you confirm it’s murder then?’ Simon looked at her with pleading eyes.
‘We’re looking into all possibilities at the moment,’ Grace replied.
Perry smirked.
‘So you have nothing for me?’ Simon glanced at Perry.
‘No,’ Perry said. ‘You’ll be the first to know when we do, though.’
Simon sighed. ‘I suppose I’ll go and talk to the public while I wait.’
Grace could see he was reluctant to leave. She guessed his reporter’s nose was twitching, but his manner was warm, in contrast to that of a few of the journalists she’d dealt with over the years.
‘How’s everything going with Natalie?’ Perry asked Simon. ‘Things still bitter?’
‘She’s taking me for every penny.’ Simon rolled his eyes. ‘Which would be annoying if either of us had any decent money.’
‘He got shafted for a younger model,’ Perry explained to Grace.
‘You make me sound like a car,’ Simon protested.
‘She walked all over him,’ Perry added.
‘I know, I know.’ Simon nodded. ‘I can’t help being so nice.’
Grace saw how blue his eyes were as they crinkled up. Sincere too, which she didn’t see very often.
‘I’d best be off to do my job.’ Simon pointed to the residents across the street.
Grace noticed him blushing and gave him a shy smile. She turned to Perry once he’d gone. ‘So, tattoos and the car make me feel confident Josh Parker is our victim, but we won’t be allowed to release this information until we have a confirmed ID. Nick has gone to inform his wife, even though she can’t see the body yet. For now, let’s look at the CCTV footage and …’ Grace stopped talking when she saw he wasn’t listening. His eyes were trained over her shoulder.
A shiver of dread passed through her as she turned her head in the direction Perry was looking. Marching towards them were two men and a woman. The two men she recognised from Spice World the month before.
The woman shared the same hair and skin colouring as Grace. And, like Grace, she had long legs with a slim build.
‘Well, well, well.’ Eddie Steele was the first to speak, removing his sunglasses.
Grace swallowed as she brought herself tall to face her half-brothers and half-sister.
The situation was surreal. This was never how Grace had intended to meet her family. But then again, she hadn’t expected the first murder case she worked on here in Stoke-on-Trent to be so close to home.
It was hard to speak in such close proximity to them. Although they had never met, Grace wondered if they knew as much about her as she knew about them. Her mum, Martha, had certainly suggested that. She had also told Grace that Eddie was two years older than her, that she was two months younger than Leon and had a half-sister three years younger. Their father, George, had been sleeping with both her mother and theirs at the same time, for a number of years, leading a double life.
Aware they were all looking at her, Grace stepped forward, but still she said nothing.
Eddie turned to Perry. ‘I suppose you’ll be wanting to speak to us?’
Perry nodded. ‘We need to find out your whereabouts last night. General questions for now. This is DS Allendale.’
‘Hello.’ Grace held out her hand to Eddie. His grip was as firm as her own.
‘Leon’ – Eddie pointed to his brother – ‘and Jade’s our sister.’
Grace shook both their hands in quick succession, worrying in case any of them revealed they already knew of each other. The resemblance between her and Jade was so significant that she hoped Perry didn’t notice. She could almost see her own eyes staring back at her.
But more than that, it was the way Jade stood: on her right foot to the detriment of her left, similar to something Grace always did. And the way she smiled, the full shape of her lips. She wondered what their mother looked like; was she similar to Grace’s own? Martha Steele, née Benson, had been olive-skinned with dark brown hair and not an ounce of fat on her.
Grace took a deep breath and asserted herself once more. ‘I believe DC Wright knows you all, so if I can get on with the questioning, we can do the formal things later.’ She turned to Perry. ‘Can you go and talk to Trent Gibson?’
Perry frowned, but she waved him away politely. She wasn’t sure if the Steeles would blow her cover. On the one hand, it might be a good thing because then she wouldn’t feel so deceitful. But then again, she could be removed from the case and she didn’t want that either. ‘Tread carefully’ would have to be her motto for today.
She followed the siblings into a small and dimly lit hallway, its red carpeted flooring having seen better days. Walls were painted cream with the odd scuff mark. To the right was a door with a sign for toilets and changing rooms. Paint was peeling off the corner of the ceiling and the smell of artificial air-freshener lingered unpleasantly.
Grace looked around. She could see no security barriers, the kind accessed by a swipe card like the gym she used to be a member of in Salford, so there must be something else.
‘Is there a signing-in book?’ she asked.
‘Inside the main building,’ Eddie told her. ‘We have lockers too. Things have a habit of going walkabout unless we put them away, if you catch my drift.’ He pointed to a set of double swing doors. ‘Be careful, the swing might come back and hit you,’ he warned. ‘Don’t want to knock you out on your first visit.’
Grace forced a smile as he held the door open for her to walk through.
‘We’ll be saving that for the second time,’ he muttered.
She turned to him, seeing no friendliness in his features. Up so close, her resemblance to him was uncanny. More noticeably, Grace could see how much he looked like George Steele as she remembered him from around the time she and her mother had left. Eddie must be about the same age as her father had been back then. It unnerved her: this was going to be harder than she had imagined.
Once through the doors, the room opened out into a large area. To one side was an array of gym equipment around the outer wall. On the other was a boxing ring with several punchbags and weight benches around the side. Grace wondered why they weren’t separated. If she was working out, she wouldn’t want to see anyone punched to the floor, friendly or not. It would put her off completely.
‘And you say you only have the one establishment in the city?’ she asked Eddie.
‘That’s right.’
Walking inside Steele’s Gym made Grace realise why they hadn’t branched out across Stoke-on-Trent. Not everyone would like this set-up. It was intimidating, to say the least. Nick had mentioned that this wasn’t its only selling point. She hoped she could find out more about what was going on behind the scenes.
Eddie showed her into a smaller room on the right of the building. It had three doors leading off it. He pointed to the first on the left.
‘Come through into the office and we can discuss things further.’
It was a tight fit to squeeze everyone in. The room held a desk and computer, a filing cabinet with paperwork piled on its top and a small settee squashed in front of an opaque-glass window. Leon and Jade sat down on that, while Eddie went behind the desk.
Grace cleared her throat as they