Not Dead Enough

Lansdowne Place Hotel and killed the engine, mercifully, thought Grace, silencing the music. Then he switched off the lights.
    Not long back, the place had been a tired old two-star dump, inhabited by a handful of geriatric resident guests and a spattering of drab trippers on budget seaside package tours. Now it had been transformed into one of the city’s latest hip hotels.
    They climbed out of the car and went inside, to a riot of purple velour, chrome and gilded kitsch, and walked up to the front desk. A female receptionist, tall and statuesque in a black tunic and a Bettie Page black fringe, greeted them with an efficient smile. Her gold lapel badge read G RETA .
    Grace showed her his police warrant card. ‘Detective Superintendent Grace of the Sussex CID. My colleague and I would like to have a word with a guest who checked in a short while ago – Mr Brian Bishop.’
    Her smile assumed the motions of a deflating balloon, as she looked down at her computer screen and tapped on her keyboard. ‘Mr Brian Bishop?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘One moment, gentlemen.’ She picked up a phone and pressed a couple of buttons. After half a minute or so, she replaced the receiver. ‘I’m sorry, he doesn’t seem to be picking up.’
    ‘We are concerned about this person. Could we go up to his room?’
    Looking totally thrown now, she said, ‘I need to speak to the manager.’
    ‘That’s fine,’ Grace replied.
    And five minutes later, for the second time in the past hour, he found himself entering an empty hotel bedroom.

36
    Skunk was always in his office on Friday nights, when the richest pickings of the week were up for grabs. People out for a good time were carefree – and careless. By eight o’clock, the city centre car parks were filling to near capacity. Locals and visitors jostled along Brighton’s old, narrow streets, packing the pubs, bars and restaurants, and later on, the younger ones, high and drunk, would be starting to queue outside the clubs.
    A large Tesco carrier bag swung from his arm as he progressed slowly through the teeming throng, squeezing his way at times past packed outdoor tables. The warm downtown air was laced with a thousand scents. Colognes, perfumes, cigarette smoke, exhaust fumes, olive oil and spices searing on cooking pans, and always the tang of salt in the air. His mind elsewhere, he tuned out the chatter, the laughter, the clack-clack-clack of high heels tripping along on paving stones, the boom of music from open doors and windows. Tonight he only vaguely clocked the Rolex watches on tanned wrists, the diamond brooches, necklaces and rings, the tell-tale bulges in men’s jackets where a plump wallet sat for the taking.
    Tonight he had bigger fish to fry.
    Heading down East Street, he felt like he was pushing through an incoming tide. Forking right, past the Latin in the Lane restaurant, behind the Thistle Hotel, he then turned right along the seafront, stepping around a teenage girl having a screaming, tearful row with a spiky-haired boy, and made his way past the Old Ship, the Brighton Centre, the smart Grand and Metropole hotels – neither of which he had ever been inside. Finally, sticky with sweat, he reached Regency Square.
    Avoiding the exit/entrance, where an NCP attendant sat, he walked up to the top of the square, then down concrete steps which stank of urine, into the centre of the second level of the car park. With the cash he was going to get from this job, he would buy himself another bag of brown, and then anything else that might come his way later on tonight at one of the clubs. All he had to do was find a car that matched the one on the shopping list folded in his trouser pocket.
    Inside his carrier bag was a set of number plates, copied from the model he had seen earlier. When he found the right car, a new-shape Audi A4 convertible, automatic, low mileage, metallic blue, silver or black, he would simply put those plates on it. That way, if the owner reported it stolen, the police would be looking for a car with different plates.
    There was almost bound to be something suitable here. If not, he’d try another car park. And if the worst came to the worst, he’d find one on the street. It was a rich bitch’s car, and there was no shortage of rich, peroxided, nip-and-tucked bitches in this city. He wouldn’t mind an Audi convertible himself. He could see himself, in some parallel universe, driving Bethany along the seafront, on a warm Friday night, the music up