Dead Man's Footsteps

a.m., the Meanest Son of a Bitch in the Valley was at the junction of Marine Parade and Arundel Road, at the eastern extremity of Brighton and Hove. Not exactly a valley. Not even a small dip, really. The streets were calm at the moment. In another hour or so the drug addicts would be starting to surface. One statistic that the local tourist board did not like to advertise was that the city had the second largest number of injecting drug users – and drug deaths – per capita in the UK. Troutthad been warned that a disproportionately large share of them appeared to live on his beat.
    His radio crackled and he heard his call sign. He answered it with excitement and heard the voice of Sergeant Morley.
    ‘All OK, Duncan?’
    ‘Yes, Sarge. So far, Sarge.’
    The area of Troutt’s beat extended from the Kemp Town seafront back to the Whitehawk estate, which housed, historically, some of the city’s roughest and most violent families – as well as many decent folk. And recent community policing initiatives were resulting in big and positive changes. The warren of terraced streets in between contained the transients’ world of rooming houses and cheap hotels, a prosperous urban residential community, including one of the largest gay communities in the UK, and dozens of restaurants, pubs and smaller independent shops. It was also home to several schools as well as the city’s hospital.
    ‘Need you to check out a person of concern. A woman reportedly in an anxious state.’ He then outlined the circumstances.
    Troutt pulled out his brand-new notebook and wrote down the name, Katherine Jennings , and her address.
    ‘This has come from the Inspector, and I think it’s come down from someone high up in the brass, if you know what I mean.’
    ‘Absolutely, Sarge. I’m very close – will attend now.’
    With a new urgency to his stride, he strutted along blustery Marine Parade and turned left away from the seafront.
    The address was a mansion block of flats, eight storeys,and there was a builder’s lorry, as well as a van from a lift company, double-parked in the street. He passed a grey Ford Focus that had a parking ticket taped to its windscreen, crossed over and walked up to the front entrance, stepping aside to let two men carry in a large sheet of plasterboard. Then he looked at the doorbell panel. There was no name against number 82. The PC pressed it. There was no answer.
    At the bottom of the panel was a bell for the caretaker, but as the front door was wedged open he decided to go in. There was an out of order sign taped across the front of the lift, so he took the stairs, treading carefully up the trail of dust sheets, slightly irritated that the shoes he had carefully polished last night were getting caked in dust. He heard hammering and banging and the sound of drilling directly above him, and on the fifth floor he had to negotiate an obstacle course of building materials.
    He walked on up and reached the eighth floor. The door to Katherine Jennings’s flat was directly in front of him. The sight of three separate locks on it, along with the spyhole, aroused his curiosity. Two was not unusual, as he knew from his experience of visiting homes that had suffered repeated break-ins in the Brighton crime hotspots. But three was excessive. He peered more closely at them, noting that they all looked substantial.
    You are worried about something, lady , he thought to himself, as he rang the bell.
    There was no answer. He tried a couple more times, waiting patiently, then decided to go and have a chat with the caretaker.
    As he reached the small downstairs lobby, two men came in. One was in his thirties, with a pleasant demean-our, wearing a boiler suit with Stanwell Maintenance embossed on the breast pocket, and a tool-belt. The other was a bolshy-looking man in his sixties, in dungarees over a grimy sweatshirt. He was holding an old-fashioned mobile phone and had a blackened fingernail.
    The workman gave Troutt a bemused smile. ‘Gosh, you came quickly!’
    The older man held up his phone. ‘I only phone you, what, less than one minute!’ His guttural accent made it sound like a complaint.
    ‘Phoned me?’
    ‘About the lift!’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ Troutt said. ‘You are?’
    ‘The caretaker.’
    ‘I’m afraid I’m actually here on other business,’ Troutt said. ‘But I’m more than happy to try to help if you’d like to tell me the problem.’
    ‘It’s very simple,’ the younger man said.