by Peter James
‘Thanks.’ Grace stared out of the window. They were going up an incline, past precarious-looking scaffolding. Steam rose from a subway vent.
It was a crisp autumnal afternoon, with a clear blue sky. Some people were wearing coats or heavy jackets, and as they got further into the centre of Manhattan everyone looked as if they were in a hurry. Half the men scurrying past were dressed in suits with tieless shirts and wore worried frowns. Most of them had a mobile clamped to one ear and carried in their other hand a Starbucks coffee with a brown collar around it, as if that was a mandatory totem.
‘So, Pat and I, we worked out a pretty good programme for you,’ Dennis said.
‘Yeah,’ Pat confirmed. ‘Although we’re now working for the DA we’re happy to run you around as a favour for a friend and a fellow cop.’
‘I really appreciate it. I spoke to my FBI guy in London,’ Grace replied. ‘He knows I’m here and what I’m doing. If my hunches work out, we may well have to come back formally to the NYPD.’
Dennis hit the horn at a black Explorer in front of them that had put its flashers on and half pulled over, looking for something. ‘Fuck you! Come on, asshole!’
‘We’ve booked you into the Marriott Financial Center – that’s right down by Ground Zero, in Battery Park City. Figure that’ll be a good base, as we can get to most places you might want to check out easily enough from there.’
‘Give you some atmosphere too,’ Dennis said. ‘It was badly damaged. All brand new now. You’ll be able to see the work going on at Ground Zero.’
‘You know they’re still finding body parts,’ Pat said. ‘Six years on, right? Found some last month on the roof of the Deutsche Bank Building. People don’t realize. They got no fuckin’ idea the force of what happened when those planes hit.’
‘Right opposite the Medical Examiner’s Office they got a tented-off area with eight refrigerated trucks inside,’ Dennis said. ‘They’ve been there for – what – six years now. Twenty thousand unidentified body parts in there. Can you believe that? Twenty thousand?’ He shook his head.
‘My cousin died,’ Pat went on. ‘You knew that, right? He worked for Cantor Fitzgerald.’ He held up his wrist to reveal a silver bracelet. ‘See that, it has his initials. TJH. We all got one, wear it in his memory.’
‘Everyone in New York lost someone that day,’ Dennis said, swerving to avoid a jay-walking woman. ‘Shit, lady, you want to know what the fender of a Crown Victoria feels like? I can tell you, it don’t feel too good.’
‘Anyhow,’ Pat said, ‘we’ve been doing as much as we could before you got here. We checked out the hotel where your Ronnie Wilson stayed. Same manager’s still there, so that’s good. We’ve fixed for you to meet him. He’s happy to talk to you, but there’s no change from what we already know. Some of Wilson’s stuff was still in his room – his passport, tickets, a few underclothes. That’s all now in one of the 9/11 victim storage depots.’
Grace’s phone rang suddenly. Excusing himself, he answered it. ‘Roy Grace?’
‘Yo, old-timer, where are you now? Having an ice cream on top of the Empire State Building?’
‘Very droll. I’m actually in a traffic jam.’
‘OK, well, I have another development for you. We’re working our butts off here while you’re having fun. Does the name Kather-ine Jennings ring a bell?’
Grace thought for a moment, feeling a little weary, his brain less sharp than usual after the flight. Then he remembered. It was the name of the woman in Kemp Town that the Argus reporter, Kevin Spinella, had given him. The name he had passed on to Steve Curry.
‘What about her?’
‘She’s trying to sell a collection of stamps worth around four million pounds. The dealer she’s gone to is Hugo Hegarty and he recognizes them. He hasn’t seen them yet, only spoken to her over the phone, but he’s convinced, all bar a few that are missing, that these are the stamps he purchased for Lorraine Wilson back in 2002.’
‘Did he ask the woman where she got them from?’
Branson repeated what Hegarty had told him, then added, ‘There’s a serial on Katherine Jennings.’
