Looking Good Dead

any possibility he was mistaken? Any at all?
    But there wasn’t. It was her .
    So what the hell, he wondered, was he going to do?

30
    At half past six, Roy Grace, Glenn Branson and all the other members of the investigation team, including Grace’s newest recruit, Detective Sergeant Norman Potting, were sitting at the large, rectangular table in the briefing room, directly opposite MIR One, the Major Incident Room where Operation Nightingale had been allocated its workstation.
    Grace could smell the reek of pipe tobacco coming off Norman Potting’s clothes. The long-serving policeman was dressed in a brown suit that was a good twenty years old, a white shirt that looked like he had ironed it himself when he was drunk, a green golf-club tie covered in food stains and stout black shoes. He was a self-assured, rather cocky veteran of three marriages, with a narrow, rubbery face criss-crossed with broken veins, protruding lips, tobacco-stained teeth and a thinning comb-over.
    Grace formally welcomed Norman Potting, avoiding eye contact with everyone else.
    ‘Good to be on the team,’ Potting returned in his deep rumble of a voice, heavily tinged with his native Devon burr. ‘Especially pleasant to be working with some pretty young ladies.’ He winked broadly at Bella and then at Emma-Jane.
    Grace winced, then pressed on. He needed to be away by seven if at all possible, just for a couple of hours. He looked down at the briefing notes prepared by Bella and Eleanor for him. ‘The time is six thirty, Friday, June third,’ he read out. ‘This is our second briefing of Operation Nightingale, the investigation into the murder of a previously unknown person, now identified as Jane – known as Janie – Susan Amanda Stretton, conducted on day two following the discovery of her remains. I will now summarize the incident.’
    For some minutes Grace reviewed the events leading up to the discovery of Janie’s headless remains, then the discovery of the beetle at the post-mortem. At which point Norman Potting interrupted him.

    ‘Wasn’t there something in the papers some years back about Hollywood stars putting gerbils up their bottoms, Roy?’
    ‘Thanks, Norman; I don’t think that has any currency here.’
    ‘Mind you, there’s a lot of them actors are queer and you don’t know it.’
    ‘ Thank you , Norman,’ Grace said firmly, trying to put him back in his box. He was about to continue, to tell the team about the discovery of Janie Stretton’s secret life, when Glenn Branson put up his hand, interrupting him.
    ‘You were telling me in the car earlier about the symbolism of the scarab beetle, Roy. I think that’s useful to share with the team.’
    ‘Yes, I was intending to. Briefly, in ancient Egyptian mythology, the scarab beetle was worshipped under the name Khepri – which translates literally as ‘‘he who has come into being’’ or, ‘‘he who came forth from the earth’’. Those Egyptians were great worshippers of the sun. In the same way that the scarab beetle pushed a ball of dung in front of it, the Egyptians imagined that Khepri rolled the sun – visualize it as a solar ball – across the sky from east to west each day – so they regarded Khepri as a form of the sun god, Ra. As a result the scarab became an important symbol of creation, resurrection and everlasting life in the religious mythology of ancient Egypt.’
    ‘They were clever buggers, those Egyptians,’ Norman Potting said. ‘I mean how the heck did they build those pyramids? Mind you, I’d never trust one – have to watch those darkies.’
    Grace, wincing, shot a sideways glance at Glenn Branson, then glared at Potting, wondering how on earth the man was still in the force and hadn’t ended up in front of a sexual harassment or race relations tribunal. ‘Norman, that language is totally unacceptable and I won’t have it used in my briefings.’
    Potting looked as if he was about to say something, then appeared to think better of it and sheepishly looked down at his papers.
    ‘Have you figured out if the symbolism has any bearing yet, Roy?’ Nick Nicholl asked.
    ‘Not so far, no. I hope one of you geniuses will.’ Grace grinned at him, then continued, telling the team of their discovery this afternoon of Janie Stretton’s secret life. And, crucially, that they had the first name of a possible suspect. Anton.

    It had already been established that the phone number for this Anton, which Claire at the agency had