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again and once more he heard a female voice.
    â€œCharlie Romeo Four,” PC Kyrke said, tilting his head and speaking down into the radio clipped to the left of his chest.
    â€œSerious RTC at the A23–A27 junction. RPU need some assistance. Can you advise me when you’re free to attend, Charlie Romeo Four?”
    â€œYes, yes,” Kyrke said. “But I think we’re going to be a while.” Then he turned to Jamie Ball. “Excuse me being personal, sir, but was everything all right between you and your fiancée? No arguments or anything like that?”
    â€œNothing. We’ve bickered like every couple, but we’ve never had a real argument in all the time we’ve been together. We love each other so much.”
    Susi Holliday stepped away from the others, feeling increasingly concerned about what she had heard. She radioed Control and requested that the Duty Inspector attend urgently.

 
    9
    Thursday 11 December
    Roy Grace arrived home shortly after 6:45 p.m. on Thursday night. The Detective Superintendent had three and a half more days to go as the on-call Senior Investigating Officer for Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team, before the buck got passed to another senior detective at 7 a.m. on Monday for the following seven days.
    The county of Sussex averaged twelve homicides a year, and it was around ten in Surrey. In the whole of the UK there were about six hundred and fifty a year. Every homicide detective hoped to get a challenging murder. Not that they were bloodthirsty people, but it was what they trained for, and what challenged them the best. And it had to be said that a high-profile homicide raised your own profile, and promotion prospects.
    Not that Roy Grace ever wished anyone dead.
    Over the past few years, weekends had been jinxed for him. On each occasion that he had hoped for a quiet one, because of a social engagement, or more recently wanting to spend time with his wife, Cleo, and their five-month-old son, at the last minute he had been called to a homicide investigation. He was really hoping for a peaceful weekend so that he could focus his energies on helping Cleo to sort her possessions, in preparation for the move next week from Cleo’s house, which they were sharing, to the cottage they had bought together, near the village of Henfield, eight miles north of Brighton.
    Cleo stood up, carefully removing a large book of fabric swatches from her lap and placing it on the coffee table, on top of a pile of other fabric and wallpaper sample books.
    Grace turned to his eleven-year-old goldfish, Marlon. “You’re going to be moving to the country next week. How do you feel about that? We’re going to have hens. You’ve never seen a hen, have you? Other than on television. But you’re not that big on watching television, are you?”
    Cleo slipped an arm around his waist and kissed him on the neck. “If someone had told me, a few years ago, that one day I would be jealous of a goldfish, I wouldn’t have believed them. But I am. Sometimes I think you care more about Marlon than me!”
    Marlon opened and shut his mouth, looking as ever like a grumpy, toothless old man, on his never-ending circumnavigation of his round tank, passing through the fronds of green weed and over the submerged remains of a miniature Greek temple, which Roy had bought some years ago after reading an article in a magazine on the importance of giving goldfish things to interest them in their bowls. But nothing Roy had ever bought seemed to interest this lonesome creature. Over the years he had attempted on several occasions to provide Marlon with a mate. But every companion he had bought had ended up either gulped down by this mini-monster or floating dead on the surface, while Marlon continued, day in, day out, his eternal circular motion.
    He had won the fish at a fairground stall all those years back with his long-missing first wife, Sandy, who after ten