‘Mine,’ Grace said. He fell silent for some moments, thinking back to his conversation on Monday with Spinella. The reporter had said Katherine Jennings seemed agitated. Would having four million pounds’ worth of stamps in your possession make you agitated? Grace reckoned he’d be feeling pretty relaxed, having that kind of loot, so long as it was in a safe place.
So what was she agitated about? Something definitely smelled wrong.
‘I think we should put surveillance on her, Glenn. And we have the advantage of knowing where she lives.’
‘She may have done a runner from there,’ Branson replied. ‘But she’s made an appointment to go to Hegarty’s house tomorrow morning. And she’s bringing him the stamps.’
‘Perfect,’ Grace said. ‘Get on to Lizzie. Tell her we’ve had this conversation and I’m suggesting trying to get a surveillance team to pick her up at Hegarty’s house.’ He looked at this watch. ‘There’s plenty of time to get that in place.’
Glenn Branson looked at his watch too. It wasn’t going to be a simple matter of a two-minute call to Lizzie Mantle. He was going to have to write out a report detailing the reasons for requesting a surveillance unit and its potential value to Operation Dingo. And he was going to have to prepare the briefing. He wasn’t going to make it home for hours yet. It would mean another bollocking from Ari.
Nothing new there.
When Roy Grace ended the call, he leaned forward. ‘Guys,’ he said, ‘do you have someone who can put together a list of stamp dealers here?’
‘Starting a new hobby, are you?’ quipped Dennis.
‘Just stamping out crime,’ Grace retorted.
‘Shit, man!’ Pat said, turning to face him. ‘Your jokes don’t get any better, do they?’
Grace smiled sardonically. ‘Sad, isn’t it?’
95
OCTOBER 2007
The air stewardess was going through the safety demonstration. Norman Potting leaned over to Nick Nicholl, seated next to him near the rear of the 747, and said, ‘It’s all a load of rubbish, this safety stuff.’
The young Detective Constable, who was terrified of flying but hadn’t wanted to admit that to his boss, was hanging on to every word that was coming out through the speakers. Turning his face away to avoid the full blast of Potting’s bad breath, he peered upwards, working out exactly where his oxygen mask would be dropping from.
‘The brace position – you know what they don’t tell you?’ Potting went on, undeterred by Nicholl’s lack of reaction.
Nicholl shook his head, now watching and memorizing the correct way to tie the tapes on the life jacket.
‘It might save you in some situations, I grant you. But the thing they don’t tell you,’ Potting said, ‘is the brace position helps preserve your jawbone intact. Makes identifying all the victims from their dental records much easier.’
‘Thanks a lot,’ Nicholl muttered, observing the stewardess now pointing out where he would find his whistle.
‘As for the life jacket, that’s a laugh, that is,’ Potting carried on. ‘Do you know how many passenger airliners in the entire history of aviation have ever successfully made an emergency landing on water?’
Nick Nicholl was thinking about his wife, Julie, and his small son, Liam. He might never see either of them again.
‘How many?’ he gulped.
Potting touched the tip of his own thumb with his index finger, forming a circle. ‘Zero. Zilch. Nada. Not one.’
There’s always a first time, Nicholl thought, clinging tightly to the thought; clinging to it as if it were a liferaft.
Potting starting reading a men’s magazine he had bought in the airport. Nicholl studied the laminated safety card, checking the position of the nearest exits, glad to see that they were only two rows behind him. He was glad too that he was near the rear of the plane; he remembere
d a newspaper account of an air disaster in which the tail section broke off and all the passengers inside it survived.
‘Phoaaaawwww!’ Potting said.
Nicholl looked down. His colleague had the magazine open at a nude centre-spread. A blonde with pneumatic breasts was lying spread-eagled on a four-poster bed, her wrists and ankles secured by lengths of black velvet to the posts. Her pubic hair was a tidily shaved Brazilian and the pink lips of her vulva were prominently exposed, as if they were the buds of a flower placed between her legs.
A stewardess walked past, checking passengers had their seat belts on. She stopped to peer down at Nicholl and Norman Potting, then moved smartly on.
