Looking Good Dead

dealing with someone who has a different value set toyou and me,’ Grace said with a grimace. ‘What exactly is the connection with the ancient Egyptians, Lars?’
    ‘I’ll print it out for you; it’s really quite fascinating.’
    ‘Will it help me find my killer?’
    ‘He’s clearly someone who knows about symbolism. I would think it is important for you to understand as much about this as possible. You haven’t been to Egypt, Roy?’
    ‘No.’
    The Professor was starting to look quite animated. ‘If you go to Luxor, the Valley of the Kings or any of the temples, you’ll see scarabs carved everywhere; they were a fundamental part of Upper and Lower Egyptian culture. And of course they were significant in funeral rites.’
    Grace sipped some more of his coffee, running through in his mind all he had to do this evening, while the Professor worked on his keyboard for a few moments.
    Twenty minutes ago DC Emma-Jane Boutwood had phoned to tell him the DNA results were in and there was no match on the database. No more body parts had yet been found. One more of the missing women had been eliminated in the past hour. DNA from the rest had been couriered up to the lab and hopefully – for the police, at any rate – there would be a match. If not they would have to immediately widen their search.
    Suddenly, a printer spat a sheet of paper out inches from where he was sitting, startling him.
    ‘Funeral rites?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘What was the significance of these beetles in funeral rites, Lars?’
    ‘They’d be put in the tombs to ensure eternal resurrection.’
    Grace thought about it for some moments. Were they dealing with a religious fanatic? A game player? Clearly it was someone intelligent – cultured enough to have read up on ancient Egypt – the placing of this particular beetle in the woman’s rectum was no random act. ‘Where would someone get hold of a scarab beetle in England?’ he asked. ‘Only in a zoo?’
    ‘No, there are a few importers of tropical insects who would deal in them. I don’t doubt they are available on the internet as well.’

    Grace made a mental note to have someone list and visit every tropical insect supplier in the UK and do a trawl on the Web.
    The entomologist returned the beetle to the evidence bag. ‘Is there anything else I can help you with on this, Roy?’
    ‘I’m sure there will be. I can’t think of anything more at the moment. And I really appreciate your staying on late to see me.’
    ‘It’s not a problem.’ Lars Johansson nodded towards the window and the view out over Exhibition Road. ‘Turned out to be a fine evening. Are you heading back down to Sussex?’
    Grace nodded.
    ‘Let me buy you a drink – one for the road?’
    Grace glanced at his watch. The next fast train down to Brighton was in about forty minutes. He did not have time for a drink, but he sure felt in need of one. And as the Professor had been helpful to him so many times in the past, he thought it would be rude to decline. ‘Just a quick one,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll have to run.’
    Which was why, thirty minutes later, at a street table outside a crowded pub, he found himself wondering just exactly what the hell was wrong with his life. He should have been out on a date tonight with one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Instead he was drinking his second pint of warm beer, having first had a fifteen-minute lecture on the digestive system of the scarab beetle, and now a lengthy analysis from the increasingly maudlin Lars Johansson of all that was wrong with the man’s marriage.

22
    The Thursday-night rush hour traffic out of London had been worse than usual. And tonight being a fine, balmy night, it seemed every Londoner was escaping into the countryside. Tom normally travelled by train to avoid this hell, but he’d had to take the car today to get out to Ron Spacks’s office, and afterwards he’d had to drive back into central London to collect his laptop.
    His plans to get home early and have a barbecue supper in the garden with his family had been shot to ribbons by Chris Webb arriving late to fix his computer and then taking much longer than he had thought. It was almost half past four in the afternoon by the time Chris had finished, freeing Tom to start his journey at the worst possible time.
    Normally in the car he would catch up on phone calls or listen to the radio – in London he particularly liked David Prever on Smooth FM, otherwise he listened