‘
Cleo, darling, you have to understand. It’s me who has the relationship with the NYPD, with Detective Pat Lanigan – his help is going to be crucial to
this.
’
‘
Does he know you have a two-month-old baby?
’
‘
I’ll only be a few days, I promise.
’
‘
I know you. You’ll be at least a week. And then probably another week. I understand your work is important, Roy, but you being around to help me with Noah is important
too.
’
‘
What about getting your mother or your sister to stay with you?
’
‘
I can ask my mother, but we’ll probably start killing each other after a few days. Charlie’s away in Shanghai on her new job.
’
‘
Cleo, this is a really important case for me. If I send someone else and they screw up, I’m never going to forgive myself. Come on, you know the score.
’
‘
Why can’t you send Glenn? He’s deputized for you before.
’
‘
Because his wife is being buried on Wednesday, okay?
’
Another long silence. The baby was silent, too. Then Cleo spoke again.
‘
Who are you taking with you?
’
‘
Well, I wanted to take Jon Exton. But the idiot’s passport ran out in May. So I’m taking DS Batchelor, and a sharp new recruit on the team, DC Alexander. I’ll make
it up to you when I’m back, I promise.
’
Oh yes, you will, Amis Smallbone thought. You’re going to be making it up to her by buying a beautiful coffin for your son. And I will be there at the funeral, standing a short distance
behind you with a smile on my face. So you will know, Detective Superintendent Grace. You will know who made you suffer. You will remember me for the rest of your life.
He crushed out his cigarette, lit another, adjusted the volume level on his headphones with shaking hands, and continued to enjoy the show.
As they had cleared immigration at New York’s Newark Liberty International airport, Roy Grace had texted Cleo.
Landed! XX
Then he had phoned the Incident Room and spoken to DC Alec Davies, who gave him an update over the past few hours Grace had been out of contact, but there was nothing significant to report.
Now DS Guy Batchelor and DC Jack Alexander both had their suitcases loaded on their trolleys. Roy Grace, feeling increasingly glum, watched several unclaimed bags make their fourth, or maybe
fifth, or perhaps their sixth circuit of the carousel. He held his phone in front of him, waiting equally forlornly for a text back. He was missing Cleo and Noah already, badly.
Then the carousel stopped.
‘Shit!’ he said.
‘Happened to Lena and me last year,’ Guy Batchelor said. ‘We went on holiday to Turkey. Didn’t get my suitcase for three days.’
‘Thanks, Guy,’ he said. ‘That’s cheered me up no end.’ It was 5 p.m. New York time, 10 p.m. in England. The three of them had sat side by side on the flight,
discussing strategy for some time, before relaxing after their meal. Guy Batchelor and Jack Alexander had put on their headsets and watched a movie, but Grace had been too wired to watch a film or
sleep. Instead he had been feeling bad about leaving Cleo, which was distracting him from focusing on the task ahead. Now he felt ragged.
Wearily he trudged over to the British Airways baggage office, joined a short queue, then presented his baggage stub. The man behind the desk tapped the details into his computer then gave him
the news he really did not want to hear. ‘Sorry, it’s not showing up.’
‘Terrific.’
His phone pinged with an incoming text.
Great! Now get the next flight home. Noah and I are missing you. X
No sodding suitcase
, he texted back.
Ha! Poetic justice! XX
He grinned and texted,
Call you when I get to hotel. Love you. XXXXXX
Moments later he got a reply.
Love you too, but I don’t know why. XXXXXXXX
‘The best thing would be, sir, if you phoned us around 8 p.m. after the next UK flight has come in.’
‘Actually,’ Roy Grace said, ‘the best thing would be if you phoned me and told me you had my sodding suitcase.’
*
Roy Grace’s mood, already lifted by Cleo’s text, improved further as the trio entered the arrivals hall and he saw the smiling figure of Detective Pat Lanigan.
Lanigan was a tall, imposing character in his mid-fifties, with broad shoulders and a powerful physique. He had a ruggedly good-looking, pockmarked face, a greying brush-cut, and was wearing a
checked sports jacket over a polo shirt, jeans and workman’s boots. He was the kind of cop few people would choose to pick a fight with. He greeted Grace with a bear hug, then looking at his
attaché case quizzed him on why he was travelling so light.
‘Don’t ask!’ Grace responded, introducing him to his colleagues.
