by Peter James
After her father had died, horribly but mercifully quickly from prostate cancer ten years ago, Abby had hoped for a while that her mother might find someone else. But when the disease was diagnosed, that hope went.
‘What’s going on, Abby?’ her mother quizzed, then added, with a sudden twinkle, ‘Are we going to be on This Is Your Life? Is that why you’re here?’
Abby laughed. Then, clutching her mum tightly, realized it had been a long, long time since she had last laughed. ‘I don’t think it’s on any more.’
‘No prizes on that show, Abby dear.’
Abby laughed again. ‘I’ve missed you, Mum!’
‘I miss you too, my darling, all the time. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming back from Australia? When did you get home? If I’d known you were coming I’d have tidied myself up!’
Suddenly remembering the time, Abby glanced at her watch. Three minutes had elapsed. She jumped up. ‘I’ll be back in a sec!’
She hurried outside, looking warily each way up and down the street, then went over to the taxi and opened the front passenger door. ‘I’ll be a few more minutes, but the same applies. Call me if you see him.’
‘If he turns up, miss, I’ll beat the crap out of him!’
‘Just call me!’
She returned to her mother.
‘Mum, I can’t explain it all now. I want to call a locksmith and get a new lock put on your door, and a safety chain and a spyhole. I want to try to get it done today.’
‘What’s going on, Abby? What is it?’
Abby went over to the phone and picked up the cradle, turning it upside down. She didn’t know what a bug looked like, but she could see nothing underneath it. Then she looked at the handset and couldn’t see anything wrong with that either. But what did she know?
‘Do you have any other phones?’ she asked.
‘You’re in trouble, aren’t you? What is it? I’m your mum, tell me!’
Abby knelt down and picked up the tray, then went to the kitchen to find a cloth to clear up the spilt rice pudding.
‘I’m going to buy you a new phone, a mobile. Please don’t use this one any more.’
As she started wiping the mess off the carpet, she realized it was the old carpet from the sitting room at their home in Holling-bury. It was a deep red colour, with a wide border of entwined roses in green, ochre and brown, and was frayed to the point of baldness in some patches. But it was comforting to see it, taking her back to her childhood.
‘What is it, Abby?’
‘Everything’s OK.’
Her mother shook her head. ‘I may be a sick woman, but I’m not stupid. You’re frightened. If you can’t tell your old mum, who can you tell?’
‘Please just do what I say. Have you got a Yellow Pages?’
‘In the middle drawer of the bottom half,’ her mother said, pointing at a walnut tallboy.
‘I’ll explain everything later, but I don’t have time now. OK?’ She went over and found the directory. It was a few years out of date, but that probably didn’t matter, she decided, flipping it open and leafing through until she found the Locksmith section.
She made the call, then told her mother someone would be here later this afternoon from Eastbourne Lockworks.
‘Are you in trouble, Abby?’
She shook her head, not wanting to alarm her mother too much. ‘I think someone is stalking me – someone who wanted me to go out with him, and he’s trying to get to me through you, that’s all.’
Her mother gave her a long look, as if showing she didn’t fully believe the story. ‘Still with that fellow Dave?’
Abby replaced the cloth in the kitchen sink, then came back and kissed her mother. ‘Yes.’
‘He didn’t sound a good ’un to me.’
‘He’s been kind to me.’
‘Your father – he was a good man. He wasn’t ambitious, but he was a good person. He was a wise man.’
‘I know he was.’
‘Remember what he used to say? He used to laugh at me doing the competitions and tell me that life wasn’t about getting what you wanted. It was about wanting what you have.’ She looked at her daughter. ‘Do you want what you have?’
Abby blushed. Then she kissed her mother again on both cheeks. ‘I’m close. I’ll be back with a new phone within the hour. Are you expecting anyone today?’
Her mother thought for a moment. ‘No.’
‘The friend of yours, the neighbour upstairs who pops by sometimes?’
‘Doris?’
‘Do you think she could come and sit with you until I get back?’
‘I may be sick, but I’m not a total invalid,’ her mother said.
‘It’s in case he comes.’
Again her mother gave her a long look. ‘Don’t you think you should tell me the full story?’
‘Later, I promise. What flat is she in?’
‘Number 4, on the first floor.’
Abby hurried out and ran up the stairs. Emerging on the first-floor hallway, she found the flat and rang the bell.
Moments later she heard the clumsy rattle of a safety chain and wished that her mother had one of those right now. Then the door was opened a few inches by a statuesque white-hairedwoman, with distinguished features that were partly obscured by a pair of dark glasses the size and shape of a snorkelling mask. She was dressed in an elegant knitted two-piece.
‘Hello,’ she said in a very posh accent.
‘I’m Abby Dawson – Mary’s daughter.’
‘Mary’s daughter! She talks so much about you. I thought you were still in Australia.’ She opened the door wider and peered closer, putting her face almost inches from Abby’s. ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I have macular degeneration – I can only see well out of one corner of my eye.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Abby said. ‘You poor thing.’ Abby felt she should be more sympathetic but she was anxious to press on. ‘Look, I wonder if you could do me a favour. I have to dash out for an hour and – it’s a long story – but there’s an old boyfriend who’s making my life hell, and I’m worried he might turn up and abuse Mum. Is there any chance you could sit with her until I get back?’
