He was right, Grace knew. But he couldn’t tell him that budget cuts meant that wasn’t possible. ‘It’s being patrolled hourly, sir.’
‘It is? Well, I’ve been here since six o’-bloody-clock and I haven’t seen a police car all evening.’
‘How old are you, Mr Daly?’
‘Ninety-five.’ He exhaled sharply again.
‘You’re damned fit. You’re damned fit for a man twenty years younger! What’s your secret?’
Daly’s eyes twinkled for a moment. ‘Whiskey, cigars and the occasional wild, wild woman, Superintendent.’
Grace grinned. Then he returned to serious mode. ‘I know you’ve been asked this before, but how long did your sister live here?’
Daly thought for some moments. ‘It would have been since 1962.’
Grace thanked him.
‘Is that useful information, Detective?’
‘It might be. Tell me, sir, you know the antiques world better than anyone in this area – do you have any thoughts on who might have been behind this? Anyone local who has the
ability to handle something of this size?’
‘Someone knew about the contents all right,’ Gavin Daly said. Grace stared at the single bed, which looked far too small for this huge bedroom.
‘The watch,’ Daly said. ‘You know, ultimately, that’s all I care about. Whatever else the bastards took, they can keep.’ He sat down on the bed, looking
defeated.
‘Presumably the insurance will cover much, if not all, that was taken, sir?’
‘To hell with the insurance. I don’t need the money. I hope they don’t pay out. My asshole son will only put it up his nose after I’m gone, anyway.’
‘Lucas?’
‘Yes.’ He sat in silence for some moments, then looked sheepishly up at Grace. ‘You probably think I’m a hard old bastard, and you’d be right.’
Grace shook his head. ‘No, I don’t.’
‘Do you have children, Detective – Detective Chief – Chief whatever? Do you?’
‘I have a young son.’
Daly nodded, then dug his hand into his inside pocket and pulled out a leather cigar holder. He removed the cover then held it out to Grace. There were three cigars in it.
Grace shook his head. ‘Thank you. I’d love one sometime, but not at this moment.’
Daly replaced the top, with a wistful smile. ‘That black detective feller I spoke to, your colleague?’
‘Detective Inspector Branson?’
He nodded. ‘Quite a comedian, isn’t he? Bit of a film buff.’
‘He’s a walking encyclopaedia of movies,’ Grace acknowledged.
Daly pursed his lips. ‘I told him something he didn’t know.’
‘Oh, really?’ Grace prepared to commit this nugget to memory, to rib Glenn with it.
‘That miserable old bastard, W. C. Fields. Know what he said when he was asked how he liked children?’
He shook his head.
‘Fried.’
Grace grinned.
‘Children, Detective Grace. I’ll tell you something. They’re almost always going to disappoint you. But that’s enough about me and my problems. What do you think? You
seem to be a smart guy. Everyone tells me I’m lucky to have you on this case.’
‘I don’t have enough information at this stage to give you an informed opinion, sir. But I will tell you what my gut’s telling me. Someone with inside information did
this.’
Gavin Daly nodded. ‘That knocker-boy. That’s where you need to start looking.’
‘We’re looking at him,’ Grace replied. ‘But someone’s already been looking at him even harder.’ He gave Daly a questioning stare. ‘Any idea who that
might be?’
The old man’s eyes darted to the right for an instant; then he returned his stare, silently and resolutely for some moments, before shaking his head. Then he said, ‘You said you like
cigars.’
‘I do.’
‘Come out into the garden. Let’s smoke a cigar together. I want to tell you my life story, about my sister and me. Maybe it will help you to understand.’
To reassure Gavin Daly about security, Grace requested a patrol car to sit at the top of the drive of his sister’s house, while Daly called his chauffeur to come and
collect him. Grace then stayed on in the house for a while, on his own, thinking about his conversation with the old man.
Thinking about why the old man had lied to him. He could tell from the direction the old man’s eyes had moved that there was a high probability he had lied. When he had asked Daly his age
a short while ago he’d had no reason to lie; as he thought about the answer his eyes had moved to the left, to the
memory
side of his brain. Similarly his eyes had moved to the left
when he had asked him the secret of his fitness, and how long his sister had lived in the house; but they had not moved left when he’d asked him who might have tortured Ricky Moore,
they’d moved right, to the
construct
side of his brain. Where lies came from.
