Another guy, who had started out as a butcher, would dismember their cadavers into six pieces. The fourth guy would package up each limb, the torso and the head, and dispose of them in various waste dumps around New York and in the Hudson River. It is estimated they murdered over one hundred people. Sal Giordino, Tony Revere’s grandfather, is currently serving eleven consecutive life sentences for this, with a minimum of eighty-seven years in jail. Do you understand the people you would be dealing with?’
‘I’ve been Googling them,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot of stuff about Sal Giordino, but I’ve not found anything about his daughter. But from what you’ve told me about their world, isn’t this all the more reason for me to go there and try to talk reason to them?’ she said.
‘These people don’t reason,’ Grace said.
‘At least give me the chance to try. Do you have their address? The home address?’
‘What about emailing or phoning Mrs Revere first, to see what reaction you get?’ Grace asked her.
‘No, it’s got to be face to face, mother to mother,’ Carly replied.
The two detectives looked at each other.
‘I can find the address out for you on one condition,’ Roy Grace said.
‘Which is?’
‘You allow us to arrange an escort for you in New York.’
After a long silence she said, ‘Could – could I make that decision?’
‘No,’ he answered.
75
At 10.17 an alert pinged on Tooth’s laptop. A voice file was recording. Which meant someone was speaking inside Carly Chase’s house.
He clicked and listened in. She was on the phone to a woman called Claire, asking about flights to New York today and confirming she had a valid visa waiver, from a trip last year. It sounded like Claire was a travel agent. She reeled off a list of flight times. After some moments of checking availability, she booked Carly Chase on a 14.55 British Airways flight from London to Kennedy Airport, New York, this afternoon. Then they discussed hotels. The travel agent made a reservation for her at the Sheraton at Kennedy Airport.
Tooth glanced at his watch, double-checking the time and smiling. She was making this very easy for him. She had no idea!
Next he heard Carly Chase speak to a taxi company called Streamline. She booked a car to Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport, to collect her at 11.30 a.m. – just over an hour’s time. Then she made a further call.
It was to someone called Sarah. The woman sounded like a friend. Carly Chase explained to her that Tyler had a dental appointment at 11.30 a.m. the following morning to have an adjustment made to his tooth brace, which was hurting him. Ordinarily his gran could have taken him, but her doctor had booked her in for a scan on something he wasn’t happy about in her tummy and Carly did not want her to miss that. She explained she had been planning to take Tyler herself, but something urgent had come up – would it be possible for Sarah to take him?
Sarah could not, because of her father, whose wrist was indeed broken, but she said that Justin had taken the week off to do some work on their new house and she was sure he could pick Tyler up. She said she would call back in a few minutes.
Tooth made himself another coffee and smoked another cigarette. Then his laptop pinged again and he listened to Sarah telling Carly Chase that everything was fine. Justin, who was presumably her husband, would pick Tyler up from school at 11.15 tomorrow. Carly Chase gave her the address and thanked her.
Tooth stared down at his notepad, on which he had written Carly Chase’s flight details. She’d only booked one way, on an open ticket. He speculated about where she was going, and had a good idea. He wondered what she was like at ten-pin bowling.
Except he did not think she would get as far as the Reveres’ bowling alley.
He just hoped they wouldn’t kill her, because that would spoil all his plans.
76
‘We can’t let her do this,’ Roy Grace said, placing his hands on the workstation top in MIR-1 and leaning over towards Glenn Branson.
‘We don’t have any legal power to stop her,’ Branson replied. ‘And she’s terrified out of her wits.’
‘I know. I could see that. I would be, too, in her situation.’
It was an hour since Carly Chase had left his office. Grace had a ton of urgent stuff to deal with, one of the most important of which was organizing a press conference. A lesson he had learned a long time back was that you got much better cooperation from the media by telling them about a murder, rather than waiting for them to tell you. Particularly in the case of Kevin Spinella.
But he hadn’t been able to focus on any of that. He was desperately worried for this woman’s safety. It was 5.30 a.m. in New York and Detective Inspector Pat Lanigan’s phone went straight to voicemail. It was probably switched off. Sensible man, Grace thought. And lucky. Since he became Head of Major Crime he no longer had the luxury of being able to turn his phone off at night.
Branson’s mobile phone was ringing. The DS raised a hand to his boss, answered it, then said curtly, ‘Can’t speak now. Bell you back.’ He killed the call. Then, looking down at the phone, said, ‘Bitch.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t get it. Why does she hate me so much? I could understand if I’d had an affair, but I didn’t, ever. I never looked at another woman. Ari encouraged me to better myself, then it’s like – like she resented it. Said I put my career before her and my family.’ He shrugged. ‘Did you ever figure out what goes on inside a woman’s head?’
‘I’d like to figure out what’s going on inside this mad woman’s head,’ Grace replied.
‘That’s easy. I can tell you that, without a two hundred and fifty quid per hour bill from a shrink. Fear. All right, old-timer? She’s sodding terrified. And I don’t blame her. I would be, too.’
Grace nodded. Then his phone rang. It was one of his colleagues asking him if he would be joining their regular Thursday poker game tonight. For the second week running Grace apologized, but no, he wouldn’t be. The game had been going for years and fortunately they were all police officers, so they understood about work commitments.
‘Got to be a shit situation when someone feels we can’t protect them. Right?’ Branson said, as Grace hung up.
‘We
‘We’re just going to let her go to New York alone? Shouldn’t we send someone with her? Bella?’
‘Aside from the cost, we don’t have any jurisdiction there. Our best hope for her safety is to get the New York police guarding her. We’ll keep a watch on her house – with her mother and her son on their own in it – and as a precaution, we should put a tail on the school run. Our contact in New York, Detective Investigator Lanigan, sounds a good guy. He’ll know what to do far better than anyone we can send over.’ Then Grace grimaced at his friend. ‘So, no change with Ari?’
‘Oh, she’s changed all right. She’s grown fucking horns out of the sides of her head.’
77
Carly stood in a long, snaking queue in the crowded Immigration Hall at Kennedy airport. Every few minutes she looked anxiously at her watch, which she had set back five hours to New York time, then she checked and
