He dressed, pulled on a warm coat, made himself a quick espresso and calmed Humphrey, who seemed to think it was morning. He wiped the mist off the Alfa’s windows, started the engine and drove fast towards Brighton.
Fifteen minutes later he turned into Roedean Crescent and slowed, looking at the house numbers in the dark street. The odd numbers were on the left-hand side. He put the window down and shone his torch, driving slowly, passing a few parked cars with misted windows, indicating they had been there for some while, until he reached No. 191. He carried on. A cat shot across the road a short distance in front of him.
He cruised the area, turning down all the side streets, looking for any suspicious vehicle where Tooth might be lurking. Although it was quite possible that the hitman was having the same difficulties as they’d had in locating Jodie Carmichael’s real residence, until Potting had established it. He drove back along Roedean Crescent, halted a good hundred yards from the entrance to the drive, switched his lights off, climbed out and walked back.
In case Jodie had night vision CCTV cameras, something he wouldn’t have put past her, considering her form, he just ambled slowly past like any man out taking a late stroll, glancing down the driveway as he passed. He could see the silhouette of the house directly below, which appeared to be in complete darkness. Norman Potting was in there, somewhere, asleep, according to the latest update.
Grace crossed the road, and walked back along the other side, barely glancing at the driveway this time, then crossed over again and got back into his car, still looking around and thinking, wondering. Just what was going on in that house right now?
According to the duty handler, who was listening to every word that was exchanged between Potting and Jodie Carmichael, not much. Potting had gone to bed. Alone.
He looked at his watch. It was coming up to 1 a.m. Despite the espresso he felt leaden, and thought back to Cleo’s words, that he’d be no use to Norman if he was too tired. He felt exhausted.
He drove home.
112
Saturday 14 March
Jodie, wide awake, sat up in bed staring at her laptop, her room lit only by the dimmed headboard spots and the glow from her screen. For the past hour she’d been saving the few photographs of Cornel that she could find on Google and on other search engines onto her computer, as well as all the photographs she could find of Detective Sergeant Norman Potting.
When she had finished, she double-clicked on one image of Cornel. A window appeared, with a request for her to enter his name. She did so and instantly all seven newspaper and online photographs of Norman Potting showed up as a potential match, each with a blue tick against them, giving her the opportunity to confirm or reject any.
She stared at the faces. The computer confirmed her increasing suspicions that they were a match. That J. Paul Cornel and Detective Sergeant Norman Potting were the same person. But how the hell could they be? Cornel had a long history on the internet, a trail of stuff going back twenty years or more. Were there just uncanny facial similarities between the two men?
I lost my soulmate in a house fire.
Was Cornel perhaps talking about a girlfriend way back in the past who had died?
She heard the click of a door opening. Stealthily, she switched off the lights altogether, closed the lid of her laptop, tiptoed across the thick carpet to her door, in the darkness, and listened. She heard the creak of a floorboard. Then another. Cornel trying to walk along the landing quietly? She saw a streak of light, just for an instant. Then again.
Holding her breath, she opened the door and peered out. And saw him at the end of the corridor, crouched down, examining the scratches.
She watched him for as long as she dared, then slowly drew her head back into her room.
Her heart was thudding.
You want to know what’s behind that wall, do you? Strange behaviour for a billionaire who professed a short while ago to be so tired. Maybe I should show you what’s really behind that wall, Detective Sergeant Norman Potting, you bastard?
After a few minutes she heard his footsteps creeping back, another creak of a floorboard, then the click of his door once more.
She closed her own, silently, and switched her headboard spots back on. Then she checked and rechecked the faces of Cornel and Potting.
She gave it a while, then removed her clothes and put on her dressing gown. Holding her phone, she slipped out of her room. She crossed the landing and stood still outside the guest-bedroom door. He was snoring loudly. She opened the door, as quietly as she could, just a few inches. If he woke, her plan was to slip sexily into bed beside him, whispering that she couldn’t sleep.
She switched on the phone torch and played the beam across the room.
There was no change in the snoring.
His jacket was hanging on the back of the dressing-table chair. Holding her breath, Jodie inched towards it, slipped her hand into the inside right pocket and felt the bulge of his wallet. She eased it out and turned back towards the door. As she did so she saw that his watch, on his bedside table, was lying on its side and there appeared to be an inscription on the back plate. She picked it up, not wanting to risk waking him up by shining the light too near his face.
Two minutes later she was back in her room, with the door shut. She switched on the overhead light, opened the wallet and began to rummage through it. There was an electronic room key for the Grand Hotel. American Express and Visa credit cards in the name of J. Paul Cornel, along with a Californian registered US driver’s licence. There was nothing in it to confirm her suspicions.
She then examined the back of the watch and saw, in tiny engraved Gothic script, R, love B XX.
She stared at it, her hands shaking with anger. ‘You bastard,’ she whispered.
Her first reaction was to go storming into his room, confront him with the watch and kick him straight out. She had to calm down, she knew. Calm down and think this through.
You bastard.
