Free Dead Man's Footsteps by Peter James Page A

thinning comb-over, part of which, at this moment was sticking bolt upright, having been blasted by the elements. He was fifty-three, although those who particularly disliked him spread rumours that he had knocked several years off his age so he could stay in the force longer, because he was terrified of retirement.
    Grace had never seen Potting without a tie and this morning was no exception. The man was wearing a long, wet anorak with duffel tags over a tweed jacket, Viyella shirt and a fraying green knitted tie, grey flannel trousers and stout brogues. With a wheezing sound, he eased himself behind the table, on to the bench seat opposite Grace, then plonked down a large, dripping-wet cellophane folder, looking triumphant.
    ‘Why do people always pick such bleedin’ awful places to get murdered or dumped in?’ he said, leaning forward and exhaling directly into Roy’s face.
    Trying not to wince as a blast furnace of hot and rancid smells enveloped him, Roy decided that this was probably what being breathed on by a dragon would be like. ‘Maybe you should draw up some guidelines,’ he said testily. ‘A fifty-point code of practice for murder victims to abide by.’
    Subtlety had never been Norman Potting’s strong point and it took him a moment now to realize that the Detective Superintendent was being sarcastic. Then he broke into a grin, showing a mouthful of stained, crooked teeth, like tombstones on subsiding ground.
    He raised a finger. ‘I’m rather slow this morning, Roy. Had a bit of a night last night. Li was like a bloody tiger!’
    Potting had recently ‘acquired’ a Thai bride and constantly regaled anyone in earshot with details of his new-found prowess in bed with her.
    Heading off the subject rapidly, Grace pointed at the cellophane folder. ‘You got the plans?’
    ‘Four times last night, Roy! And she’s a dirty cow – do anything! Phoawwww! She makes me a very happy man!’
    ‘Good.’
    For a brief moment, Grace actually felt pleased for him. Potting had never had a lot of luck in his love life. He was a veteran of three marriages, with several children he had once admitted, ruefully, that he rarely saw. The youngest was a girl with Down’s syndrome whom he had tried and failed to get custody of. He wasn’t a bad or a stupid person, Roy knew – he was a very competent detective – but he lacked the social skills essential to rising any higher in the force, should he want to. Still, Norman Potting was a solid and dependable workhorse, with sometimes surprising initiative, and those aspects of him were far more important in any major inquiry, in his view.
    ‘You should consider it yourself, Roy.’
    ‘Consider what?’
    ‘Getting a Thai bride. Hundreds of them gagging for an English husband. I’ll give you the website – they are bloody wonderful, I tell you. They cook, clean, do all your ironing, give you the best sex of your life – lovely little bodies—’
    ‘The plans?’ Grace said, ignoring the last remark.
    ‘Ah, yes.’
    Potting shook several large photocopies of street maps, grids and section drawings out of the folder and spread them over the table. Some of them dated back to the nineteenth century.
    Wind rocked the van. Outside, somewhere in the distance, an emergency service siren sounded and then faded away. The rain drummed steadily on the roof.
    Plans had never been something that Roy found easy to follow, so he let Potting talk him through the complexities of Brighton and Hove’s drainage system, using the paperwork and briefing which had been given to him by a corporation engineer earlier this morning. The DS ran a grimy-nailed finger across, down, then up each of the drawings in turn, showing how the water ran, always downhill, eventually out into the sea.
    Roy tried hard to keep up with him, but half an hour on he was little wiser than he had been before he started. It seemed to him that it all added up to the fact that the weight of the dead woman’s body