Dead Man's Footsteps

  Love, like a river, will cut a new path

  whenever it meets an obstacle.

  She settled in her seat, too shaken up to think of a quote back. Instead she replied with a single x.

  Then she stared bleakly out of the window at the chalk escarpment rising on either side of her as the train pulled out of the station. She was engulfed in icy, dark fear.

  106

  OCTOBER 2007

  The interior of the Marriott Financial Center hotel had a cool, slightly Zen aura, Roy Grace thought, as he left the checkout desk and carried his bag across the foyer. And it all felt very fresh. Table lamps that looked like inverted opaque Martini glasses. Slim white vases on black tables, from which sprouted tall stems so elegant, so perfect, they seemed to have been designed rather than to have grown.

  He found it hard to believe that this place, right on the edge of Ground Zero, had been badly damaged in 9/11. It felt important, solid, indestructible, as if it had always been here and always would be.

  He walked past a cluster of businessmen in dark suits and ties, talking earnestly. Pat Lynch was waiting for him, standing on a red rug in the middle of the cream marble floor. He was dressed casually, in a sleeveless green flak jacket, over a black T-shirt, blue jeans and stout black shoes. Roy could see the bulge where his gun was.

  Pat raised his hands. ‘All done and dusted? Dennis is parked up outside. We’re all set.’

  Grace followed him into the revolving door. The world changed abruptly as he stepped out the other side into the damp, October morning. Traffic several lines deep trundled past. A cement mixer chuntered in front of him. A doorman, his elegance marred by a plastic shower cap over his peaked uniform cap, held open the door of a yellow cab for three Japanese businessmen.

  As they walked a short distance along the pavement to the Crown Victoria, Dennis pointed up at a wide expanse of sky. It was bounded by a thin scattering of skyscrapers on one side and the much denser mass of downtown New York on the other. Steam or smoke poured from a low-rise green building that was shaped like a vent. Almost directly in front of them was what looked like a makeshift bridge across the street.

  ‘See that space, buddy?’ Pat said, pointing at the sky.

  Grace nodded.

  ‘That’s where our towers were.’ He shot a glance at his watch. ‘Half an hour earlier than this, on the morning of 9/11, you’d have been looking at the World Trade Center. You wouldn’t have sky, you’d have seen those beautiful buildings.’

  Then he walked Roy past the car to a street corner and pointed to the blackened hulk of a high-rise to his right, from which hung massive strips of some dark material covering the outside like giant black vertical Venetian blinds.

  ‘I told you about the Deutsche Bank Building, right, where they recently found more body parts? That’s it. We just lost two firemen there, back in the summer – back in August. And you know the thing about those two men? They were both at Ground Zero on 9/11. They went into the World Trade Center. They survived that. Then they died here six years later.’

  ‘Very sad,’ Roy said. ‘And ironic.’

  ‘Yeah, ironic. Makes you wonder sometimes if this whole place is jinxed – you know, cursed.’

  They climbed into the Crown Victoria. A brown UPS truck was trying to reverse into a tight space in front of them. Dennis, behind the wheel, raised a cheery hand to Roy.

  ‘Hey! How’s it goin’?’ Then he looked back at the UPS truck, which had just mounted the kerb for the second time, perilously close to a letter box, and was now inching forward again. ‘Hey, come on, lady, it’s a van you’re driving, not a fucking elephant!’

  It began reversing again. Even closer to the letter box.

  ‘Shit, lady!’ Dennis said. ‘Mind that post box! Damage that and it’s a federal fucking offence!’

  ‘So, more stamp dealers?’ Pat said, trying to focus on the task ahead.

  ‘I have another six on my list.’

  ‘You know, if we don’t get lucky today, we can broaden the search for you,’ Pat said. ‘Dennis and I, we can take care of it.’

  ‘I appreciate that.’

  ‘It’s no big deal.’

