Looking Good Dead

had a positive DNA match for the body.

24
    ‘I can’t believe your music, man,’ Branson said. ‘It’s crap, it’s just total crap. There’s no other word for it.’
    They were on a long stretch of downhill dual carriageway heading west, past the grassy expanse of the old World War II fighter base, down to their left, that had now become Shoreham Airport, a busy base for private aircraft and commercial flights to the Channel Islands, and in the direction of Southampton.
    Shoreham was the extreme western suburb of Brighton, and Grace always felt a strange mixture of relief and loss when he left it behind him. Loss, because Brighton was where he really felt at home, and anywhere else felt like uncharted waters where he was out of his depth, a little insecure. And relief, because all the time he was in the Brighton and Hove City conurbation he felt a sense of responsibility, and away from it he could relax.
    After his years in the force it was his second nature to subconsciously assess every pedestrian and the occupants of every car on the street. He knew most of the local villains, certainly all of the street drug dealers, and some of the muggers and burglars; knew when they were in the right place and when in the wrong place. That was one of the things so ridiculous about Alison Vosper’s threat to transfer him. A lifetime of knowledge and contacts down the pan.
    Roy Grace had decided to drive, because his nerves wouldn’t take another journey with Branson showing off his high-speed pursuit skills. Now he wasn’t sure his nerves could take any more of the Detective Sergeant’s poking about with the CD player. But Branson wasn’t finished with him yet.
    ‘The Beatles ? Who the hell listens to the Beatles in their car these days?’
    ‘Me, I like them,’ Grace said defensively. ‘Your problem is you can’t differentiate between loud noise and good music.’ He brought the Alfa Romeo to a stop at a red light, the junction with the Lancing Collegeroad. He had decided to take his own car because it hadn’t had a long run in a while and the battery needed a good charge. More importantly, if he had taken a pool car, Branson would probably have insisted on driving and been hurt if he hadn’t let him.
    ‘That’s well funny, coming from you,’ Branson said. ‘You just don’t get music!’ Then suddenly changing the subject, he pointed at a pub across the road. ‘The Sussex Pad. Do good fish there, went there with Ari. Yeah, it was good.’ Then he turned his attention back to the CD player. ‘Dido!’
    ‘What’s wrong with Dido?’
    Branson shrugged. ‘Well, if you like that kind of thing, I suppose. I hadn’t realized how sad you were.’
    ‘Yeah, well I do like that kind of thing.’
    ‘And – Jesus – what’s this? Something you got free with a magazine?’
    ‘Bob Berg,’ Grace said, getting irritated now. ‘He happens to be a seriously cool modern jazz musician.’
    ‘Yeah, but he’s not black .’
    ‘Oh, right, you have to be black to be a jazz musician?’
    ‘I’m not saying that.’
    ‘You are! Anyhow he’s dead – he was killed in a crash a few years ago and I love his stuff. Just an awesome tenor saxophonist. OK? Want to pull anything else apart? Or shall we talk about your hunch ?’
    A tad sullenly, Glenn Branson switched on the radio and tuned it into a rap station. ‘Tomorrow, right, I’m taking you clothes shopping? Well I’m going to take you music shopping as well. You get a hot date in this car and she sees your music, she’s going to be looking in the glove locker for your pension book.’
    Grace tuned him out, turning his mind back to the immediate task ahead of them and all the other balls he had to keep in the air simultaneously.
    His nerves were frayed this morning, both from his meeting with Alison Vosper, which had left him feeling very down, and from the task that was facing him in about an hour’s time. Ordinarily, Grace could have said with complete honesty that he liked almost every aspect of police work – except for one thing, and that was breaking the news of a death to a parent or loved one. It wasn’t something he had to do very often these days as it was a task for family liaison officers, detectiveswho were specially trained. But there were some situations, like the one he was going to now, where Grace wanted to be present himself to gauge the reaction, to glean as much information as he could in those key early moments after the news was