Looking Good Dead Read online

  LOOKING GOOD DEAD

  Also by Peter James

  DEAD LETTER DROP

  ATOM BOMB ANGEL

  BILLIONAIRE

  POSSESSION

  DREAMER

  SWEET HEART

  TWILIGHT

  PROPHECY

  ALCHEMIST

  HOST

  THE TRUTH

  DENIAL

  FAITH

  Children’s novel

  GETTING WIRED!

  The Roy Grace series

  DEAD SIMPLE

  LOOKING GOOD DEAD

  PETER JAMES

  MACMILLAN

  First published 2006 by Macmillan

  First published in paperback 2006 by Pan Books

  This electronic edition published 2008 by Pan Books

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd

  Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

  Basingstoke and Oxford

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-0-330-46260-0 in Adobe Reader format

  ISBN 978-0-330-46259-4 in Adobe Digital Editions format

  ISBN 978-0-330-46262-4 in Microsoft Reader format

  ISBN 978-0-330-46261-7 in Mobipocket format

  Copyright © Really Scary Books / Peter James 2006

  The right of Peter James to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Visit www.panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  TO HELEN

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I owe a massive debt to the recently retired Chief Superintendent Dave Gaylor of Sussex Police, who has given me so much help in the writing of this novel, quite apart from generously acting as role model for the character of Roy Grace, and never tiring of reading and re-reading the manuscript, and opening more doors for me in the police forces in the UK – and abroad – than I could have ever dared to hope for.

  And a heartfelt thank you to very many other members of the Sussex Police who have been immensely tolerant of my intrusions and so welcoming and helpful. In particular to Chief Constable Ken Jones for his very kind sanction. And to Detective Sergeant Paul Hastings, Ray Packham of the High Tech Crime Unit, High Tech Crime Investigator John Shaw, and all the team at the High Tech Crime Unit who have been so very enthusiastically supportive and have helped to shape a key part of this story. Thanks also to Detective Superintendent Kevin Moore, Inspector Andy Parr, Chief Superintendent Peter Coll, Detective Sergeant Keith Hallet of the Sussex Police Holmes Unit, Brian Cook, Scientific Support Branch Manager, Detective Inspector William Warner, and Senior Scenes of Crime Investigator Stuart Leonard. Family Liaison Officer DC Amanda Stroud, Family Liaison Officer DS Louise Pye, Senior Support Officer Tony Case of the HQ Criminal Investigation Department, and IT Support Officer Daniel Salter.

  I’ve had great help from Essex Coroner Dr Peter Dean, pathologist Dr Nigel Kirkham and Home Office Pathologist Dr Vesna Djurovic; and a special thanks for the invaluable support from the wonderfully cheery team at Brighton and Hove Mortuary, Elsie Sweetman, Sean Didcott and Victor Findon.

  I am grateful also for help with farming and chemical queries from Tony Monnington and Eddie Gribble, my helicopter mentor, Phil Homan, law information from Sue Ansell, and my human back-up service, Chris Webb, without whom I would have been sunk when my laptop was stolen at Geneva airport. And thank you to Imogen Lloyd-Webber, Anna-Lisa Lindeblad and Carina Coleman, who read the manuscript in varying stages and provided me with quite brilliant insights.

  Thanks are owed to my fabulous agent, Carole Blake, for her tireless hard work and sound advice (and her great shoes!), and to Tony Mulliken, Margaret Veale and all at Midas, and the quite fantastic team at my publishers, Macmillan. Everyone there has been amazingly supportive, and I am deeply touched. To single out a few names, thank you to Richard Charkin, David North, Geoff Duffield, Anna Stockbridge, Ben Wright, Ed Ripley, Vivienne Nelson, Liz Johnson, Caitriona Row, Claire Round, Claire Byrne, Adam Humphrey, Marie Gray, Michelle Taylor, Richard Evans, and my totally wonderful editor Stef Bierwerth, who is just the all-time greatest! And across the Channel I have to say a huge ‘Danke!’ to the team at my German publishers, Scherz, for their incredible support. Especially Peter Lohmann, Julia Schade, Andrea Engen, Cordelia Borchardt, Bruno Back, Indra Heinz, and the quite awesome Andrea Diederichs, editor, tour guide, shopping adviser!

  Thank you as ever to my faithful hounds Bertie and Phoebe, who always seem to sense when I need a walk – but haven’t yet learned to mix me a martini . . .

