‘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.
86
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.