Was he taking the law into his own hands?
All his checking out on Gavin Daly so far had revealed him to be a man with a great deal of charm, but an utterly ruthless business streak. He was a rogue, or certainly had been once, like so
many of the Brighton antiques fraternity. But he had no criminal record. His son appeared to be in the same mould, but without the charm. He needed to get Ricky Moore to talk, but apart from the
man being in hospital, in great pain, Bella had reported he was clearly far too scared to give any names. Maybe putting pressure on Moore when he was feeling better might be a route to follow.
Threatening to arrest him on a murder charge might persuade him to talk. Suspects on murder charges did not get bail. It could be a year to eighteen months for Moore to sweat before the trial came
up. Faced with that time in jail, or naming names, Moore might well squeal.
One thing he felt certain about was that the knocker-boy was involved – whether in the planning and execution of the burglary, or simply selling on the information. The fact that Moore was
tortured with a similar – but uncommon – torture implement to that used on Aileen McWhirter was evidence enough. If Moore was innocent, he would have made a complaint to the police, so
he was clearly hiding something, scared of someone. But why had he been tortured? And by whom? Old man Daly knew about it, and might have ordered it. For what reason? Most likely, Grace thought, it
was to get the names of the perpetrators, and go after them. And if the old man was involved, it was likely his son was too. People taking the law into their own hands, assuming they could do
better than the police, always worried him, because they invariably made a mess of everything. And he still felt that the reward Daly had put up was bigger than he would have liked.
He needed to have Lucas Daly interviewed as soon as possible. And to find out his whereabouts late last Friday night around the time of Moore’s torture. A richly funded vigilante campaign
was something Roy Grace seriously did not need.
It was just after 11.30 p.m. when he set the alarm and drove away from the house. He turned onto the forecourt of the Esso garage at Dyke Road Park, went into the Tesco Express and looked at the
depleted selection of flowers. Most of them looked as tired as he felt. The best of the bunch was a small bouquet of crimson roses. He bought them for Cleo, then walked back out to his car and
drove down to his own house, just off Hove seafront.
The sale board outside had an
UNDER OFFER
sticker on it.
Please God, whoever you are, buy the damned place,
he thought, as he unlocked the front door. It would
be one headache less. He switched on some lights, then hurried through into the kitchen, and went over to the goldfish bowl.
The fish, which he had won at a fairground well over a decade ago, was swimming around and around, as if on a quest, as he always did. And, as Grace had suspected, his food hopper was empty.
Grace filled it, and for good measure sprinkled several pinches of food onto the surface of the water. Marlon rose and began gulping it down.
‘How are you doing, old chap?’
Marlon continued eating.
He was a surly creature, who had never been much of a conversationalist. But he was the last living link Roy Grace had with Sandy, who had been with him when he had won him, shooting an airgun
at targets at a funfair in Hove Park. They’d bought a companion for Marlon on a couple of occasions. Each time, a couple of days later, they’d come down in the morning to find just one
fish in the tank – Marlon, looking a tad fatter and smugger.
If Glenn was really going to move back home, and stay there, he would need to transport the fish to Cleo’s house at some point. But, at Marlon’s age, he was worried about him
surviving the journey and the transition. It was pathetic, he knew, to have this little fish, with its fading gold colour, being the only link to his former life. But he couldn’t help it.
He thumbed through the stack of post on the table that Glenn had forgotten to bring over to his office. Mostly it was junk, but almost at the bottom was a letter from the estate agent’s,
Mishon Mackay. He ripped open the envelope.
Inside was a letter from Darran Willmore, the negotiator at the agency who was handling his property. It contained the good news that the offer, at the full asking price, had now been confirmed
by the solicitors for the purchaser.
Our client, currently resident overseas, has assured us that she is in funds, and has lodged the deposit with her solicitors here in Brighton, subject to
contract.
Grace felt a quiet thrill of excitement. Finally, finally, he could truly move on.
