Head bowed against the wind, he was thinking hard about all the places a stylish woman like Jodie Bentley would visit, and where she would be known. He couldn’t check the city records until tomorrow, so for now he decided to take her photograph around hotel bars, restaurants and cafés, and show it to cab drivers.
The one who had driven him to Western Road had shaken his head, blankly.
He walked up the steps onto the promenade and stared at the buildings across the road in front of him. A wide row of hotels and restaurants stretching for a mile or more in each direction. Right opposite him was the dark red facade of the Metropole Hotel. He crossed the road, entered, went up to the reception desk and approached one of the uniformed males behind it.
‘I’m a private detective working for a US law firm,’ he said. ‘We’re trying to trace this lady who has come into an inheritance that she’s not aware of. We don’t know her name, but we believe she might be the deceased’s only surviving relative.’ He showed photographs of Jodie Bentley.
Five minutes later, six different people had come to look at the photograph, and all of them had shaken their heads.
He left and walked the short distance along to the imposing white facade of the Grand Hotel, set behind its private parking crescent. Standing in front of the revolving door was a liveried doorman.
Tooth approached him with the same story. The doorman studied the photograph carefully, then said, ‘Yes! I recognize her. She’s been here a number of times, charming lady. She was here last week for dinner — let me think — was it Wednesday — no — I was off then. Tuesday. Yes, it must have been Tuesday!’
‘Do you know her name?’
‘No, but she had dinner here with a gentleman. Come with me!’
Tooth followed the doorman inside, past the reception desk, to the restaurant entrance, where there was a smartly dressed greeter.
‘Michele, this gentleman’s trying to find a lady who had dinner here last Tuesday.’
‘Right, thank you, Colin.’ She looked at the photograph Tooth proffered. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, she’s been here a few times. Hold on a moment.’ She opened a large, lined register filled with names and times, and flicked back a few pages. Then she ran a finger down it and stopped.
‘I think this was her — the reservation was made in the gentleman’s name. Mr Rowley Carmichael. Is that right?’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Tooth said. ‘What can you remember about them?’
She apologized for a moment as a group of four people turned up for lunch; she ticked them off her list and led them through into the restaurant. Then she returned. ‘I’m trying to think. I’m afraid we have a large number of people every day. If you can wait a moment, I’ll go and ask Erwan, the maître d’, if he can recall anything. Can I borrow the photograph?’
Giving her his most charming smile, he handed it over, maintaining eye-contact flirtatiously.
She returned a few minutes later. ‘Erwan remembers her!’ she said. ‘She was dining with a much older gentleman, and they asked him to call two taxis at about eleven o’clock.’
‘Is there a particular cab company you use?’ Tooth asked.
‘A local firm, Streamline.’
Tooth thanked her. His charm offensive had got him what he wanted.
He left and walked along the seafront back to his hotel. He stopped outside to smoke a cigarette, then went up to his room and ordered a pot of coffee. As he waited for it to arrive, he worked on his story.
Then he picked up his phone and dialled the taxi company.
41
Sunday 1 March
For the next few hours, Shelby slipped in and out of sleep. He tried several times to reach for the glass of Coke on the bedside table, but could not muster the energy. He listened to the continuous stream of cars and buses and lorries passing outside the window on the busy thoroughfare of Carden Avenue.
His phone rang.
It was Angi, calling to see how he was feeling and if he had been drinking the Coke she’d left him.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Two glasses.’
‘Well done!’
He put the phone back on the table and stared at the glass, untouched since she had left. It was now 1.30 p.m. His stomach felt as if it was on fire. Weakly, he hauled himself up in bed and managed to swallow some of the drink, then he checked his ankle again. It didn’t look any worse than earlier; in fact, maybe a tiny bit better. Perhaps the antiseptic cream was helping. And maybe the way he was feeling was down to that damned bug. Dean hadn’t made it to the pub on Thursday night because he’d got it. It was just a twenty-four-hour thing. So many people had been going down with it in Sussex — it had even made the local news. He’d start feeling better soon.
He had to.
It was Sunday. The one night of the week the couple in No. 27 Roedean Ridge went out. He’d tailed them for the past three Sunday nights, driving in their large BMW down to the Rendezvous Casino in the Marina Village, where they stayed and didn’t return until well after midnight. Their regular pattern.
He’d found out from contacts that the secluded property belonged to a bent Brighton antiques jeweller. There had to be rich pickings in that house for sure. And if he went in early enough after they left, he would have sufficient time to find them. In another few weeks the clocks would go forward, which meant an hour less of darkness in the early evening.
He had planned to go there tonight to see if they went out again. He had to pull himself together and do it. He grabbed the glass and drank down the remaining contents, with difficulty.
Then he fell back into a sleep full of weird dreams in which hissing, crackling snakes spun across the floor like Catherine wheels that had fallen off their pins and were spitting sparks and flames.
He woke again, drenched in sweat, at 4.03 p.m. with another nosebleed. He had to get up, somehow. He could not allow Angi to come home and take him to the emergency doctor. He didn’t want the risk of having to lie to a doctor about where he worked and then have her phone them.
Up!
He hauled himself out of bed, placed his feet on the carpeted floor, then stood up. Instantly he sat back down again with a thump.
Shit.
He stood up once more, his stomach heaving, ran into the bathroom and sat on the toilet. He remembered something a cellmate had once said to him: ‘When the bottom falls out of your world, come to Calcutta and let the world fall out of your bottom.’
He stood up and peered down. And a shiver ran through him.
The toilet was full of blood.
He flushed it, then stepped into the shower, feeling scared. What the hell was going on? Was this the bug or was it some kind of a reaction to the bite? And when was it going to stop? The powerful stream of hot water made him feel a little better.
He dried himself, then saw fresh blood was still coming out of his two-day-old shaving nick. He put more styptic pencil on it, then, to be sure, a larger strip of plaster, rolled deodorant under his arms and ran a hand across his damp stubble of hair.
Feeling slightly human again, he dressed in his dark clothes and trainers, and went downstairs. The two large tumblers of Coke that Angi had poured were on the kitchen table. He sat and sipped the first, slowly, thinking about the blood in the toilet. He must have burst a blood vessel in his backside, he decided.
Comforted by that explanation, he drained the glass and began to work, as Angi had instructed, on the second. After a couple of sips, he started to feel hungry. He stood up and walked, unsteadily, over to the fridge and opened the door. But everything he looked at — a wedge of Cheddar, a lettuce, a carton of tomatoes, a packet of ham, some eggs, sausages, bacon, a supermarket moussaka — all made him feel queasy again.