Dead Man's Time

by Peter James

  ‘I’m not saying you couldn’t,’ Grace replied. ‘But in my opinion there is much more going on than simply the recovery of a stolen watch, and the arresting of the perpetrators. I have a hunch about what is going to happen.’

  ‘I’m intrigued!’ said Detective Linda Blankson, abruptly but pleasantly.

  ‘So where do we start?’ Keith Johnson asked.

  ‘By finding Eamonn Pollock, Gavin Daly and Lucas Daly,’ Grace replied. ‘Without them knowing.’

  90

  Sunday lunch. He could smell it cooking somewhere, in one of the neighbouring houses. That’s what most people would be having now, Amis Smallbone thought, bitterly. 1.30 on a Sunday. Families sitting down to a roast. He’d done that every Sunday of his childhood. Roast beef or pork or lamb or chicken. He’d maintained the tradition until he got married to Christine – Chrissie. What a bitch.

  He drank some more whisky, feeling a little drunk, but not in a pleasant way. Building up Dutch courage too early in the day.

  He and Chrissie, Tom and Megan. That was how it had been, once. She’d was a good cook, Chrissie. He’d give her that, but she was crap in bed. Always blaming him. Taunting him about his manhood. She hadn’t minded it when they’d first started shagging – told him she liked it; didn’t like men with big dicks because they hurt her. In their divorce she’d got custody of the kids, and buggered off to Australia with them. Melbourne. Maybe he shouldn’t have hit her all those times, but she’d deserved it. And screw it, what did it matter now?

  What did it matter he hadn’t seen or heard from his kids for over twenty years? Good sodding luck to them.

  After Chrissie, a long, long time after, he’d met Theresa. The true love of his life. What they had between them was something very special indeed. He’d proposed to her, telling her he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, start a new family with her, and she’d accepted. They were all set to be married. The church booked, everything sorted, the invitations printed. Finally, he was in a place where he was happy again.

  Then Detective Roy Grace had come along. And screwed it all up for him. For them. On the morning of the wedding. 5 a.m. A dawn raid.

  He’d pleaded with Roy Grace to just let the wedding go ahead and then do what he had to, but did the bastard listen?

  No.

  Grace had chosen the day of his arrest for maximum humiliation, Amis Smallbone was certain. He could have done it days earlier. Or later. But no, he had chosen his moment very deliberately. And he had not let him make a phone call. So there was Theresa, all excited that morning, having her hair done, getting into her dress, then driving to the Brighton Registry Office. Where Roy Grace let her wait for her groom who wasn’t going to turn up because he was in a sodding cell in Brighton nick with no phone. They eventually got married in jail, but that wasn’t the point.

  Today had been a long time coming. A long time in the planning. The little shit Gareth Dupont had been arrested and charged, and would be grassing him up to get a reduced sentence for himself, for sure. So it was only a matter of time before he’d be back inside. If you committed a crime while you were out on licence, then your licence was automatically revoked; he’d be going back down for another ten years, minimum. But at least this time he would take Roy Grace down with him. The knowledge of Roy Grace’s grief would sustain him in the shitholes that faced him now and into old age.

  Draining his glass, he stood up unsteadily and left the top-floor room with its view of the courtyard and the front door of the Grace house, and went out onto the landing. He picked up the hooked stick and flailed around with it until he managed to hook the hoop in the loft door. Then he pulled the door down, and hooked the bottom rung of the metal loft ladder, lowering it carefully, until its feet touched the landing carpet.

  Then he climbed up it. At the top he reached out and found the light switch. Moments later the two weak bulbs lit up the roof space. Steeply angled wooden beams. Yellow insulating foam, sprinkled with rat and mouse droppings, between the rafters. The water tank. Spiders’ webs. An old, empty suitcase covered in dust. He hauled himself up onto his knees, breathing in the dry, dusty smells of wood and the insulating material. Then, supporting himself against the beams with his hands, he trod carefully on the rafters, making his way with some difficulty, because of all he had drunk, towards the roof hatch.

