Looking Good Dead

bought something new, mostly on eBay, and because it was a bargain in her logic it didn’t count. And besides, she told him, he was always buying expensive designer clothes for himself, how could he argue? It didn’t seem to matter to her that he only bought his clothes during the sales and that he needed to look sharp in his line of work.
    He was so worried he’d even discussed her spending problem recently with a friend of his, who had been through counselling for depression after his divorce. Over a few vodka martinis, a drink in which Tom was increasingly taking solace in recent months, Bruce Watts told him there were people who were compulsive spenders and they could be treated. Tom wondered if Kellie was bad enough to warrant treatment – and if so, how to broach it.
    The dickhead started again. ‘Hello, BILL, it’s RON, yeah. Ron from PARTS. YEAH, THAT’S RIGHT! JUST THOUGHT I’D GIVE YOU A QUICK HEADS-UP ON— Oh fuck. BILL? HELLO?’
    Tom raised his eyes without moving his head. No signal. Divine providence! Sometimes you really could believe there was a God. Then he heard the wail of another phone.
    His own, he suddenly realized, feeling the vibration in his shirt pocket. Glancing surreptitiously around he pulled it out then, checking the caller’s name, answered it in as loud a voice as he could muster. ‘HELLO, DARLING,’ he said. ‘I’M ON THE TRAIN! T-R-A-I-N! IT’S RUNNING LATE!’ He smiled at the dickhead, relishing a few moments of deliciously sweet revenge.
    While he continued talking to Kellie, lowering his voice to a more civilized level, the train pulled into Preston Park station, the last stop before his destination, Brighton. The dickhead, gripping a tiny, cheap-looking holdall, and a couple of others in the carriage got off, then the train moved on. It wasn’t until some moments after he had ended the call that Tom noticed the CD lying on the seat beside him which the dickhead had just vacated.
    He picked it up and examined it for any clues as to how to reach itsowner. The outer casing was opaque plastic, with no label or writing on it. He popped it open and removed the silver-coloured disc, turning it over and inspecting it carefully, but it yielded nothing either. He would load it into his computer and open it up and see if that provided anything, and, failing that, he planned to hand it in to Lost Property. Not that the dickhead really deserved it . . .
    A tall chalk escarpment rose steeply on either side of the train. Then to his left it gave way to houses and a park. In moments they would be approaching Brighton station. There wasn’t enough time to check the CD out now; he would have a look at home later tonight, he decided.
    If he could have had the smallest inkling of the devastating impact it was going to have on his life, he would have left the damned thing on the seat.

3
    Squinting against the low evening sun, Janie eyed the clock on the dash of her Mini Cooper in panic, then double-checked it against her wristwatch. 7.55 p.m. Christ. ‘Almost home, Bins,’ she said, her voice tight, cursing the Brighton seafront traffic, wishing she’d taken a different route. Then she popped a tab of chewing gum into her mouth.
    Unlike his owner, the cat had no hot date tonight and was in no hurry. He sat placidly in his wicker carrying basket on the front passenger seat of the car, staring a tad morosely out through the bars at the front – sulking perhaps, she thought, from having been taken to the vet. She put out a hand to steady the basket as she turned, too fast, into her street, then slowed down, looking for a parking space, hoping to hell she was going to be lucky.
    She was back a lot later than she had intended, thanks to her boss keeping her on in the office – today of all days – to help draft briefing notes for a conference with counsel in the morning on a particularly bitter divorce case.
    The client was an arrogant, good-looking layabout who had married an heiress and was now going for as much of her money as he could get. Janie had loathed him from the moment she first met him, in her boss’s office some months back; in her view he was a parasite, and she secretly hoped he would not get one penny. She had never confided her opinion to her boss, although she suspected he felt much the same.
    Then she had been kept over half an hour in the vet’s waiting room before finally being ushered in with Bins to see Mr Conti. And it really had not been a successful