Dead Man's Footsteps

the monorail.’
    ‘Do you think he would have killed Abby once he’d got them back?’ Grace asked.
    ‘On previous form? Undoubtedly. He’s a vulture.’
    ‘I thought you said a few moments ago that he was a nice guy.’
    Branson smiled in defeat. Then suddenly he changed the subject. ‘Bought a new car yet?’
    ‘No. Fucking insurance companies. They want to invalidate my policy because I was driving in a chase. Bastards. I’m trying to sort it. Headquarters are helping me as it was on police business.’ Then, changing the subject back, he said, ‘So do you think Abby still has the stamps?’
    ‘For sure.’
    ‘Hegarty is one hundred per cent certain the stuff you photocopied is rubbish.’
    ‘Not a scintilla of doubt.’
    ‘I’ve been thinking about it a lot,’ Grace said. ‘That’s why she kicked Skeggs in the bollocks.’
    Branson frowned. ‘I’m not with you.’
    ‘The reason she kicked Skeggs when she was handing the stamps over was because she needed time. She knew she was giving him rubbish and that it would only take him a few seconds to realize that. She went for him in order to bring us into the frame. She set him up all along.’
    Branson stared back at him, nodding as it slowly dawned on him. ‘She’s a clever bitch.’
    ‘She is. And no one has actually reported the stamps stolen, right?’
    ‘Right,’ Branson said pensively. ‘But what about the insurance companies? The ones who paid out on the compensation and the life insurance? Couldn’t they have a claim on the stamps, as they were bought with their money?’
    ‘Same problem – chain of title. Without Hegarty testifying, how are they going to prove it?’
    The two detectives sat in silence for some moments. Glenn drank some more coffee, then he said, ‘I heard a rumour from Steve Mackie that Pewe’s applying for a transfer.’
    Grace smiled. ‘He is. Back to the Met. Good luck to them!’
    After another pause, Glenn said, ‘So, this woman, where do you think she is now?’
    ‘You know what I think? I think she’s probably lying on a tropical beach somewhere, downing a margarita and grinning her head off.’
    She was.

126
NOVEMBER 2007
    The margarita was one of the best she had ever drunk. It tasted sharp and strong, the barman had added just the right amount of Cointreau and had salted the rim to perfection. After a week in this hotel, he had got the hang of the way she liked it.
    She loved the view from here, lying on the thick, soft mattress on the lounger on the white sand beach, staring out across the bay. And she loved this time of day – late afternoon, when the heat was less fierce and she didn’t need the shade of her parasol. She put her book down for a moment, took another sip and watched the yellow paragliding boat as it powered away from the wooden jetty, across the flat water, heading out into the bay, the orange and red parachute rising into the clear sky.
    She might have another swim in a few minutes. She pondered whether to go in the sea or in the hotel’s vast infinity pool, which was a little cooler and more refreshing. Such tough decisions!
    She thought constantly about her mother, and about Ronnie and Ricky. Despite all her anger about Ricky, and her shock about Ronnie, she couldn’t help feeling just a tiny bit sorry for each of them, in different ways.
    But not that sorry.
    ‘Are you enjoying that book?’ the woman on the lounger next to her asked suddenly.
    Abby had noticed her earlier, asleep, with a copy of a novel she had read recently, Restless , lying on top of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on the small white table beside her.
    ‘I am,’ she said. ‘Yes. But most of all, I’m a big Douglas Adams fan. I think I’ve read everything he wrote.’
    ‘Me too!’
    He was the author of one of Abby’s favourite quotations, which she had come across again only recently:
    I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be.
    Which was pretty much how she felt at this moment.
    She took another sip of her drink. ‘They make the world’s best margaritas here,’ she said.
    ‘Maybe I should try one. I only arrived today, so I haven’t sussed out what’s what yet.’
    ‘It’s great. It’s paradise!’
    ‘Seems it.’
    Abby smiled. ‘I’m Sarah,’ she said.
    ‘Nice to meet you. I’m Sandy.’

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
    Although the Roy Grace novels are fiction, the backgrounds in all the areas of law enforcement in which my characters exist