Peter James - Dead Man’s Footsteps

‘No, Abby, you didn’t hear me right. I said move your eyes, not your head. Like to show me you’ve got that?’

After some moments’ hesitation, she moved her eyes to the right.

‘Good girl!’ he said, as if he was praising a puppy. ‘ Very good girl!’

He put his glass down, pulled out another cigarette and gripped it between his lips. Then he picked his glass up, shaking the ice cubes. ‘Nice whisky,’ he said. ‘Single malt. Expensive. But I don’t suppose money is much of a problem for you, right?’

He knelt, so he was at eye level, and inched forward, until he was eyeballing her from just a few inches away. ‘Eh? Money? Not a problem for you?’

She stared rigidly ahead, shivering from the cold.

Then he took a drag of his cigarette and blew the smoke straight in her face. The smoke stung her eyes. ‘Money?’ he said again. ‘Not a problem for you, right?’

Then he stood up. ‘The thing is, Abby, not many people know you are here. Not many people at all. Which means no one’s going to miss you. No one’s going to come looking for you.’ He drank some whisky. ‘Nice shower,’ he said. ‘No expense spared. I expect you’d like to enjoy it. Well, I’m a fair man.’

He rattled the ice cubes hard, staring at the glass, and for a moment Abby thought he was actually going to cut her a deal.

‘Here’s my offer to you. Either I hurt you until you give it all back to me. Or you just give it back to me.’ He smiled again. ‘Strikes me as a no-brainer.’

He took a slow, relaxed drag on his cigarette, as if enjoying her eyes watching him, enjoying the knowledge that she was probably desperate for one. He tilted his head and allowed the blue smoke to curl out of his mouth and drift upwards.

‘Tell you what,’ he said. ‘I’ll let you sleep on it.’

Then he shut the door.

Roy Grace sat at the work station in Major Incident Room One, nursing the mother, father, brother, sister, uncle, grandson, first cousin and second cousin-once-removed of all hangovers. His mouth was like the bottom of a parrot’s cage and it felt as if a chainsaw was blunting its teeth on a steel spike inside his head.

His one consolation was that Glenn Branson, seated diagonally opposite him, looked like he was suffering too. What the hell had come over them last night?

They’d gone to the Black Lion for a quick drink, because Glenn wanted to talk to him about his marriage. They had staggered out some time around midnight, having drunk – how many whiskies, beers, bottles of Rioja? Grace did not even want to think about it. He vaguely remembered a taxi ride home, and that Glenn was still with him because his wife had told him she didn’t want him coming home in the state he was.

Then they had drunk more whisky and Glenn had started riffling through his CDs, criticizing his music, as he always did.

Glenn had still been there this morning, in the spare room, moaning about his blinding headache and telling Grace he was seriously thinking of ending it all.

‘The time is 8.30, Tuesday 23 October,’ Grace read from his briefing notes.

His policy book, and his notes, typed out half an hour earlier by his MSA, sat in front of him, along with a mug of coffee. He was maxed out on paracetamols, which weren’t working, and he was chewing mint gum to mask his breath, which he was sure must reek of alcohol. He had left his car at the pub last night and decided a walk there to get it, later this morning, would do him some good.

He was starting to get seriously worried about his lack of self-control over drinking. It didn’t help that Cleo drank like a fish – he wondered if it was to help her cope with the horrors of her work. Sandy liked an occasional glass of wine or two at weekends, or a beer on a hot evening, but that was all. Cleo, on the other hand, drank wine every night and seldom just one glass, except when she was on call. They would often go through a bottle of wine, on top of a whisky or two – and sometimes make good progress on a second bottle, as well.

At his recent medical, the doctor had asked him how many units of alcohol he drank a week. Lying, Grace had said seventeen, under the impression that around twenty was a safe number for a male. The doctor had frowned, advising him to cut down to under fifteen. Later, after a quick check on a calculator programme he had found on the internet, Grace discovered his average weekly intake was around forty-two units. Thanks to last night, this week’s would probably be double that. He vowed silently never to touch alcohol again.

Bella Moy, opposite him, was already stuffing her face with Maltesers at this early hour. Although she never normally offered them around, she pushed the box towards Grace.

‘I think you need a sugar hit, Roy!’ she said.

‘Does it show?’

‘Good party?’

Grace shot a glance at Glenn. ‘I wish.’

He removed his chewing gum, ate a Malteser, followed, more-ishly, by another three. They didn’t make him feel any worse. Then he swigged some coffee and popped the gum back in his mouth.

‘Coca-Cola,’ Bella said. ‘Full strength – not the Diet one. That’s good for a hangover. And a fried breakfast.’

‘There’s the voice of experience,’ Norman Potting interrupted.

‘Actually I don’t do hangovers,’ she said dismissively to him.

‘Our virtuous virgin,’ Potting grumbled.

‘That’s enough, Norman,’ Grace said, smiling at Bella before she rose any further to the bait.

He then returned to the task in hand, reading out the information Norman Potting had produced at the previous evening’s briefing meeting, that Joanna Wilson’s husband, Ronnie, had died in the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001. When he had finished, he turned to Potting. ‘Good work, Norman.’

The DS gave a noncommittal grunt, but looked pleased with himself.

‘What information do we have on Joanna Wilson? Any family that we can talk to?’ Grace asked.

‘I’m working on it,’ Potting said. ‘Her parents are dead, I’ve managed to establish that. No siblings. I’m trying to find out if she had any other relatives.’

Shooting a glance at Lizzie Mantle, his deputy SIO, Grace said, ‘OK, in the absence of immediate family we need to focus our enquiries on the Wilsons’ acquaintances and friends. Norman and Glenn can concentrate on that. Bella, I want you to contact the FBI through the American Embassy in London, see if you can find any record of Joanna Wilson entering the USA during the 1990s. If she was intending to work there, she would have required a visa. Ask the FBI to check all records and computer databases to see if they can find any record of her living there during that period.’

‘Do we have a point person at the embassy?’ she asked.

‘Yes. I know Brad Garrett in the Legal Attaché’s Office. He’ll give you any help you need. If you have a problem, I also have two friends in the District Attorney’s Office in New York. Actually, the smart thing might be to go straight to them. It’ll cut out some red tape. When we need the formal evidence, we will of course go through all the right channels.’ Then he thought for a moment. ‘Leave Brad to me. I’ll give him a ring and run things past him.’

Then he turned to DC Nicholl. ‘Nick, I want you to do a nationwide search on Ronnie Wilson. See if there’s anything on him cross-border.’

The young DC nodded. He looked as exhausted and pale-faced as usual. No doubt he had spent another sleepless night experiencing the joys of fatherhood, Grace thought.

He turned back to Lizzie Mantle. ‘Anything you would like to add?’

‘I’m thinking about this Ronnie Wilson character,’ she said. ‘On the balance of probability, he’s got to be our number-one suspect at this point.’