Dead Man's Footsteps

  ‘The W?’ Grace queried. ‘The W what?’

  ‘That’s its name.’

  ‘Just W?’

  ‘Old-timer, you spend your life under a stone or what? You need to employ me as your full-time style guru. The W is a chain. They’re, like, considered u¨ber-cool hotels.’

  ‘Yeah, well, my salary doesn’t run to u¨ber-cool hotels.’

  ‘I can’t believe you haven’t heard of them.’

  ‘Well, there you go, yet another of life’s many unsolved mysteries. Anything you want to tell me about it, other than that I haven’t heard of it?’

  ‘Yeah, quite a bit. So, some of his belongings were still in the room, and the management weren’t too happy, because the credit card he’d given had maxed out on them.’

  ‘They didn’t make any allowance for the fact that he was dead?’

  ‘I presume they didn’t know at that point. He’d booked in for just two nights and left an opened credit card slip with them. Anyhow, the thing is that his passport and airline ticket back to the UK were still in the safe.’

  To his relief, Grace suddenly saw his bag appear. ‘Hang on a tick.’ He hurried forward to grab it, then said, ‘OK, go on.’

  ‘So then they went to Pier 92, where the NYPD had set up a kind of bereavement centre. People were bringing stuff like hairbrushes, so they could get the DNA of probable victims to help identify the bodies, or the body parts. They were also displaying personal items that had been recovered. Lorraine went there with her sister, but the police hadn’t recovered anything belonging to her husband that could identify him, at that stage.’

  Grace lugged his bag away from the crowd to a quieter spot, then had to wait for a tannoy announcement to end before he could ask, ‘What about the money Lorraine received?’

  ‘I’ll come to that – and I gotta dash in a minute to the briefing.’

  ‘Tell DI Mantle to call me afterwards.’

  ‘I will. But you’ve got to hear something first. We have a big development! So, anyhow, Lorraine blags fifteen hundred dollars from the officer at Pier 92. They were doling the dough out to anyone who’d lost someone and was suffering financial hardship.’

  ‘Fair enough at that time. She’d been left up shit creek financially, right?’

  ‘Yes. Then a couple of weeks after they get back to the UK, her sister said Lorraine got a phone call – a fire-damaged wallet containing Ronnie Wilson’s driving licence and a mobile phone identified as belonging to him were handed in by rescue workers digging in the rubble at Ground Zero. Photographs of them and the contents of the wallet were sent over to her so she could formally identify them.’

  ‘Which she was able to do?’

  ‘Yep. Now, the cash she got – the big payments of the life insurance, then the compensation – here’s the thing. Her sister was astonished when we told her. Like more than astonished, like blown-fucking-away astonished.’

  ‘Acting?’

  ‘Not in my view, nor Bella’s. She swung between astonishment and anger. I mean, she blew her rag at one point, saying she’d cleaned out her own savings to help Lorraine – and that was long after, according to the bank records, Lorraine had had the first lump of moolah in.’

  ‘So no honour among sisters then?’

  ‘Seems like it was one-way between these two. But I’ve got the best to come for you. You’re going to love this.’

  There was another tannoy announcement. Grace yelled for Branson to wait until it had stopped.

  ‘The lab’s come back this afternoon with a familial DNA match on the foetus Lorraine Wilson was carrying. I think we’ve got the father!’

  ‘Who?’ Grace asked excitedly.

  ‘Well, if we are right, it is none other than Ronnie Wilson.’

  Grace was silent for a moment, adrenaline surging. Thrilled that his hunch seemed to have been right. ‘How good a match?’

  ‘Well, this particular familial match means we have half of the father’s DNA. There could be other matches. But considering who the mother is, I’d say the chances of it being anyone else are too remote to be worth considering.’

  ‘Where did Ronnie’s DNA come from?’

  ‘From a hairbrush his widow took the NYPD when she went to New York. That profile was passed back to the British police, as routine, and entered on the National Database.’

