Dead Man's Grip by Peter James

Author:Peter James
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, Suspense, Fiction
ISBN: 9780230760516
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2011-05-26T04:00:00+00:00

52

Grace let Glenn Branson drive. Ever since gaining his green Response and Pursuit driving ticket, Branson was keen to show his friend his prowess. And every time he allowed Branson to take the wheel, Roy Grace quickly regretted it.

They headed down the sweeping dip in the A27, passing the slip road off to the A23 and up the far side, the speedometer needle the wrong side of the 120mph mark, with Glenn, in Grace’s view, having a totally misplaced confidence in the blue flashing lights and wailing siren. It didn’t take a normal, sane police officer many days of response driving to realize that most members of the public on the road were deaf, blind or stupid, and frequently a combination of all three.

Grace pressed his feet hard against the floor, willing his friend to slow down as they raced past a line of cars, any one of which could have pulled out and sent them hurtling into the central barrier and certain oblivion. It was more by sheer good luck than anything he would want to attribute to driving skill that they finally ended up on the approach road to Shoreham Port, passing Hove Lagoon – a short distance from Grace’s home – on their left, with their lives, if not his nerves, still intact.

‘What do you think of my driving, old-timer? Getting better, yeah? Think I’ve nailed that four-wheel-drift thing now!’

Grace was not sure where his vocal cords were. It felt like he had left them several miles back.

‘I think you need to be more aware about what other road users might do,’ he replied diplomatically. ‘You need to work on that.’

They drove straight over a mini-roundabout, narrowly missing a Nissan Micra being driven by a man in a pork-pie hat, and entered an industrial area. There was a tall, brick-walled warehouse to their right, double yellow lines and a blue corrugated metal warehouse to their left. They passed a gap between two buildings, through which Grace caught a glimpse of the choppy water of Aldrington Basin, the extreme eastern end of the Shoreham Port canal. They passed a van marked D & H Electrical Installations and saw ahead of them a sign above a building advertising pet foods. Then, immediately in front of them was a marked police car, its lights flashing in stationary mode.

As they approached, they saw several parked vehicles, including the Crime Scene Manager’s, and a second marked car, turned sideways, between two buildings. It was blocking the entrance to an open gate in the middle of a chain-link fence. Beyond was the quay. A line of crime scene tape ran between the walls of the two buildings and a PCSO scene guard stood in front of it.

They climbed out of the car into the blustery, damp wind, walked up to her and gave their names.

‘Need you both to suit up, please, sirs,’ she said to Grace, then nodded respectfully at Branson. ‘CSM’s request.’

The moment a Crime Scene Manager arrived at a potential crime scene, the site became his or her responsibility.

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