Looking Good Dead

father, maybe kids, who all loved her. We’re not in any state to start speculating.’
    ‘I know that, Roy. But we can’t lie to the press, either.’
    Thinking as ever about Sandy, Grace said, ‘Look, can’t you understand that everyone who has a missing loved one who fits her description is going to be glued to every word that’s printed, to everything that’s said on television and on the radio? I’m not in the business of raising hopes, I’m in the business of finding criminals.’

    Dennis Ponds jotted furiously on a shorthand pad. ‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘That last line. Can I use that in our press release?’
    Grace stared at the man for a moment. So typical of a press officer that. Sound bites. That’s all Ponds ever wanted, really. He nodded and looked at his watch, wanting to get over to the Incident Room and brief his team there. Then he needed to get to the post-mortem, which would start at 10 a.m.
    There was another reason why he was anxious to attend the post-mortem, and it had nothing to do with the poor young woman whose butchered remains were now being further butchered by the pathologist. It had everything to do with another young woman in the mortuary, with whom he had a date tonight.
    Underneath the mountain of newspapers on his desk was the men’s style magazine FHM . Grace had hoped to grab a few minutes this morning to scan the magazine and see what the hottest men’s fashions were. Glenn Branson kept ribbing him about his clothes, his haircut, even his damned watch. His trusty old Seiko – which Sandy had given him – was too small, apparently, too yesterday ; gave out the wrong signals about him. Probably even gave out the wrong kind of time.
    How the hell could you be cool? At nearly thirty-nine was it even worth trying? Then he thought about Cleo Morey, and his stomach did a sort of backflip into wet cement with excitement. And yes, he realized it was. It was hugely worth trying.
    Dennis Ponds stayed nattering for what felt an eternity, but Grace tolerated it because he knew he needed Ponds onside at the moment, and this was good bonding. Besides, Ponds passed on some interesting gossip about the Chief Constable, the Assistant Chief, Alison Vosper, and then had a moan about Chief Superintendent Gary Weston, Grace’s immediate boss, who, Ponds said, seemed to be more interested in horse races and dog tracks than in policing, and that people were starting to notice and talk.
    Whatever the truth, it wasn’t smart of his ambitious boss to let his reputation slip. As a friend, he ought maybe to say something – but how to? And besides, Grace knew – but did not want to admit to himself – that he sometimes felt a little jealous of Gary Weston’s lifestyle, his adoring family, his easy social graces, his effortless rise up through the ranks. He was trying to remember who it was who had said, ‘Everytime a friend of mine succeeds, something inside me dies.’ Because, sadly, it was true.
    Finally Dennis Ponds left. As the door closed Grace picked up the magazine and began to browse through it. Within minutes his gloom had returned. There were twenty different fashion looks on twenty different pages. Which would make him look modern and smart for his date? And which a total loser?
    There was only one way to find out, he thought, resigning himself to a serious loss of face.

14
    Grace left his office and walked through into the Management Support Assistants’ area, where Eleanor was stationed along with three other MSAs. Together these four women provided the secretarial backup for all the senior CID officers in CID headquarters, apart from Gary Weston, who had his own full-time assistant.
    One of his dislikes about the building was its depersonalizing sense of uniformity. Perhaps simply because it was fairly newly refurbished, or perhaps because it was away from the city itself, the building felt sterile. It didn’t have the chunks out of the walls made in scuffles with villains or by someone in a hurry with a metal object, or the threadbare patches of carpet, or the nicotine-stained ceilings of most police stations. There were no cracked windows, busted chairs, wonky desks – all the patina of use that gave a place character – although, admittedly, not always welcome character.
    Eleanor had a spray of violets on her desk in a dinky china vase, a photograph of her four kids but curiously not one of her husband, a half-filled-out Sudoku puzzle torn from a newspaper