Grace patted Humphrey’s belly harder. ‘Shh, boy! I can’t turn the TV up, don’t want to wake your mistress, or Noah. Okay?’
Humphrey farted silently. Moments later the horrific stink reached Grace’s nostrils. ‘Hey! That’s not playing fair!’ He gave Humphrey a playful slap, which the dog
ignored. He held his nose until the stink passed. He gave him another tap. ‘No farting, okay? Two can play at that game!’
A hand suddenly squeezed his shoulder. He looked up and saw Cleo, her hair up, in a pale-blue nightdress. ‘What are you watching?’
‘It’s for work. You okay? Do you want anything?’
‘Yes, I do. I want to lose my bloody baby fat and my varicose veins. I want to stop feeling so damned tired all the time and bad-tempered from loss of sleep,’ she moaned.
‘I’m sorry, but they don’t tell you how rubbish you are going to feel in any of the books – at least not the ones I read.’ She kissed his forehead.
He took her hands and squeezed them tenderly. ‘If I had a magic wand, I’d wave the damned thing!’
‘Shit, Roy, why didn’t anyone tell me what having a baby’s really like?’
‘Maybe because no one would have one if they really knew.’
She nodded. ‘Yes, that’s true!’ Then, changing the subject, she said, ‘Where do you keep your handcuffs?’
‘Handcuffs?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘I have some in my go-bag – but I don’t really have any reason to use them in what I do.’
She gave him a strange smile that he could not read. ‘So you do have some?’
‘Yes.’
‘I thought maybe – you know – perhaps I could try them out on you – sometime when I’m feeling less sore.’
He grinned. ‘That book you’re reading?’
‘I’m into the second one,’ she said. She grinned again.
‘Not sure about my handcuffs,’ he said. ‘They’ve been on some pretty scuzzy people. Maybe we could try silk ties?’
‘I think we should try a few things. But I’d hate to distract you from your work. Lock up all the bad guys first. Then you can start on me.’ She kissed him on his forehead
again. ‘Not tonight, though. I’m still really sore, and I’m too tired.’
He watched as she headed back up the stairs. ‘Love you,’ he said.
‘Even fat like this?’
‘More to love.’
‘You’re a good bullshitter.’ She pointed across the room. ‘See, your goldfish agrees!’
High up on one of the fitted black bookshelves on the far side of the room, Marlon had his nose pressed up against the side of his bowl, endlessly opening and shutting his mouth. Grace was
relieved he had survived the transition to his new home. He’d developed a strong affection for the fish over the years following Sandy’s disappearance. He would be sad, he knew, the day
Marlon died.
He’d brought the fish here as Glenn was now moving back to his home to take care of his children. And with the exchange of contracts on his own house sale imminent, he’d needed to
start clearing everything out, putting it into storage until Cleo and he decided what they would need once they had found a new house.
He focused on the film, shocked by the brutality of the Dead Rabbits Gang. If this movie was even remotely accurate, life in several boroughs of New York from the 1850s up until the time of the
Depression was hellish.
Hell’s Kitchen
was an apt name.
Gavin Daly was a tough old bird, for sure. He wondered if he could be that energetic and sharp at ninety-five – if he ever made it that far, which was unlikely. Historically, life
expectancy for retired police officers was among the lowest of any profession. His father had been a textbook example. Dead within three years of retiring.
He looked at the baby monitor. Listened to the sound of Noah’s breathing. And wondered if he would live long enough to be a grandfather.
Daly was going strong at ninety-five. From all accounts Aileen McWhirter had been on course to live well past a hundred, until she had been savagely cut down. That made him feel very sad.
Civilization, he knew, was a fragile veneer. You only had to read or watch or listen to the news every morning to witness the hell in which so many people on this planet existed. He never forgot
how lucky he was to have been born in England, and to have grown up in a country which was relatively peaceful. But there were threats here all the time. Terrorist threats from within the UK and
outside. And threat from villains.
He was in a rare position, he knew, to be able to do something for the citizens of Brighton and Hove, and of Sussex, which he loved so much. Aileen McWhirter should have died peacefully in her
sleep, from old age, a few years from now. After all she and her brother had endured in their early childhood, as he had learned from him over a cigar in her garden, she deserved at least that.
