‘Short of what?’ Gavin Daly asked. ‘Three digits short of what?’
‘These co-ordinates put you in the area of the Manhattan Bridge, Gavin. But it’s a big bridge, covers a huge area. We need those last three digits.’
Gavin Daly glanced down once again at the watch. And then he realized.
It had been staring him in the face for ninety years.
111
In the back of the Crown Victoria, Roy Grace was aware of the minutes ticking away. With each one that passed, the chances were increasing that Eamonn Pollock had offloaded the watch, and was on his way out of town and probably out of America, doubtless under one of his aliases.
‘Hey, move it!’ Aaron Cobb shouted out of the window at a delivery van blocking the cross-street. ‘Just move it, will ya! We’re on an emergency!’
Grace could barely contain his anger at Detective Lieutenant Cobb. If he had done his job properly, they would not be in this situation now, and instead would have had a tail on Pollock. The crook could be anywhere in this city, or in any of its boroughs. He wasn’t necessarily even taking the watch to a dealer; it could be to a private buyer. Hector Webb, the former head of the Brighton Antiques Squad, had told him there were rich people who got a kick out of buying famous stolen works of art, and hiding them away in private galleries in the basements of their homes – a kind of guilty secret pleasure for the super-rich. The same could apply to this watch.
One thing was for sure, Eamonn Pollock was no fool. He’d showed up on the hotel’s CCTV camera when checking in, but he’d managed to evade them when he had done his moonlight flit. The hotel had only one exit not covered by a camera, which was a fire door in the kitchens. How he knew about that was anybody’s guess, but no doubt that was the exit he had used. Besides, it was irrelevant how he had left. The fact was, he had gone.
Guy Batchelor phoned in to say they’d had no joy at any of the dealers they’d visited so far. Moments later, Jack Alexander reported the same news.
Grace did a quick calculation. He needed to be at Newark Airport by 7 p.m., which meant leaving Manhattan at 6 p.m. This gave him a shade under seven and a half hours to find Pollock, or return home empty-handed. He intended leaving Batchelor and Alexander out here, but all his instincts were that today was the day that counted.
If they didn’t find Eamonn Pollock with the Patek Philippe in his hot, sweaty palm, they weren’t going to have a hope in hell, right now, of charging him with anything.
Pat Lanigan turned round to face him. ‘Any news from the others?’
‘Goose eggs,’ Grace said with a grim smile. And that’s what this felt like at the moment: a wild goose chase. Eamonn Pollock had done the rounds of the legitimate dealers on Friday, no doubt to fix a value for the watch in the market. But now, very obviously, he was not being stupid and risking walking into a trap.
He peered out of the window at a street vendor, with his stall selling hats and scarves. A cyclist wormed past them, bell pinging. A fire engine honked its way through traffic close by. Then he looked up at a wall, rising sheer into the sky, with maybe a thousand windows. Eamonn Pollock could be behind any one of those at this moment. Behind any one of the millions and millions of windows of this city.
One man and a watch.
A needle in a haystack.
112
Pointing the gun at his son, Gavin Daly said, ‘Take the chart, we’re going.’ Then he turned back to Rosenblaum. ‘Julius, I’m sorry for the damage I caused, and send me the bill for whatever it costs to fix. I’m also apologizing in advance for what’s about to happen, and any further damage.’ He reached forward, picked the watch off the table and dropped it into his jacket pocket.
Eamonn Pollock started to stand up.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Daly snapped, pointing the gun at him. ‘Sit down! You’re not going anywhere. I’m not done with you yet. You know how the Irish punish people? A bullet in the kneecap. I should give you one in each knee – one for what your uncle did to my ma and one for what he did to my pop. Yes? That’s what I think I should do.’
Pollock, his eyes bulging in fear, was shaking his head frantically. ‘Please. I’ll tell you everything I know.’
‘Gavin,’ Rosenblaum cautioned.
‘Julius, this skunk’s uncle ruined my childhood. Now this skunk himself has ruined my old age. You think he deserves mercy? This fat, greedy vulture?’
‘Gavin, calm down, let’s hear him out.’
He turned to Pollock. ‘I’m all ears, you piece of blubber.’
‘I lent Lucas money – he came to me and I helped him out.’
‘How nice of you. Then he didn’t pay you back? Did I get that one right?’
‘Yes, Dad, he has a moneylending business,’ Lucas interjected.
‘You’re a moneylender, are you?’ Gavin Daly’s finger was shaking on the trigger. ‘A proper little Shylock?’
Julius Rosenblaum took a step towards his desk.
‘Don’t move another inch, Julius. You hit your panic button and I’ll shoot you too, God help me I will.’
‘Gavin, you have to calm down!’ Rosenblaum said.
‘No, I’m ninety-five years old; I don’t have to calm down.’ He looked back at Pollock. ‘You sent two pieces of shit – maybe three pieces of shit – to rob a ninety-eight-year-old lady who’d done no harm to anyone in her life. They tortured the fuck out of my sister, and you want mercy from me? Yes?’
‘Those were never my instructions.’
‘Oh, really? You had the code to the safe from my piece-of-shit son, so why did they have to torture my sister? They stole ten million pounds’ worth of antiques, and they tortured her to death for her credit card pin codes, for a few hundred lousy quid. Did they do it for fun, or is that because you were too greedy to pay them decently for doing your filthy work for you?’
Pollock was shaking. ‘I didn’t, no, that’s not right.’
‘Stand up!’
Eamonn Pollock pushed himself upright and stood, cowed and quivering.
Gavin Daly stared at the dark stain around his groin. ‘You’ve just pissed yourself. What kind of a man are you?’
Pollock stared wildly around, as if looking for an escape route.
‘Dad, let’s be calm!’ Lucas said.
‘Calm? From a man who beats up his wife regularly, that’s rich!’ He turned to Julius Rosenblaum. ‘She’s a very pretty, very smart television presenter. When Lucas hits her, he makes sure it is always below the neckline, so it doesn’t show in public, so it doesn’t hurt her ability to earn a high salary – for him to squander. He’s a brave man, my son is. Know what I’ve always believed?’ He covered all three in turn with the gun. ‘You judge a man by the friends he keeps. Eamonn and Lucas, you deserve each other.’
‘Hurting Aileen was never intended, please believe me,’ Eamonn Pollock whimpered. ‘Please believe me.’
‘You employed those men, Ken Barnes and Tony Macario. They’d worked for you for a long time. You must have known what they were like, what they would do when you set them loose on an elderly, defenceless lady? What’s to believe?’
‘Please believe me.’
Gavin Daly pulled the trigger. There was another thunderclap and an explosion of blood in Pollock’s right shoulder, sending him hurtling back onto the floor. His mouth was wide open, his eyes looking like they were shorting out.
‘Oops, sorry, Eamonn, I didn’t mean to do that. Do you believe me?’