She said nothing for a moment, then she frowned. ‘You do still fancy me, don’t you? Even though I’m fat and I’ve got varicose veins? I read that some men get put off sex after their wives have given birth.’
He took her in his arms and kissed her. ‘You look stunning.’ She did look really stunning, he thought. She was wearing a loose cream linen summer dress, suede ankle boots with killer heels, her hair, the colour of winter wheat, shining and smelling freshly washed. ‘I fancy you like crazy. I fancy you more than ever.’ He kissed her again.
The doorbell rang.
Cleo took a reluctant step back. ‘That’ll be the Aged Ps!’
Grace glanced at his watch. It was 6.45 p.m. Cleo’s parents, who he really liked, always arrived at least fifteen minutes early for anything. They were babysitting their grandson tonight, giving Roy and Cleo their first evening out since Noah’s birth.
*
Although many people considered summer officially over at the end of August, in Roy Grace’s experience September was often the most glorious month of all. Normally he did not like to take any time out during a murder enquiry, and he had felt torn between spending the night working on the Aileen McWhirter case and taking Cleo out.
It was Cleo starting to sound a little tetchy last night that had been a reality check for him. It reminded him so much of Sandy. Sandy had never accepted how dead people could be more important than she was. How his work took priority over their life together. He had tried to explain, back then, the words instilled in him when he had been at the police training college, learning to be a detective. An instructor had read out the FBI moral code on murder investigation, written by its first director, J. Edgar Hoover: No greater honour will ever be bestowed on an officer, nor a more profound duty imposed on him, than when he or she is entrusted with the investigation of the death of a human being.
He would never stop fighting his corner for his murder victims. He would work night and day to catch and lock up the perpetrators. And mostly, so far in his career, he had succeeded.
But he was a father now, too. And soon to be a husband again. And that gnawed at him; the realization that there was someone in this world now who needed him even more than a murder victim. His son. And his wife-to-be.
He was glad he had made that decision as he walked hand in hand along Gardner Street with this beautiful woman he was so proud of. They passed Luigi’s clothes shop, where some months ago Glenn Branson, as his self-appointed style guru, had coerced him into spending over two thousand pounds to transform his wardrobe. He was wearing some of the gear now: a lightweight bomber jacket over a white T-shirt buttoned at the front, tapered blue chinos and brown suede loafers. Men turned and looked at Cleo as they passed. Roy Grace liked that, and wondered, with a private smile, if they would still ogle her if they knew what she did for a living, and might one day, if they were unlucky enough, be preparing them for a post-mortem.
They walked the narrow Lanes he loved so much, passing packed restaurants and bars, and came into the square, Brighton Place, dominated by the flint façade of one of Brighton’s landmarks, the Sussex pub. English’s restaurant was directly across, with a long row of outside tables roped off, Mediterranean style.
‘Inside or outside?’ the restaurant manager asked.
‘I booked outside,’ Cleo said decisively, and glanced at Roy Grace for approval. He nodded enthusiastically.
They were led down the line to the one table that was free. From long experience, Cleo indicated for Roy to take the chair with its back to the wall. ‘You take the policeman’s chair, darling.’
He squeezed her hand. After a few years in the force, most police officers only felt comfortable in restaurants and bars if they had their backs to the wall and a clear view of the room and the entry points. It had become second nature to him.
They took their seats. Behind Cleo, an endless stream of people walked along the alley from Brighton’s trendy East Street into the Lanes. He picked up the leather-bound wine list and opened it. Just as he began casting his eye up and down, looking for the dry white wines he knew Cleo liked, and which he liked best, too, he suddenly saw two people he recognized.
‘Bloody hell!’ He pulled the wine list up, covering his face, wanting to spare them the embarrassment of being spotted. Although the Machiavellian streak in him almost wanted them to see him.
‘What is it?’ Cleo asked.
He waited some moments, then lowered the list, and pointed at a couple, arm in arm, strolling away from them. ‘I thought they were coming in here!’
She stared at the couple. The man had a large bald patch, and was wearing a brown jacket and grey trousers. The woman had brown hair cut in a chic style, and wore a pretty pink dress. ‘Who are they?’
‘You’ve met them both, individually, at the mortuary over the years. DS Norman Potting and DS Bella Moy!’
‘They look rather a mismatched couple, from here anyway.’
‘They’re even more mismatched close up, believe me!’
‘She’s the one on your team who doesn’t have a life, right? She cares for her elderly mother?’
He nodded.
‘And he’s been married – what – four times?’
‘Yup.’
Their waiter appeared. Grace ordered two glasses of champagne and some olives.
‘That’s terrible.’
‘He is pretty terrible. But hey, good on Norman pulling Bella!’
‘Good on Norman pulling Bella?’ she quizzed. ‘What is it with you men? Why do men treat pulling women like a sport? What about, Poor Bella, lumbering herself, in desperation, with a serially unfaithful old lech?’
He laughed. ‘You’re right.’
‘So why do they, Roy?’
‘Because, I suppose, for most people, life’s a compromise. That writer – philosopher – you like, whose work you introduced me to a few months ago. What was his great line? Something about so many people living lives of quiet desperation?’
‘Yes. Don’t let us ever get like that, Roy.’
He stared back into her clear, green eyes. ‘We never will,’ he said.
‘Is that a promise?’
‘It’s a promise.’
Their champagne arrived. He raised his glass and clinked it against hers. ‘No desperation,’ he said. ‘Ever.’
‘None!’
A short while later he ordered six oysters. Then, when he saw the mischievous look in Cleo’s eyes, he upped it to a dozen.
55
At 11 a.m. on Monday, Gavin Daly sat at his desk, thumbing through his ancient Rolodex looking for a name from the past, ignoring the grinding blatter of the old ride-on mower as his gardener went up and down the lawn, cutting immaculate stripes.
He had heard the news, an hour earlier, that the Coroner had released his sister’s body, and her funeral could go ahead tomorrow, as he had planned.
His thoughts were interrupted by a perfunctory knock, followed by the sound of his door opening, and he turned to see his housekeeper, Betty, enter with a tray containing a wine glass, an opened bottle of Corton-Charlemagne white Burgundy, a Robaina cigar, perfectly cut, and a dish of green olives.
The first of his two glasses of white wine a day, which would be followed by his evening two fingers of whiskey. Everything in moderation was his recipe. All the people he knew of or had read about who’d made it to his kind of old age had their own particular secret. For some, it had been total abstinence from alcohol. For others, it had been a life of celibacy. Poor, miserable sods – they might have lived a long time, but strewth, it must have seemed so much longer! What they all ignored was England’s oldest ever man, Henry Allingham, who had died only a few years ago at 113, and had attributed his longevity, in a radio interview he’d heard on the great man’s 112th birthday, to ‘Cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women.’