  ‘Which means,’ Grace said, ‘that either our friend Mr Wilson had left behind some frozen sperm which his wife, who wasn’t quite so dead as she appeared, had implanted. Or …’

  ‘Me, I favour the or option,’ Branson said.

  ‘Certainly looks favourite from where I’m standing,’ Grace replied.

  ‘And you’re standing a lot closer than me, old-timer. With your shoes on or off.’

  90

  OCTOBER 2007

  Abby heard a phone ringing somewhere, close and insistent. Then she realized, with a start, that it was her own. She sat up, confused, trying to work out where she was. The phone continued to ring.

  There was chill air on her face, but she was perspiring heavily. She was in darkness, just shadows all around her in a ghostly orange haze. A spring creaked beneath her as she moved. She was sitting on a sofa in her mother’s flat, she realized. Christ, how long had she been asleep?

  She looked around, fearful that Ricky had come back and was in here. She could see the glow of the phone’s display and reached for it. The coils of fear rising in her stomach worsened when she saw the words: Private number. The time on the display read 18.30.

  She brought the phone to her ear. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Had a good think about it, have you?’ Ricky said.

  Panic raced through her brain. Where the hell was he? She had to get away from here quickly. She was a sitting duck in this place. Did he know where she was at this moment? Was he outside somewhere?

  She waited a moment before replying, trying to collect her thoughts. She decided to keep the lights off, not wanting to show him she was here, in case he was out in the street watching. There was enough glow penetrating the net curtains, from the street light outside the window, to see all she needed in here at the moment.

  ‘How is my mother?’ she demanded, and heard the tremble in her voice.

  ‘She’s fine.’

  ‘She’s got no resistance. If you let her get cold, she could get pneumonia—’

  Interrupting, Ricky replied, ‘Like I told you, she’s snug as a bug in a rug.’

  Abby did not like the way he said those words. ‘I want to speak to her.’

  ‘Of course you do. And I want what you’ve stolen from me. So it’s very simple. You bring it back, or you tell me where it is, and your mum can go home with you.’

  ‘How do I know I can trust you?’

  ‘That’s rich, coming from you!’ he sneered. ‘I don’t think you know the meaning of that word.’

  ‘Look, what happened happened,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you back what I’ve got left.’

  The pitch of his voice changed to alarm. ‘What do you mean what you’ve got left? I want it all. Everything. That’s the deal.’

  ‘You can’t have it. I can only give you what I’ve got.’

  ‘That’s why it wasn’t in the safe-deposit box, right? You spent it?’

  ‘Not all of it,’ she gambled.

  ‘You callous bitch. You’d let me kill your mother, wouldn’t you? You’d let me kill her rather than give it back to me! That’s how much money means to you.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You’re quite right, Ricky. I would.’

  Then she hung up on him.

  91

  OCTOBER 2007

  Abby ran across the dark room, stumbling over a leather pouffe, and groped her way into the bathroom. She found the sink and threw up into it, her stomach jangling, her nerves shot to pieces.

  She rinsed the vomit away, washed her mouth and switched on the light, breathing deeply. Please don’t let me have another panic attack. She stood clutching the sides of the sink,
her eyes watering, terrified that Ricky was going to smash his way in here at any moment.

  She had to get away from here, and she had to remember why she was doing this. Quality of life for her mother. That’s what it was all about. Without the money, her mother’s last years were going to be unimaginably grim. She had to keep hold of that.

  And to think about what lay beyond for her: Dave waiting for the text to say they were good to go.

  She was just one transaction away from giving her mother a future worth living. One plane ride away from the life she had always promised herself.

  Ricky was nasty. A sadist. A bully. But a killer? She didn’t think so.

  She knew she had to stand up to him, show strength back. That was the only language a bully understood. And he wasn’t a stupid man. He wanted everything back. There was no value to him in harming an elderly, sick lady.

  Please God.

  Abby went back to the sitting room waiting for him to ring. Ready to kill the call when he did. Then, heart in her mouth, terrified she was making a big mistake, she crept out of the apartment into the even darker corridor and up the fire exit stairs to the first floor.

