She couldn’t remember when she had last prayed, but she found herself praying now, suddenly, silently. Dear God, please let Mum be OK. Please help me through this. Please, dear God.
There was a car in front of her, driving slowly, an elderly maroon Alfa Romeo with two men inside, the passenger talking on what she presumed was his mobile phone. She followed it round a sharp left-hand bend, passing a hotel on the right, and the Seven Sisters river estuary below. The brake lights of the Alfa came on, as it slowed to let a delivery van cross a narrow bridge, then it accelerated again. Now the road was climbing.
After a few more minutes she saw a road sign ahead. The brake lights on the Alfa came on once more, then its right-turn indicator began flashing.
The sign read TOWN CENTRE A259, with an arrow pointing straight on, and SEAFRONT BEACHY HEAD, with an arrow pointing right.
She followed the Alfa Romeo to the right. It continued to drive at a maddeningly slow pace, and she glanced at the car’s clock and her watch. The clock was a minute slower, but she knew her watch was accurate, she had set it earlier: 10.25 a.m. Just five minutes. She was tempted to overtake, worried that she would be late.
Then her phone rang. Private number calling.
She answered it on the in-car speaker plugged into the cigarette lighter which the police had given her so they could hear any conversation.
‘Yes?’ she said.
‘Where the fuck are you? You’re late.’
‘I’m only a few minutes away, Ricky. It’s not 10.30 yet.’ Then she added nervously, ‘Is it?’
‘I told you, she goes over the fucking edge at 10.30.’
‘Ricky, please, I’m coming. I’ll be there.’
‘You’d fucking better.’
Suddenly, to her relief, the Alfa’s left-turn signal started flashing and it pulled over into a lay-by. She increased her speed to more than she was comfortable with.
Inside the Alfa, Roy Grace watched the black Honda accelerate off up the winding road. Cassian Pewe, in the front passenger seat, said into his secure phone, ‘Target One has just gone past. Two miles from zone.’
The voice of the local Silver commander – the senior officer running the operation – replied, ‘Target Two just made contact with her. Proceed to Position Four.’
‘Proceeding to Position Four,’ Pewe confirmed back. He looked down at the Ordnance Survey map on his knees. ‘OK,’ he said to Grace. ‘Move on as soon as she is out of sight.’
Grace put the car in gear. As the Honda crested a hill and vanished, he accelerated.
Pewe checked the transmit button was off, then turned to his colleague. ‘Roy, you know, it is true what the Chief Super said. I was only doing it to protect you.’
‘From what?’ Grace said acidly.
‘Innuendo is corrosive. There is nothing worse than suspicion in a police force.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘If that’s what you believe, then I’m sorry. I don’t want to fall out over this.’
‘Oh, really? I don’t know what your agenda is, to be frank. For some reason, you think I murdered my wife, don’t you? Do you honestly think I would have buried her in my back garden? That’s why you were having it scanned, wasn’t it? For her remains?’
‘I was having it scanned to prove she wasn’t there. To end the speculation.’
‘I don’t think so, Cassian.’
118
Abby drove up the headland. To her right was open grassland, with a few clusters of bushes and one dense copse of short trees, ending in chalk cliffs and a vertical drop to the English Channel. One of the sheerest, highest and most certain drops in the whole of the British Isles. To her left, there was an almost uninterrupted view over miles of open farmland. She could see the road threading through it into the distance. The tarmac was an intense black, with crisp broken white lines down the centre. It looked as if it had all been freshly painted for her today.
Detective Sergeant Branson had told her earlier that Ricky had made a mistake choosing this location, but at this moment she could not see how. It struck her as a clever choice. From wherever he was, Ricky would be able to see anything that moved in any direction.
Maybe the detective had just said it to reassure her. And she sure as hell needed that at this moment.
She could see a building about half a mile away on her left, at almost the highest point of the headland, with what looked like a pub or hotel sign on a pole. As she got nearer she saw the red-tiled roof and flint walls. Then she could read the sign.
BEACHY HEAD HOTEL.
Drive into the car park of the Beachy Head Hotel and wait for me to contact you, were his instructions. At exactly 10.30.
The place looked deserted. There was a glass bus shelter with a blue and white sign in front of it, on which was written in large lettering: THE SAMARITANS. ALWAYS THERE DAY OR NIGHT, with two phone numbers beneath. Just beyond was an orange and yellow ice-cream van, which had its sales window open, and a short distance further on there was a British Telecom truck, with two men in hard hats and high-visibility jackets carrying out work on a radio mast. Two small cars were parked by the rear entrance to the hotel; she assumed these belonged to staff.
She turned left and pulled up at the far end of the car park, then switched off the engine. Moments later, her phone rang.
‘Good,’ Ricky said. ‘Well done! Scenic route, isn’t it?’
The car was rocking in the wind.
‘Where are you?’ she said, looking around in every direction. ‘Where’s my mother?’
‘Where are my stamps?’
‘I have them.’
‘I have your mother. She’s enjoying the view.’
‘I want to see her.’
‘I want to see the stamps.’
‘Not until I know my mother is all right.’
‘I’ll put her on the phone.’
There was a silence. She heard the wind blowing. Then her mother’s voice, as weak and quavering as a ghost’s.
‘Abby?’
‘Mum!’
‘Is that you, Abby?’ Her mother started crying. ‘Please, please, Abby. Please.’
‘I’m coming to get you, Mum. I love you.’
‘Please let me have my pills. I must have my pills. Please, Abby, why won’t you let me have them?’
It hurt Abby almost too much to listen to her. Then Ricky spoke again.
‘Start your engine. I’m going to stay on the line.’
She started the car.
‘Accelerate, I want to hear the engine running.’
She did what he said. The diesel clattered loudly.
‘Now drive out of the car park and turn right. In fifty yards you’ll see a track off to the left, up to the headland itself. Turn on to it.’
She made the sharp left turn, the car lurching on the bumpy surface. The wheels spun for an instant as they lost traction on the loose gravel and mud, then they were up on the grass. Now she realized why Ricky had been so specific in instructing her to rent an off-roader. Although she did not understand why he had been so concerned it should be diesel. Fuel economy could scarcely have been something on his mind at this moment. To her right she saw a warning sign that said CLIFF EDGE.
‘You see a clump of trees and bushes ahead of you?’
There was a dense copse about a hundred yards in front of her, right on a downward slope at the cliff edge. The bushes and trees had been bent by the wind.
‘Yes.’
‘Stop the car.’
She stopped.
‘Put the handbrake on. Leave the engine running. Just keep looking. We are in here. I have the rear wheels right on the edge of the cliff. If you do anything I don’t like, I’m throwing her straight back in the van and releasing the handbrake. Do you understand that?’