Looking Good Dead

windscreen. ‘See, man!’ Branson shouted above the hammering voice of Jay-Z. ‘You move out to the right, gives you the best view around the bend, then you clip the apex. That’s how they do it in Formula One.’
    Grace whistled through his teeth as they clipped the apex as well as a chunk of mud, grass and nettles from the verge. The car lurched alarmingly. His shirt felt clammy.
    The lorry was getting nearer.
    Grace checked the tensioning on his seat belt, then the speedometer.The unmarked police Vectra was now doing 110 mph. He considered asking whether his colleague was going to brake at all before they reached the ninety-degree right-hander now only a few hundred yards ahead, but he was nervous that any conversation might distract Branson. Up on a windy knoll to his left, Grace saw two men pulling golf trolleys.
    He wondered if his last moments on earth would be spent in the mangled wreckage of a police Vauxhall that smelled of stale burgers, cigarettes and someone else’s sweat, being gawped at through the busted windscreen by two helpless old geezers in golfing gear while a rapper he had never met shouted abuse at him.
    ‘So, my hunch,’ Branson said, right on the apex of the bend, the front of the massive truck just a hundred yards in front of them.
    Grace gripped both sides of his seat.
    Defying all the laws of physics, the car somehow made it around the bend, still pointing in the right direction. Now there was just one more dangerous bend and then they would be in a 40 mph zone and relative safety.
    ‘I’m all ears.’
    ‘All I can hear is your heartbeat,’ Branson said with a grin.
    ‘I’m lucky to still have one.’ Grace turned the radio down. As if in response, Branson slowed the car down.
    ‘Teresa Wallington, she’s living with her fiancé, right. So they plan an engagement party at Al Duomo restaurant for Tuesday night – has to be midweek cos he works strange shifts. Got relatives and friends from all over the country to come down, right?’
    Grace said nothing. Although they were in the calmer waters of a 40 mph limit they were not out of danger yet. While Branson was talking, and fiddling with the radio at the same time, the car was drifting steadily across the road into the path of an oncoming bus. Just as Grace was about to grab the wheel in panic, Branson appeared to notice the bus and unhurriedly manoeuvred the car back on to the left-hand side of the road.
    ‘Then she doesn’t show,’ Branson said. ‘No phone call, no text, nada .’
    ‘So the fiancé murdered her?’

    ‘I’ve got him coming in this afternoon. Thought we’d put him in the suite, take a look at him.’
    There was a small Witness Interview Suite at Sussex House, which could be monitored through a camera from an adjoining room. Its main purpose was to talk to vulnerable witnesses. By watching and filming them officers were able to study their body language and generally assess their credibility. But sometimes Grace found it a helpful place to perform the first interview on someone who might turn out to be a suspect – often as not the husband or lover of a murder victim.
    In the comfortable red armchairs of the Witness Interview Suite people were more likely to give something away than on the hard old upright chairs in the grim interview rooms at Brighton police station. The videotapes could be given to a psychologist for profiling in some cases. It was for this same reason that spouses, partners or lovers of murder victims were sometimes put on television as quickly as possible – to see what body language they used.
    ‘So you’ve gone off your trainee solicitor? I thought you were sweet on her,’ Grace teased.
    ‘Spoke to her best friend. She told me she’s done this before – vanishing off the radar for a couple of days, without explanation. The only thing different is she’s never been absent from work before.’
    ‘You’re saying she’s flaky?’
    Branson, fiddling with the radio again, said, ‘Sounds to me.’
    Grace wondered if Branson had noticed the traffic backed up ahead at a red light – and that they were heading, far too rapidly, towards the back of a garbage truck. This time he did something. ‘GLENN!’
    Branson’s response was to stamp on the brakes, prompting a screech of tyres from behind. Grace turned his head to see a small red car snaking to a halt, inches from rear-ending them.
    ‘What was that driving course thing you went on?’ Grace asked. ‘Remind me about