Not Dead Enough Read online

  NOT DEAD ENOUGH

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  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

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  NOT DEAD ENOUGH

  PETER JAMES

  MACMILLAN

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  First published 2007 by Macmillan

  First published in paperback 2007 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 978-0-330-46256-3 in Adobe Reader format

  ISBN 978-0-330-46255-6 in Adobe Digital Editions format

  ISBN 978-0-330-46258-7 in Microsoft Reader format

  ISBN 978-0-330-46257-0 in Mobipocket format

  Copyright � Really Scary Books / Peter James 2007

  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.

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  TO BERTIE, SOOTY AND PHOEBE

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  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The world of Sussex Police is central to my Roy Grace series of novels, and I am indebted to the many officers and support staff there who make me so welcome and give me so much help. At the top of the list is Chief Constable Joe Edwards for his very kind sanction. Totally indispensable is my wise, good friend, retired Chief Superintendent Dave Gaylor, who has been my mentor within Sussex Police for many years, as well as my inspiration for the character of Roy Grace. He is my chief researcher, a font of creative ideas, and has the patience of a saint, helping me in so many ways on this novel, as on the previous ones. It would have been a considerably lesser book without him.

  To single out a few other names in particular – and please forgive omissions – Chief Superintendent Kevin Moore has been incredibly supportive, and High Tech Crime Investigator Ray Packham of the High Tech Crime Unit and his wife, Jen, have been brilliantly helpful and inventive with their ideas. I’ve had a quite exceptional amount of help in understanding the current state of Brighton’s lowlife – and the policing of it – from Constable Paul Grzegorzek of the Local Support Team. And also Sergeant Julian Clapp, who sent more than a few shivers through me when walking me through the custody process, and Inspector Mark Powles of the Sussex Police Force Identification Unit.

  I want to thank Detective Inspector Roy Apps, Detective Inspector Paul Furnell, PC Matt Webster, Inspector Andy Parr, Sergeant Mark Baker, Chief Superintendent Peter Coll; Sergeant Phil Taylor, Head of the High Tech Crime Unit, and John Shaw, formerly of the High Tech Crime Unit, now at Control Risks Group; Julie Page of the PNC; Detective Sergeant Keith Hallet of the Sussex Police Holmes Unit; Brian Cook, Scientific Support Branch Manager; Detective Inspector William Warner; Senior Scenes of Crime Investigator Stuart Leonard; Senior Analyst Suzy Straughan; DS Jason Tingley; Family Liaison Officers DC Amanda Stroud and DS Louise Pye; and a very special mention to Senior Support Officer Tony Case of the HQ Criminal Investigation Department, who has been incredibly generous with his time, help and enthusiasm.

  Huge thanks are also due to my fantastic Munich team of helpers: Kriminalhauptkommisar Walter Dufter, Ludwig Waldinger and Detlef ‘Ted’ Puchelt of Bayerisches Landeskriminalamt, Franz-Joseph Wilfling, Kriminaloberrat at Kriminalpolizeidirektion 1 M�; Andy and Sabine from Krimifestival M�; Anette Lippert for all her hard work with the Munich geography for me; and, of course, the Greatest Living German Actor, Hans J�Stockeri, for his enduring patience in driving me to every landmark in Munich at least ten times in search of locations for scenes.

  I’ve had great help from Essex Coroner Dr Peter Dean, consultant pathologist Dr Nigel Kirkham and Home Office Pathologist Dr Vesna Djurovic. And from Dr Robert Dorion, Director of Forensic Dentistry at the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de M�cine L�le, Montreal, and author of the definitive ‘Bitemark Evidence’. And I owe a massive thanks to my wonderful friends at Brighton and Hove Mortuary, Elsie Sweetman, Victor Sinden and Sean Didcott, for their endless patience with me and their immense kindness and thoughtfulness.

  Thanks also to Brian Ellis, Dr Andrew Davey, Dr Jonathan Pash, Tom Farrer, Pathology Technician, and Robert Frankis – one of the few people to have caught me out on cars . . . And thanks to Peter Bailey for his encyclopedic knowledge of Brighton modern and past, and the railway network. And I really owe a very special thank you to Post Adoption Counsellor Chrissie Franklin, who helped me energetically and enthusiastically in so many ways in very difficult terrain.

  Thanks as ever to Chris Webb, who keeps my computer working and my back-ups safe, and a massive thanks for my unofficial editors, Imogen Lloyd-Webber, Anna-Lisa Lindeblad and Sue Ansell, who read the manuscript in varying stages and provided me with invaluable input. And thanks also to the hard work of the team at Midas Public Relations, Tony Mulliken, Margot Veale and Amelia Rowland.

