the flights of steps and into the basement. Norman Potting, accompanied now by two uniformed constables, was kneeling beside Glenn Branson, who seemed semi-conscious.
    ‘This whole fucking place is going up! Let’s get him out!’ Grace yelled.
    He shoved his arms under his friend’s shoulders, with a constable supporting his midriff and Potting and the other constable each taking a leg. They carried him up the stairs, then burst through a fire exit door into the car park, into a searing blast of heat from the blazing cars and the helicopter, the stench of burning paint and rubber, and a cacophony of sirens.
    They carried Branson away as far as they could from the heat, until Grace saw an ambulance racing towards them.
    They stopped. He looked down at Branson, bringing his face close to his mate’s. ‘How are you doing?’
    ‘Remember John Wayne, when he got shot in that movie––’ Branson said, his voice wheezy.
    ‘Did he live?’ Grace interrupted him.
    ‘Yeah, he lived.’
    ‘That how you feel?’

    ‘Yeah.’
    Grace kissed him on the forehead. He couldn’t help it; he loved this man.
    Then, standing back as the paramedics took over, he felt something cutting into his hand. He looked down and saw a blue-faced Breitling watch on a broken metal bracelet. It was covered in blood. His own blood.
    It was the watch, he realized, which had been on the pigtailed man’s wrist. How the hell did he – ?
    And he thought back to a couple of hours earlier today, to the phone call he had had from the clairvoyant Harry Frame.
    I’m getting a watch.
    A watch? Like a wristwatch?
    Exactly! A wristwatch! There is something very significant. A wristwatch will lead you to something very satisfying to do with a case you are working on. This case, I think.
    Can you elaborate?
    No, I . . . No, that’s all. As I said, I don’t know if it means anything.
    Any particular make?
    No. Expensive, I think.
    Sucking at his hand to staunch the bleeding, he turned to Nick Nicholl, who was closing a police car door on Venner. ‘Do you know anything about wristwatches?’
    His colleague was white, shaking. In a bad way. Seriously in shock. ‘Not a lot. Why?’
    Grace held up the watch he was holding. ‘What about this?’
    Norman Potting piped up, ‘That’s a Breitling.’
    ‘What do you know about them?’
    ‘Only that I could never afford one. They’re expensive.’
    A constable came running towards them, looking petrified. ‘Please move away. We’re worried the whole building might go up – it’s full of chemicals.’
    Suddenly seized with panic, Grace said, ‘Christ, where the hell are Mr and Mrs Bryce?’
    ‘It’s all right, sir,’ the constable said. ‘They’re in ambulances, on their way to hospital.’
    ‘Good man.’

87
    Five minutes later, just as the first fire engine pulled up outside, the warehouse exploded. The blast blew out windows from buildings up to a quarter of a mile away. It was over two days before it was cool enough for the forensic investigators to enter and begin their grim task.
    Three sets of human remains were eventually found. One would be identified in a few weeks’ time by his brother, still under police guard in hospital, from the partially melted gold medallion found around his neck. The second, just a human skull, would be identified from dental records as being Janie Stretton. The third would also be identified from dental records as being Andy Gidney.
    The intense heat had made it impossible to determine, from what little remained of his bones, Gidney’s precise cause of death. And no one was able to offer any explanation of what he had been doing on the premises.
    In a couple of months, Detective Sergeant Jon Rye of the High Tech Crime Unit would provide a report for the Coroner’s Court. And, for lack of evidence, the Coroner would have no option but