‘Out for an early morning stroll are we, sunshine?’ said one.
‘Bit careless forgetting a shoe when you got dressed, wasn’t it?’ said the other. ‘Got any mail for us then?’
Back at the police station, ignoring his Sergeant’s advice to go home and get some dry clothes and some kip, Grace insisted on going down into the custody block in the basement. Dai Lewellyn and Rees Hughes had been read their rights, and were now locked in separate cells, still dressed as postmen, waiting for a duty Legal Aid solicitor to arrive.
Grace, his tie awry, his clothes sodden, walked through the custody centre in the basement of the police station and peered through one of the cell doors. ‘Got everything you need?’
Lewellyn looked at him sullenly. ‘So, how did you know?’
‘Know what?’
‘You know what I mean. You knew we were coming, didn’t you? Someone grassed us up, didn’t they?’
Grace raised his eyebrows. ‘A little bird told me you shouldn’t have been so greedy with the stamps. That mean anything?’
‘Stamps?’ Lewellyn said. ‘What do you mean, stamps? We didn’t have no stamps. You mean, like in postage stamps?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. We didn’t take no stamps. Why would we take stamps? I don’t know nothing about no stamps.’
‘But you and your mate know all about Georgian silver?’ Grace asked.
Lewellyn was silent for some moments. ‘We might,’ he said finally. ‘But not stamps.’ He was emphatic.
‘Someone thinks you’ve been greedy over stamps.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Lewellyn said. ‘Who?’
‘A man who knows where you were yesterday and what you took.’
‘There’s only one bastard who knows where we was,’ he said, even more emphatically.
Roy Grace listened attentively.
The next two hours were taken up with formal interviews with the two men. In the end they admitted the burglary, but continued to deny any involvement with stamps, and indeed any knowledge of them.
Finally, shortly before 10 a.m., still in his damp clothes, with a search warrant signed by a local magistrate in his hand, along with the inventory folder and photographs of the valuables taken and a fresh team of officers, Grace arrived at West Southwick Mews. Their pissed-off co-operative Welsh prisoners had kindly supplied them with the exact address.
One officer broke the door down with the yellow battering ram, and they entered, found the switch and turned the lights on.
They were in a huge space, eight garages wide, and almost empty, bar a row of trestle tables — and what looked to Grace like a rather ugly antique clock.
Five minutes later, Tony Langiotti arrived for the start of his day, in his Jaguar, cigarette as ever dangling between his lips. As he drove into the mews and saw the police officers, he stamped on the brakes, and frantically threw the gear shift into reverse. But before he could touch the accelerator a police car appeared from nowhere, completely blocking off the exit behind him.
The cigarette fell from his lips and it took him several seconds to realize. By then it was burning his crotch.
There was not such a big hurry for Roy Grace’s last call of what was turning out to be a very long day or, rather, extended day. It was 2 p.m. and he’d had no sleep since yesterday. But he was running on an adrenaline high — helped by a lot of caffeine. So far everything had gone to plan — well, in truth, he had to admit, somewhat better than planned. Three in custody, and, if he was right, by the close of play there would be four. But, he knew, it might not be such an easy task to convince DS Stoker.
He went home to shower and change, wolf down some cereal and toast and to think his next — potentially dangerous — step through. If he was wrong, it could be highly embarrassing, not to mention opening the police up to a possible lawsuit. But he did not think he was wrong. He was increasingly certain, as his next bout of tiredness waned, that he was right. But speed again might be of the essence.
Whether it was because he was impressed with his results to date, or it gave him the chance to settle an old, unresolved score, DS Bill Stoker agreed to Grace’s request far more readily than he had expected, although to cover his back, he still wanted to run it by the Detective Inspector. He in turn decided to run it by the Chief Superintendent, who was out at a meeting.
Finally, shortly after 5 p.m., running on his second, or maybe even third or fourth wind, Roy Grace had all his ducks in a row. Accompanied by DS Stoker, who was looking as weary as Grace felt, he pulled up in the street outside the Cunninghams’ house. A van, with trained search officers, pulled up behind, and they all climbed out.
Roy Grace and Stoker walked up to the front door. Grace held in his hand his second document signed by a magistrate today. He rang the bell and waited. A few moments later, it was opened by the old man. He looked at them, and the entourage behind them, with a puzzled frown. ‘Good afternoon, officers,’ he said. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure? Do you have some news for me?’
‘We have some good news and some bad news, Mr Cunningham,’ Roy Grace said. ‘The good news is we believe we have recovered your stolen clock.’
‘Nothing else?’
‘Not so far, sir, but we have made some arrests and we are hopeful of recovering further items.’
‘Well, that’s good. So what’s the bad news?’
‘I have a warrant to search these premises, sir.’ Grace showed him the signed warrant.
‘What exactly is this about?’
‘I think you know that, sir,’ he said with a tired smile.
Trained police search teams, Roy Grace learned rapidly, missed few things. Not that the stamps had been hidden in a difficult place to find — they were beneath a crate of Champagne in the cupboard under the stairs that served as the Cunninghams’ wine cellar.
But it was three other items they found that were really to seal Crafty’s fate. The first was an insurance claim form that lay on his desk, faxed only this morning, but which he had already started to fill out with details of the missing stamps.
The second was another fax, lying beneath it, to a dealer in the US, offering the collection for sale to him.
The third was a fax back from the US dealer, offering slightly more than the £100,00 °Crafty had given the detectives as an estimate.
Later that night, even though he was exhausted, Roy Grace insisted on taking Sandy out to dinner to celebrate the first highly successful days of his new post, rather than going to the bar with the others officers. Four arrests! ‘We got lucky,’ he said. ‘If the Chief Superintendent hadn’t been out, and delayed us for several hours, and we had gone early, he might not have started filling in that insurance form. He might not have sent that damning fax. And he might not have had the damning reply.’ He pulled out the folded page from The Argus newspaper and showed it to her.
She read it then smiled at him. ‘I’m very proud of you.’ She raised her wine glass, and clinked it against his, and said with another smile, this one a tad wistful, ‘Now, how about asking me about my day?’
A Very Sexy Revenge
He saw her and beamed as he staggered down the aisle of the packed aircraft, towing his holdall which bashed into all the other passengers’ ankles. She was fit: slender and beautiful with long blonde hair cut elegantly, and smartly dressed. And she was sitting in his seat.