Dead Man's Footsteps

other car with two people in, but she saw nothing that bothered her.
    Had Ricky seen the Argus ? Would the story be in other papers also? He would see it, for sure. Wherever he was, he would have papers, radio, television.
    She went into a newsagent’s and flicked quickly through some of the national dailies. None of them was carrying the story yet. She bought a copy of the Argus , and stood outside the shop, staring for a long time at the face of the man on the front page. Her emotions were in complete turmoil.
    Then, still rooted to her spot in the street, she re-read the entire story. It filled in the gaps in Dave’s past. The silences, the evasive answers, the rapid changing of the subject every time she brought it up. And the remarks Ricky made, testing her on how much she knew about Dave.
    How much did Ricky know about him?
    She walked along a few paces, then sat down on a damp doorstep, head in her hands. She felt more scared than she had ever been in her life. Scared not just for her mother, but for the whole future.
    Life’s a game , Dave liked to tell her. Liked to remind her. A game . This had all started as a game.
    Some game.
    Life’s not about victims, Abby. It’s about winners and losers .
    Tears were misting her eyes again. Her mother’s pitiful voice was ringing in her ears, in her heart. She dialled her mother’s number, then Ricky’s, to no avail.
    Ring back. Please ring back. I’ll make a deal .
    After some minutes she stood up and walked down a hill, then along a street with the railway track of the London–Brighton line visible through railings beyond. Shecontinued down stone steps, along a short tunnel and up to the ticket office of Preston Park Station.
    It was a small commuter station, busy in the rush hour, deserted at most other times of the day. If the police were following her, if they had seen her downtown, near Brighton Station, that was where they might watch out for her. They were less likely to be here, she decided.
    Life’s a game .
    She studied the timetable, working out a route that would get her to Eastbourne, avoiding Brighton Station, and then to Gatwick Airport, which was now part of the new plan crystallizing in her head.
    Her phone suddenly beeped. She pulled it out, hoping desperately it was a message from Ricky, but it wasn’t. It said:
    Silence is golden? X
    She suddenly realized she hadn’t responded to his last text. She thought for some moments, then replied:
    Problemo. x
    A few minutes later, as she was stepping on to the train, her phone beeped again, with a reply.
    Love, like a river, will cut a new path whenever it meets an obstacle .
    She settled in her seat, too shaken up to think of a quote back. Instead she replied with a single x.
    Then she stared bleakly out of the window at the chalk escarpment rising on either side of her as the train pulled out of the station. She was engulfed in icy, dark fear.

106
OCTOBER 2007
    The interior of the Marriott Financial Center hotel had a cool, slightly Zen aura, Roy Grace thought, as he left the checkout desk and carried his bag across the foyer. And it all felt very fresh. Table lamps that looked like inverted opaque Martini glasses. Slim white vases on black tables, from which sprouted tall stems so elegant, so perfect, they seemed to have been designed rather than to have grown.
    He found it hard to believe that this place, right on the edge of Ground Zero, had been badly damaged in 9/11. It felt important, solid, indestructible, as if it had always been here and always would be.
    He walked past a cluster of businessmen in dark suits and ties, talking earnestly. Pat Lynch was waiting for him, standing on a red rug in the middle of the cream marble floor. He was dressed casually, in a sleeveless green flak jacket, over a black T-shirt, blue jeans and stout black shoes. Roy could see the bulge where his gun was.
    Pat raised his hands. ‘All done and dusted? Dennis is parked up outside. We’re all set.’
    Grace followed him into the revolving door. The world changed abruptly as he stepped out the other side into the damp, October morning. Traffic several lines deep trundled past. A cement mixer chuntered in front of him. A doorman, his elegance marred by a plastic shower cap over hispeaked uniform cap, held open the door of a yellow cab for three Japanese businessmen.
    As they walked a short distance along the pavement to the Crown Victoria, Pat pointed up at a wide expanse of sky. It was bounded by a thin