She thought back on today, and to the previous evening. Had she told him anything incriminating? Almost certainly he was wearing some kind of wire or transmitter. The police would know her address now. What else did they know that they could pin on her?
She carefully replaced the contents in the wallet, in the order in which she had found them. Then, turning the lights off again, holding her phone, she tiptoed back out into the corridor and stood, listening, outside his door.
He continued snoring loudly.
Gently, she pushed it open. As she did so she heard a purring sound and Tyson brushed up against her right leg. She pushed the cat away and slid into the room, one step at a time. There was sufficient ambient green light from the glow of the clock radio for her to make out his jacket again.
As she reached it she heard the rustle of bedding, and froze.
‘Eh?’ he grunted. ‘EH?!’ he shouted out.
She didn’t move a muscle.
There was another rustle, a loud snort, and then he began snoring again.
Shivering from the icy blast of air coming in through his open window, she waited several seconds, then slipped the wallet back inside his jacket. His snoring continued.
She placed the watch on the bedside table, edged towards the door, backed out and closed it. Down the end of the landing, Tyson was once again scratching noisily on the wall. She switched on the torch again and shone it at him. ‘Tyson!’ she whispered.
He gave her a sulky look and stopped.
She continued staring at the wall, thinking about what lay on the other side of it. Tempted. Oh, so tempted to teach this copper a lesson he would never forget. Because if she did what she was sorely tempted to do, he wouldn’t live long enough to forget.
113
Saturday 14 March
Norman was woken by his bladder, as he was most nights, and lay confused, trying to figure out where he was. The room was filled with an eerie green glow.
Green digits in the darkness said 3.03 a.m.
H
is head was pounding.
Where the hell—?
Then he remembered.
He swung his feet out of bed and his toes sank into deep-pile carpet. Steadying himself with his hands, he blinked, staring into the green-hued darkness. Heaving himself upright stark naked, he tottered unsteadily, feeling disoriented, worried he might fall backwards onto the bed.
Finally he trusted himself to take a step forward. Where were the light switches?
He reached down, groping on the bedside table for his phone. Then he found the lamp and the cord attached to it. A short distance along the cord he touched the switch and pressed it. Nothing happened.
The pressure on his bladder was worse now he was standing. The bathroom was dead ahead. He took a few steps and collided with something. A chair. The bathroom door was to the right. He groped his way forward, felt the door, pulled it open and went in, fumbling for the switch. It was to his left, he remembered. But his fingers touched cold, bare tiles. Was it on the right?
He eventually found it and pressed it, and instantly squinted against the bright light and the image facing him in the mirror. The tiny loo was through the door to the right. He pushed it open, went in, saw the light switch on the left and pressed it. Immediately a dim light came on.
He shut the door and lifted the toilet seat, and was about to relieve himself when he noticed what at first looked like a shadow moving down the wall.
Then when he saw what it actually was, he shook with fear.
A furry black spider, the size of his hand with orange markings.
It was staring at him. Creeping slowly down the wall, a thread unspooling behind it from the ceiling, as if it was abseiling. It was level with his face now. No more than a foot from his face.
Breaking into a cold sweat, he moved back as far as he could, his head pressing against the wall behind him, looking frantically for a weapon. Was there a toilet plunger?
All he could spot was the toilet-roll holder.
He could see bristles on the creature’s abdomen. And its eyes. Eight black, shiny beads staring at him, fearless, hungry, angry.
He moved a hand to his right, towards the toilet roll.
Rivulets of perspiration ran down his body. He tried to call to Jodie for help. But no sound came out.
He tried again.
But his voice was paralysed by fear.
He stared into the eyes. His hand touched the toilet roll. Tried to free it but it wouldn’t move. The spider crawled down another few inches. Instinctively he covered his penis and testicles with his left hand, and yanked hard on the toilet roll. Suddenly, with a loud clatter, it came free and dropped down between the wall and the toilet seat.
Then, like an acrobat, the spider swung on its thread away from the wall and straight at him, its hairy, spiky legs clamping onto his face.
He screamed. Shook in terror. Screamed again. Again. Again. Shook. Shook. Trying to shake the bloody thing off. A thousand pinpricks stabbed his skin simultaneously.
‘HELP ME! HELP ME!’
Suddenly, all he could see was a weak green glow.
The dial of the clock. 4.07 a.m.
He lay back in the bed, the sheets sodden with his perspiration, gulping air. And bursting to have a pee.
For some moments he fought it off, still filled with stark terror from the nightmare. He reached out his hand, found the bedside lamp cable, then switched it on. Instantly the room flooded with light. He stared fearfully up at the ceiling and the walls. At a framed oil painting of a rainy Parisian street scene. At another framed painting of a Provençal village.
He slipped out of bed and crossed over to the bathroom, pulled the door open warily, found the light switch and turned it on. He peered around before entering, then, even more warily, pushed open the loo door. He took a step in, snapping on the light and looking up at the ceiling and around at the walls and the floor.
There was nothing in there.
