‘Detective Superintendent Grace.’
‘Why can’t you answer a simple question, Detective Superintendent Grace? Is it too much for anyone to answer one simple question?’ Getting increasingly hysterical, Bishop continued, his voice rising, ‘Is it? You’re telling me my wife died – are you now telling me I killed her? Is that what you’re trying to say?’
The man’s eyes were all over the place. Grace would need to let him settle. He stared down at him. Stared at the man’s ridiculous trousers, and at the shoes which reminded him of spats worn by 1930s gangsters. Grief affected everyone in a different way. He’d had enough damn experience of that in his career, and in his private life.
The fact that the man lived in a vulgar house and drove a flash car did not make him a killer. It did not even make him a less than totally honourable citizen. He had to dump all prejudices out of his mind. It was perfectly possible for a man to live in a house worth north of a couple of million and still be a thoroughly decent, law-abiding human being. Even if he did have a bedside cabinet full of sex toys and a book on sexual fetishes in his office, that didn’t necessarily mean he had jammed a gas mask over his wife’s face, then strangled her.
But it didn’t necessarily mean he hadn’t, either.
‘I’m afraid the questions are necessary, sir. We wouldn’t ask them if they weren’t. I realize it’s very difficult for you and you want to know what’s happened. I can assure you we’ll explain everything in due course. Please just bear with us for the time being. I really do understand how you must be feeling.’
‘You do? Really, Detective Superintendent? Do you have any idea what it is like to be told your wife is dead?’
Grace nearly replied, Yes, actually, I do, but he kept calm. Mentally he noted that Bishop had not demanded to see a solicitor, which was often a good indicator of guilt. And yet something did not feel right. He just couldn’t put a finger on it.
He left the room, went back to his office and called Linda Buckley, one of the two family liaison officers who were being assigned to look after Bishop. She was an extremely competent WPC with whom he had worked several times in the past.
‘I want you to keep a close eye on Bishop. Report back to me any odd behaviour. If necessary, I’ll get a surveillance team on to him,’ he briefed her.
13
Clyde Weevels, tall and serpentine, with little spikes of black hair and a tongue that rarely stopped wetting his lips, stood behind the counter, surveying his – at this moment empty – domain. His little retail emporium in Broadwick Street, just off Wardour Street in Soho, bore the same anonymous legend as a dozen other places like it sprinkled around the side – and not-so-side – streets of Soho: Private Shop.
In the drably lit interior, there were racks of dildos, lubricating oils and jellies, flavoured condoms, bondage kits, inflatable sex dolls, thongs, g-strings, whips, manacles, racks of porno magazines, soft-core DVDs, hardcore DVDs, and even harder stuff in the backroom for clients he knew well. There was everything in here for a great night in, for straights, gays, bis and for plain old saddo loners – which was what he was, not that he was ever going to admit that to himself, or to anyone else, no way, José. Just waiting for the right relationship to come along.
Except it wasn’t going to come along in this place.
She was out there somewhere, in one of those lonely-hearts columns, on one of those websites. Waiting for him. Gagging for him. Gagging for a tall, lean, great-dancer-dude who was also a mean kick boxer. Which he was practising now. Behind the counter, behind the bank of CCTV monitors that were the window on his shop and the outside world, he was practising. Roundhouse kick. Front kick. Side kick.
And he had a ten-inch dick.
And he could get you anything you wanted. You name it – I mean, like, you name it. What kind of porno you want? Toys? Drugs? Yeah.
Camera Four was the one he liked to watch most. It showed the street, outside the door. He liked watching the way they came into the shop, especially the men in suits. They sort of nonchalantly sidled past, as if they were en route to someplace else, then rocked back on their heels and shot in through the door, as if pulled by an invisible magnet that had just been switched on.
Like the pinstriped git in a pink tie who walked in now. They all gave him a sort of this-isn’t-really-me glance, followed by the kind of inane semi-grin you see in stroke victims, then they’d start fondling a dildo, or a pair of lace knickers, or a set of handcuffs, like sex had not yet been invented.
Another man was coming in. Lunch hour. Yeah. He was a bit different. A shell-suited jerk in a hoodie and dark glasses. Clyde lifted his eyes from the monitor and watched as he entered the shop. His type were the classic shoplifters, the hood shielding their face from the cameras. And this one was behaving really weirdly. He just stopped in his tracks, staring out through the opaque glass in the door for some moments, sucking his hand.
Then the man walked over to the counter and said, without making eye contact, ‘Do you sell gas masks?’
‘Rubber and leather,’ Clyde replied, pointing a finger towards the back of the store. A whole selection of masks and hoods hung there, between a range of doctor, nurse, air hostess and Playboy bunny uniforms, and a jokey Hung Like a Stallion pouch.
But instead of walking towards them, the man strode back towards the door and stared out again.
Across the road, the young woman called Sophie Harrington, whom he had followed from her office, was standing at the counter of an Italian deli, with a magazine under her arm, waiting for her ciabatta to be removed from the microwave, talking animatedly on her mobile phone.
He looked forward to trying the gas mask out on her.
14
‘Gets me every time, this place,’ Glenn Branson said, looking up from the silent gloom of his thoughts at the even gloomier view ahead. Roy Grace, indicating left, slowed his ageing maroon Alfa Romeo saloon and turned off the Lewes Road gyratory system, past a sign, in gold letters on a black ground, saying Brighton and Hove City Mortuary. ‘You ought to donate your rubbish music collection to it.’
‘Very funny.’
As if out of respect for the place, Branson leaned forward and turned down the volume of the Katie Melua CD that was playing.
‘And anyhow,’ Grace said defensively, ‘I like Katie Melua.’
Branson shrugged. Then he shrugged again.
‘What?’ Grace said.
‘You should let me buy your music for you.’
‘I’m very happy with my music.’
‘You were very happy with your clothes, until I showed you what a sad old git you looked in them. You were happy with your haircut too. Now you’ve started listening to me, you look ten years younger – and you’ve got a woman, right? She’s well fit, she is!’
Ahead, through wrought-iron gates attached to brick pillars, was a long, single-storey, bungalow-like structure with grey pebbledash rendering on the walls that seemed to suck all the warmth out of the air, even on this blistering summer’s day. There was a covered drive-in one side, deep enough to take an ambulance – or more often, the coroner’s dark green van. On the other side, several cars were parked alongside a wall, including the yellow Saab, with its roof down, belonging to Nadiuska De Sancha and, of much more significance to Roy Grace, a small blue MG sports car, which meant that Cleo Morey was on duty today.