You’d better buy this car, Christopher Goodman. You won’t just be saving my business, you might be saving my life.

And with his lovely, caring Irish girlfriend, Shauna, life was really good for him again, after the trauma of his health scares. He would have the op and afterwards he would do his damnedest to get fit again. He had promised her that.

Manoeuvring some of his other stock out of the way, he slid open the showroom doors, grabbed the BMW’s keys off the hook on his office wall and decided to take it for a quick spin round the block to check everything was working fine, after a few weeks of it sitting idle in the showroom. Unplugging the charging cable, he then, mindful of his bad back, eased himself gently into the driver’s seat with a pained grunt, glided the car silently out of the showroom, drove north up to Church Road, Hove, and turned left. It was 7.45 a.m.

32

Tuesday 3 September

Roy Grace turned his Alfa Romeo right into New Church Road. Bruno, hair neatly brushed as ever, dressed in his red school blazer, white shirt and striped tie, grey trousers and black shoes, sat beside him, silent and stroppy. It was 7.45 a.m.

Bruno was in a particularly strange mood this morning, barely saying a word during the half-hour drive in the early rush-hour traffic. In response to his father’s question about what he had on at school today, he just tut-tutted loudly, intently studying his phone. From the sounds coming out of it, Grace guessed he was looking at TikTok.

Attempting again to engage, he asked if he was playing any sport this afternoon, but all he got in response was Bruno sighing loudly in an irritable ‘leave me alone’ fashion.

For a while, Grace turned up the volume on the radio, tuned to Radio Sussex, listening to the news and traffic reports. He’d been hoping to have a good chat in the car with Bruno, but so far that hadn’t happened. He’d learned that ignoring the boy was sometimes the best tactic to get him to speak. The tactic worked now.

‘Why do you think school is so important?’ Bruno asked suddenly.

Roy turned down the radio. ‘You don’t think it is?’

‘Most teachers I have are useless. I know more than them,’ he said.

‘You do?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘I don’t think, I know.’

‘You do?’ The small boy’s confidence – and arrogance – at times was breathtaking, he thought.

‘Yeah, I tested my Geography teacher yesterday. I asked him what the capital of Kazakhstan was. He didn’t know.’

‘I don’t know either,’ Grace said.

‘You’re just a police officer, you’re not paid to know the capital of countries. Mr Maitland is.’

‘So what is it?’

‘Nur-Sultan.’

‘Nur-Sultan?’

‘Yes. I know the capital of every country in the world. Mr Maitland doesn’t even know how many countries there are. I asked him, he said there were one hundred and eighty-seven.’