by Peter James
Grace again thought carefully before replying. It was a question he had been considering in some depth himself. He had tried to put himself in Preece’s position. Difficult, because the mindset of a recidivist was unique to his – or her – circumstances. But only an idiot would escape three weeks before the end of a sentence unless there was a pressing reason. Jealousy could be one; a commercial opportunity another.
Perhaps being in the wrong place, at the wrong time was a third? Driving a van in Brighton, when you were meant to be labouring on a construction site in Arunde?
‘I’m sure that hundred-thousand-dollar reward is going to help find you the van driver,’ Spinella said. ‘Presume you’ve had some calls to the Incident Room?’
There had actually been remarkably few, which had surprised Grace. Normally rewards brought every nutter and chancer out of the woodwork. But this call was an opportunity for more publicity – and especially to put pressure on anyone out there who might know Preece’s whereabouts.
‘Yes,’ he lied. ‘We are delighted with the response of the general public and we are urgently following several leads which we believe have come to us directly as result of this massive reward.’
‘I can quote you on that?’
‘You can.’
Grace ended the call and entered MIR-1. As ever, with a major crime inquiry, some wag had put a humorous picture on the back of the door, making fun of the inquiry name. It was a particularly good one today – a cartoon of a man in a fedora and turned up mackintosh, clutching a violin case and smoking a huge stogie.
The two Major Incident Rooms at Sussex House, MIR-1 and MIR-2, were the nerve centres for major crime inquiries. Despite opaque windows too high to see out of, MIR-1 had an airy feel, good light, good energy. It was his favourite room in the entire headquarters building. While in other parts of Sussex House he missed the messy buzz of police station incident rooms that he had grown up with, this room felt like a powerhouse.
It was an L-shaped space, divided up by three large workstations, each comprising a long curved desk with room for up to eight people to sit, and several large whiteboards. One, headed OPERATION VIOLIN, had the diagram of the vehicles involved in the accident, which Inspector Biggs from the Road Policing Unit had produced earlier. Another had the start of a family tree of Tony Revere, including the name and immediate family of his girlfriend. On a third was a list of names and contact numbers of principal witnesses.
There was an air of intense concentration, punctuated by the constant warbling of phones, which the members of his expanding team answered haphazardly.
He saw Norman Potting on the phone, making notes as he spoke. He still had not spoken to him since the two attempted calls in his car. He sat down at an empty workstation and placed his notes in front of him.
‘Right!’ he said, as Potting ended his call, raising his voice to get everyone’s attention. ‘The time is 6.30 p.m., Saturday 24 April. This is the seventh briefing of Operation Violin, the investigation into the death of Tony Revere.’ He looked at the Crime Scene Manager. ‘Tracy, I understand you have a development?’
There was a sudden blast of house music. Embarrassed, PC Alec Davies quickly silenced his phone.
‘Yes, chief,’ Stocker replied. ‘We’ve had a positive ID of the van type back from Ford, from their analysis of the serial number on the wing mirror. They’ve confirmed it was fitted to the ’06 model. So, considering the time and location where the mirror-casing fragment was found, I think we can say with reasonable certainty it belonged to our suspect Ford Transit.’ She pointed up at the whiteboard. ‘Vehicle 1 on the diagram.’
‘Do we know how many of these vans were made in that year?’ Emma-Jane Boutwood asked.
‘Yes,’ Stocker answered. ‘Fifty-seven thousand, four hundred and thirty-four Ford Transit vans sold in the UK in 2006. Ninety-three per cent of them were white, which means fifty-three thousand, four hundred and thirteen vans fit our description.’ She smiled wryly.
Sergeant Paul Wood of the Collision Investigation Unit said, ‘One line that would be worth pursuing would be to contact all repair shops and see if anyone’s brought a Transit in for wing mirror repair. They get damaged frequently.’
Grace made a note, nodding. ‘Yes, I’ve thought of that. But he’d have to be pretty stupid to take the van in for repairs so quickly. More likely he’d tuck it away in a lock-up.’
‘Ewan Preece doesn’t sound like the sharpest tool in the shed,’ Glenn Branson chipped in. ‘I don’t think we should rule it out, boss.’