  He pushed against it, and moments later, light and fresh air flooded in. He squeezed through the rectangular space and stepped out onto the narrow metal fire escape. It gave him a view across the rooftops down towards the pier and the English Channel. But more importantly to him, it gave him direct access to the Grace house.

  What made him less happy was there was just one low, flimsy-looking handrail on one side. This group of seven town houses had been a conversion from a U-shaped warehouse building, and they shared a continuous pitched roof, with a fire escape running the full length of it. The gridded metal of the escape, clearly constructed as an afterthought, zig-zagged across the rooftops between the chimney stacks. To reach the Grace house, he had to navigate a difficult left turn, ducking under a thoughtlessly installed satellite television dish that obstructed his route.

  He succeeded and then reached the identical loft hatch to his own. Conscious that he was standing up here, in broad daylight, he looked around carefully, checking who might be able to see him. None of the immediate neighbours, but there were some tall buildings, mostly office blocks, that overlooked them, if anyone happened to be staring out of the window. That was unlikely during a Sunday lunchtime, but not worth taking the risk.

  When he did this for real, it would be dark; some ambient glow from the street lighting, but not much. He had to rehearse his steps now, count and memorize the number of steps to each turn, particularly the awkward left by the satellite dish. The important thing would be not to hurry.

  Roy Grace would still be in New York. Cleo and the little bastard would be home alone. And he would have all the time in the world!

  Amis Smallbone was unaware of one pair of eyes that were watching him, up here on the rooftop. Watching him with the intention of killing him.

  91

  Keith Barent Johnson, Roy Grace read, as the detective showed his NYPD badge to the front-desk receptionist at the Plaza on Central Park South.

  The young Asian woman spent some moments checking her computer records, then shook her head. ‘Eamonn Pollock? How do you spell it?’

  Johnson spelled it out. ‘Eamonn Pollock.’

  She checked again. ‘No, we don’t have him registered here, sir.’

  Grace then showed her a photograph of Pollock. ‘This is about twenty years ago, but does he look familiar?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. No, he does not; not to me, anyways. Can I make a copy and I’ll show it to my co-workers?’

  ‘Sure, thank you,’ Grace said, handing her the photograph. Then the two detectives repeated the process for Gavin Daly and for Lucas Daly, with equal lack of success.

  Roy Grace looked at his watch: 11.15 a.m. He and Johnson had been working through hotels for the past hour and a half, as had Guy Batchelor and Jack Alexander with the other two New York detectives. There was always the possibility that Pollock and the Dalys were staying with friends rather than in a hotel, which would make their current task impossible. But they had to just keep plodding on.

  They walked on up Central Park South, past horse-drawn carriages, endless rickshaws and guys standing in their way with bicycle rental placards, and entered the Marriott Essex House Hotel.

  Grace and Keith Johnson waited in line at the front desk. They watched a sweaty young couple return bikes to the porter’s desk, then a porter wheel a trolley laden with bags into a room behind it.

  ‘Mr Pollock?’ the pleasant receptionist said, after studying Keith Johnson’s NYPD card. She tapped into her computer terminal. Then, after a few moments, shook her head.

  Roy Grace leaned forward and showed her the old photograph he had of the man. She studied it, then sho
ok her head again. Then she turned to her tall, thin colleague and showed him the photograph.

  He frowned. ‘Yes, I know this man. He is staying here.’

  ‘Eamonn Pollock?’ Roy Grace quizzed. ‘Is that his name?’

  He tapped his keyboard, frowning, then looked back at Grace. ‘Dr Alvarez? Dr Alphonse Alvarez?’

  ‘What address did he give you when he registered?’

  He looked down at his screen again. ‘University College of Los Angeles, Brentwood, California.’

  Grace tapped Eamonn Pollock’s photograph. ‘But you’re sure that’s him?’

  ‘Oh yes, I’m sure.’

  92

  How great was this? Perfect or what? Amis Smallbone stared through the net curtains at the darkness beyond the window, and the falling rain. The wind was picking up; he could hear it howling. Which meant it would be hard for anyone to hear him. Not many people would be out on an evening like this, and certainly not hanging around staring up at the rooftops of buildings. But even if they were, they would not see anything.

