Dead Man's Footsteps

dark room, stumbling over a leather pouffe, and groped her way into the bathroom. She found the sink and threw up into it, her stomach jangling, her nerves shot to pieces.
    She rinsed the vomit away, washed her mouth and switched on the light, breathing deeply. Please don’t let me have another panic attack . She stood clutching the sides of the sink, her eyes watering, terrified that Ricky was going to smash his way in here at any moment.
    She had to get away from here, and she had to remember why she was doing this. Quality of life for her mother . That’s what it was all about. Without the money, her mother’s last years were going to be unimaginably grim. She had to keep hold of that.
    And to think about what lay beyond for her: Dave waiting for the text to say they were good to go.
    She was just one transaction away from giving her mother a future worth living. One plane ride away from the life she had always promised herself.
    Ricky was nasty. A sadist. A bully. But a killer? She didn’t think so.
    She knew she had to stand up to him, show strength back. That was the only language a bully understood. And he wasn’t a stupid man. He wanted everything back.There was no value to him in harming an elderly, sick lady.
    Please God.
    Abby went back to the sitting room waiting for him to ring. Ready to kill the call when he did. Then, heart in her mouth, terrified she was making a big mistake, she crept out of the apartment into the even darker corridor and up the fire exit stairs to the first floor.
    A few minutes later, from the phone in Doris’s flat, she was dialling a different number. The call was answered by a well-spoken male voice.
    ‘Is it possible to speak to Hugo Hegarty?’ she asked.
    ‘Indeed, you are speaking to him.’
    ‘I apologize for calling you in the evening, Mr Hegarty,’ Abby said. ‘I have a collection of stamps that I want to sell.’
    ‘Yes?’ He drew the word out so it sounded deeply pensive. ‘What can you tell me about them?’
    She itemized each stamp, describing it in detail. She was so familiar with them, they had become as clear as a photograph in her memory. He interrupted her a couple of times, asking for specific information.
    When she had finished, Hugo Hegarty fell strangely silent.

92
OCTOBER 2007
    Sitting in his van at the remote campsite he had found on the internet, Ricky was deep in thought. The rain drumming down on the roof was good cover. No one was going to go traipsing around in the darkness in a muddy field, poking their nose into things that didn’t concern them.
    This place was perfect. Just a few miles along the Downs from Eastbourne, on the outskirts of a picture postcard village called Alfriston. A campsite in a large, wooded field half a mile up a deserted farm track, behind a rain-lashed tennis club.
    This wasn’t the time of the year or the weather for tennis or camping, which meant no prying eyes. The owner didn’t look the prying type either. He’d driven up with two small boys who were squabbling in the car, taken his payment of fifteen pounds for three nights in advance and shown Ricky where the toilets and shower were. He’d given him a mobile phone number and said he might be back some time tomorrow in case anyone else showed up.
    There was only one other vehicle on the site, a large camper van with Dutch plates, and Ricky was parked well away from it.
    He had food, water, milk – stuff he’d picked up from a petrol station shop – enough to keep them going for a while. He popped the lid of a can of lager and downed halfthe contents in one long draught, wanting some alcohol to calm his nerves. Then he lit a cigarette and took three long puffs in quick succession. He wound down the window a fraction and tried to flick the ash out, but the wind blew it straight back in on his face. He closed the window and, as he did so, his nose twitched. Some unpleasant smell had come in from outside.
    He took another drag on the cigarette and another swig of the lager. He was deeply disturbed by the call with Abby just now. By the way she had hung up on him. By the way he kept misreading the bitch.
    He was scared that she meant what she had said. The words were replaying over and over in his head.
    I’ll give you back what I’ve got left .
    How much had she spent? Blown? She must be bluffing. It was impossible that she had got through more than a few thousand during the time she had been on the run. She was bluffing.
    He would have to raise the