  Dennis drove them past Ground Zero. Grace stared at the steel fences, the concrete barriers, the mobile storage and office units, the cranes rising like giraffe necks, the banks of floodlights on tall poles. The area was vast. Almost beyond-comprehension vast. He kept thinking of the two men’s description of it as the Belly of the Beast. But it was a strangely quiet beast now. There wasn’t the usual din that came from most construction sites. Despite all the work that was going on, it felt almost reverentially quiet.

  ‘You know, I’ve been thinking about this woman in Australia, right? In the river,’ Pat said, turning again to look at Roy.

  ‘You have a theory?’

  ‘Sure. She was hot, OK, so she dove into this river, didn’t realize there was a car under the surface, with its trunk popped open. She dove straight into the trunk and snapped her neck. The impact caused the car to rise and fall a little. The water pressure and the current swung the lid shut. Boom!’

  ‘It’s a no-brainer!’ Dennis grinned.

  ‘Yeah, that’s what it is,’ Pat said. ‘A no-brainer.’

  ‘You want us to solve your problem cases for us, just send us the files,’ Dennis said.

  Grace tried to ignore their banter and to concentrate on thinking through the latest information he had received from Glenn Branson. They had spoken a few minutes before he left the hotel. Glenn told him that Hawkes had paid two thousand, three hundred and fifty pounds to Katherine Jennings for a few stamps, after Hegarty had refused to play ball. Then, after she left the dealer, the surveillance team had lost her.

  Had she rumbled the surveillance unit? Grace wondered. Unlikely, as they were pretty good. Although it was always possible. Then another thought crossed his mind. Chad Skeggs’s rental car parked outside her flat. She had not been back to her flat while the car was there. Was it Chad Skeggs she was running from?

  The stamp dealer had told Glenn that Katherine Jennings seemed scared and very nervous. Tomorrow morning, when it was daytime again in Melbourne, they would find out whether anyone called Anne Jennings had died recently there and, if she had, whether she had been wealthy enough to have owned three million plus pounds’ worth of stamps and forgotten about them.

  It was starting to seem as if Kevin Spinella’s instinct about this woman had been right.

  Suddenly, Dennis braked hard. Roy peered out of the window, wondering where they were. An Oriental-looking man walked by dressed in white chef’s overalls, with a baseball cap perched the wrong way round on his head. It was a narrow street with brown-stones on both sides and a row of garishly coloured awnings over shop fronts. Just beyond them was another awning, this one in elegant black with white lettering. It read:

  ABE MILLER ASSOCIATES. STAMPS AND COINS.

  Dennis stopped the car in front of a no-parking sign right outside, and shoved a large cardboard sign, bearing the crudely stencilled word POLICE, under the windscreen. Then the three of them went into the premises.

  The interior felt plush, reminding Grace of an old-fashioned gentlemen’s club. It was panelled in dark, glossy wood, there were two black leather armchairs and thick carpet, and a strong smell of furniture polish. Only the glass-fronted cabinets, containing a small selection of very old-looking stamps, and the glass-topped counter, containing a row of coins on purple velvet, indicated it was a business.

  As the front door closed behind them, a tall, hugely overweight man of about fifty, with a big welcoming smile on his face, materialized through a concealed door in the panelling. Dressed in keeping with the premises, he was parcelled in a well-cut, chalk-striped three-piece suit and sported a striped college tie. His head was almost completely bald, except for a narrow fringe like a pelmet halfway up his forehead that looked faintly comical, and it was impossible to tell where his triple chin ended and his neck began.


  ‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ he said affably, in a higher-pitched voice than Grace had expected. ‘I’m Abe Miller. How can I help you today?’

  Dennis and Pat showed their shields and introduced Roy Grace. Abe Miller remained completely affable, showing no disappointment that they were not customers.

  Grace, thinking the man looked too big and too clumsy to handle items as delicate as rare stamps and coins, showed him the three different photographs of Ronnie Wilson that he had brought. To his excitement he saw a glimmer of recognition in Abe Miller’s face. The dealer took a second look at them, and a third.

  ‘He was believed to be in New York around the time of 9/11,’ Grace prompted.

  ‘I’ve seen him.’ He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Let me think.’ Then he raised a finger in the air. ‘You know, I’m pretty sure I remember this guy. Know why?’ He looked at each of the three policemen.

