Peter James - Dead Man’s Footsteps

But the fact she had tried to send the decoy package told him something, when he added that together with the empty deposit box. Had she been hoping that he would follow the decoy, leaving her free to run with the package and put it in the safe-deposit box at Southern Deposit Security? Why else would it be empty? The only possible reason, surely, was that she hadn’t been able to get the package to the place yet. Or that she had recently withdrawn it.

Unless she had another deposit box somewhere else, it was most likely still somewhere in her flat.

He’d spent the night going through her belongings, including all her clothes that he had removed. He’d also taken her passport, which would at least stop the bitch from getting out of the country in a hurry.

Surely if there was another deposit box somewhere he’d have found the key or a receipt? He’d searched every damn inch of the flat, moved all the furniture, levered up every loose floorboard. He’d even taken the backs off the televisions, ripped open the soft furnishings, unscrewed the ventilation grilles, dismantled the light fittings. From his days of dealing in drugs, he knew just how thoroughly police would take a place apart, and all the kinds of hiding places a smart dealer would use.

Another possible option was that she had left it with a friend. But the name on the package she’d given to the courier was a dummy, he’d checked that one out. He suspected she had been avoiding contacting anyone here. If she hadn’t even told her mother she was back, he doubted she would want word to get out among her friends.

No, he was becoming increasingly convinced that she still had it all in the flat.

Despite all her clever ploys, as Ricky well knew, everyone has an Achilles heel. Any chain is only as strong as its weakest link. An army can only march as fast as its slowest soldier.

Abby’s mother was both her weak link and her slowest soldier.

Now he knew exactly what he had to do.

The Renault van outside Abby’s flat, which had not been driven in a while, was reluctant to start. Then, just as the battery started fading and he was beginning to think this was not going to work, it fired and spluttered into oily, smoky life.

He drove it out of the parking space and replaced it with the rental Ford. Now, when Abby came back here, she would spot the car and think he was in there. He smiled. For the immediate future she would not be entering the flat. There was no residents’ parking sticker on the rental car, so it would probably be given a ticket at some point, and maybe get clamped, but what the hell did that matter?

He removed the GSM 3060 Intercept from the Ford and put it in the van. Then he drove off back towards Eastbourne, stopping only to pick up a takeaway burger and a Coke. He felt happier now. Confident that he was close to having the situation back under control.

At 6.30 p.m. the fourth briefing meeting of Operation Dingo commenced. But as Roy Grace began reading his summary to his assembled team, he hesitated, noticing that Glenn Branson was staring at him a bit strangely and twitching his nostrils, as if he was trying to send him a signal.

‘Is there a problem?’ Grace asked him.

Then he noticed several of the others gathered around the work station seemed to be looking at him strangely too.

‘You smell a bit fruity, boss,’ Glenn said. ‘If you don’t mind me being personal. Not your usual brand of cologne, if you get my drift. Have you stood or sat in something?’

Grace realized to his horror what the DS was driving at. ‘Oh, right, I apologize. I – just got back from a dog-training class. The little bugger threw up all over me in the car. I thought I’d managed to wash it off.’

Bella Moy delved into her handbag and handed Grace a perfume spray. ‘This’ll drown it,’ she said.

Grace hesitantly sprayed his trousers, shirt and jacket.

‘Now you smell like a bordello,’ Norman Potting commented.

‘Well, thank you very much,’ Bella said, glaring at him indignantly.

‘Not that I would know, of course,’ Potting mumbled, in a feeble attempt at retrieving the situation. Then he added, ‘I read recently that Koreans eat dogs.’

‘That’s quite enough, Norman,’ Roy Grace said sternly, returning to his typed agenda. ‘OK, Bella, first can you report on your findings so far about Joanna Wilson ever going to America? My guy hasn’t come up with anything.’

‘I contacted the officer in the New York District Attorney’s

Office you suggested, Roy. He sent me an email an hour ago, saying that prior to 9/11 all immigration was handled by the Immigration and Naturalization Agency. It’s different since. They’re merged with US Customs and are now called Immigration Customs Enforcement. He says that unless she had gone in on a visa for an extended stay, there would be no records. He’s checked back through those for the 1990s and she doesn’t show up as having gone in on a visa, but he says there’s no way of finding out whether she ever went there or not.’

‘OK, thanks. E-J, how are you progressing with the family tree. Did you track down any of Joanna Wilson’s relatives?’

‘Well, she doesn’t seem to have had many. I’ve found a gay stepbrother – who’s a piece of work. He goes under the name of Mitzi Dufors, is nudging sixty, wears studded leather hot-pants and is covered in piercings. He does some kind of a drag act in a Brighton gay club. Didn’t have many flattering words to say about his late stepsister.’

‘You can’t trust middle-aged men in leather hot-pants,’ Norman Potting interjected.

‘Norman!’ Grace said, firing a warning shot across his bows.

‘You’re not exactly a fashion guru yourself, Norman,’ Bella retorted.

‘OK, both of you, enough!’ Grace said.

Potting shrugged like a petulant child.

‘Anything else from her stepbrother.’

‘He said Joanna inherited a small house in Brentwood from her mother, about a year before she went to America. He reckoned she took the sale proceeds to fund her acting career there.’

‘We should try to find how much money was involved and what happened to it. Good work, E-J.’

Grace made some notes, then moved on to Branson. ‘Glenn, did you and Bella get hold of the Klingers?’

Branson grinned. ‘I think we got Stephen Klinger at a good time, after lunch – pissed as a fart and well chatty. Told us that no one liked Joanna Wilson much – she sounds like she was a real slapper. She gave Ronnie a right old song and dance, and no one cared too much when she ditched him – or so it seemed – and went off to the States. He confirmed that Ronnie had married again, after dutifully waiting out the legal period for desertion, to Lorraine. When Ronnie died she was inconsolable. What made it worse for her, if that’s possible, is that he left her up shit creek financially.’

Grace made a note.

‘Her car got repossessed, then her house. Sounds like Wilson was a man of straw. Had nothing, no assets at all. His widow ended up getting evicted from her posh house in Hove and moved into a rented flat. Just over a year later, in November 2002, she left a suicide note and jumped off the Newhaven-Dieppe ferry.’ He paused. ‘We went and saw Mrs Klinger as well, but she more or less confirmed what her husband told us.’

‘Any of her relatives able to verify her state of mind?’ Grace asked.

‘Yeah, she’s got a sister who works as a hostess for British Airways. I just spoke to her. She was at work and couldn’t really speak. I’ve got an appointment to see her tomorrow. But she also pretty well confirmed what Klinger said. Oh, yeah, and she said she took Lorraine to New York as soon as flights were running again. They spent a week traipsing around the city with a big photograph of Ronnie. Them and a million others.’