  I count my blessings to be represented by my fabulous book agent, Carole Blake – and I’m honoured that I help to keep her in a few of her three gazillion pairs of designer shoes! – and my film agent, Julian Friedmann. And I consider it a very great privilege to be published by Macmillan. To single out a few names, thank you Richard Charkin, David North, Geoff Duffield, Anna Stockbridge, Vivienne Nelson, Marie Slocombe, Michelle Taylor, Caitriona Row, Claire Byrne, Ali Muirden, Richard Evans, Chloe Brighton, Liz Cowen, my copyeditor Lesley Levene, and last, but most important of all, Stef Bierwerth – you just keep on getting more and more wonderful! And across the Channel I have to say again a massive 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, the Greatest Living German Editor!

  Thank you as ever to my faithful hounds Bertie, Sooty and Phoebe for reminding me that there is a life beyond my study door.

  And the penultimate but biggest thank you to my darling Helen – for believing that I could do it and never letting me consider there was any other option.

  And lastly, once more, a very special thank you to all you readers of my books. Thank you for all your mail and all your kind words. They mean so much to me.

  Peter James

  Sussex, England

  [email protected]

  www.peterjames.com

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  NOT DEAD ENOUGH

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  1


  Darkness took a long time to arrive, but it was worth the wait. And besides, time was not a problem for him. Time, he had come to realize, was one of the things you have plenty of in life when you have little else. He was time-rich. Near on a time billionaire.

  Shortly before midnight, the woman he was following turned off the dual carriageway and drove into the lonely glow of a BP filling-station forecourt. He halted his stolen van in the unlit slip road, fixating on her brake lights. They seemed to be getting brighter as he watched them. Glowing red for danger, red for luck, red for sex! Seventy one percent of murder victims were killed by someone they knew. The statistic was whizzing round and round inside his head, like a pinball looking for a slot. He collected statistics, squirrelled them carefully away, like nuts, to sustain him through that long hibernation of the mind that he knew, one day, would come to him.

  The question was, How many of those 71 percent knew they were about to be murdered?

  Do you, lady?

  Headlights of vehicles flashed past, the slipstream of a lorry rocking the little blue Renault, making some of the plumbing implements behind him rattle. There were just two other cars standing by the pumps, a Toyota people-carrier that was about to drive off and a large Jaguar. Its owner, a plump man in an ill-fitting tuxedo, was heading back from the pay window, cramming his wallet into his jacket. A BP tanker was parked up, the driver in a boiler suit uncoiling a long hose, getting ready to refuel the filling-station tanks.

  So far as he could ascertain in a careful sweep, there was just one CCTV camera scanning the forecourt. A problem, but he could deal with it.

  She really could not have picked a better place to stop!

  He blew her a silent kiss.

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  2

  In the warm summer-night air, Katie Bishop tossed her untidy flame-red hair away from her face and yawned, feeling tired. Actually, beyond tired. Exhausted – but very, very nicely exhausted, thank you! She studied the petrol pump as if it was some extraterrestrial creature put on Planet Earth to intimidate her, which was how she felt about most petrol pumps. Her husband always had problems figuring out the instructions on the dishwasher and the washing machine, claiming they were written in some alien language called ‘Woman’. Well, so far as she was concerned, petrol pumps came with an equally alien language, the instructions on them were written in ‘Bloke’.

  She struggled, as usual, to get the filler cap off her BMW, then stared at the words Premium and Super, trying to remember which one the car took, although it seemed to her she could never get it right. If she put in premium, Brian criticized her for putting in petrol that was too low-grade; if she filled up with super, he got annoyed with her for wasting money. But at this moment, nothing was going in at all. She held the nozzle in one hand, squeezing the trigger hard, and waved with the other, trying to attract the attention of the dozy night attendant behind the counter.

  Brian irritated her increasingly. She was tired of the way he fussed about all kinds of stupid little things – like the position of his toothpaste on the bathroom shelf, and making sure all the chairs around the kitchen table were exactly the same distance apart. Talking inches, not feet. And he was becoming increasingly kinky, regularly bringing home carrier bags from sex shops filled with weird stuff that he insisted they try out. And that was really causing her problems.

  She was so wrapped up in her thoughts, she didn’t even notice the pump jigging away until it stopped with an abrupt kerlunk. Breathing in the smell of petrol fumes, which she had always quite liked, she hung the nozzle of the pump back up, clicked the key fob to lock the car – Brian had warned her cars often got stolen on petrol station forecourts – and went to the booth to pay.

  As she came out, she carefully folded her credit card receipt and tucked it into her purse. She unlocked the car, climbed in, then locked it from the inside, pulled on her seat belt and started the engine. The Il Divo CD started playing again. She thought for a moment about lowering the BMW’s roof, then decided against. It was past midnight; she would be vulnerable driving into Brighton at this hour with an open top. Better to stay enclosed and secure.