‘Of course. Would you prefer she came up here?’
‘Well, yes, but she’s expecting the locksmith.’
‘OK, don’t worry. I’ll be right down in a couple of minutes. I’ll fetch my stick.’ Then, her voice darkening with good-humoured menace, she added, ‘If this fellow turns up he’ll be sorry!’
Abby hurried back downstairs and into her mother’s flat. She explained what was happening, then said, ‘Don’t answer the door to anyone until I get back.’
She then hurried out into the street and climbed into the back of the taxi.
‘I need to find a mobile phone shop,’ she told the driver. Then she checked her pocket. She had another hundred and fifty pounds in cash. It should be enough.
*
Parked carefully out of sight behind a camper van to the right, on the cross-street, Ricky waited for them to drive off, then started his engine and followed, staying a long way back, curious to know where Abby was heading.
At the same time, keeping a steadying hand on the GSM 3060 Intercept he had placed on the passenger seat beside him, he replayed her call to Eastbourne Lockworks and memorized the number. He was glad he had the Intercept with him, he hadn’t wanted to risk leaving such a valuable piece of kit in the van.
He called the locksmith and politely cancelled the appointment, explaining that the lady, his mother, had forgotten she had a hospital appointment this afternoon. He would call back later and arrange a new time for tomorrow.
Then he rang Abby’s mother, introduced himself as the manager of Eastbourne Lockworks and apologized profusely for the delay. His staff were attending an emergency. Someone would be there as soon as possible, but it might not be until early evening, at the earliest. Otherwise it would be first thing tomorrow morning. He hoped that would be all right. She told him that w
ould be fine.
The taxi driver drove cretinously slowly, which made following at a safe distance easy, the vehicle’s bright turquoise and white livery and the sign on its roof making it easy for Ricky to spot. After ten minutes it started driving even more slowly down a busy shopping street, the brake lights coming on several times before it finally pulled over outside a phone shop. Ricky swerved sharply into a parking bay and watched Abby run into the shop.
Then he switched off his engine, pulled a Mars bar out of his pocket, ravenously hungry suddenly, and settled down to wait.
73
OCTOBER 2007
Something was nagging Inspector Stephen Curry when he returned to his office from the Neighbourhood Policing meeting, which had gone on much longer than expected.
It had turned into a sandwich lunch meeting as well, covering a broad range of issues, from two illegal traveller encampments that were causing problems at Hollingbury and Woodingdean, to the creation of an intelligence report on the city’s latest teenage gangs and a plague of happy-slapping incidents associated with them. These violent incidents were becoming an increasingly large problem, with youths filming the attacks and then posting them as trophies on social networking sites such as Bebo and MySpace. Some of the worst attacks had taken place in schools, been picked up on by the Argus and had a real impact on children and worried parents.
It was coming up to 2.30 p.m. and he had a ton of stuff to get through today. He had to leave earlier than usual – it was his wedding anniversary and he had promised Tracy faithfully – absolutely one hundred per cent faithfully – that he would not be late home.
He sat at his desk and ran his eyes down the log on the screen of all incidents in his area during the past few hours, but there was nothing he needed to get involved with right now. All emergency calls had been responded to without delays and there were no significant critical incidents which would sap resources. It was just the usual assortment of minor crimes.
Then, remembering Roy Grace’s call earlier, he opened his notebook and read the name Katherine Jennings and the address he had written down. He had just seen one of the early-turn Neighbourhood Policy Team sergeants, John Morley, come in, so he picked the phone and asked him to have someone from the Neighbourhood Team go and see the woman.
Morley crooked the phone into his shoulder and picked up a pen, his left hand marking his place in a crime file he was reviewing relating to a handover prisoner arrested by the night shift. Then he flipped over a small scrap of paper on his desk, on which he’d written a vehicle registration number earlier, and jotted the name and address down.
The sergeant was young and bright, with his buzz cut and stab vest making him look harder than he actually was. But, like all of his colleagues, he was stressed from being overworked, because they were short of staff.
‘Could be any number of reasons why she was agitated by that jerk Spinella. He agitates me.’
‘Tell me about it!’ Curry concurred.
A couple of minutes later, Morley was about to transfer the details to his notebook when his phone rang again. It was an operator in the Southern Resourcing Centre, asking the sergeant to take command of a grade-one emergency. An eight-year-old mis-per. Vanished from her school this afternoon and not with her family.
Within moments the shit hit the fan. Morley radioed first his duty inspector, then barked instructions on his radio phone to his team of officers and PCSOs who were out and about in the city. While doing his, he ran to the back of the cluttered room, which contained half a dozen communal metal desks, boxes of supplies, and a row of pegs and hooks for jackets, hats and helmets, and grabbed his cap.
Then, taking a couple of constables who had arrived early for the afternoon shift, he headed for the door at a semi-run, still talking into his phone.
As the three of them passed his desk, the draught of air lifted the scrap of paper with Katherine Jennings’s name and address up, off the flat surface, and it fluttered to the floor.