  *

  A few minutes later, from the phone in Doris’s flat, she was dialling a different number. The call was answered by a well-spoken male voice.

  ‘Is it possible to speak to Hugo Hegarty?’ she asked.

  ‘Indeed, you are speaking to him.’

  ‘I apologize for calling you in the evening, Mr Hegarty,’ Abby said. ‘I have a collection of stamps that I want to sell.’

  ‘Yes?’ He drew the word out so it sounded deeply pensive. ‘What can you tell me about them?’

  She itemized each stamp, describing it in detail. She was so familiar with them, they had become as clear as a photograph in her memory. He interrupted her a couple of times, asking for specific information.

  When she had finished, Hugo Hegarty fell strangely silent.

  92

  OCTOBER 2007

  Sitting in his van at the remote campsite he had found on the internet, Ricky was deep in thought. The rain drumming down on the roof was good cover. No one was going to go traipsing around in the darkness in a muddy field, poking their nose into things that didn’t concern them.

  This place was perfect. Just a few miles along the Downs from Eastbourne, on the outskirts of a picture postcard village called Alfriston. A campsite in a large, wooded field half a mile up a deserted farm track, behind a rain-lashed tennis club.

  This wasn’t the time of the year or the weather for tennis or camping, which meant no prying eyes. The owner didn’t look the prying type either. He’d driven up with two small boys who were squabbling in the car, taken his payment of fifteen pounds for three nights in advance and shown Ricky where the toilets and shower were. He’d given him a mobile phone number and said he might be back some time tomorrow in case anyone else showed up.

  There was only one other vehicle on the site, a large camper van with Dutch plates, and Ricky was parked well away from it.

  He had food, water, milk – stuff he’d picked up from a petrol station shop – enough to keep them going for a while. He popped the lid of a can of lager and downed half the contents in one long draught, wanting some alcohol to calm his nerves. Then he lit a cigarette and took three long puffs in quick succession. He wound down the window a fraction and tried to flick the ash out, but the wind blew it straight back in on his face. He closed the window and, as he did so, his nose twitched. Some unpleasant smell had come in from outside.

  He took another drag on the cigarette and another swig of the lager. He was deeply disturbed by the call with Abby just now. By the way she had hung up on him. By the way he kept misreading the bitch.

  He was scared that she meant what she had said. The words were replaying over and over in his head.

  I’ll give you back what I’ve got left.

  How much had she spent? Blown? She must be bluffing. It was impossible that she had got through more than a few thousand during the time she had been on the run. She was bluffing.

  He would have to raise the stakes. Call her bluff. She might think she was tough, but he had his doubts.

  He finished the cigarette and tossed the butt outside. Then, as he closed the window, his nostrils twitched again. The smell was getting stronger, more insistent. It was coming from inside the van, very definitely. The distinct sour reek of urine.

  Oh, for fuck’s sake, no!

  The old woman had wet herself.

  He snapped on the interior light, scrambled out of his seat and into the rear of the van. The woman looked ridiculous, her head poking out of the top of the rolled-up carpet like some ugly, hatching chrysalis.

  He pulled the gaffer tape away from her mouth as gently as possible, not wanting to hurt her more than was necessary; she was already in a high state of distress and he was scared that she might die on him.

  ‘Have you wet yourself?’

  Two small, frightened, eyes peered at him. ‘I’m ill,’ she said, in a weak voice. ‘I’m incontinent. I’m sorry.’

  Sudden panic gripped him. ‘Does that mean you’re going to do the other thing too?’

  She hesitated, then nodded apologetically.

  ‘Oh, that’s great,’ he said. ‘That’s just great.’

  94

  OCTOBER 2007

  Roy Grace sat in the back of the unmarked grey Ford Crown Victoria. As they headed into the Lincoln Tunnel he wondered whether, if you were a seasoned enough traveller, you could identify any city in the world just from the sound of the traffic.

