Not Dead Yet

It’s a stunning looking vehicle, sir. We’ve already got enquiries on it. I’d recommend you come and take a look as soon as possible.’
    ‘Doesn’t black show the dirt badly?’
    ‘Black always looks best when clean, but it’s the most popular of all colours. And it suits this car very well. It looks stunning.’
    Grace did a quick mental calculation. ‘I could try and get over early afternoon. What time do you shut today?’
    ‘Four o’clock, sir. But I can’t guarantee the car will still be there. If someone puts a deposit on the vehicle, that will be it.’
    ‘I’m afraid I’m up to my eyes. I’ll try to get over, but I’ll just have to risk it.’
    ‘I’ll be here until four. Terry Robinson’s the name.’
    ‘Terry Robinson, thank you. I’ll do my best.’
    He halted at traffic lights. One of his favourite buildings, the ornate, absurd but beautiful Brighton Pavilion, was over to his right, the city’s own faux Taj Mahal. Two yobs in a purple Astra pulled up alongside him, music pounding in deep bass through their open windows, shaking the air, shaking his brain. For an instant he wished he was back in uniform; he’d have leapt out of his car and had a go at them. Instead, as the lights turned green he watched them blast off into the distance, twin exhausts as big as drainpipes; probably the size of their arseholes.
    Keeping his cool, he turned left at the next junction and up the steep hill, and made a right into the lower car park of John Street Police Station, the five-storey modern slab of a building that was the second busiest police station in the UK, and the place that had been his home during the early years of his career. Much as he enjoyed his job, the CID HQ at Sussex House, where he worked, was a soulless building. He missed the downtown buzz of this place.
    Marked police cars were parked in long rows, as well as half a dozen police vans, but being a Sunday, many of the bays were empty, and he had a wide choice. He reversed into one, then phoned Cleo, who told him she was feeling a little better, and was loving his flowers.
    Relieved, he let himself into the rear door, then climbed up three flights of stairs, with their familiar battered walls and institutional smell, and walked down the corridor of the Command suite, passing several empty offices, and then a small canteen. On his right, sticking out from a closed door, was a sign reading SUPERINTENDENT and on the left, CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT , whose door was open.
    He went in. The office, which he knew well from many previous visits, was of a practical size befitting the rank of its occupant. To the right was a substantial desk and, directly in front of him, a large round table at which a group of people were seated, with three vacant chairs. All of them, except one, he noted, were formally dressed, like himself, as if this were a weekday.
    On the wall to his left was a large whiteboard, on the bottom of which were three messages, written in marker pen, from Barrington’s triplets. One said: My dad’s the world’s best copper!
    With a twinge, he wondered if the baby Cleo was carrying would one day write something similar about himself.
    Graham Barrington, in his mid-forties, was a tall, slim, athletic-looking man with short, fair hair. He was wearing a uniform short-sleeved white shirt with epaulettes, black trousers and shoes. Grace had known Barrington from when they were both in the CID together. The officer had told him then that the job he most coveted on which to finish his career was to be back in uniform as the Divisional Commander of Brighton and Hove – or ‘the sheriff’ as he jokingly called it – the job he held now. Grace was pleased for him. It was good to know it was possible to have ambitions and dreams fulfilled.
    Next to Barrington was DI Jason Tingley, boyishly handsome, with brown hair brushed forward into a fringe, dressed in a navy suit; his only concession to the weekend was allowing his tie to be slack and his top shirt button open. Greeting him with a warm smile was the extremely competent press officer, thirty-two-year-old red-head Sue Fleet, wearing a dark suit and a blue blouse. Two other women he did not recognize, one in her late twenties in police uniform, the other in her late thirties wearing a white blouse, were also present, as was a solidly built, shaven-headed Sergeant from the Close Protection Team, Greg Worsley, dressed in a rumpled blue T-shirt, jeans and trainers. Completing the