And despite all the horror that lay ahead, he felt a sense of elation. Wholly inappropriate, he knew, but he just could not help it.
For years, he had hated coming to this place. It was one of the rites of passage of becoming a police officer that you had to attend a post-mortem early in your training. But now the mortuary had a whole different significance to him. Turning to Branson, smiling, he retorted, ‘What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls the butterfly.’
‘What?’ Branson responded flatly.
‘Chuang Tse,’ he said brightly, trying to share his joy with his companion, trying to cheer the poor man up.
‘Who?’
‘A Chinese philosopher. Died in 275 bc.’ He didn’t reveal who had taught him this.
‘And he’s in the mortuary, is he?’
‘You’re a bloody philistine, aren’t you?’ Grace pulled the car up into a space and switched the engine off.
Perking just a little, again, Branson retorted, ‘Oh yeah? And since when did you get into philosophy, old-timer?’
References to Grace’s age always stung. He had just celebrated – if that was the right word – his thirty-ninth birthday, and did not like the idea that next year was going to be the big four-zero.
‘Very funny.’
‘Ever see that movie The Last Emperor?’
‘Don’t remember it.’
‘Yeah, well, you wouldn’t,’ Glenn said sarcastically. ‘It only won nine Oscars. Well brilliant. You should get it out on DVD – except you’re probably too busy catching up on past episodes of Desperate Housewives. And,’ he added, nodding towards the mortuary, ‘are you still – you know – she still yanking your chain?’
‘None of your damn business!’
Although in reality it was Branson’s business, it was everyone’s business, because at this moment it was causing Grace’s focus to be elsewhere, in totally the wrong place from where it should have been. Fighting his urge to get out of the car and into the mortuary, to see Cleo, and changing the subject rapidly back to the business of the day, he said, ‘So – what do you think? Did he kill her?’
‘He didn’t ask for a lawyer,’ Branson replied.
‘You’re learning,’ Grace said, genuinely pleased.
It was a fact that the majority of criminals, when apprehended, submitted quietly. The ones that protested loudly often turned out to be innocent – of that particular crime, at any rate.
‘But did he kill his wife? I dunno, I can’t call it,’ Branson added.
‘Me neither.’
‘What did his eyes tell you?’
‘I need to get him in a calmer situation. What was his reaction when you told him the news?’
‘He was devastated. It looked real enough.’
‘Successful businessman, right?’ They were in the shade here, alongside a flint wall, by a tall laurel bush. Air wafted in through the open sun-roof and windows. A tiny spider suddenly abseiled down its own thread from the interior mirror.
‘Yeah. Software systems of some kind,’ Branson said.
‘You know the best character trait to become a successful businessman?’
‘Whatever it is, I wasn’t born with it.’
‘It’s being a sociopath. Having no conscience, as ordinary people know it.’
Branson pressed the button, lowering his window further. ‘A sociopath is a psychopath, right?’ He cupped the spider in the massive palm of his hand and gently dropped it out of the window.
‘Same characteristics, one significant difference: sociopaths can keep themselves under control, psychopaths can’t.’
‘So,’ Branson said. ‘Bishop is a successful businessman, ergo he must be a sociopath, ergo he killed his wife. Bingo! Case closed. Let’s go and arrest him?’
Grace grinned. ‘Some drug dealers are tall, black, with shaven heads. You are tall, black, with a shaven head. Ergo you must be a drug dealer.’
Branson frowned then nodded. ‘Of course. Get you anything you want.’
Grace held out his hand. ‘Good. Let me have a couple of those little babies I gave you this morning – if you’ve got any left.’
Branson handed him two paracetamols. Grace popped them from their foil wrapper and washed them down with a swig of mineral water from a bottle in the glove locker. Then he climbed out of the car and walked swiftly, purposefully, over to the small blue front door with its frosted glass panel and pressed the bell.
Branson stood by his side, crowding him, and for a moment he wished the DS could just sod off for a few minutes and give him some privacy. After almost a week since seeing Cleo, he had a deep longing just to have a few private minutes with her. To know that she still felt the same about him as she had last week.
Moments later she opened the door, and Grace did exactly what he always did each time he saw her. He went into a kind of internal meltdown of joy.
In the new-speak devised by one of the political-correctness politburo that Grace detested, Cleo Morey’s official title had recently been changed to Senior Anatomical Pathology Technician. In the old-fashioned language that ordinary folk spoke and understood, she was the Chief Mortician.
Not that anyone who didn’t know her, who saw her walking down a street, would have guessed that in a gazillion years.
Five feet ten inches tall, in her late twenties, with long blonde hair, and brimming with confidence, she was, by any definition – and it was probably the wrong one for this particular place she worked in – drop-dead gorgeous. Standing in the tiny lobby of the mortuary, her hair scraped up, draped in a green surgical gown, with a heavy-duty apron over the top and white wellington boots, she looked more like some stunning actress playing a role than the real thing.
Despite the fact that the inquisitive, suspicious Glenn Branson was standing right beside him, Grace couldn’t help himself. Their eyes locked, for more than just a fleeting moment. Those stunning, amazing, wide, round, sky-blue eyes stared straight into his soul, found his heart and cradled it.
He wished Glenn Branson would vaporize. Instead the bastard continued standing beside him, looking at each of them in turn, grinning like an imbecile.
‘Hi!’ Grace said, a little tamely.
‘Detective Superintendent, Detective Sergeant Branson, how very nice to see you both!’
Grace desperately wanted to put his arms around her and kiss her. Instead, restraining himself, clicking back into professional mode, he just smiled back. Then, barely even noticing the sickly sweet reek of Trigene disinfectant that permeated the place, he followed her into the familiar small office that doubled as the reception room. It was an utterly impersonal room, yet he liked it because it was her space.
There was a fan humming on the floor, pink Artexed walls, a pink carpet, an L-shaped row of visitor chairs and a small metal desk on which sat three telephones, a stack of small brown envelopes printed with the words Personal Effects and a large green and red ledger bearing the legend Mortuary Register in gold block lettering.
A light box was fixed to one wall, as well as a row of framed Public Health and Hygiene certificates, and a larger one from the British Institute of Embalmers, with Cleo Morey’s name inscribed beneath. On another wall was a CCTV, which showed, in a continuous jerky sequence, views of the front, the back, then each side of the building, followed by a close-up on the entrance.
‘Cup of tea, gentlemen, or do you want to go straight in?’