  Grace shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘Because I think he was the first person to walk in here after 9/11.’

  ‘His name is Ronald Wilson,’ Grace said. ‘Ronald or Ronnie.’

  ‘Name doesn’t ring a bell. But let me check something in back. Just give me two minutes.’

  He disappeared through the hidden door and returned a minute later holding an old-fashioned index card, with notes on it written in ink.

  ‘Right here,’ he said. He put the card down and read from it, for a moment. ‘Wednesday 12 September 2001.’ Then he looked up at the three of them again. ‘I bought four stamps from him.’ He continued reading. ‘Each of them an Edward, one pound, unmounted, mint. Perfect gum, no hinge.’ Then he grinned mischievously. ‘Paid him two thousand bucks each. I got a bargain!’ He looked at his card again. ‘Sold ’em on just a few weeks later. Made a good profit. Thing was, he shouldn’t have sold them, not that day. Hell, we all thought maybe the world was going to end.’

  Then Abe Miller looked at the card again and frowned.

  ‘You said Ronald Wilson?’

  ‘Yes, Grace replied.

  ‘Nope, no, sir. That was not his name. Not the name he gave me. I wrote down here David Nelson. Yep, that was his name. Mr David Nelson.’

  ‘Did he give you an address or a phone number?’ Grace asked. ‘No, sir, he did not.’

  *

  As soon as they were back out on the street, Grace called Glenn Branson. He told him to get Norman Potting and Nick Nicholl to make it their first priority to find out whether there were immigration records going back to 2001, and if so, whether any David Nelsons show up on them.

  He felt good about the meeting he had just had. But the one shadow, as Glenn picked up on, and which he had already thought about, was whether Ronnie Wilson was still using that name if and when he went to Australia. Maybe by then he had become yet another person.

  But an hour later, as they were about to enter the slate-blue and grey Medical Examiner’s Office, Glenn Branson phoned, sounding excited. ‘We have a development!’

  ‘Tell me?’

  ‘I said earlier that we’d lost Katherine Jennings, right? That she gave the surveillance team the slip. Well, get this. She walked into John Street Police Station an hour ago.’

  The words were like an electric shock. ‘What? Why?’

  ‘She says her mother’s been kidnapped. A sick little old lady. A guy’s threatening to kill her.’

  ‘Have you spoken to her?’

  ‘A CID officer spoke to her down there – and discovered the man she is accusing of the kidnap is none other than Chad Skeggs.’

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘I thought you’d like it.’

  ‘So what’s happening now?’

  ‘I’ve sent Bella, along with a Family Liaison Officer, Linda Buckley, to bring her up here. I’m going to see her with Bella when she gets here.’

  ‘Call me as soon as you’ve spoken to her.’

  ‘What time are you flying back?’

  ‘Leaving at 6 o’clock – that’s 11 o’clock tonight your time.’

  Branson’s voice changed suddenly. ‘Old-timer, I might need to crash at your place tonight. Ari’s doing her tank. I didn’t get home until midnight last night.’

  ‘Tell her you’re a police officer, not a fucking babysitter!’ ‘You tell her. Want me to call her, put her on the line?’ ‘The key’s in the usual place,’ Grace said hastily.

  107

  OCTOBER 2007

  Abby’s phone remained silent. It seemed that her lifeline to the world had flat-lined. It was almost three hours since she had heard from Ricky.

  She stared bleakly out of the window of the empty railway carriage, clutching the plastic bag into which she had scooped all the medicines she could find in her mother’s bathroom and bedroom. She told Doris that she was putting her mother in a rest home because she was worried about her ability to look after herself, and that she would phone her with her mother’s new address and phone number. Doris said she was sad to lose her neighbour, but that her mum was lucky to have such a lovely, caring daughter to look after her.

  Some irony, Abby thought.

  More and more of the sky was turning blue. Large clouds scudded across it as if they were on some urgent mission. It was becoming a fine, blustery autumn afternoon. The kind of weather in which she loved walking along the seafront, particularly the under-cliff walk at Black Rock, past the Marina and towards Rottingdean.