  In London the constant petrol roar and diesel rattle of engines and the whine-swoosh of the new generation of Volvo buses dominated. New York was completely different, mostly the steady tramp-tramp-tramp of tyres on the ribbed or cracked and lumpy road surfaces, and the honking of horns.

  A massive truck behind them was honking now.

  Detective Investigator Dennis Baker, who was driving, raised a hand up to the interior mirror and flipped him the bird. ‘Go fuck yourself, asshole!’

  Grace grinned. Dennis hadn’t changed.

  ‘I mean, for Chrissake, asshole, what you want me to do? Drive over the top of the dickhead in front or what? Jesus!’

  Long used to his work buddy’s driving, Detective Investigator Pat Lynch, seated alongside him in the front passenger seat, turned without comment to face Roy. ‘It’s good to see you again, man. Long time. Wayyyyy too long!’

  Roy felt that too. He’d liked these guys from the moment they first met. Back in November 2000 he had been sent to New York to question a gay American banker whose partner had been found strangled in a flat in Kemp Town. The banker was never charged, but died from a drugs overdose a couple of years later. Roy had worked with Dennis and Pat for some while on that case and they’d stayed in touch.

  Pat wore jeans and a denim jacket over a beige shirt, with a white T-shirt beneath that. With his pockmarked face and lanky, boyish haircut, he had the rugged looks of a movie tough guy, but he had a surprisingly gentle and caring nature. He had started life as a stevedore in the docks and his tall, powerful physique had stood him in good stead for that work.

  Dennis wore a heavy black anorak, embossed with the legend Cold Case Homicide Squad and the NYPD shield, over a blue shirt, and also had on jeans. Shorter than Pat, wirier and sharp-eyed, he was heavily into martial arts. Years ago he had achieved tenth dan in shotokan karate, the highest level, and was something of a legend in the NYPD for his street-fighting skills.

  Both men had been at the Brooklyn Police Station on Williams-burg East at 8.46 on the morning of 9/11, when the first plane had struck. Being literally one mile away, across the Brooklyn Bridge, they headed over there immediately, with their chief, and arrived just as the second plane struck, crashing into the South Tower. They had spent the following weeks as part of the team sifting through the rubble at Ground Zero, in what they had described as the ‘Belly of the Beast’. Dennis had then tran
sferred to the crime scene tent and Pat to the bereavement centre on Pier 92.

  In the ensuing years both men, previously extremely fit, had developed asthma, as well as trauma-related mental health problems, and had transferred from the rough and tumble world of the NYPD to the calmer waters of the Special Investigations Unit at the District Attorney’s Office.

  Pat brought Grace up to speed on their current work, which was mostly transporting and interrogating mobsters. They now knew the US underworld as well as anybody. Pat talked about how the Mafia no longer had the juice it used to have. Villains flipped easier today than they used to. Who wouldn’t try to cut a deal, Pat said, when looking at the wrong end of a twenty-year to life sentence?

  Hopefully they’d find in the next twenty-four hours someone who’d known Ronnie Wilson, someone who had helped him. If anyone could help him to look for someone who, Grace was becoming increasingly certain, had deliberately disappeared during 9/11 and its aftermath, it was these two.

  ‘You’re looking younger than ever,’ Pat said, suddenly changing the subject. ‘You must be in love.’

  ‘That wife of yours, she still never turned up, right?’ Dennis asked.

  ‘No,’ was his short answer. He’d rather not talk about Sandy.

  ‘He’s just envious,’ Pat said. ‘Cost him a fortune to get rid of his!’

  Grace laughed and at that moment his phone beeped with an incoming text. He looked down.

  Glad u there safe. Miss u. Humphrey misses u

  too. No one 2 throw up on. XXX

  He grinned, instantly feeling a pang of longing for Cleo. Then he remembered something. ‘If we’ve got five minutes, could we go into one of those big Toys R Us places? I’ll get my god-daughter’s Christmas present. She’s into something called Bratz.’

  ‘Biggest one’s in Times Square, we can swing by there now, then go on to W, where we thought we’d start,’ Pat said.