Peter James - Dead Man’s Footsteps

You are worried about something, lady, he thought to himself, as he rang the bell.

There was no answer. He tried a couple more times, waiting patiently, then decided to go and have a chat with the caretaker.

As he reached the small downstairs lobby, two men came in. One was in his thirties, with a pleasant demeanour, wearing a boiler suit with Stanwell Maintenance embossed on the breast pocket, and a tool-belt. The other was a bolshy-looking man in his sixties, in dungarees over a grimy sweatshirt. He was holding an old-fashioned mobile phone and had a blackened fingernail.

The workman gave Troutt a bemused smile. ‘Gosh, you came quickly!’

The older man held up his phone. ‘I only phone you, what, less than one minute!’ His guttural accent made it sound like a complaint.

‘Phoned me?’

‘About the lift!’

‘I’m sorry,’ Troutt said. ‘You are?’

‘The caretaker.’

‘I’m afraid I’m actually here on other business,’ Troutt said. ‘But I’m more than happy to try to help if you’d like to tell me the problem.’

‘It’s very simple,’ the younger man said. ‘The lift mechanism’s been tampered with. Vandalized. Sabotaged. And the alarm and the phone in the lift – the wire’s been cut.’

Now he had Troutt’s full attention. The PC pulled his notebook out.

‘Can you give me some details?’

‘I can bloody show you. How technical-minded are you?’

Troutt shrugged. ‘You can try me.’

‘I need to take you to the motor room to show you. There are syringes on the floor. More importantly someone has tampered with the brake mechanism while the lift was in operation.’

‘All right. First, I need to talk to this gentleman for a moment.’

The workman nodded. ‘I’m just going to move my van. Bloody wardens round here are like the Gestapo.’

As he walked off, Troutt addressed the caretaker. ‘You have a resident in flat 82 – Katherine Jennings?’

‘She new. Been there only a few weeks. Short let.’

‘Can you tell me anything about her?’

‘I not speak much to her, except Sunday, after she was stuck in the lift. She got plenty money, I can tell you the rent she pay.’

‘Who do you think vandalized the lift? Local yobs? Or something to do with her?’

The caretaker shrugged. ‘I think maybe he no wants to admit there’s a mechanical problem. Maybe he protect himself or his company?’

Troutt nodded, not rising to this. He would form his own judgement after visiting the motor room with the engineer.

‘So you don’t know what she does for a living?’

The caretaker shook his head.

‘Is she married? Any kids?’

‘She on her own.’

‘Do you have any idea about her movements?’

‘I’m at the other end of the block, I don’t see the tenants in this wing unless they have a problem. She in trouble with the police?’

‘No, nothing like that.’ He gave the man a reassuring smile. ‘I should introduce myself – PC Troutt. I’m one of your new neighbourhood officers.’ He fished out a card.

The caretaker took it and looked at it dubiously, as if it was from a double-glazing salesman. ‘I hope you come down here on Friday and Saturday nights, late. Last Friday night we have little bastards set light to a dustbin,’ he grumbled.

‘Yes, well, that’s exactly the sort of thing this new initiative is all about,’ the young PC said earnestly.

‘I believe when I see it.’

‘Yo, old-timer, taken off yet?’

Grace, standing in his socks at Gatwick Airport’s South Terminal, watched his shoes appear on the conveyor belt on the far side of the scanner. Holding his mobile phone to his ear he replied, ‘Only my sodding shoes, so far. It pisses me off, this,’ he went on. ‘Have to remove more and more bloody clothes every time you fly. Just because some loony tried to set light to his laces about five years ago! And I’ve had to check my overnight bag in, because it’s too big for the new regulations, which means I’m going to have to wait for it at the other end. Bloody waste of time!’

‘So, you had a bad night, did you?’

Grace grinned at the memory of a very sweet night with Cleo. ‘Actually, no. It was a lot better than the night before. I didn’t get shit-faced with some miserable git pouring out his woes to me.’

Ignoring the barb, the DS retorted, ‘And the dog didn’t throw up on you again?’

Grace, who was wearing a suit because he wanted to look businesslike when he arrived in New York, struggled to lace up his right shoe while keeping the phone wedged to his ear. He gave up trying to do it standing up and sat down. ‘No, it just did a dump on the floor instead.’

‘You all right, man? Your voice sounds muffled.’

‘I’m fine, I’m trying to put my fucking shoes back on. Are you phoning about anything important or is this just a social chat?’

‘What do you know about stamps?’ Branson asked.

‘First or second class?’

‘Very funny.’

‘I can tell you a bit about British Colonials,’ Grace said. ‘My dad collected them – first-day covers. Used to get them for me when I was a boy. They’re worthless. My mum asked me to take his whole collection to a dealer after he died – they wouldn’t give me two beans for them. If you’re thinking of a hobby, you could try collecting butterflies – or what about trainspotting?’

‘Yeah, yeah! Finished?’

Grace grunted.

‘Listen, me and Bella have just been with the Klingers, right? That cash, all those transactions Lorraine Wilson made – that three million plus quid, yeah? I think she may have been buying stamps.’

‘You do?’

Grace suddenly stopped tying his shoe and concentrated. He was thinking back to the conversation he’d had with Terry Biglow on Tuesday.

She was… in a terrible state after Ronnie died… the mortgage company took the house… the finance people took just about everything else, except for a few stamps.

‘Yeah. Stephen Klinger said to me that it was a small world, the high-end stamp trade. Like, everyone knew everyone.’

‘Did he give you a list of local dealers?’

‘Some names, yeah.’

‘Listen, Glenn. When you get any tight-knit group, they tend to close ranks, as much to protect themselves as anyone they’re giving information about. So go in and break their balls, understand?’

‘Uh huh.’

‘Tell them this is a murder inquiry, so if they withhold any information they could end up being charged as accessories after the fact. Ram that down their throats.’

‘Yes, boss man. Have a nice flight. Give my love to the Big Apple. Enjoy.’

‘I’ll send you a postcard.’

‘Don’t forget to put a stamp on it.’

Bella radioed one of the researchers in the Operation Dingo incident room and asked her to compile a complete list of all stamp dealers in the Brighton and Hove area. Then, with Glenn driving again, they headed for Queen’s Road and the dealer Stephen Klinger had mentioned.

Just down from the station, Hawkes looked like one of those places that have been there for ever. It had the kind of window display that never changed but was just added to from time to time. It was full of boxed coin sets, medals, first-day covers in plastic envelopes and old postcards.

They hurried inside, out of the hardening drizzle, and saw two women in their thirties who could be sisters, both fair-haired and good-looking, not the image Branson had in his mind of a stamp dealer at all. He’d imagined stamps to be a rather nerdy male domain.

The women were deep in conversation and didn’t acknowledge the detectives, as if used to time-wasting browsers. Glenn and Bella glanced around, politely waiting for them to finish. The shop was even more cluttered inside, with much of the floor space taken up with trestle tables on which were cardboard boxes filled with vintage saucy postcards and bygone Brighton scenes.