Dead Man's Footsteps

by Peter James

  ‘Need you to check out a person of concern. A woman reportedly in an anxious state.’ He then outlined the circumstances.

  Troutt pulled out his brand-new notebook and wrote down the name, Katherine Jennings, and her address.

  ‘This has come from the Inspector, and I think it’s come down from someone high up in the brass, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Absolutely, Sarge. I’m very close – will attend now.’

  With a new urgency to his stride, he strutted along blustery Marine Parade and turned left away from the seafront.

  The address was a mansion block of flats, eight storeys, and there was a builder’s lorry, as well as a van from a lift company, double-parked in the street. He passed a grey Ford Focus that had a parking ticket taped to its windscreen, crossed over and walked up to the front entrance, stepping aside to let two men carry in a large sheet of plasterboard. Then he looked at the doorbell panel. There was no name against number 82. The PC pressed it. There was no answer.

  At the bottom of the panel was a bell for the caretaker, but as the front door was wedged open he decided to go in. There was an out of order sign taped across the front of the lift, so he took the stairs, treading carefully up the trail of dust sheets, slightly irritated that the shoes he had carefully polished last night were getting caked in dust. He heard hammering and banging and the sound of drilling directly above him, and on the fifth floor he had to negotiate an obstacle course of building materials.

  He walked on up and reached the eighth floor. The door to Katherine Jennings’s flat was directly in front of him. The sight of three separate locks on it, along with the spyhole, aroused his curiosity. Two was not unusual, as he knew from his experience of visiting homes that had suffered repeated break-ins in the Brighton crime hotspots. But three was excessive. He peered more closely at them, noting that they all looked substantial.

  You are worried about something, lady, he thought to himself, as he rang the bell.

  There was no answer. He tried a couple more times, waiting patiently, then decided to go and have a chat with the caretaker.

  As he reached the small downstairs lobby, two men came in. One was in his thirties, with a pleasant demeanour, wearing a boiler suit with Stanwell Maintenance embossed on the breast pocket, and a tool-belt. The other was a bolshy-looking man in his sixties, in dungarees over a grimy sweatshirt. He was holding an old-fashioned mobile phone and had a blackened fingernail.

  The workman gave Troutt a bemused smile. ‘Gosh, you came quickly!’

  The older man held up his phone. ‘I only phone you, what, less than one minute!’ His guttural accent made it sound like a complaint.

  ‘Phoned me?’

  ‘About the lift!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Troutt said. ‘You are?’

  ‘The caretaker.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m actually here on other business,’ Troutt said. ‘But I’m more than happy to try to help if you’d like to tell me the problem.’

  ‘It’s very simple,’ the younger man said. ‘The lift mechanism’s been tampered with. Vandalized. Sabotaged. And the alarm and the phone in the lift – the wire’s been cut.’

  Now he had Troutt’s full attention. The PC pulled his notebook out.

  ‘Can you give me some details?’

  ‘I can bloody show you. How technical-minded are you?’

  Troutt shrugged. ‘You can try me.’

  ‘I need to take you to the motor room to show you. There are syringes on the floor. More importantly someone has tampered with the brake mechanism while the lift was in operation.’

  ‘All right. First, I need to talk to this gentleman for a moment.’

  The workman nodded. ‘I’m just going to move my van. Bloody wardens round here are like the Gestapo.’

  As he walked off, Troutt addressed the caretaker. ‘You have a resident in flat 82 – Katherine Jennings?’

  ‘She new. Been there only a few weeks. Short let.’

  ‘Can you tell me anything about her?’

  ‘I not speak much to her, except Sunday, after she was stuck in the lift. She got plenty money, I can tell you the rent she pay.’

  ‘Who do you think vandalized the lift? Local yobs? Or something to do with her?’

  The caretaker shrugged. ‘I think maybe he no wants to admit there’s a mechanical problem. Maybe he protect himself or his company?’

  Troutt nodded, not rising to this. He would form his own judgement after visiting the motor room with the engineer.

  ‘So you don’t know what she does for a living?’

  The caretaker shook his head.

  ‘Is she married? Any kids?’

