Perfect!
And he liked her accent. Was it Californian?
He sidled up towards the counter as the purchase took place, listening intently, while pretending to study a pair of brown mules.
‘Are you on our mailing list, madam?’
‘I don’t think so, no.’
‘Would you mind if I entered you on it – we can let you know in advance of our sales. You can get some privileged bargains.’
She shrugged. ‘Sure, why not?’
‘If I could have your name?’
‘Dee Burchmore. Mrs.’
‘And your address?’
‘Fifty-three Sussex Square.’
Sussex Square. In Kemp Town, he thought. One of the city’s most beautiful squares. Most of its terraced houses were divided into flats. You had to be rich to have a whole house there. You had to be rich to buy the Manolos. And the handbag that went with it, which she was now fondling. Just the way he would soon be fondling her.
Kemp Town, he thought. That was an old stomping ground!
Happy memories.
41
Saturday 10 January
Every time she bought a pair of shoes, Dee Burchmore got a guilty thrill. There was no need to feel guilty, of course. Rudy encouraged her to dress smart, to look great! As a senior executive of American & Oriental Banking, over here at its lavish new Brighton headquarters on a five-year posting to establish a foothold for the company in Europe, money was no object at all to her husband.
She was proud of Rudy and she loved him. She loved his ambitions to show the world that, in the wake of the financial scandals that had dogged US banking in recent years, it was possible to show a caring face. Rudy was attacking the UK mortgage market with zeal, offering deals to first-time buyers that none of the British lenders, still smarting from the financial meltdown, was prepared to consider. And she had an important role in this, in public relations.
In the time Dee had in between taking their two children, Josh, aged eight, and Chase, aged six, to school and then collecting them, Rudy had tasked her with networking as hard as she could within the city. He wanted her to find charities to which American & Oriental could make significant contributions – and, of course, gain significant publicity as benefactors to the city. It was a role she relished.
A respectable golfer, she had joined the ladies’ section of the city’s most expensive golf club, the North Brighton. She had become a member of what she had gleaned was the most influential of Brighton’s numerous Rotary Clubs and she had volunteered for the committees of several of the city’s major charitable institutions, including the Martlet’s Hospice. Her most recent appointment was to the fund-raising committee of Brighton and Hove’s principal hostel for the homeless, St Patrick’s, where they had a unique facility, offering Japanese-style pods to homeless people, including prisoners out on licence who were actively involved in retraining.
She stood in the small shop, watching the assistant wrap her beautiful blue Manolos in tissue, then carefully lay them in the box. She could not wait to get home and try her dress on with these shoes and bag. She knew they were going to look sensational. Just the thing to give her confidence next week.
Then she glanced at her watch: 3.30. Shit! It had taken longer than she thought. She was late for her appointment at the Nail Studio in Hove, on the other side of the city. She hurried out of the stop, barely clocking the weird-looking woman with lopsided blonde hair who was staring at something on display in the shop window.
She never once looked behind her all the way to the car park.
If she had, she might just have noticed this same woman following her.
1998
42
Tuesday 6 January
It was shortly after 10 p.m. when Roy Grace flicked the right-turn indicator. Driving faster than was sensible in the pelting rain because he was so late, he nearly lost the back end of the car on the slippery tarmac as he swung off wide, quiet New Church Road into the even quieter residential street that led down to Hove seafront, where he and Sandy lived.
The elderly 3-Series BMW creaked and groaned, and the brakes made a scraping noise in protest. The car was months overdue for a service, but he was even more broke than ever, thanks in part to an insanely expensive diamante tennis bracelet he had bought Sandy for a surprise for Christmas, and the service was going to have to wait a few more months yet.
Out of habit, he clocked each of the vehicles parked in the driveways and on the street, but there was nothing that seemed out of place. As he neared his home, he carefully checked those isolated patches of darkness where the orange haze of the street lighting did not quite reach.
One thing about being a copper, arresting villains and usually facing them in court months later, you never knew who might harbour a grudge against you. It was rare that revenge attacks happened, but Grace knew a couple of colleagues who had received anonymous hate mail, and one whose wife had found a death threat against her carved on a tree in her local park. It was not a worry you lost sleep over, but it was an occupational hazard. You tried to keep your address a secret, but villains had ways of finding out such things. You could never, ever totally let your guard down, and that was something Sandy resented about him.
It particularly irked her that Roy always picked a pub or restaurant table that gave him the best possible view of the room and the door, and that he always tried to sit with his back against the wall.
He smiled as he saw the downstairs lights of his house were on, which meant Sandy was still up, although he was a little sad to see the Christmas lights were now gone. He turned right on to the driveway and stopped in front of the integral garage door. Sandy’s even more clapped-out little black Golf would be parked inside, in the dry.
This house was Sandy’s dream. Shortly before she had found it, she had missed a period and their hopes had risen, only to be dashed a few weeks later. It had plunged her into a deep depression – so much so that he had become seriously worried about her. Then she rang him at the office, to say she had found a house. It was beyond their budget, she’d told him, but it had such great potential. He would love it!
They’d bought the four-bedroom semi just over a year ago. It was a big jump up the property ladder from the small flat in Hangleton where they had first lived after their marriage, and a financial stretch for both of them. But Sandy had set her heart on the house, and she’d convinced Roy they should go for it. He’d agreed against his better judgement, and knew the real reason he had said yes. It was because he could see how desperately unhappy Sandy was because of her inability to conceive and he wanted so much to please her, somehow.
Now he switched off the engine and climbed out into the freezing, pelting rain, feeling exhausted. He leaned in again, lifted the bulging attache case containing a ton of files he needed to read through tonight off the passenger seat, hurried up to the front door and let himself in.
‘Hi, darling!’ he called out as he entered the hallway. It looked strangely bare without the Christmas decorations.
He heard the sound of voices from the television. There was a tantalizing aroma of cooking meat. Ravenous, he shrugged off his mackintosh, hung it on an antique coat rack they’d bought from a stall on the Kensington Street market, plonked his case down and walked into the living room.