‘I’ll put it down as an action for the outside inquiry team. Perhaps we can put a couple of PCSOs on it.’ Then he turned to Potting. ‘Norman, do you have your update from Ford Prison?’
Potting pursed his lips, taking his time before answering. ‘I do, chief,’ he said finally, in his rich rural burr.
In another era, Grace could have envisaged him as a bloody-minded desk sergeant plod in some remote country town. Potting spoke slowly and methodically, partly from memory and partly referring to his notebook. Every few moments he would squint to decipher his handwriting.
‘I interviewed Senior Prison Officer Lisa Setterington, the one you spoke to, chief,’ Potting said.
Grace nodded.
‘She confirmed that Preece appeared to be a model prisoner, determined to go straight.’
Potting was interrupted by a couple of snorts from officers who’d had previous dealings with the man.
‘So if he was a model prisoner,’ asked Bella Moy sarcastically, ‘how come he was driving a van twenty-five miles away from where he was supposed to be on Wednesday morning?’
‘Exactly,’ Potting said.
‘Model prisoners don’t go over the wall either,’ she added tartly.
‘They don’t, Bella, no,’ he agreed condescendingly, as if talking to a child.
Grace eyed both of them warily, wondering if they were about to have another of their regular spats.
‘Now the good news is,’ Potting went on, ‘that word of this reward has spread around the prison, as you might imagine. Several inmates who’ve had contact with Preece have come forward to the Governor, offering suggestions where he might be, and I’ve got a list of six addresses and contact names for immediate follow-up.’
‘Good stuff, Norman,’ Grace said.
Potting allowed himself a brief, smug smile and took a swig from his mug of tea before continuing, ‘But there’s some bad news too. Ewan Preece had a friend in Ford Prison, another inmate – they go back years.’ He checked his notes. ‘Warren Tulley – had about the same amount of form as Preece. They were thick together inside. The officer had arranged for Tulley to talk to me. Someone went to fetch him to bring him over to the office – and found him dead in his cell. He’d hanged himself.’
There was a momentary silence while the team absorbed this. Grace’s first reaction was that this news had not yet reached Spinella.
DC David Howes asked, ‘What do we know about his circumstances?’
‘He had two months to serve,’ Potting said. ‘Married with three young kids – all fine with the marriage apparently. Lisa Setterington knew him too. She assured me he was looking forward to getting out and spending time with his kids.’
‘Not someone with any obvious reason to top himself?’ Howes, who was a former Prison Liaison Officer, probed.
‘Doesn’t sound like it, no,’ Potting replied.
‘I’m just speculating, but what it sounds like to me,’ Howes went on, ‘is that possibly Warren Tulley knew where to find Preece.’ He shrugged.
‘Which might be why he died?’ Grace said. ‘Not suicide at all?’
‘They’re launching a full investigation, working closely with the West Area Major Crime Branch Team,’ Potting said. ‘Seems a bit coincidental to them.’
‘How hard would it be to hang yourself in Ford?’ Glenn Branson asked.
‘Easier than in a lot of prisons. They’ve all got private rooms, like motel roo
ms,’ Potting said. ‘Being an open prison, they’ve got much more freedom and are left alone much more than in a higher-category place. If you wanted to hang yourself, you could do so easily.’
‘And equally easily hang someone else?’ Howes asked.
There was a long, uncomfortable silence.
‘One hundred thousand dollars is a lot of folding to someone inside,’ Glenn said.
‘It’s a lot of folding to anyone,’ Nick Nicholl replied.
‘More than enough to kill for,’ Howes said grimly.
PC Alec Davies put up a hand. He spoke quite shyly. ‘Sir, I might be stating the obvious, but if Warren Tulley did know where Preece was, then if someone did kill him, he possibly did it for one reason. Because he knows where Preece is too.’
39
Fernanda Revere sat restlessly on the edge of the green sofa. She gripped a glass in one hand and held a cigarette in the other, tapping the end impatiently, every few seconds, into a crystal ashtray. Then, with a sudden snort, she put down her cigarette, snatched up her cellphone and glared at it.