  ‘She on her own.’

  ‘Do you have any idea about her movements?’

  ‘I’m at the other end of the block, I don’t see the tenants in this wing unless they have a problem. She in trouble with the police?’

  ‘No, nothing like that.’ He gave the man a reassuring smile. ‘I should introduce myself – PC Troutt. I’m one of your new neighbourhood officers.’ He fished out a card.

  The caretaker took it and looked at it dubiously, as if it was from a double-glazing salesman. ‘I hope you come down here on Friday and Saturday nights, late. Last Friday night we have little bastards set light to a dustbin,’ he grumbled.

  ‘Yes, well, that’s exactly the sort of thing this new initiative is all about,’ the young PC said earnestly.

  ‘I believe when I see it.’

  85

  OCTOBER 2007

  ‘Yo, old-timer, taken off yet?’

  Grace, standing in his socks at Gatwick Airport’s South Terminal, watched his shoes appear on the conveyor belt on the far side of the scanner. Holding his mobile phone to his ear he replied, ‘Only my sodding shoes, so far. It pisses me off, this,’ he went on. ‘Have to remove more and more bloody clothes every time you fly. Just because some loony tried to set light to his laces about five years ago! And I’ve had to check my overnight bag in, because it’s too big for the new regulations, which means I’m going to have to wait for it at the other end. Bloody waste of time!’

  ‘So, you had a bad night, did you?’

  Grace grinned at the memory of a very sweet night with Cleo. ‘Actually, no. It was a lot better than the night before. I didn’t get shit-faced with some miserable git pouring out his woes to me.’

  Ignoring the barb, the DS retorted, ‘And the dog didn’t throw up on you again?’

  Grace, who was wearing a suit because he wanted to look businesslike when he arrived in New York, struggled to lace up his right shoe while keeping the phone wedged to his ear. He gave up trying to do it standing up and sat down. ‘No, it just did a dump on the floor instead.’

  ‘You all right, man? Your voice sounds muffled.’

  ‘I’m fine, I’m trying to put my fucking shoes back on. Are you phoning about anything important or is this just a social chat?’

  ‘What do you know about stamps?’ Branson asked.

  ‘First or second class?’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘I can tell you a bit about British Colonials,’ Grace said. ‘My dad collected them – first-day covers. Used to get them for me when I was a boy. They’re worthless. My mum asked me to take his whole collection to a dealer after he died – they wouldn’t give me two beans for them. If you’re thinking of a hobby, you could try collecting butterflies – or what about trainspotting?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah! Finished?’

  Grace grunted.

  ‘Listen, me and Bella have just been with the Klingers, right? That cash, all those transactions Lorraine Wilson made – that three million plus quid, yeah? I think she may have been buying stamps.’

  ‘You do?’

  Grace suddenly stopped tying his shoe and concentrated. He was thinking back to the conversation he’d had with Terry Biglow on Tuesday.

  She was … in a terrible state after Ronnie died … the mortgage company took the house … the finance peop
le took just about everything else, except for a few stamps.

  ‘Yeah. Stephen Klinger said to me that it was a small world, the high-end stamp trade. Like, everyone knew everyone.’

  ‘Did he give you a list of local dealers?’

  ‘Some names, yeah.’

  ‘Listen, Glenn. When you get any tight-knit group, they tend to close ranks, as much to protect themselves as anyone they’re giving information about. So go in and break their balls, understand?’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘Tell them this is a murder inquiry, so if they withhold any information they could end up being charged as accessories after the fact. Ram that down their throats.’

  ‘Yes, boss man. Have a nice flight. Give my love to the Big Apple. Enjoy.’

  ‘I’ll send you a postcard.’

  ‘Don’t forget to put a stamp on it.’

  86

  OCTOBER 2007

  Bella radioed one of the researchers in the Operation Dingo incident room and asked her to compile a complete list of all stamp dealers in the Brighton and Hove area. Then, with Glenn driving again, they headed for Queen’s Road and the dealer Stephen Klinger had mentioned.