  And penultimate but biggest thank you to my darling Helen – whose unflagging support helped boost me so many time
s along the way.

  The last thanks is to all you readers of my books. Thank you for all your mail, and all your encouragement. It is everything.

  Peter James

  Sussex, England

  [email protected]

  www.peterjames.com

  1

  The front door of the once-proud terraced house opened, and a long-legged young woman, in a short silk dress that seemed to both cling and float at the same time, stepped out into the fine June sunshine on the last morning of her life.

  A century back, these tall, white villas, just a pebble’s throw from Brighton’s seafront promenade, would have served as weekend residences for London toffs. Now, behind their grimy, salt-burned facades, they were chopped up into bedsits and low-rent flats; the brass front-door knockers had long been replaced with entryphone panels, and litter spewed from garbage bags onto the pavements beneath a gaudy riot of letting-agency boards. Several of the cars that lined the street, shoehorned into not enough parking spaces, were dented and rusting, and all of them were saturation-bombed with pigeon and seagull shit.

  In contrast, everything about the young woman oozed class. From the careless toss of her long fair hair, the sunglasses she adjusted on her face, the bling Cartier bracelet, the Anya Hindmarsh bag slung from her shoulder, the toned contours of her body, the Mediterranean tan, her wake of Issey Miyake tanging the rush-hour monoxide with a frisson of sexuality, she was the kind of girl who would have looked at home in the aisles of Bergdorf Goodman, or at the bar of a Schrager hotel, or on the stern of a fuck-off yacht in St-Tropez.

  Not bad for a law student scraping by on a meagre grant.

  But Janie Stretton had been too spoiled by her guilty father, after her mother’s death, to ever contemplate the idea of merely scraping by. Making money came easily to her. Making it from her intended career might be a different matter altogether. The legal profession was tough. Four years of law studies were behind her, and she was now in the first two years as a trainee with a firm of solicitors in Brighton, working under a divorce lawyer, and she was enjoying that, although some of the cases were, even to her, weird.

  Like the mild little seventy-year-old man yesterday, Bernie Milsin, in his neat grey suit and carefully knotted tie. Janie had sat unobtrusively on a corner chair in the office as the thirty-five-year-old partner she was articled to, Martin Broom, took notes. Mr Milsin was complaining that Mrs Milsin, three years older than himself, would not give him food until he had performed oral sex on her. ‘Three times a day,’ he told Martin Broom. ‘Can’t keep doing it, not at my age, the arthritis in me knees hurts too much.’

  It was all she could do not to laugh out loud, and she could see Broom was struggling also. So, it wasn’t just men who had kinky needs. Seemed that both sexes had them. Something new learned every day, and sometimes she didn’t know where she gained the most knowledge from – Southampton University Law School or the University of Life.

  The beep of an incoming text broke her chain of thought just as she reached her red and white Mini Cooper. She checked the screen.

  2night. 8.30?

  Janie smiled and replied with a brief xx. Then she waited for a bus followed by a line of traffic to pass, opened the door of her car, and sat for a moment, collecting her thoughts, thinking about stuff she needed to do.

  Bins, her moggie, had a lump on his back that was steadily getting bigger. She did not like the look of it and wanted to take him to the vet to get it checked. She had found Bins two years ago, a nameless stray, scrawny to the point of starving, trying to lift the lid of one of her dustbins. She had taken him in, and he had never shown any inclination to leave. So much for cats being independent, she thought, or maybe it was because she spoiled him. But hell, Bins was an affectionate creature and she didn’t have much else in her life to spoil. She would try to get a late appointment today. If she got to the vet by 6.30 that should still leave plenty of time, she calculated.

  In her lunch break she needed to buy a birthday card and present for her father – he would be fifty-five on Friday. She hadn’t seen him for a month; he’d been away in the USA on business. He seemed to be away a lot these days, travelling more and more. Searching for that one woman who might be out there and could replace the wife, and mother of his daughter, he had lost. He never spoke about it, but she knew he was lonely – and worried about his business, which seemed to be going through a rough patch. And living fifty miles away from him did not help.

  Pulling on her seat belt and clicking it, she was totally unaware of the long lens trained on her, and the quiet whirring of the digital Pentax camera, over two hundred yards away, not remotely audible against the background hubbub of traffic.

  Watching her through the steady cross hairs, he said into his mobile phone, ‘She’s coming now.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s her?’ The voice that replied was precise, and sharp as serrated steel.

