place to store them, a tall, cream metal locker with a key of his own at St Patrick’s night shelter. And he hoped, in a few weeks, he’d get a MiPod there.
The big Neo-Norman church at the end of a quiet residential street in Hove had adapted to the changing world. With its shrinking congregation, much of St Patrick’s cavernous interior had been partitioned off and placed in the hands of a charity for the homeless. Part of it was a fourteen-bed dormitory where people could doss down for a maximum of three months. Another part, the MiPod Room, was a sanctuary. It was where people who showed real intentions of retraining could stay for a further ten weeks in the hope of giving them a stable base.
The MiPod Room was modelled on Japanese capsule hotels. It was a self-contained space, with six plastic pods, a kitchen area and a living area with television. Each of the pods was large enough to sleep in and to store a couple of suitcases.
To become eligible for one, first Spicer had to convince the management here that he was a model resident. He hadn’t thought beyond those ten weeks in the pod, but by then, with luck, he’d have plenty of cash to rent a flat or house again.
Being a model resident meant obeying the rules, such as having to be out by 8.30 a.m. and not returning until dinnertime at 7.30 p.m. During the hours in between he was meant to be retraining. Yeah, well, that’s what they would all think he was doing. He’d report to the retraining centre and sign on, and hopefully get a job in the maintenance department of one of Brighton’s posh hotels. There’d be some easy pickings in the rooms from that. Should be able to build himself a nice stash. And stumble across a willing woman or two, like he had last night.
Shortly after midday, dressed in a windcheater over a sweater, jeans and sneakers, he left the retraining centre. The interview had gone fine and he now possessed a stamped form and the address of the swanky Grand Hotel on the seafront, where he would start on Monday. He had the rest of today to kill.
As he mooched along Western Road, the wide shopping street connecting Brighton with Hove, his hands were dug into his pockets against the cold. He had just ?7 in his pocket – all that was left from his ?46 prison discharge allowance, plus the small amount of cash he’d had on him when he’d last been arrested. And he had his emergency stash in the suitcase he had retrieved from Terry Biglow.
In his head he was making out a shopping list of stuff he needed. He was given basic necessities here, like new razor blades, shaving cream, toothpaste. But he needed a few treats. He walked past a bookshop called City Books, then stopped, turned back and peered at the display in the window. Dozens of books, some by authors whose names he knew, others by authors he’d never heard of.
It was still a novelty being out. To smell the salty sea air. To walk freely among women. To hear the hum and buzz and roar of vehicles and occasional snatches of music. Yet although he felt free, he felt vulnerable and exposed too. Life inside, he realized, had become his comfort zone. He didn’t know this other world so well any more.
And this street seemed to have changed in the past three years. It was much more vibrant than he remembered. As if the world, three years on, was a party he had not yet been invited to.
It was lunchtime and the restaurants were starting to get busy. Filling up with strangers.
Just about everyone was a stranger to him.
Sure, there were a few friends he could contact, and would in time. But he didn’t have a lot to say to them at the moment. Same old same old. Yeah. He’d call them when he needed to score some coke. Or when he had some brown to sell.
A police car was coming past in the opposite direction and automatically he turned and peered in through an estate agent’s window, pretending to be interested.
Most of the police in this city knew his face. Half of them had nicked him at one time or another. He had to remind himself that he was permitted to walk down this street now. That he wasn’t a fugitive. He was a citizen of Brighton and Hove. He was like everyone else!
He stared at some of the houses on display. A nice one opposite Hove Park caught his eye. It looked familiar and he had a feeling he’d burgled it some years ago. Four bedrooms, conservatory, double garage. A nice price too: ?750,000. Yeah, a bit above his bracket. Like ?750,000 above his bracket.
The huge Tesco supermarket was a short distance ahead of him now. He crossed the road and walked in past the queue of waiting cars at the car-park barriers. Plenty of smart ones. A convertible Beemer, a nice Merc sports and several huge, in-your-face off-roader jobs – Brighton and Hove ladies doing their shopping. Yummy mummies with infants strapped smugly into their child seats in the rear.
People with folding money, with credit cards, debit cards, Tesco Club Cards.
How obliging some of them were!
He stopped outside the front entrance, watching the stream of people coming out with their bags or with laden trolleys. He ignored the ones holding just a couple of bags; they were of no interest to him. It was the laden trolleys he focused on. The mummies and daddies and rest-home proprietors doing their big shop for the weekend ahead. The ones who would have had ?200 and more swiped from their MasterCards, or Barclaycards, or Amex.
Some had infants strapped into the buggy seats in their trolleys, but he wasn’t interested in those. Who the fuck wanted baby food?
Then he saw her coming out.
Oh yes! Perfect!
She looked rich. She looked arrogant. She had the kind of figure he’d lain on the top bunk of his cell dreaming about for three years. She had a trolley piled so high that the top layer defied gravity. And she was wearing really nice boots. Snakeskin, with five-inch heels, he guessed.
But it wasn’t the shoes that interested him at this moment. It was the fact that she paused by the dustbins, screwed up her receipt and tossed it in. He strolled nonchalantly over to the bin, keeping an eye on her, while she pushed her trolley towards a black Range Rover Sport.
Then he slipped his hand inside the top of the bin and pulled out a clutch of receipts. It only took a moment to find hers – it was a good two feet long, with a checkout time of just two minutes ago.
Well, well – ?185! And, a real bonus, it was a cash receipt, which meant he would not have to produce any credit card or ID. He read down the items: wine, whiskey, prawn cocktail, moussaka, apples, bread, yoghurt. So much stuff. Razor blades! Some of the stuff he didn’t want, but hey, this was not the time to be fussy… Fantastic! He gave her a little wave, which she never saw. At the same time, he clocked her car’s registration number – well, she was a looker with nice shoes, you never knew! Then, grabbing a trolley, he entered the store.
It took Spicer half an hour to go through her list, item by item. He was aware of the checkout time printed at the bottom, but he had his story ready, that one of the eggs was broken so he’d gone to replace it, and then he’d stopped for a coffee.
There was some stuff, such as a dozen tins of cat food, that he really did not need, and two tins of smoked oysters he could have done without, but he decided it was better to match the items on the list exactly, in case he was challenged. Six frozen steak and kidney pies he truly blessed her for. His kind of grub! And the half a dozen tins of Heinz Baked Beans. He had no stomach for fancy stuff. He approved of her choice of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey, but wished she had chosen something more to his taste than Baileys. She was big into organic eggs and fruit. He could live with that.
He would take his shopping home and chuck or maybe flog or barter for cigarettes the stuff he did not want. Then he would go out on the hunt.
Life was looking good. Only one thing could improve it for him at the moment. Another woman.
1998
36
Friday 2 January
It was now eight days since Rachael Ryan had been reported missing by her parents.
