Not Dead Enough

perhaps even more importantly – it was about keeping Katie happy, by helping to further her local social ambitions – something she pushed for relentlessly.
    It was as if Katie kept lists inside her head that she had obtained from some kind of social mountaineering handbook. Items that needed ticking off one after another. Join golf club , tick, get on committee , tick, join Rotary , tick, become president of Rotary branch , tick, get on NSPCC committee , tick, Rocking Horse Appeal , tick. And recently she had started a new list, planning a good decade ahead, telling him they should be cultivating the people who could one day get him elected High Sheriff or Lord Lieutenant of East or West Sussex.
    He stopped a courteous distance behind the first of the four balls on the fairway, noticing with some smugness just how far in front of the others his own ball was. Now that he was closer he could see just how good his drive had been. It was lagged up less than ten feet from the green.
    ‘Great shot,’ said the Irishman, proffering the flask.
    He waved it away. ‘Thanks, Matt. Too early for me.’
    ‘You know what Frank Sinatra said?’ the Irishman responded.
    Distracted suddenly by the sight of the club secretary, a dapper former army officer, standing outside the clubhouse with two men, and pointing in their direction, Bishop said, ‘No – what?’
    ‘He said, “I feel sorry for people who don’t drink, because when they wake up in the morning, that’s as good as their day’s going to get.”’
    ‘Never been a Sinatra fan,’ Bishop commented, keeping a weather eye on the three men who were very definitely striding over towards them. ‘Frivolous schmaltz.’
    ‘You don’t have to be a Sinatra fan to enjoy drinking!’
    Ignoring the hip flask, which the Irishman now offered him for the second time, he concentrated on the big decision of which club to take. The elegant way to go was his pitching wedge, then, hopefully, just a short putt. But years of hard experience at this game had taught him that when you were up, you should play the percentages. And on this arid August surface, a well-judged putt, even though he was off the green, would be a much safer bet. The immaculate green looked as if it had been shaved by a barber with a cutthroat razor rather than mown. It was like the baize of a billiards table. And all the greens were lethally fast this morning.
    He watched the club secretary, in a blue blazer and grey flannels, stop on the far side of the green and point towards him. The two men flanking him, one a tall, bald black man in a sharp brown suit, the other an equally tall but very thin white man in an ill-fitting blue suit, nodded. They stood motionless, watching. He wondered who they were.
    The Irishman bunkered with a loud curse. Ian Steel went next, hitting a perfectly judged nine iron, his ball rolling to a halt inches from the pin. Bishop’s partner, Glenn Mishon, struck his ball too high and it dropped a good twenty feet short of the green.
    Bishop toyed with his putter, then decided he should put on a classier performance for the secretary, dropped it back in his bag and took out his pitching wedge.
    He lined himself up, his tall gaunt shadow falling across the ball, took a practice swing, stepped forward and played his shot. The club head struck the ground too early, taking a huge divot out, and he watched in dismay as his ball sliced, at an almost perfect right angle to where he was standing, into a bunker.
    Shit.
    In a shower of sand, he punched the ball out of the bunker, but it landed a good thirty feet from the pin. He managed a great putt that rolled the ball to less than three feet from the hole, and sank it for one over par.
    They marked each other’s scorecards; he was still a creditable two under par for the front nine. But inwardly he cursed. If he had taken the safer option he could have finished a shattering four under.
    Then, as he tugged his trolley around the edge of the green the tall, bald black man stepped into his path.
    ‘Mr Bishop?’ The voice was firm, deep and confident.
    He halted, irritated. ‘Yes?’
    The next thing he saw was a police warrant card.
    ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Branson of the Sussex CID. This is my colleague, DC Nicholl. Would it be possible to have a word with you?’
    As if a massive shadow had fallen across the sky, he asked, ‘What about?’
    ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the officer said, with what seemed a genuinely apologetic expression.