Dead Man's Footsteps

a few individual collectors like myself. Not so many of us as there were. I’m afraid quite a few of my old friends in this game are now dead.’
    ‘Do you know any dealers or collectors in Australia?’ she asked.
    ‘Australia?’ He frowned. ‘Australia? Now, wait a minute. Of course, there was someone Ronnie knew from Brighton who emigrated out there, some years back, in the mid-1990s. His name was Skeggs. Chad Skeggs. He’s always dealt in big numbers. He operates a mail order business from Melbourne. Sends me a catalogue every now and then.’
    ‘Do you ever buy from him?’ Glenn asked.
    Hegarty shook his head. ‘No, he’s dodgy. Tucked me up once. I bought some pre-1913 Australian stamps from him, I seem to recall. But they weren’t in anything like the condition he’d told me over the phone. When I complained, he told me to sue him.’ Hegarty raised despairing hands in the air. ‘The amount wasn’t worth it and he knew that. A couple of grand – it would have cost me more than that in legal fees. I’m amazed the blighter’s still in business.’
    ‘Anyone else in Australia you can think of?’ Bella asked.
    ‘Tell you what I’ll do, I’ll give you a full list this afternoon. Want to pop back around, say, 4?’
    ‘Fine, thank you, sir,’ Branson said.
    As they all stood up, Hegarty leaned forward conspiratorially, as if for their ears only. ‘I don’t suppose you can help me,’ he said. ‘I got flashed by one of your cameras – along Old Shoreham Road – a couple of days ago. You couldn’t have a word in someone’s ear for me, could you?’
    Branson looked at him, astonished. ‘I’m afraid not, sir.’
    ‘Ah, well, not to worry. Just thought I’d ask.’
    He gave them a rueful smile.

87
OCTOBER 2007
    Abby sat in the back of the taxi, re-reading a new text that had just come in. It lifted her spirits and made her smile.
    Remember… Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance like nobody is watching .
    The driver lifted her spirits too. He used to be a boxer, he said, never made the big time but did a bit of training now, encouraging kids into the sport. He had a flattened boxer’s face, she thought, as if at some point in his life he’d hit a concrete wall, face-first, at about a hundred miles an hour. He told her during the journey back from the third rest home she had visited that morning that he too had an elderly mother with health problems, but couldn’t afford the charges of these homes.
    Abby couldn’t think of a quotation to text back, so instead she just said:
    Soon! I can’t wait. I miss u soooo much. Xxxxxx
    It was shortly after 1 o’clock as they pulled up outside her mother’s apartment block. Abby looked around, checking for any sign of Ricky, but the coast looked clear. She asked the driver to wait and keep the meter running. The first two places she’d seen this morning were horrible, butthe third was fine and, most importantly, it seemed secure. Best of all, it had a vacancy. Abby decided she was going to take her mum there right now.
    All she needed to do was throw a few things in a bag. She knew how slow her mum was, but she would do it all for her and hustle her out. Her mum might not like it, but she would have to lump it for a few weeks. At least she would be safe there. Abby could not go on relying indefinitely on the services of her mum’s new minder, the redoubtable Doris – whose last name she didn’t even know.
    With her mother secure, she could put into action the plan she’d been figuring out during the past few hours. The first part of which was to get as far away from here as possible. The second was to find someone she could take into her confidence. But she would need to trust them totally.
    How many strangers could she trust to hold everything she had in the world and not run off with it like she had?
    This cab driver seemed a good type. She had a feeling she could trust him if she needed to. But would he be able to keep Ricky at bay on his own, or would he need a couple of others with him? Which meant she would be putting her trust in one person she had known for thirty minutes and others she had never met. That was too big a gamble after all she had gone through to get this far.
    At this moment, though, she didn’t have a huge number of other options. The rent on the flat was paid in advance for three months, with two still to run, and that had taken the biggest bite out of her cash reserves.