Not Dead Enough

expensive-looking tan jacket with silver buttons, pulled on untidily over his blue, open-throat Armani polo shirt, sunglasses sticking out of his top pocket, he sat all hunched up, broken. Away from the golf course, his tartan trousers and two-tone golfing shoes seemed a little ridiculous.
    Branson couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. And try as he might, the DS could not get the image of Clive Owen in the movie Croupier out of his mind. In other circumstances he might have asked Bishop if they were related. And although it had no bearing on the task he was here to carry out, he could also not help wondering why golf clubs, which always seemed to him to have ludicrously formal and outdated dress codes, such as wearing ties in clubhouses, allowed their members to go out on the course looking like they were starring in a pantomime.
    ‘May I ask when you last saw your wife, Mr Bishop?’
    He clocked the hesitation before the man answered.
    ‘Sunday evening, about eight o’clock.’ Bishop’s voice was suave, but deadpan, and totally classless, as if he had worked on it to lose whatever accent he might once have had. Impossible to tell whether he came from a privileged background or was self-made. The man’s dark red Bentley, which was still parked at his golf club, was the kind of flash motor Branson associated more with footballers than class.
    The door opened and Eleanor Hodgson, Roy Grace’s prim, nervy, fifty-something Management Support Assistant, came in with a round tray containing three mugs of coffee and a cup of water. Bishop drained the water before she had left the room.
    ‘You hadn’t seen your wife since Sunday?’ Branson said, with an element of surprise in his voice.
    ‘No. I spend the weeks in London, at my flat. I go up to town Sunday evenings and normally come back Friday night.’ Bishop peered at his coffee and then stirred it carefully, with laboured precision, with the plastic stick Eleanor Hodgson had provided.
    ‘So you would only see each other at weekends?’
    ‘Depends if we had anything on in London. Katie would come up sometimes, for a dinner, or shopping. Or whatever.’
    ‘Whatever?’
    ‘Theatre. Friends. Clients. She – liked coming up – but…’
    There was a long silence.
    Branson waited for him to go on, glancing at Nicholl but getting nothing from the younger detective. ‘But?’ he prompted.
    ‘She had her social life down here. Bridge, golf, her charity work.’
    ‘Which charity?’
    ‘She’s involved – was – with several. The NSPCC mainly. One or two others. A local battered-wives charity. Katie was a giver. A good person.’ Brian Bishop closed his eyes and buried his face in his hands. ‘Shit. Oh, Christ. What’s happened? Please tell me?’
    ‘Do you have children, sir?’ Nick Nicholl asked suddenly.
    ‘Not together. I have two by my first marriage. My son, Max, is fifteen. And my daughter, Carly – she’s thirteen. Max is with a friend in the South of France. Carly’s staying with cousins in Canada.’
    ‘Is there anyone we need to contact for you?’ Nicholl continued.
    Looking bewildered, Bishop shook his head.
    ‘We will be assigning you a family liaison officer to help you with everything. I’m afraid you won’t be able to return to your home for a few days. Is there anyone you could stay with?’
    ‘I have my flat in London.’
    ‘We’re going to need to talk to you again. It would be more convenient if you could stay down in the Brighton and Hove area for the next few days. Perhaps with some friends, or in a hotel?’
    ‘What about my clothes? I need my stuff – my things – wash kit…’
    ‘If you tell the family liaison officer what you need it will be brought to you.’
    ‘Please tell me what’s happened?’
    ‘How long have you been married, Mr Bishop?’
    ‘Five years – we had our anniversary in April.’
    ‘Would you describe your marriage as happy?’
    Bishop leaned back and shook his head. ‘What the hell is this? Why are you interrogating me?’
    ‘We’re not interrogating you, sir. Just asking you a few background questions. Trying to understand a little more about you and your family. This can often really help in an investigation – it’s standard procedure, sir.’
    ‘I think I’ve told you enough. I want to see my – my darling. I want to see Katie. Please.’
    The door opened and Bishop saw a man dressed in a crumpled blue suit, white shirt and blue and white striped tie come in. He was about