Peter James - Dead Man’s Footsteps

And whose money would be paying for it?

He listened to Abby making appointments to go and see three places in the morning. He presumed she would leave her mother behind. That she had not forgotten the locksmith was coming.

By the time he had finished with her, it wouldn’t be a rest home she was needing. It would be a chapel of rest.

At 8.20 the next morning, Inspector Stephen Curry, accompanied by Sergeant Ian Brown, entered the small conference room in the custody block behind Sussex House. He was clutching today’s morning briefing notes, which comprised a comprehensive review of all priority crimes that had occurred in the district over the last twenty-four hours.

They were joined by Sergeant Morley and the second early-shift sergeant, a short, stocky officer with a fierce crew cut and even fiercer enthusiasm for her work called Mary Gregson.

They immediately got down to the job in hand. Curry started to go through all the critical serials. There had had been an ugly racist incident, with a young Muslim student badly beaten up outside a late-night takeaway in Park Road, Coldean, on his way back to the university; a traffic fatality involving a motorcyclist and a pedestrian on Lewes Road; a violent mugging on the Broadway in Whitehawk; and a young man beaten up in Preston Park in a homophobic incident.

He went through all of them with a toothcomb, working out areas of threat, making sure, in his terminology, that he didn’t drop a bollock which could be kicked into touch by the Superintendent at the 9.30 review.

Then they moved on to the current district mis-pers and agreed lines of enquiry. Mary brought up the details of a bail returning to be charged later that day, and reminded Curry that he had an 11 a.m. with a Crown Prosecution Service solicitor, about a suspect they had arrested after a spate of handbag thefts the previous set of shifts.

Then the Inspector suddenly remembered something else. ‘John – I spoke to you yesterday about visiting a lady down in Kemp Town. I didn’t see that on the list – what was her name? – Katherine Jennings. Any follow-up?’

Morley suddenly blushed. ‘Oh, God, sorry, boss. I haven’t done anything about it. That Gemma Buxton incident came in and – I’m sorry – I gave that priority over everything. I’ll put it on the serial and get someone down there this morning.’

‘Good man,’ Curry said, then looked at his watch again. Shit. Nearly 9.05. He jumped up. ‘See you later.’

‘Have a nice time with the headmaster,’ Mary said with a cheeky grin.

‘Yeah, you might be teacher’s pet today!’ Morley said.

‘With someone whose memory’s as crap as yours on the team?’ he retorted. ‘I don’t think so.’

Ricky slept fitfully, dozing off after the several pints of beer he had treated himself to in a busy seafront pub and waking with a start every time he saw headlights or heard a vehicle, or footsteps, or a door close. He sat in the passenger seat just so he didn’t look like a drunk driver, should an inquisitive policeman come by, only leaving the van a couple of times to urinate in an alley.

He drove off again in the darkness, at 6 a.m., in search of a workmen’s café, where he had some breakfast, and was back at his observation post again within the hour.

How the hell had he got himself into this situation? he asked himself repeatedly. How had he let himself be duped by this bitch? Oh, she’d played it so cutely, coming on to him, playing the horny little slut to perfection. Letting him do everything he wanted with her and pretending to enjoy it. Maybe she was really enjoying it. But all the time she was pumping him so subtly for information. Women were smart. They knew how to manipulate men.

He’d made the damned mistake of telling her, because he wanted to show off. He thought it would impress her.

Instead, one night when he was coked out of his tree and rat-arsed drunk, she cleaned him out and ran. He needed it back desperately. His finances were shot to hell, he was up to his ears in debt and the business was not working out. This was his one chance. It had fallen into his lap, then she had snatched it and run.

There was one thing in his favour, though: the world in which she was running was smaller than she thought. Anyone she went to, with what she had, would ask questions. A lot of questions. He suspected she had already begun to find that out, which was why she was still around, and now her problems had been further complicated by his arrival in Brighton.

At 9.30 a local Eastbourne taxi pulled up outside the front door of the block of flats. The driver got out and rang the bell. A couple of minutes later, Abby appeared. On her own.

Good.

Perfect.

She was going to the first of the three appointments at rest homes she had made for this morning. Leaving Mummy alone, under strict instructions no doubt not to answer the door to anyone but the locksmith.

He watched Abby climb in and the taxi drive off. He didn’t move. He knew how unpredictable women could be and that she might easily be back in five minutes for something she had forgotten. He had plenty of time. She’d be gone an hour and a half, minimum, and more likely three or more. He just had to be patient for a little while longer to ensure the coast was clear.

Then he would not need very long at all.

Glenn Branson pressed the bell and stood back a couple of feet, so that the security camera could get a good look at him. The wrought-iron gates jerked a few times, then began silently to swing open. The DS climbed back into the pool car and drove through two impressive brick pillars on to the circular in-and-out drive, the tyres crunching on the gravel. He pulled up behind a silver Mercedes sports and a silver S-class saloon, parked side by side.

‘It’s all right, this place, don’t you think?’ he said. ‘Matching his and hers Mercs and all.’

Bella Moy nodded, some of the colour just starting to return to her face. Glenn’s driving totally terrified her. She liked Glenn and didn’t want to offend him, but if she could have taken a bus back to the office, or walked barefoot on burning coals there, she would.

The palatial house was partly faux-Georgian, and partly faux-Greek temple, with a columned portico running along the entire width of the front. Ari would die for this place, Glenn thought. Funny, when they’d first got married she hadn’t seemed interested in money at all. That had all changed around the time Sammy, who was now eight, started going to school. No doubt talking with the other mums, seeing some of their fancy cars, going to some of their flash houses.

But houses like this fascinated him too. It seemed to Glenn that houses gave off auras. There were plenty of others in this area, and elsewhere in the city, that were every bit as large and swanky, but they gave the impression of being lived in by ordinary, decent citizens. Just occasionally you saw a place like this one now, which seemed somehow too flash, and sent out signals, wittingly or unwittingly, that it had not been acquired by honest money.

‘Would you like to live here, Bella?’ he asked.

‘I could get used to it.’ She smiled, then looked a tad wistful.

He shot her a sideways glance. She was a nice-looking woman, with a cheery face beneath a tangle of brown hair and no ring on her wedding finger. She always dressed in slightly dowdy clothes, as if not interested in making the best of herself, and he longed to give her a makeover. Today she was wearing a white blouse under a plain navy V-neck sweater, black woollen trousers, solid black shoes and a short green duffel coat.