Eyes left.
‘Lloyds TSB?’
Eyes left.
‘HSBC?’
Her eyes moved left. And she nixed Barclays too.
‘OK, I think I get it,’ he said, and moved away from the doorway. A short while later he returned holding a copy of the Yellow Pages, open at the listings page for security companies. His finger ran down, stopping and getting a negative from Abby at each name. Then it came to Southern Deposit Security.
Her eyes moved right.
He studied the name and address, as if memorizing it, then closed the directory.
‘OK, good. All we need now is to establish a few more details. Would the account be in the name of Abby Dawson?’
Eyes left.
‘Katherine Jennings?’
Her eyes went right.
He smiled, looking much happier now.
Then she stared at him, trying to signal. But he wasn’t interested.
‘Hasta la vista, baby!’ he said cheerily. ‘That’s from one of my favourite movies. Remember?’ He peered at her intently.
She moved her eyes right. She remembered. She knew this film, this line. It was Arnie Schwarzenegger in The Terminator. She knew what it meant.
58
After the briefing meeting, Roy Grace retreated to the quiet sanctuary of his office and spent a few moments looking out of the window, across the main road at the ASDA car park, and the ugly slab building of the supermarket itself cutting off what would have been a fine view across the city of Brighton and Hove he loved so much. At least he could actually see some sky, and for the first time in several days patches of it were blue, with rays of sun breaking through the cloud.
Nursing the hot mug of coffee that Eleanor had just brought him, he glanced down at the plastic trays containing his prized collections – three dozen vintage cigarette lighters that he hadn’t yet put up on display and a fine selection of international police caps.
Lying beside the stuffed brown trout he had caught on a visit to Ireland some years ago was a new addition, a birthday present from Cleo. It was a stuffed carp, in a display case, at the base of which was engraved the legend – a terrible pun – Carpe diem.
His briefcase sat open on the table, together with his mobile, his dictating machine and a bunch of transcripts relating to the court hearings he was helping to prepare, one of which he had go through this morning, because the CPS lawyer was on his back for it.
What’s more, thanks to his promotion, he now had new stacks of files, growing by the minute, that Eleanor was bringing in and placing on every available flat surface. They contained case summaries of all the major crimes that Sussex CID were currently investigating, which he now had to review.
He made a list of everything he needed to follow up on
Katherine Jennings, Flat 82, Arundel Mansions,
29 Lower Arundel Terrace.
He stared at it blankly, for some moments. Waiting for his brain’s synapses to kick in and provide him with some recollection of why he had written that down. Then he remembered Kevin Spinella cornering him after the press briefing yesterday. Telling him something about her being freed from a trapped lift and that she had seemed frightened about something.
Most people trapped in a lift would have been frightened. Mildly claustrophobic and with a fear of heights, he probably would have been too. Scared witless. Still, you never knew. He decided to do the dutiful thing and report it to East Brighton District. He dialled the internal number of the most efficient officer he knew there, Inspector Stephen Curry, gave him the woman’s name and address, and explained the provenance.
‘Don’t make it a priority, Steve. But maybe have one of your beat officers swing by some time, make sure all is OK.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Stephen Curry, who was sounding rushed. ‘Leave it with me.’
‘With the greatest pleasure,’ Grace said.
Having hung up, he looked down at the workload on his desk and decided he would stroll down later this morning, towards lunchtime, to collect his car. Take in a bit of fresh air. Enjoy a rare bit of sunshine and try to clear his head. Then make his way downtown to see if he couldn’t find one or two of Ronnie Wilson’s old acquaintances. He had a good idea where to start looking.
59
Ronnie spent a restless night lying between unwashed nylon sheets, trying to cope with a foam pillow that felt as if it was filled with rocks and a mattress whose springs bored into him like corkscrews. He had a choice between keeping the window shut and enduring the air-conditioning unit that made a noise like two skeletons fighting in a metal shed, or opening it and being kept awake by the non-stop wailing of distant sirens and the chop of helicopters.
At a few minutes to 6 he lay wide awake, scratching one of several tiny red bites on his leg. He soon discovered more that were itching like fury on his chest and stomach.
He fumbled on the bedside table for the remote and switched the television on. The urgency of the outside world suddenly filled his room. Images of New York were on the screen. There were distraught-looking people, women and men, holdinguphand-made boards, placards, signs, some with photographs, some with just names, in red or black or blue writing, all asking, HAVE YOU SEEN?
A newscaster appeared, giving an estimate of the numbers dead. Emergency phone numbers to call ran along the bottom, as well as more breaking news.
All kinds of bad stuff.
Bad stuff was churning around inside his head too, together with everything else that had been in the mix all night long. Thoughts, ideas, lists. Lorraine. Donald Hatcook. Flames. Screams. Falling bodies.
His plan.
Was Donald OK? If he had survived, was there any guarantee he would agree to back his biodiesel venture? Ronnie had always been a gambling man and he didn’t reckon the odds on that were as good as the odds on his new plan working. So far as he was now concerned, alive or dead, Donald Hatcook was history.
Lorraine would be hurting. But in time she would understand that there was
One day the silly cow would understand – one day soon, when he showered her in fifty-quid notes, bought her everything she ever wanted and more!
They would be rich!
Just had to suffer some pain now.
And be very, very careful.
He looked at his watch to double-check: 6.02. It took a few moments for his tired, jet-lagged brain to work out whether the UK was ahead in time or behind. Ahead, he finally decided. So it would be just after 11 in the morning in Brighton. He tried to think what Lorraine would be doing. She’d have phoned his mobile, phoned the hotel, phoned Donald Hatcook’s office. She might be round at her sister’s house, or, more likely, her sister would be round at theirs.
A police officer was speaking now, straight at the television. He was saying volunteers were needed to come and help out on the
He climbed out of bed and stood in the puny shower, feeling strangely liberated, but nervous. There were a thousand and one ways he could screw this up. But also there were ways he could be smart. Really smart.
Drying himself, he focused on the news, watching a New York channel, wanting to see what was predicted for the city today. The other shoe that was going to drop that people were talking about? Meaning more attacks. Or was business going to get back to normal today? At least in some parts of Manhattan?
He needed to know, because he had transactions to make. His new life was going to require funding. You had to speculate to accumulate. Stuff he needed was going to be expensive and, wherever he got it, he would have to pay in cash.
The item he wanted was coming up on the news now. The parts of New York that would be closed off and the parts that were open. What was running on the transit system. It seemed there was a lot, that most of it was operating. The anchor woman was saying, solemnly, that yesterday the world had changed.
She was right, he thought, but for many today it would be business as usual. Ronnie was relieved about that. After his binge in the bar yesterday, his evening meal and his advance on the room, his resources were down to about three hundred and two dollars.
The reality of that was hammering home. Three hundred and two dollars to last him until he could make a transaction. He could pawn his laptop, but that was too risky. He knew, to his own cost, when the computer at the car dealership had been seized a few years back, that it was almost impossible to wipe a computer memory clean. His laptop would always be traceable back to him.
They were talking about volunteers wanted for the
Now, thanks to the morning news, he had another piece of his plan in place.