*
Twenty minutes later as he drove slowly past the wrought-iron gates, which were the entrance to Cleo’s town house, he noticed the
TO LET
sign on
the outside wall had been removed. It was for the adjoining house in the old factory that had been converted into seven urban dwellings. The house had been empty for some months –
Cleo’s neighbours were overseas, working on a long-term contract in Dubai.
He found a parking space a short distance away, then sat in the car for some minutes, debating whether to call Glenn and see how he was. It was bad to think ill of the dead, he knew, but he was
finding it hard to be sad about Ari’s death. She had been a total and utter bitch, treating Glenn, who was one of the loveliest guys on the planet, like complete dirt for this past year. It
was terrible for their two lovely kids to have lost their mother so suddenly. But now they had their father back, who was, frankly, an infinitely better person.
Holding the flowers, he walked back, let himself in through the gates, and then into Cleo’s house. Humphrey came bounding over to greet him, stamping his paw expectantly, demanding a
walk.
Roy Grace bent down and stroked him. ‘I’ll take you out in a minute, okay?’
Then he listened for any sound of a greeting from Cleo. But there was none. Hopefully she was asleep.
Starving hungry, he tiptoed through into the kitchen area. On the worktop was Humphrey’s red bowl, filled with dog food. It was covered with cellophane and had a handwritten note taped to
the top.
Please feed Humphrey.
He is starving.
Grace frowned.
Great
, he thought.
Thank you so much, darling.
Humphrey looked up at him expectantly.
‘That’s all I am, isn’t it, boy? Your servant, and Marlon’s servant. Right?’
Humphrey barked. Instantly he hushed the dog, not wanting to wake Noah. He removed the cellophane and lifted the bowl. Beneath it was another note.
Yours is in the fridge.
You don’t deserve it.
But I love you.
XXXXX
This region of the southern Spanish coast, officially named in all the sunny tourist brochures as the
Costa del Sol
, had long been known to the British police by the
less welcoming sobriquet the
Costa del Crime
. In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, its main town, Marbella, was rumoured to have offered open house to fleeing wealthy Nazis.
And until 2001 it had no properly enforceable extradition treaty with England. For decades it was a safe haven for British crooks on the run, who could live the good life with impunity.
If corruption were an Olympic sport, two of its recent mayors, both jailed, would have had gold medals in their trophy cabinets, and ninety-four dignitaries, also jailed, would have slugged it
out for silver and bronze. Today the area played host to brutally active Russian, Albanian and Irish Mafia clans, along with a thriving community of British gangsters. Yet despite the occasional
shooting, the crime rate was relatively low, and with its year-round benign climate, it was a long-established playground for expats and tourists.
Several miles west of Malaga airport, Lucas Daly drove the rented Jeep fast up a twisting highway cut through the mountains, keeping an eye on the arrow on the satnav. He used to know the area
well, having owned an apartment in Marbella’s bling suburb of Puerto Banus for some while, until he had been forced to sell it to pay gambling debts four years ago. He had not been back here
since.
It was 11.30 a.m. local time. Down below them to their left was a town of white houses, and the cobalt-blue Mediterranean beyond. Although the air-conditioning was whirring away on maximum
power, Daly kept his window wound down, savouring the blast of 34-degree heat on his face after the crap English summer he’d endured. ‘Shit, it’s hot,’ he said, shaking a
Marlboro Light out of the pack.
‘I’m sorry,’ the Apologist said.
‘You don’t always have to apologize for everything.’
The Apologist said nothing for some moments. Then he said, ‘Okay, I’m sorry.’
Lucas Daly grinned then patted his henchman on the shoulder. ‘You know why I like you, Augustine?’
‘No.’
‘Coz you’re a moron! You’re always fucking apologizing!’
‘I’m sorry.’
Daly lit the cigarette, then answered a phone call from his bookmaker in Brighton. Immediately his mood soured. He’d placed a bet on a horse race, and paid on his Amex, but it had not gone
through. It was a long-odds hot tip, a dead cert, from a bent trainer he knew who had a horse running at Brighton. He’d bet far bigger than usual. If the horse, Fast Fella, won, it would give
him some welcome respite from his immediate problems.