Dead Like You

Cards.
    How obliging some of them were!
    He stopped outside the front entrance, watching the stream of people coming out with their bags or with laden trolleys. He ignored the ones holding just a couple of bags; they were of no interest to him. It was the laden trolleys he focused on. The mummies and daddies and rest-home proprietors doing their big shop for the weekend ahead. The ones who would have had £200 and more swiped from their MasterCards, or Barclaycards, or Amex.
    Some had infants strapped into the buggy seats in their trolleys, but he wasn’t interested in those. Who the fuck wanted baby food?
    Then he saw her coming out.
    Oh yes! Perfect!
    She looked rich. She looked arrogant. She had the kind of figure he’d lain on the top bunk of his cell dreaming about for three years. She had a trolley piled so high that the top layer defied gravity. And she was wearing really nice boots. Snakeskin, with five-inch heels, he guessed.
    But it wasn’t the shoes that interested him at this moment. It was the fact that she paused by the dustbins, screwed up her receipt and tossed it in. He strolled nonchalantly over to the bin, keeping an eye on her, while she pushed her trolley towards a black Range Rover Sport.
    Then he slipped his hand inside the top of the bin and pulled out a clutch of receipts. It only took a moment to find hers – it was a good two feet long, with a checkout time of just two minutes ago.
    Well, well – £185! And, a real bonus, it was a cash receipt, which meant he would not have to produce any credit card or ID. He read down the items: wine, whiskey, prawn cocktail, moussaka, apples, bread, yoghurt. So much stuff. Razor blades! Some of the stuff he didn’t want, but hey, this was not the time to be fussy…Fantastic! He gave her a little wave, which she never saw. At the same time, he clocked her car’s registration number – well, she was a looker with nice shoes, you never knew! Then, grabbing a trolley, he entered the store.

    It took Spicer half an hour to go through her list, item by item. He was aware of the checkout time printed at the bottom, but he had his story ready, that one of the eggs was broken so he’d gone to replace it, and then he’d stopped for a coffee.
    There was some stuff, such as a dozen tins of cat food, that he really did not need, and two tins of smoked oysters he could have done without, but he decided it was better to match the items on the list exactly, in case he was challenged. Six frozen steak and kidney pies he truly blessed her for. His kind of grub! And the half a dozen tins of Heinz Baked Beans. He had no stomach for fancy stuff. He approved of her choice of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey, but wished she had chosen something more to his taste than Baileys. She was big into organic eggs and fruit. He could live with that.
    He would take his shopping home and chuck or maybe flog or barter for cigarettes the stuff he did not want. Then he would go out on the hunt.
    Life was looking good. Only one thing could improve it for him at the moment. Another woman.

1998

36
    Friday 2 January
    It was now eight days since Rachael Ryan had been reported missing by her parents.
    Eight days in which there had been no proof of life.
    Roy Grace had worked doggedly on the case since Christmas Day, increasingly certain something was very wrong, until Chief Inspector Jack Skerritt had insisted that the Detective Sergeant take New Year’s Eve off to spend with his wife.
    Grace had done so reluctantly, torn between his concern to find Rachael and his need to keep the peace at home with Sandy. Now, after a two-day absence, he returned on this Friday morning to a briefing update by Skerritt. The Chief Inspector told his small team of detectives of his decision, made in consultation with his ACC, to upgrade Operation Sundown to an Incident Room. A HOLMES – Home Office Large Major Enquiry System team – had been requisitioned, and six additional detectives from other parts of the county were being drafted in.
    The Incident Room was set up on the fourth floor of John Street police station, next to the CCTV department and across the corridor from the busy Operation Houdini Incident Room, where the investigation into the Shoe Man continued.
    Grace, who was convinced that the two operations should be merged, was allocated his present desk, where he was to be based for the duration of the inquiry. It was by the draughty window, giving him a bleak view across the car park and the