Dead Man's Footsteps

heard the dentist’s-drill voice of freshly appointed Detective Superintendent Cassian Pewe. The slimeball from the Met his boss had brought in to eat his lunch.
    ‘Hello, Roy,’ Pewe said. Even distanced by a phone connection, Grace had the impression that Pewe’s smug, pretty-boy face was pressed claustrophobically up against his own. ‘Alison Vosper suggested I give you a call – to see if you needed a hand.’
    ‘Well, that’s very kind of you, Cassian,’ he replied. ‘But no, actually, the body’s intact – I’ve got both of her hands here.’
    There was a silence. Pewe made a sound like a man who has started to urinate against an electric fence. A kind of stilted laughter. ‘Oh, very funny, Roy,’ he patronized. Then, after an awkward silence, he added, ‘You’ve got all the SOCOs and search officers you need?’
    Grace felt a band tighten inside him. Somehow he restrained himself from telling the man to go and find something else to do with his Saturday. ‘Thank you,’ he said instead.
    ‘Good. Alison will be pleased. I’ll let her know.’
    ‘Actually, I’ll let her know,’ Grace said. ‘If I need your help I will ask her, but at the moment we are all managing very well. And – I thought you weren’t actually starting until Monday.’
    ‘Oh, absolutely, Roy, that’s correct. Alison just felt thathelping you out over the weekend might be a good way to get my eye in.’
    ‘I appreciate her concern,’ Grace managed to say before he hung up, boiling with rage.
    ‘Detective Superintendent Pewe?’ Potting asked him, with raised eyebrows.
    ‘You’ve met him?’
    ‘Aye, met him. Know his type. Give a pompous ass like him enough rope and he’ll hang himself. Never fails.’
    ‘Got any rope on you?’ Grace asked.

18
11 SEPTEMBER 2001
    Ronnie Wilson had lost all track of time. He just stood still, transfixed, holding the handle of his bag as if it was his crutch, watching something he could not comprehend unfolding before his eyes.
    Stuff was tumbling out of the sky on to the plaza and the surrounding streets. Raining from the sky. A never-ending downpour of masonry, office partitions, desks, chairs, glass, pictures, framed photographs, sofas, computer screens, keyboards, filing cabinets, waste bins, lavatory seats, washbasins, paper like letter-sized white confetti. And bodies. Bodies falling. Men and women who were alive in the air one moment, exploding and disintegrating as they landed. He wanted to turn away, to scream, to run, but it was as if a massive leaden finger was pressing down on his head, forcing him to stand still, to observe in numb silence.
    He felt that he was watching the end of the world.
    It seemed that every fireman and every police officer in New York was running into the Twin Towers. An endless stream entering, barging past the endless stream of bewildered men and women leaving at half-speed, staggering out as if from some other world, covered in dust, dishevelled, some with their arms or faces tracked with blood, contorted by shock. Many of them had mobiles pressed to their ears.
    Then came the earthquake. Just a gentle vibration beneath his feet to start with, then more vigorous, so that he really had to grip the handle of his bag hard for support. And suddenly the zombies emerging from the South Tower seemed to wake up and quicken their pace.
    They started running.
    Ronnie looked up and saw the reason why. But for a moment he thought it must be a mistake. This was not possible! It was an optical illusion. It had to be .
    The entire building was collapsing in on itself, like a house of cards, except—
    A police car a short distance in front of him was suddenly flattened.
    Then a fire engine was flattened too.
    A cloud of dust like a desert sandstorm rolled towards him. He heard thunder. Rolling, rumbling, surround-sound thunder.
    A whole stream of people disappeared under masonry.
    The dark grey cloud was rising in the air like a storm of furious insects.
    The thunder was numbing his ears.
    This was not possible.
    The fucking tower was coming down.
    People sprinting for their lives. A woman lost a shoe, continued limping along on one foot, then shed the other shoe. A terrible tearing sound in the air, drowning out the sirens, as if some giant monster was ripping the world in half with its claws.
    They were running past him. One person, then another, and another, their faces etched into masks of panic. Some were sheet-white masks, some were dripping water