Not Dead Yet by Peter James Read Free Book Online Page B

were omnivores.
    He shared his thoughts with Glenn Branson.
    ‘Ever see that Pasolini film, Porcile ?’ the DS replied.
    ‘No, never heard of it.’
    ‘It’s a classic. A bloke gets eaten by a pig in that.’
    ‘Think I’ll give it a miss,’ Grace said.
    ‘You already have missed it, it came out in 1969.’ Then Branson frowned. ‘I know someone who might be able to tell us a bit about the cloth, if we’re right about it being suit fabric.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘A tailor in Brighton, works at Gresham Blake.’
    Gresham Blake was Brighton’s society tailor. ‘That where you get your clothes made these days?’ Grace looked at him quizzically.
    ‘I wish. I met him a few years ago when his flat was burgled. Gresham Blake’s where you should go though, on your Big Cheese salary.’
    There was no certainty, Grace thought, that the clothing fabric was even connected to the victim, but it was an important line of enquiry. Most murder investigations began with a missing person and until that person was identified, it was hard to make real progress. One of the key things he needed to establish at this moment was the age of the body, and how long it had been here. He pulled out his phone and called forensic archaeologist Joan Major, asking her if she could come here as soon as she was finished at the mortuary. She told him her work on the skeletal remains was almost completed.
    It was possible they could get DNA from the victim, which might help identification. Failing that, if the age, or at least the age range, of the victim could be established, they could make a start by looking at the county and region’s missing persons list.
    He stared around again. There were some farm buildings beyond the shed, and another, smaller dwelling. One immediate decision he needed to make was whether to treat just the chicken shed as the crime scene, or the entire farm including the farmhouse. He did not feel he had enough to justify that draconian measure, which would have meant Winter and his family having to move out into temporary accommodation. His view was to treat the farmer as a person of interest to his enquiry for now, but not a suspect.
    Despite his wariness of the danger in making assumptions, Roy Grace always made hypotheses at every crime scene. And the first one he made here was that money might be involved. A dead man in expensive clothes. A business partner? A blackmailer? Winter’s wife’s lover? Winter’s own lover? A creditor? A business rival? Or was it someone totally unconnected with Winter, who had merely used this place as a dump site?
    ‘Glenn,’ he said. ‘Early in my career I had a very wise Super in Major Crime. He said to me, there is no case colder than one inwhich the victim is unidentified . Remember that. Identifying the victim is always the first priority.’
    Sending Branson back inside with his head spinning, Grace walked over to the car, sat in the driver’s seat and closed the door for some privacy. He started to jot down the names of the enquiry team he wanted to put together, hoping that some of his regulars, recently stood down from Operation Violin , would be available. After a quiet start to this year, everything had kicked off in May. Sussex had an average of eighteen murders a year. So far in these first five months, there had been sixteen already. A statistical blip, or a sign of the times?
    He stared through the windscreen at the expensive Range Rover and the Impreza – a rich man’s toys – and the architect-designed farmhouse. Maybe there was money to be made in farming chickens?
    But, as experience had long taught him, wherever there was money to be made, there was killing to be done, too.

15
    ‘We’re fucked!’ Maxim Brody’s gloomy voice said.
    Larry Brooker, in his First Class seat, held the cellphone to his ear. ‘Why? What do you mean, Max?’
    ‘I just came off the phone with Gaia’s agent. She’s walking.’
    ‘Whaddya mean she’s walking?’
    ‘The insurance