Not Dead Enough
Vosper – with him.
‘It is not normal practice for the police to follow such a line of inquiry,’ she replied sharply. ‘That said, we listen to anyone who can provide us with information, and then assess how it may progress the investigation.’
‘So you don’t rule it out?’ the reporter persisted.
‘I think I’ve already given you my answer.’ Then she looked around the room. ‘Any more questions?’
At the end of the conference, as Grace was leaving, Alison Vosper collared him and they stepped into a vacant office.
‘We’ve got the whole eyes of the city on us, Roy. If you are planning to go and see any of your psychics, please discuss it with me first.’
‘I don’t have any plans, not at this stage.’
‘Good!’ she said, with the gusto of someone praising a puppy for urinating in the right place. For a moment he thought she was going to pat him on the head and give him a biscuit.
75
Half an hour later, Grace stood in the cramped changing room at the mortuary, fumbling with the tapes on the green gown, then stepping into a pair of white gumboots. As he did so a very hung-over, gowned-up Cleo popped her head around the door and gave him a look he could not read.
‘Sorry about last night!’ she said. ‘Didn’t mean to pass out on you, honest!’
He smiled back. ‘Do you always get that wrecked when you go out with your sister?’
‘She’s just been dumped by her dickhead boyfriend and wanted to get smashed. It seemed rude not to join her.’
‘Quite. How are you feeling?’
‘Only marginally better than Sophie Harrington looks. I had the roundabouts earlier!’
‘Coca-Cola, full strength – the best thing,’ he said.
‘I’ve already drunk two cans.’ She again gave him a look he could not read. ‘I don’t think I asked you how Germany went. Did you find your wife? Have a cosy reunion?’
‘You did ask, about five times.’
She looked astonished. ‘And you told me?’
‘How about we have a meal tonight and I’ll give you the full low down?’
She looked hard at him again and, for a sudden, panicky moment, he thought she was going to tell him to get lost. Then she gave him a thin smile – but with no warmth. ‘Come over to me. I’ll cook something very simple and non-alcoholic. Comfort food. I think we need to talk.’
‘I’ll come over as soon as I can after the evening briefing.’ He took a step towards her and gave her a quick kiss.
At first she pulled away sharply. ‘I’m very hurt and I’m very angry with you, Roy.’
‘I like it when you are angry,’ he said.
Suddenly she melted a little. ‘Bastard,’ she said and grinned.
He gave her another quick kiss, which turned into a longer kiss. Their gowns rustled as they held each other tighter, Grace keeping one eye on the door in case anyone came in.
Then Cleo broke away and looked down at herself, grinning again. ‘We’re not meant to be doing this. I’m still angry with you. Turns you on, this gear, does it?’
‘Even more than black silk underwear!’
‘Better get back in and do some work, Detective Superintendent. A centre-spread in the Argus that you got caught shagging in the mortuary changing room wouldn’t be the best thing for your image.’
He followed her down the tiled corridor, his mind a maelstrom of thoughts, about Cleo, about Sandy and about work. The press had given them a rough ride this morning and he could understand where they were coming from. One murder of an attractive young woman could be an isolated incident, something personal. Two could put a city, or an entire county, into a state of panic. If the press got hold of the information on the gas mask there would be a feeding frenzy.
He hadn’t released the information that Sophie Harrington had made a call to Brian Bishop, the prime suspect in Katie Bishop’s murder. And that Brian Bishop, behind his veneer of respectability as a successful businessman, respected citizen of Brighton and Hove, golf club committee member and charity benefactor, whose equally outwardly respectable Rotarian wife had been having an affair, had a deeply unpleasant criminal record.
At the age of fifteen, according to the information on the PNC – the Police National Computer database – Bishop had been sentenced to two years in a young offenders’ institute for raping a fourteen-year-old girl at his school. Then, at the age of twenty-one, he was given two years’ probation for violently assaulting a woman, causing her
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