All the same, he was as fast as he could be, then went back out, shutting the door firmly, before rinsing his hands and going back into the bedroom, shutting that door firmly, too.
He climbed back into bed, wide awake and too scared to go back to sleep.
It seemed only moments later that his alarm was beeping and the room was flooded with daylight.
He was too relieved to notice his head pounding from all the Armagnac he had drunk the previous night.
114
Saturday 14 March
After a sleepless night, fretting about DS Norman Potting, Jodie Carmichael finally gave up on trying to get any rest, and went into her bathroom.
Standing under the jets of the shower, she was trying hard to think everything through. She was reasonably satisfied she’d said nothing to Detective Sergeant Potting that the police could use against her. What exactly was his game plan?
To try to take a look around her house for evidence? Good luck with that one! The only thing she had here that she could, in theory, be arrested for was the memory stick, and the stash of dollars she’d taken in New York. It made her smile that the dollars were sewn inside the mattress that he had spent the night sleeping on. She doubted very much that the owner of the memory stick and cash would have made a complaint to the police.
She thought about seeing the detective studying the landing wall last night. If he brought in a search team they would find the reptile room. And then?
So her first husband, Christopher Bentley, a reptile expert, had died from a snake bite. So had Rowley Carmichael – in India – from a bite from a snake that killed 158 people a day in that country.
So she kept saw-scaled vipers among other pets in her home.
So she didn’t have a licence for them, here in Brighton. But she had inherited most of them from her late husband, Christopher Bentley, and still kept up a valid licence for them under his name, at the address of her London bolthole, a small flat in South Kensington. The police might rumble and bust her little secret Brighton address, her bedsit flat near the Seven Dials. But they’d find nothing there. She would always be one step ahead of them.
Were they going to try to show that she’d taken a snake with her in her luggage on the cruise?
No way, José.
Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer.
Shrewd, she thought. For a few hours at least, with luck, she would have the jump on that fat oaf detective. Maybe if she was smart, and gave nothing away, she could glean information from him. Men were weak creatures. If his prostate problem was his cover – his lie – for not sleeping with her, then maybe if she could seduce him once, and record it, she’d have a hold over him. Men didn’t reject her advances, they found her irresistible.
A plan began to formulate in her mind.
A couple of minutes later she stepped out of the shower, dried herself, brushed her teeth and sprayed on some perfume. She put on her dressing gown, activated her phone’s voice recorder and slipped it into her pocket, then went out onto the landing, rapped once, softly, and opened the guest-bedroom door, ready to slip into bed with her guest, smother him with kisses and work him into a frenzy.
To her dismay he was standing up, fully dressed.
‘Good morning!’ she said breezily, recovering the situation. ‘Just wanted to see what you would like for breakfast – as you forgot to leave your order hanging on the door!’
‘So I did!’ He laughed, then shrugged. ‘Well, I guess I’ll go along with whatever you’re having.’
‘Bacon and eggs, black pudding, fried bread, tomatoes and mushrooms? Would that hit the spot?’
‘A full English? How could I resist? But I have a really important conference call booked to my suite at the hotel for nine a.m., which I have to be there for. So what I’ll do is call a cab, go back to the hotel, take the call, shower and change while I’m there, and pick up a newspaper on the way – I normally get the Saturday Financial Times mailed to me every week in the US. Then perhaps we could have that breakfast when I’m back.’
/> ‘It’ll be on the table, all ready. Oh, if you’re getting papers, could you pick up a Mail, Times and an Argus newspaper for me?’
‘Sure.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I could be back here in – say – an hour and a half?’
She walked up to him, placed her hands lightly on his shoulders and, looking into his eyes, said, ‘That’s too long, I’ll miss you. I really enjoy your company. Try to make it sooner.’
He placed his hands on her shoulders. ‘I’ll do what I can to be as quick as possible.’ She detected a faint change in his expression. ‘The other option is we have breakfast back at my hotel. How would that sound? Save you the trouble of cooking?’
Why was he suggesting that? she wondered. Had he been making calls during the night? Testing him, she said, ‘Hotel dining rooms are so impersonal. I think breakfast should be a very private occasion, don’t you?’
‘I’ve never thought about that.’
‘It can be the most romantic of all meals – if you’re with the right person. And best of all naked in bed.’ She cocked her head and then gave him a light kiss on the forehead. ‘You know how you can tell the difference in a hotel between lovers and old married couples?’
‘No, how?’
‘Lovers are the ones there talking to each other. The married couples are the ones sitting in silence reading newspapers while they eat!’
He nodded. ‘I guess I’d buy that.’
‘And mostly the true lovers are having their breakfast in bed up in their rooms.’ She cocked her head again with a smile. ‘I bought everything for a really nice breakfast, I’d hate it to go to waste. How about I drive you in the Merc? It’s a glorious morning – we could put the roof down – and it would save you the cost of the cab. I can wait for you while you change, and get the papers, to save time.’
‘Well, that’s – that’s a– you know – a very kind offer. But – ah – that would delay you getting breakfast ready. I’m already pretty peckish.’