Dead Man's Footsteps

them?’
    He could almost feel the twinkle in Hegarty’s eyes as the man replied.
    ‘Well, she said she was in a hurry to sell – and that’s usually the best time to buy. Not many dealers would have the kind of ready cash needed to buy this lot in one go – it would be more usual to break it up into auction lots. But I’d want to ensure they were all certificated. I’d hate to part with all that money and get a knock on my front door from you boys a few hours later. That’s why I rang you.’
    Of course. This isn’t about Hugo Hegarty being a dutiful citizen. It’s about him protecting his own backside , Glenn Branson thought. Still, such was human nature, so he could hardly blame the man.
    ‘Roughly what value would you put on these, sir?’
    ‘As a buyer or a seller?’ Now he was sounding even more wily.
    ‘As both.’
    ‘Well, total catalogue value at today’s prices, we’re looking around four – four and a half million. So, as a seller, that’s what I would be aiming to achieve.’
    ‘Pounds?’
    ‘Oh yes, pounds.’
    Branson was astonished. The original three and a quarter million pounds Lorraine Wilson had come into hadgone up by around thirty per cent – and that was after a substantial number of them, probably, had been sold off.
    ‘And as a buyer, sir?’
    Suddenly Hegarty sounded reticent. ‘The price I’d be willing to pay would depend on their provenance. I’d need more information.’
    Branson’s brain was whirring. ‘She’s coming to you at 10 tomorrow morning? That’s definite?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘What’s her name?’
    ‘Katherine Jennings.’
    ‘Did she give you an address or phone number?’
    ‘No, she didn’t.’
    The DS wrote the name down, thanked him and hung up. Then he pulled his keyboard closer, tapped the keys to call up the serials log and entered the name Katherine Jennings .
    Within a few seconds a match came up.

94
OCTOBER 2007
    Roy Grace sat in the back of the unmarked grey Ford Crown Victoria. As they headed into the Lincoln Tunnel he wondered whether, if you were a seasoned enough traveller, you could identify any city in the world just from the sound of the traffic.
    In London the constant petrol roar and diesel rattle of engines and the whine-swoosh of the new generation of Volvo buses dominated. New York was completely different, mostly the steady tramp-tramp-tramp of tyres on the ribbed or cracked and lumpy road surfaces, and the honking of horns.
    A massive truck behind them was honking now.
    Detective Investigator Dennis Baker, who was driving, raised a hand up to the interior mirror and flipped him the bird. ‘Go fuck yourself, asshole!’
    Grace grinned. Dennis hadn’t changed.
    ‘I mean, for Chrissake, asshole, what you want me to do? Drive over the top of the dickhead in front or what? Jesus!’
    Long used to his work buddy’s driving, Detective Investigator Pat Lynch, seated alongside him in the front passenger seat, turned without comment to face Roy. ‘It’s good to see you again, man. Long time. Wayyyyy too long!’
    Roy felt that too. He’d liked these guys from the moment they first met. Back in November 2000 he had been sent to New York to question a gay American banker whose partner had been found strangled in a flat in Kemp Town. The banker was never charged, but died from a drugs overdose a couple of years later. Roy had worked with Dennis and Pat for some while on that case and they’d stayed in touch.
    Pat wore jeans and a denim jacket over a beige shirt, with a white T-shirt beneath that. With his pockmarked face and lanky, boyish haircut, he had the rugged looks of a movie tough guy, but he had a surprisingly gentle and caring nature. He had started life as a stevedore in the docks and his tall, powerful physique had stood him in good stead for that work.
    Dennis wore a heavy black anorak, embossed with the legend Cold Case Homicide Squad and the NYPD shield, over a blue shirt, and also had on jeans. Shorter than Pat, wirier and sharp-eyed, he was heavily into martial arts. Years ago he had achieved 7th dan in Ruy Te and Isshinryu styles of Okinawan karate, and was something of a legend in the NYPD for his street-fighting skills.
    Both men had been at the Brooklyn Police Station on Williamsburg East at 8.46 on the morning of 9/11, when the first plane had struck. Being literally one mile away, across the Brooklyn Bridge, they headed over there immediately, with their chief, and arrived just as the second plane struck,