Nick felt his face burning with embarrassment. ‘Norman,’ he whispered, ‘I think you should put that away.’
‘Hope we find a few like her in Melbourne!’ Potting said. ‘We could have a bit of sport, you and me. I fancy that Bondi Beach.’
‘Bondi Beach is in Sydney, not Melbourne. And I think you embarrassed the stewardess with that.’
Unabashed, Potting traced his fingers over her curves. ‘She’s a bit of all right, she is!’
The stewardess was coming back. She gave both of them a cursory, rather frosty glance and hurried past.
‘I thought you were a happily married man, Norman,’ Nicholl said.
‘The day I stop looking, lad,’ he said, ‘that’s the day I want someone to take me out into a field and shoot me.’ He grinned and, to Nicholl’s relief, he turned the page. But the DC’s relief was only fleeting.
The next page was much worse.
96
OCTOBER 2007
Abby was on the train heading to Brighton, a lump deep in her throat. Her stomach was knotted. She was trembling, trying to stop herself crying, struggling to hold it all together.
Where was her mother? Where had the bastard taken her?
Her watch said 8.30. Almost two hours since she’d put the phone down on Ricky. She dialled her mother’s number yet again. Once more it went to voicemail.
She wasn’t sure exactly what medication her mother was on – there were antidepressants, plus pills for muscle spasm, constipation, anti-reflux – but she doubted very much that Ricky would care about that. Without them, her mother’s condition would deteriorate rapidly, and she would start to have mood swings, from euphoria one second to a deeply distressed state the next.
Abby cursed her stupidity for leaving her mother so exposed. She should have just bloody well taken her.
Call me, Ricky. Please call me.
She was bitterly regretting hanging up on him, realizing she hadn’t thought it through properly. Ricky knew she would be the first to panic, not him. But he would have to call her, he would have to make contact. A frail, sick old lady was not the prize he wanted.
She took a taxi from the station and got out at a convenience store close to her flat, where she bought a small torch. Keeping to the shadows, she turned into her street and saw, under the glare of a street light, Ricky’s rental Ford Focus. It was clamped. Large police stickers were fixed to the windscreen and driver’s-side window, warning that the owner should not attempt to move it.
She walked warily to the car. Glancing around to make sure she wasn’t being watched, she removed the parking ticket from beneath the windscreen wiper and, using her torch, read the time it had been issued: 10.03 a.m. So the car had been here all day. Which meant he hadn’t used it to transport her mother. Of course not – he had the van.
But presumably he was intending to return. Maybe he was already there. Somehow she doubted that. She was sure he had a place in the city, if only a lock-up.
The windows of her flat were all dark. She crossed the street to the entrance and pressed the bell of Hassan, hoping he was home. She was in luck. There was a crackle followed by his voice.
‘Hi, it’s Katherine Jennings from Flat 82. Sorry to bother you, but I’ve forgotten my front door key. Could you let me in?’
‘No problem!’
Moments later there was a sharp buzz and she pushed the door open. As she entered, she saw a stack of junk mail crammed in her letter box. Better not to touch it, she decided, not wanting to leave any indications that she had been here.
The lift had a large OUT OF ORDER sign taped across the doors. She began climbing the dimly lit stairs, stopping on each floor to listen for any movement, wishing she had her Mace spray with her. On the third floor she started to smell freshly sawn wood, from the builders in the flat above. She climbed one more floor, then her nerve began failing her, so she was tempted for a moment to knock on Hassan’s door and ask him to come up with her.
Finally, she reached the top. She stopped to listen for any noise. There were two other flats on this floor, but she had never met anyone coming or going in the brief time she had been here. She could hear nothing. Total silence. She went over to the fire reel that was fixed to the wall and began to unwind the hose. After five loops, she saw the set of spare keys lying where she had hidden them. She rewound the hose, pushed open the fire door and went through onto her landing.
Then stood still, feeling very scared now. What if he was in there?
