Looking Good Dead

consultation. Cristian Conti, young and quite hip for a vet, had spent a lot of time examining the lump on Bins’s back and then checking elsewhere. Then he had asked her to bring the cat back in tomorrow for a biopsy, which had immediately panicked Janie into worrying that the vet suspected the lump was a tumour.
    Mr Conti had done his best to allay her fears and had listed theother possibilities, but she had carried Bins out of the surgery under a very dark shadow.
    Ahead she saw a small space between two cars, a short way down from her front door. She braked and put the car into reverse.
    ‘You OK, Bins? Hungry?’
    In the two years since they had become acquainted, she had grown very attached to the ginger and white creature, with his green eyes and huge whiskers. There was something about those eyes, about his whole demeanour, the way one moment he would nuzzle up to her, purring, sleeping with his head on her lap when she watched television, and another moment he was giving her one of those looks that seemed so damned human, so adult, so all-knowing. He was so right, whoever it was who had said, ‘Sometimes when I am playing with my cat, I wonder if perhaps it is not my cat who is playing with me.’
    She reversed into the space, making a total hash of it, then tried again. Not perfect this time either, but it would have to do. She closed the sunroof, picked up the cage and climbed out of the car, pausing to check her watch one more time, as if somehow, miraculously, she had read it wrong last time. She hadn’t. It was now one minute to eight.
    Just half an hour to feed Bins and get ready. Her date was a control freak, who insisted on dictating exactly how she looked each time they met. Her arms and legs had to be freshly shaven; she had to put on exactly the same measure of Issey Miyake and in the same places; she had to wash her hair with the same shampoo and conditioner, and apply exactly the same make-up. And her Brazilian had to be trimmed to within microscopic tolerances.
    He would tell her in advance what dress to wear, what jewellery, and even where in the flat he wanted her to be waiting. It all went totally against the grain; she had always been an independent girl, and had never allowed any man to boss her around. And yet something about this guy had got to her. He was coarse, eastern European, powerfully built and flashily dressed, whereas all the men she had dated previously in her life had been cultured, urbane smoothies. And after just three dates she felt in his thrall. Just even thinking about him now made her moist.
    As she locked the car and turned to walk towards her flat she did not even notice the only car in the street not caked in pigeon and seagullguano, a shiny black Volkswagen GTI with blacked-out windows, parked a short way ahead of her. A man, invisible to the outside world, sat in the driver’s seat, watching her through a tiny pair of binoculars and dialling on his pay-as-you-go mobile phone.

4
    Shortly after half past seven Tom Bryce drove his sporty silver Audi estate past the tennis courts, then the open, tree-lined recreation area of Hove Park, which was teeming with people walking dogs, playing sports, lazing around on the grass, enjoying the remnants of this long, early summer day.
    He had the windows down, and the interior of the car was filled with gently billowing air carrying the scent of freshly mown grass and the soothing voice of Harry Connick Junior – who he loved, but Kellie thought was naff. She didn’t care for Sinatra either. Quality singing just didn’t do it for her; she was into stuff like house, garage, all those weird beaty sounds he did not connect to.
    The longer they were married, the less it seemed they had in common. He couldn’t remember the last movie they’d agreed on, and Jonathan Ross on a Friday night was about the only TV show they regularly sat down to watch together. But they loved each other, that he was sure of, and the kids came above everything. They were everything.
    This was the time of each day he enjoyed the most, the anticipation of getting home to the family he adored. And tonight the contrast between the vile, sticky heat of London and the train, and this pleasant moment now seemed even more pronounced.
    His mood improving by the second, he crossed the junction with swanky Woodland Drive, nicknamed Millionaires’ Row, with its long stretch of handsome detached houses, many backing onto a copse. Kellie hankered to live