Dead Man's Footsteps

a missed call.
    Shit .
    No number.
    Then it rang again. It was Ricky.
    ‘I’m getting increasingly worried about your mother, Abby. I’m not sure she’s going to survive much longer.’
    ‘Please let me speak to her, Ricky!’
    There was a brief silence. Then he said, ‘I don’t think she’s up to speaking.’
    A new, darker slick of fear spread through her. ‘Where are you?’ she said. ‘I’ll come to you. I’ll meet you anywhere, I’ll give you everything you want.’
    ‘Yes, Abby, I know you will. We’re going to meet tomorrow.’
    ‘Tomorrow?’ she screamed at him. ‘No fucking way! We’re going to do it now, please. I have to get her to hospital.’
    ‘We’ll do it when it suits me . You’ve inconvenienced me quite enough. Now you can have a taste of what it feels like.’
    ‘This isn’t inconvenience, Ricky. Please, for God’s sake. This is a sick old lady. She hasn’t done anything wrong. She hasn’t harmed you. Take it out on me, not her.’
    The train was slowing down, approaching Preston Park, where she wanted to get off.
    ‘Unfortunately, Abby, it’s her that I have, not you.’
    ‘I’ll swap places.’
    ‘Very funny.’
    ‘Please, Ricky, let’s just meet.’
    ‘We will meet, tomorrow.’
    ‘No! Now! Please, today. Mum might not survive until tomorrow.’ She was getting hysterical.
    ‘That would be too bad, wouldn’t it? For her to have died knowing her daughter is a thief.’
    ‘God almighty, you are a callous bastard.’
    Ignoring the remark, Ricky said, ‘You’re going to need a car. I’ve posted the key of the Ford I rented to your flat. It will be there in the morning.’
    ‘It’s been clamped,’ she said.
    ‘Then you’ll just have to rent something yourself.’
    ‘Where are we going to meet?’
    ‘I’ll phone you in the morning. Go hire a car tonight. And have the stamps with you, won’t you?’
    ‘Please can we meet now, this afternoon?’
    He ended the call. The train jolted to a halt.
    Abby climbed out of her seat and made her way unsteadily along to the exit, holding tightly on to her handbag and the plastic bag with one hand and the handrail with the other as she climbed down on to the platform. It was 4.15.
    Got to hold it together , she thought. Got to. Somehow. Somehow .
    Oh, Jesus, how?
    She thought she was going to throw up as she left the station and walked over to the taxi rank. To her dismay, there were no cabs waiting. She looked at her watch, anxiously, then called the number of one of the local companies. Then she called another number, one she had called earlier. The same male voice answered. ‘South-East Philatelic.’
    It was the one stamp dealer in the city whose name Hugo Hegarty had omitted to give her.
    ‘It’s Sarah Smith,’ she said. ‘I’m on my way over, just waiting for a taxi. What time do you close?’
    ‘Not till 5.30,’ the man said.
    An anxious fifteen minutes later the taxi appeared.

108
OCTOBER 2007
    The Witness Interview Suite at Sussex House comprised two rooms. One was the size of the sitting room of a very small house. The other, which could just fit two people side by side, was used solely for observation.
    The larger room, in which Glenn Branson sat with Bella Moy and a very distressed-looking ‘Katherine Jennings’, contained three bucket-shaped armchairs, upholstered in red, and a bland coffee table. Branson and Abby each had a mug of coffee in front of them and Bella was sipping a glass of water.
    Unlike most of the gloomy interview rooms down at the well-worn Brighton Central Police Station in John Street, this one felt bright and actually had a view.
    ‘Are you happy for this to be recorded?’ Branson asked, nodding up at the two wall-mounted cameras pointing down at them. ‘It’s standard procedure.’ What he did not add was that sometimes a copy of the tape would be given to a psychologist for profiling. You could learn a lot from just the body language of some witnesses.
    ‘Fine,’ she said, her voice barely a whisper.
    He studied her carefully for some moments. Despite her face being drained and all scrunched up in misery, she was an extremely good-looking young woman. Late twenties, he guessed. Black hair that was cut a little severely andalmost certainly dyed, because her eyebrows were much lighter. Her face was classically beautiful, with high cheekbones, a large forehead and an exquisite nose, small, finely chiselled and very slightly turned up. It was the kind of nose that