Of course he wasn’t. He was with her mother in whatever lair he had imprisoned her. All the same, she slipped in each key as silently as possible, turning the locks and opening the door quietly, not wanting to announce her presence.
Shadows jumped at her as she stepped inside. She left the door ajar behind her and the lights off. Then she slammed the front door hard, to flush him out if he was in here and had maybe fallen asleep, and immediately opened it again. She slammed it and opened it a second time. Total silence.
She shone the torch beam along the corridor. The plastic bag of tools Ricky had brought to threaten her with – probably nicked from the builders downstairs – was still lying on the floor outside the guest shower room.
Keeping all the lights off just in case he was outside somewhere, watching, she went through the whole flat, room by room. She came across her Mace on the coffee table in the sitting room and jammed it in her pocket. Then she hurried back to the front door and put the safety chain across.
Thirsty and hungry, she gulped down a Coke and a peach yoghurt from the fridge, then went through into the guest shower room, closed the door and switched on the light. There was no exterior window in this room, so it was safe.
Stepping past the lavatory and the huge glass shower wall, she opened the door to the tiny utility room, crammed with the washing machine and tumble dryer. Up on the shelf to the left were her own tools. She pulled down a hammer and chisel and carried them back into the shower room.
Then she took one brief, proud last look at her fine handiwork, placed the blade of the chisel against the grout between two tiles halfway up the wall and hit it hard. Then again.
Within a few minutes she had removed enough of the tiles and could reach into the false wall behind them. She felt deep relief as her fingers touched the waterproof protective bubble wrap, which she had carefully wound around the A4 Jiffy bag before putting it here the day she had moved in.
The landlord wouldn’t be too impressed with the damage to the bathroom wall. If she’d had the time, thanks to the skills she had learned from her father, she could have fixed it so perfectly he would never have seen the joins. But at this moment a few damaged tiles was the least of her problems.
She changed her underwear, packed her suitcase for the second time this week with everything she thought she might need, then logged on to the internet and looked up cheap hotels in Brighton and Hove.
When she had made her choice, she phoned for another taxi.
97
OCTOBER 2007
The old woman was turning out to be more of a problem than Ricky had imagined. He stood in the tiny kitchenette area of the wooden building that served as the tennis club pavilion, toilet and shower facility for the campsite.
She’d been in the bloody toilet for over fifteen minutes now.
; He stepped out of the door, into the pouring rain, beginning to think that killing her might be the best option, and peered across the field, anxiously, at the Dutch camper van. The lights were on behind drawn curtains. He just hoped to hell they didn’t decide to come and use these facilities while she was in here. Although he was confident she was scared enough of his threats not to say anything to anyone, or do anything stupid.
Another five minutes passed. He glanced at his watch again. It was 9.30. Three hours since Abby had hung up on him. Three hours in which she would have been thinking about what had happened. Coming to her senses?
Now would be a good moment, he decided.
He flipped open the lid of his phone and texted Abby the photograph he had taken a little earlier, of her mother’s head poking out of the top of the carpet roll.
He sent the words with it:
Snug as a bug in rug.
98
OCTOBER 2007
Roy sat with Pat and Dennis at a wooden table in the restaurant area of the huge, open-plan Chelsea Brewing Company, which was owned by Pat’s cousin. To his right was a long wooden bar, and behind him were rows of gleaming copper vats as tall as houses, and miles of stainless-steel and aluminium piping and tubing. With its acres of wooden flooring and immaculate cleanliness, it had the feel more of a museum than a busy working enterprise.
Visiting had become a ritual, a compulsory watering-hole stop during every trip Roy made to New York. Pat was clearly proud of his cousin’s success and enjoyed giving an Englishman a run for his money with American-brewed beer.
There were six different varieties in sampler glasses in front of each of the three police officers. The glasses were positioned on a round blue spot on the specially designed table mat that gave the names of the beers. Pat’s cousin, also called Patrick, a stocky, bespectacled and intense man in his forties, was talking Roy through the different brewing processes for each one.