  She was real eye candy, he thought. Even after days and nights of watching her, 24/7, inside her flat and outside, it was still a treat. The question barely merited an answer.

  ‘I am,’ he said. ‘Yes.’

  2

  ‘I’m on the train,’ the big, overweight, baby-faced dickhead next to him shouted into his mobile phone. ‘The train. T-R-A-I-N!’ he repeated. ‘Yeah, yeah, bad line.’

  Then they went into a tunnel.

  ‘Oh fuck,’ the dickhead said.

  Hunched on his seat between the dickhead on his right and a girl wearing a sickly sweet perfume on his left, who was texting furiously, Tom Bryce suppressed a grin. An amiable, good-looking man of thirty-six, in a smart suit, with a serious, boyish face lined with stress and a mop of dark brown hair that flopped incessantly over his forehead, he was steadily wilting in the stifling heat, like the small bunch of flowers, rolling around on the luggage rack above him, which he had bought for his wife. The temperature inside the carriage was about ninety degrees and felt even hotter. Last year he had travelled first class and those carriages were marginally better ventilated – or at least less jam-packed – but this year he had to economize. Although he still liked to surprise Kellie with flowers once a week or so.

  Half a minute later, emerging from the tunnel, the dickhead stabbed a button, and the nightmare continued. ‘JUST WENT THROUGH A TUNNEL!’ he bellowed, as if they were still in it. ‘Yeah, fucking INCREDIBLE! How come they don’t have a wire or thing, you know, to keep the connection? Inside the tunnel, yeah? They got them on some motorway tunnels now, right?’

  Tom tried to tune him out and concentrate on the emails on his wobbling Mac laptop. Just another shitty end to another shitty day at the office. Over one hundred emails yet to respond to, and more downloading every minute. He cleared them every night before he went to bed – that was his rule, the only way to keep on top of his workload. Some were jokes, which he would look at later, and some were raunchy attachments sent by mates, which he had learned not to risk looking at in crowded train carriages, ever since the time he had been sitting next to a prim-looking woman and had double-clicked on a PowerPoint file to reveal a donkey being fellated by a naked blonde.

  The train clicked and clacked, rocking, shaking, then vibrating in short bursts as they entered another tunnel, nearing home now. Wind roared around the edges of the open window above his head, and the echo of the black walls howled with it. Suddenly, the carriage smelled of old socks and soot. A briefcase skittered around on the rack above his head and he glanced up nervously, checking it wasn’t about to fall on him or crush the flowers. On a blank advertising panel on the wall opposite him, above the head of a plump, surly-looking girl in a tight skirt who was reading Heat magazine, someone had spraypainted seagulls wannkers in clumsy black letters.

  So much for football supporters, Tom thought. They couldn’t even spell wankers.

  Beads of sweat trickled down the nape of his neck, and down his ribs; more trickled down all the spaces where his tailored white shirt wasn’t already actually glued by perspira
tion to his skin. He’d removed his suit jacket and loosened his tie, and he felt like kicking off his black Prada loafers, which were pinching his feet. He lifted his clammy face from the screen as they came out of the tunnel, and instantly the air changed, to sweeter, grass-scented Downland air; in a few minutes more it would be carrying a faint tinge of salt from the English Channel. After fourteen years of commuting, Tom could have told when he was nearing home with his eyes shut.

  He looked out of the window at fields, farmhouses, pylons, a reservoir, the soft, distant hills, then back at his emails. He read and deleted one from his sales manager, then replied to a complaint – yet another key customer angry that an order hadn’t arrived in time for a big summer function. Personalized pens this time, printed golfing umbrellas previously. His whole ordering and shipping department was in a mess – partly from a new computer system and partly because of the idiot running it. In an already tough market this was hurting his business badly. Two big customers – Avis car rentals and Apple computers – lost to competitors in one week.

  Terrific.

  The business was creaking under the weight of debts. He’d expanded too fast, was too highly geared. Just as he was over-mortgaged at home. He should never have let Kellie convince him to trade up houses, not when the market was moving down and business was in recession. Now he was struggling to stay solvent. The business was no longer covering its overheads. And, despite all he told her, there was still no let-up in Kellie’s obsession with spending money. Almost every day she bought something new, mostly on eBay, and because it was a bargain in her logic it didn’t count. And besides, she told him, he was always buying expensive designer clothes for himself, how could he argue? It didn’t seem to matter to her that he only bought his clothes during the sales and that he needed to look sharp in his line of work.