  Not by the time he had finished his preparations.

  It was 10 p.m. Mummy and Daddy Cleo had dropped their precious daughter and their super-precious little bastard grandson home five hours ago. Cleo had made them tea, and they’d then discussed the houses they’d seen in the country. There was one they’d all agreed they liked, close to the village of Henfield. But it was more than the Graces had planned on paying.

  Mummy and Daddy Cleo had offered to help them. How sweet was that? Would they still help them out if their precious grandson no longer looked so sweet? If the little bastard had scars all over his face?

  His bags were packed. By the time anyone came looking for him he would be long gone, down to sunny Spain with the remainder of his meagre stash, and intending to collect from that fat pig Eamonn Pollock what he was owed. Then he’d live it up for however long he had before the law caught up with him. Lawrence Powell owed him a favour; he’d help him out, get him sorted with a new identity. With luck he’d have a few years of freedom, and then he’d be so old he wouldn’t care any more. Old age was a prison, so it didn’t much matter whether you spent the rest of your time in it or out of it. And at least they took care of you inside.

  And he would have one thing to sustain him through those years. The knowledge of what Detective Superintendent Roy Grace would be thinking every time he looked at his son’s hideously scarred face.

  He delved into one of the cartons of stuff he had bought over the internet, and pulled out the black jumpsuit; from another, he removed the night-vision goggles and the hunting knife, its blade as sharp as a razor. Then he opened the tin of black boot polish and, using a rag, began to smear it carefully across his face, until all that could be seen was the white of his eyes.

  And the hatred burning in them.

  * * *

  Out in the street below, Cassandra Jones, a website designer who lived directly opposite Cleo Morey’s house in the development, dismounted her Specialized hybrid bike, after returning from a Sunday night stand-up comedy event at Brighton’s Komedia Club, followed by a few glasses of wine afterwards with some friends.

  She wheeled it up to the entrance, head bowed against the wind and driving rain, feeling a little bit tipsy. Then she tapped in the code, pushed open the gate and, unquestioning, thanked the stranger standing right behind her, who held it open while she wheeled her bike through.

  The gate clanged shut on its springs, harshly striking the rear wheel of her bike.

  ‘Sorry,’ the tall man behind her said.

  93

  Eamonn Pollock, his obese body wrapped in a towelling dressing gown, lay back against the plump pillows on his huge, soft bed in his sumptuous hotel suite. He’d enjoyed a painful but invigoratingly glorious deep-tissue massage and was now sipping a glass of Bollinger, toasting himself, toasting his cleverness.

  But not feeling quite as contented as he normally did.

  He was not at all happy that he had lost his two lieutenants, as he liked to call them, Tony Macario and Ken Barnes. Not happy at all. Trustworthy employees were hard to come by, no matter how much he paid them, and he had paid them very handsomely indeed.

  Still, he consoled himself, he had much to look forward to. He’d just said goodnight to the lovely Luiza, a twenty-four-year-old Brazilian pole dancer who he could scarcely wait to see again, in just a few days’ time. And to bury his face between her breasts! He was in his mid-sixties, but life was still full of delicious treats. How nice it was to be rich. But nicer still to be even richer tomorrow!

  But right now he was looking forward to his supper. He had ordered himself a meal from the room service menu. Beluga caviar, followed by grilled lobster and then a naughty key-lime pie, something he always treated himself to in this city. And besides, Luiza had told him she loved his tummy.

  And he loved what she could do with her tongue! The thought of it was making him randy.

  Later he might phone for a lady from a particularly fine agency he knew. Or maybe he might just watch a film and go to sleep, ready for a very busy and profitable day ahead. Oh yes, very profitable indeed!

  He picked up the Patek Philippe pocket watch from its nest of cotton wool on his beside table, and cradled it in his soft, pudgy hands. He stared at the metal casing, which, despite a couple of dents, still looked as new as it must have done back when it was made. Too bad about the damage: the bent crown and winding arbor, and cracked crystal that pressed against the tapered black moon hands, stopped at five minutes past four, as they had been for ninety years, and the tiny, motionless double-sunk seconds hand.