‘I’ll go sort them out, don’t you worry!’ he said in his nasally Brooklyn accent. Pulling out his police badge, Lanigan strode in through the exit doors and was gone ten
minutes. He emerged with a triumphant smile. ‘It’ll be at your hotel by ten o’clock.’
‘You’re a star!’ Grace was instantly feeling more confident about his mission.
‘Not a problem. I just explained to the baggage guy, the Chief of Police of England doesn’t want to have his bag lost. Sorted.’ He pinched Roy Grace’s face.
‘How’s Francene?’ Grace asked.
‘Francene’s great! If we get time, she’d love to see you. So, you’re a daddy now! Hey, you, congratulations!’
Roy Grace had always sworn he would never be one of those fathers who carried pictures of their babies in their wallets, but he dug his hand into his jacket pocket, and proudly drew out a
photograph of Noah and showed it to the New Yorker.
‘He’s a good-looking fella! Going to be a tough guy, like his dad, I’d say. Can see a lot of you in him!’
Guy Batchelor and Jack Alexander looked at the photograph, too, and Roy Grace felt a sudden, intense moment of pride. His child, his and Cleo’s! Their son! He was a part of him, that tiny
little pudgy-faced character they were all looking at.
*
Pat Lanigan’s private car, a Honda sports utility, was parked right outside, with an
ON NYPD BUSINESS
card displayed in the windscreen.
Five minutes later they were on the freeway heading towards Manhattan. ‘Figured you guys would like an early night. We’ll start in earnest tomorrow, 9 a.m. at my office. Anything you
need, you tell me. I’ve got the antiques experts from the Major Case Squad working the streets. They have sources in New York City from auction houses and confidential informants. I’ve
also got a detective coming along who’s not assigned to this squad, but has connections in this field. Keith Johnson, you’ll like him.’
Addressing the two detectives in the back, he asked, ‘Either of you been to New York?’
‘Yes, several times,’ Guy Batchelor said. ‘My wife was in the travel business.’
‘Never,’ Jack Alexander said. ‘If there’s a chance, I’d love to go to Abercrombie and Fitch.’
Grace thought about getting something for Cleo. They’d recently watched the movie
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
on television – and he wondered now if there would be anything
in that store he could afford.
‘We’ll make time,’ Lanigan said. ‘This is a great city, know what I’m saying? Beautiful people. We’ll get these bastards, and maybe we’ll have time for
fun too. First thing on my list to tell you, Roy: we checked out the hotel addresses put down on the immigration forms by Eamonn Pollock, Gavin Daly and Lucas Daly. None of them showed up at those
hotels.
‘There’s a bunch of different ways of searching for a hotel – or
hotels
– the suspects might be staying in. We’ve checked the US customs forms for all
three. They’ve all given false addresses. But they’ll have used credit cards on check-in. I’m having my team check to see if the details are merely held on the hotel records until
check-out or if they are put through. If they are put through, then we’ll find them that way.’
‘And if not?’
‘Plan B.’
‘Which is?’
‘These are wealthy guys, right, Daly and Pollock? They won’t be staying in some shithole. We’ll start with all the five-star hotels in Manhattan and work our way through
them.’
‘Makes sense.’
‘Okay, so we’ll get you checked in. I’ve booked you into the Hyatt Grand Central, which is a good location for you. Then I was going to take you to Mickey Mantle’s
– remember it, Roy?’
‘You took me there last time I was here, I remember. He was a big baseball star.’
‘You guys would have liked it. Great food – simple, nothing fancy; great burgers, great everything – but it’s closed. But I know a great Italian. You guys like
pasta?’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ Grace said.
Amis Smallbone had a plan, too. It was 10.30 p.m. Earlier in the day he had watched Roy Grace kiss his beloved Cleo goodbye on their doorstep, then walk across the courtyard
with his suitcase, and let himself out through the gate. It was a fine, sunny day, and around midday, Cleo had taken their baby out in his pushchair, returning mid-afternoon.
Apart from a brief break at midday to go downstairs into the kitchen and microwave a steak pie and some frozen peas for his dinner, he’d sat up here in his chair, behind the net curtains,
watching the courtyard and the front door of the Grace house.
Shortly after 4 p.m. a smartly dressed and quite handsome woman in her mid-fifties had arrived at the house. Cleo’s mother.