  It was not until she had driven off the forecourt and was a good hundred yards down the dark slip road that she noticed something smelled different in the car. A scent that she knew well. Comme des Gar�s. Then she saw something move in her mirror.

  And she realized someone was inside her car.

  Fear caught the inside of her throat like a fish hook; her hands froze on the wheel. She jammed her foot down hard on the brake pedal, screeching the car to a halt, scrabbling with her hand on the gear lever to find reverse, to back up to the safety of the forecourt. Then she felt the cold, sharp metal digging into her neck.

  ‘Just keep driving, Katie,’ he said. ‘You really haven’t been a very good girl, have you?’

  Straining to see him in her rear-view mirror, she saw a sliver of light shear off the blade of the knife, like a spark.

  And in that rear-view mirror he saw, reflected, the terror in her eyes.

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  3

  Marlon did what he always did, which was to swim around and around his glass bowl, circumnavigating his world with the tireless determination of an explorer heading into yet another uncharted continent. His jaws opened and closed, mostly on water, just occasionally gulping down one of the microscopic pellets which, Roy Grace presumed from the amount they cost, were the goldfish equivalent of dinner at Gordon Ramsay’s.

  Grace lay slouched in his recliner armchair in the living room of his home, which had been decorated by his long-vanished wife, Sandy, in black and white Zen minimalism, and which until recently had been filled with memorabilia of her. Now there were just a few funky 1950s pieces they had bought together – the one taking pride of place was a juke box they’d had restored – and just one photograph of her, in a silver frame, taken twelve years ago on holiday in Capri, her pretty, tanned face grinning her cheeky grin. She was standing against craggy rocks, with her long blonde hair flailing in the wind, bathed in sunlight, like the goddess she had been to him.

  He gulped down some Glenfiddich on the rocks, his eyes rooted to the television screen, watching an old movie on DVD. It was one of the ten thousand his mate Glenn Branson just so totally could not believe that he had never seen.

  And recently it hadn’t been a question of Branson’s oneupmanship getting the better of his competitive nature. Grace was on a mission to learn, to educate himself, to fill that vast cultural black hole inside his head. He had slowly come to the realization, during the past month, that his brain was a repository for pages and pages of police training manuals, rugby, football, motor-racing and cricketing facts, and not much else. And that needed to change. Quickly.

  Because at long last he was dating – going out with – in lust with – totally smitten by – maybe even in love with – someone again. And he could not believe his luck. But she was a lot better educated than he was. It seemed at times that she’d read every book that had ever been written, seen every movie, been to every opera and was intellectually acquainted with the work of every artist of note, living or dead. And as if that wasn’t enough, she was halfway through an Open University course in philosophy.

  Which explained the pile of philosophy books on the coffee table beside his chair. Most of them he had recently bought from City Books in Western Road, and the rest from a trawl of just about every other bookshop in the whole of Brighton and Hove.

  Two supposedly accessible titles, The Consolations of Philosophy and Zeno and the Tortoise, were on the top of the pile. Books for the layman, which he could just about understand. Well, parts of them, anyhow. They gave him enough at least to bluff his way through discussions with Cleo about some of the stuff she was on about. And, quite surprisingly, he was finding himself genuinely interested. Socrates, in particular, he could connect with. A loner, ultimately sentenced to death for his thoughts and his teachings, who once said, ‘The unexamined life is not
worth living.’

  And last week she had taken him to Glyndebourne, to see Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. Some parts of the opera had dragged for him, but there had been moments of such intense beauty, in both the music and the spectacle, that he was moved almost to tears.

  He was gripped by this black and white movie he was watching now, set in immediate post-war Vienna. In the current scene, Orson Welles, playing a black-marketeer called Harry Lime, was riding with Joseph Cotten in a gondola on a Ferris wheel in an amusement park. Cotten was chastising his old friend, Harry, for becoming corrupt. Welles retaliated, saying, ‘In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed – but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.’

  Grace took another long swig of his whisky. Welles was playing a sympathetic character, but Grace had no sympathy for him. The man was a villain, and in the twenty years of his career to date, Grace had never met a villain who didn’t try to justify what he had done. In their warped minds, it was the world that was skewed wrong, not them.

  He yawned, then rattled the ice cubes in his empty glass, thinking about tomorrow, Friday, and dinner with Cleo. He hadn’t seen her since last Friday – she had been away for the weekend, for a big family reunion in Surrey. It was her parents’ thirty-fifth wedding anniversary, and he had felt a small pang of discomfort that she hadn’t invited him to go with her – as if she were keeping her distance, signalling that although they were dating, and making love, they weren’t actually an item. Then on Monday she’d gone away on a training course. Although they’d spoken every day, and texted and emailed each other, he was missing her like crazy.