Dead Man's Footsteps

pounds’ worth of stamps and forgotten about them.
    It was starting to seem as if Kevin Spinella’s instinct about this woman had been right.
    Suddenly, Dennis braked hard. Roy peered out of thewindow, wondering where they were. An Oriental-looking man walked by dressed in white chef’s overalls, with a baseball cap perched the wrong way round on his head. It was a narrow street with brownstones on both sides and a row of garishly coloured awnings over shop fronts. Just beyond them was another awning, this one in elegant black with white lettering. It read: ABE MILLER ASSOCIATES. STAMPS AND COINS .
    Dennis stopped the car in front of a no-parking sign right outside, and shoved a large cardboard sign, bearing the crudely stencilled word police, under the windscreen. Then the three of them went into the premises.
    The interior felt plush, reminding Grace of an old-fashioned gentlemen’s club. It was panelled in dark, glossy wood, there were two black leather armchairs and thick carpet, and a strong smell of furniture polish. Only the glass-fronted cabinets, containing a small selection of very old-looking stamps, and the glass-topped counter, containing a row of coins on purple velvet, indicated it was a business.
    As the front door closed behind them, a tall, hugely overweight man of about fifty, with a big welcoming smile on his face, materialized through a concealed door in the panelling. Dressed in keeping with the premises, he was parcelled in a well-cut, chalk-striped three-piece suit and sported a striped college tie. His head was almost completely bald, except for a narrow fringe like a pelmet halfway up his forehead that looked faintly comical, and it was impossible to tell where his triple chin ended and his neck began.
    ‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ he said affably, in a higher-pitched voice than Grace had expected. ‘I’m Abe Miller. How can I help you today?’
    Dennis and Pat showed their shields and introduced Roy Grace. Abe Miller remained completely affable, showing no disappointment that they were not customers.
    Grace, thinking the man looked too big and too clumsy to handle items as delicate as rare stamps and coins, showed him the three different photographs of Ronnie Wilson that he had brought. To his excitement he saw a glimmer of recognition in Abe Miller’s face. The dealer took a second look at them, and a third.
    ‘He was believed to be in New York around the time of 9/11,’ Grace prompted.
    ‘I’ve seen him.’ He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Let me think.’ Then he raised a finger in the air. ‘You know, I’m pretty sure I remember this guy. Know why?’ He looked at each of the three policemen.
    Grace shook his head. ‘No.’
    ‘Because I think he was the first person to walk in here after 9/11.’
    ‘His name is Ronald Wilson,’ Grace said. ‘Ronald or Ronnie .’
    ‘Name doesn’t ring a bell. But let me check something in back. Just give me two minutes.’
    He disappeared through the hidden door and returned a minute later holding an old-fashioned index card, with notes on it written in ink.
    ‘Right here,’ he said. He put the card down and read from it, for a moment. ‘Wednesday 12 September 2001.’ Then he looked up at the three of them again. ‘I bought four stamps from him.’ He continued reading. ‘Each of them an Edward, one pound, unmounted, mint. Perfect gum, no hinge.’ Then he grinned mischievously. ‘Paid him two thousand bucks each. I got a bargain!’ He looked at his card again. ‘Sold ’em on just a few weeks later. Made agood profit. Thing was, he shouldn’t have sold them, not that day. Hell, we all thought maybe the world was going to end.’
    Then Abe Miller looked at the card again and frowned.
    ‘You said Ronald Wilson ?’
    ‘Yes, Grace replied.
    ‘Nope, no, sir. That was not his name. Not the name he gave me. I wrote down here David Nelson . Yep, that was his name. Mr David Nelson .’
    ‘Did he give you an address or a phone number?’ Grace asked.
    ‘No, sir, he did not.’
    As soon as they were back out on the street, Grace called Glenn Branson. He told him to get Norman Potting and Nick Nicholl to make it their first priority to find out whether there were immigration records going back to 2001, and if so, whether any David Nelsons show up on them.
    He felt good about the meeting he had just had. But the one shadow, as Glenn picked up on, and which he had already thought about, was whether Ronnie Wilson was still using that