Mummy
, she had called her.
Mummy
had stayed
for two hours.
Mummy
said she would return tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. with
Daddy
, and they would take Cleo and Noah out, looking at houses in the country.
Which meant the house would be empty for several hours. Perfect. He might pop over and take a look around, although, from the plans, he already knew the layout of the place.
He poured himself another whisky and lit another cigarette.
Noah Grace. What was your daddy planning to teach you about life?
He remembered his own father, Maurice. Not with affection, but with respect. His one abiding memory was from when he was a small child; he could not remember his age, exactly, maybe six or
seven. His father had stood him on the kitchen table, then blindfolded him and told him to jump into his arms.
Amis had stood there, petrified, swaying, for some moments. His father had urged him, ‘Jump, Amis. Just tumble forward into my arms. I’ll catch you.’
Finally he had let himself go. His father had not caught him, but had stood, several paces back, with his hands in his pockets. Amis Smallbone’s face had smacked so hard onto the kitchen
floor he had broken two teeth and his nose.
Then his father had removed the blindfold, dabbing his face with a cloth. ‘Let that be a lesson to you, son. Never trust anyone in life, not even your own father.’
Smallbone had never forgotten that moment. His mother standing there, lamely watching. Cowed and bullied by his father into silent acceptance of all that he did to his children in the name of
toughening them up.
When he was fourteen, his father made him accompany him on his rounds as a debt collector. Knocking on doors of shitty dwellings, opened by tearful women or scared men. Sending them scurrying
off into back rooms, scuffling around under mattresses, shaking banknotes and coins out of mugs, tea caddies, pleading.
Scum
, his father told him.
Vermin. Liars, all of them. You have
to do what’s right. What’s right is to collect what’s yours. Life isn’t going to give it to you; you have to take it. They’ll give you every excuse in the world.
‘Me husband’s off work, sick’; ‘Me husband’s lost his job’; ‘I’ve not been able to work because me child’s sick’.
Sometimes, Amis Smallbone felt sorry for one of the terrified people. But when he told his father, he would slap him hard on the face and glare at him.
They make me sick, Amis. Understand? They’ll prey on weakness. Show them sympathy and they’ll have you twisted round their little fingers. Understand, because if you don’t,
they’re going to shit all over you and ruin your life.
Amis understood. By the time he was eighteen, he was doing rent collection rounds on his own. Accompanied by a barber’s razor that he kept in his pocket, and produced at any excuse, on
scumbag women as much as scumbag men. Occasionally he would just slash, for the hell of it, to see the crimson ribbons on their cheeks. As he got bolder, he would knock on the door with the razor
in his hand, blade open.
Crimson ribbon or your rent?
he would offer.
Maybe a crimson ribbon on Noah Grace’s face would be nice, he thought. The little bastard’s crying had kept him awake a lot during this past night. How would it be for Cleo to go
running up to his cot and find blood everywhere?
How about a slit from the edge of his mouth up to his ears, on each side? It was what other prisoners did to rapists, inside. Depending what prison you were in, it was called
the Glasgow
Grin
, or
the Chelsea Smile
or, simply,
the Rapist’s Grin
.
He liked that. The Grace baby branded for life as the most vile of all human life forms.
The more he thought about that, the more he liked it. Much better and much simpler than killing Noah.
He toasted himself. It was a great idea.
Genius!
Wide awake at 6 a.m. on a New York Sunday morning, Roy Grace rang Cleo. Her mood was subdued; she was with her parents, in their car, heading off to the first of four houses in
the countryside, close to Brighton, that looked good on the estate agents’ particulars. Noah, she told him, had driven her demented all night.
‘I’m sorry, darling,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she replied flatly.
‘Call you later in the day,’ he said. ‘Love you.’
‘You too.’
He pulled on his running kit, took the lift down from his eleventh-floor room, then went out onto 42nd Street and turned right. The early morning air felt fresh and cool. The city felt huge and
daunting. Bigger than he remembered. The buildings rising like canyon walls on either side of him. He crossed two sets of lights, then made another right and headed up Fifth Avenue towards Central
Park. He ran past smart men’s and women’s clothes displays in the store windows. Past a street cleaner, brushes swirling, water spraying. On the left he saw the Abercrombie & Fitch
store that Jack Alexander had mentioned last night.