Peter James - Dead Man’s Footsteps

It contained a block of Penny Black stamps. She stared at Queen Victoria’s stern profile. At the word POSTAGE printed in not terribly even letters. At the faded colour. They were exquisite, but they weren’t really perfect at all. As Dave had once explained, sometimes it was their imperfections that made them all the more special.

That applied to a lot of other things in life too, she thought, through her pleasant haze of booze. And besides, who wanted to be perfect?

She gazed at them again, realizing it was the first time she had ever truly looked at them properly. They really were special. Magical. She smiled at them, whispering, ‘Goodbye, my little beauties. See you later.’

Then she put them carefully away.

‘Nice holiday?’ Roy Grace asked.

‘Very funny. I only saw the beach from the plane window,’ Glenn Branson replied.

‘Meant to be beautiful, Koh Samui, so I’ve heard.’

‘It was humid as hell and pissing with rain the whole time I was there. And I got bitten on my leg by something, either a mutant mosquito or a spider. It’s swollen right up – do you want to see it?’

‘No, thanks all the same.’

The Detective Sergeant, sitting on a chair in front of Grace’s desk, his suit and shirt looking and smelling as if he’d slept in them, shook his head, grinning. ‘You’re a bastard, Grace, aren’t you?’

‘And I can’t believe you trashed my fucking record collection again. I allowed you to stay there one night. I didn’t ask you to take every CD I own out of its sleeve and leave it lying on the floor.’

Branson had the decency to look embarrassed. ‘I was trying to sort it out for you. I got – shit – I’m sorry.’ He swigged some coffee and stifled a yawn.

‘So how’s the prisoner? What time did you get in?’

Branson glanced at his watch. ‘About 6.45.’ He yawned. ‘I reckon we’ve blown Sussex CID’s overseas travel budget for the year in the past two weeks.’

Grace smiled. ‘Did Wilson say anything?’

Branson swigged some more coffee. ‘You know, inasmuch as you can say such a thing, he actually seems a nice guy.’

‘Oh, sure. He’s the sweetest guy you’ll ever meet, right? He just has this slight problem that he prefers killing his wives to doing an honest day’s work.’ Grace gave his friend a look of feigned shock.

‘Glenn, you are a nice guy. If it wasn’t for all the crap in my life, maybe I’d be a nice guy too. But Ronnie Wilson, no, he’s not a nice guy. He’s just good at making people think he is.’

Branson nodded. ‘Yeah. I didn’t quite mean it the way I said it.’

‘You need to go home, have a sleep, then shower and come back later.’

‘I will. But actually he did talk a lot. He was in a philosophical mood and wanted to talk. I get the feeling he’s had enough of running. He’s been in hiding for six years. That’s why he agreed to come back with us. Although he kept going on about some Thai bird. Wanted us to let him text her.’

‘Did you caution him before he started talking?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Good man.’

It meant that anything Ronnie Wilson said on the plane could be used in evidence in court.

‘Tell you something, he’s well furious with Skeggs. He wanted to be sure that if he was going down, he took Skeggs with him.’

‘Oh?’

‘As much as I can figure it from what he said, it seems like Skeggs helped him when he first arrived in Australia.’

‘As we thought,’ Grace said.

‘Yeah. At some point down the line, Ronnie Wilson acquired this parcel of stamps.’

‘From his wife?’

‘He went evasive on me over that.’

‘I’m not surprised.’

‘Anyhow, he gave them to Skeggs to sell them and Skeggs tried to screw him. He wanted ninety per cent of their value, otherwise he was threatening to shop Ronnie. But Skeggs had one weakness. He had the hots for Ronnie’s bird – the one he shacked up with, he said, after his wife had, in his words, buggered off .’

‘In the boot of a car.’

‘Exactly.’

‘And the bird was one Abby Dawson?’

‘You’re sharp this morning, Detective Superintendent.’

‘I’ve had the benefit of a night’s sleep. So Ronnie Wilson uses her as a kind of honeypot? Gets her to shag Skeggs and nick the stamps back. Am I on the right track?’

‘You’re on the monorail.’

‘Do you think he would have killed Abby once he’d got them back?’ Grace asked.

‘On previous form? Undoubtedly. He’s a vulture.’

‘I thought you said a few moments ago that he was a nice guy.’

Branson smiled in defeat. Then suddenly he changed the subject. ‘Bought a new car yet?’

‘No. Fucking insurance companies. They want to invalidate my policy because I was driving in a chase. Bastards. I’m trying to sort it. Headquarters are helping me as it was on police business.’ Then, changing the subject back, he said, ‘So do you think Abby still has the stamps?’

‘For sure.’

‘Hegarty is one hundred per cent certain the stuff you photocopied is rubbish.’

‘Not a scintilla of doubt.’

‘I’ve been thinking about it a lot,’ Grace said. ‘That’s why she kicked Skeggs in the bollocks.’

Branson frowned. ‘I’m not with you.’

‘The reason she kicked Skeggs when she was handing the stamps over was because she needed time. She knew she was giving him rubbish and that it would only take him a few seconds to realize that. She went for him in order to bring us into the frame. She set him up all along.’

Branson stared back at him, nodding as it slowly dawned on him. ‘She’s a clever bitch.’

‘She is. And no one has actually reported the stamps stolen, right?’

‘Right,’ Branson said pensively. ‘But what about the insurance companies? The ones who paid out on the compensation and the life insurance? Couldn’t they have a claim on the stamps, as they were bought with their money?’

‘Same problem – chain of title. Without Hegarty testifying, how are they going to prove it?’

The two detectives sat in silence for some moments. Glenn drank some more coffee, then he said, ‘I heard a rumour from Steve Mackie that Pewe’s applying for a transfer.’

Grace smiled. ‘He is. Back to the Met. Good luck to them!’

After another pause, Glenn said, ‘So, this woman, where do you think she is now?’

‘You know what I think? I think she’s probably lying on a tropical beach somewhere, downing a margarita and grinning her head off.’

She was.

The margarita was one of the best she had ever drunk. It tasted sharp and strong, the barman had added just the right amount of Cointreau and had salted the rim to perfection. After a week in this hotel, he had got the hang of the way she liked it.

She loved the view from here, lying on the thick, soft mattress on the lounger on the white sand beach, staring out across the bay. And she loved this time of day – late afternoon, when the heat was less fierce and she didn’t need the shade of her parasol. She put her book down for a moment, took another sip and watched the yellow paragliding boat as it powered away from the wooden jetty, across the flat water, heading out into the bay, the orange and red parachute rising into the clear sky.

She might have another swim in a few minutes. She pondered whether to go in the sea or in the hotel’s vast infinity pool, which was a little cooler and more refreshing. Such tough decisions!

She thought constantly about her mother, and about Ronnie and Ricky. Despite all her anger about Ricky, and her shock about Ronnie, she couldn’t help feeling just a tiny bit sorry for each of them, in different ways.