Instead she had died from terrible injuries in hospital.
He had never felt more determined in his life to find the perpetrators of a crime and lock them up. Hopefully for ever. If he got lucky and didn’t end up with a woolly-minded liberal of a
judge.
He looked back across at Marlon. And momentarily was distracted by the thought of packing up the house, and all those past years of his life. Then he focused back on the film and what he could
learn from it that might, in any way, help him with this case.
Someone else was packing up his life too, and it was hurting. It wasn’t the memories that were painful – Amis Smallbone didn’t have any memories he wanted to
pack into a suitcase, other than a photograph of his father and his mother that had been the only decoration in his cell. He no longer had photographs of his ex-wives, or his two long-estranged
children, whom his wife had taken to Australia twenty years ago.
The packing, little though it was, hurt him physically. Every moment. His whole body was in pain from the beating he’d had. But what upset him most of all was the damage to his mouth. Not
long before his arrest, thirteen years ago, he’d paid a fortune for work on his teeth. Now, five of his front teeth were missing, and his jaw was broken, and hurting like hell. His dentist
told him he needed surgery on it. He didn’t have time for surgery, so he dulled the pain as best he could with Nurofen and whisky. He’d get it fixed when he got paid on this deal; until
then, in public, he’d have to keep his mouth shut.
It was just past midnight, but he was wide awake, with a cigarette clamped between his lips, as he double-checked the cupboards in his basement flat. The last night in this shithole, he thought
with some relief. He was spending the weekend with his mate Benny Julius in his Dyke Road Avenue mansion, just a few doors away from the huge house he used to live in himself, with his Ferrari
parked outside. He’d had his villa in Marbella, and a boat in Puerto Banus, too.
All he had here now was one large, cheap suitcase, only half full. How great was that? He was sixty-two years old and his worldly possessions – his clothes and washing kit – did not
even fill half a suitcase.
He laid his parents’ photograph down carefully on top of a folded shirt. Maurice Smallbone had been a tall man, with big shoulders and a lean, handsome face, his hair, dyed dark brown to
the end of his life, brushed straight back. His mother had been tall and elegant, too. So why the hell was he only five foot one inch? Why had life dealt him such a shitty hand?
Why had Roy Grace picked on him all those years back? Everything he used to have was gone, thanks to Roy Grace’s determination to destroy him. Grace assured him at the time it wasn’t
personal, but it was. Amis Smallbone knew that. And Grace was not going to get away with it.
His friends told him to forget it, that Grace had merely been a copper doing his job, but Smallbone didn’t see it that way. He found out from an old lag in prison that Grace’s
father, also a detective, had spent much of his career pursing his father, and that one of his big regrets was never potting him.
So it was personal for Grace. The detective had been in his face for years. Even after he had done his time, Grace had continued to go after him. Accusing him of etching a message on his
girlfriend’s car, kidnapping him after a funeral and dumping him on top of the Devil’s Dyke, leaving him to walk five miles home in the pissing rain.
Thanks to this one man, not only did he have nothing in his life, but most of his old acquaintances didn’t want to know him any more, as if he was some kind of pariah, a has-been. His
father had been the big guy of the Brighton crime scene. Everyone feared and respected him. No one dared touch Maurice Smallbone, not even the police, most of whom he’d had in his pay back in
his heyday.
What the fuck had gone wrong?
Detective Superintendent Roy Grace would go to his grave regretting what he had done. You didn’t take away twelve years of someone’s life; and all the other shit that went with it.
The prison doctor had warned him about not getting angry, because of his high blood pressure. But fuck that. He stubbed the butt out and lit another cigarette. Then spotted something he had missed.
Another framed photograph of his father outside Lewes Crown Court. His father was beaming, arms wide out like he owned the world – and actually he had owned a handsome slice of it. In this
photograph, taken minutes after being acquitted by a coerced and frightened jury, his father was walking free from a whole bunch of charges.
Amis Smallbone had not been so lucky, following in his dad’s footsteps.
Thanks to Detective
Inspector
Roy Grace, as he had been back then.