  Just down from the station, Hawkes looked like one of those places that have been there for ever. It had the kind of window display that never changed but was just added to from time to time. It was full of boxed coin sets, medals, first-day covers in plastic envelopes and old postcards.

  They hurried inside, out of the hardening drizzle, and saw two women in their thirties who could be sisters, both fair-haired and good-looking, not the image Branson had in his mind of a stamp dealer at all. He’d imagined stamps to be a rather nerdy male domain.

  The women were deep in conversation and didn’t acknowledge the detectives, as if used to time-wasting browsers. Glenn and Bella glanced around, politely waiting for them to finish. The shop was even more cluttered inside, with much of the floor space taken up with trestle tables on which were cardboard boxes filled with vintage saucy postcards and bygone Brighton scenes.

  The women stopped talking suddenly and turned to look at them. Branson pulled out his warrant card.

  ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Branson of Sussex CID and this is my colleague, Detective Sergeant Moy. We’d like to have a word with the proprietor. Would that be one of you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the older-looking one, pleasantly, but slightly reserved. ‘I’m Jacqueline Hawkes. What is this about?’

  ‘Do the names Ronnie and Lorraine Wilson mean anything to you?’

  She looked surprised and shot a glance at the other woman. ‘Ronnie Wilson? Mum used to deal with him some years back. I remember him well. He was often in and out, haggling. He’s dead, isn’t he? He died in 9/11, I seem to remember.’

  ‘Yes,’ Bella said, not wanting to give anything away.

  ‘Was he a big trader? At a high level?’ Branson asked. ‘You know, very rare stamps?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not here. We don’t deal much at the top end – we don’t have that kind of stock. We’re just high street retail, really.’

  ‘What kind of values do you go up to?’

  ‘Small stuff, mostly. Stamps with a value of a few hundred pounds are about the highest we get involved with. Unless someone comes in with an obvious bargain, then we might go up a bit.’

  ‘Did Lorraine Wilson ever come in here?’ he said.

  Jacqueline thought for a moment, then nodded. ‘Yes, she did – I can’t remember when exactly. Not that long after he died, I think it must have been. She had some stamps of her husband’s she wanted to sell. We bought them – not a huge amount – a few hundred pounds’ worth, from memory.’

  ‘Did she ever talk to you about dealing in a much larger amount? Spending serious money?’

  ‘What kind of serious money?’

  ‘Hundreds of thousands.’

  She shook her head. ‘Never.’

  ‘If someone came to see you wanting to buy, say, several hundred thousand pounds’ worth of stamps, what would you do?’

  ‘I’d direct them to an auction house in London or to a specialist dealer, and hope he’d be decent enough to give me a bit of com-ission!’

  ‘Who would you send them to in this area?’

  She shrugged. ‘There’s really only one person in Brighton who deals at the level you’re talking about. That’s Hugo Hegarty. He’s getting on a bit, but I know he’s still trading.’

  ‘Do you have an address for him?’ ‘Yes. I’ll get it for you.’

  *

  Dyke Road, which turned seamlessly into Dyke Road Avenue, ran like a spine from close to the centre of the city right up to the edge of the Downs, and formed part of the border between Brighton and Hove. Apart from a couple of sections where it was lined with shops, offices and restaurants, for much of its length it was residential, with detached houses that got progressively swankier away from the city centre.

  To Bella’s relief the traffic was heavy, forcing Glenn to drive at a sedate crawl. Calling out the numbers, she said, ‘Coming up on the left.’

  There was an in-and-out driveway, which seemed an almost mandatory status symbol for this neighbourhood. But, unlike at the Klingers’ house, there were no electric gates, just wooden ones that did not look as if they had been closed in years. The drive was completely cluttered with cars, so Branson parked outside, putting two wheels on the pavement, aware that he was obstructing a cycle lane, but not able to do much about it.

  They walked in, edging past an elderly BMW convertible, an even older Saab, a grimy, grey Aston Martin DB7 and two Volkswagen Golfs. He wondered if Hegarty traded in cars as well as stamps.

  They ducked into the shelter of a porch and rang the bell. When the imposing oak door was opened, Glenn Branson did an immediate double-take. The man who answered was a dead ringer for one of his favourite film actors of all time, Richard Harris. He was so startled that for a moment he was lost for words as he fumbled for his warrant card.