Outside a storm raged. Wind and rain were hurtling in from Long Island Sound, through the dunes and the wild grasses and the shrubbery. She heard the rain lashing against the windows and could feel the icy blast through them.
This huge living room, with its minstrel’s gallery, ornate furniture and walls hung with tapestries, felt like a mausoleum tonight. A fire crackled in the grate but she could get no warmth from it. There was a ball game on television, the New York Giants playing some other team, which her brother shouted at intermittently. Fernanda didn’t give a shit for football. A stupid men’s game.
‘Why don’t those stupid people in England call me back?’ she demanded, staring at her phone again, willing it to ring.
‘It’s the middle of the night there, hon,’ her husband replied, checking his watch. ‘They’re five hours ahead. It’s one in the morning.’
‘So?’ She took another angry drag on her cigarette and puffed the smoke straight back out. ‘So this associate, where is he? He’s going to show up? You sure? You sure about this, Ricky?’
She stared suspiciously at her brother, who was sitting opposite her, cradling a whiskey and sucking on a cigar that looked to her the size of a large dildo.
Lou, in a checked alpaca V-neck over a polo shirt, chinos and boat shoes, looked at Ricky, his face hard suddenly, and said, ‘He’s going to show, right? He’s reliable? You know this guy?’
‘He’s reliable. One of the best there is. He’s in the car – be here any moment.’
Ricky picked up the brown envelope he had prepared, checked its contents once more, then put it down again, satisfied, and turned his focus back to the game.
At forty, Ricky Giordino had the Italian looks of his father, but not the old man’s strong face. His face was weak, a tad pudgy, like a baby’s, and pockmarked. It shone with an almost permanent shiny patina of grease, from a congenital problem with his sweat glands. His black hair was styled with a quiff and his mouth was slightly misshapen, as if he’d had an operation for a harelip as a child. He was dressed in a thick black cardigan with metal buttons, baggy blue jeans which concealed the handgun permanently strapped to his calf and black Chelsea boots. So far, to their mother’s dismay, he had remained single. He had a constant succession of brainless bimbos in tow, but tonight he had come alone, as his particular way of showing respect.
‘You done business with this guy before?’ Fernanda asked.
‘He’s recommended.’ Ricky gave a self-satisfied smile. ‘By an associate of mine. And there’s a bonus. He knows this city, Brighton. He did a job there one time. He’ll do what you want done.’
‘He’d better. I want them to suffer. You told him that, didn’t you?’
‘He knows.’ Ricky puffed on his cigar. ‘You spoke to Mamma? How was she?’
‘How do you think she was?’ Fernanda drained the rest of her Sea Breeze and got up, unsteadily, to walk towards the drinks cabinet.
Ricky turned his attention back to the game. Within moments, he leapt out of his armchair, shaking a hand at the screen and showering cigar ash around him.
‘The fuck!’ he shouted. ‘These guys, the fuck they doing?’
As he sat back down a series of sharp chimes came from the hall.
Ricky was on his feet again. ‘He’s here.’
‘Mannie’ll get it,’ Lou said.
Tooth sat in the back of the Lincoln Town Car, dressed casually but smartly in a sports coat, open-neck shirt, chinos and brown leather loafers, the kind of clothes in which he could go anywhere without raising an eyebrow. His brown holdall lay on the seat beside him.
The driver had wanted to put it in the trunk when he had collected him from Kennedy Airport, but Tooth never let it out of his sight. He never checked it in, it came inside the plane with him on every flight. The bag contained his clean underwear, a spare shirt, pants, shoes, his laptop, four cellphones, three spare passports and an assortment of forged documents all concealed inside three hollowed-out paperback books.
Tooth never travelled with weapons, other than a quantity of the incapacitating agent 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate – BZ – disguised as two deodorant sticks, in his washbag. It wasn’t worth the risk. Besides he had his best weapons on the end of his arms. His hands.
In the beam of the headlights he watched the high grey electric gates opening and the rain pelting down. Then they drove on through, until ahead he could see the superstructure of a showy modern mansion.