Promoted now. Huh.
A father now.
On Monday he would become Detective
Superintendent
Grace’s neighbour. Renting the three-storey house next door to where he was living with his blonde slapper, Cleo Morey. His
Probation Officer, who had to approve any change of address, had queried how he would pay the rent in his new abode. Smallbone had explained that his mate Henry Tilney, who owed him a favour, would
be paying it for him, until a new business they were setting up, dealing in second-hand cars, was up and running. The Probation Officers had swallowed it.
Roy Grace thought his slapper and baby would be safe inside that little gated residence, did he?
Smallbone smiled. As the saying went,
if you can’t beat them, join them.
Roll on Monday!
Roy Grace had to hold the Saturday morning briefing in the Conference Room of the Major Incident Suite in order to accommodate his growing team. He had a full turnout,
including, he was pleased to see, Glenn Branson, who told him his sister-in-law had taken the kids swimming and was looking after them for the day.
Bella Moy was the first to speak. ‘Working on the information from your contact Hector Webb, who felt it likely the major portion of the items stolen would have been shipped out of the UK
in a container, I’ve been focusing on ships capable of carrying containers out of our local harbours.’
Grace noticed that she shot two glances at Norman Potting while she was speaking. He was becoming increasingly curious about whether there was something going on between the two of them.
‘I talked to the Harbour Master at Shoreham Port yesterday afternoon, sir, in his office,’ she said. ‘I went through with him the list of all cargo ships that sailed after 8
p.m. Tuesday the 21st – the earliest time that the items stolen from Aileen McWhirter’s house could have arrived there. Cargo ships can only enter and leave four hours either side of
high tide. The next relevant high water was at 02.38 Wednesday the 22nd and then at 15.03.’
She shot Potting another glance and this time Grace caught the old sweat’s wink back to her. Surely not? Bella with an old lech like Potting? But few things truly surprised him.
Bella held up several sheets of paper clipped together. ‘All ships over 500 gross tons weight have to have CERS transponders switched on. It stands for Central European Reporting System
– it’s a progression from the Royal Navy’s wartime IFF system,
Identification Friend Or Foe.
Basically it works exactly the same way as the system for identification of
planes for air traffic control. All cargo ships around the world are plotted constantly at sea – this was something brought in after 9/11.’
‘What happens if they switch them off?’ Dave Green, the Crime Scene Manager, asked.
‘They need to have a valid reason,’ she responded. ‘For instance, if they’re in waters known to be at danger from Somali pirates, they’re permitted to turn them
off, but only in situations like that.’ She pointed to her sheets of paper. ‘This is a list of all ships that have sailed since 8 p.m. August the 21st, together with their bills of
lading. The
Torrent
, carrying scrap metal. The
Anke Angela
, carrying oats. The
Walter Hamman
, carrying fertilizer—’
‘Do we have their intended destinations, Bella?’ Glenn Branson asked, interrupting her.
‘Yes.’
‘Good work, Bella,’ Grace said. ‘First thing is we need to see if any of these ships divert from their stated destinations. Second we need the co-operation of Interpol to check
everything they offload against those bills of lading. I need you to circulate the inventory of everything stolen from Aileen McWhirter to Interpol.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What about trucks on the roll-on/roll-off ferries, Bella?’ DC Alec Davies asked.
‘I’m getting a log of all of them within one hundred miles of Brighton,’ the DS answered. ‘It’s a mammoth task.’ She glanced down at her notebook. ‘Just
one thing more, sir,’ she said to Roy Grace. ‘We’re still working on black Porsches with Sussex registrations, but so far none of the owners is on our radar. I’d like to
widen the parameters.’
‘Yes, do a nationwide search. It could easily be a second-hand car bought elsewhere.’
DC Jon Exton raised his hand. He had a stack of magazines in front of him. ‘Sir, I’ve got copies of the
Antiques Trade Gazette
, which I think might be helpful for everyone
on the team to read. There’s a Turkish crime family in London who have a very good distribution system to the London antiques markets. This lists all the fairs and markets, as well as the
auction calendar both here and overseas. It might be worth the team looking at to learn a bit more about the antiques trade – and just how many outlets there are.’