  Her mother used to enjoy that walk too. Sometimes, they would do it as a family on a Sunday afternoon, her mother, her father and herself. She loved it when the tide was in, waves exploding on the groynes and sometimes smashing up against the sea wall itself, hurling spray over them.

  And there was a time, somewhere back there in the mists of her childhood, that she remembered she had felt content. Was that before she had started going with her father to the big houses he did work in? Before she saw there were people who were different, who had lives that were different?

  Was it then? Her personal tipping point?

  In the distance to her left she could see the soft hills of the Downs as the train headed back towards Brighton. To where so many memories of her life lay. Where her friends still lived. Friends who didn’t know she was here. Whom she would have loved to see. More than ever she craved the company of her friends now. To pour her heart out to someone not involved in all this. Someone who could think clearly and tell her whether she was mad or not. But it was too late for that, she feared.

  Friends were the one part of life that was not a game. But sometimes it was necessary to discard them, however hard that was.

  Her eyes started watering. She had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She’d eaten nothing all day except for the one digestive biscuit at Hugo Hegarty’s house, and she’d drunk a Coke on Gatwick Station platform a short while ago. She was too knotted up for anything more.

  Please phone.

  They were passing through Hassocks. A short while later they entered Clayton Tunnel. She listened to the roar of the train exploding off the walls. Saw her own pale, scared reflection staring back in the window.

  When they emerged back into light – the sloping greenery of Mill Hill to her right, the London Road to her left – she saw to her dismay that she had a missed call.

  Shit.

  No number.

  Then it rang again. It was Ricky.

  ‘I’m getting increasingly worried about your mother, Abby. I’m not sure she’s going to survive much longer.’

  ‘Please let me speak to her, Ricky!’

  There was a brief silence. Then he said, ‘I don’t think she’s up to speaking.’

  A new, darker slick of fear spread through her. ‘Where are you?’ she said. ‘I’ll come to you. I’ll meet you anywhere, I’ll give you everything you want.’

  ‘Yes, Abby, I know you will. We’re going to meet tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ she screamed at him. ‘No fucking way! We’re going to do it now, please. I have to get her to hospital.’

  ‘We’ll do
it when it suits me. You’ve inconvenienced me quite enough. Now you can have a taste of what it feels like.’

  ‘This isn’t inconvenience, Ricky. Please, for God’s sake. This is a sick old lady. She hasn’t done anything wrong. She hasn’t harmed you. Take it out on me, not her.’

  The train was slowing down, approaching Preston Park, where she wanted to get off.

  ‘Unfortunately, Abby, it’s her that I have, not you.’

  ‘I’ll swap places.’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘Please, Ricky, let’s just meet.’

  ‘We will meet, tomorrow.’

  ‘No! Now! Please, today. Mum might not survive until tomorrow.’ She was getting hysterical.

  ‘That would be too bad, wouldn’t it? For her to have died knowing her daughter is a thief.’

  ‘God almighty, you are a callous bastard.’

  Ignoring the remark, Ricky said, ‘You’re going to need a car. I’ve posted the key of the Ford I rented to your flat. It will be there in the morning.’

  ‘It’s been clamped,’ she said.

  ‘Then you’ll just have to rent something yourself.’

  ‘Where are we going to meet?’

  ‘I’ll phone you in the morning. Go hire a car tonight. And have the stamps with you, won’t you?’

  ‘Please can we meet now, this afternoon?’

  He ended the call. The train jolted to a halt.

  Abby climbed out of her seat and made her way unsteadily along to the exit, holding tightly on to her handbag and the plastic bag with one hand and the handrail with the other as she climbed down on to the platform. It was 4.15.

  Got to hold it together, she thought. Got to. Somehow. Somehow.

  Oh, Jesus, how?

  She thought she was going to throw up as she left the station and walked over to the taxi rank. To her dismay, there were no cabs waiting. She looked at her watch, anxiously, then called the number of one of the local companies. Then she called another number, one she had called earlier. The same male voice answered. ‘South-East Philatelic.’