The driver had said nothing during the journey, which suited Tooth fine. He didn’t do conversation with strangers. Now the man spoke for almost the first time since he had checked Tooth’s name at the arrivals lobby at the airport.
‘We’re here.’
Tooth did not reply. He could see that.
The driver opened the rear door and Tooth stepped out into the rain with his bag. As they reached the porch, the front door of the house was opened by a nervous-looking Filipina maid in uniform. Almost immediately, she was joined by a mean-faced, pot-bellied man in a fancy black cardigan, jeans and black boots, holding a big cigar.
Tooth’s first reaction was that the cigar was a good sign, meaning he could smoke in here. He stepped inside, into a huge hall with a grey flagstone floor.
A wide circular staircase swept up ahead of him. There were gilded mirrors and huge, bizarre abstract paintings which made no sense to him. Tooth didn’t do art.
The man held out a fleshy hand covered in glinting rings, saying,‘Mr Tooth? Ricky Giordino. Y’had a good journey?’
Tooth shook the man’s clammy hand briefly, then released it as fast as he could, as if it was a decomposing rodent. He didn’t like to shake hands. Hands carried germs.
‘The journey was fine.’
‘Can I fix you a drink? Whiskey? Vodka? Glass of wine? We got just about everything.’
‘I don’t drink when I’m working.’
Ricky grinned. ‘You haven’t started yet.’
‘I said I don’t drink when I’m working.’
The smile slid from Ricky’s face, leaving behind an awkward leer. ‘OK. Maybe some water?’
‘I had water in the car.’
‘Great. Terrific.’ Ricky checked his cigar, then sucked on it several times, to keep it burning. ‘Maybe you want something to eat?’
‘I ate on the plane.’
‘Not great, that shit they give you on planes, is it?’
‘It was fine.’
After five military tours, some of them solo, fending for himself behind enemy lines, eating beetles and rodents and berries sometimes for days on end, anything that came on a plate or in a bowl was fine by Tooth. He wasn’t ever going to be a gourmet. He didn’t do fine food.
‘We’re good, then. All set. Do you want to put your bag down?’
‘No.’
‘OK. Come with me.’
Tooth, still holding his bag, followed him along a corridor furnished with a fanc
y antique table, on which sat ornate Chinese vases, and past a living room that reminded him of an English baronial hall in a movie he’d seen long ago. A bitch in navy velour was sitting on a sofa, smoking a cigarette, with an ashtray full of butts beside her, and a loser was sitting opposite her, watching a bunch of dumb fuckwits playing American football.
This is what I risked my life for, gave my all for, so assholes like these could sit in their swell homes, with their fancy phones, watching dickheads playing games on big television screens?
Ricky ducked into the room and reappeared almost immediately carrying a brown envelope. He ushered Tooth back along the corridor to the hall, then led him down the stairs and into the basement. At the bottom was an abstract painting, as tall as Tooth, covered in what looked like photographs with weird faces. His eyes flickered with mild interest.
‘That’s pretty special,’ the man said. ‘A Santlofer. One of the up-and-coming great modern American artists. You wanted to buy that now, you’d pay thirty grand. Ten years time, you’ll pay a million. The Reveres are great patrons. That’s one of the things my sister and my brother-in-law do, they spot rising talents. You gotta support the arts. Y’know? Patrons?’
The painting looked to Tooth like one of those distorting mirrors you saw in fairgrounds. He followed the man through into a huge poolroom, the table itself almost lost against the patterned carpet. There was a bar in one corner, complete with leather stools and a stocked-up wine fridge with a glass door.
The man sucked on his cigar again, until his face was momentarily shrouded in a billowing cloud of dense grey smoke.
‘My sister’s pretty upset. She lost her youngest son. She doted on the kid. You gotta understand that.’
Tooth said nothing.
‘You shoot pool?’ the man said.
Tooth shrugged.
‘Bowl?’
The man indicated him to follow and walked through into the room beyond. And now Tooth was impressed.
He was staring at a full-size, underground ten-pin bowling alley. It had just one lane, with polished wooden flooring. It was immaculate. Balls were lined up in the chute. All down the wall, beside the lane, was wallpaper that gave the illusion of rows of stacked bookshelves.