  The man had one of those craggy faces Glenn found hard to put an age to. He could have been anywhere between mid-sixties and late seventies. His hair, closer to white than grey, was long and rather unkempt, and he was dressed in a cricket sweater over a sports shirt and tracksuit bottoms.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Branson and Detective Sergeant Moy from Sussex CID,’ Glenn said. ‘We’d like to have a word with Mr Hegarty. Is that you?’

  ‘Depends which Mr Hegarty you’re after,’ he said with an evasive smile. ‘One of my sons or me?’

  ‘Mr Hugo Hegarty,’ Bella said.

  ‘That’s me.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got to leave in twenty minutes to play tennis.’

  ‘We only need a few minutes, sir,’ she said. ‘We want to talk to you about someone we believe you had dealings with some years ago – Ronnie Wilson.’

  Hugo Hegarty’s eyes narrowed and he looked very concerned suddenly. ‘Ronnie. Good God! You know he’s dead?’ He hesitated before stepping back and saying, in slightly more affable tones, ‘Do you want to come in? It’s a foul day.’

  They entered a long, oak-panelled hall hung with fine oil paintings, then followed Hegarty through into a similarly panelled study with a studded crimson leather sofa and a matching recliner armchair. There was a view out through the leaded-light windows on to a swimming pool, a large lawn bordered by autumnal-looking shrubs and bare flowerbeds, and the roof of a neighbour’s house beyond the closeboard fence. Directly above them was the whine-thump whine-thump of a vacuum cleaner.

  It was an orderly room. There were shelves laden with what looked like golfing trophies and a mass of photographs on the desk. One was of a handsome, silver-haired woman, presumably Hegarty’s wife, and others showed shots of two teenage boys, two teenage girls and a baby. Next to the blotter on the desk was an enormous magnifying glass.

  Hegarty pointed them to the sofa, then perched on the edge of the armchair. ‘Poor old Ronnie. Terrible business, all that. Just his luck to be there on that one day.�
� He gave a nervous laugh. ‘So, how can I help you?’

  Branson noticed a row of thick, heavy-looking, Stanley Gibbons stamp catalogues and a row of another dozen or so other catalogues lining the bookshelves. ‘It’s concerning an inquiry we’re carrying out which has some links to Mr Wilson,’ he replied.

  ‘You trade in valuable stamps, we’ve been told. Is that correct, sir?’

  Hegarty nodded, then scrunched up his face in a slightly dismissive way. ‘Maybe not so much now. The market’s very difficult. I do more with property and stocks and shares than with stamps these days. But I still dabble a bit. I like to keep my finger on the pulse.’

  He had a twinkle in his eye, which Branson liked. Richard Harris had had that same twinkle – it was part of the great actor’s magic. ‘Would you say you did a substantial amount of business with Mr Wilson?’

  Hegarty shrugged. ‘A fair bit, on and off over the years. Ronnie wasn’t the easiest person to deal with.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, you know, to put it crudely, the provenance of some of his stuff was iffy. I’ve always been careful to protect my reputation, if you get my drift.’

  Branson made a note. ‘Do you mean you felt some of his dealings were dishonest?’

  ‘Some of what he had I wouldn’t buy at any price. I used to wonder sometimes where he got the stamps he brought to me and whether he’d actually paid what he claimed he had for them.’ He shrugged. ‘But he had a fair grasp of the business, and I sold him some good things too. He always paid cash on the nail. But …’ His voice trailed away and he shook his head. ‘To be honest, I have to say he wasn’t my favourite customer. I try to look after people I do business with. You can trade with someone a thousand times, I always say, but you can only screw them once.’

  Glenn smiled, but said nothing more.

  Bella tried to move things on. ‘Mr Hegarty, did Mrs Wilson – Mrs Lorraine Wilson – contact you at all after his death?’

  Hegarty hesitated for a second, his eyes shooting warily at each of them in turn, as if the stakes had suddenly been raised. ‘Yes, she did,’ he answered decisively.