Not Dead Enough by Peter James Read Free Book Online

circumstances about your wife’s death, sir.’
    ‘Suspicious? What do you mean? What? In what way?’
    ‘I’m afraid I can’t say. We will have to wait for the pathologist’s report.’
    ‘Pathologist?’ Bishop shook his head slowly. ‘She’s my wife. Katie. My wife. You can’t tell me how she died? I’m – I’m her husband.’ His face dropped back into his hands. ‘She’s been murdered? Is that what you are saying?’
    ‘We can’t go into detail, sir, not at this moment.’
    ‘Yes, you can. You can go into detail. I’m her husband. I have a right to know.’
    Branson stared back at him levelly. ‘You will know, sir, as soon as we do. What we would appreciate is for you to come to our headquarters in order that we can talk to you about what has happened.’
    Bishop raised his hands. ‘I – I’m in the middle of a golf tournament. I . . .’
    This time Branson made eye contact with his colleague and each clocked the other’s raised eyebrows. It was an odd priority. But in fairness, when in shock people often said strange things. It wasn’t necessarily worth reading anything into it. Besides, Branson was partially preoccupied with trying to remember how long it was since he had last swallowed any paracetamols. Whether it was safe to take a couple more now. Deciding it was OK, he surreptitiously dug his hand into his pocket, popped a couple of capsules from their foil wrapper and slung them into his mouth. Attempting to swallow them with just saliva, it felt as if they had lodged halfway down his throat.
    ‘I’ve explained the situation to your friends, sir. They are carrying on.’ He tried swallowing again.
    Bishop shook his head. ‘I’ve screwed up their chances. They’ll be disqualified.’
    ‘I’m sorry about that, sir.’ He wanted to add, shit happens. But tactfully, he left it at that.
    10
    Blinding Light were in pre-production on a horror movie they were going to be shooting in Malibu and Los Angeles. It was about a group of young, rich kids in a house party in Malibu who get eaten by hostile micro-organisms from outer space. In her original script report, Sophie Harrington had written, ‘Alien meets The OC.’
    Ever since watching The Wizard of Oz as a child, she had wanted, in some way, however small her role, to be involved with movies. Now she was in her dream job, working with a bunch of guys who between them had made dozens of movies, some of which she had seen, either on a cinema screen or on video or DVD, and some, in development, which she was sure were destined for, if not Oscars, at least some degree of commercial success.
    She handed a mug of coffee, milky, with two sugars to Adam and a mug of jasmine tea, neat, to Cristian, then sat down at her desk with her own mug of builder’s tea (milk, two sugars), logged on and watched a whole bunch of emails invade her inbox.
    All of them needed dealing with but – shit – there was only one priority. She pulled her mobile phone to her ear and dialled his number again.
    It went straight to voicemail.
    ‘Call me,’ she said. ‘As soon as you can. I’m really worried.’
    An hour later, she tried again. Still voicemail.
    There were even more emails now. Her tea sat on her desk in reception, untouched. The script she had been reading on the tube was at the same page as when she had got off. So far this morning, she had achieved nothing. She had failed to get a lunch reservation at the Caprice for tomorrow for another one of her bosses, Luke Martin, and she had forgotten to tell Adam that his meeting this afternoon, with film accountant Harry Hicks, had been cancelled. In short, her whole day was a total mess.
    Then her phone rang and it suddenly got a whole lot worse.
    11
    The woman had not yet started to smell, which indicated she hadn’t been dead for very long. The air conditioning in the Bishops’ bedroom helped, doing an effective job of keeping the corrosive August heat at bay.
    The blowflies hadn’t arrived yet either,