Ten minutes later an MSA entered the room and put several copies of the latest directive on diversity training within the police force down on Sergeant Morley’s desk for him to distribute. As she was about the leave, she noticed the scrap of paper lying on the floor. She stooped down, picked it up and dropped it, dutifully, in the waste-paper basket.
74
OCTOBER 2007
The fresh air and the greasy fry-up had done the trick for his hangover, Roy Grace decided, feeling almost human again now as he walked back up Church Street and entered the NCP multistorey car park.
He stuck his ticket in the machine, wincing as he always did each time he parked here at the extortionate amount that appeared on the display, then climbed the steps up towards his level, thinking about Terry Biglow.
Maybe he was going soft, because he actually found himself feeling a little sorry for the man – although not for his vile companion. Biglow had once had a bit of style and he was one of the last of a generation of old-school villains who respected the police, if nothing else.
The poor bastard didn’t look as if he was long for this world. What did a man like him think as he approached the end of his life? Did he care that he had totally squandered it, contributing nothing to the world? That he had played a part in ruining countless other lives, ending up with nothing, absolutely nothing? Not even his health …
He unlocked his car, then sat inside and ran through his notes from the encounter. Partway through, he phoned Glenn Branson and gave him the news that Ronnie had had a second wife, called Lorraine. Then he told him to take Bella Moy and interview the people Terry Biglow said had been Ronnie Wilson’s best friends, the Klingers. Stephen Klinger currently ran a large antiques emporium in Brighton and should be easy enough to find.
As he hung up, his phone rang. It was Cleo.
‘How’s your hangover, Detective Superintendent Grace?’ she asked.
It was strange, he thought. Sandy had always called him just Grace and now occasionally Cleo did it too. At the same time, he found it endearing.
‘Hangover? How do you know about that?’
‘Because you rang me from the pub about 11.30 last night, slurring undying love for me.’
‘I did?’
‘Uh oh, memory loss. Must have been a seriously bad session.’
‘It was. Five hours of Glenn Branson’s marital woes. Enough to drive any man to drink.’
‘Starting to sound to me like his marriage is terminal.’
‘Yep, heading that way.’
‘I – ah – need a favour,’ she said, her tone changing, suddenly all sweetness and light.
‘What kind of a favour?’
‘An hour of your time, between 5 and 6.’
‘What do you want me to do?
‘Well, I’ve just had to go and bring in a particularly unpleasant suicide – a fellow who put a twelve-bore in his mouth in his garden shed – and the Coroner’s not happy with the circumstances. She wants a Home Office pathologist – so our good friend Theobald is coming to do the PM this afternoon. Which means I can’t take Humphrey to dog training.’
‘Dog training?’
‘Yes, so I thought it might be a good opportunity for you and Humphrey to bond.’
‘Cleo, I’m right in the middle of a really—’
Cutting him short, she said, ‘Your murder investigation – she’s been dead for ten years. One hour isn’t going to make a huge difference. Just one hour, that’s all I’m asking for. It’s the first day of a new course and I’d really like Humphrey to be there from the start. And because I know you’re going to do it, because you’re such a lovely man, I’m offering you a very sweet reward!’
‘Reward?’
‘OK. Dog training’s from 5 o’clock to 6 … Here’s the deal. You take Humphrey and in exchange I’ll cook you Thai-style stir-fried tiger prawns and scallops.’
Instantly she had him hooked. Cleo’s prawn and scallop stir-fry was one of the best dishes in her amazing repertoire. I
t was almost to die for.
Before he had time to comment, she added, ‘I’ve also got a rather special bottle of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc I’ve popped in the fridge for you as a treat.’ She paused and then, in a deeply seductive voice, said, ‘And …’
‘And?’
There was a long silence. Just the hiss of static from the phone.
‘What’s the and?’ he asked.
Even more seductively, she said, ‘That’s for your imagination.’
‘Did you have anything particular in mind?’
‘Yes, lots … We have the whole of last night to catch up on as well as tonight. Think you can rise to the occasion, with your hangover and all?’
‘I think I could.’
‘Good. So, you give Humphrey a treat and I’ll give you one in exchange. Deal?’
‘Shall I bring some biscuits?’
‘For Humphrey?’
‘No, for you.’
‘Sod you, Grace.’
He grinned.
‘Oh, and one other thing – don’t get tooooo aroused. Humphrey likes chewing on hard things.’
75
OCTOBER 2007
He could have done with another Mars bar – he was starving – but Ricky didn’t want to risk leaving the car to buy one, in case he missed her. Christ, it was over half an hour since she had gone into the mobile phone shop – what was the bitch doing in there? No doubt dithering about which colour to buy.
The cab would be costing a bloody fortune! And whose money would she be using to pay for it?
His, of course.
Was she doing it deliberately to make him angry, knowing that he would be watching somewhere?
She would pay for this. Every which way. And then some.
She would scream apologies to him. Over and over and over. Before he was finished with her.
A shadow fell across his nearside window. Then he saw a traffic warden’s face peering in. He put down the window.
‘I’m picking up my mother,’ Ricky said. ‘She’s disabled – won’t be a few minutes.’