Looking Good Dead

Wendy could see a few cracks of grey dawn light appearing in the black canopy of the night sky. A terrified rabbit sprinted in the glow of the car’s headlights across the road and vanished beneath the bonnet. She waited for the thud and was relieved when there was none.
    ‘Bloody kamikaze bunny that was,’ Phil Taylor said cheerily.
    ‘I think you missed it.’
    ‘I read somewhere that some bloke’s published a book of road-kill recipes – in America.’
    ‘Could only be in America,’ Wendy said. She’d never actually been there, and had an image of the country heavily influenced by all the crazies in California she had seen on television, or read about, with a bit of Michael Moore thrown in for good measure.
    They were passing woodland on their right and a sweeping drop totheir left down to the lights of Brighton and Hove. Then, rounding a sharp right-hand bend, they saw the red glow ahead of them.
    For a brief instant Wendy thought it might be the sun starting to rise, but dismissed that when she worked out they were travelling almost due west. The glow intensified as they drew closer, and then, suddenly, she could smell it.
    The vile, acrid stench of burning paint, rubber and vinyl.
    Taylor braked and pulled over a short distance from the blazing car, which was in a tarmac car park in a beauty spot with magnificent daytime views. But all WPC Wendy Salter could see as she unclipped herself and stepped out of the car, dutifully pulling on her hat, was dense, choking smoke as the strong breeze blew it straight towards them, making her eyes water. She turned away for a moment, coughing, then ran alongside her colleague as close as they could get to the vehicle before the heat stopped them.
    In the distance she could hear the wail of a siren. Probably the fire brigade, she thought, the stench of burning paint and rubber one hundred times stronger now, and the fierce crackling and roaring of the inferno filling her ears.
    She could see inside the car now, with most of the glass of the windows already burned out, and to her relief it was empty. It was an estate, and walking round to the front she recognized the radiator grille. ‘An Audi,’ she called out to PC Taylor.
    ‘It’s a recent model; you can tell from the grille,’ he said.
    ‘I know. The new A4.’
    He gave her a glance. ‘Bit of a petrol-head, are you?’ he said with grudging admiration.
    ‘Not as much as whoever did this,’ she retorted.
    ‘Kids,’ he said, as if it were a swear word. ‘Little bastards. Torching someone’s brand new wheels.’
    ‘Joyriders?’
    ‘Bound to be,’ he said. ‘Who else?’

44
    Roy Grace woke at six thirty on Sunday morning to the beeping of his alarm clock, with a parched mouth and a blinding headache. Two paracetamol capsules he’d swallowed with a pint of water at about five in the morning had had about as much effect as the first couple he had downed a few hours earlier. Which was not a lot.
    As he hit the snooze button, temporarily silencing the clock, the loud chirrup of a bird outside took over, incessant, like a stuck CD track. Light streamed in through a wide gap in the curtains, which he realized he had not closed properly.
    How drunk was I last night?
    Assembling his thoughts, his brain sluggish, feeling like someone had spent all night pulling wires out of it at random, he reached out for his mobile phone. But there was no further text from Cleo.
    He could hardly expect there to be one, as it was only half six in the morning and she was probably sound asleep, but logic wasn’t a major feature of his thinking just at this moment, with the pounding inside his head and the damned bird, and the knowledge that he had to get up and face a full day’s work. No chance of a Sunday lie-in today, boyo.
    He closed his eyes, thinking back. God, Cleo was lovely in every way, a really warm, gorgeous human being. She was very, very special – and they had got on so incredibly well! Then he thought back to their kiss in the back of the taxi, a long, long, amazing kiss. And he tried to remember who had started it. It was Cleo, he seemed to recall. She had made the first move.
    He felt a pang of longing to speak to her, to see her. Suddenly, he thought he could smell her perfume. Just the lightest trace on his hand; he brought it to his nose and yes! It was strongest on his wrist; it must have come from when he had sat in the cab with his arm around her. He held his wrist against his nose for a long