  For some moments he studied the moon-phase indicator. Then he read the exquisitely written name on the dial. Patek Philippe, Geneve.

  He was holding a piece of history.

  And something, suddenly, made perfect sense to him. His uncle had not taken it from Brendan Daly moments before he, and the other three, had murdered him, and sent it to little Gavin out of guilt. He had sent it because of destiny! It was meant to be! He had sent it on a journey, ninety years into the future, into the hands of his nephew who had not yet been born.

  Yes, destiny!

  The doorbell pinged. ‘Coming!’ he called out, like an excited kid. ‘Coming! Coming, coming, coming!’

  He swung his heavy frame off the bed, slipped his feet – which Luiza liked to kiss; especially his toes, despite the fact that one had been amputated because of his diabetes – into the white hotel slippers. Then he trotted through into the lounge area and across to the door. He checked the spyhole and was happy to see it was the same cheery little waiter who had brought him up the bottle of champagne earlier. He removed the safety chain and opened the door.

  ‘Good evening, Dr Alvarez, how are you?’

  ‘Very contented indeed, thank you!’ Dr Alvarez! Dr Alphonse Alvarez was one of the several aliases that he used. Dr Alvarez was his favourite. He liked it when the hotel staff called him Doctor. Classy. Hey, he was a classy guy!

  He held the door, as the waiter stuck a wedge beneath it, then trundled in the food-laden metal trolley. ‘You like me to set this up for you, Dr Alvarez, on the table?’

  ‘I would indeed!’ Pollock left the waiter and moved through into the bedroom to fetch a tip from his wallet, his mood greatly improved now that his dinner was here, and humming to himself his favourite Dr Hook song. ‘Please don’t misunderstand me! I’ve got all this money, and I’m a pretty ugly guy!’

  And he did indeed have it all. And tomorrow, he would have even more. Two million pounds, minimum! How nice! How very, very, very nice!

  Hey ho!

  In the next-door room he heard the clatter of crockery and cutlery as the waiter laid the table. He was salivating. What a feast! There were flashing red lights on the television. Police cars. Some big incident on the local news. A shooting in the Bronx. Didn’t bother him, hey ho.

  He trotted back out into the lounge area, holding a twenty-dollar bill between his
finger and thumb, like a laboratory specimen he was presenting for inspection. He liked to make sure waiters saw what a very generous man he was, in case they simply shoved the tip into their pockets without noticing it.

  Then as he entered the lounge, he froze in his tracks.

  The twenty-dollar note fluttered down onto the carpet.

  The waiter held the room service bill, in a leather wallet, up for him to sign, with a pen in his other hand.

  But Eamonn Pollock did not even notice him. He was staring at the man on the far side of the room, dressed in a thin leather jacket, jeans and black Chelsea boots, who was lounging back on the sofa, removing a cigarette from a pack.

  His beady eyes shot to the waiter then back to the man. He scribbled his name, like an automaton, on the bill, noticed the waiter hesitating, but just wanted him out, now.

  ‘Have a good evening, Doctor,’ the waiter said, with a forced smile, and lingered.

  ‘Just fuck off, will you,’ Pollock said.

  The startled waiter removed the wedge from the door and left, closing the door a little too hard behind him.

  The man on the sofa lit his cigarette.

  ‘This is a no-smoking room,’ Pollock said. ‘And what the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘You know why I’m here, you fat jerk. I want to know why your gorillas killed my aunt. And you did a runner with the watch … Did you really think I wouldn’t find you?’

  ‘Killing your aunt was not part of the plan. That was never meant to happen. And there’s a five-hunded-dollar fine for smoking in this room,’ Pollock said. ‘Put that out or I’m going to call Security.’

  ‘Yeah, why don’t you? Ask for those two cops who are standing in the lobby by the elevators.’

  Pollock’s face blanched. ‘What cops?’

  94