flipped over a small scrap of paper on his desk, on which he’d written a vehicle registration number earlier, and jotted the name and address down.
The sergeant was young and bright, with his buzz cut and stab vest making him look harder than he actually was. But, like all of his colleagues, he was stressed from being overworked, because they were short of staff.
‘Could be any number of reasons why she was agitated by that jerk Spinella. He agitates me.’
‘Tell me about it!’ Curry concurred.
A couple of minutes later, Morley was about to transfer the details to his notebook when his phone rang again. It was an operator in the Southern Resourcing Centre, asking the sergeant to take command of a grade-one emergency. An eight-year-old mis-per. Vanished from her school this afternoon and not with her family.
Within moments the shit hit the fan. Morley radioed first his duty inspector, then barked instructions on his radio phone to his team of officers and PCSOs who were out and about in the city. While doing his, he ran to the back of the cluttered room, which contained half a dozen communal metal desks, boxes of supplies, and a row of pegs and hooks for jackets, hats and helmets, and grabbed his cap.
Then, taking a couple of constables who had arrived early for the afternoon shift, he headed for the door at a semi-run, still talking into his phone.
As the three of them passed his desk, the draught of air lifted the scrap of paper with Katherine Jennings’s name and address up, off the flat surface, and it fluttered to the floor.
Ten minutes later an MSA entered the room and put several copies of the latest directive on diversity training within the police force down on Sergeant Morley’s desk for him to distribute. As she was about the leave, she noticed the scrap of paper lying on the floor. She stooped down, picked it up and dropped it, dutifully, in the waste-paper basket.
74
The fresh air and the greasy fry-up had done the trick for his hangover, Roy Grace decided, feeling almost human again now as he walked back up Church Street and entered the NCP multistorey car park.
He stuck his ticket in the machine, wincing as he always did each time he parked here at the extortionate amount that appeared on the display, then climbed the steps up towards his level, thinking about Terry Biglow.
Maybe he was going soft, because he actually found himself feeling a little sorry for the man – although not for his vile companion. Biglow had once had a bit of style and he was one of the last of a generation of old-school villains who respected the police, if nothing else.
The poor bastard didn’t look as if he was long for this world. What did a man like him think as he approached the end of his life? Did he care that he had totally squandered it, contributing nothing to the world? That he had played a part in ruining countless other lives, ending up with nothing, absolutely nothing? Not even his health…
He unlocked his car, then sat inside and ran through his notes from the encounter. Partway through, he phoned Glenn Branson and gave him the news that Ronnie had had a second wife, called Lorraine. Then he told him to take Bella Moy and interview the people Terry Biglow said had been Ronnie Wilson’s best friends, the Klingers. Stephen Klinger currently ran a large antiques emporium in Brighton and should be easy enough to find.
As he hung up, his phone rang. It was Cleo.
‘How’s your hangover, Detective Superintendent Grace?’ she asked.
It was strange, he thought. Sandy had always called him just
‘Hangover? How do you know about that?’
‘Because you rang me from the pub about 11.30 last night, slurring undying love for me.’
‘I did?’
‘Uh oh, memory loss. Must have been a seriously bad session.’
‘It was. Five hours of Glenn Branson’s marital woes. Enough to drive any man to drink.’
‘Starting to sound to me like his marriage is terminal.’
‘Yep, heading that way.’
‘I – ah – need a favour,’ she said, her tone changing, suddenly all sweetness and light.
‘What kind of a favour?’
‘An hour of your time, between 5 and 6.’
‘What do you want me to do?
‘Well, I’ve just had to go and bring in a particularly unpleasant suicide – a fellow who put a twelve-bore in his mouth in his garden shed – and the Coroner’s not happy with the circumstances. She wants a Home Office pathologist – so our good friend Theobald is coming to do the PM this afternoon. Which means I can’t take Humphrey to dog training.’
‘Dog training?’
‘Yes, so I thought it might be a good opportunity for you and Humphrey to bond.’
‘Cleo, I’m right in the middle of a really-’
Cutting him short, she said, ‘Your murder investigation – she’s been dead for ten years. One hour isn’t going to make a huge difference. Just one hour, that’s all I’m asking for. It’s the first day of a new course and I’d really like Humphrey to be there from the start. And because I know you’re going to do it, because you’re such a lovely man, I’m offering you a very sweet reward!’
‘Reward?’
‘OK. Dog training’s from 5 o’clock to 6… Here’s the deal. You take Humphrey and in exchange I’ll cook you Thai-style stir-fried tiger prawns and scallops.’
Instantly she had him hooked. Cleo’s prawn and scallop stir-fry was one of the best dishes in her amazing repertoire. It was almost to die for.
Before he had time to comment, she added, ‘I’ve also got a rather special bottle of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc I’ve popped in the fridge for you as a treat.’ She paused and then, in a deeply seductive voice, said, ‘And…’
‘
There was a long silence. Just the hiss of static from the phone.
‘What’s the
Even more seductively, she said, ‘That’s for your imagination.’
‘Did you have anything particular in mind?’
‘Yes, lots… We have the whole of last night to catch up on as well as tonight. Think you can rise to the occasion, with your hangover and all?’
‘I think I could.’
‘Good. So, you give Humphrey a treat and I’ll give you one in exchange. Deal?’
‘Shall I bring some biscuits?’
‘For Humphrey?’
‘No, for you.’
‘Sod you, Grace.’
He grinned.
‘Oh, and one other thing – don’t get tooooo aroused. Humphrey likes chewing on hard things.’
75
He could have done with another Mars bar – he was starving – but Ricky didn’t want to risk leaving the car to buy one, in case he missed her. Christ, it was over half an hour since she had gone into the mobile phone shop – what was the bitch doing in there? No doubt dithering about which colour to buy.
The cab would be costing a bloody fortune! And whose money would she be using to pay for it?
His, of course.
Was she doing it deliberately to make him angry, knowing that he would be watching somewhere?
She would pay for this. Every which way. And then some.
She would scream apologies to him. Over and over and over. Before he was finished with her.
A shadow fell across his nearside window. Then he saw a traffic warden’s face peering in. He put down the window.
‘I’m picking up my mother,’ Ricky said. ‘She’s disabled – won’t be a few minutes.’
The warden, a lanky youth with a sullen face and his cap at a jaunty angle, was not impressed. ‘You’ve been here half an hour.’
‘She’s driving me nuts,’ Ricky said. ‘She’s suffering dementia – first stages.’ He tapped his watch. ‘Got to get her to the hospital. Just give me a couple more minutes.’
‘Five minutes,’ the warden said, and swaggered off. He then stopped by the car in front and began tapping out a ticket on his machine.
Ricky watched his altercation moments later with the returning owner, an irate-looking woman, and continued to watch his slow progress into the distance. He realized, with a shock, that another twenty minutes had passed.
Jesus, how long do you need to buy a fucking phone?
Another five minutes went by. Followed by another. Suddenly the taxi drove off and was swallowed by the traffic.
Ricky did a double-take. Had he missed her? Had the warden moved the taxi on?
He started the car and followed. Several vehicles in front, the taxi headed down to the sea, then turned right. Keeping his distance, staying several vehicles back, he followed the imbecilic, moronic, geriatric, dithering fool of a driver at a pace where he was likely to be overtaken by a tortoise. They went along the seafront, then up the winding hill into wide, open national park and farmland, and along towards the cliff-top beauty and favoured suicide spot of Beachy Head.
