After Chrissie, a long, long time after, he’d met Theresa. The true love of his life. What they had between them was something very special indeed. He’d proposed to her, telling her he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, start a new family with her, and she’d accepted. They were all set to be married. The church booked, everything sorted, the invitations printed. Finally, he was in a place where he was happy again.
Then Detective Roy Grace had come along. And screwed it all up for him. For them. On the morning of the wedding. 5 a.m. A dawn raid.
He’d pleaded with Roy Grace to just let the wedding go ahead and then do what he had to, but did the bastard listen?
No.
Grace had chosen the day of his arrest for maximum humiliation, Amis Smallbone was certain. He could have done it days earlier. Or later. But no, he had chosen his moment very deliberately. And he had not let him make a phone call. So there was Theresa, all excited that morning, having her hair done, getting into her dress, then driving to the Brighton Registry Office. Where Roy Grace let her wait for her groom who wasn’t going to turn up because he was in a sodding cell in Brighton nick with no phone. They eventually got married in jail, but that wasn’t the point.
Today had been a long time coming. A long time in the planning. The little shit Gareth Dupont had been arrested and charged, and would be grassing him up to get a reduced sentence for himself, for sure. So it was only a matter of time before he’d be back inside. If you committed a crime while you were out on licence, then your licence was automatically revoked; he’d be going back down for another ten years, minimum. But at least this time he would take Roy Grace down with him. The knowledge of Roy Grace’s grief would sustain him in the shitholes that faced him now and into old age.
Draining his glass, he stood up unsteadily and left the top-floor room with its view of the courtyard and the front door of the Grace house, and went out onto the landing. He picked up the hooked stick and flailed around with it until he managed to hook the hoop in the loft door. Then he pulled the door down, and hooked the bottom rung of the metal loft ladder, lowering it carefully, until its feet touched the landing carpet.
Then he climbed up it. At the top he reached out and found the light switch. Moments later the two weak bulbs lit up the roof space. Steeply angled wooden beams. Yellow insulating foam, sprinkled with rat and mouse droppings, between the rafters. The water tank. Spiders’ webs. An old, empty suitcase covered in dust. He hauled himself up onto his knees, breathing in the dry, dusty smells of wood and the insulating material. Then, supporting himself against the beams with his hands, he trod carefully on the rafters, making his way with some difficulty, because of all he had drunk, towards the roof hatch.
He pushed against it, and moments later, light and fresh air flooded in. He squeezed through the rectangular space and stepped out onto the narrow metal fire escape. It gave him a view across the rooftops down towards the pier and the English Channel. But more importantly to him, it gave him direct access to the Grace house.
What made him less happy was there was just one low, flimsy-looking handrail on one side. This group of seven town houses had been a conversion from a U-shaped warehouse building, and they shared a continuous pitched roof, with a fire escape running the full length of it. The gridded metal of the escape, clearly constructed as an afterthought, zig-zagged across the rooftops between the chimney stacks. To reach the Grace house, he had to navigate a difficult left turn, ducking under a thoughtlessly installed satellite television dish that obstructed his route.
He succeeded and then reached the identical loft hatch to his own. Conscious that he was standing up here, in broad daylight, he looked around carefully, checking who might be able to see him. None of the immediate neighbours, but there were some tall buildings, mostly office blocks, that overlooked them, if anyone happened to be staring out of the window. That was unlikely during a Sunday lunchtime, but not worth taking the risk.
When he did this for real, it would be dark; some ambient glow from the street lighting, but not much. He had to rehearse his steps now, count and memorize the number of steps to each turn, particularly the awkward left by the satellite dish. The important thing would be not to hurry.
Roy Grace would still be in New York. Cleo and the little bastard would be home alone. And he would have all the time in the world!
Amis Smallbone was unaware of one pair of eyes that were watching him, up here on the rooftop. Watching him with the intention of killing him.
91
Keith Barent Johnson, Roy Grace read, as the detective showed his NYPD badge to the front-desk receptionist at the Plaza on Central Park South.
The young Asian woman spent some moments checking her computer records, then shook her head. ‘Eamonn Pollock? How do you spell it?’
Johnson spelled it out. ‘E a m o n n P o l l o c k.’
She checked again. ‘No, we don’t have him registered here, sir.’
Grace then showed her a photograph of Pollock. ‘This is about twenty years ago, but does he look familiar?’
‘No, I’m sorry. No, he does not; not to me, anyways. Can I make a copy and I’ll show it to my co-workers?’
‘Sure, thank you,’ Grace said, handing her the photograph. Then the two detectives repeated the process for Gavin Daly and for Lucas Daly, with equal lack of success.
Roy Grace looked at his watch: 11.15 a.m. He and Johnson had been working through hotels for the past hour and a half, as had Guy Batchelor and Jack Alexander with the other two New York detectives. There was always the possibility that Pollock and the Dalys were staying with friends rather than in a hotel, which would make their current task impossible. But they had to just keep plodding on.
They walked on up Central Park South, past horse-drawn carriages, endless rickshaws and guys standing in their way with bicycle rental placards, and entered the Marriott Essex House Hotel.
Grace and Keith Johnson waited in line at the front desk. They watched a sweaty young couple return bikes to the porter’s desk, then a porter wheel a trolley laden with bags into a room behind it.
‘Mr Pollock?’ the pleasant receptionist said, after studying Keith Johnson’s NYPD card. She tapped into her computer terminal. Then, after a few moments, shook her head.
Roy Grace leaned forward and showed her the old photograph he had of the man. She studied it, then shook her head again. Then she turned to her tall, thin colleague and showed him the photograph.
He frowned. ‘Yes, I know this man. He is staying here.’
‘Eamonn Pollock?’ Roy Grace quizzed. ‘Is that his name?’
He tapped his keyboard, frowning, then looked back at Grace. ‘Dr Alvarez? Dr Alphonse Alvarez?’
‘What address did he give you when he registered?’
He looked down at his screen again. ‘University College of Los Angeles, Brentwood, California.’
Grace tapped Eamonn Pollock’s photograph. ‘But you’re sure that’s him?’
‘Oh yes, I’m sure.’
92
How great was this? Perfect or what? Amis Smallbone stared through the net curtains at the darkness beyond the window, and the falling rain. The wind was picking up; he could hear it howling. Which meant it would be hard for anyone to hear him. Not many people would be out on an evening like this, and certainly not hanging around staring up at the rooftops of buildings. But even if they were, they would not see anything.
Not by the time he had finished his preparations.
It was 10 p.m. Mummy and Daddy Cleo had dropped their precious daughter and their super-precious little bastard grandson home five hours ago. Cleo had made them tea, and they’d then discussed the houses they’d seen in the country. There was one they’d all agreed they liked, close to the village of Henfield. But it was more than the Graces had planned on paying.