Dead Man's Footsteps

on the bus, holding the phone to his ear. It was curious that Glenn should see the forensic archaeologist driving down his street, but hardly any big deal.
    ‘Maybe she does a school run in the area?’
    ‘I doubt it. She lives in Burgess Hill. Perhaps she was dropping something off to you?’
    ‘That doesn’t make any sense.’
    ‘Perhaps something occurred to her and she wanted to see you.’
    ‘What time did you leave?’
    ‘About 6.45.’
    ‘You don’t pop around to someone’s house for a chat at that time in the morning. You use a phone if it’s urgent.’
    ‘Yeah. Yeah, I think you would.’
    Grace told him he hoped to be at the office in time for the briefing, but when he reached his car he decided that, provided the morning rush-hour traffic wasn’t too bad, he would dash home first. Something he could not put a finger on was bothering him.

112
OCTOBER 2007
    At 8 o’clock, when her phone finally rang, Abby had been up, dressed and ready for a good two hours. She hadn’t been able to sleep properly all night, but had just lain on her hard bed, with its tiny pillow, listening to the traffic on the seafront, the occasional wail of sirens, the shouts of drunken yobs and the slamming of car doors.
    She was worried out of her wits about her mother. Could she survive another night without her medication? Would the distress and the spasms bring on a heart attack or a stroke? She felt so damned helpless, and she knew that bully Ricky would be playing on that. Counting on that.
    But she was well aware too that he’d seen just how devious she could be, from their time together in Melbourne and now from the events of the past few days. It wasn’t going to be easy. He wasn’t going to trust her an inch.
    Where would he dictate that they meet? In a multi-storey car park? A city park? Shoreham harbour? She tried to think where people in films met to hand over kidnap victims. Sometimes they dumped them from moving cars; or left them in a car abandoned somewhere.
    Every one of her speculations ran into buffers. She didn’t know, couldn’t predict. But one thing she had decided, totally and utterly non-negotiable, was that shewould want absolute proof, to see with her own eyes, that her mother was alive before she did anything.
    Could she trust the police? What would happen if he saw them and panicked?
    Weighed against that was how much she could trust him to deliver her mother back at all. If she was even still alive. He’d shown what a total, feelingless shit he was in taking an old lady and putting her through this torment.
    The display said the usual Private number calling.
    She pressed the button to answer.

113
OCTOBER 2007
    Grace stared in disbelief as he drove down his street just after 8 o’clock. He recognized Joan Major’s distinctive slab-shaped silver Fiat too now, parked outside his house. But it was the vehicle in the drive that astonished him the most. It was one of the Sussex Police white Scientific Support Branch vans.
    Also in the street, behind Joan Major’s car, was a plain brown Ford Mondeo. He knew from the number plate that it was one of the CID pool cars. What the hell was going on?
    He pulled up, leaped out of his car and ran into the house. It was silent.
    He called out, ‘Hello? Anyone here?’
    No reply.
    He walked through into the kitchen to check that the automatic feeder fixed to the bowl of his goldfish, Marlon, had been working. Then he looked out of the window into the rear garden.
    The sight that met his eyes defied belief.
    Joan Major, and two SOCO officers he knew, were walking up his lawn. The forensic archaeologist, in the centre, was holding a long piece of electrical equipment in the shape of a canoe paddle, supported by a shoulder brace, and with a display screen of some kind in the centre.The SOCO officer on her right was peering intently at the screen, while the one on her left wrote down something on a large pad.
    Stunned, Grace unlocked the rear door and sprinted out. ‘Hey! Excuse me! Joan, what on earth are you doing?’
    Joan Major’s face reddened with embarrassment. ‘Oh, good morning, Roy. Umm. I assumed you knew we were here.’
    ‘I had no idea. Do you want to fill me in? What is that?’ He nodded at the equipment. ‘What on earth is going on?’
    ‘It’s GPR,’ she replied.
    ‘GPR?’
    ‘Ground Penetrating Radar.’
    ‘What are you doing with it?’
    Her face reddened even more. Then, as if he was having a bad dream, out of the corner